Taurenlegend

As a feral tank, I found myself asking what the best gear was for raid tanking in wotlk. I was pointed to a program called RAWR to help with this question. Currently, my talent points are as is The World of Warcraft Armory for 25man raids.

Now when it comes to gear, the top druid tanking gear or T7.5 that is currently available is:
Head - Hood Of Exodus
Neck - Boundless Ambitions
Shoulders - Valorous Dreamwalker Shoulderpads
Back - Platinum Mesh Cloak
Chest - Valorous Dreamwalker Raiments
Wrist - Thrusting Bands
Hands - Valorous Dreamwalker Handgrips
Waist - Polar Cord or Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt
Legs - Leggings of the Honored
Feet - Footwraps of Vile Deceit
Finger 1 - Gatekeeper
Finger2 - Keystone Great Ring
Trinket 1 - Darkmoon Card: Greatness
Trinket 2 - Figurine - Monarch Crab (JC only)
Since you do not see many JC Druids, another top choice for a trinkets will be Defender's Code and Valor Medal of First War
Weapon - Origin of Nightmares
Idol - Idol of Terror

Unbuffed with no MoTW on, with my current gear in bear form, which is not all the pieces I have listed above, hopefully soon though, I sit at
Armor: 32627
Stam: 35337
Dodge: 35.98%
Defense: 420
Hit: 194
Expertise: 12

Remember your goal is to hold aggro and survive long enough for your dpser's to drop the boss and/or mobs, so I tend not to worry about Hit/Expertise as long as I can hold aggro and negate a good deal of damage so it lessens the burden on the healers.

Gem compilations are something I tend to struggle with, in my gear I have been stacking mostly Regal Twilight Opal to push dodge up as much as possible, since it is our only avoidance Druids have, unlike other tanking classes who have Parry, Block, Dodge, etc.

I'm always up for suggestions on anything i have listed, i know there are many options available and will be more with the T8 gear comes out in the Uldar, or that's the rumor anyways....

 

• the KRIS

I disagree with your gem choice. Dodge rating actually is not a good choice when you could just as easily have raw agility, which provides a greater benefit.

In terms of gear, your Rawr list looks similar to mine, only issue I see is choosing Leggings of the Honored over 7.5 legs. Considering in your arrangement that would give the four-piece set bonus and increase the uptime of Barkskin from 20 to 25%, and I feel with higher agility and better ratings that the valorous legs are just plain superior.

I also like my Durable Nerubhide Cloak better than Platinum Mesh. As I mentioned, agility is a better stat than dodge rating. If I was going to choose an upgrade for it, I'd probably go with Cloak of the Shadowed Sun, and plan to do so as soon as Naxx is forthcoming.

 

blackhand0114

I also feel the two PvP belts are better in terms of Stamina and Agility, so for pure tanking I feel they are better over the threat stats in the Sharp-Barbed.

 

keepyacoolbro

You say you want max threat, yet you take 3/3 King of the Jungle and NONE in Primal Precision. I'm not going to requote all of the numerous posts that have been posted about the mitigation and threat you gain by Expertise. But it just jumped out at me when I looked at your spec.

I'd search the druid forums for "expertise" and see what ya find.

Agility is better than dodge rating. (period)
Stamina is better than dodge, but not THE most important thing as a druid tanks. I laugh at the druids running around boasting of 60k raid buffed but draining healer mana, losing aggro on single target and multi-mob pulls. They are the reason some think druids are mana sponges. Please put the ego to the side and look at how all of your gear works together.

If you're gemming and have a choice between +dodge rating or +hit rating. Go with hit rating. Having the RNG make your taunts miss or not hitting enough to get crucial early aggro can spell a wipe. +hit = more dps = more threat

 

Taurenlegend

Hmm i thought so for agility gems as well, but I had read or had seen the calculator that a dodge/stam gem will do more because a 16agility gem won't come close to an 8% dodge increase or Regal Twilight Opal. At level 80; 41.6667 Agility = 1% Dodge, at least according to http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/19...ise-and-dodge/ and At level 80; 32.78998947 Expertise Rating = 4 Expertise / -1% Parry / Dodge. So wouldn't i want to go with the +8% automatic to dodge via Regal instead of getting 1% for every additional 32Exp or every 41agil for 1% dodge for my damage mitigation or am I miss understanding the benefits and calculations? That's why I've been stacking the Regal Gems, i really not to sure though, I just can't see a point in going with Delicate Scarlet Ruby if these numbers are accurate...

 

Garanthir

Regal Twilight is +8 Dodge Rating, not %.

From the Feral numbers thread


Dodge Rating
1 DodgeRating = 0.025% Dodge
39.35 DodgeRating = 1% Dodge

Agility
1 Agi = 1.166 AP (1.2826 AP) (Cat only)
1 Agi = 0.01272% (0.013992%) Crit
1 Agi = 0.02544 (0.027984) % Dodge
1 Agi = 2.12 (2.332) Armor

 

Eilt

8 dodge rating != 8% dodge

39.35 Dodge Rating = 1% dodge%

Edit: Poster above summed it up nicely

 

thalys

Dodge has a similar stat -> rating conversion, otherwise it would be trivially dominant in all cases. It's true that a 16 agi gem doesn't get you 8% dodge. Neither does a 16 dodge gem. It doesn't require a lot of critical thinking ability to figure out that it can't possibly work the way you're describing, because you'd be able to gem something like 200% dodge without even trying if it did.

Agility benefits from kings, provides armor, and provides some threat. Dodge does none of these.

Straight from BBB's post:

So when you consider that you get 43.3 agility for the same itemization cost as that 39.35 dodge once you account for BoKings, which do *you* think is a better idea? Even before we start talking about the other benefits of agility, it's already better.

 

Taurenlegend

yeah sorry, yeah +8, so
At level 80; 39.34798813 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge. So i guess going with Agility, which is close to this number anyways, will have more benefits to others areas as well then, right? Hmm having 5R sockets should I go with pure agility gems or a hybrid, and having 3Y sockets should i go with a pure like Rigid Autumn Glow or a hybrid like Glinting Monarch Topaz

 

kalbear

With kings, agility gives more dodge per point AND gives armor and crit. Unless you consistently are without kings, you shouldn't ever consider dodge. And even if you are, the extra armor and crit are valuable, as is the ability to use that gear for cat.

For sockets, consider the socket bonuses first. It doesn't matter if it's a yellow socket or not if the socket bonus is horrible. I personally go for agi/hit gems, but that's my personal bias. Go with what works for you.

Also, this isn't the gearing thread, this is for tanking specs. The conversation should likely be moved.

 

Garanthir

There really is no set rule, Rawr can help you evaluate those decisions. Remember you can sort gear by Mitigation, Survival, Threat, and Overall.

 

Carlos

These numbers are only for naked druids. You have not included DR in that numbers at 33% dodge you need around 60 Agi for 1% dodge.

 

Eilt

Because we were not talking about the DR, and it would have the same effect on Dodge Rating at that point anyways, still meaning Agility is the way to go.

 

Furial

As Taurenlegend made a list of gear i would like to show you the one i've been working on with all the proper math behind it, but as i didn't see such similar list before i was wondering really why. i don't intend by all means to make this a "is this good?" post. If this is no place to post this, have it removed and my apologies.

First of all, if i'm making the list with explanations, i might as well just take 5 more minutes and add the Spec and Gemming.


Talent Spec
For a talent spec i'm focusing on pure tanking as dual spec will deal with the DPS factor. I don't know if it's valid to link it, but this spec is from a 3.1 Talent Calculator.

Optional Talents Justification below:

The reason for taking IW is mainly to prevent a worst case scenario where your prot war or DK can't attend a raid or even for fights where your other tanks won't be on your mob. (So far only Sarth 3D). Finally i took SA instead of KotJ for 2 reasons.
1- You would go for KotJ for more TPS but with lacerate critting, TPS will be higher already and avoiding Enrage on boss fights can be beneficial minimizing the chances you bite the dust.
2- SA will help you if you get some unlucky parries and dodge too much (considering DR on dodge and Natural Reaction's "3 rage when you dodge" rule).
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Gemming
Meta - [Austere Earthsiege Diamond]
Red - [Delicate Scarlet Ruby]
Blue - [Solid Sky Sapphire]
Yellow - [Delicate Dragon's Eye]

I go for Stamina until a certain point and after that I stack Agility all the way. I tend to worry with Hit + Expertise on gear only.
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Gear
Finally as the list, i was thinking on linking only what i disagreed with Taurenlegend there but well, i'll put the whole list with justificatiosn on the items contradicting the ones from Tauren.

*Item* - Explanation Below

Helm: [Hood of the Exodus]
Neck: *[Heritage]*
Shoulders: [Valorous Dreamwalker Shoulderpads]
Cloak: *[Platinum Mesh Cloak]* Same as with the neck. Comparing to Cloak of the Sun Shadowed Sun, we have +336armor, 15str, 1dodge VS. 13def, 32hit. Same armor as the neck, same numbers.
Chest: [Valorous Dreamwalker Raiments]
Bracers: [Thrusting Bands]
Gloves: [Valorous Dreamwalker Handgrips]
Belt: *[Trollwoven Girdle]*
Legs: [Valorous Dreamwalker Legguards]
Boots: [Footwraps of Vile Deceit]
Ring1: *[Signet of the Impregnable Fortress]*
Ring2: *[Deflection Band]*
Trinket1: [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
Trinket2: [Figurine - Monarch Crab]
Weapon: [Origin of Nightmares]
Idol: [Idol of Terror]
______________________________________
Neck
Comparing [Boundless Ambition] with [Heritage] we're looking at 10str, 6str, 336armor, 14def, 31 exp VS 41dodge and 28hit.

Since the 336 armor doesn't multiply when you shift into bear, we're looking at 0.22% Damage reduction with 34191 armor, which translates into -33 damage from a 15k hit making it in my point of view neglectible.

I used this formula "DR% = Armor / (Armor + (467.5 * AttackerLevel - 22167.5))" for the DR% with Armor 34191 (my armor with that neck) and AttackerLevel=83 so please correct me if i'm wrong.

Removing the 6 str for mitigation purposes we have now 10sta, 14def, 31exp VS 28hit and 41dodge. As you get more expertise than hit on gear, 28hit becomes a bit more valuable than 31exp as you should have reached the soft cap ( dodge cap ) from expertise already. Finally 10sta and 14def VS 41dodge. 14 def gives you 0.12miss + 0.12dodge and 41 dodge gives you 1.025% dodge, so we're looking at 0.24% mitigation + 10 stamina vs 1.025% dodge.
Also worth mentioning that the DR on the miss will be smaller than on the dodge as you don't have as much miss.

This explanation is far from clear but i wish someone can make it more clear than this but from my correct/incorrect math Heritage looks better as armor without being multiplied is in most cases almost neglectible.


Cloak
Same as with the neck. Comparing to Cloak of the Sun Shadowed Sun, we have +336armor, 15str, 1dodge VS. 13def, 32hit. Same armor as the neck, same numbers.


Belt
[Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt] VS [Trollwoven Girdle]

Assume a 24 Stamina gem on Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt and we have 27sta, 8exp VS. 21agi. With top gear you should have more than enough stamina to go for the +21agi one. If you want to assume a 16 agi gem anyway, we're looking at 3sta, 5exp VS 5agi, leads to the same conclusion.
The reason i excluded [Deadly Gladiator's Belt of Triumph] right away is that regardless it's tempting agi and stamina, agi whose dodge will be nerfed with the DR and stamina that you might not "need", can't ignore also the 38/43 expertise from the other 2 belts and well... -60 AP will matter enough for you to take it into consideration because of Savage Defense in 3.1.


Rings
Again the situation with bonus armor not multiplyable in Bear. With the same armor assumed as for the neck and cloak, Gatekeeper(448 armor) will give 0.29% DR which translates into -43.5 damage on a 15000 hit. As for Keystone Great.Ring(490 armor) will give 0.32% DR which translates into -48 damage, therefore i'm neglecting both armors. Also as the STR on them are 32 38 38 43 i'm also removing them the next calculations.
We have 4 options:
1- [Gatekeeper] - 84sta, 41dodge, 28hit
2- [Signet of the Impregnable Fortress] - 84sta, 56def, 27hit, 21exp
3- [Keystone Great-Ring] - 75sta, 49dodge
4- [Deflection Band] - 75sta, 28def, 36dodge, 25hit

1- 9sta, 1.025% dodge, 28hit
2- 9sta, 0.448% dodge, 0.448% miss(DR wont nerf it much as you don't have much -miss), 27 hit. 21 exp
3- 1.225% dodge
4- 0.224% dodge, 0.224% miss, 0.9% dodge, 25 hit

1- 9sta, 1.025% mitigation, 28hit
2- 9sta, 0.896% mitigation, 27 hit, 21 exp (less DR as part of the mitigation is from miss)
3- 1.225% mitigation
4- 1.348% mitigation, 25 hit (less DR as part of the mitigation is from miss)

1- 9sta, 1.025% mitigation, 28hit
2- 9sta, 0.896% mitigation, 27 hit, 21 exp (less DR as part of the mitigation is from miss)
4- 1.348% mitigation, 25 hit (less DR as part of the mitigation is from miss)

After DR, the 2nd ring has more mitigation than the 1st as part of the mitigation comes from -miss and not dodge. As for me, when i replace Gatekeeper with Signet, i go from 41.30% dodge to 40.91% ( -0.39% dodge ) and i go from 0.84% to 1.28% defense, 2 stats (dodge+miss), so with gatekeeper you have +0.39% dodge and with signet you have (1.28 - 0.84 = 0.44) +0.88% dodge. +0.49% mitigation with signet.
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Missing Trollwoven Girble (using Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt), and Deflection Band (Using Gatekeeper)
Totally unbuffed my stats are:
Armor: 33855
HP: 33897
Dodge: 41.58%
Defense: 432
Hit: 151
Expertise: 40 (30+10)
Armor: 32627
Stam: 35337
Dodge: 35.98%
Defense: 420
Hit: 194
Expertise: 12
For some reason, the same gear, with the same enchants and gems was giving me +150 agility on RAWR so i used the in-game values.


For me to be right 3 things need to check:

1- My thoughts about neglecting the bonus armor as it's a small difference.
2- My math to be right.
3- Me not having messed up the diminshing returns on mitigation.

I hope this opened more discussions regarding gear, and if not, please let me know where i failed on my math/assumptions and why the bonus armor items are better.

Thank you,
Furial

 

ramenchef

Your assumption of a 15k premitigation hit seems rather low. Also, your thinking that hit is better than expertise past the soft cap has been proven wrong as well. Current testing shows that while your character sheet rounds expertise down, expertise doesn't actually truncate like you would think it does based on your character sheet.

 

Allev

Furial,

Disregarding armor like that is faulty for the reason that 15k base hits are almost nothing-- at your armor level, you will be taking 5k damage from a 15k swing. These aren't attacks that will kill you, so they're not important. You have to look at the hits before all armor mitigation: in that case, a hit that lands for 15k is actually swinging for 45k before all armor mitigation. Essentially, you need to triple the damage reduction you're getting. All of a sudden you're throwing away 1% mitigation on rings. The balance really does tip the cloak decision the other way, and puts the necks close to a tie (pun intended).

Also, once you get picky enough to make decisions like this, you're really preparing for Ulduar content. In which case, you should stop using your current armor and use what you'll have come 3.1. You should see even more mitigation from bonus armor in that case. And you also have to start taking into account Savage Defense mechanics.

Finally, when saying "This difference on this piece of gear is worth nothing", think about what happens if you multiply it across 16 pieces of gear.

 

Furial

To Ramenchef: To be honest didn't know that, but in this specific case, that hit vs. expertise comparation still validates the choice of the neck as that wasn't the most crit issue on the comparation.

To Allev: I thought that the damage reduction was calculated on a hit after all modifiers. That 15k hit i was talking about was meant post-mitigaiton. So basically supposing a hit pre modifiers goes for 45k with a 0.22% mitigation from the armor on it that's 99 damage. Then the modifiers go into action and it will mitigate 99 damage from that 15k hit? Is that how it works? Damage Reduction kicks in before the modifiers? Then again, assuming now that the hits were calculated at those 45k damage, correcting my mistake, is it that worth it say.. on a boss fight to have -100 damage on his 15k hits?

Also what do you mean with throwing away 1% mitigation from the rings?

 

seminarca

Keep in mind that bonus armor on items does still get the Austere bonus.

Boundless Ambition = 336 * 1.02 = 342.72
Cloak of the Shadowed Sun = 336 * 1.02 = 342.72
Gatekeeper = 448 * 1.02 = 456.96
Keystone Great-Ring = 490 * 1.02 = 499.8

 

david0925

Your analysis is flawed, biased, or both.

First of all, when analyzing armor, you also need to look at damage taken perspective. Going from 70% to 70.22% is not a 0.22% reduction in damage taken, you're actually receiving 29.78% damage as opposed to 30%. That is roughly 0.7% less damage taken, which is more than triple the amount your math is doing. Looking at 70% to 70.22% (aritifical numbers) is the same reason that people thought armor had DR, when it really didn't when looking at your survival time.

Second, armor is reliable stat, while avoidance isn't. As much of a avoidance advocate I am, armor is going to be weighted a lot more heavily when I gear for progression because it is reliable (unlike avoidance) and it actually does provide mitigation (which stamina doesn't do). Does that mean stacking armor unconditionally? certainly not, which is why there isn't a "universally best" tanking set.

Maniq is my hero

 

Furial

To david0925: Indeed, i didn't see it that way, from "70%" to 70.22%" but only a "miserable" 0.22%. Plus i thought the armor mitigation would kick in after the modified hit, but then again, armor is what modifies it. I wasn't thinking properly. But with this said, would you put Keystone Great-Ring as 2nd best ring after Gatekeeper or at this point, it's a subjective topic?

 

david0925

It depends on the fight. Assuming it's something that threat has zero/little impact but stamina and avoidance are important, I'd use Keystone over the other choices. If only stamina matter (as if you're a soaker for some sort of damage which avoidance has no impact on and avoidance doesn't really matter) I'd use Titanium Frostguard Ring. For farming bosses or bosses with rigid enrage timer I'd probably use the badge ring with both expertise and hit.

Again, these choices are subjective, as a lot of the best pieces in terms of threat, survival, and mitigiation are actually fairly close, and it's better, for example, if you pick "second best" on both threat and mitigation for two items, assuming similar needs and ilvl, than to pick one that has high stamina and one that has high threat, just because the way item allocation point works.

Maniq is my hero

 

brokentuzk

Ok so after reading these threads until my eyes are blurry in fear of being warned for poor post I have to ask this question. I see that the minimum requirement is 30-30-30. I am trying to achieve 33-33-40 myself and am pretty close. Now the best in slot gear seems to have enough expertise to get the 6.5% dodge cap without any extra enchants or gems. My question is about Hit. I have read that the hit cap is 8%. I am trying to build a pure tank build. How much Hit in % is enough for a Feral Tank? Surely you dont need to reach the hit cap.

 

Aldhissla

There is no concept of "enough" hit when it comes to tanking, it is not a mandatory stat. Balancing between stats which increase your threat (like hit) and stats which increase your survivability cannot be directly compared.

Personally, I have various gear sets which I use for different situations, one gear set I am almost hit capped and close to the parry expertise cap, at the other end of the scale I have a gear set for maximising armor/stam/agi with basically no regard for threat, this includes delicious deadly gladiator gear.

For general tanking you probably want to pick up hit/expertise where it does not cost you a lot, but don't go out of your way to get it at the cost of defensive stats, unless you are finding you regularly have problems holding agro - in which case you might want to see if there are other problems with your play not related to gear, such as not using maul enough.

 

halmmar

It's a very important stat right now. Because of various bugs with FFF, you can't reapply it while it's up (with a shadow priest in the raid). If you miss reapplying FFF after it runs out, you lose an armor debuff for 6 seconds on the boss. That's more than just a small threat loss (because you probably have 7~11 melee/tanks in your group).

I'm glad at least one piece of T8 has hit, but it also won't matter as much because it will have a 5 minute duration or something silly now. I guess this is because they don't want to fix the FFF bug.

 

brokentuzk

I like the dilocating hand guards better when we talk about best in slot for tanking gear. Sure you lose 15 agility but you gain 50 hit and 38 expertise 10 stam and 48 attack. Hit is just to hard to come by to pass up 50 on an item and then to add 38 expertise. Just a quick thought.