Seeking more advice on gear

[Lucen]

All right, so I think I have pretty much full 251 gear right now. I think my new ICC 10 raid has a kingslayer in it and I've managed to get a decent enough framerate to do ICC 25.

Threat seems to be an issue. So far, on most fights I've been able to keep aggro off the dps, but other tanks have been leaving me in the dust. Anything I can do for this? Also, I'm not sure which weapon to use. I've had Bonebreaker Scepter and recently got The Facelifter. With one, I'm hit capped but my expertise is a bit low (24). With the other, I can no longer be dodged, but I fall below the melee hit cap (with the glyph, my taunts are hit capped). And I still don't know what to enchant them with. From what I've read, none of them seem impressive.

I'm still clueless on trinkets. Both for general use and for something like LK. I never figured out how to handle soul reaper. I can obviously Divine Protection the first one, but my options seem a lot more limited after that.

I've been told our t10 is pretty bad, and I still have 5 pieces. What should I be replacing this with? I have a feeling I'm going to have to keep the leggings: tank pieces with expertise seem to be extremely rare, hence why I jumped all over the Facelifter. I feel bad rolling for tank gear the same ilvl as what I'm using without knowing if it's going to make a big difference. What am I looking for here, armor and stamina (taking gem slots into account) and maybe hit or expertise? Do I still want to keep the 2 piece bonus?

Any advice would be helpful.

[Harmacy]

From your profile: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...rmoon&cn=Lucen

OK, first thing that jumps out at me is your talent spec. Divinity is an incredibly weak talent (1% boost to incoming heals is not worth a talent point), Divine Sacrifice isn't that useful unless you spend the full 3 points to grab the incredibly awesome raidwall, and Crusade (in the Ret tree) is an amazing threat talent. Remember that almost everything in ICC meets the criteria for the full damage of Crusade, making it 6% total damage (and thus threat) for 3 points. Sexay.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZV0tAbuMusIufdxfMzbcG is what I use and recommend. (you can go 1/2 Imp Judgements if you want, that second point is just useless filler 99.9% of the time)

I apologize if this sounds like a dumb question, but you'd be surprised how many problems it solves - do you know the 96969 rotation? The 1 point in Imp Judgements implies that you do, but just to be sure, go look it up if you don't know it. 96969 is the highest threat possible that you can generate while maintaining a 100% uptime on Holy Shield.

Also, this may not have much to do with tanking but the Lay on Hands minor glyph is very useful. The third glyph slot, nothing useful at all. (Sense Undead is amazing in ICC though!)

So yeah, gear. 26 expertise is the most important benchmark for Paladin threat, followed by strength (up to 2000) then hit and additional expertise. That being said, very few problems with sustained threat are caused by threat stats - typically the problem is poor rotation or a poor talent spec.

Also, you mention that the other tanks are out-aggroing you. Maybe they should hold back a bit if you're main tanking? You only need enough threat to out-threat the DPS, if your offtank is too busy waggling his e-peen to watch Omen then he's the one screwing up.

A Prot Paladin should generally only be using 2 pieces of the tier 10, because our 4-piece is crap. At the 251/264 gear level, the recommended setup is t10 head + shoulders, Cataclysmic chest, Kraken gloves (both available from Frosties), and Pillars of Might (the BiS legs - get them if you can afford them! Save up, if you can't!). You definitely want to keep the 2-piece.

Your gemming and enchanting needs a little work, stack more stam and armor. Grid of most socket bonuses and just stack +30 stam gems, and your cloak enchant should be +225 armor for example. The proper answer to "how much stam and armor should I have" is as much as possible.

For a weapon enchant, none of them are stellar. Blood Draining is the best for pure survival, and Mongoose is nice for a mix of threat avoidance and a bit of armor (although its proc rate got nerfed again). Blade Ward is basically Mongoose but godawful, and Accuracy is nice for threat if you really really need it (which you shouldn't).

edit: oh, and your trinkets (currently saved with the Key and UO) are very good for most of ICC. Keep a second stam trinket around for Sindra and LK.

[Lucen]

I see. So one of the vendor pieces will give me the expertise I need to switch out the leggings? I was afraid I'd be stuck with them. I was saving up emblems to spend on primordials for the Pillars of Might, but by the sound of things, I'll be needing the frosts for vendor gear. I'll try to farm the titansteel and see how many primordials I can get through emblems and buy the rest off of the AH. I'll have to see what my numbers look like from there before deciding on which weapon to use.

I'm not sure I'm going to bother regemming existing gear or switching up talents, though I will look into that cloak enchantment. I generally follow the proper rotation when I'm tanking bosses. I'll probably try Mongoose on whichever weapon I decide to stick with and I'm sure I have something nice for a second stamina trinket either in my bags or the bank. I'll try as you suggest and swap it in for LK.

[Lucen]

Well, I found I had a lot more frost emblems than I thought. In any case, I tried buying the gloves and chestplate and doublechecked the stats on the pants. Even if I switch to the weapon with hit rating, the gear you suggest would put me in danger of missing taunts. So apparently I need to find more tank gear with hit rating or gem for hit.

I think I'm going to end up holding on to my current gloves for now, but I see no reason why I can't replace the chestplate immediately. And I'll be farming mats for the leggings. I'll also give more thought about fixing talents.

[sifuedition]

Really, you shouldn't be so worried about hit and expertise. Just search on this site a little and you will find numerous articles of why they do so little relatively for our threat.

[Lucen]

Relative to what? Also taunts missing is not an option.

[Shieldie]

I'm not sure I'm going to bother regemming existing gear or switching up talents, though I will look into that cloak enchantment. I generally follow the proper rotation when I'm tanking bosses. I'll probably try Mongoose on whichever weapon I decide to stick with and I'm sure I have something nice for a second stamina trinket either in my bags or the bank. I'll try as you suggest and swap it in for LK.

You come asking for advice but then state you wont follow the advice..

As it has been proven before, and as Sifuedition said, hit and expertise arent needed to maintain threat, I currently have both my hit and expertise at lower levels than yours and I never ever fall below, infact I notice that other tanks cant keep up with me. spec is really important when it comes to threat and not having crusade is the problem. Take into account that you are using the glyph of RD, and other classes can give you a hit buff, your taunt shouldnt be missing at all unless you drop extremely low on hit, which i dont see happening in this gear.

Hit and expertise boost your dps because you never will miss or be dodged, but even at VERY low levels of hit, you wont be missing all that often and the hits that do connect will surely hold sufficient threat from nearly any dps, as for tanks, It is the tanks responsibility to not outthreat the MT, I usually have to stop my rotation when someone else taunts to avoid pulling back, everybody should be doing this, and if they arent, call them out on it.

also, are you mashing your buttons as fast as possible? do you have latency issues? all of those can be contributors to your threat feeling low.

[Dreador]

Don't sweat expertise and hit. Pillars of Might are the pants you need, period. Gems and enchants: change all but your helm gems to 30 or 51 stam. Cloak should have 225 armor, gloves 240 armor, not armsman. Boots better off with 15 stam and speed increase.

[Lucen]

In case you missed it, I've stated that I'm going to give more thought to fixing talents. My initial impression from your response was that there was nothing majorly wrong with the spec, but 6% threat is a lot to give up. As for squeezing out every drop of stamina by neglacting set bonuses (which are almost always stamina), that I'm not so sure of.

What am I supposed to do if I don't happen to have a boomkin or shadow priest in the raid? Tell them I can't come? The tank's main responsibility is to keep the rest of the group safe, which occasionally means taunting off another tank and not having it miss. How do I do that? By capping hit. If dps is supposed to cap hit, it is absolutely idiotic to hold tanks to a lower standard with respect to our taunts. If I swing and miss I'm less concerned as long as I can hold threat.

As for that last paragraph, I don't really button mash, though with at least some characters I do find myself double-clicking to ensure if the first one is clicked too early, I'm still going to get the ability off. Latency hasn't been an issue, although I really wish I could figure out framerate issues. LK 10 dipped below 4 fps. I've since discovered minimizing the combat log does wonders to help. And the only threat meter I use is the built in one, so I don't really see how close the dps is. I often don't care which of us has the boss as long as it's not on the dps (maybe I'm the one "waggling the e-peen" in this respect), so in the circumstances where we're tanking the same boss, like Blood Queen let's say, I see I'm not even coming close.

As for cases where I might actually be losing threat? Occasionally to the other tank at the start of the fight (like Rotface before the kiting tank has any oozes to contend with. And why does the abomination tank feel the need to pull aggro on Putricide?), when tanking multiple mobs and someone's attacking the wrong one (rarely a big deal, can usually just rein it in), and, for some reason, LK. It may be the dps in this case though. I'm often trying to grab the spirits during the phase change and move them so they don't face a raid member and one shot them and someone pulls aggro, then asks me if I forgot righteous defense... Not that, my LK performances have been flawless, particularly in those transition phases, but I think I have been getting a bit of a raw deal.

[Lumines]

If your first taunt misses, you have a second one. If that one misses, you can Hand of Protection the other tank (assuming you're second on threat, which you might not be without Crusade ) until the first taunt comes back off cooldown. And you have to be having a really unlucky week for all that to be necessary. I think you're vastly overestimating the likelihood of missing both taunts in a row at the levels of hit you'll find in most gear sets, and if it's a concern for taunt sensitive fights, then switch in a couple of pieces of hit gear for that fight.

Anyway, your talents are sub-optimal, your gems are sub-optimal, you have a couple of sub-optimal enchants and your gearing strategy leaves a lot to be desired (taking 5 piece tier gear instead of more effective off-set pieces, gearing for threat stats); you could end up doing more threat and being more survivable at the same time by heeding some of the advice here, but if you're not willing to follow it, there's not much point in restating it.

[Shieldie]

Think of your paladin tank as you would a dps class, it translates literally to this; The faster you press your buttons, the more threat and damage you will do. Due to server lag and latency and whatnot, Theres a very good chance that unless you are completely hammering your keyboard, you are going to be missing out on a gcd at some point, you mentioned clicking, this may have something to do with it aswell, you can use your abilities alot quicker once you bind them and develop the muscle memory.

Im sorry if my previous post came out too confrontational sounding, it just feels like a waste of time for us who respond with help to be told no, that you wont follow the advice. But yes I admit I missed the part inwhich you said you would give more thoughts to the talents. Thats going to be one of the biggest improvements you can make, plus your dps wil rise

The sad truth though.. is theres no such thing as an all around optimal tank set. even the very best have to switch gear for certain things. Trying to keep an all around 'perfect set' with all caps, avoidance, AND EH, while sounds great on paper, is only hurting you when it really comes down to it. For example. On Saurfang 10 or 25, I switch out a few pieces to add more hit, allowing me to never miss a taunt and keep him only attacking the tank without rune of blood. I do the same thing for kiting the oozes on rotface aswell. infact I switch out alot of my tank pieces for dps pieces (though I still keep 536 defense incase some freak accident where the rotface tank dies) just for added threat on the ooze while kiting, I switch gear actually, during nearly every fight, sometimes focusing on avoidance (for testing) and sometimes armor / hit / hp, all different kinds of occasions. Its prettymuch the only way to be completely optimal without gimping yourself.

[sifuedition]

Lucen,

Maybe you are not very very familiar with this site. This site has a high rate of mathy contributors (which I am not really one, lol). Next to elitistjerks, maybe the most theorycrafters. The advantage to this site is you can ask anything that is a legitimate question without the sinking feeling the ban-hammer is coming.

Occassionally, bad advice will happen even here. When it does, you can expect three people to come along and correct that statement. When three people agree, as we have in this thread, it will be quite reliable.

I understand what you are saying about tanks hit capping. It is Great to be hit capped. However, the current state of threat modifiers makes it completely unneccesary to hold threat in almost all situations. Based on that, it is a low priority. If you get a good hit/expertise/avoidance piece then hang onto it. You might find a use for it in specific fights. For progression and in general, go with your best EH gear in each slot until you identify a "gimmick" that might require you to change.

Saurfang is a taunt sensitive fight. I have about 100 hit rating and the RD glyph. Not sure how many times I have downed him but I have missed exactly ONE taunt on that fight and RD on my co-tank immediately resolved the issue.

[Lucen]

I wasn't aware I had to accept the advice on an all or nothing basis. Let me reveal what's changed so far. The breastplate was changed quickly. After a lot of farming, I was able to get the pillars of might crafted. Both pieces are now stuffed with stamina gems. The spec will likely change in the near future, though I'll be sad to lose a point in spiritual attunement. My cloak enchantment has been changed and my weapon enchanted with Mongoose.

I'd be interested in seeing any theorycrafted threads pertaining to hit and expertise. So far, all I've seen here is anecdotal evidence and doing a search for hit rating returned way too many threads. In the meantime, I'm keeping the gloves and seeing what drops I can get my hands on. The glove enchantment will likely not change; I'd rather keep the bonus threat.

[Lumines]

I disagree with the sentiment that "hit and expertise do relatively little for our threat." They're both good threat stats; you don't avoid gearing for hit and expertise because they're inefficient threat gains - you do so because as long as you're executing your rotation correctly, you're specced correctly, and you receive an initial Tricks or MD to establish threat at the beginning of the fight, you shouldn't have threat issues unless your DPS substantially outgear you. The evidence there is fairly anecdotal, but plenty of tanks were doing their ToC and ToGC progression with close to 0 hit and expertise from gear and held threat just fine.

"Executing your rotation correctly" means using the correct abilities in the correct order, but also in maximising ability usage i.e. using your 6 second abilities as close as possible to every 6 seconds by pre-casting/button mashing to make sure the ability fires as soon as possible.

To the OP: you sound like you are having threat issues. If you're losing threat on LK, that's a threat issue. Your reticence to replace Armsman correlates with that too, since if nobody's threat-capped than 2% threat is literally wasted. The statement: "As for that last paragraph, I don't really button mash, though with at least some characters I do find myself double-clicking to ensure if the first one is clicked too early.." implies that you're clicking rather than using keybinds, which for 99% of players is going to result in less efficient ability usage than a good set of keybinds would.

[Aggathon]

It's more like "hit and expertise do very little for our threat if our rotation/spec/glyphs are wrong"

Yes they do help with threat, obviously, but you don't have to be doing 14k+ TPS, you just have to be doing more than your highest DPS's threat. I feel fairly confident in saying every tank class can do this for single target DPS with equally or at least only 1 or 2 teir's higher geared DPS. A new tank in heroics with a bad weapon and not much AP probably won't be able to hold aggro against a 277 destro lock.

the TL;DR is the same as always: if you're having really bad aggro problems, it's probably not because you didn't stack enough threat stats, it probably has more to do with rotation/spec/glyphs.

Edit: so ya, what he said ^

[Aggathon]

As for squeezing out every drop of stamina by neglacting set bonuses (which are almost always stamina), that I'm not so sure of.

I missed this so sorry for double post, but I think it should be addressed.

let me give you some examples:

Individually, lets say you have a BP with 3 sockets (1 yellow, 1 red, 1 blue) that gives you a +12 stam bonus. By not hitting that bonus, you're losing stam, according to your theory.

However, if you gem this BP with 3x30 stam gems, you get 90 stam
Now let's say you gem it with +10def/+15stam in the yellow, +10agi/+15stam in the red, and a +30 stam in the blue, giving you the +12 stam bonus. You now get 15+15+30+12 or 72 stam

So you're actually losing 18 stam to pick up 10 def and 10 agi, not a very good tradeoff.

Now for a more overall gear standpoint:
To start off with generic formulas:
6 stam bonus = 15 stam+6 stam = 21 stam vs. 30 stam, so 9 stam loss
9 stam bonus = 15 stam+9 stam = 24 stam vs. 30 stam, so 6 stam loss
12 stam bonus with 2 non-blue sockets = 18 stam loss (as shown above)

So in your gear:
Shoulders: -9stam +10 dodge
Cloak: -9stam +10 def
Chest: -6stam +10 dodge
Bracers: -9 stam +10 def
Legs: -6 stam +10 def
Belt: -6 stam +10 dodge

So in just gemming, not counting your glove enchant (which would be another 18 stam for a very small amount of threat (lets say you do 10k TPS, 2% of that is only 200 more TPS, that's a drop in the bucket) and 10 parry) you're currently losing out on 45 stam and only gaining 40 dodge and 20 defense. So you're talking about losing over 700 hit points in ICC for like... what half a percent of avoidance or something like that? Add in another 280 for the glove enchant.

Now, do you have enough raw gear that for doing PuGs/Normal mode content it won't REALLY matter? Probably. Are you still suboptimal? Yes. Could this hurt you in progression content? Absolutely.

[sifuedition]

I apologize if the term "relatively little for our threat" gave the wrong impression. I should have taken the time to explain it better that I was talking about what Agg explained (and I learned from his posts) that the threat from hit/exp is little relative to spec/rotation/glyphs.

[Lucen]

I missed this so sorry for double post, but I think it should be addressed.

So in your gear:
Shoulders: -9stam +10 dodge
Cloak: -9stam +10 def
Chest: -6stam +10 dodge
Bracers: -9 stam +10 def
Legs: -6 stam +10 def
Belt: -6 stam +10 dodge

So in just gemming, not counting your glove enchant (which would be another 18 stam for a very small amount of threat (lets say you do 10k TPS, 2% of that is only 200 more TPS, that's a drop in the bucket) and 10 parry) you're currently losing out on 45 stam and only gaining 40 dodge and 20 defense. So you're talking about losing over 700 hit points in ICC for like... what half a percent of avoidance or something like that? Add in another 280 for the glove enchant.

To be fair, it's a drop in the bucket either way. There are factors of time and cost that can be measured against the reward, but let's exclude that for now. I assume even without diminishing returns, an amount of stamina is worth more than an equal amount of dodge, so 9 stamina is probably worth more than 10 dodge rating. How about 6 stamina vs. 10 dodge? Now which one is worth more? And I see you didn't include the helmet. I'll assume that's because it's needed for the metagem, but let's take that example now. The tradeoff in the helm is 10 dodge for 3 stamina. Where exactly is the balance where the dodge is actually worth more?

[Aggathon]

You figure out where the EXACT balance is and you'll be a god. Many people (including myself) have tried and failed miserably. However I can tell you that in ICC, only absurd amounts of avoidance are worth it against EHP.

The socket is just for the meta gem. There is no other piece of gear where you get +12 stam for 1 hybrid gem, so it's a moot point. 6 stam IS worth way more than 10 dodge in my book.

Edit: that and red gems should be agi for paladins anyways.

Edit2: go read http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...king-mechanics) and if you want to be a real baller read the entire thread, because people bring up a lot of other good points. I have links on the OPs to some of them.

[Insahnity]

First off, any sort of threat problems are attributed almost exclusively to a) suboptimal rotation and spec or b) overgeared DPS with no self control, compounded by a lack of Misdirect/TotT. Everthing else is fluff at best. Start with this idea in your head, or you will go nowhere fast.

I wasn't aware I had to accept the advice on an all or nothing basis.

I'm sorry I missed the initial part of this thread. Lots of good advice thrown out, but it's a shame people have to fight you on this. You do realize, people have absolutely NO incentive to give you good advice, and yet you seem to be interpreting it as attacks on your skills/choices/whatever. If you come to a place for help, we may point to other problems because in fact they may be the real problem or bigger problems than where you think the problem is. Really, if you truly knew everything, you wouldn't be here, no?

Let me reveal what's changed so far. The breastplate was changed quickly. After a lot of farming, I was able to get the pillars of might crafted. Both pieces are now stuffed with stamina gems. The spec will likely change in the near future, though I'll be sad to lose a point in spiritual attunement. My cloak enchantment has been changed and my weapon enchanted with Mongoose.

For spec, I will repeat it again: Divinity is a no-no for tanks. It's actually being moved out of the tree in cataclysm, because the developers realized it was in the wrong spot and have now placed it correctly in the Holy Tree. See for yourself. http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#s
Your initial question was how to help with threat, and we are telling you, crusade gives you way more threat than being fully capped in all threat stats. And by putting the last 2 points into Divine Guardian, even if you never pop divine sacrifice, the extra 20% absorbed has MUCH more value than 5% extra heals (which turns into overheals). Look at your Recount next time, particularly the overheals section.

I'd be interested in seeing any theorycrafted threads pertaining to hit and expertise. So far, all I've seen here is anecdotal evidence and doing a search for hit rating returned way too many threads.

Look for DREADOR's Post (above). His signature contains the posts you seek (in bolded, and underlined).

@Dreador: I think you need italics, blaring sounds, and perhaps naked women pics. People just seem to glaze over your sig.

In the meantime, I'm keeping the gloves and seeing what drops I can get my hands on. The glove enchantment will likely not change; I'd rather keep the bonus threat.

*sigh*

The badge gloves are your best bet, short of 277 gloves. As far as drops, you can only hope for 264 tier gloves from voa25 at best. Realize that you spent a lot of frost badges on items in the incorrect order. You need tier pieces to go to 277, but you probably would have progressed faster with non-tier pieces first. You will still get there, just more slowly.

As for enchant, the armsman is doing squat for you. Why? Consider this:

We are telling you that with zero hit from gear and only the basic expertise (16 expertise, 10 from seal of vengeance glyph and 6 from combat expertise), some mystical improbability that your gear has no hit or expertise, and 251 gear, you should be able to do all the threat you need to do to keep up with even some impatient a-hole with a shadowmourne and full 277 gear. Either you accept this or we are going nowhere fast.

Assuming you are going to accept this for now, let's work the numbers:

With 16 expertise skill, you have a 12.5% chance not to connect. The expertise enchant to gloves (15 expertise rating) gives you about 0.5% chance to be not dodged and 0.5% chance not to be parried, for an aggregate 1% improvement in hitting the boss. Armsman gives you 2% on that which you connect, and 18 stamina, 240 armor, 884 armor for engineers, or even nothing at all, give you the same effect, which is nothing for your threat (but the EH enchants help you survive to continue doing TPS...)

Here's a chart to show the improvements, from 1k tps all the way to 15k tps which exceeds the best geared and talented person on single target threat you are likely to meet.

TPS    Nothing  Expertise    Armsman
1000    775         785      790.5
2000    1550       1570     1581
3000    2325       2355     2371.5
4000    3100       3140     3162
5000    3875       3925     3952.5
6000    4650       4710     4743
7000    5425       5495     5533.5
8000    6200       6280     6324
9000    6975       7065     7114.5
10000   7750      7850     7905
11000   8525      8635     8695.5
12000   9300      9420     9486
13000   10075    10205    10276.5
14000   10850    10990    11067
15000   11625    11775    11857.5

Can you tell me, with a straight face, that even if you could pull 15k TPS, 223 TPS is gonna save you from the DPS who has to do 110% extra dps if melee, or 130% extra DPS if ranged? You can play with the numbers all that you want, but you will find no amount of threat stats on your gloves will ever save you. If you take it from people who tried their hardest, including Aggathon, to skimp out, and still failed, you will see that going with max stam will help you in the end, in terms of not having to regem when you get to heroic 25 LK.

Now to address the taunt issue. It's been stated before you have at least 2 taunts. Taunts don't care about expertise, so it's off your hit rating. You currently have 10.9% hit rating. You also have the glyph which adds 8% hit. This gives you 18.9% chance to hit, when all you need is 17%. Now let's get brutal, and say you Halve your hit. This puts you at about 13.5% increased chance to taunt, or 3.5% chance to miss, and therefore 96.5% chance of success (note, I'm not even counting a boomkin or spriest putting a debuff to increase spell hit by 3%!). The chances of you missing 2 taunts are
(0.035)0(0.035)= 0.001225, or about 0.12% chance of missing. Do you see where we are going with this?

Finally other pieces of advice that probably didn't get discussed (Sorry if duplicated).

-Change the libram. I run with

http://www.wowhead.com/item=47661

200 strength is a fair amount of TPS (200 str->400 AP->Double that when it get's applied as holy damage with RF up). I can tell you that it has almost 100% uptime (just a little off the start that it's missing, otherwise it always refreshes itself before it drops)

-Switch 18 stam with Titanium plating. It will beef up your Shield of the Righteous, your highest single target TPS move.

-I never use agi for red, it's not going to help too much. I roll with expertise stam, which adds about 0.3 expertise skill, which is much better than the miniscule dodge/armor/crit that 10 agi gives.