Sepulture

Well, it would seem to me that if you are trying to generate a lot of threat using gear that we know about today, your choices are going to be [Steely Naaru Sliver] and [Romulo's Poison Vial]. Hit will be in short supply because you will be stacking expertise in slots that previously had +hit. A trinket spot will be an excellent place to compensate, especially since there is no secondary expertise trinket.

[Commendation of Kael'thas]+[Shadowmoon Insignia] will be very hard to beat for physical mitigation when combined with a balanced avoidance set. This is because the 380 dodge rating is a server side +20.08% dodge. That is probably the ultimate defense against parry gib streaks. It's a server side, error free "oh shit" button that is more powerful with avoidance AND effective health (which reduces "leap frog" concerns).

[Commendation of Kael'thas] will be iffy at first on really hard hitters, but later on it's going to be a good match for SMI.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Blizzard tunes quite a few of the bosses (and perhaps even trash) with higher parry and maybe even dodge rates to balance out some of the excessive expertise.

I also wouldn't be surprised if a mechanic was introduced to help bosses offset extremely high levels of avoidance.

 

Fellwraith

I'm not so sure about Romulo's poison vial for a threat set, it would depend on your baseline stats.

I'd be more inclined to go with the sliver and an autoblocker + a few miscellaneous items with hit rating on them. The autoblocker gets an awful lot of scaling with the new meta, 4pc T6, and shield mastery (assuming they're all multiplicative, that's 1.3*1.1*1.1 = 1.57 * base block value). Most of T6 is pretty light on block value, so you might get more value from having a couple pieces specifically devoted to it.

 

• Mjollnir

Let's just hope it doesn't become a trend that induces gear cloning. Seeing PvP warriors all looking the same is quite unflavorful and bland.
On the positive side, reducing the amount of suits needed to lug around can only be a good thing.

 

Edimus

What do you guys think about this new weapon enchant?

Enchant Weapon - Deathfrost - Spells - WOWDB

I'd imagine it'd be required on one or two members of the raid depending on the PPM. The MT should use a goosed weapon still for sure, this isn't an MT weapon.

 

Shanis

My guild is 5/6 and 1/4 working our way through the T5 zones. However, I have 75 badges set aside and we have the ability to clear ZA regularly. As one of two MTs (I share the responsibility with a pally tank), I'm currently wearing 4/5 T4 with T5-quality loot in most of the other slots (about 15k HP, 16.5k armor unbuffed, B/D/P is around 65%). Feel free to call me ignorant, but I'm hesitant to throw out the seemingly well-balanced avoidance of the T4 set.

For myself and the other tanks in my guild, should we be farming out ZA to replace all our T4 set pieces with ZA tanking gear? Or should we just hold out for the T5 set and leave the ZA gear for the off-tanks?

 

Lambach

You should have different sets of gear depending on the encounter. Holding fast to one set like that makes you inefficient. You definatly want to pick up lots of ZA gear. Not only is it flat out better in some slots, but the other slots its at least situationally better in. Also I'm not quite sure how you find t4 to be better then t5 at the least, and on a threat encounter you definatly want 2pc t5, you should realy reread the 1st page and consult some loot tables tomaximize your efficiency.

 

Shanis

My apologies, I didn't word that properly. I currently do not have any pieces of T5 as I've been bidding on off-set items that I felt were my weakest pieces, such as getting rid of Karazhan gear.

I agree that I'm not strong in swapping out gear for various encounters (aside from resist gear, of course, or swapping to a fury DPS set when I'm not tanking). I do swap out trinkets depending on the situation, but that's about it. Yes, probably horribly inefficient.

 

Sepulture

Oh, I agree in some cases. I think it will all be quite situational.

With all the crazy expertise gear there will surely be a new 3 way balance between hit, expertise, and shield block value (not to mention avoidance stats). The better the dps, the more the balance will need to shift towards shield block value.

I imagine on trash, +hit will still be very important, as it will be phenomenally easy to dodge/parry cap. On bosses, expertise will remain at least as important as hit-but you can now "overdo it" and compromise too much avoidance and/or SBV by going too far into "- parry land".

For all situations, you will need to offset the non-scaling innate threat in our abilities by stacking SBV. I imagine that even if you land every single attack in SW, without sufficient SBV you may still come up short in threat. Most of those decisions will be made for us as we get new upgrades regardless, I suppose.

Does anyone else feel like we may be coming up a bit short in our threat generation no matter what we do? Some of the dps gear out there is frightening from a tanking perspective. I almost hope we get a new rank of Shield Slam, Devastate, and Revenge with higher innate threat, AQ20 style.

 

Fellwraith

It depends on how the incoming damage is generated and how high it is. It sounds like the first 2 fights in Sunwell have periodic magic/aoe damage. That should mean we have steady rage income even if we aren't getting physically hit.

Even in a worst case scenario, DPS is only going to get a 70% damage to threat conversion in a raid environment. I think there should be enough threat scaling with the addition of new T6 items to maintain the 4pc bonus while mixing in different pieces of gear for the fight. We also have more tools to play with on a real "burn" fight than we had in the early days of WoW (enhancement shaman in the MT group, feral druid in the MT group, spell reflect, lots of block and expertise on sunwell gear, etc.) Most dps classes now have threat reduction talents or a threat dump ability, it should be manageable.

 

Darkrenown

New sword:
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/..._longblade.jpg

I wish the haste was something else, but it seems like a nice tanking weapon, especially for a human. Orcs might be better sticking to the Brutalizer, but are other race tanks going to have to fight with rogues for this?

 

Touf

Do you really think there will be an encounter with ranged attacks? Vashj was the only one I can think of, and that was if things went wrong.

 

seminarca

The text states that it reduces melee attack speed as well, not just ranged. Or is this your roundabout way of saying you don't think it'll stack with Thunder Clap? It also reduces casting speed for what it's worth, might be situationally useful for landing clutch interrupts too.

 

Touf

Neither TC nor Curse of Tongues, both of which are better. If it's really important, those debuffs will be up there.

 

◊ Quigon

Parry should be estimated around 15% if you want to be safe. That is 237 expertise rating.

As to riot's comments. Having played from the perspective of a healer for well over a year, and then a main tank - I can tell you that what I don't like seeing is burst. Steady and a slightly larger healing requirement is much more preferable to bursty and sitting around with around 100% mana.

Removing burst from parry is far superior to getting a bit more hit and avoidance. Keep in mind, even past dodge absorbance, you are still getting fantastic TPS AND avoidance returns on expertise.

I could write a huge diatribe about this, but the bottom line is:
If you're dying because of burst: get more expertise and armor and shield block.
If you're dying because healers are running OOM: get more avoidance (its on the cheap).
If you're dying because DPS are threat capped, well, get more expertise, hit, and spec differently (unlikely scenario).
If you're dying for other reasons, that likely isn't an issue of gear.


I also agree that haste rating on tanking weapons is absolutely ridiculous. What a waste. Especially during progression where TPS is largely a non-factor.

Also, I'll note now, that I highly recommend guilds in sunwell use the mitigation spec I posted. The first boss already will have tanks by themselves - with no DPS/backup tank to IDS/ITC for them. And threat is really a minor issue here.

 

Amathal

What are your feelings on Shard of Contempt?

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ofcontempt.jpg

I'm arguing with my enhancement shaman friend, both of us just hit 70 less than a week ago so neither of our gear is all that great. I'm looking at 44 expertise as being great for both mitigation and TPS, he is complaining that I shouldn't be allowed to roll against him because the proc is melee dps oriented. I'm assuming I won't still be wearing my Terokkar Tablet of Precision when 2.4 hits...but right now that trinket is an insane upgrade.

What do you guys think?

 

◊ Quigon

Right now, the trinket is a big upgrade for you amathal.

It is debatable for a well geared warrior. I think you really need to choose your gear based on the encounter. On Kalecgos I would not wear the shard of contempt, as mana is really at a premium. You probably would be better off with more avoidance and a commendation.

Even as riot said, the neck is debatable. Although it has so much damn stamina and expertise that it starts to fall into the efficiency role to some extent as well. More HP actually improves healing efficiency due to healing choice and response (overheals). Anyway, bottom line is you're going to have a raw avoidance set, and an expertise set. And the expertise set will probably double as the TPS set - with fantastic mitigation to boot.

Choose based on why you're dying. If your healers are not having mana issues, you should always max expertise, as consistency is simply superior to a somewhat minor amount of less damage taken at the cost of increased burst. Treat the gear choice like stamina in the past - expertise is the new stamina if that makes sense?

 

Amathal

Yea, that does make sense.

I used to play as a MT in my guild over the summer, but retired her and rerolled. Everything is so different now than it was in mid July, so I haven't really gotten to play with expertise yet.

Bases on my tanking xp in Kara and healing I've done in Kara...mana shouldn't ever be a problem. Expertise going to be my bread and butter there now?

 

◊ Quigon

Karazhan is a different situation most likely. Stamina, avoidance, armor, expertise all have their places in Karazhan. Avoidance tends to work well with Prince, and the rest is typically stamina. I'm not sure that parry feedback is ever a huge deal in that zone. Perhaps someone who has done the zone with the latest mudflation could give more up-to-date advice. But I'm not convinced you can choose your gear incorrectly for that zone basically.
Trash you'll want a decent amount of threat on though.

 

Mem

Regarding expertise vs Hit - there are still some pieces you can swap in for trash or less harder hitting bosses - especially if you managed to snag a good dps trinket from raiding (as my Madness which I wear on most farm bosses now). A Hardened Heart with a rigid Lionseye will also help to maintain a solid level of Hit for most fights. Nevertheless for bossfights requiring taunt rotations this will pose a problem.

Regarding sockets: I'm really thinking about gemming more for colors, which means emeralds in yellow slots, 10 dodge in red sockets. Unless sunwell bosses are hitting much harder than those in T6 content I don't see any reason besides steadying the rageflow for stacking stamina further on. Furthermore we see a lot of aggro stats on the new gear (blockvalue, expertise) which will partially compensate it. As I said I also plan on using the commendation for hardhitting fights which will reduce my passive avoid.

I agree that haste on tanking gear is a waste. I used a Swiftsteel Bludgeon for a long time for aggro and trash fights, but that was due to the lack of tanking weapon drops.

 

Chardonnay

I frapsed a parry-parry-crush burst that killed me on Nightbane. SB was on CD when I got crushed. But it's definetly not a real issue there. Expertise is needed for aggro there, as most bosses hit like girls and you need rage efficiency to maintain good threat.

 

• Jamor

I am not sure what to think about Blizz's hybrid tank/DPS items at this point-- as a human, clearly the Dragonscale is superior to anything for threat, but the haste is a lot of wasted points. I find it interesting that, as it appears so far, they don't have a true tanking weapon in Sunwell. And that some of the trinkets can be looked at as Hybrid as well.

In a lot of respects, I like what Blizzard is doing with itemization, such as the commendation. To me, that is a near perfect tanking trinket. I find myself still using the Darkmoon card for most fights, and basically adding to that a passive server-side dodge boost is more than I could ask for. My plan going forward is to generally use two sets of trinkets. Commendation/Shadowmoon and Sliver/Auto-blocker -- and using a different helm for each (Onslaught with ZG enchant and SB meta for the threat set, and Illidan helm for avoidance).

Then I look at how much avoidance items make their way in to the mix. Avoidance has it's place, obviously, but I can't tell you how much I hate abnormal dodge streaks. Maybe if we had a passive rage gain on dodge, it wouldn't be so much of an issue. But every time I try and stack avoidance gear, I am never happy with the results. I was really hoping to see some stat points moved into extra armor on items, but I haven't seen any of that yet.

 

Alaron

Not only does haste as a threat stat seem wasteful, but I would almost go a step farther and say that it would be somewhat undesirable even if you didn't give up more useful itemization points for it. I say this because the parry cap seems like it would be quite difficult and somewhat impractical to obtain, even with all the new expertise gear. Qualitatively, faster white swings mean more chances to be parried, which means more opportunity to take burst damage. The actual impact would be fairly low, but anything that increases the frequency of getting parried seems like a silly tanking stat unless the tradeoff is a lot better than what haste currently offers.

 

Krennick

Since the discussion about haste on tanking gear seems not to have gotten around to this point yet, let me introduce the idea that struck me immediately.

Since they are having spell haste effect the spell global cooldown - maybe they also want melee haste to affect the melee global cooldown. I'm aware of how it would (not) work for rogues etc, but if that was the thinking behind the itemization I think it would cast the haste rating on tanking gear in a somewhat new light. The underlying observation being that TPS is to an extent limited by the global cooldown.

Yes, this is all speculation, and there is no post from Blizzard to support it. Haste, as is, is not an impressive tank stat.

 

• Argium

Well I know a lot of people who use 4pc T5 in their threat set because of the haste bonus, so haste defiantely adds to TPS in both rage gained and the number of HSes you can pump out. I think it's unlikely that Blizzard will make haste reduce the melee GCD because I think it'd make it too powerful. The reason they changed it for casters was because specs like Resto druids and Affli warlocks received little to no benefits from haste gear so changing how that works makes them free to plaster it all over the Sunwell gear.

Another problem I can see is that the new gear has a ridiculous amount of avoidance, particuarly dodge, which might impact rage gen so perhaps this is Bliz's way to offset that and improve soloing (?).

I would love to see some theorycrafted TPS numbers with regards to haste though.

 

Lambach

You guys have really somehow got stuck on this haste tangent. But, the item that dropped that this all started from is a rogue offhand sword. It is NOT a tank weapon, and you will not find lots of haste on any of the sunwell tank items.


Edit: The sword is not a "bad" tank weapon, but it was not specifically itemized for tanks, thus the haste.