2.4 Polar's Easy Pre-Karazhan Tank Gear List

[sarghonas]

Hi all
First of all, great guide polar, i've used it allot to get some nice gear together now.
At this moment i'm preparing to go to karazhan (only bm stands in my way) and my guild has asked me to be ready for at least ot spot.
Do you think that my gear is ok enough?

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...er&n=Sarghonas

[Polar]

Hi all
First of all, great guide polar, i've used it allot to get some nice gear together now.
At this moment i'm preparing to go to karazhan (only bm stands in my way) and my guild has asked me to be ready for at least ot spot.
Do you think that my gear is ok enough?

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...er&n=Sarghonas

Hi there!

Your armor and health are looking great!

You need to concentrate on getting your defense to 490. To help you get this, I recommend going after [item]Dabiri's Enigma[/item] from the group quest in Netherstorm. This should get you to 485 defense. You then need to find another 5 points - either swap out some gems for a +def gem or hunt down some of the other +def pieces.

[sarghonas]

Thx for the tip, i'm going to look for that trinket asap.
Well Yesterday i completed bm and got myself atuned for kara. And i had to tank the maiden and big bad wolf , we wiped 1 time on the maiden around 30% because i got critted so i really need to get that defense up, but it went really fine yesterday

[Apock]

Will this list work for Zul'Aman as well?

Thanks.

[Ciderhelm]

Tagging this for uncached item links. I will update this tonight.

[Atlantez]

(Original post from WOW Forums)

Polar & Readers,

Since the guide denoted that most of the gear you aquire is from level 65 and up I didn't give the guide any attention untill I actually became level 65 :\

One sad note on that is during my leveling in Hellfire I choose the +crit trinket instead of the +def one, and it's bugging me every minute I play my warrior now I feel like I have created a gap that is not easily filled by not paying more attention. Fact is I didn't realise the trinket was available at such a low level quest and that it would turn out to be one of the better items you can get untill you are 70.

Is there another fairly easily attainable +def trinket to replace it with now that I no longer have the option to obtain it? I know my pally friend tank has ran SH 40+ time to get a trinket from there and I'm not looking forward to it, but if there is no other choice :\

I copied your guide to my computer and extended the guide with a minimum level requirement behind each item so I know at what level I need to collect the next batch of items, perhaps you could also do that on your own guide so people know when they are able to obtain one of them and don't repeat my mistakes!

(It seems often people read your guide after they are leveled out of Hellfire a long time and thus not always realise what a great trinket opportunity they passed on :\)

Thanks for your great work and effort in providing the info. I am making your guide into a walkthrough perhaps if it's interesting enough I could post it later on, too busy gearing up at the moment! :-)

~ Tez

[Nycthion]

Good guide, I had a lot of it before I got to this guide.

Felsteel Leggings are the best all-around till you get Kara drops, honestly.

I would suggest the Gladiator's shield wall when it becomes available for honor, not hard to get now with the dailies.

With my pre-Kara gear I was able to tank some ZA trash for the first boss... not recommended, lol, hit up kara a lot... have patience and you will be rewarded.

Again, good work on the guide.

[Polar]

Updated - added item level requirements and more quest details (thanks for the suggestion Tez!)

[Razmo]

go for [item]Gladiator's Shield Wall[/item] or [item]Crest of the Sha'tar[/item]

5 block value and 814 armor VS 0.6% avoidance and 0.2% block

hard choice, i'm still hanging on till the crest, hope i will get lucky on kara shield someday or gruul :P.

[chengt]

This is an excellent guide except for one thing (which is mentioned in some of the comments). It totally ignored the importance of +hit/expertise. I used this guide and got pretty much all the best (or 2nd best) items from it and tried to tank KZ. While we got the first 2 bosses down. I had a RIDICULOUS miss rate on both bosses. I didn't lose aggro on the 2nd boss (thankfully) but Attuneman ran off and killed 2 members of the raid before I could get him back. My suggestion is to substitute some pieces for +hit as anything over 490 defense is really sacrificable to some extent. (Watch your avoidance while doing so though of course). And do the daily cooking quest to get some Hot Spicy Talbuk. It helps SO much.
On a side note, I now use Brooch of Deftness (recommended by Berg's tanking gear guide). It helps SO much to hold aggro.
This guide is great but don't forget that Expertise and Hit are actually the top two threat holding stats. Keep those in mind while farming these till you have a good mix of both.

[Polar]

This guide is great but don't forget that Expertise and Hit are actually the top two threat holding stats. Keep those in mind while farming these till you have a good mix of both.

Hi chengt,

I agree with your comments about a general lack of +expertise and +hit in the gear listed in the guide.

Unfortunately, there is very little gear at that level that has +hit or +expertise. You can get some +expertise from BoJ rewards and +hit can be increased a little with a careful selection of gems but generally there is not much scope for increasing these stats significantly before you step into Kara without hurting your other stats.

BoJ rewards go beyond the intent of this guide but I will add a comment to the guide about considering +hit gems for extra threat generation.

I think the discussion on threat generation is probably best left for another thread but some of the things that go beyond gear stats include (for anyone that is interested):

* Getting your shot rotations right often give you the biggest gains in threat gen - shield slam, revenge, devastate, heroic strike combinations in particular

* Making sure you group with people that know how to manage their threat and are prepared to watch a threat meter - most dps classes have a threat reduction ability

* Getting your latency down - high latency connections actually slow your ability to generate threat, especially with the queuing of heroic strikes

Thanks for your feedback btw.

Polar

[Wellbred]

Hi Gottrek,

The point of the guide is to show some a list of gear that does not require repetitive 5-man runs to obtain.

I openly admit that there is some better gear in the 5 man runs and that most tanks will be picking some of their gear up in the course of getting keyed for heroics.

The Jade Skull Breastplate is a nice piece, but it has around a 1 in 6 chance of dropping. On average, you will need to run Mechanar 6 times before you will see it. I ran it 10 or so times and never saw it!

And that is the point of the list. If you want to be geared up for Kara quickly then go for the items on the list. If you happen to get some better drops along the way then good for you. Even if you see no drops from 5 mans, the items on the list will give you sufficient stats to get started in Karazhan.

People still fail to grasp, to a certain degree, why this list is sooo valuable. You get into kara very quickly with it, without depending on droprates.

I followed this guide very closely, along with a 5-man drops guide on the forums list, and it paid huge dividends in terms of getting into Kara. My personal drop rate for plate armor in 5-mans was abyssmal, and this guide got me to the minimums. I got into a Kara group, and picked up 2 tanks pieces my first run.

Since then, I've picked up other drops in instances that had previously eluded me, inlcuding the devilshark cape last night. But without this guide, I'd still be farming instances instead of farming Kara.

EDIT: just realized I responded to something 3 pages ago. /shrug. /sorry

[patato]

Thank you so much. this really helped me get geared for kara quickly ^__^

[Redlen]

I might suggest as a craftable you add
Helm of the Stalwart Defender
I know the mats are more intensive but anyone questing through nether storm probally has the primal manas and if your a miner then the earth and adamantite are easy to get

Helm of the Stalwart Defender
Binds when equipped
Head Plate
1366 Armor
+47 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases defense rating by +23 (9.7)
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 23 (0.6%).
Item Level 105

Mats:
8x Hardened Adamantite Bar
22x Primal Earth
12x Primal Mana
1x Primal Nether

[Digz]

Another item you might want to include, are the gloves from Shattered Halls-Fel embers quest. Just another alternative to felsteel (though I loved mine when I had 'em ) Fel Embers - Quests - World of Warcraft
Dauntless Handguards - Items - World of Warcraft With a stamina armor kit or the vindicators for a little more def rating, theyd be fine for going into Kara with. Also, I know this seems to be mostly just easy quest reward gear/craftables, but the gladiator shield is probably one of the easiest gear upgrades a tank going into Kara can make. Even though it is a PVP reward, its probably something most tanks will get much faster than the Ogrila aegis. Like I said, the shield is something people might want to consider including, but if it doesnt fit the outline, forget I said it.

[SionaAmanThul]

Problem with the PvP shield is that you have to do PvP to do it. I don't feel like respeccing weekly just to get this shield.

[Drios]

Was wondering if this list is viable for pally tanks?

[Taurwar]

Hi,

This is my first time posting here. Before I get to my question, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide this list. For some of us, it is an invaluable source of information.

Now, on to the question. Since I haven't started my pre-req's for Ogri'la rep yet, I've been using the Netherwing Protector's Shield. But last night, Platinum Shield of the Valorous dropped for me. I was wondering if it's a justifiable upgrade or not. I can see that it's an increase in straight up armor, block, stamina, and defense rating, but I'm not sure of the impact of losing dodge % (from agility) and block value from the equip bonus. What should I be drawing a comparison on? Common sense tells me I'm getting more health from the stamina increase than I'm losing from the block value, but is that a fair comparison? Also, should I still go with Major Stamina as an enchant, or would Tough Shield be better?

Thanks in advance.

[Starbuck]

First of all thanks for the effort that went into this guide. Awesome job. Too bad I found it now, first time. I've spent many hours finding out just about the exact same thing as this guide recommends. Still some new things (as the lvl 61 trinket I've missed ).

Love to have some feedback on my gear:
Barkskalle at Armory

A couple of questions:
Should I go for 490 def or boost my stamina? I've heard different things, and right now trying to go for stam (12k hp unbuffed). My def is 472 atm.

I thought I might be ready for Heroics, but tried it 2 times and miserably failed. What's missing? (I know this guide is not for Heroics but I thought it would be a good check on how Kara-ready I was)

There's nothing about resistances here (maybe not needed in Kara) and I've basically went through all the game with 0 resistance, but thinking of getting some gear for that. Neccessary?

Also wondering about shield enchant, why stamina over tough shield?

Grateful for answers, and also if u think I might be anywhere near-ready for Kara (haven't done prequest yet, because I thought I had a loooong way to go)

Also for other tanks reading this who is starting their way to fulfill this list, I deeply recommend you buy the Felsteel set as soon as you can. I bought it a long time ago and I'm still using it. Easiest to get of them all, and not very expensive.
And if you're not 70 where you can start farm rep in Ogri'la, I think there's a shield that drops in SL which is probably easier to get. Or you can do as me and use the one you can buy at AH (Wayward Footman) which looks kinda boring, but it's decent and easy to get.

Once again, great guide. Thanks!

*$

[Starbuck]

(Original post from WOW Forums)

Is there another fairly easily attainable +def trinket to replace it with now that I no longer have the option to obtain it? I know my pally friend tank has ran SH 40+ time to get a trinket from there and I'm not looking forward to it, but if there is no other choice :\
~ Tez

After realising I made the same mistake I browsed around and found the Commander's Badge which would fit into this list as it is not a drop from an instance, but something you farm rep to get. Nice stamina but no def. There are 2 more items worth grinding for you (and me) one in Mechanar and the other in SL.
This info I found in this very nice guide which maybe all of you knew about but it was new to me.

*$