Gearing for Hydross

I'm the MT of my guild. We've downed all T4 bosses as well as Lurker and VR. I'll likely be handling Frost for Hydross when we start him on Sunday.

I'm willing to do what it takes to down Hydross and do not want my gear to be a limiting factor.

At the moment the only shoulders I have sitting around are T4. I'm using Eternium Greathelm for most bosses and have T4 helm for when I'm screwing around on trash. I have Gruul's shield as well as the Ogrila Shield.

Should I glyph/enchant all my absolute best tanking gear (e.g. Eternium Greathlem, Gruul's Shield, an T4 shoulders)? Or is the extra edge not really worth the expenditure such that I can glyph my T4 helm, the Ogrila shield and skip the shield enchant in favor of +18 stam?

I didn't quite catch the question, but if you're asking to Frost resist up your gear that isn't "Of Frost Protection", if you have the money to spend, go for it, from what I'm seeing and reading Hydross is not a tank friendly fight until you've gotten everyone accustomed to the encounter.

Sorry, I'll be more succinct.

What's preferred?

1) Overwrite existing enchants/glyphs in the pursuit of max resist and max effective health? I'd put up mats to first put a FrR resist enchant on my shoudlers only to spend the dust to replace it again with my normal, exalted Aldor enchant. I'd do the same with my helm and the normal CoT tanking glyph.

2) Use the crafted gear available to me to get as close to max resist as possible but don't worry about getting every enchant. That would "save" me three [item]Frost Armor Kit[/item], [item]Glyph of Frost Warding[/item], as well as enchants to shoulders, shield, back. I'll have a good balance of both resist and effective health.

3) Use backup, out-dated gear that I haven't vendored to enchant with armor kits, glyph, and player enchants. This will push up my resist but will lower my effective health.

Personally I'm going with option 3, I'm working on my primal waters + fire at the moment for my Iceguard.

From what I'm understanding behind the math of the fight, it's better to have your FrR capped out via lvl68+ "Of Frost Protection" greens and the Iceguard set with not such a heavy emphasis on avoidance / stam because you basically HAVE to be able to resist nearly every attack coming at you, and if you don't you're only going to live a handful of hits regardless of the amount of stam you have.

you can also obtain the jewel crafting ring and necklace pretty easy

I'm building my FR set at the moment, and I've encountered a little problem so far...

With 5/5 Anticipation, my defense reaches 490, while my FR tops at 207. Now I can't lose any single def point in favor of FR. I'm thinking about it right now...

I got acouple green items that would put me around 300 FR, but I don't want to try to imagine how much defense I'm going to lose :s ...

Yeah, we're crafting the necks/rings. Assuming I have two rings I can hit 270 no problem. The trick is balancing between the resist, stam, and defense.

And, performing the balance within the set of gear I currently have while patching any gaps with greens from our crappy AH.

Frost resist is easy if you're a smith. Make the head, chest, and legs. Patch them.

Use your old stuff with high defense ratings like felsteel set to up the Def. (and use both trinket slots for defense rating.)

Use the glyph. Use the ring and necklace. Use your highest def rating ring.

Leave the health to the healers. Just pop a free flask and eat a crawdad. It's plenty. If you're maxed out on resist (295? I'm not sure, I'm over by 6 or 7) he hits like a dead kitten until 250%. In fact, you'll be rage starved if you don't go into the transition with a full rage bar.

Do not gimp your current gear.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juggernauth

I'm building my FR set at the moment, and I've encountered a little problem so far...

With 5/5 Anticipation, my defense reaches 490, while my FR tops at 207. Now I can't lose any single def point in favor of FR. I'm thinking about it right now...

I got acouple green items that would put me around 300 FR, but I don't want to try to imagine how much defense I'm going to lose :s ...

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I've heard a lot of tanks drop into the 460 range, so don't feel bad about doing such either.

Shit, keeping 490 is easy. Dropping to 460 is not doing enough for the other 24 people in your raid, and you certainly ought not be tank for long. (Sorry guys, the responsibilities inherent with the position.)

Hydross crits, at least that's what I hear. I wouldn't know, hitting the cap is easy by the time you get to him.

Making your healers job harder just to make your job easier is crap, IMO. If you're not doing everything you can, it might be time to let another tank take over.

Crit immunity > max resists > stamina.

Just from my personal experience tanking him.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nunes

I've heard a lot of tanks drop into the 460 range, so don't feel bad about doing such either.

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But they probably make up the difference with resilience. Def isn't the only way to become uncrittable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stegho

Frost resist is easy if you're a smith. Make the head, chest, and legs. Patch them.

Use your old stuff with high defense ratings like felsteel set to up the Def. (and use both trinket slots for defense rating.)

Use the glyph. Use the ring and necklace. Use your highest def rating ring.

Leave the health to the healers. Just pop a free flask and eat a crawdad. It's plenty. If you're maxed out on resist (295? I'm not sure, I'm over by 6 or 7) he hits like a dead kitten until 250%. In fact, you'll be rage starved if you don't go into the transition with a full rage bar.

Do not gimp your current gear.

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Thanks. That's what I was looking for.

I was planning to flask/crawdad. I can even lose +10 defense on gear because of the flask :)

Wasn't sure though if doing so would screw my HP so much that it was actually a disservice. Knowing that he doesn't hit hard once I'm resist capped makes this easier.

Make sure you loose 10 defense rating and not defense skill though. :)

I had little problem getting to 489 defense/297 FrR (Flask of Fortification and Pally aura adds what's missing) with 2 points in Anticipation with a cloak as only green item (+20 FrR). Used my banked gear for glyphs, enchants, etc. Don't forget that you can get Frost resistance armor kits (+8 FrR) as well as Defense armor kits (+8 defense rating) and an 8 FrR enchant on a shield of your choice, which helps a lot in getting some flexibility.

Just get the 3 blacksmithing items, the neck and the ring that jewelcrafters can make, and you're off to a very healthy start.

Hydross does elemental damage, so he can crit. I.e. you definately want to become crit immune, either purely via defense or via a combination of defense / resilience.

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