Am i Geared for Totc 10 - Possible Upgrades

[Demiwraith]

I previously asked on here about how best to spend badges and recieved some nice responses, i am back again.

This time to ask for a gear check in respect to tanking the later parts of Ulduar and all of Totc 10.

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Up to date i have been hesitant to pipe up to the Pug calls of Need Tank Totc 10 as i have heard and read about how tough the instance is for tanks especially a warrior, also bad publicity among the better geared players on the server is the last thing one needs.

I am now starting up my own guild and propose to be the MT and therefore would like the reassurance from the community that i should deal with it on an medium level.

I have also heard rumours that Avoidance can be more effective than raw Hp though gearing as such is probably not so easy without access to ulduar 25.

I consider my Cloak, Legs, Shoulders and Shield along with my Boots to be my weakest items which tbh is common sense anyway =)

Upgrade wise i am in the process of getting Spiked Deathdealers and Saronite Sword Breakers are not out of reach.

I also have The T9.25 gloves in my bags along with 51 Triumph Badges not to menton Gleaming Quelsear(10man Ony Version), but am hesitant to break my t8.5 set bonus especially since i dont run Ulduar 25 and have had no luck with Voa 25 man, not to mention the T9 shoulders arent as optimised as the offset ones.

I consider the Ring and Throwing weapon to be minor upgrades which can be picked up quote quickly once i have a more steady flow of badges beyond Daily, Voa and Ony.

Evidently in the future my offset healm can be changed out but at the time it was the biggest upgrade and has supstantially boosted my expertise and threat =)

So any input from the community on this would be greatly appreciated.

Tank You

[Kuraf]

First time (and only) I went there (using Fierceblow - my prot warrior), I had worse gear/hp/avoidance than you've got. Truth be told... ToC10 isn't that hard.
Just be sure to keep demo shout and thunderclap up. Only boss I haven't tanked yet was the Northrend beasts.

My point of view of each boss, with the gear I had/have:
On Jaraxxus I was taking care of the adds... the first hits are kinda hard (with the avoidance/EHP I had) and if you get incinerate flesh when picking up an add, be ready to burn some CDs.
Faction champions isn't that gear dependant imho. Just use your brain and try to stun them properly. I was also running and doing intervene/shockwave when the melee train went for the healers.
Twin Valks, is mainly a matter of positioning, try to avoid the opposite balls and hope that your raid does the same (it can kill you if, for example, the melees get hit by 2-3 opposite colour balls in a row).
Anub... he hits kinda hard but isn't that hard to tank him. The time u're tanking him isn't that demanding (raid healing wise). Save CDs for the 3rd phase just to be sure and when he burrows, be sure not to let the lil' guys hit you... the buff can be deadly.

Hope this helps.

[Blasterion]

From what I see you have it pretty good my Dk tank barely made it through Gormok but I had bad healers and and some messed up communication on the worms. You can tank it for sure Northrend Beasts gonna be a toughie though it's the only thing that might 2 shot you

[Thundergnome]

You should be OK for Toc10. Just make sure you have decent healers with pally healer on you.

Nothing difficult about tanking as a warrior in this instance, especially if you are MT. Will go over fights briefly later in post.

Your armory is not showing your weapon and shield... I am assuming you have at least the sword from H ToC (peacekeeper blade i believe) and at Titansteel shield wall.
You are showing ~34k HP which means you will be at about 38-40k raid buffed, which is good.

If I were you I would have picked up the T9 shoulders and gloves for the 2 piece bonus (reduced taunt cooldown) rather then the 75badge non-set helm.
This way you will have 2peice T8.5 and 2piece T9 instead of those iLvl200 shoulders.

The T8 set bonuses for warrior were pretty bad, but the T9 are amazing in comparison.
You can actually also use the helm out of Ony25 because it compares pretty well with the T9.
Also, run VoA25 for the T9.25 legs.

As far as the Toc10 fights...
Northern beasts:

Gormok: Use 2 tanks, switch at 2 debuffs. Every time you taunt off the other tank use disarm (may save your healer a heart attack). You will notice that you get hit pretty hard... this is normal especially with your gear. Make sure healers aren't slacking.

Worms: Nothing difficult here, just make sure you pick up the worms promptly after burrow before they kill someone, and communicate about the poison and fire debuffs with your raid/other tank.
I believe that Acidmaw hits a little harder initially (before Dreadscale does a mini-entrage after you down Acidmaw). Pop heroism to kill Acidmaw.

Icehowl:
Probably the easiest fight in ToC. Tank him by the wall so you don't get punted back. Make sure your healers are spread out so they dont all get frozen at once and you die.
Make sure people dont get hit by charge (this is an idiot check really).



Jaraxxus:
If you're MT:
Very easy. Shield slam every fireball, move him in case an infernal does AoE beside you and can wipe out all of your melee dps.
He does not hit exceptionally hard.

If you're on adds:

For sister of pain (or whatever her name is): Just pick her up and tank her. She will jump and bodyslam someone but this does not reset aggro and she will run back to you.

For infernals: (a little more difficult)
On the first infernal, taunt and get a couple of shots in for aggro. 2nd infernal, run up to him and do thunderclap to pull him to you and hit him with a heroic strike, revenge etc for aggro. 3rd infernal, taunt (coouldown will be back up).
Tab target and get agro up on all infernals.
When they jump towards someone and do AoE, after they are done, aggro does not reset so they will run back to you and you can continue to tank.

This fight is fairly healer intensive due to raid damage.


Faction champs:
Stay prot and tank one of the melee classes or I also found that I can shut down a priest or shammy healer pretty well due to the number of interrupts that warriors have.

Twins:
Easy. Just tank her beside the portal, avoid the opposite color balls and switch aura when needed.
Make sure you're yelling at you raid to not get hit by the balls... It's really not hard, yet people fail at it.
Tip: to avoid the balls just zoom your camera out and look at the trajectory of the incoming ball. Then, just step out of the way.

Anub:
MT: tank him where he is standing initially. Get a hunter to shoot down an orb beside you and tank him on the ice (this means when he burrows the 1st time he will always hit the ice).
After he emerges, you can stand in that initial spot and he will come to you (does not drop aggro). Make sure your healers are in position to heal you after he comes back to you or you will get 2-3 shot.
After he mini-engrages (30%) he starts to hit very hard. Make sure you have 2 healers spamming you and 1 healer keeping the raid up (around 50% hp so leeching swarm doesnt heal anub for too much). Save your cooldowns (shieldwall, last stand) for last phase. Also make sure to have shieldblock up so you can pop it as soon as 30% hits.

Tanking adds: Not hard... pick them up and tank them on top of an ice patch so they can't burrow.



Anyhow... hope this helps
And... it gets much more difficult on heroic

Good luck!

[Eravian]

Two other little tips that may help. Especially if your raid dps is a little low, you may want to stack adds on top of Jaraxxus and AoE them down (although only do this if it won't kill your main tank and melee). Same with Anub'arak. If you have the adds tanked right next to him, you can throw up some AoE and take down the boss and the add at the same time, and then focus fire down the first add when a second comes out, so that you're off-tank isn't having to deal with two adds at a time if they're having trouble. Otherwise just leave both adds up and kill them when he burrows (this is assuming you mean 10-man Normal).
Once Leeching Swarm starts, keep AoE on the boss and adds and kill the adds that way (although only AoE - don't focus fire them. Things like Whirlwind, Blizzard, a volley, etc. - you don't want to lose any dps on the boss that you don't have to, since he's healing from the leeching swarm), so you're healers don't need to worry about the off-tank (if the off-tank is doing fine, just focus fire the boss) - once they're dead, just focus fire the boss.
If you are running it with three healers, you may want to assign one of them the sole duty of shooting down permafrost until phase 3 starts, freeing up your dps to work on the boss the whole time... but again, those are just tips for lower dps settings... if your dps is doing burning the bosses quickly, it's not going to matter as much.

[Demiwraith]

Thank you for the fight breakdowns and excellent tips =)

Yeah i am currently using Peacekeepers Blade with an old 16def gem +bladewarding along with the Skull of Ruin with +20def

Am i on the understanding that i should buy the t9 shoulders and fit in my t9.25 gloves. Run voa for the t9.25 legs, but in the mean time say put my headplate of the honorbound in the bank and get the t8.5 one?

Aswell as save up and buy the T9 chest for 4 set bonus or what?

[Kuraf]

Regarding the t9 shoulders... it's definitely a "safe buy" when gearing up nowadays. The VoA25 legs will definitely help you out too for the set bonus. Put it aside only and only when you get the t8.5 chestpiece.

Meanwhile: start doing ToC10. What you have is enough :P

[Thundergnome]

Thank you for the fight breakdowns and excellent tips =)

Yeah i am currently using Peacekeepers Blade with an old 16def gem +bladewarding along with the Skull of Ruin with +20def

Am i on the understanding that i should buy the t9 shoulders and fit in my t9.25 gloves. Run voa for the t9.25 legs, but in the mean time say put my headplate of the honorbound in the bank and get the t8.5 one?

Aswell as save up and buy the T9 chest for 4 set bonus or what?

It depends really...
Since you've already purchased the headplate of the honourbound, definitely use it... it is better then the T8.5 set piece.

I see that you are at 7% hit, so since you are orc and don't have the draenei 1% hit bonus I would suggest getting to 8% first for the softcap.
You can get Gauntlets of the royal watch from the conqueror badge vendor, they will give you a great boost (of the top of my head i think its like +53 to hit) and will only be replaced by the T9+ gloves once you have the stats.

I'm also not sure how great the Blade Ward enchant is... from what I read it procced very rarely and not worth it. Personally I put titanium weapon chain on my sword to get the hit cap.
I've never tried blade ward myself, though, so I may be totally wrong on this.

For T9 gear, go ahead and get the shoulders and I'd say legs. Instead of legs you can go with the gloves if you're fine with hit rating the way it is (although I'd highly recomment going for 8% hit). It seems to me that the warrior tank legs are such a rare drop out of voa that you're likely to replace the chestpiece first.
On a side note, a miracle happened for me and the tank legs dropped the very first time I ran VoA25 just when they released Koralon. I've never seen them drop again though... and that's running voa weekly (10 and 25man) on 2 toons.

The reason for not getting the badge T9 chest piece is that there is a pretty nice chest that drops off Anub in 10man as well as an awesome chest that drops off Northern Beasts in 25man. If you're not running 25 with your guild, you can surely down the 1st boss with a pug.

One more thing... I noticed you put a 30stam gem in your helm....
You have a yellow socket there with a +12 stam socket bonus, so: why not put a +10 hit/+15 stam gem?
You will have: +27stam and +10 hit rating instead of just +30stam.
10hit rating at the expense of 30 health points is well worth it in my opinion.


Anyhow.. hope all of that helps..
take care