Tanking in arena gear, anyone else try this?

[sakurabahakkar]

So I'm mainly a PVPer due to my schedule, but on the weekends I'll spec prot and run some heroics. This past weekend, I tried out the 11/7/43 spec found on tankingtips.com(he calls it the efficiency spec) and ran a few heroics.

I went into SP not realizing I still had all my s2/s3/pvp rings still equipped, and only realized it after we finished the last boss. However, during the run, I found that I was doing 1200-1300 tps on trash pulls, not needing cc at all, and generally doing fine. at the end of the run, dps meters showed I was almost on par with our dps. (Makeup was warrior pally elemental shaman rogue hunter)

Finding it sort of incredible that this worked at all(I did think I was taking an abnormal amount of damage during the run, but didn't think too hard since it was late at night), I tried it again in heroic BF, and it worked just as well there. I chickened out after the second boss and switched to normal tanking gear, but was still pretty surprised/happy that I was able to tank multiple mobs without cc, do good dps, and not die in the process.

anyways, just something I found interesting, and was curious if anyone else has tried/found similar results. It's really going to change the way I run heroics, no more looking for CC, and no more waiting on CC to start pulls.

[byechee]

if you're good and your healer is good, screw cc. it just holds back your group's potential. i find myself tanking a lot of heroics with dps gear in the slots where i don't have block value items just for aggro's sake (more rage etc). of course i have the pleasure of tanking for retardedly high-dpsers that go all out from the get-go with reckless abandon. runs go faster, are a bit more chaotic, but more enjoyable for all.

[Dayn]

Actually tanking heroics in full Arena gear is perfectly acceptable. The resilience and tons of stamina, oodles of strength, plus the critical strike ratings, combine to make a good setup for those instances.

The resilience keeps you from getting beaten too badly by crits, the stamina is self-explanatory, and the strength contributes to your blocks. The critical ratings give you more aggro through crits!

I wouldn't try it in Hyjal or BT though. ;)

[Kelthrak]

I actually am trying to get the S3 arena helm for my tank suit. Outfit it with defense gems and the def/dodge enchant, and it's pretty nice. Better than a lot of helms.

[ehsdds]

Thanks so much for your thoughts on pvp gear tanking, no one seems to understand that resiliance relates to defense but with a small loss of avoidance. There are huge increases in hp, ap and threat is off the charts.

[Narshe]

You are forgotten the huge boost of armor that S3 has compared with the blue/t4 tank counterparts.
If your healer can keep you alive, there is nothing wrong in tanking in DPS set and, as previous posters said, you surely are crit inmune (due to resilience) so... why not? ^^

PvE tanks even take some Arena gear to fit spots where they have been very unlucky with drops. Sometime you would see tanks with merciless gladiator's soulders, shields or breastplates.

[Juised]

cc is always good imo since it just makes runs hard to be spoiled =)

[Worldie]

As they said, as long as your healer can keep you up, you are fine.

I also use shockadin pvp gear to tank heroics, gives me nice aggro... and well, more hits so i don't run oom :)

[Edgar]

One of the best pvp warriors on our server opened up a PvE guild and he was going to be the tank so he needed a lot of BoJ. He specced prot and did heroics 24/7.

He had his S3 and the S2 axe and shield on, we had a shadowpriest, a warlock, me (mage) and a paladin healer.

Was pretty good and if we wiped it wasn't because of his equip.