Icebane set or tank set...? (Saph)

[Freemount]

So I'm about half 10/25 man naxx/saph geared. I'm wondering if using the Iceband set would work better for saph? Only reason I'm considering it is because I just looked at the mats for it and it's super cheap.
With the full set+aura it will put me at 417.

What's everyones opinions?

[majiben]

Use your normal tanking set (which if you happened to use IB pieces in it is another matter). The majority of the damage you take is physical. Likewise your healers should use normal healing gear to keep their mana regen high as the whole point of dps using frost resist gear is to save healer mana.

[Blackharon]

Use your normal tanking set (which if you happened to use IB pieces in it is another matter). The majority of the damage you take is physical. Likewise your healers should use normal healing gear to keep their mana regen high as the whole point of dps using frost resist gear is to save healer mana.

Assuming your MT ^This

[Bettiepage]

After talking with my guild leader, we came to the conclusion that we both will have the Frost Resist gear ready for use. I will probably only be using the belt and boots w/ aura up, but with him being a Warrior, he might have to wear the full set? I don't know yet. We will be prepared for when it happens.

[Samilyn]

The idea of using Frost Resistance gear on Saph is a marketing ploy developed by the crafting professions to help them get skill ups. Feed the machine if you want, but it's not necessary at all.

[dmok]

Looking over the WWS for last night's Sapph kill, 1/4 of my damage taken was from the frost aura. (I was in 0 FrR, and was out of range of our aura healers).

I would rather further midgitate that 75% of damage than take more of it while reducing the 25%.

[Wolvar]

Frost resist is extremely necessary depending on the gear level of your healers. If you are MT, one piece should suffice as you still need significant mitigation, Saph's physical damage is still quite high. If you are not MT, wear the full set. Forget about using a second "oh shit" MT on this guy, if he turns, it's over.

With well geared healers we one shot him regularly. Swap in a few undergeared healers and we wipe horribly without frost resist. They just run out of mana.

[Mex]

Personally I think FrR on anyone in this fight is a big waste. It makes the MT take more damage, which is bad. It makes the healers less efficient, which is bad, and it lowers the DPS, which is bad.

The healers will be spamming fairly hard regardless of how much FrR the raid has, unless it's approaching 300+, in which case DPS will be scraping the bottom of the barrel. By mitigating an extra 10% Frost damage, you're not really saving your healers 10% mana, you're just increasing their overheal by 10%.

Stick to your normal tanking gear imo.

[majiben]

I disagree with your assessment mex. I do however think that FR is waste and should not be used by the tank or healers under any circumstances. Lowering the dps may seem bad but the fight is about healer endurance not the enrage timer.

[Jellypop]

We did our first kill with about 300 FrR, what a waste

we now kill sapph with 0 FrR, just a MOTW buff.

of course, if it's your first week through naxx and most of the people are just heroic geared, a few piece of FrR will help

but generally if you have some 10 man gears and 25 man gears, 0 is the way to go

[Mex]

Healer endurance is helped much more by fast DPS though imo.

I've healed this fight several times, and the difference between 0 and 130 FrR is hardly even noticeable. In both situations, I spend the vast majority of the fight casting holy lights. In both situations, the priest I was with spent the vast majority of the fight spamming CoH.

FrR makes a difference when both your healers get iceblocked, or when someone's out of range of heals for a long period of time. It helps stop deaths, but has almost no effect on survivability.

It's partly a problem with the removal of downranking imo, but at the moment I can choose between ~3k HPS with FoL and ~7k HPS with HL, that's it. With 0 FrR, HL spam is just able to keep up. So in order for FrR to really make a difference in my efficiency, it needs to cut the amount of damage taken by 50%. Mixing FoL and HL tends to not work very well, with the random nature of resistances, I generally have to err on the side of overheal and throw out HLs. If the raid had a collective healthpool of 200,000, then it would be much easier, but with people constantly dipping below 20% during P2, you can't count on resistances.

Other healers may have different experiences, but with the limited spells I've got, I honestly don't value FrR at all. Don't underestimate good DPS either. I've always found "regen" to be a slightly misleading term, since all it really does is slow down the rate at which your mana drops. After some wipes last week, we actually ended up beating him by swapping out undergeared alt DPS for mains.

[Levantine]

We have this one healer... he panics.... a lot.... like, OOM after the first kite phase on Anub the first time we went in there. I'm not really sure our other Priest can solo heal the second half of Sapph, so we're going to wear some Frost Resist kthx.

[Vaxas]

Yup i was one of those idiots that not only got the whole frost set made but spent a small fortune in gems and enchants on it as well...Currently I MT saph in my raids...I do wear the whole set of FR gear just in case...I have gemmed / enchanted so I remain un crittable in the FR set..I belive I lose about 6 or 7 % avoidance but get some xtra health outa the set (FR set has huge +stam stats...To be honest I have yet to do the fight without the FR...I just like having it in case I have to sit though a blizzard whilst tanking , and also most of the naxx runs I have been to I have noticed that poeple die way more often to a blizzard then at airphase.

[Mex]

Saph's hit-box / swing range are some of the largest I've ever seen. Like they're as big as he is. If I see a Blizzard debuff on me while tanking, I just walk backwards until it disappears. Boss has never moved once while I did it.

[Vaxas]

i agree with the hit box theroy...I to try to watch the blizz coming and move in or back depending, but ocasionally I do catch the end of one so with my FR gear thats some damage mitigated anyways (not to mention that frost aura he has going on the whole fight). The fact that I remain uncrittable in FR gear and that I have slighter higher health pool makes the choice pretty easy..>Sure I could do it the same in my reg gear...but what the hell i got the set might as well use it...So I guess it comes down to A. If you can get the set really cheap and B. have some really good JC and Enchanter friends why not? And on another note all my crappy melee dps should be decked out in ALL FR all the time so they could just stand in the blizzards like they do anyways