WoW: The Meatshield Inn

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Gio - Keep in mind that dropping locks you out of LFD for 30 minutes, so it's better to kick. I've only seen two people kicked, personally. The latest was a 650 DPS Hunter in Heroic OK. Even with him, I was just going to live with it, but someone initiated the vote halfway through.

In some cases, I've been finding that you can cheat that by dropping from the group rather than teleporting out of the dungeon. Is there a timer or something?

I'm generally not that militant about it and I try to give others the benefit of the doubt, especially when it comes to legitimate feedback after a death or wipe. I've just had a nasty streak over the weekend. That and I'm stalled on gear progression to where there are hardly any upgrades available in normal instances but where I'm not geared enough to farm emblems. Makes the whole experience sour.

I don't know what your DPS gear is like, but you can better "get away" with being undergeared as a DPS rather than a tank. I'm also sure people in the guild would be happy to have you along, regardless of gear!

Go DPS and hang out in guild runs for awhile. It's fun, most of us won't be rolling against you for anything you need, and you get emblems. Win all around. (I'm farming emblems on my healing tree at the moment, so I heal heroics pretty regularly)

As far as tanking goes, I'm offtanking an inter-guild ICC10 raiding group. I'm doing pretty well so far, no aggro loss, no major failures causing wipes, no serious screwups on my end. But I was wondering if anyone had any raid tanking advice for someone who is new at it?

So I finally got my paladin tank to 80, and I'm starting to think about gear. More specifically, I'm eyeing stats.

Best I can tell, defense is my number one stat. I haven't equipped my lvl 80 prot gear (RL = busy), and I'm still short of revered with Argent Crusade, but I think I'll be close to the magic 535/540.

After that ... ?

I'm thinking Expertise and Hit are probably up there, and Block Value, Dodge and Parry seem to be next-ish. EJ and Maintankadin are pretty vague on the topic. They tell you what stats are key (all of them), but they don't seem to put any priority order on them.

FWIW, I'll probably go toward some sort of mitigation/avoidance build. Stacking stamina seems mindless.

Any suggestions (and especially a stat priority), as always, are appreciated.

Enix wrote:

FWIW, I'll probably go toward some sort of mitigation/avoidance build. Stacking stamina seems mindless.

Any suggestions (and especially a stat priority), as always, are appreciated.

For mitigation/avoidance, you'll likely want to look back at the old "102.4%" number that's gone away. You'll want to aim to have your dodge, parry, block and miss chance equal to that amount (include the 30% from Holy Shield). This will make sure that every time an attack goes through (not completely avoided) it will be a Block. The reason it's 102.4% is because for each level a boss is higher than you (bosses are considered lvl 83), they have an additional 0.6% chance to hit you.

For priority for a build like the one you want, Defense Rating is #1. It'll provide the most point-for-point mitigation over everything else.

After that, you'll want to even out the amount of parry and dodge rating. If you have 500 Dodge Rating, and only 100 Parry Rating, you'll get Diminishing returns on the Dodge, and won't be even close on your Parry. Instead, if you have 300 Parry and 300 Dodge, you'll actually gain quite a bit more avoidance by reducing the Diminishing Returns factor.

There are very few pieces that have Block Rating and Block Value on them. Most of them, if not all, you'll end up replacing with Emblem gear as you do heroics. If you are looking at increasing your Blocking, the best way is to reach that 102.4% amount, then get more strength. Strength will increase your block rating, and also your AP and SP for more threat.

However, before Strength, one of the stats dominantly shown on the high level gear is bonus Armor Rating. This is a beautiful stat as you can get your Armor up to ~40,000 or close to 75% reduction from physical attacks. It's very good to have.

To go with a well rounded build, opposed to stacking stamina, you'll want to actually even out your gems based on the color sockets. Overall, you'll optimize your threat, mitigation and health.

Yellow Socket - Enduring (+Def, +Stam)
Blue Socket - Solid (full Stam)
Red Socket - Sovereign (i think) (+Str, +Stam)

After this, you'll want to look at your Expertise and Hit Rating. Typically you'll want 8% Hit and 8% Expertise. More hit than this ends up being a waste, but more Expertise will continue to assist in your total connecting attacks. Bosses will normally only Dodge 7.5% of your attacks, but can Parry up to 15% or more. You won't want to get that high, but if you have 10% Expertise, know that it's not a total waste. These aren't considered mitigation/avoidance talents, it's what to look at while you gain that really great gear to make sure you get some, but not too much of the same.

Assuming you gem and enchant normally with the stamina boosts, you'll have a really high amount of health and actually be alot stronger than the typical Stam-stacking Pally (sigh...).

TL;DR Priority Listing
1. Defense Rating (atleast to cap, above is still really good)
2. Parry Rating / Dodge Rating (even amounts)
3. Bonus Armor Rating (cap at 75% Damage Reduction)
4. Strength (Increases Block Value and Threat/Damage)
5. Hit Rating / Expertise Rating (aim for 8% on both, higher is still okay for Exp)

This assumes the Hybrid gems above for Stamina and enchants focusing on stamina as well, since those are still optimal choices.

EDIT: Still need more details? See the Link for Super K in my sig. Pally tank the way it should be.

Krindle doesn't gem correctly -- he's too addicted to socket bonuses -- but it's a pretty decent template to start.

edit -- several of his enchants are incorrect choices as well. still, nothing that would call forth the ragehammer.

5. Hit Rating / Expertise Rating (aim for 8% on both, higher is still okay for Exp)

8% exp? You only need 6.5. Yeah, parry chance is high, but there are no parry haste gib fights anymore. Much better off stopping exp at 6.5% (24).

Seth wrote:

Krindle doesn't gem correctly -- he's too addicted to socket bonuses -- but it's a pretty decent template to start.

It's somewhat debatable. I know that for DKs, the break-even point for a socket bonus being worthwhile versus pure stam being better is 6 stam. If the socket is higher than that, it's worth getting, otherwise it's not. I'm not sure if there's any consensus for pally tanks, though.

Our pally tank has taken the same stance, and we haven't had any issues with her tanking anything so far in H ICC(we're 10/12 right now).

It's also generally good advice for starting out. Most likely, they won't be defcapped, so they're going to have to gem defense anyway. I was recently able to drop all my defense gems for +stam and other gems on my DK, and that took a while to do.

Congrats on getting your tank to 80!

Although stacking stamina seems mindless, it's still really the best thing you can do. After you hit your defense cap of 535 (don't worry about 540 until you're seriously considering getting into a raid, and nobody will take a raid tank with less than 30k base health (40k for ICC)), you should just get as much stamina as possible.

Avoidance stats will come with your gear, so don't worry about them.

If you really want to match gem sockets, do stam for blue and prismatic, agi/stam (dodge/stam if you're still low on dodge) for red, and def/stam for yellow. The only meta you should worry about is the +2% armor.

For enchants, if a slot doesn't have a +stam option, going with +agility is generally your best bet.

All this assumes you're playing a plate wearing tank; if you're playing a druid things are a bit different.

Dr.Ghastly wrote:
5. Hit Rating / Expertise Rating (aim for 8% on both, higher is still okay for Exp)

8% exp? You only need 6.5. Yeah, parry chance is high, but there are no parry haste gib fights anymore. Much better off stopping exp at 6.5% (24).

I used to have exp at 6.5% but found I was still getting a good amount of misses (as in deflects and whatnot). I bumped it up to 8% rating and saw a pretty big difference (1 in 50 or less, opposed to 1 in 20). That's also why I've got it down at #5 as the last thing to look at though.

Again though, we're taking a look at the far end of content. If we put it into context for a starting out tank in heroics, expertise is not a very large concern at all.

Seth wrote:

Krindle doesn't gem correctly -- he's too addicted to socket bonuses -- but it's a pretty decent template to start.

edit -- several of his enchants are incorrect choices as well. still, nothing that would call forth the ragehammer.

you make me laugh
be careful, he might think you are being serious.

Zablocki19 wrote:
Seth wrote:

Krindle doesn't gem correctly -- he's too addicted to socket bonuses -- but it's a pretty decent template to start.

edit -- several of his enchants are incorrect choices as well. still, nothing that would call forth the ragehammer.

you make me laugh
be careful, he might think you are being serious.

Quite serious -- you've proven time and again here and elsewhere your questionable grasp on theory -- I just want to make sure everything is painted in an accurate light.

Seth wrote:

Quite serious -- you've proven time and again here and elsewhere your questionable grasp on theory -- I just want to make sure everything is painted in an accurate light.

;)

How dare I have a well thought out and detailed explanation of tanking, not just from a gearing standpoint, but also regarding aggro, planning out your pull, and movement throughout a raid fight?

Yeah, shame on me.

There's nothing wrong with grabbing socket bonuses, especially if it gives you better overall stats.

Example
When you have a RYB +12 Stam bonus, your options are to stack stamina, go for the bonus, or optimize in some other fashion. Tossing in all Epic Solid gems, you get +90 stamina. Going with Enduring, Sovereign, Solid, you instead gain +72 Stamina, 10 Strength and +10 Defense Rating.

So, for 18 Stamina, you get 10 Strength and 10 Defense Rating. That's a worthwhile tradeoff.

Please be specific if you want to help players like Enix gear up appropriately instead of just saying "don't listen to this guy" and calling it a day.

I've seen a lot of this information (as well as arguments for and against) scattered throughout the interwebs, and it's good to have it all in one spot. So thanks everyone for the help.

I've got a two-week beach trip coming up. After that, I'm going to see how far I can take my paladin before Cata comes out. My goal is to be tanking in Cata instances right when the X-pack drops rather than waiting until it has played itself out. Tanking is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

Enix wrote:

I've seen a lot of this information (as well as arguments for and against) scattered throughout the interwebs, and it's good to have it all in one spot. So thanks everyone for the help.

I've got a two-week beach trip coming up. After that, I'm going to see how far I can take my paladin before Cata comes out. My goal is to be tanking in Cata instances right when the X-pack drops rather than waiting until it has played itself out. Tanking is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

Keep in mind that Tanking is getting another major overhaul for Cata. For instance, Defense Rating will no longer exist. A whole lot of what you read now will be much different in 4.0.

Enix wrote:

I've got a two-week beach trip coming up. After that, I'm going to see how far I can take my paladin before Cata comes out. My goal is to be tanking in Cata instances right when the X-pack drops rather than waiting until it has played itself out. Tanking is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

Well, have fun on your trip! Hopefully it's not to the Gulf of Mexico. . .

Tanking is pretty sweet. What other role in WoW so easily allows people to toss their e-penises onto the picnic table to see how many ants they can scatter off?

Zablocki19 wrote:

Example
When you have a RYB +12 Stam bonus, your options are to stack stamina, go for the bonus, or optimize in some other fashion. Tossing in all Epic Solid gems, you get +90 stamina. Going with Enduring, Sovereign, Solid, you instead gain +72 Stamina, 10 Strength and +10 Defense Rating.

So, for 18 Stamina, you get 10 Strength and 10 Defense Rating. That's a worthwhile tradeoff.

It's actually more than that, if you count kings, talents, etc.

IIRC, all of the %-based additions are multiplicative, so you're really trading 90*1.06*1.04*1.10 = 109 stam for 72*1.06*1.04*1.10= 87 stam, 11 str, and 10 def. That's 22 stam for 11 str and 10 def rating.

We're talking 220 HP for 6 block value(not rating), 22 AP, and .08% block rating, dodge, parry, and miss.

Seth wrote:

Tanking is pretty sweet. What other role in WoW so easily allows people to toss their e-penises onto the picnic table to see how many ants they can scatter off?

Healing. Because you have the entire raid by the balls, and can decide who lives and who dies. The entire raid needs to always remember not to piss off the healers, because they're looking for any reason to play the 1% game with you.

I had my money on "dpsing" being the first response, but I like your style, cube.

Also note that the majority of his gear choices are *not* a 12 stam socket bonus. socket matching for things like rings or gloves just doesn't make any sense -- which goes double for enchants like blade ward, +22 defense to chest (on a def capped toon) or +hit to gloves.

But this really is nitpicking. As a long time counter strike player, I know the lure of bright green numbers, so seeing that socket bonus light up is comforting.

well, that's the problem...*you've* done the math. And, I like you Chris, but you won't see me hiring you as my accountant any time soon.

cube wrote:

It's actually more than that, if you count kings, talents, etc.

IIRC, all of the %-based additions are multiplicative, so you're really trading 90*1.06*1.04*1.10 = 109 stam for 72*1.06*1.04*1.10= 87 stam, 11 str, and 10 def. That's 22 stam for 11 str and 10 def rating.

We're talking 220 HP for 6 block value(not rating), 22 AP, and .08% block rating, dodge, parry, and miss.

There's actually some other calcs in there too that you could add, but it won't change it much in one direction or the other. You're roughly trading 1 point of stamina for 1 point of strength or defense rating. I wouldn't consider that a bad trade off. If you were entering the range of 2 stamina per point of strength or defense rating (or even 1.7 or 1.8) then it wouldn't be worth it.

Seth wrote:

I had my money on "dpsing" being the first response, but I like your style, cube.

Also note that the majority of his gear choices are *not* a 12 stam socket bonus. socket matching for things like rings or gloves just doesn't make any sense -- which goes double for enchants like blade ward, +22 defense to chest (on a def capped toon) or +hit to gloves.

But this really is nitpicking. As a long time counter strike player, I know the lure of bright green numbers, so seeing that socket bonus light up is comforting.

Sigh. Whatever gets you to sleep at night Seth:

I've done the math. Apparently for some people, that extra 500 health is going to outweigh even 5% avoidance, or actually taking consistent damage. You can look at each point individually, or look at the whole package. For the level of gear, it's pretty damn perfect.

Blade Ward - Proc rate was increased dramatically a couple of patches ago. It easily provides a constant 2% parry and helps against spike damage.

22 Def to chest is still the best point for point enchant you can get on a chestpiece. You can go with +10 stats which is also a great enchant, but I went for more mitigation on this one.

Hit to gloves gives me exactly 230 Hit Rating, or 7%, with Draenei, it's an exact 8%, right at the cap.

I guess I could always hate my healers and make them work twice as hard to keep me alive, but hey, to each their own.

Enix: Krindle (Zablocki) knows his sh*t when it comes to tanking. You won't go wrong by taking his advice.

Seth wrote:

well, that's the problem...*you've* done the math. And, I like you Chris, but you won't see me hiring you as my accountant any time soon. :)

EDIT: No need to go that route.

You've provided no suggestions to assist Enix in this thread, but only said that others are wrong. I'd much prefer you actually back it up by saying something helpful.

Unfortunately it appears you've stopped playing this game a while ago considering your toons have no gear when looked up. So I don't think it's possible to look towards one of your toons for suggestions or comments.

If you look at what Enix said, which is a theory I hold true that Stamina is not the only stat in this game, then where would you put your points?

Hopefully the information I provided helps out.

I'm not disputing Krindle's ability to play WoW. I've offtanked for him before and he's no slouch in game. I just question his theory on gems and enchants, as do many others.

If you look at what Enix said, which is a theory I hold true that Stamina is not the only stat in this game, then where would you put your points?

I would've asked Enix what his goals were -- early heroics, late heroics, beginning raids, late raids, heroic raids. Each one of these is best suited to a specific theory of spec and gemming.

Early heroics, for example, require huge amounts of stamina (so that you're not booted for being "undergeared" by the group) and huge amounts of front loaded threat to deal with trigger happy dps.

Late heroics rely on stamina to soak the swaths of incoming magic damage, as well as giving avoidance a place to shine as you pull large numbers of hard hitting trash.

early raids suffer from the same problem as early heroics (pugs often require 30-40k unbuffed hp for Naxx).

ICC, and especially heroic ICC, armor becomes more and more important -- with the ICC buff, stamina and threat generation should be through the roof anyway, and mitigation (armor, specifically) becomes extremely important.

And, given those options, and given what i know concerning Enix's playstyle, it's actually better to recommend stam stacking for him. He won't be doing heroic ICC that soon, so his #1 goal is crushing through heroics he already knows pretty well from his hunter. And stam stacking provides exactly that.

zeroKFE wrote:

Enix: Krindle (Zablocki) knows his sh*t when it comes to tanking. You won't go wrong by taking his advice.

Enix, Zero speaks wisely here. Unless Seth wants to start offering something(anything) constructive, just stick with what Krin's saying.

yes, because mathematics and theorycraft are popularity contests.

AnimeJ wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Enix: Krindle (Zablocki) knows his sh*t when it comes to tanking. You won't go wrong by taking his advice.

Enix, Zero speaks wisely here. Unless Seth wants to start offering something(anything) constructive, just stick with what Krin's saying.

Read the post above yours?

Warlock wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

Enix: Krindle (Zablocki) knows his sh*t when it comes to tanking. You won't go wrong by taking his advice.

Enix, Zero speaks wisely here. Unless Seth wants to start offering something(anything) constructive, just stick with what Krin's saying.

Read the post above yours?

I did, and it's garbage. As a healer, I could care less how much health my tank has for early heroics. Want to know what I care about? Defense cap and avoidance. At this point in the game, any tank should be pushing 30k health and a crap ton of avoidance even in gear that'll barely get you by, ungemmed. In the amount of time I've spent pugging lately, I've seen it multiple times.

Yes, there are major issues with what people will require you to have to pug raids. I've regularly seen raids requiring levels of gear 1-2 or more tiers ahead of what you actually get from the instance; it's redonkulous.

Bottom line, as long as your gear is adequate for the content you're partaking of, ANY stat you're getting from gems simply doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, so coming in and declaring 'YOU'RE WRONG AND STUPID' is counterproductive at best.

I'm gonna throw in with Zablocki here, personally. Tanking, like healing, is not a math problem with one right answer. A lot of it plays into playstyle, what your healer can take, and what you're doing. On my druid, I can keep a moron up if he has somewhere over 30k HP. If a good player has 20k, I can do it, but it is damned hard. On low health, high avoidance tanks, a Disc priest would have a much, much easier time. (Bubble doesn't get drained for dodged hits, they have bigger heals, so on.). So, while stam stacking would help me out a bit, it wouldn't help out a disc priest healer, or maybe even a shaman. (Dunno, mine are both low levels.)

What I do know, from running my own paladin, is that despite Zablocki having an ego the size of a small(ish...) planet, he does know what he's doing. And, from running with advice from him, I've done pretty well. Def, even over cap, is a great mitigation stat. Paladins block, a ton, so anything that helps them out, helps reduce damage overall. (I think I've had Holy Shield run out of charges... once? Redoubt is up a ton, so I block most of the time.) A balanced setup is still probably good advice for early heroics. Straight Stam could well leave him having difficulty holding aggro on idiot DPS. Straight avoidance could get him pasted if he has a bad run with the RNG.

Plus, what we're missing here, is he's a damned paladin. We're sort of awesome tanks at the moment, so unless stuff goes very wrong, 1 or 2 points is not going to make a difference. And if stuff goes that wrong, those 1 or 2 points don't often save you for long.

"You've provided no suggestions to assist Enix in this thread, but only said that others are wrong"
Ah, good old Seth... as "authoritative" as ever.

To Enix, I don't always agree with Kindle on gem choices, but if you need paladin advice, he is the best resource you'll find hereabouts.

.

you're mean.