Tanking talent build - Page 3

renoreaper · 12/04/08, 5:54 AM

Originally Posted by Abradix

Your second spec is a bit strange, in the sense that it takes away ALOT of DPS potential which you seem to want. For a pure bear spec it's alright, even though personally I don't value Infected Wounds and Primal Tenacity very high and would take Master Shapeshifter instead, with 1 point spare.

Thanks for the fast feedback, the second spec I linked wasn't actually the one I had in mind :x.

As you can see I did move the point out of the infected wounds as there's not a lot of point because the other tank should be keeping up TC in raids. I'm just in doubt here really, on one hand I don't want to give up feral instinct because I feel it would nerf my ability to AOE tank by quite a bit (I usually do heroics with an unholy specced DK who's a bit of an aggrowhore, especially on AOE :p), on the other hand I think it might be good for me to pick up improved mangle instead to increase my singletarget threat, I think I'll spec to the build I linked in this post for tonight and will have a look at singletarget threat (mine as well as the other tanks and what the dps are putting out) to decide ... for now

• Polynices · 12/04/08, 2:07 PM

According to Rawr, mangle spam *does* work even without 2T6 if you have full improved mangle. Apparently that makes mangle cheap enough that the DPE is close enough to shred to be worth it. At least at my heroics/crafted ilvl 200 gearing.

A pure cat build may not have improved mangle and can just shred away but for a bear/cat OT build it's nice being able to skip shredding attacks and still do respectable DPS.

If Rawr has this all wrong, I'd like to know.

gravehammer · 12/05/08, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by lawl

So how many points do I need in feral aggression to hit the AP reduction cap for bosses?

I'm look to spec the optimal tank build for survival, with threat and DPS being secondary.

1 point? 5 points?

What AP do level 80 bosses have?

So on my bear, which is an alt, I'd be looking at doing all the 5-man content, the 10 man as well, probably not much if any 25-man content. With this toon, I want a pure tank, and with threat generation being easy, I'm after the same priorities as lawl, survival first and threat and dps secondary. I'm also assuming I'd be the MT and would not want to count on a Tauren Warrior for thunder clap (infected wounds) nor any warrior for the demo shout.

kalbear · 12/05/08, 1:48 PM

I don't think for 5 man content any amount of feral aggression is necessary.

Right now, I doubt any is really necessary for 10-man due to the ease, but how much will actually be good is unknown. In the future, chances are that some will be very valuable.

Muck · 12/06/08, 7:35 AM

In my oppinion, it’s more usefull to spec 2/2 Imp MotW and leave it with 3/5 Furor. If you are the only druid in the raid (which is usually in 5/10 instances), this would be another buff for all 3 tanking aspects. You may lose some comfort because sometimes you don`t get the 10 rage, but you can easily pay the mana for reswitching until you get the rage.

drsensimilla · 12/08/08, 2:21 PM

I have tested a lot and for MTing i am using this spec:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It offers high avoidance, dont have any aggro problems ( and we have ppl keeping over 5k dps )

This one i am using for OTing, where i have to tank more then DPS

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Inaiwae · 12/09/08, 8:47 AM

Originally Posted by kalbear

Unless you are maxed out on expertise - and by maxed out, I mean you have enough to negate parries entirely - skipping primal precision for master shapeshifter will be a net loss. Each point of primal precision gives 1.25% fewer parries and dodges. Even if it is 1.25% fewer parries, that means each point is worth 1.25% more hits. Which is basically the same as 1.25% more DPS and TPS (not exactly due to FF not being part of it, static effects, and keeping lacerate stacks up - but closer). If you are below the dodge cap (and with your current gear, you are), you're looking at 2.5% damage per point. And you are reducing the chance of parry gib by 1.25% per point as well, so it adds some mitigational effect.

Master shapeshifter increases your physical damage by 2% per point, but it costs 3 useless points to get there. Even if you didn't factor in those three points, it still is not as good as primal precision on a per-point basis.

In my opinion, practical usefulness of Primal Precision very low at the moment when expertise is abundant on our gear and threat is not an issue. I am running with 7% dodge/parry reduction in tank gear, and i have no problems on Malygos with raid standing in double patch.

Regarding cat form: If you go for Primal Precision, you will have troubles staying under dodge cap. Our gear has nice hit as well, you will not miss finishers, so the other part of the talent is wasted as well. So primal precision brings almost nothing to cat form.

Moreover, even if trash is not as important as bosses, primal precision brings almost nothing there as non-boss mobs have way lower parry chance (i believe its the same as dodge chance, so 5% + 0.2 per level, but i am not 100% sure here). So Master Shapeshifter is better for trash clearing as well.

Therefore i think taking Master Shapeshifter is better choice (considering time spend in cat) than Primal Precision. If you can invest those 3 extra talents.

edit: the above is valid once you reach cca 6% dodge/parry reduction and when you are close to hit cap (7%+ in my opinion).

• Melthu · 12/09/08, 1:00 PM

kalbear gave you the facts already: on a per-point basis Primal Precision is better for threat/dps than Master Shapeshifter by a factor of 1.25% to 0.8%, if you're dodge capped (more, of course, if you are not). When you also consider the side benefits of expertise, namely fewer parry hasted swings and smoother threat generation, PP comes out way ahead of MS.

Inaiwae · 12/09/08, 1:22 PM

Originally Posted by Melthu

kalbear gave you the facts already: on a per-point basis Primal Precision is better for threat/dps than Master Shapeshifter by a factor of 1.25% to 0.8%, if you're dodge capped (more, of course, if you are not). When you also consider the side benefits of expertise, namely fewer parry hasted swings and smoother threat generation, PP comes out way ahead of MS.

Dps difference in bear is not important (and small). In cat form, MS gives you way more given standard gear setup. Smoother threat generation brings you nothing if you are way ahead of dps classes even without it. The only thing i agree with is fewer hasted swings, but in my opinion damage in cat matters more than occasional hasted swing.

sarf · 12/10/08, 6:43 AM

Originally Posted by Inaiwae

Dps difference in bear is not important (and small). In cat form, MS gives you way more given standard gear setup. Smoother threat generation brings you nothing if you are way ahead of dps classes even without it. The only thing i agree with is fewer hasted swings, but in my opinion damage in cat matters more than occasional hasted swing.

I think there's a difference in outlook here - most people in this thread are looking from a tanking perspective mainly. As a tank, an occasional hasted swing is significant. From a hybrid tank/dps perspective, it may not be. Just make sure your healers are OK with your damage profile and it should all be good.

The hybrid builds will hopefully be redundant once dualspecs are put in (when/if that happens).

kalbear · 12/15/08, 6:16 PM

For hybrid there are a number of talents that you should likely take, but I'm still not sure that primal precision gets skipped.

Master shapeshifter gives 4% crit, which is a big bonus for cats. 4% damage for bears is also good but not particularly significant nowadays. It costs 5 talent points though, and that's pretty big. I personally would rather have imp mangle + primal precision for a hybrid build, skipping infected wounds and NS/MS. That may not end up being better DPS for cats, but it will be significantly better TPS and survivability for bears. I can see a reasonable argument for taking NS/MS in that situation, however.

For pure tanking though, the argument stands; NS/MS is not nearly as good on a TPS level or a mitigation level as primal precision is, especially if you have to trade something like imp mangle for it.

Soultrigger · 12/16/08, 8:21 AM

Originally Posted by Changer_executus

I now have 5 parts Dreamwalker and all the other items i could want except a decent tanking stick, so i have switched the 5 points in Feral Aggression for 5 points in Rend & Tear leaving me with this spec: Threat

Charge,

My spec is basically what you are using, I just swap Primal Precision with Brutal Impact. The question I have though, looking at most specs on this thread, why is it no one takes brutal impact? I don´t know, of course, there are others classes who will spell interrupt in raid and so on, but why would we give up on that utility for 10 expertise? (I mean, we have more expertise on gear nowadays more than anything else).

Cheers,
Soultarius

• Abradix · 12/16/08, 9:23 AM

Because the "utility" of Brutal Impact is completely wasted in raids, whereas 10 expertise is extremely valueable for both TPS and surviveability.

Expertise IS infact quite useful. Take this wws for example. Physical damage done by Sapphiron to me, 435k, of which the average hit was 7628. 20 of my attacks got parried, with dodge at 50% that means I got hit by 10 extra hits during the entire fight due to parries, amounting for a total of 76k damage, out of a total 435k of physical damage or 560k total damage.

This was with around 9% parry, so reducing that to 6.5% parry would've saved me 3 hits, 23k damage less taken, that's almost a 5% reduction. Expertise value differs per boss, because some like Patchwerk aren't affected by parry haste, and obviously parry is alot more devestating on bosses that hit very hard yet slow compared to fast, weak hitting bosses. But all in all, Primal Precision IS an avoidance talent that you should always take if you intend on tanking in raid instances.

On top of that, a parry hasted swing is extra burst damage which is generally speaking the reason tanks die, we want to reduce the chance of the worst case scenario by as much as possible, and reducing the chances of parry hasted swing is a big part of that.

kalbear · 12/16/08, 3:21 PM

20 of my attacks got parried, with dodge at 50% that means I got hit by 10 extra hits during the entire fight due to parries, amounting for a total of 76k damage, out of a total 435k of physical damage or 560k total damage.

That's not entirely accurate; a boss doesn't get an extra swing. They get at best a 40% haste boost, and at worst a 0% haste boost. Average tends to be 30% or so. That's still basically 6 extra attacks that you took that whole time, or 3 extra attacks that landed - and they happened to be bursty.

Mostly, 10 expertise is quite a lot of threat and would be equivalent to 320 expertise rating. It's usually to your advantage to turn talent points into stat values when they're that high. Brutal Impact is very situational and often completely useless, and even talented having one spell interrupt every 30 seconds is not reliable enough to matter. If a fight needed interrupts, you'd want something like a warrior instead.

Gingershnaps · 12/16/08, 3:39 PM

3/3 Feral Instinct might become mandatory now for AoE tanking

Swipe Change

The change for Swipe to generate an additional 50% threat is now live. Please let us know how it goes.