[Okutai]

Compared to others on this forum, I have a lack of understanding the advanced concepts of a tank.

Although my guild is the best on it's server, we still have not manage to push pass the Beasts in 25 ToTGC (Been concentrating on getting Algalon and yogg +0 first, since we are ahead of everyone on the realm.)

Due to that reason, I am, "theorectically" one of the best geared warrior tank on the server. However, I am still quite clueless, and there is no one on my realm i can tak to for tips and the sort.

I know briefly what I need for an EH set and a survival set, but I have no idea what to go for. I have only one set at the moment, and I try to keep it going with that, and I'm aware that to push forward in ToTGC, I'm going to require much more knowledge of my class.

If you could answer a few questions for me, I'd be grateful.

1: What is unhittable? Is it when you focus on Block and def and armour to mitigate the dmg incoming?

2: How important is hit exactly? I have 41 expertise, and 5.25% hit rating with 3 Hit rating gems socketed. I don't have problems with aggro, and would rather put 3 expertise gems intstead of hit, but not sure what difference that would make.

3: Parry, block and dodge. Which gives us the best advantage?

4: I currently have mongoose on my Sorthalis, would BD or BT be better?

Here's my armoury link, just to have a look, and tips are welcome.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Note: I have one of the Brewfest trinkets incase I need stam over the dodge, and i also have the crab if i find the need for a more precise dodge.

Also, ignore my fury specc, i've been playing about with speccs, and couldn't be bothered to change back.

Thanks in advance.

[JokerFMJ]

I don't know a lot about warriors, but I know what i've read in regards to hit/expertise for them. Up to the soft cap (26) expertise is the 2 to 1 favorite over hit. From there to the hard cap (56 I believe?) expertise and hit are of the same value. Personally, I would say if you had to choose between hit and expertise, go expertise until you reach the hard cap.

Dodge is the best stat out of the three you listed, it has the least DR's compared to the other two... I can't speak as far as block v. parry because i'm a DK tank and frankly I don't know. =D

[krc]

1. Unhittable is when you get your dodge,parry and block rating to add up to 102.6% making every single attack be either dodged,parried or blocked. The only place where an unhittable set shines is when you are tanking Anub'arak's adds. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

2. Unless you are having aggro problems hit doesn't matter much it definitely helps but shouldn't be one of your first priorities. In ToC there isn't much hit gear at all so don't get worried if you hit gets low all of a sudden. I think that a slot with an expertise gem is better suited than a slot with hit. One gem with expertise in it unless you have an expertise rating of 57 or higher tends to give a little more threat than hit. Not to mention how it will help you with survivability on most bosses because of parry haste.

3. Well out of all three of them block is definitely the worst, against bosses the percent of damage incoming that is going to be blocked is much lower than it would be from dodge and parry, what block does excel at though is light hitting trash mobs. Dodge and parry are generally the same other than parry haste and DR, to get maximum avoidance you should try and keep dodge at a 1.875:1 ratio with parry because of diminishing returns. I wouldn't stress getting that exact amount too much though.

4. When it comes to weapon enchants it's mainly personal opinion, my favorite is Mongoose, I am playing around with Blade Warding but I do not really find it very helpful. For EH Blood Draining, avoidance Blade Warding, and for a mix of EH,avoidance and threat Mongoose. I like Mongoose because it has a more consistent uptime then the other two.

[Griff]

Hasn't blade warding been demonstrated to be mathematically superior to mongoose in most applications?

[krc]

In avoidance with the dodge nerf and parry buff yes it is superior in avoidance, but what makes me prefer mongoose is the armor that also goes along with it as well as the generally higher uptime.

[uglybbtoo]

And mongoose still has the sexiest proc and glow out there ^.^

[Aggathon]

Source: Okutai 1: What is unhittable? Is it when you focus on Block and def and armour to mitigate the dmg incoming?

The above post is correct, you won't need to worry about it until H-Anub25 really. I guess you could get a set for H-Anub10 man, it makes it easier but isn't necessary. But yes it is 102.6% for a level 83 mob, however for the anub adds it's 101.6% b/c they're level 82. There are various posts out there about it, I wouldn't worry about it yet though tbh, maybe start picking up the gear if you can get it, but (especially if you're trying to clear out Yogg0 and Alg first) you're probably a ways off of it progression wise atm.

2: How important is hit exactly? I have 41 expertise, and 5.25% hit rating with 3 Hit rating gems socketed. I don't have problems with aggro, and would rather put 3 expertise gems intstead of hit, but not sure what difference that would make.

If you have a rotation down correctly then hit doesn't really matter. In my EHP gear I think I have like 89 hit or something at the moment, but I still can do 7k-8k tps pretty easily. So hit is fairly unimportant, and you have lots of expertise so ya, you're fine in that regard.

3: Parry, block and dodge. Which gives us the best advantage?

Trick question: The correct answer is armor and stam! But as far as those 3 go, definitely dodge. I'll get more on the Effective Hit Points (EHP) stuff later.

4: I currently have mongoose on my Sorthalis, would BD or BT be better?

Mongoose is fine, I'd personally go with Blood Draining though, especially for progression, it's a smart heal when you need it and sometimes it saves your life. If you don't do BD I'd suggest Bladewarding. In my opinion the uptime of mongoose is actually too low. There's lots of theorycraft and heated debate about it, imo it comes down to personal preference. Mongoose is definitely the threat enchant though. Imo -> EHP = Blood Draining, Threat = Mongoose, Avoidance = Bladewarding. Mongoose has some EHP components to it, but I don't really consider anything that isn't 100% reliable EHP, well... except for Burnished Quel'Serrar 'cuz its sexy.

Here's my armoury link, just to have a look, and tips are welcome. The World of Warcraft Armory

Well... imo you don't need the 20exp gem, to get the meta req and the 9 stam bonus (good job going for the highest bonus btw), I'd go with stam/dodge or stam expertise.

As far as enchants go: Get 225 Armor to cloak, it calculates to about 50ish stamina. It's hot. If you have no threat problems I'd also say armor to gloves, I forget the exact enchant or how much armor it is, I'm Engineering so I have the OP armor to gloves enchant.

Gearing in general:

If you're going to be doing Steelbreaker and Algalon etc., you really need to push for an EHP set. Basically this is going all in on armor and stam. These are 2 fights that are very hard hitting and you simply must have a large HP pool to survive it. 35khp unbuffed isn't going to cut it.

For gear upgrades: ToGC and ToC looks like they'll get you the best stuff atm tbh. I'd suggest trying to get the new crafted bracers made, they'll help with hit and are 2nd BiS to the ToGC25 bracers. Running ToGC10 could help too. Since you're a JC it might not be a bad idea to get the shield from hodir 10 and putting 2 51 stam gems in it, but that's kinda optional, but it would help with your EHP pool a lot.

For Trinkets: get rid of feverish dedication. If you can get a Jug's Vitality trinket get that, otherwise pretty much anything is better: Glyph of Indom...ability w/e I can't spell, Heart of Iron, the Brewfest trinkets, etc.

Spec: Your spec definitely needs some work:

I would suggest:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

which is a great balance between threat and mitigation, you get 2 min shield wall, and every good talent in the prot tree with the exception of 5/5 shield specialization, which for ulduar probably won't matter much, you might want to pick it up for algalon though. The alternative spec typically is:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Basically you take 3 points out of focused rage and put them into 5/5 shield specialization. I personally have actually had rage problems switching to 5/5 shield spec by taking points out of focused rage, but others claim its better, I just don't prefer it and think block bad in most situations. Well... not bad... just not near as good as anything else you could pick up.

There are some people that go with a "progression" spec that is something like 5/15/51, but I personally don't care for those specs. I don't think picking up imp demo shout as a tank is really that necessary, at least in our raids we always have another class that has that or a similar ability (feral druids, fury warriors, ret pallies, etc.). I personally used the first spec pretty much exclusively until I picked up a cleave spec for anub25 add tanking.

Now this is more of a guild leader choice style than anything else, but I would honestly focus on getting 3/5 or 4/5 HToC before I'd go back and finish Ulduar if I were you guys. If you're that far ahead than the gear advantage of getting those first 3-4 bosses down will definteily help you finish out ulduar and get Death's Demise and The Celestial Defender.

If you have any questions about specific fights or gearing or w/e feel free to make an alt on maelstrom and whisper me or something. I'll obviously keep an eye on this thread too.


TL;DR: sh!t hits hard get stam and armor

^ I may have to make that my signature.

[Okutai]

Excellent. Thank you so far, to everyone who has posted. Especially Aggathon, your post was a great help.

We're on Vezax HM at this moment, 25 man. So we're close on the progression, but still a while off. As for what my guild's progression, they prefer to do it that way, so I have to go ahead with them. Although, personally, I'd rather get ToTGC going first for the gear to help me along.

As for EHP, I'll need to focus on stamina, and armour mostly, right? I haven't had the chance, or the luck really, to be able to grab other pieces so I can create other sets. Although, do you think it's best for me to grab other pieces of Tier 9 gear with my emblems, so I can socket them with other gems to make them into other sets? Like avoidance, and so on?

As for the enchant, I've had, other the course of a few weeks, all three different enchants on my weapon. And I didn't see much effect really, but then again, I did not pay attention too much.

Thanks for the tip on the gems, since I was confused for what I should be gemming for, apart from Stam. Should I gem for dodge more? OR perhaps Parry?

Also, as for threat, it varies. I can keep on top most of the time with the raid maximising threat, but there are times I can struggle if there is no hunter or rogue. But I'll try the armour enchant for gloves.

Actually, another question. Armour. What exactly does it give you? I know it's amazing. But is something like 300 armour that much of a difference?

Trinkets: Although I love the dodge Fervor gives, I absolutely hate the useless effect. I have a Brewfest trinket, but I socketed the JCing Crab with 2 epic stam gems. Would that be better than the Brewfest? Or would you say pure stam overrides Stam and dodge?

I've had no luck with Heart of Iron, although, I do have enough emblems to grab Glyph of Indomitability, however, I was saving for:

Faceplate of the Honorbound - Item - World of Warcraft

I am 6 marks off that. And as I see, I get a huge upgrade with that helm.

Sorry for more questions btw, but your advice has helped me a lot. I'm going to change my specc, and adjust it. And I would love to get into ToTGC more for the great tanking items, however my guilds agenda is different.

Thanks a lot all!

[felhoof]

It's actually 102.4% total block and avoidance. The simple way to remember this is that it's 100% against level 80s. It's .8% per level difference, which is why it's 101.6% against lvl 82s.

Hit's importance is very much relative to how important it is that non-melee-based attacks and abilities connect. The most relevant most of the time is taunt. If it's absolutely crucial that you have taunt connect, you should have more hit. Don't go insane with it - glyph of taunt helps immensely here - but definitely do consider more hit. Other things like shouts and tclap can be absolutely crucial on certain fights, so again - use your judgment.

Of parry, block and dodge - it very much depends between parry and dodge what your current levels of each are. Also note that defense can contribute as much if not more depending. If you want pure avoidance, most of the time dodge is going to win - but if your dodge differential is too great relative to parry, parry can actually give you more overall avoidance. In general, seek a balance and gem for neither.

[Aggathon]

Source: Okutai As for EHP, I'll need to focus on stamina, and armour mostly, right? I haven't had the chance, or the luck really, to be able to grab other pieces so I can create other sets. Although, do you think it's best for me to grab other pieces of Tier 9 gear with my emblems, so I can socket them with other gems to make them into other sets? Like avoidance, and so on? ... Thanks for the tip on the gems, since I was confused for what I should be gemming for, apart from Stam. Should I gem for dodge more? OR perhaps Parry? ... Actually, another question. Armour. What exactly does it give you? I know it's amazing. But is something like 300 armour that much of a difference? ....

I grouped these together and will answer it as one. EHP = Effective hit points. Technically there are 2 kinds of EHP, there's PEH and MEH or Pyshical Effective Health and Magical Effective Health.

For Physical EHP the only things that effect it are Armor and Stam. The "effective hit points" is basically the translation of how much damage you can take going from full to dead. If you look at the tankspot calculator TankSpot - Calculator you can enter your stats and see your EHP pool. Armor is important (and for physical EHP arguably better than stam) since it reduces the amount you are hit by, and thus that is also EHP that doesn't need to be healed. And yes, 300 armor IS that good, plug it into the EHP calculator and you'll see. The cloak enchant of 225 armor is something like 570 EHP which for purely physical effective health is about 50 stam, which enchant would you rather have? 16 def or 50 stam?

Magical Effective Health is Stam and Resistance, however due to the limited amount of fights in which resistance is needed, you don't typically worry about it in your main set, though there are fights where it can be very nice.

Stam is the only thing that will 100% keep you alive between both magic and physical, so for the most part this is why stam is the best.

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT AVOIDANCE. Whatever the regular avoidance you have on your gear is that should be sufficient. The problem with avoidance is that even if you have a lot, unless you are unhittable you can still get unlucky avoidance strings and just die. There are also some mechanics (like on NBR) that stun your or somesuch and thus you cannot avoid the damage, and you simply have to have the raw hps to survive.

Don't waste your emblems on T9 gear to gem it for avoidance, there are specific items you'll want to pick up once you do get your Anub'Arak set going. There are a bunch of threads out there you can look at and you can also look at my armory for some options too as I am probably logged out in my unhittable set. But seriously... don't worry about it yet, just pick up things with blockrating and block value, like the BP off of Auriaya.

Gemming: GEM STAM <- I can't say it enough. Even in my threat gear I have pretty much all stam gems, I'll just switch gear out that has more exp than stam or something. But I digrees... GEM STAM. The only time you don't gem for stam is when you're gemming a red socket that activates your meta and that socket should be the one that has the best +stam socket in your gear.

Also, as for threat, it varies. I can keep on top most of the time with the raid maximising threat, but there are times I can struggle if there is no hunter or rogue. But I'll try the armour enchant for gloves.

Do armor if you can, as far as threat goes once you spec into deep wounds most of your threat problems should be settled. If not you just need to work more on your roation. Priority should be (iirc) Shockwave -> Conc Blow -> Shield Slam -> Revenge -> Devestate (assuming you're not glyphed for devestate and you have imp revenge, if you are glyphed for devestate then it is better).

Trinkets: Although I love the dodge Fervor gives, I absolutely hate the useless effect. I have a Brewfest trinket, but I socketed the JCing Crab with 2 epic stam gems. Would that be better than the Brewfest? Or would you say pure stam overrides Stam and dodge? ... I've had no luck with Heart of Iron, although, I do have enough emblems to grab Glyph of Indomitability, however, I was saving for: Faceplate of the Honorbound - Item - World of Warcraft I am 6 marks off that. And as I see, I get a huge upgrade with that helm.

I grouped these 2 sections too to answer them at once.

Use the brewfest one or the JC one, whichever is more stam. Heart of Iron is a very acceptable alternative, I'd consider it a sidegrade. The Black Heart is also a very solid trinket b/c of the armor proc. Glyph of indom is good for PEH fights only though pretty much. Stam trinkets are more rounded for any fight. If you have other trinkets and want to buy something else, then skipping glyph of indom for now is fine.

As far as the helm specifically, I personally would hold out for T9 or Helm of Wrath off of ony25, but if that's the best you can do for the time being then go for it.

[krc]

Source: Aggathon Use the brewfest one or the JC one, whichever is more stam. Heart of Iron is a very acceptable alternative, I'd consider it a sidegrade.

I don't see how you consider the Brewfest one an upgrade and the Heart of Iron a sidegrade. The ability to trigger 432 dodge rating on command for 20 seconds on only a 2 minute cooldown in my opinion will save you more often than only about a little more than 80 hp.

I know that in ToC stamina is by far the king because of all the unavoidable damage but I think in any situation that on use from the Heart of Iron can't be ignored. Same thing with the Glyph of Indomitaly the stats are less valuable than the Brewfest trinket in ToC but its on use is so spectacular that it is going to keep you from dying much more often.

[Aggathon]

Source: krc I don't see how you consider the Brewfest one an upgrade and the Heart of Iron a sidegrade. The ability to trigger 432 dodge rating on command for 20 seconds on only a 2 minute cooldown in my opinion will save you more often than only about a little more than 80 hp. I know that in ToC stamina is by far the king because of all the unavoidable damage but I think in any situation that on use from the Heart of Iron can't be ignored. Same thing with the Glyph of Indomitaly the stats are less valuable than the Brewfest trinket in ToC but its on use is so spectacular that it is going to keep you from dying much more often.

You miss-understood me, I meant that the Heart of Iron is a sidegrade to brewfest trinkets. There are some fights (H-NBR, H-Anub, Steelbreaker, etc.) where the dodge isn't gonna matter. On other fights I think the proc is very beneficial, specifically I used Heart of Iron during cosmic smashes on algalon so that if a healer had to move I would hopefully take less incoming dmg. Hence: HoI is roughly Equal to a brewfest trinket overall, each has their place. I do say I find brewfest trinkets kinda cheesy though.

Also: glyph of indom I consider better than any trinket 'cept 258 Jug's Vit for pure EHP fights.

[drae]

Aggathon is smarts. I agree with everything he says here with one exception.

I prefer headplate of the honorbound to the wrath helm and t9 helm. But then Ony is free.

[Aggathon]

Source: drae Aggathon is smarts. I agree with everything he says here with one exception. I prefer headplate of the honorbound to the wrath helm and t9 helm. But then Ony is free.

I like the T9 helm because it has a red socket bonus with +12 stam. That means you'll actually get slightly more stam out of the helm, you'll always have your meta because the red gem is in your helm so you can swap gear freely, and you can gem everything else for stam and don't have to go for a 9 stam bonus. So actually T9 is 3 stam better! lol.

I don't need the expertise on the honorbound helm., I prefer the BV for threat since I can get exp capped if I'm worried about threat and I don't really worry about that in an EHP set anyways and as for the avoidance... well you've seen my views on that. I have plenty of defense, I'm going for stam/meta benefits. These two helms are pretty close though, I'd never knock anyone for using one over the other.

But... Helm of Wrath is 182 stam... why wouldn't you want that? It's 2nd BiS for EHP only to the 258 T9 helm. I would wear it if I got it in a heartbeat.

[krc]

Ah sorry Aggathon I misunderstood you and yeah I do agree that Glyph of Indomitaly is the best trinket other than Satrina's Impending Scarab.

[yobotra]

I have basically same problems. My guild is giving me hard time that im gemming and enchanting wrong but they aint telling what is wrong . You guys gave so good responces so i will try the same.

The World of Warcraft Armory

What i learned from previous post is that i need to change my talent build. We are trying to get 25 man lord jaraxxus hc down. I had fairly big problems on first hc boss and extra cooldowns are welcomed.

[Aggathon]

Source: yobotra I have basically same problems. My guild is giving me hard time that im gemming and enchanting wrong but they aint telling what is wrong . You guys gave so good responces so i will try the same. The World of Warcraft Armory What i learned from previous post is that i need to change my talent build. We are trying to get 25 man lord jaraxxus hc down. I had fairly big problems on first hc boss and extra cooldowns are welcomed.

Seems fairly decent:

As far as gemming goes: I personally would switch the gem in your pants from dodge to dodge/stam and then put 30 stam in your helm. I'd also say go armor to gloves instead of 18 stam.

Also if you're having problems with LJ it shouldn't be b/c of tanks. It's probably one the easist main tank fights and I actually have to tell people to not kick the felfireball that he casts on the tanks so that I can get more rage. He doesn't hit me enough D=

Your add tank might have a bit harder of a time, the infernals can be tricky, but you just gotta have enough dps to burn down the portals (we only get 1 mistress now, 2 is survivable, 3 is really rough, it probably could be done but I don't think we've ever gotten 3), dispell the buff on him when you need to, kite the legion flame correctly, and make sure no one stands on top of infernals and that ranged single targets them down.

Edit: forgot to comment about spec
Your spec seems pretty decent, though I'd say put the 2 points in cruelty into imp disciplines and take 3 points from either shield spec or focused rage and put them into imp tclap. Also pick up the glyphs of last stand and shield wall and probably replace devastate and vigilance.

[drae]

Meh the Helm of wrath has more stam but I really like my expertise; TBH I may change my mind in the future, but atm I'm quite happy with it. In my eyes the T9.25 helm can't compete with honorguard; block is a really lackluster stat. Also my guild has some really high dps, and I'm forced to consider threat stats again, even with a DW build. Also why I really love my devastate glyph.

[Aggathon]

Source: drae Meh the Helm of wrath has more stam but I really like my expertise; TBH I may change my mind in the future, but atm I'm quite happy with it. In my eyes the T9.25 helm can't compete with honorguard; block is a really lackluster stat. Also my guild has some really high dps, and I'm forced to consider threat stats again, even with a DW build. Also why I really love my devastate glyph.

Stam is significantly better than expertise, period.

Also: what threat problems are you having? I rarely have any threat problems and none of our dps are usually under 6kdps, most are pushing 8-9kdps on single targets. My in my EHP gear I have 35 expertise and 89 Hit right now.