Tanking gear stats

Hi,

I mostly dps as fury warrior but i have been tanking some heriocs. Now i always have bad luck with dps gear drops but i am lucky with the tank gear drops. Which tank gear stats are important? What is the cap of dodge, parry and block? I know the hitcap is 8% and expertise is 26.

I have both Ymirjar Lord's Handguards and Hellscream's Handguards of Triumph. With the Ymirjar my armor goes up but with the Triumph my dodge and parry is higher which one should i equip now?

I have some more items can you give me some advice which one you would equip if capped for hit and expertise:

Rimefang's Claw or
Peacekeeper Blade

Legplates of Feverish Dedication or
Hellscream's Legguards of Triumph

Sunreaver Defender's Pauldrons or
Hellscream's Pauldrons of Conquest

Greetz

DarkraveR

540 defense is your first concern as a raider. Then, you want to stack as much stamina and armor (effective health) as possible. Avoidance (dodge, parry, defense past 540) is still very nice to have but not as important as EH for tanking slow, hard-hitting raid bosses. Block value is a nice threat stat but offers little defensively - block rating is garbage for tanking raid bosses.

As far as threat stats, I don't know the exact ranking for warrior tanks. You are correct about the hit cap - however for tanks, 26 is merely the soft-cap, the point at which your attacks cannot be dodged. You need a total of I believe 52 expertise to avoid parries. 50+ is fairly unrealistic, but it's good to gear around the 26 mark.

Gloves - Ymirjar's is better, it has much more EH (both armor and stam) plus some hit for threat. You lose avoidance sure, but the extra EH more than makes up for it.

Weapons - tough call, kind of a tossup. Personally I'd stick with Peacekeeper's and just throw a 30 stam gem in the socket, but it's a small difference between the two.

Legs - The tier 9 legs are really only good for threat, and even then, the expertise on the non-tier is still extremely nice. I'd go with non-tier for the parry (it will have much more impact on your survival than block value would).

Shoulders - Dodge is better than parry unless you have much more dodge rating than parry rating (parry's diminishing returns are much stronger). The tier shoulders have more avoidance, making them better for survival, and some expertise for threat. I would stick with those.

First off, what will you be tanking? Heroics or raids?

For heroics, please remember that the better your gear gets, the harder it will get for you to tank as you will be frequently ragestarved. I routinely downgear for heroics tanking, usually swapping a few pieces for dps gear. (Not to mention that except for PoS and HoR, you can tank pretty much any heroic in full fury gear & play if you have a half-decent healer behind you). If you MUST tank heroics, if only to get experience, then:

535 is the defense level you want to reach at minimum. This will make you immune to crits from level 82 mobs that form the end bosses of heroics.
Dodge is usually better than parry for pure avoidance due to the way diminishing returns work. Parry by itself isnt bad either so dont run away from it - just dont gem parry & you're good.
Block value is great for heroics. Block rating not as much but isnt bad. (well it might cause your healer to go asleep)

If you're looking to gear for raidtanking, the whole game changes a little.
The amount of def you need to reach at minimum is 540 and more is better. The "cap" is a minimum cap here, not something you stop at. 540 def is the equivalent of 689 defrating if you must know
Then you start stacking stamina & armor like mad. There's much to be read on the topic here in tankspot but if you want a TLDR rule of thumb, unless the socket bonus is +9 stam or greater, gem everything for stamina. You'll need some reds to activate your meta, those should be either dodge/stam or expertise/stam depending on the rest of your gear.
Armor as much as you can.

Weapons: 219 weapons are going to be hard to keep aggro with in ICC if that's what you're going to raid in. The two weapons you posted are pretty close calls though and math could work out either way. Personally i'd go with rimefangs, just to appease the gearscore crazies.

You dont need to hit the hit & expertise caps to tank properly. In fact, it's been ages since i had both stats properly covered. Since you'll very likely be below caps on both, expertise will give better returns so if deciding between gear with hit & gear with expertise, choose expertise.

And go read Satrina's guides here :P

Personally i'd go with rimefangs and the tier pieces for the setbonus

Thnx for your advice with this equipped:

Ymirjar Lord's Handguards
Rimefang's Claw
Legplates of Feverish Dedication
Hellscream's Pauldrons of Conquest

My stats are the following:

Armor: 24744
Defense: 561
Dodge: 23.34%
Parry: 22.81%
Block: 16.44%

Hit rating: 216 (6.59%)
Expertise 24

I can buy a Glyph of Indomitability , Clutch of Fortification and Shard of the Crystal Forest if needed. Atm i have this equipped:

Rings:
Signet of the Impregnable Fortress
Mark of the Relentless

Trinkets:

Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman
The Black Heart

Neck:

The Warlord's Depravity

My worst items are these but i think i can get wrists and shield crafted maybe.

Back:

Platinum Mesh cloak

Wrists:

Bracers of the Herald

Shield:

Royal Crest of Lordaeron

I am planning to tank raids if needed.

Clutch of Fortification and Glyph of Indomitability blow the Valor badge ring and the Onyxia quest trinket out of the water.

By and large your stats are fine for tanking basic raid content, but you could definitely use more armor - those two upgrades, plus a new shield would go a long way in this direction - but if you're needed to tank in ICC right now, you're going to have a rough go of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Erobinia

Clutch of Fortification and Glyph of Indomitability blow the Valor badge ring and the Onyxia quest trinket out of the water.

By and large your stats are fine for tanking basic raid content, but you could definitely use more armor - those two upgrades, plus a new shield would go a long way in this direction - but if you're needed to tank in ICC right now, you're going to have a rough go of it.

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Agreed. Get the ring and trinket when you get enough emblems, the bonus armor will serve you very well in ToC or ICC (especially ICC). The necklace is nice as well, although less crucial of an upgrade.

The crafted Titansteel shield is not an upgrade from your current one. I would suggest getting into a ToC 10 or 25 normal, as both of them drop very nice shields. If this isn't possible, go run regular HoR for that shield - it's not as nice (shield block rating, ew) but the big difference in item level from your current shield is enough, it gives you more armor stam strength and avoidance.

If i replace those 2 items my stats change from this:

Armor: 24744
Defense: 561
Dodge: 23.34%
Parry: 22.81%
Block: 16.44%

Hit rating: 216 (6.59%)
Expertise 24

Like this:

Armor: 27096
Defense: 544
Dodge: 23.49%
Parry: 21.02%
Block: 15.76%

Hit rating: 189 (5.76%)
Expertise 22

Is the decrease from the other stats not worse? I do have alot more armor now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarkraveR

If i replace those 2 items my stats change from this:

Armor: 24744
Defense: 561
Dodge: 23.34%
Parry: 22.81%
Block: 16.44%

Hit rating: 216 (6.59%)
Expertise 24

Like this:

Armor: 27096
Defense: 544
Dodge: 23.49%
Parry: 21.02%
Block: 15.76%

Hit rating: 189 (5.76%)
Expertise 22

Is the decrease from the other stats not worse? I do have alot more armor now.

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The decrease in stats is far outweighed by the increase in armor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrMooky

The decrease in stats is far outweighed by the increase in armor.

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So with more armor i have better survivability and that would be better for ToC and ICC raids? Atm i only have the enchants on helmet and shoulders.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarkraveR

So with more armor i have better survivability and that would be better for ToC and ICC raids? Atm i only have the enchants on helmet and shoulders.

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Yes, the more armor the better. Get the Cluth of Fortification, and the glyph.

Okay i tried to tank PoS HC today. Now i don't have everything enchanted and gemmed could that be a reason that the healers says i am taking alot of dmg. I am defcapped but i was a little low on hp it was about 35K buffed i guess. Any ideas what i could be doing wrong? Is it really the enchants and gems or what other stats could be the issue?