Different sets - All the way or mix and match?

[MophMoph]

Allow me to preface by saying that this site has been a gold mine as a resource for a tank who's trying to learn more about playing his class, and a really big thanks for those who've put in the time to break stuff down and explain the mechanics and BiS pieces for each set for tanking.

I attempted to find this in the FAQ and searched guides, but was unable to find an apt answer, so I leave myself in your capable hands and apologize if I missed a post that has the answer.

Enough w/ the butt kissing...on to my question.

So, I've gone through the BiS Warrior gear at a glance, and have begun collecting the various set types to be prepared for all tanking situations. My question is this:
If I can get every single set piece (EH, AV, Block, etc), should I be wearing all of them for my X set, or should I try to keep a balance with favortism towards whatever the set's purpose is?

I ask this with the assumption that I am obviously over the defense cap of 540, which is a necessity regardless of what set I'm attempting to put together.

I suppose my confusion comes in as I'm worried that if I make a fully slanted EH set with every BiS EH piece I'll sacrifice too much threat or avoidance to make it worthwhile, as I'll be a giant wall of meat that isn't actually surving any other purpose other than "check out my 5 billion untouched hit points".

Anyway, I was just wondering what the community's thoughts are about going "all in" when it comes to a set type. Will the other stats that are naturally on the pieces in other areas be enough, or do I need to maybe stack 3/4 EH pieces with 1/4 AV pieces to gain maximum effectiveness?

You have my thanks for any input.

-Iraish of Maelstrom

[loquatious]

yes the point is to develop sets for different tanking challanges.

The EH set is mainly for progression - giving your healers as much room to play with as possible.

Block Value - tanking trash
Aggro - specific fights have higher or lower threat requirements - dont under or overthreat. This requires experience and depends on the raid healers & dps.

Avoidance - when you want to give your healers a break - and the risk of being smushed into a greasy stain on the floor is low.

4 piece T8 - any boss with a predictable magical burst

Mix and Match - yes absolutely. Play with your trinkets, set pieces etc.

[MophMoph]

So having successfully main tanked every fight in 25 Ulduar at this point (minus Alg), how would you break down the individual fights?

For instance, General Vezex. That guy hits like a trucker on PCP. Is it better to go for EH to hopefully take those hits, or is it better to go AV and avoid as many of those incoming nose bleeds as possible?

[loquatious]

If you have tanked every fight you probably don't need too much advice at this point

For Vezax you have threat issues from the folks standing in shadow crashes
you have the massive incoming damage

I'd wear 4 Piece T8 stam and threat gear. Heart of Iron over the avoidance trinkets.

[MophMoph]

I'd wear 4 Piece T8 stam and threat gear. Heart of Iron over the avoidance trinkets.

Heart of Iron hates my guild and not one of our 3 tanks have seen it yet.

I tried putting on a full EH set just to try it out and while the extra health was nice, my threat was just completely poop so it seems like in most situations mix and matching is going to be the better way to go instead of "all in" in any particular direction.

[robbon]

its an intersting point to note that by the time you have tanked all 25man content..you probably have 4 parts T8.5.

The only items i seem to change around are my shoulders and legs. T8.5 legs for saronite plated legguards - for loads more armor and then drop out the deconstructors shoulders for the T8 seigebreaker shoulders to maintain 4 set bonus as i dont have the 8.5 shoulders.

Is it just me or is the conquerers set pretty much fulfilling a general role for everything.

[Kerg]

I maintain a balanced set that focuses on EH first and foremost, and Threat and Avoidance second. This is my main set. It has my best overall pieces in it. It is what I tank most bosses in.

Then I build my alternate sets from old castoff pieces that I have, and enchant/gem them to further enhance the strength of the piece, and replace certain pieces in the above main set to form the new set. These can include...

Threat Set: For fights where threat/damage is more important than survivability. This includes anything I overgear. And certain fights where the boss doesn't hit too hard, but the dps is buffed out the whazoo and we're trying to beat an enrage timer. I use this on some trash, and some 10-man bosses. For Hodir 10 hard mode (w/ 3 FrR pieces thrown in). But I haven't been comfortable using this set for any 25-man bosses yet. The two biggest threat problem bosses (Vezax and Hodir), also hit really hard, so you can't just go all threat.

Avoidance Set: I haven't built one yet in WotLK. I had one in BC. Put time and gold into building it. Carried it around for over a year. And then I only found it useful for one boss that entire expansion. Bloodboil in Black Temple, because of the avoidable stacking DoT he put on you. IMO, people talk a lot about an Avoidance Set, but I never found a use for it before Bloodboil or since. Well, at least for a MT. For offtanks, I can see times when you'd want to use it if you are offtanking an add that doesn't hit too hard and is not first to be killed. Why not save some healer mana in those situations? Fast hitting/dual wielding bosses? People said use an avoidance set for Prince and Mogrim in BC, bah... I always found a balanced EH set to be just as good against fast hitting bosses. An Avoidance Set for a MT is pretty over-hyped, IMO. You will probably very very rarely use it... maybe never if we don't come across another boss like Bloodboil.

Pure EH Set: Max hp at the expense of everything else. Sarth 3 Drakes is the only boss thus far that I've seen where you don't mind losing threat and avoidance for max hp, because the spike damage was magic (making avoidance not so helpful). And you didn't need any threat stats at all because your target was killed last.

Block Set: For melee trash. Haven't built one yet. But probably will if the new block value on gear changes go through. Kind of a novelty set, IMO. Not necessary, but could be fun to tank easy trash with it and let your healers take a nap.

Soloing Set: High block value pieces plus some pure DPS pieces enchanted/gemmed for strength. Use this set for farming dailies as prot. I don't have a dps offspec... instead I dual spec 2 prot specs, one max survivability, one max threat. As raid MT, there is never a situation where I am needed to dps. If there is only one tank in the fight, that's me.