Yet one more "am I ready for Kara" inquiries...

[TomHuxley]

Yeah, sorry, but it has to be asked. Armory here: The World of Warcraft Armory

I've been gearing up and haven't tanked too many heroics (although I've been tanking instances since I switched to Prot in the early 40s).

My mage has been through Kara several times, so I'm familiar with all the fights except Prince. I know my avoidance is a bit low, and I doubt I could take Prince withouth a hell of a team behind me, but is there any reason I couldn't tanke the first half of Kara and maybe start progressing further?

Thanks guys - first post, long time reader (and this "Berg" fellow is a god with his gear guide, ty!)

EDIT: I am almost done grinding the mats for my green fortress bracers, which is why I haven't put a better tanking enchant on my bracers yet. Those will be done before I go into Kara.

[Tatt]

Your gear looks fine to me for anything other than prince and nightbane, and you could still probably do those with a well geared raid and consumables. I would worry more about SBV and block then avoidance at your stage, but that is probably just a personal choice. Don't buy the green fortress bracers till You have done kara once or twice to see if attuneman drops his for you, I prefer those or ancient phalanx to green fortress, but again personal opinion. Otherwise, you should have fun there.

[Steakums]

Gear looks okay, but Spec needs work.

Drop Imp Revenge (Stun = No Rage), Imp Shield Bash, and Imp Disarm - Pickup 5/5 deflection (why would you not want more avoidance like you say you need) and 3/3 Imp Thunderclap - Mob still hits ya but slower makes harder/faster hitting bosses alot easier on healers and you.

I'd also drop 2 points outta TM and prolly a couple more to get 5/5 Cruelty but thats more a personal choice.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warrior -> Talent Calculator

Is more along the lines of what you should look for.

Also after bracers.. Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer hands down damn near irreplaceable til BT.

[TomHuxley]

Drop Imp Revenge (Stun = No Rage), Imp Shield Bash, and Imp Disarm - Pickup 5/5 deflection (why would you not want more avoidance like you say you need) and 3/3 Imp Thunderclap - Mob still hits ya but slower makes harder/faster hitting bosses alot easier on healers and you.

Awesome; I've been reading over some spec builds here, I went all prot for leveling after I switced from arms at level 42 (I had a resto druid leveling partner and there are advantages to those skills against non-instance mobs), so I'll def look into that.

Also after bracers.. Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer hands down damn near irreplaceable til BT.

Already being done Have a guild engineer farming the primals and I've started on the metal. I actually have a primal nether, so if 2.4 hits before we're done that will be even easier.

Thanks!

[TomHuxley]

Don't buy the green fortress bracers till You have done kara once or twice to see if attuneman drops his for you, I prefer those or ancient phalanx to green fortress, but again personal opinion. Otherwise, you should have fun there.

I too would prefer them to green fortress, but I've ground the mats anyways, and I'd rather be as geared as possible when I MT, so if I hae to throw away the 65g or so for the nether until I get the drop then so be it. I need to spend some gold on a few more solid star of elunes too, but I should have all that covered by this time next week.

[Foolishness]

I heard someone tell you to get shield block value and block rating. I would not advise this. if you follow that advice your gear will not improve and you will be easy to kill.

My advice for gearing for kara is to stack stamina and avoidance, while neglecting block value and block rating. By all means, collect block value gear but use it for trash, not bosses.

[Radhja]

Ignore the post previous to mine.

SBV (Shield Block VALUE) is a golden stat for T4 content (Karazhan, Zul'aman, Gruul's, Magtheridon) as it not only grants us hardline mitigation after the armor damage reduction, but it greatly increases threat generation by scaling Shield Slam's damage. In short, you'll take less damage from the myriad of hits you inevitably will take and be able to hold onto the mobs longer. SBV is great for burst threat (you'll see what I mean when you crit a Shield Slam with 600+ SBV).

Effective Health IS a tank's priority 90% of the time (since the most common fight we encounter are trash mobs), and Avoidance is absolutely necessary on many boss fights (Prince, NB, etc), but don't discount SBV as a second-rate stat - it is just as important, only for different reasons.

SBR (Shield Block RATING) isn't as important, but it does affect the chance you'll receive a Crushing Blow between Shield Blocks. You shouldn't focus on SBR as much, but don't ignore it. 25-30% is adequate for most T4 fights.

My advice: Try to build 3 types of tank sets - Effective Health (stacking stamina for maximum health pool), Avoidance (stacking Dodge & Parry to avoid hefty blows), and Threat (higher damage output, burst aggro thru SBV, stronger mitigation against softer hits). This will allow you to tailor your gear to the fight and permit a little more flexibility on your part.

Knowwedge is powa!




Edit: ONce 2.4 comes out, be sure to pick up the +10% SBV meta gem... it WILL make a difference.

[TomHuxley]

So far I am mostly following EH theory, as I'm not sure of the cosistency of the healers and DPS for the first few Karae tries. I have started to put together an agro set as well, but I'm not going out of my way yet, rather I'm re-geming suitable pieces as I get better EH gear upgrades.

I'm not ignoring SHV (I occasionally get +1000 crits) but haven't really had the oportunity to increase it substantially either. I'm certainly not going to gem for it (yay solid star of elune!), so SBV will have to come as the gear allows (although burst damage is welcome).

I did pick up DAbiri's Enigma, and the gnomeragan auto-blocker is high on my wishlist of badge loot, although there are likely a piece or two ahead of it (e.g. Slikk's cape).

It seems to me that I'll have to balance avoidance and SBV to some degree until I get enough gear to start making 3 sets of gear. With any luck lots of heroics and 25-man raids will make this not so expensive to do

I did respec along the lines of Steakum's suggestion. During quest mobs it was amazing how much I was relying on improved revenge for CC while tanking 3-5 creatures, but the improved TC has certainly improved my AOE aggro generation.

Thanks to evveryone for their feedback!

Edit: Green Fortress aquired, gotta get the enchant now, should hit 13.5k HP or so unbuffed.

[Kendoka]

Everything seems fine. I suggest trying to do the quest for Arc key as it rewards [item]Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard[/item]. While doing that, Mech has [item]Dath'Remar's Ring of Defense[/item], and of course, [item]The Sun Eater[/item]. Arc also has a nice tanking ring [item]Elementium Band of the Sentry[/item]. And also try to run SV for [item]Devilshark Cape[/item]

[fastidius]

gyro gun is nice but not cheap, I found a 24 stam green in the AH for 10 gold.....but then i look for green gear with stam for slots that don't come easily

[TomHuxley]

It's not cheap, but I've almost got all the adamantium, and I'll soon have all the eternium I need to make the felsteel (I have feliron up to my eyeballs). The khorium is (not suprisingly) going slower, but if I get the other mats first I'll just buy the rest of the Khorium.

After that it's just the nether, which at worse case will be a 10 badge sacrifice after 2.4 (although I hope to get it sooner). And that will be months before BT, if my guild ever gets there, so it's worth it to me