What Consumables to Use When Tanking - Cataclysm

[theothersteve7]

FOOD
Survival
Lavascale MinestroneSurvival
Blackbelly Sushi
Mushroom Sauce Mudfish
Fortune Cookie - Provides Dodge

Threat
Crocolisk Au GratinThreat
Grilled Dragon
Beer-Basted Crocolisk

Feasts - Provide Dodge
Seafood Magnifique FeastOptimal Feast
Goblin Barbecue
Broiled Dragon Feast

The absolute best options is Lavascale Minestrone, providing 90 each of Stamina and Mastery. Unfortunately Lavascale Catfish can't be caught in pools and are a key ingredient in feasts, and so will be relatively expensive or time consuming to harvest. The other two survival options are roughly equal, and can be fished in pool along the river in Uldum - incidentally one of the places you can catch the Lavascale Catfish!

The new feasts are much better than the old Fish Feast used to be. They actually provide Dodge, which is pretty great. If you need to get a little more threat you can eat Hit food (Grilled Dragon) or Expertise food (Crocolisk Au Gratin) depending on how close you are to their caps.

FLASK
Flask of SteelskinSurvival

Well, this is a lot simpler than it used to be. The 300 stamina provided by this flask blows all previous flasks out of the water. They're quite expensive still, on most servers, so you may want to consider elixirs instead. Especially since the benefit may be not only comparable, but possibly greater. Remember that you can get the same effect from a guild cauldron if one is available.

A side note, the stamina flask is underbudget in comparison to the otherwise identical Strength, Agility, Intellect, and Spirit flasks. You can get 1.5 points of stamina for one point of any other stat or rating on gems. It's kind of a moot point since we don't have a full-budget Mastery flask, but something that you may wish to keep in mind.

ELIXIRS
Battle
Elixir of the MasterSurvival
Elixir of the NagaThreat
Elixir of Impossible Accuracy

Guardian
Elixir of Deep EarthSurvival
Prismatic Elixir

Elixirs are remarkably inexpensive and in most cases are the way to go right now. A pair of elixirs only takes about four herbs - two apiece - which is only a mere sixth of the materials required for flasks. Seeing as flasks last an hour and through death, these are roughly equal on the wallet if your guild takes at least ten minutes per attempt, and superior if you're going longer than that between wipes. Also, bear in mind that alchemists may be making elixirs to level, so grab them while they're cheap. Benefit wise, elixirs will provide more mitigation at the expense of raw stamina, and typically enough so that they're the better option.

Of course, if your guild drops a cauldron anyway, you'll probably want to go ahead and grab the flask.

POTIONS
Earthen Potion
Mysterious Potion
Mighty Rejuvenation Potion
Mythical Health Potion
Mythical Mana Potion

Your best option here is probably just to macro in the Earthen Potion into Guardian of the Ancient Kings. Or not bother and spend the money elsewhere. Alchemists can see some benefit in taking Mysterious Potions, especially in situations with heavy AOE so you don't need to use Judgement as often. The same can be said of the Mighty Rejuvenation potions for non-alchemists. All in all, I wouldn't worry too much about potions, I'd spend the money on good food (or better gems and enchants) first.


Thanks to Majiben for the original guide and format.

[theothersteve7]

Thoughts? Ideas? Sticky? I know I don't post much. Also I know this may no longer be really necessary as far as guides go. I just saw the old out-of-date sticky and wanted to help. Thanks!

[karmisa]

Well, the forum noob found this post quite helpful, if for no other reason than it was easy to find. /shrug