Tanking in ICC - Defense Rating

Currently my guild is just getting into ICC 10 man, we have downed Lord Marrowgar and have been rep farming for a while now. I've heard rumors about being over defense capped for ICC and that being so will help me take less damage and overall help my healers/raid more. Just want to see if this is true.

Here is a link to my armory Paladan I'm currently sitting at 555 defense rating, with 16 defense rating on my cloak and 20 defense rating on my shield. Just wondering if I should change those out and go back down to 540 defense rating or if I should stay where I am and stay over defense capped.

Any scrutiny/helpful comments/criticism about my gear/spec/gems/enchants would be most greatly appreciated and welcomed. Thank you all in advance.

ICC works just like any other raid as far as defense goes - Defense over 540 is useful, but not optimal. Get rid of as many defense gems and enchants as you can without going under 540.

Alright cool, I currently have no defense gems in any of my gear. I have 2 defense enchants (other than my head enchant) which now that I have some input I'll be switching out.

Thanks for the reply, more are welcome :D

I noticed you have 3 strength/stam gems not sure why you are doing this if its for threat go with agility/stam as agi gives us some armor, crit, attack power and dodge, personally if i need red sockets i go with dodge/stam. Also if threat is that big of a problem then just go back to arms man for gloves and drop stam enchant because you are losing more stam in the end splitting your gems between strength and stam. I saw you went 20 strength for your weapon i would recommend going mongoose instead because it has both threat and avoidence. Also going 22 stam without pursuit of justice is a no no go with tuskarr's vitality. Pallies are flat footed: warriors and druids charge the enemy and DKs pull them toward them pallies must rely on a quicker movement speed to close with our enemies.

Agility dont give paladin melee ap? Thats hunter, rogue shammy and cat?

Attributes - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Thanks for all the replies everyone, just gonna answer some of the questions here then we can go from there :D

I went strength/stam just for block/threat. I don't have any problems with threat at all but extra threat is never turned away. Same thing with the enchant on my weapon, went with strength because of the block/threat. Honestly forgot all about Mongoose lol. Would Bladeward or Life Draining be worth it for tanking? And I don't normally have a problem with getting to mobs, and the Tuskarr Vitality enchant I see it as a waste. Avenger Shield silences so the mobs generally come to me. And if that doesn't work LOS is my friend :)

thank you for your comments Hammerfists, I really do appreciate them. I welcome anymore comments/criticism.

Sorry to double post but I just wanted to let you all know I changed out my gems, hope those look better lol. Still working on the weapon, should I get Bladeward or Mongoose?

Mongoose is better for pallies. Apparently b/c of SoV the uptime is around 80%.

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Originally Posted by Paladan

Sorry to double post but I just wanted to let you all know I changed out my gems, hope those look better lol. Still working on the weapon, should I get Bladeward or Mongoose?

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Its probably going to be a LOT easier to get Mongoose than Blade ward. I tried for 2 days to get my weapon enchanted with Blade Ward before I gave up..

Alright cool. Thanks for the help guys, going to get Mongoose right now.

Being a warrior tank, i'm the most mobile class in the game. Still, i can easily say the extra mobility of tuskarrs has given me more utility than an extra 7 stam will give. I'm a strong supporter of tuskarrs and not just on the tanks but on every raid member.

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Originally Posted by Fledern

Being a warrior tank, i'm the most mobile class in the game. Still, i can easily say the extra mobility of tuskarrs has given me more utility than an extra 7 stam will give. I'm a strong supporter of tuskarrs and not just on the tanks but on every raid member.

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Pallys get persuit of justice and it doesn't stack, but for warriors ya totally tuskarr's.

If you're going for threat don't gem strength. You'll get more by gemming expertise up until 26 at the least.

Alright, sweet deal. So basically what I'm seeing is either respec and get Pursuit of Justice or change the enchant out on my boots to Tuskarr's Vitality.

I do have a question about Tuskarr's Vitality tho, I haven't done very much end game raiding (ICC that is) save for TOC 10/25. But I was wondering what encounter/raid boss I would need to be running faster in? Does it honestly make that much of a difference?


Thank you all so very much again, I really appreciate each response and I'm learning alot.

Yes, it does make a huge difference. in ToC - Beasts is a huge one where it can mean the difference between a wipe and a kill. If you're the add tank on jaraxxus or even the main tank that needs to move him out of fire if a melee lingers too long. Faction Champs it is very useful in. Not as useful on twins if you use a strat where tanks don't ever move, which is most strats. On Anub it is also very useful, especially with phase 2 and getting back to positioning faster.

In ICC: chasing marrowgar, getting back to positions fast enough, etc. definitely helpful.

Very helpful on Lady Deathwhisper regarding add pickup, etc.

Gunship it's not as needed, but still nice, esp when avoiding rockets.

Saurfang it's not really needed as a tank, but I think all the different cirumstances where it is useful outweighs everything else.

"defense is not optimal". This statement is not precise. Defense gives the most raw avoidance before DR, and even after DR, you'll want, for good work around the dr, more Defense rating than parry rating(discounting the obligatory amount for 540 def skill).

Agility dont give paladin melee ap? Thats hunter, rogue shammy and cat?

That's more than likely how cataclysm will work. Although feral druids will probably get an ability to get benefit from both stats. Agility gives us attack power, dodge, armor and crit while strength gives us just attack power granted pallies get shield block value and spell power from it but threat isnt your main concern its reducing damage intake.

For threat Paladan i would recommend moving points out of Divinity and into Crusade or Seal of the Pure. You already get 6% to healing with Improved Devo Aura having another 5% with 5 points will just create move overhealing. Vindication is a great talent as well its Improved Demo Shout and only costs us 2 points. Picking this up frees points for the other tanks to pick something else up.

Other thing too if you get Divine Sacrifice you might as well get Divine Guardian or just drop Divine Sacrifice all together. The reason i say this is because alone Divine Sacrifice will redirect 30% of party's damage to you but Divine Guardian will take 20% damage off the raid (not directed to you just mitigated off of them).

For an idea of a spec this is mine:The World of Warcraft Armory

If you're going for threat don't gem strength. You'll get more by gemming expertise up until 26 at the least.

I nabbed this from Jere's post in another topic this comes from maintankadin and deals with how Paladins interact with expertise:

Current conclusions:

* Expertise is about 73% as effective as dodge rating for reducing incoming damage (first link).
* Expertise is about 69% as effective as dodge rating for reducing the number of incoming attacks that connect (also first link).
* Expertise is actually 2x-4x better than dodge at reducing spike damage intake from boss melee attacks, with the added benefit that it preferentially reduces the largest spikes, thus smoothing out our spike damage by reducing the maximum spike size (second link).
* Each point of expertise rating also gives us about 1/3 of a point of STR.
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...rb_v=viewtopic

Awesome, absolutely awesome stuff. Thank you Hammerfists for all the info, and I'm changing up my spec right now lol. I thought I had a pretty decent spec but I like the one you have way more.

Again thank you all for all the help.

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Originally Posted by Hammerfists

Agility dont give paladin melee ap? Thats hunter, rogue shammy and cat?

That's more than likely how cataclysm will work. Although feral druids will probably get an ability to get benefit from both stats. Agility gives us attack power, dodge, armor and crit while strength gives us just attack power granted pallies get shield block value and spell power from it but threat isnt your main concern its reducing damage intake.
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If agility will give paladins AP in cataclysm, that dont really help right now when it dont, does it?

You got it backwards Mctankor. Right now we get attack power from agility but in Cataclysm we more than likely wont.