How do you determine if a piece is an upgrade???

So, I'm tanking 10 man Uld at the moment and have started to come across gear (from there and 5 man heroic ToC) that I'm having trouble detrimining if they are upgrades.

I've come across a lot of gear where I gain say 500 health and .5% dodge but loose 1 expertise and .3% parry. Or I gain 1% in dodge but loose 1000 health and .5% in parry. Raitings buster is always showing a few stats going up with the same or more stats going down, and I'm stumped on what to do.

I've got a bank FULL of gear off of 10 mans and Heroics that i just dont know if it is better. I'm posting here because most of the lists out there now are for people running 25 man ToC or 10 man ToC on the bottem end :(. Anyone out there have a good system on how you determine if a piece of gear is an upgrade?

Any and all help is appriciated!

Just know what's important. Do you need that health more than that expertise? Do you need that dodge more than that health?

It's not always health I just used that as an example. somtimes it's exp vs dodge, or def vs parry, or anyother combination of def, health, dodge, parry, sbv, and sbr. I don't knwo when it's better to lose this vs this. I know my friend has a site for his shammy that give a value to each of thier important stats so that he can do a quick calculation and say "yeah that's a net gain of 2 I should wear that" or "that's a net -1 what i've got is better".

Also, identify weak spots. If you are having threat problems, go for threat upgrades. If survival is an issue, go for more effective health.

Also bear in mind the targets
540 defense
26 expertise skill
264 hit
After that, stam stack

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Insahnity

Also, identify weak spots. If you are having threat problems, go for threat upgrades. If survival is an issue, go for more effective health.

Also bear in mind the targets
540 defense
26 expertise skill
264 hit
After that, stam stack

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I know they targets and have most of them (except hit since what i've read if you only need hit i you are having a problem with threat, I've never really worked on hit) and am stacking stam always. But what about things like dodge and parry? How much should i shoot for there? shoud i give up other things like stam and hit for them? Also i'm over 540 def and can be over 550 if i use my def trinkts (currently i'm using 84 def trinket so that i get more dodge and parry. I'm looking for more survivability than anything.

If you will stay def capped, then dodge>parry, stam>avoidance (unless your avoidance is really low.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ZakThePally

If you will stay def capped, then dodge>parry, stam>avoidance (unless your avoidance is really low.)

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(Dodge -10%) / (Parry - 10%) should be as close to 1.88 as possible. If it's higher, go Parry instead.

Usually I look at what I gain vs. What I lose. If I lose more than I will gain... it is generally not an upgrade.

Ie. You gain 100 armor and 2 stam, but lose 5 dodge, 3 strength, 10 expertise, 12 hit. Probably not a huge upgrade unless you can pick up the stats elsewhere.

But if it is more like: Gain 250 armor, 12 stam, 25 dodge and lose 10 parry and 10 expertise... I'd say it go for it. You can pick up parry/expertise elsewhere.

<obligatory self-proclaimed stam czar get ehp post here>

It really is a "feel" thing as much as anything which I think is why you've not really received any specific answers here. Your Shammy may get some great mileage from his list but in reality I find such things to be counterproductive. Only you truly know your current gear, its strengths and weaknesses and how they interract with your playstyle.

However, specifically on the Dodge or Parry question, WarTotem is spot on with his formula. Luckily, you already use RatingBuster though and it will tell you which has more avoidance after diminishing returns - if you lose 0.34% Dodge but gain 0.58% Parry then you're good - it means in avoidance terms the piece is an upgrade, irrespective of whether or not Parry suffers harsher DR or not (as the RB report is after DR anyway).

As a starting point for you though, perhaps it's worth grouping them? Hit, Expertise and Strength are for threat, Defense, Dodge and Parry are for avoidance, Block Value, Block Rating and Expertise are for mitigation (Expertise is more like pseudo-avoidance, but you know what I mean) and Armor and Stamina are for EHP.

You'll get a feel for where you're lacking or what you need as you continue to tank - there's no single guide that can say "do this, for it alone is best" (well, unfortunately there are such guides but they don't really teach you how to decide for yourself) so you really can't beat experience for spotting upgrades quickly.