[Vraego]

Hi everyone - long time reader here at TS - many successful raids because of the clear and intelligent tanking guides here. A quick thank you to everyone here!

My armory profile: The World of Warcraft Armory

So, I've been gearing up my Bear for tanking, and so far have tanked totc 10 / totc 25 without any problems. As I Arena / PVP a bit as Resto, I've had access to all of the Relentless offpieces - which, as any veteran Bear can tell you, aren't too shabby for tanking. (Though, many a PUG raid leaders have laughed and kicked me because of "too much PVP gear"!)

A few questions and issues I have -

1. Am I a stamina whore?

Ok, I like to see big numbers. I'm sitting at 43k HP unbuffed and usually at around 53/54k in a full raid. Current stats (unbuffed) are:

Dodge: 41%
Expertise: 22 (low, I know, but everyone says "Don't gem expertise!")
Armor: 28990
AP: 5950
Hit: 123

Currently using Relentless Belt, Boots and Bracers, along with Furious Gloves + Furious Legs.

So, I've gotten some drops recently like Acidmaw Boots (from 10 man totc normal) - Adds ton of +hit and +expertise, which is great - but effectively losing 7 agility and a whopping 37 stamina.

My gut feeling says "do it, use those PVE boots!" - but is the +hit and expertise worth it?

Next Question: Trinket Use

Currently I usually run with Black Heart + Juggernauts Vitality. I've found this combo, along with Blood Draining enchant, adds some great survivability in "oh shit" situations. However, I also have Eitrigg's Oath (adds like 2% dodge, + 7k armor for 20 seconds once every 2 minutes). From what I've read, it seems stamina is just the way to go (plus the proc on Eitrigg is a bit "meh") - is this the right choice?

Lastly, I'd like to start running some 10 man ToTC heroics. Am I ready to MT these?

Upgrades - clearly my shoulders need it (Trollwoven) - but are the Triumph badge gear (non Tier) really and upgrade from PVP gear?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[geros]

Survival wise the PvP gear is great. Generally speaking the relentless gear ranks in the top for EH/survival. Threat-wise you lose a fair amount of hit and expertise using a good chunk of PvP gear though. My suggestion is to keep the PvP and the PvE gear kicking around and build a survival set and threat set out of it. If you need the extra TPS, swap in the boots. I have a feeling that some of the ToTGC encounters will be hard on you from a TPS perspective with a lot of PvP gear.

Here's a link to an excellent blog post on the triumph badge gear: ThinkTank: [Druid, 3.2] Emblem gear for bears

Here's a link to the bear gear rankings done by the same author:
Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

Also, the relentless staff is going to be a much larger upgrade than 1-2 pieces of PvP gear for you. The PvP weapons are ridiculously good for bears. I'm still wearing my furious staff for bear tanking.