[Laidtowaste]

I'm sure im just going through what everyone goes through once the hit 70, a constant uphill battle to get good gear so they can run stuff...

I was in a group for Heroic MGT with my gear putting me at 11 1/2k unbuffed and 484 Def. Given if i am under the requirements for this instance thats one thing. but the preist so my stats, said "WTF Im not healing this gay tank" left group and Hearthed.

Every group i've ran up to Heroic BM Has gone flawlessly. I cant find a Kara and i feel stuck. I need any advice i can get... Because im struggling

This is my armory if that helps
The World of Warcraft Armory

[Tatt]

Welcome to pug hell. Every pug wants the tank to have 50,000 hp, the healer to have 3000 bonus heals, and the dps to 1 shot everything in site. Ok every pug is not correct, but 90% of them isn't. Until you get some more gear you are going to have to make friends with the people you do heroics with and get them to go with you to the harder ones.

By the way, you could get another 1000 hp and a lot more defense and dodge if you just chanted/glyphed your gear. I know it sucks to spend money on gear you will replace, but it might help you get to the new gear quicker.

[clavarnway]

Just keep doing pugs...you will find the good people..and the bad ones. Keep grouping with the good ones.

[Thist]

I disagree with "just keep doing pugs". I think you should fix your spec (at least fill out Toughness), and grab easy purples (even dps ones) and socket them for defense if you must. Check our Berg's tanking gear guide on this site and see you can get most easily - for example you just need to push Shattered Sun rep a bit further then spend only 23g for a great neck since you are Scryer. I would grab arena/pvp shoulders and chest because they are also easy purples and have many sockets. Also look for crafted items that you can easily farm mats for. Enchant your better blues and all the purples you get too. I do understand your frustration though - you clearly quested and pugged long and hard to get the gear you have now :-(

[clavarnway]

I didn't mean leave your gear the way it is - anytime a player (ANY player) decides that their gear is "good enough" and doesn't seek any upgrades (whichever way possible, be it thru badges, quests, PVP, raids, etc), they have failed at this game! There's always upgrades!

[Kagere]

Hey Laidtowaste,

I felt like how you felt when i just turned 70. You have decent gear for your progression, but you are getting pretty close to the point where your only upgrades are from the higher end instances, the start of kara, or pvp.

Personally for you, I'd reccommend doing some pvp, for the honor bought shield and shoulders. They are great items. Also the shield from the dailies rep vendor is excellent, as well as the neck. Money you get from those could go towards enchanting your gear. Check out the tank gear rankings for the appropriate enchant.

Oh, and i would respec. You would probably benefit a great deal from having 5/5 toughness. Try to find any tanks without that talent, it will be hard to do.


Also, pay no attention to pug idiots. Run with your guild, or with good people you like to run with, or had good runs before. Heroic Magister's Terrace is a bitch to run when you are decently geared, let alone slightly undergeared. The priest was just looking for a quick easy afk healing for rep or a drop chance.

[Bodasafa]

The best bet is get with a good guild if your not in one already. And I dont mean a guild thats doing Black Temple, I mean one thats got good ppl. Preferably a guild thats just starting Kara and has a bunch of players that are around the same gear lvl as you.

Placing yourself in that position will allow you options to run with guildies that need the same things instead of pugs wich suck.

[Gromblee]

Hey Bro I feel your pain.....I'm in the same area. Mgt is a real pain in the behind. I have not completed it yet in normal.... but have not tried for some time. I get a few Kara runs with guilds I have met some good people in. You will have some of you best times and all of your worst times in PUG's. I know I mostly solo and PUG. There are some good rep pieces out there, PVP is not an option for me.... I just can not get myself to stomach it even though I am on a PVP server. Hang in there and you will get through these times. Every new 70 learns there is a whole new game once you reach the top and it is much tougher than getting to 70.

[Porkins]

Get Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall tomorrow.

Run easier heroics. Magister's Terrace on Heroic can throw a lot of damage at a tank in a short amount of time. If I were in the priest's place(and I have a 70 priest with 2.1k healing), I would have gracefully disconnected.

[Kerchunk]

While I agree that PuGs do suck, I have to admit I would not run with you in Heroic MrT. You're simply not ready for what is hands-down the hardest Heroic in the game. Start simpler.

Easy Heroics (in order from easiest): Mechanar, Slave Pens, Underbog, Ramparts, Mana-Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Black Morass.

For now, stay away from (in order from hardest): Magister's Terrace, Durnholde, Shattered Halls, Blood Furnace, Shadow Labryinth.


As for "I can't find a Kara," I'm sorry but you really must. This should be your first and number one priority. Find a new guild. Server transfer if you have to. Your gear is going to progress very slowly if you cannot find a group to clear Karazhan with on a weekly basis. The drops are a secondary concern - without the steady intake of 22 Badges per week, it's going to take you months and months to save the 400+ you need for all the Badge gear you will eventually want to pick up.

Anyway, don't give up. It's easier than it looks. You just have to get into a rhythm and find some people you trust (and who trust you regardless of gear) to start running the things you can handle (including OT'ing Karazhan).

Your priorities:

a) Find a regular Karazhan group. You cannot live without the Badges from this place. At least not comfortably. Also, there's a ton of gear there for you.

b) Start running early Heroics. Get The Sun Eater from Mechanar, and while you're at it you will probably pick up the Sha'tar shield which is a great starter shield.

c) Buy badge gear. Start from the ground up (instead of trying to save for the big stuff): Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx, Slikk's Cloak of Placation, etc.

d) Get Exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive. The neckpiece is a great starter, and the shield will work until you get Gruul's or Jan'alai's shield.

[Barlic]

One suggestion I can give is use looking for group, and look for a group quest no one does to idle in the channel looking for people that want tanks. That was how I managed to get my first couple kara pugs as an offtank which helped me get my gear started.

Though you will always run into people that seem to want crazy overgearing, for example needing T4+ to do the last boss of setthic halls on heroic....just the last boss...

[Ukk]

You are not geared for Kara and are barely geared for the easier heroics - Ramps, Slave Pens, maybe Mech, as long as you have a good group. Does that reflect on your ability? No.

You sound like a good tank, and you are off to a good start, and you will get there. Not tomorrow, and maybe not next week - depends on how much work you are willing to do to gear up.

As far as your gear, there is nothing I can say that tells you any better than Polar's pre-Kara gear list. I can only presume you are new to the site since you don't have all of the gear from his list. You will find the thread, Polar's Easy Pre-Kara gear list, sickied near the top of the Gear forum and you will check it every day to see what you should be working on next.

If you read the responses to Polar's thread you will learn that you should be doing every SSO daily every day until you reach exalted and get the shield and neck, and, in my opinion, the head glyph (+18 stam and +20 resil, which actually lowers the required defense to be uncrittable).

Every tank that wants to group for easier heroics and kara should have all of the recommended gear AND the recommended enchants/glyphs/armor kits. Spend the money on the enchants. I would not want to run with someone who is not trying to get the most out of their gear.

If you do this your defense will be well above 490, and your HP and Armor will be at or above 12,000 each, which is where you should be for Kara. Once you get the SSO gear, you will surpass the Kara minimums. And you will STILL find the occasional moron who will think you are undergeared, but you will smugly think to yourself what a clueless teenage noob that fellow is. And you will be right.

EDIT: Spend the money for the [item]Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer[/item]. The last tank gun you will need until the expansion.

[nobel]

gear takes time.. don't get discouraged..there are some easier heroics out there and HMT is not one of them by any means. There is a ton of dmg that goes out to the tank.

Take a look at some of the pages here.. alot of good info in the way of getting some gear that will help you get the gear lvl to match your skill. Gear comes.. it takes a bit of work.. but it comes.. don't toss yourself in heroics and kara till you take a look at the links for the pre kara gear list..

I would also suggest to find a good guild of people.. they don't have to be serious just good half decent peeps that you can get along with.. chit chat on vent and do some 5 mans.. Pugs now a days are even worse then when i was lvling up.. i don't know whats wrong with some people these days.. its like they get into a group and expect it to be done in 5 fricken mins.. guess they never ran BRD LOL

Just stay positive and have fun

[fastidius]

Magisters heroic is very hard - lots of casters so you have trouble grouping them, LoS pulls a mile away and some serious DPS coming in to add to the mass pulling.


You are not geared for all heroics, you might get away with some of the easier ones. In fact you have barely run any instances.....note that the fact you can get heroic keys at honored is because they nerfed the rep requirement from revered. For DPS it's less of a factor because the tanks/healers are tough enough to cope with an extra few seconds per fight. For tanks however you need the gear from the normals/rep Rewards. If you had all your factions at revered you would have almost all the gear you would need to hit Kara/25Mans. without revered on almost every rep your wearing entry tanking gear.

Don't quit your a gear dependant class, earn the gear via rep and chants/gems and you will get there. if you can get into a Kara raid or two you can skip a few of the normal instances but you will be a passenger rather than a tank there...

[psinister]

OP,

I feel your pain. Below is a prescription for your pain killers!!!

First on the to-do list is making friends... lots of friends. No tanking involved.
Next, you need to run the easy heroics someone listed above my post and you have to go back to some of the regular instances and farm some easy upgrades. You have some ore gathering and skinning to do. You have some web links to mouse over and some to click (included below in the body of my post). Lastly you have some dailies to do. There is some advice about adjusting your spec... its sound advice.


----[Making friends and using your professions]-------
- You have mining use it to collect and sell ore/bars.
- Make a friend with JC leveled up beyond 300 and have him/her prospect some ore stacks for gems for you. Give him/her a tip. Rare and Epic gems get cut to stuff you can use, saved in your bank for later or gets sold/traded for what you need.
- Save the cheepy gems and pay for Brilliant Glass cooldowns (Brilliant Glass - Item - World of Warcraft) from a JC. Brilliant glass gives a guaranteed rare gem with a low chance at an epic gem.
- Make a friend with enchanting leveled up passed 300 and have him/her DE greens for enchant mats. Again, give a tip or share the mats. See what he/she can enchant that you need that will give him/her a skill up in enchanting.
- You have skinning use it and make a friend with LW leveled up. Ask him/her to combine your knothide leather scraps into knothide and heavy knothide leather. Share some of the goods with him/her or tip. Use some of the mats to make leg enchants. Sell some mats for cash or trade for what you need.


---[A few good links]--------
Link for Leg Enchants --> Armor kits - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
Link for the other augments/inscriptions --> Augment - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
Know what gems are available ---> WoW Gem Finder: World of Warcraft Socket Gems and Jewelcrafting Guide
I like wowhead its good and has talent calculators ---> Wowhead: Making load screens bearable since 2006.

If you haven't already gone to this place: Kaliban's Class Loot Lists: Warrior
You should spend some time there.


---[A partial list of enchants based on your gear]--------
- +12 stam to bracer (fortitude)
- Glyph of the defender (Keeper's of Time revered head enchant)
- Inscription or Greater Inscription of the knight (Scryer shoulder enchant)
- +150 hp to chest, +6 all stats or +defense to chest enchant (I would take +150 hp or +6 stats)
- For your gloves... +8 stam armor kit, +15 agility, +15 strength, or +2% threat (stam armor kit might be cheapest so look it up)
- You will find the mats needed for the Clefthide leg armor kit in the link above (30 stam, 10 agi).
- +12 stam to boots (fortitude)... this is really cheap only 12 arcane dust.
- +12 agility or +12 dodge to cloak
- +18 stamina to shield (major stamina)... again really cheap only 15 arcane dust.
- Someone already suggested the Engineering gun... just get the mats and get it crafted.


---[Some upgrades to farm up N-O-W BEFORE kara]----------
Rings:
From Mech reg/heroic ---> Dath'Remar's Ring of Defense - Item - World of Warcraft
SMV chain quest reward (bring friends with you) ---> Protector's Mark of the Redemption - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in Arc reg/heroic ---> Elementium Band of the Sentry - Item - World of Warcraft

Cloak:
Drop in BM reg/heroic ---> Burnoose of Shifting Ages - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in UnderBog reg/heroic ---> Cloak of Enduring Swiftness - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in SV reg/heroic ---> Devilshark Cape - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in Mech ---> Thoriumweave Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in NORMAL Magisters ---> Cloak of Blade Turning - Item - World of Warcraft

Chest:
Drop in Mech reg/heroic --> Jade-Skull Breastplate - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in Arc reg/heroic ---> Breastplate of the Bold - Item - World of Warcraft

Shield:
Drop in Bot reg/heroic ---> Aegis of the Sunbird - Item - World of Warcraft
SMV chain quest reward (bring friends to help you) ---> Netherwing Protector's Shield - Item - World of Warcraft

Neck:
Drops in SV reg/heroic ---> Steam-Hinge Chain of Valor - Item - World of Warcraft

Trinket:
Drop in Heroic UB only (stamina trinket) --> Argussian Compass - Item - World of Warcraft
Drop in shat halls reg/heroic (use w/ Dabiri's trinket) ---> Figurine of the Colossus - Item - World of Warcraft


Work on your scryer, sha'tar, SSO, and CE reputations. Get your cooking to 375 and work on fishing too. With all the farming, questing, normal and easy heroic runs you should have lots of friends. As someone said above, "Gear takes time". However, no one ever said progress was a slow process.

[Kerchunk]

You are not geared for Kara and are barely geared for the easier heroics - Ramps, Slave Pens, maybe Mech, as long as you have a good group.

I understand where you're coming from, but this is simply not true. He may not be geared to MT a 2.5-hour badge run, but he is most certainly geared just fine to OT a standard Karazhan run and in fact that is exactly what he should be doing as often as possible.

In fact, provided his group is actually at their keyboards, his gear is fine to MT everything in Karazhan besides Prince and Nightbane.

You're making exactly the mistake he's complaining about in his OP - vastly overestimating the gear requirements for things like Karazhan. People are spoiled by 15k+ HP tanks and 2k bonus healers these days so they start to think these things are "required." They're not.

[LittleMan]

I too can relate to your frustration. It is hard getting over the gear hump to be able to comfortable tanking heroics without straining healing resources or putting group in danger. So many puggers want the quick and easy run so they are less likely to go with a tank who isnt fully epiced out. I have had people refuse to alow me to tank because my HP was under 14 k at the time lol... Kinda sucks. I've had to pug my way through everything for the most part and this includes the majority of my kara runs as well.. It's painful as heck but in the end you will come out a better tank for having to take the rough and tumble route.

Don't give up, your dedication will be rewarded one day.

Best of luck.

[Aoshi]

I would hit SSO rep grind much as you can. The rewards are awesome.

[Ukk]

People are spoiled by 15k+ HP tanks and 2k bonus healers these days so they start to think these things are "required." They're not.

Look, I have encountered unrealistic expectations for tanking generated by the easily available badge loot, and agree that many non-tanks have exceedingly high expectations. I never said he needed 15k or 14k or even 13k hp - but isn't 12k hp and armor a commonly accepted baseline for kara? And shouldn't he go get +12 stam to bracers, +150 HP to chest, +12 stam to boots, +10 stam armor kit to gloves, +30 stam/+8 agility armor kit to legs? Shouldn't he have gotten most of the items off of Polar's list? (It appears he has already gotten or equipped a few more items since I last posted.)

I think these are reasonable expectations of his party-members, and are not "vastly overestimat[ed] gear requirements."

edit: +18 stam to shield also