Gear

[Xerati]

Hi there,

Lately i've been looking forward at what i should be getting for the new tier gear and/or frost vendor gear. I have come to a stand-still as i have noticed that many of the tanks i have looked at are buying the Cataclysmic Chestguard (Chest) from the frost vendor instead of going for tier gear, as well most have gone for the Gauntlets of the Kraken (Gloves), and Pillars of Might (Legs). I have not been able to see why most tanks are doing this. Is it due to the fact that it is a quick upgrade to 264 items and that they will not be able to to achieve Tier10 Heroic gear for a much longer time? That is the only possible reason I can see, other then that the tier10 gear would be much better would it not?
Please help me answer some of these questions! Thank you for any and all assistance.

Links to gear:
Chest - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50968
Gloves - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50978
Legs - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49904

[Fledern]

I got the Kraken before the buff to the tier pieces. If i was buying today, i might opt for the tier one.

The crafted legs are AWESOME considering all the juicy armor on it and the 3 sockets. The only thing it's lacking is some def.

The chest is a different problem. With the buff to its armor, normally i'd prefer it over the cataclysmic. The problem lies in the fact that they got the budget for armor from the defense on it. As i'm wearing the crafted boots & legs, i'm way too close to the def cap to afford buying the tier. On the other hand, the amount of def on the cataclysmic is huge and offers almost equivalent avoidance (before DR) to the chest. And since i'm a little low on expertise, cataclysmic fits the rest of my gear better. The tier is still damn good though and i'd definitely consider it if my setup was a little different.

[MellvarTank]

The Cataclysmic chestguard has a pile of Expertise, it is one of the few pieces that we have available that does. The 264 level T10 gauntlets are as good (or better) than the gauntlets of the Kraken since the buff, so anyone who bought pre-buff would have the gauntlets of the Kraken for the increased armor. The Pillars of Might are pure EH, so that is why people have picked them up over the tier pieces.

Basically: There is virtually no Expertise on any of the t10 pieces, so people have gone off-set pieces until they can pick up the heroic versions to balance stats while still stacking EH.

[Erobinia]

The reason most well-geared tanks are taking these pieces over the tier pieces is the massive amount of armor they provide - and until you can collect enough Marks to upgrade four pieces of tier gear to the ilvl 264 versions, you're generally better off taking those high-armor non-set pieces, or sticking with your old ilvl 258 gear from ToGC. Also, a lot of us bought the non-set gloves and chest before the changes to the tier pieces were made, causing a great deal of nerdrage.

If the ilvl 251 tier pieces are an immediate upgrade, by all means, grab them - start with the gloves or chest, then pick up the shoulders or helm after you have both of those. For legs, Pillars of Might are generally going to outperform your tier piece.