gearing rules at 80

[Ascendant]

after spending some time studying diminishing returns on avoidance, I have been left rather confused.

has anybody been able to find gearing rules for tanking stats at 80? or is there no point in using gearing rules?

if I am not being clear on what a gearing rule is, an example at 70 for paladins is:

maintain 102.4% avoidance prioritizing defense>dodge>block>parry, then increase EH.

I use this rule for my 70 gearing, but I realize it doesn't make sense in WOTLK.

[Worldie]

At 80 it will be like
maintaining uncrit > maintaining uncrush > stacking threat stats

[Macha]

We have to wait for Ulduar to see what we really have to stack. It's possible EH will be important there. Maybe it's threat. Maybe it's balanced stats. We just don't know. We only know the entry content, and it is easy.

[fuzzygeek]

Betting that stacking defense will usually be safe.

[FunkyToast]

Betting that stacking defense will usually be safe.

That's actually what I was thinking. From that point you can always drop in favor of more threat if you need to. Better than playing catch up.

[Levantine]

Isn't wrath tanking gear more of a Maintain 540 defense, then go by iLvl

[moduspwnens]

At 80 it will be like
maintaining uncrit > maintaining uncrush > stacking threat stats

Yeah, pretty much this, except it might be stamina in that last spot. Threat seems fairly easy now, but I think I remember a quote from GC saying it won't necessarily stay that way. I guess we'll see.

EDIT: Well, then again, since Str and BV may be counted as EH, you may be able to both at the same time for non-magical encounters.

[Håvard]

After looking into the level 80ish tanking gear on wowhead, it seems to me that won't be painfully hard to get uncrittable early on with quest rewards and crafted pieces.

I put together a set without using any instance drops, just rep and quest rewards and crafted pieces and it came out to 649 Defense Rating. With several defense enchants available, it'd be easy to hit the 689 rating needed to get to 540 Defense skill.

The set I cooked up was far from ideal, but it could be a starting point. One thing's for sure, a lot of these 'starter' tanking items (iLevel 175, iLevel 187) I was using, such as Daunting Handguards have more defense than their iLevel 200 blue upgrades, such as Refined Ore Gloves or Gauntlets of the Water Revenant, so it would seem to me that staying uncrittable will take a lot of balancing while upgrading.

[Obrimos]

EDIT: Well, then again, since Str and BV may be counted as EH, you may be able to both at the same time for non-magical encounters.

Non-caster encounters. Even 'magical' encounters where you're fighting an Elemental of some kind, you can block that now :3.

[Håvard]

Like Pandemonius' regular attacks, for example? That's pretty nice.

[caboom]

At 80 it will be like
maintaining uncrit > maintaining uncrush > stacking threat stats

If i find DPS will be even remotetely coming close to me in threat then my priority will look like this :

maintaining uncrit > stacking threat stats > maintaining uncrush

[daemonym]

At 80 it will be like
maintaining uncrit > maintaining uncrush > stacking threat stats

im with worldie on this. after i'm uncrit and uncrush ill start stackign as much strength as i can. unless i decide on going all out avoidence, still up in the air for that one though, will have to see hwo things shape up at 80, but the idea of having like 2k BV tickles me to no end ^^

[2ndNin]

I think the general rule is something like:

1) Defense < 540, slacker, stack more defense
2) Health < Lots, stack more stamina
3) Dodge < 30%, stack more dodge
3) Parry < 30%, stack more parry
3) 102.4%, uncrushable, be there or be less efficient than you could be

1) is mostly mandatory, if you can't hit 540 you are going to die when the expletive hits the spinny blade of throwing expletive across the room, and it won't be pretty. 2) is the typical EH argument, you need enough to survive 2-3 hits from the boss (unless we see something like Gruul again with potentially 16k+ hits scaled appropriately), but stacking past this will get harder (Teron crushes @10-15k are not really stackable past 2 in TBC), 3) is the avoidance rule, you want 102.4% stacking to get it, 30% seems to be a fairly good rule for the diminishing returns to start really hurting your returns (not sure it is actually diminishing returns, seems more like its linear, but thats harder to see).

So get uncrit, get enough health to survive, and then stack avoidance in as many different forms as you can towards uncrush and go from there.

[gibborim]

It would be nice if one of the math peebles could construct an avoidence formula with DR in it then solve for each Defense, Dodge, and Parry rating. Probably pack it into a spreadsheet for easy use.

[lythac]

I put together a set without using any instance drops, just rep and quest rewards and crafted pieces and it came out to 649 Defense Rating. With several defense enchants available, it'd be easy to hit the 689 rating needed to get to 540 Defense skill.

You could have just looked at my list, which follows the same rules and is also 649 defense - http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... hp?t=15098