Northrend levelling

[Sevrinax]

Was having a discussion last night in guild regarding caps (def for tanks, hit for dps) and levelling.

My position is that raiding won't (really) occur until level 80, hence once WotLK goes live, the need to be at cap is removed. As I haven't raided on my pally beyond a couple of kara runs, my position is that once I get raw ac/stam/hp upgrades (from quest, drops etc in expac), they will take precedence over +def as I won't need to be @ level cap to tank the 5's throughout WotLK on the way to 80.
The same also applies to DPS.

Other folks are of the opinion that this isn't the case and cap requirements will still be mandatory.

Any thoughts on this?

[ShaiHulud]

Was having a discussion last night in guild regarding caps (def for tanks, hit for dps) and levelling.

My position is that raiding won't (really) occur until level 80, hence once WotLK goes live, the need to be at cap is removed. As I haven't raided on my pally beyond a couple of kara runs, my position is that once I get raw ac/stam/hp upgrades (from quest, drops etc in expac), they will take precedence over +def as I won't need to be @ 490 to tank the 5's throughout WotLK on the way to 80.
The same also applies to DPS.

Other folks are of the opinion that this isn't the case and cap requirements will still be mandatory.

Any thoughts on this?

Defense scales the same as any other stat. 5 per level. So defense cap will be 540 when you hit level 80 for level 83 bosses. So if you're the same level as a boss it would be as follows to not receive a crit:

71 - 480
72 - 485
73 - 490
74 - 495
75 - 500
76 - 505
77 - 510
78 - 515
79 - 520
80 - 525


It won't really matter though. Receiving a crit for a normal boss shouldn't really make or break an encounter for most instances until you get closer to 80.

Ninja edit.

[Neuron]

You will not need to be at cap until heroics at 80, and even then it is slightly questionable.

You will, however, really want to consider stacking some defense if you level as prot, since your ratings yield less each level and you're not getting gear upgrades for all slots each level. There are not even that many gem slots on the leveling gear.

For that matter, none of the leveling instances are even difficult and you could practically face roll your way through them, so this is an insignificant concern.

[Sevrinax]

Thanks for the responses - it bears out my understanding as well. I was confident that it was the case, but wanted to ensure the mechanics hadn't changed with WotLK.

[Kellann]

Until you get to Naxx, you won't have to worry about crit cap overmuch. It's nice to gear towards, but hardly necessary in 5man content.

It's not like blizzard expects a freshly leveled ret paladin who decides to dabble in prot for the first time in a L71 5-man to have a full tanking set - but they still expect the group to manage (retard checks aside).

[Yinramu]

From my own experiences so far doing the tanking gear up on a Death Knight, you really don't need to be uncrittable to be doing the 5 mans. I notice a difference in my survivability and healer's mana pool as I do get better gear, but it hasn't made or broken any fights yet.

Of course, this change isn't just defense: my parry/dodge improves as I improve my gear (naturally)