Normal to Heroic trouble: had a rude awakening.

[Kelaan]

Should I continue to stack defense past 490? I was thinking it gives me more avoidance, which is never bad. I was planning on getting enchants focusing on +def over +sta.

This is a similar concept to the "gemming for stamina" thread in the gear forum, but I'll reiterate the conventional wisdom:

Gear for enough stamina and armor that you will have enough effective health for the instance you're wanting to do. With almost any amount of avoidance, there's a chance to take a bad string of hits, and you want the health buffer to be able to survive that until a heal lands -- especially since the more efficient heals are often long casts (hello, Holy Light!).

Avoidance (and good block value) is very nice in heroics -- but make sure you have enough armor and stamina to take some hits too. Some things just hit like trucks when they do connect; consider that even at ~50% avoidance, you're still quite likely (~25%) to take two hits in a row from something, and ~12% chance to take three in a row. That means you WILL see such strings of heavy damage, and thus you do want some good stamina.

If you have too low health, you'll get gibbed in the time it takes a healer to cast a spell -- and there's not much healer gear can do for that (unless they are WAY overgeared, which you shouldn't expect). If you have less avoidance but a hefty health and armor pool, you'll take more overall damage, but it will be predictable and (hopefully) at a rate which the healers can keep up with, even if you and they need to drink after every fight.

edit: This scenario is a little more forgiving in a raid, where you will have multiple healers with heals landing at varying times. In a heroic, though, you have a SINGLE healer, which means the cast times of various healing spells (2 sec, 3 sec, etc) can seem like an eternity. If you have people who can off-heal (e.g., shamans or paladins) in a pinch, that can really help on the tougher pulls.

Also, don't forget that a hammer of justice or other stunlock (yay rogues!) on one of the heavy-hitting mobs can do a LOT to mitigate incoming damage. Stun rotations on one of the bog lord pairs until it's dead will make it MUCH easier. (They don't hit fast enough for the lost blocks' threat to be significant, comparatively, esp since you'll be taking enough damage not to be downranking consecrate. ) Discuss this ahead of time with your rogues. The awesome ones know how much a tank loves it when they use stuns and other interrupts (e.g. on casters) to reduce incoming damage.

[Xendak]

Anyone know of a good gear list for a mage that doesn't involve tailoring? Any further suggestions for me breaking into heroics?

Previous mage here, my tankadin is 2 levels shy of being my main raider as of now.

For your friends. If they plan on pvping, the tailoring sets suck anyway, because there is no stam on them.

If they are wanting to raid/heroics mainly.. Tell them to pick a profession, drop it, and pick up tailoring. You will find absolutely nothing better than the tailoring sets until T5 content. Damage wise, the tailoring sets are better than T4. Fire specs, the tailoring sets get even better. And the gem slots allow you to gem for spell hit, while maintaining a decent spell damage.

[Grokii]

Just as an update... I have tanked my first heroic.

Slave Pens was the heroic daily yesterday, so I was like... what the heck. A recently 'dinged 70' moonkin/resto druid was my healer. The trash was harder then the bosses. Had a couple of deaths here and there, the enhancment shaman had to anhk once. Past that, no wipes.

So, woot. With the SSO quests and that run I'm at 11 badges, so on track for my librum of repentance. I'm scheduled to off tank for my new guild's Kara run this saturday. With consumables I should be uncrushable.

Thanks for the help in this thread and for making a great site for me to troll and learn how to gear up and play a pally tank.

[Grieves]

Anyone know of a good gear list for a mage that doesn't involve tailoring? Any further suggestions for me breaking into heroics?

Previous mage here, my tankadin is 2 levels shy of being my main raider as of now.

For your friends. If they plan on pvping, the tailoring sets suck anyway, because there is no stam on them.

If they are wanting to raid/heroics mainly.. Tell them to pick a profession, drop it, and pick up tailoring. You will find absolutely nothing better than the tailoring sets until T5 content. Damage wise, the tailoring sets are better than T4. Fire specs, the tailoring sets get even better. And the gem slots allow you to gem for spell hit, while maintaining a decent spell damage.

he is correct spellfire is godly i used it for the longest time on my mage get spellfire + spellstrike and they will be good till t5 and in some cases if they stay fire better than t5, because t5 has arcane blast bonus.

[Grieves]

Anyone know of a good gear list for a mage that doesn't involve tailoring? Any further suggestions for me breaking into heroics?

Previous mage here, my tankadin is 2 levels shy of being my main raider as of now.

For your friends. If they plan on pvping, the tailoring sets suck anyway, because there is no stam on them.

If they are wanting to raid/heroics mainly.. Tell them to pick a profession, drop it, and pick up tailoring. You will find absolutely nothing better than the tailoring sets until T5 content. Damage wise, the tailoring sets are better than T4. Fire specs, the tailoring sets get even better. And the gem slots allow you to gem for spell hit, while maintaining a decent spell damage.

he is correct spellfire is godly i used it for the longest time on my mage get spellfire + spellstrike and they will be good till t5 and in some cases if they stay fire better than t5, because t5 has arcane blast bonus.

[Grieves]

Anyone know of a good gear list for a mage that doesn't involve tailoring? Any further suggestions for me breaking into heroics?

Previous mage here, my tankadin is 2 levels shy of being my main raider as of now.

For your friends. If they plan on pvping, the tailoring sets suck anyway, because there is no stam on them.

If they are wanting to raid/heroics mainly.. Tell them to pick a profession, drop it, and pick up tailoring. You will find absolutely nothing better than the tailoring sets until T5 content. Damage wise, the tailoring sets are better than T4. Fire specs, the tailoring sets get even better. And the gem slots allow you to gem for spell hit, while maintaining a decent spell damage.

he is correct spellfire is godly i used it for the longest time on my mage get spellfire + spellstrike and they will be good till t5 and in some cases if they stay fire better than t5, because t5 has arcane blast bonus.

[Wyleai]

I found a curious issue the other day.

In my present gear I can tank Heroic Slave Pens just fine, but I hack a heck of a time doing normal Mechanar.

Wondering now if I should blame that on my gear or my PUGmates. I know my gear needs work, but not exactly sure where to go from here with it.