[ulushnar]

3.0 Edit: I had originally intended to update this thing with the FAQs for 3.0. Since looking around, I can see many other folks starting on guides to the 3.0 changes and I personally hate repetition of effort. I'm going to wait therefore until after WotLK launch when we have a bunch of level 80s and we've seen the content at that level more clearly. At that point, I may do another version of this.


OK, first up, this is not a thread I feel should be stickied. It's a compilation of data from other stickies and sites arranged in one place, along with my highly subjective commentary. I'll be placing a link to it in my signature on these boards and I'll be updating it as I feel I should.

Second of all, if you disagree with any of this, good for you. Any veteran tankadin should know this stuff well enough to make up their own mind. All I'm offering is my own thought process for newcomers to the spec until such time as they know their stuff well enough to come to their own conclusions. These are by-an-large the same answers I'd give on the gear-check forums.

With these caveats out of the way, on with the show.

1. Is my gear good enough to tank X?

There's a few easy answers to this:

If you're actually prot-specced at the moment, then logout in your tanking gear. For the purpose of the exercise, I'll assume includes uncrushability for raid tanking, if it doesn't see my next question. Then go to a gearcheck site. For the moment, I reccomend Wow-Heroes, but if that's down, try Be.Imba. You can ignore a lot of the crap if you want (especially in Be.Imba), but look for the bar that tells you where you'll perform best atm. It's near the top in Wow-Heroes and near the bottom in Be.Imba. If the blue bar's ahead of where you wanna go, great, you'll do fine. If it's on or just behind, then you'll need to load up on the consumables and hope for the best.

If you're not currently prot specced, then the job is harder, but not impossible. First of all, go to a sandbox site like Warcrafter and assemble your character's gear and spec. Take a note of the final Armor, health and Avoidance (dodge/parry/miss from defense, no block) levels. Then head over to our good friends at Tankspot, who have provided a helpful guide to effective health and avoidance minimums for different zones.

These will offer reliable guidelines, but from there it's down to your healers. An amazing healer can cover a multitude of tanking sins and a team of them can make even the lowliest nub into a damage-soaking god.

2. I'm having difficulty reaching 102.4%

First things first, are you factoring in the 5% miss chance all mobs have? It sounds dumb, but a lot of folks don't know about it.

If you're factoring that in then you need to look at your gearing, gemming and enchanting options. Generally of the four ratings, Block Rating offers the most uncrushability per point, followed by Defense Rating, then Dodge with Parry bringing up the rear. There's an excellent guide here on items and enchants that will help you get there. Don't worry too much about sacrificing health early on, it'll build up with time.

As far as buffs to help you to uncrushable, rely only on those you can supply. In practical terms, this means count BoK if it's in your build. It's less of a problem in 25-mans, but you never know when you'll have to run a ten-man without a druid or shaman.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention this thread, which was my bible in my early raiding days. It lists every peice of gear, enchant and gem in order of their contribution to uncrushability.

3. How should I gem/enchant my gear?

I'm not getting into the whole avoidance vs effective health slapfight. There's a million threads on the subjects and people who argue both sides intelligently and passionately.

First of all, identify your weakness. What's killing you?

1. I die to burst damage from bosses despite constant healing.
2. My healers run out of mana by spamming high-rank heals on me constantly.
3. The boss enrages and two-shots me.

Now the solutions:

1. Death by burst (assuming you're uncrush/uncrit and keeping Holy Shield up) indicates you need more effective health. Look for enhancements that give more health, stamina, armor or block value.
2. If your healers are going oom healing you, or moan that you're "taking too much damage", then you might want to look into avoidance. Dodge generally gives the best point-for-point avoidance, with Defense a close second. Parry should be avoided where possible since it gives the poorest returns.
3. If the boss enrages it means either your DPS was slacking, they died to splash damage, or you were threat-capping them. There's sod all you can do about the first two, but if your DPS are all alive near the enrage timer and not just auto-attacking, then you may want to look into some threat enchants.

Once you've identified your weakness, check this guide for enchants/gems to deal with it. If you're sufferring from different weaknesses on different fights, then build different sets of gear to deal with these weaknesses. If you're sufferring from multiple weaknesses on the same fight, then chances are you're undergeared for it.

4. What Badge Gear should I get first?

First of all, get the Libram of Repentance. Unless you're a Holydin from a Sunwell guild who picked up all the T6 tanking drops and then respecced, you'll want that 5.3% uncrushability. And if your gear's that good, then you shouldn't be asking for a check, really.

After that, your next two purchases should be the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian and the Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor. These are both amazing pieces that won't be replaced until Illidan (the chest) and Kalecgos (the legs).

For your fourth purchase, Slikk's Cloak of Placation's pretty awesome for 35 badges. As an Effective Health cloak, there doesn't seem to be a direct upgrade in the game.

After that, just aim for items to replace your weakest slots. But never buy Blue's Greaves. Ever. I'm not even gonna provide a link to the horrid things.

5. What's better for AoE Tanking, Avoidance or Block Value?

This is going to be a controversial one I know, but I'm leaning towards avoidance. BV will completely trivialise already trivial aoe content (MH Ghouls, Tidewalker's Murlocs), but it probably won't do as well against the big guys (MH Abominations). Avoidance will "normalise" your damage intake more. You'll end up taking more damage from the little guys but less from the big guys.

In the end, I try to hybridize. I wear more BV (around 500) than I would for normal tanking, but I don't let my Avoidance slip much below 50%. The downside is your healers may need to do a little more work on the scrub trash. The upside is you shouldn't need a shadow priest to stop you drinking after every wave.

6. What sort of gearing preparations should I make for 3.0/WotLK?

Well it depends on your gear level:

Pre-Heroics/Kara: Take a look at the "green Wrath" set, which has a good mix of Strength, Stamina and Defense:

Head: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27520 (Greathelm of the Unbreakable)
Legs: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27527 (Greaves of the Shatterer)
Chest: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28262 (Jade-Skull Breastplate)
Boots: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27813 (Boots of the Colossus)
Shoulders: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27847 (Fanblade Pauldrons)
Gloves: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28390 (Thatia's Self-Correcting Gauntlets)
Bracers: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27459 (Vambraces of Daring)
Waist: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27672 (Girdle of the Immovable)

You'll also want a high-dps one-hander, and this is the time you can look at weapons like Grom'tor's Charge as a decent option.

Heroics-to-Raid level: Don't worry. all the Heroic Badge and Raid tanking plate is being reitemized to meet the new mechanics in 3.0/WotLK. This means that all your spelldamage gear will become Strength gear. The change should be relatively seamless, although some parts may take a slight hit in the stamina or avoidance departments to accomodate the alterations. This isn't terrible because...

...The biggest change in 3.0 is we no longer have to worry about crushing blows. Whilst stacking avoidance is always going to be a good thing, we no longer have to aim for 102.4%, and the only hard-and-fast gear requirement is 485 Defense for Heroics, 490 for Raids.

And that's your lot. If other common questions come up, I'll add them to this list. Thanks to the people who wrote the guides I linked to and who's advice I've liberally stolen for this. My intention is not to replace any of the information on this site, but to offer some answers to some of the frequently asked questions I see in my own verbose, meandering style.

[moduspwnens]

Hmm.

Looks good. Although now Guillex has to edit his, too. :O

[guillex]

Hmm.

I'm a silly monkey

edit: Edited because I didn't notice the edited answers ... And modus is a monkey.

[ulushnar]

Hmm.

You typo'd offering in your second paragraph. I'll edit this out when you fix it.

It's fine.

Yeah, I fixed it just after he told me. Wasn't commenting since it would stop him deleting his reply.

[Ciandin]

After that, just aim for items to replace your weakest slots. But never buy Blue's Greaves. Ever.

Epic Win

[Lore]

I like.

[Lieris]

"2. I'm having difficulty reaching 102.4% "

People also forget Kings and MOTW can contribute a little too

[ulushnar]

"2. I'm having difficulty reaching 102.4% "

People also forget Kings and MOTW can contribute a little too

I added a bit about Kings if it's in your build. I don't believe in trusting in external buffs to reach uncrushability when a lot of our players are in 10-man guilds.

[Gideon]

OK, first up, this is not a thread I feel should be stickied.

Not sure if I agree with you there.

[ulushnar]

Appreciate the vote of confidence, but I don't wanna add to the forest of stickies that don't get read in the gear forums.

Edit: Updated the post with a mention of the Uncrushability Values thread, which was a glaring omission on my part given how much I relied on it when starting.

[ulushnar]

Chucked on a note about gearing for AoE tanking based on my experiences.

[rodos]

"2. I'm having difficulty reaching 102.4% "

People also forget Kings and MOTW can contribute a little too

Don't forget Grilled Mudfish, Elixir of Major Agility, and Scroll of Agility V. All those stack for a fairly significant 3% dodge, and you can still sneak in a 250 HP elixir.

[Diocaska]

"2. I'm having difficulty reaching 102.4% "

People also forget Kings and MOTW can contribute a little too

Don't forget Grilled Mudfish, Elixir of Major Agility, and Scroll of Agility V. All those stack for a fairly significant 3% dodge, and you can still sneak in a 250 HP elixir.

I listed all food/pot consumables (non potion) a while back. Stated some of the values there.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... highlight=

I should probably edit it, make it easier to read through.

[Alexlifeson]

very nice info... I saved it to my favorites in case it is not stickied. I really appreciate the link to items that add to avoidance stats and will use that as a regular reference.

[Diocaska]

very nice info... I saved it to my favorites in case it is not stickied. I really appreciate the link to items that add to avoidance stats and will use that as a regular reference.

Thanks I really need to go back and edit it to improve the layout.