Gear Check/Advice Thread (All Specific Advice Requests Here)

[Postverta]

Quick question, would the proc rate from RF souldrinker make it a better pick than a DS normal hand of morchok and the stat reallocation I could do with gems and such, so basically, is the dps of souldrinker and survivability it provides better than the stamina stacking I could do with the hand of morchok?

armory link if that would help: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/e ... a/advanced

[Schroom]

I got souldrinker normal and Hand of Morchok HM. and it depends. I am easily at block cap with souldrinker, and the plus on DPS with souldrinker is really nice. although the healing procc is a nice feature, your healers won't really see a difference tho, the ticks are about 2.8k average, having over 240k HP raidbuffed on our last Ultraxion HM encounter.
The encounter was 5:02 mins and the healing procced about 29 times, which was 83k overall. so not even half of my health pool in 5 minutes.

so, do you a) need more tank dps to beat an enrage or b) out gear the content and want to do more dps for shits and giggles -> souldrinker
do you need a bit more HP and more CTC because the boss demands it -> hand of Morchok.

[econ21]

Postverta, I went with Souldrinker and even put Landslide on it, so that tells you something about my priorities.

However, one thing I have noticed is that I often swap trinkets from Fire of the Deep to either Mirror of Broken Images (Zonozz, Yorshaj) or Stay of Execution (Madness). This lowers my CTC. So I either waste mastery on my main set or go under 102.4% CTC if I switch trinkets for specfic fights. It might be smart to use Hand of Morchok to make up some of the difference. If I am lucky enough to get a heroic HoM, I'd probably put windwalk on it. I'd probably need more of a gear switch than just the weapon, especially with stay of execution, to keep at 102.4% but it would be a start.

If I read Theck's numbers right, SD is slightly better dps than a Hand of Morchok of a lower tier, but the difference is small (160 dps comparing normal SD with heroic HoM) so that probably should not phase us if we are focussed on survival.

[Fenrìr]

For those of you who use WoWReforge.com, how many of you use custom stat weights to balance 8% hit/26 exp while maintaining tCTC? If you do, what are your stat weights?

I always feel like my reforging/gemming needs a bit of work (in an OCD sort of way). So I'd like to get this to work since I don't trust AMR to do it. I do use Chardev, but again, I feel that I may be missing something.

[gronc2]

just a quick question

If I gem and reforge planning on using food and elixirs to get me to ctc, is that a bonus to gemming and reforging to reach cap and using food and flasks for stamina? If there is a difference is it significant enough that I being poor, and pushing the limits of my time online, (after 25 years wife still wants to spend time with me... go figure), should spend what meager resources I have on food and elixirs? The guild provides feasts and flasks, and occasional help with special needs.

gronc

[Gab]

just a quick question

If I gem and reforge planning on using food and elixirs to get me to ctc, is that a bonus to gemming and reforging to reach cap and using food and flasks for stamina? If there is a difference is it significant enough that I being poor, and pushing the limits of my time online, (after 25 years wife still wants to spend time with me... go figure), should spend what meager resources I have on food and elixirs? The guild provides feasts and flasks, and occasional help with special needs.

gronc

Using a stam scroll and an elixir of the master nets you an extra 25 points worth of itemization vs using a stam flask. Plus you get the added flexibility of adding the option of more armor or resistance for certain encounters.

The mastery food is significantly more effective than the dodge food for CTC, Theck has done the calculations somewhere but don't remember where off the top of my head.

It's up to you if it's worth the time investment. To me min/maxing is fun and I feel compelled to do it YMMV.

[gronc2]

yeah I love that bit, what I don't love is grinding for fish and gold to pay for everything. In truth I don't mind it that much, I just don't like it as much as raiding and doing dungeons

gronc

[Wonton]

Don't know if this is "legal" hope so

But just wanted to say thanks to everyone on this whole site. I have learned so much. Last night had my first Normal Madness kill. Which might not seem like much but this is my first toon, on my first mmo ever, and it feel like an accomplishment. So thanks again.

gronc

Congrats! I'm in the same boat (first character, first MMO, only started in Cata), but I'm still grinding up through LFR. The unfortunate thing is that my guild is only me and a few friends and all the "LFM DS 10" posts in chat ask for the achievement... so I'm not sure how I'm going to start raiding the Normal mode exactly. We'll see.

The mastery food is significantly more effective than the dodge food for CTC, Theck has done the calculations somewhere but don't remember where off the top of my head.

It's up to you if it's worth the time investment. To me min/maxing is fun and I feel compelled to do it YMMV.

FYI, it's about 80 mastery rating for 1% block and 180 dodge/parry rating for 1% dodge/parry. This is why on a piece of gear like "215 Dodge/108 Expertise", it's actually mathematically better to reforge Dodge --> Mastery than Expertise --> Mastery from a CTC perspective.

[Stubblerump]

Congrats! I'm in the same boat (first character, first MMO, only started in Cata), but I'm still grinding up through LFR. The unfortunate thing is that my guild is only me and a few friends and all the "LFM DS 10" posts in chat ask for the achievement... so I'm not sure how I'm going to start raiding the Normal mode exactly.

Youtube the normal fights, noting the difference from LFR version, grab a couple of your friends and start your own raid. Spam trade with "LFM DS 10"...and wala. :p If you can't get your foot in the door, just make your own door. It's a pain spamming to fill a group, but somebody's gotta do it.

[Tank4life]

Hello there! I'd need some advice. I'm tanking HC DS10 (6/8 atm)in my 394 ilvl gear so I'm abit undergeared, but the healers and my guildmaster says that I take insane amounts of damage.

Before the last raid I was at around 3200 mastery with like 15%parry and 14% dodge (had only stacked mastery as much as I could up to 102.4% CTC raidbuffed and then gone for stamina as I thought was the best thing to do). However the raid went pretty shitty wiped a couple of times on HC yorsahj, HC warlord Zonozz and HC hagara. Hagara was the worst, everytime I was out of CDs on focused assoult I died instantly until we changed tank and I went healer.

After the raid the GM + officers wanted to talk to me and said that they thought I was stacking too much mastery and needed way more dodge + parry, that I should get that fixed as soon as possible and they said they also thought that the stacking dodge trinket that drops from normal spine (whish I passed on the week before) is really good for me.

I have now as you can see changed my gems and such to loose alot of mastery and gained alot of dodge + parry for the loss of some stamina. However I'm confused, this goes against everything I've learned here on the forum, that I should stack as much mastery as possible to the CTC cap and then go for as much stamina as possible, and I've also read that the stacking dodge trinket is terrible for prot paladins.

What do you think people? Do you think this change will be to the better or worse? And what would you do?

Here's my armory, thanks for your time!

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/f ... l/advanced

[Flex]

Stacking more dodge and parry wont help you with Yor'shaj or Hagara as it wont help with magic or the unavoidable/non-blockable focused assault. So it is GM+officers not knowing the fights and how they work.

What was the other tank?

[Era]

Like flex said, no point in stacking more dodge/parry on those three fights. I've been running with fairly low parry/dodge through all the DS Heroics, only fight I felt I needed some more was when the fifty million bloods on Spine HC were pummeling me.

For Zon'ozz and Yor'sahj, use a resistance elixir and the Tol Barad resistance trinket if you have it, plus the glyphed version of Divine Protection. Use the spell right before Zon'ozz uses his laser beam (can't remember what it's called right off the bat, think it's Psychic Drain?) - and on Yor'sahj use it when your stacks of the debuff gets high.

For Hagara I found it helpful to go with stamina trinkets and stamina flask, unglyphed Div. Protection, and then if you run out of cooldowns and your healers are too lazy to use their own cooldowns on you, have a DPS run away and taunt the boss right when she casts Furious Assault - and then you taunt her back before she hits the other player. Communication is key here.

Good luck!

[indirect]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/a ... ect/simple

Resolve of Undying or Veil of Lies?
I'm OT.
I don't feel like I have any HP issues on Spine or Madness, and it feels like Veil never procs...

[Schroom]

After the raid the GM + officers wanted to talk to me and said that they thought I was stacking too much mastery and needed way more dodge + parry

Did you ask them why? I mean, did you die on the normal hits of the boss? in that case your healer fell asleep or something, well except maybe for zonozz as he hits pretty hard with melee attacks in the end when he got a couple of stacks, just keep your holyshield ready for that and maybe a trinket with some dodge on use, or ask for an external cooldown like painsup if it is too much, or simply do one less pong. meanwhile with the nerf, we do 5-5-5-5 which works pretty well to escape the enrage timer.

Or did you die from the special abilities? well then dodge and parry are useless for those. As someone said, the laser beam from zonozz is magical, this can't be dodged, you have to use a cooldown for this.

yorshaj I still run with the -2% magical damage meta gem, the cloak and head enchant from WoTLK with shadow resistance, with a mastery and resistance elixier, mirror of broken images and glyphed DP. Also I use Seal of insight for this one, glyphed and also WoG glyphed, as none of those produce stacks and may help your healers. Also a paladin healer is pretty amazing for this fight. As he puts flame on me and fully heals the hunter or Warlock pet the entire time. And then WoG or LoH on me.

for Hagara the mean ability is called focused assault. This is physical, but like impale from madness, can't be dodged or parried. I go for full stamina here. I ignore CTC and have 263k+ HP. The first focused assault can be almost completely avoid by pulling the boss on max-range an then running to the far edge of the platform, and tanking him there. (also if done cleverly now the raid is in perfect position for the ice/lighting phase).

For the other focused assaults do a nice cooldown rotation, I also keep my HoPo for this and if available I use my wings for that WoG to get an extra selfheal boost. We never had someone to taunt off here or anything, allthough on the first kill a f***** healing potion (!!!) saved my life and gave our healer that split second to get out that heal.
We killed Hagara like 3 times now and our Deathknight tank hasn't even touched the boss yet, allthough I think it's time for her (yes it's a she) to try it out next week.

[theckhd]

What do you think people? Do you think this change will be to the better or worse? And what would you do?

I think your GM/officers don't know shit about tanking, and are giving you terrible advice.

Dodge/parry won't help you survive the dangerous bits on Hagara/Yor'sahj, and mastery/CTC is still preferable on Zon'ozz. If you're taking excessive amounts of damage on any of those fights, you need to make sure you're using cooldowns logically. Prismatic elixir is also helpful for Yor, as another poster mentioned.