The Protection Guide - Page 51

Sepulture · 02/11/08, 2:21 PM

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 · 02/11/08, 3:32 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 02/11/08, 3:36 PM

Originally Posted by Agrimat

There's a new expertise king for the neck slot: [Collar of the Pit Lord]

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

Expertise is shaping up to be a core tanking stat, rather than something you sacrifice survivability for. Predictions are hard to make, but I can see it leading to most tanks having less divergent threat and avoidance sets, since putting 40 expertise on an avoidance piece goes a long way toward making it best-in-slot for both roles.

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 · 02/11/08, 3:51 PM

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 · 02/11/08, 4:11 PM

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 · 02/11/08, 4:25 PM

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 · 02/11/08, 4:30 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 02/11/08, 4:55 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 02/11/08, 5:56 PM

Originally Posted by Sepulture

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.

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 · 02/11/08, 6:52 PM

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 · 02/11/08, 7:15 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 02/11/08, 9:43 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 02/11/08, 10:21 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Quigon · 02/11/08, 10:28 PM

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 · 02/11/08, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by Quigon

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

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.

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?