3.2 Frequently Argued Questions. AKA: Advanced tanking FAQ.

[Thels]

Parry-haste is disabled for all bosses where it matters, so Expertise is not too awesome for avoidance.

However, even when softcapped, the Seal of Vengeange glyph remains the best unconditional threat glyph, remaining slightly ahead of the Judgement glyph.

the Seal of Vengeange glyph ain't that unconditional anymore, considering how good Seal of Cleave is for AoE situations.

It's unconditional for bosses. Not many people care about aoe-fest trash.

There's enough "boss" encounters, that are filled with adds nowadays.

[Gamingdevil]

It's unconditional for bosses. Not many people care about aoe-fest trash.

There's enough "boss" encounters, that are filled with adds nowadays.

Point, but it's still going to be your single target threat that matters the most. You might want to swap out the SoV glyph when you're doing trash/adds, but you're going to want to have it for single target.

[DisRuptive1]

...I'm just wondering if the armor cap is attainable with the available gear now.

If my math is correct, you would need to have your character sheet armor be equal to 37976 less 20% of your Agility without any raid buffs in order to hit the cap. You also need to have Corpse Tongue Coin, Ashen Band of Endless Courage, and Mongoose enchanted on your weapon and have them all proc around the same time. This will let you reach 49905 armor which is the cap I think. You'll also need the following talented raid buffs:

-Stoneskin Totem (stacks with Devotion Aura!)
-Devotion Aura
Strength of Earth Totem or Horn of Winter (they don't stack)
-Blessing of Kings

Looking at the gear available currently, you could probably get close to 46,000.

[KysenMurrin]

You can also include Indestructible Potion to get you there even sooner.

[Splattage]

Might be off here, but thought the armor dmg reduction cap was 75%.
Which is what this screenie was showing:
http://ups.imagup.com/06/1263619146.jpg
in the post your success' thread:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... 50#p530605
My French comprehension is nonexistent so I don't know what buffs were up to make that happen.

[Rhiannon]

Might be off here, but thought the armor dmg reduction cap was 75%.
Which is what this screenie was showing:
http://ups.imagup.com/06/1263619146.jpg
in the post your success' thread:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... 50#p530605
My French comprehension is nonexistent so I don't know what buffs were up to make that happen.

Character sheet shows vs equal level mob, ie 80. The level of the mob hitting you is a factor in the damage reduction from armor formula, so vs 83 you need more armor.

[DisRuptive1]

You can also include Indestructible Potion to get you there even sooner.

I like keeping a Health Pot available, for emergencies.

[Thels]

You can also include Indestructible Potion to get you there even sooner.

I like keeping a Health Pot available, for emergencies.

That totally depends on the fight for me. Fights like Festergut or Yogg-Saron+1 where the heavy damage phase for the entire fight falls within two minutes, the Indestructable Pot is superior in my opinion. If you need to survive for a longer period than those 2 minutes, then indeed a Health Pot can be more useful.

[knaughty]

You can also include Indestructible Potion to get you there even sooner.

I like keeping a Health Pot available, for emergencies.

Almost always better to pop the armour pot, IMO.

My standard emergency ohshit pot is Indestructible.

[JamesVZ]

My standard emergency ohshit pot is Indestructible.

It's better to plan and use them according to critical points in encounters. If you pop one just before you enter combat you can circumvent the in-battle potion timer and use another two or more minutes later in the fight. This is helpful on things like Algalon, or the first tank on Festergut, or Northrend Beasts, or whatever else you can think of where tank damage is high and tank swaps occur. You can potion nearly the entirety of Blood Queen, for example, which reduces tank damage by quite a bit.

For basically any raiding content you're not going to be able to react fast enough to hit a health potion and save yourself with it. But with clever usage of Indestructible Potions you can mitigate a lot of incoming damage and help ease the burden on healers.

[knaughty]

But with clever usage of Indestructible Potions you can mitigate a lot of incoming damage and help ease the burden on healers.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

For the 0.01% reading the advanced theorycraft forum that didn't know:
• You can pot a few seconds before entering combat, and the pot timer starts.
• Then you can pot again at some point after the first one wears off.
• That's four minutes of 3,500 armour. Which is significant.
• Kinda obviously, you use the second pot for the enrage/frenzy/WTFtheycallitnow bit - Leeching Swarm for Anub Hard (covers almost the whole thing if you're till doing it), 3-stack inhale, P3 Putricide, etc, etc. Doubly effective as MT for Blood Queen since your damage mitigation also protects the OT.

If you're not pre-planning you use of Indestructible Pots, they should be your emergency pot. Health pot is meaningless - a runic health pot would give me 4-8% of my health back. Indestructible pot is more than +10% to armour for next two minutes. If you need 4k health, click a trinket, don't waste a pot timer.
• MT healer die to stupid? Armour pot.
• OT die and now you're tanking boss+adds? Armour pot.
• Some other shit goes wrong? Armour pot.
• Epeen not long enough? Armour pot.

[knaughty]

I will, however, do an update to the main guide (and probably remove the guide posts from the start of this thread) Soon (TM) to cover pot use and the fact we finally have some decent bonus armour pieces again.

Things to cover:

1. Indestructible pots (including planning of use)
2. Make sure I have Engineering covered (I switched back, lol... of course I lost all my rare patterns and now can't go Goblin or Gnome)
3. ICC bonus armour gear, and the basics of armour/stam conversion (11.5:1 for pure physical, 15:1 for most real encounters is a decent rule of thumb).
4. Point out that Armour cap is a non-issue
5. LF Suggestions.

[Isetnefret]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but does the recent talent adjustment (I'm REALLY trying to avoid the word nerf) affect the scaling ration of armor to stamina etc?

11:5:1 still?

[knaughty]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but does the recent talent adjustment (I'm REALLY trying to avoid the word nerf) affect the scaling ration of armor to stamina etc?

No change, because armour multiplies your health. If we got a talent tomorrow that was "1/1 - double health", that would make Stamina and armour twice as good.

11:5:1 still?

That's not the ratio I use... What are you referring to as "5" - Agility?

[Dem]

Parry-haste is disabled for all bosses where it matters, so Expertise is not too awesome for avoidance.

However, even when softcapped, the Seal of Vengeange glyph remains the best unconditional threat glyph, remaining slightly ahead of the Judgement glyph.

the Seal of Vengeange glyph ain't that unconditional anymore, considering how good Seal of Cleave is for AoE situations.

It's unconditional for bosses. Not many people care about aoe-fest trash.

If you're fortunate enough to be able to maintain 2 tanking specs then this is easy. One boss spec with exp/damage reduction glyphs and a 'trash' spec with the taunt and cleave glyph, including SoC and possibly reduced hammer time.
It's fine saying no-one cares about trash, but Valithrea tanking (for instance) isn't single target.