I've been busy upgrading my tank gear of late, trying to gear up for Heroics and Kara. My guild is just starting to run Kara and I'm off-tanking as we already have a main tank. We've had varying degrees of success, I've gotten up to Maiden running a half-half run with my guild and another, but the runs with my guild have been very difficult, we can't get further than Attumen (Moroes FTL, it quickly descends into a chaotic mess and we all die. CC issues.)
Heroics - I have finished Mech 3 times (skipping 2nd boss, no-one wants to do it). Haven't had too many problems, I like this instance. I have run SP once, and was annihilated 8 times in a row by the 2 guards before the first boss - leaving quite demoralized. I have run BM once, wiping on the Rift Lord after the first boss. Mainly, I can't find a group. Most folks think I am under-geared for Heroics, and maybe I am? Pity that most of my upgrades will now be from Heroics.
Here is my armory.
I have just gotten Timewardens Leggings (currently un-gemmed and I'm not wearing them), and I've started working towards a new shield (SSO), an avoidance weapon (Grom'tor, Innuro, Sun Eater) and hopefully some tanking shoulders. I also need a new trinket. I have the tanking one from the Hellfire quest, but I'm using a +hit one from Terrokar at the moment, as I'm over 490 def and low on hit). Re: gems, everything is SSoE save for 2 epics I got from my Heroic runs. I felt they had good enough stats to warrant going for the socket bonus.
I need some direction at the moment, as to where best to spend my efforts, as I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much this week. Can you recommend anything else gear-wise to boost me to an acceptable Heroic level?
I should mention, I have acquired the Burnoose of Shifting Ages cloak but it doesn't have anywhere near the stam of my current (Eternity). Still pushing for the Devilshark. I also have 20 badges, but I figured on saving them for something worthwhile (like the belt, or pants, or chest).
First, replace all non stam gems with stam gems. You are having problems surviving in heroics, no reason to be worried about hit. Tell your DPS to slow down if there are threat problems.
Enchant your cloak!
If you have done Kara so you have to have the ring. And even the blue version is drastically better then either of yours.
But aside from that, find a new supporting cast. I tanked prince my first time with your gear and did fine. The people you are playing with just aren't good enough.
I know you asked for help "gear wise" but....
Lower your defense a little and slot with more Hit rating. Get that up as high as you can.
The CS gem on the hands aren't needed. I would probably put a +8 Hit rating there.
Reinforcement (+240 Armor) or Superior Agility (+15 Agi) to the hands are nice.
Other than these, you look alright.
Being the Off-Tank doesn't mean you will be doing much DPS. It just means you will need to help keep agro off the healers.
Hi Spaz
Just had a look at your gear and I must say it is clearly visible that you have gone through alot of trouble in collecting the best blue gear available which u are very close to along with getting the gun made pvping for the shield and shoulders (which are a good backup) and a very decsent weapon .
As far as beeing able to Tank kara I would say your good to go even as MT except for Nightbane and Prince and that obviously allso depends on the quality of the healers .
The doen is that heroics are harder than Kara but funny enough the gear that drops in kara is better than the gear u get in heroics .
With your badges I would reccommend that you get firstly the cloak(***??? Placation) then the ring and then the gnomerigan autoblocker trinket . All of these of the old badge vendor in shat . Those would allso be imo the easiest and most effective upgrades for you . As far as heroics go , I would say you're good to go for Ramps , SP and Mech atleast (Bot , Sethek would be next).....(Shattered Halls , Arca , BM , SL and MgT is suicide)
Your Gem Setup looks quite good in the sence that yeah at the start you push EH alot and I must commend you for going through the trouble in getting your gear enchanted which alot of people neglect with Blue gear .
All and all I think you're kara and heroic problems has just as much to do with the gear of the healers aswell as the tanks .
Hope this helps
Lionides
He's having problems surviving in heroics and you are telling him to drop defense for hitOriginally Posted by 1stormchaser
Not meaning to offend, but that is absolutely horrible advice.
Thanks for your comments guys. Still a little confused though:
I don't really have threat problems. Just going off Omen2, I can easily maintain 500-700tps with my eyes closed casually mashing dev and whatever's up at the time , and when my rotations are correct (SS, Rev, Dev, Dev with HS on most swings and SB when it's up) I am clearing 1000tps - I don't know how accurate Omen is, but I guess it's an estimate. The only issues I find with threat, is that with multiple trash mobs, I really need those first hits to land, or I'm screwed. If that first SS misses, or I start on X and then switch to skull and it misses. Wipe. Or at least run around like an idiot to get it all back under control.First, replace all non stam gems with stam gems. You are having problems surviving in heroics, no reason to be worried about hit. Tell your DPS to slow down if there are threat problems.
I know I know! lol I ran out of gold. I spent the last I had on the gun, bracer and helm enchants and all those gems (which I upgraded from +9's). I might hold on a few days do some more Heroics and dailies and get the badge cloak and enchant that. Should I get an armour enchant though? My armor seems fairly high compared to my other stats.. I guess agility is the only other one to consider?Enchant your cloak!
This kinda conflicts with the previous post, also, I have no idea how to get more hit on my gear, except by sacrificing the 2 avoidance gems which I'm a bit loathe to lose. I have the blue tank chest from the Nagrand quest with oodles of hit, it would bring me up to 90, but it lacks the defense and dodge of the Vindicator's, although it has more stamina... it was a hard choice between the two, but I figured I needed some avoidance somewhere, hence the two Heroic gems (+parry/+def and +crit/+dodge - the latter of which I only used 'cause I had it and ran out of gold for a +8dodge and figured a little crit wouldn't go too far astray). I had a couple of pieces lying around with +hit but I vendored most of them as my bank is very full. They were pre-70 quest items for the most part, that I replaced with stuff like the Felsteel set. I do have the Junior Tech bracers, but do I use them instead of Vambraces of Courage, my only 100% epic tank piece that I just spent 130g on for gem/chant?! =PLower your defense a little and slot with more Hit rating. Get that up as high as you can.
My head hurts. lol
From what I can gather, I need 95 hit somehow, but I also need more stamina so it's a hell of decision, and I find the returns on +hit very hard to gauge. Sometimes everything lands and it's all gravy, and other times I miss a crucial move.
Three stats that I allways bear in mind apart from armor and stam is : 9% hit , 5.6% expertise and 490 defence . As far as I know that is the marks one those 3 stats and then u work around it beeing avoidance or EH and Armor .
If you keep those in mind you should find the right balance pretty soonand hence , dps'ers can whatch their agro , a tank ALLWAYS gets hit hard ..so survivabillity is priority one imo ^^
Correct me if I am wrong, but 16 Defense should only lower your Dodge by .25%. Is .25% a significant differnce in Heroics or Kara? Where as +16 Hit Rating will always be a benefit.
Spaz's Hit Rating at (34) is terribly low. This would not get him far in Kara.
I won't get into a debate over this, from looking what Spaz wrote, he is not having problems in heroics. The problem he says he had in Slave Pens probably wasn't his fault, unless he was having problems holding agro. And one easy way of "helping yourself" hold agro is the ability not to miss on white damage.
As for Omen. Since 2.4.....everybody should be updating that weekly. For what ever reason, their threat stats have not been consistant.
Threat is something that can be dealt with by having dps slow down a bit, survival is something only he can control. Having any other boost in his survivability right now is his primary concern. I've tanked all of kara with anywhere from 0-56 hit, this low in his progression, he needs to focus more on his survivability and his threat LATER as he upgrades his gear. Telling him to focus on threat now is moot, it won't get him anywhere if he dies. And i held over 700-900 TPS (from WWS not Omen) with these kinds of stats. He can push his SBV higher to act as both mitigation AND threat. Or expertise to remove parries while still providing him threat. Telling him to RESOCKET for hit is not something he shoudl be focusing on at this point in his gear. Even if he were meeting EH minimums, it's not likely that he'd be gemming for hit other than in his gun socket anyways.
As Kaz stated above, don't worry about +hit. +hit is great, but you can roll with 0 and be successful. Focus on survivability first and foremost. When you meet survivability minimums, then you can start looking at boosting +hit.
At this point, your gear upgrades by and large are going to be coming from Kara and the badge vendor, aside from select heroic drops. Keep working through Kara and running those heroics.
From the sound of it your guild is small enough that you have to PuG heroics, which is a crummy place to be. However, the more people you group with, the more competent players you can add to your friends list. When you can put groups together with players that you know don't suck it gets much better.
Kazeyonoma: Giving people too much time to think makes them do stupid things too.
OK thanks guys, very helpful.
I ran HMech again last night and The Sun Eater dropped for me, so I'm pleased to have a "proper" tanking weapon to use now. I've not run anything with it just yet, but it has boosted my avoidance stats nicely. I will be saving up some gold for a Mongoose enchant on this one. I look forward to trying it out this evening on some more Heroic mobs! I'm also going to socket a SSoE in my gloves to replace the +crit/+dodge gem, but I will leave my helm as-is (with a parry/def gem for the +hit socket bonus) and I think I will leave the +hit gem in my gun as well.
I might try a few runs with Breastplate of the Warbringer over the Vindicator's Hauberk to see if I notice the extra +hit (it also has a little more stamina, but far less def and dodge). I'm going to gem those Timewarden's Leggings tonight as well, so I have a few pieces to swap around. I'll break 13k health in any case, so that's comforting.
This is a bit embarrassing but I picked up the ring when I was in a hurry to get into Kara, and I picked the Mage one in a blind frenzy of clicking.
I have just broken Honored so lucky me, I have a purple Kara ring with +int and +spell damage or some crap, and I can't change it until Exalted.
That certainly taught me to read before I click.
I hope I can punch out a whole bunch of Kara runs over the next few weeks! lol
My opinion would be to forget Hit rating atm and look for Stam gems, ignoring socket bonuses, and to try for expertise, ie the badge gear like bracers and the neck, witht he neck you will gain more HP to help to survive, plus a nice chunk of Expetise and hit, and since Expertise helps to reduce the Parry gib i would say that it is worth trading out the 17 Def Rating you would loose fom the neck. Having said that, I tanked the whole of Kara pre 2.3 so when Expertise did not exist, and I did it with 0 Hit rating, and never had agro problems, sure the DPs have to watch it abit, but Hit is not something I would say u need to worry about yet, Ill long enough to make sure of the extra threat u generate, pointless hitting them more and haveing masive TPS, but then dying due to low defensive/HP stats.
Regards,
Silthias
Just a quick question since you brought up Expertise.
What items, pre-Kara; have Expertise?
Yes. There are some, but very few. And even those items probably won't be good enough for Kara and will be exchanged with drops.
Well, I re-gemmed my gloves with some extra +stam, garnered the CE Revered neck and gave my new Sun Eater a work out this weekend, and managed to finish 5 heroics, without too much in the way of wiping. Mech, UB, SP, Arc and UB again. I picked up a new belt in SP that offered 2 extra gem slots (+stam - 'ankyou), and I'm now sitting pretty @ ~13k health points, and more avoidance than I had last week, and I didn't get eaten alive, even in my second UB run with no CC (I had a dps Druid off-tank a few for me).
I feel like I finally made it to the next level now, and will be running as many Heroics as I possibly can.
Thanks for all your help everyone!
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