Contents
Introduction - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Gems - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Backs - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Chests - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Feet - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Rings - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Hands - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Heads - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Leggings - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Necklaces - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Ranged - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Shields - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Trinkets - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Belts - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Weapons - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Bracers - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Shoulders - WOTLK Tanking Gear List - TankSpot
Version History
(10/03/2009) - Patch 3.1 continued: Added more Ulduar items and removed all non-SWP/T6 pre-WOTLK items.
(24/02/2009) - Patch 3.1: Started adding Ulduar items when the come to my attention. Added BOE crafted belt and boots.
(17/12/2008) - Patch 3.0.8: Tempered Titansteel Helm went from being subpar to decent after addition of sockets. I'm still slacking in the enchants department, hoping to get them up to date soon.
(1/12/2008) - Updated several items and added a few more. Updated the comments.
(27/10/2008) - Added a couple of new items, not much though.
(10/10/2008) - Names and sources updated for a lot of items. Changed the baseline gear to include more block value and the boss to hit harder.
(1/10/2008) - Another large batch of items after a couple of weeks of slackage.
(19/9/2008) - Loads of new items.
(17/9/2008) - Misc. updates. New armor slot comments.
(16/9/2008) - Added more T4/T5 level gear. Fixed some item IDs on.
(15/9/2008) - More new items.
(12/9/2008) - Many new items added. Item links still missing for a few of them.
(11/9/2008) - New items added from latest beta patch, more to come. Updated to WOTLK version of Vitality talent, Stamina is worth slightly more now. Fixed a few mistakes. Added all Rare and Epic gems. Standard gem is now 24 Stamina instead of 21 - adds more value to sockets.
(10/9/2008) - Added WOTLK enchants for most item slots.
(9/9/2008) - Added several TBC items, fixed a couple that were still using old stats, and added on-use effects. Some new WOTLK items added too, including the level 75 shield from The Violet Hold.
(8/9/2008) - Initial version, still very rough and certainly work in progress. If you spot any errors, mistakes, or just plain weirdness, please point it out so I can fix it. The changes to SWP/T6 gear have been included.
TODO: Update enchants
Introduction
While tanking my way through TBC, Berg's Tank Gear Rankings has been something I've enjoyed very much. Knowing the limitations of such gear rankings, it has still been a great resource when I wanted to make quantitative comparison between various pieces of tanking equipment.
It's in the spirit of that guide I've deciced to try making a similar tanking gear analysis for Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK). Since WOTLK still is in beta and new gear is discovered all the time, this gear guide will evolve very fast in the beginning. Besides the new gear that is discovered, I would be surprised if Blizzard aren't going to change stats on items as the beta testing progresses.
The guide also includes some end-game raiding gear from TBC, since I guess many will be interested to know how long they can keep using their current equipment. I've tried to include a mix of the best TBC gear and gear that is rather easily obtainable.
The Ranking Method
In contrary to Berg I'm not going to use TankPoints, but instead some similar formulas I've derived myself with WOTLK in mind. The main difference is that this ranking method also uses Expertise in the calculations, which
makes quite a large impact due to the enormous amount of Expertise on a lot of gear these days.
Basically I calculate for how long a Warrior tank can survive getting beat up by a boss, without any heals. For each item I see how long it prolonges the tank's life, and bases the score on that.
It should be noted how this is all about averages, and is just one way to approach tank survival analysis. So please don't take the numbers provided to be the absolute truth.
Assumptions
Expertise as a way of reducing incoming damage
Seeing Expertise as a way of mitigating damage is quite a controversiel subject, and some might say that you only should rely on Expertise to produce threat, and the survival benefit it gives is questionable at best. It can also be argued that the primary survival benefit of Expertise is the decreased chance of getting insta-gibbed by an unfortunate series of parries. That feature of Expertise is surely very useful in many situations, but in the end it's a fact that Expertise decreases the overall damage you take. Basically, you can say that it decreases the average attack speed of the boss in the long run, since it decreases the occurances of parry haste.
The parry model I've used is as follows: If a parry occurs, the boss' next attack occurs 40% of its swing time earlier, unless there's less than 20% of its swing time remaining until next attack.
Furthermore, I've assumed that the tank uses an offensive ability that can be parried every Global Cooldown (GCD), and that he's using a 1.6s weapon.
This is obviously only a rough assumption since it's rarely possible to use every GCD, and the tank might even be using a weapon which is either slower or faster - or he might even have items with Haste Rating, or be affected by Bloodlust, etc. But in the end it won't do that much of a difference on this particular aspect.
The sterotypical melee boss
The boss our theoretical test dummy is fighting is indeed not very complicated. Basically it's just a big brute, smashing away with normal melee attacks. No special attack or abilities. I see this as a good approximation though, since from personal experience and looking through hundreds of my WWS parses, the vast majority of damage we take as tanks are of this type. Our boss has a swing time of 2 seconds and hit for 15000 raw damage (i.e. before mitigated by armor). Futhermore, it is assumed that the boss has a base parry chance of 16%.
The above numbers, especially the damage, is extremely likely to change as soon as I know more about the actual bosses of WOTLK.
Rating conversions
I've strictly used the level 80 combat rating conversions that are available in this Elitist Jerks thread:
Combat Ratings at level 80 - Elitist Jerks
As with everything in the beta, these are subject to change.
Baseline stats
You can see this as the "working point" used when calculating the highly non-linear scores. This is an extremely rough guess on my behalf, and I will change it when I know more.
The stats of our theoretical level 80 Warrior tank:
HP: 23k
Armor: 23k
Dodge chance: 20%
Parry chance: 20%
Block chance: 20%
Miss chance: 10%
Block value: 850
Parry reduction: 3%
Threat Gear In WOTLK
The primary itemization change in WOTLK regarding warrior threat generation, is how important Strength suddenly has become. In fact so important that Blizzard has decided to add much more Strength to current T6/SWP gear, mostly at the cost of decreased mitigation and avoidance.
When comparing TBC gear with WOTLK gear, you should obviously keep this in mind, although it shouldn't be that much of a concern when it comes to T6/SWP tanking gear now.
Reading The List
The entry for each item looks roughly like this:
(item name+link) (points) level quality
Source: where it's obtainable.
As soon as WOTLK go live and the new items are transfered to the main part of wowhead, I'll make proper item links to make it look neater.
Regarding Tier gear: For instance T7(10) will mean that it's a T7-token drop in a 10-man instance. Badge loot is marked in a smilar way.
Crit Immunity
When you level up from 70 to 80, you'll slowly see your crit reduction from defense drop. Keep an eye on it and make sure it don't drop below 5.6% if you intend to fight bosses or mobs 3 levels higher than yours. Xav has written an article about this problem, check it out: WotLK So you're heading to Northrend, huh? - TankSpot
