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

[Wonton]

So... Souldrinker Y/N? I'm at the point where I can equip it and still hit the CTC cap, but doing so over my Gavel of Peroth'arn would require me to re-gem a lot of Stam gems to Mastery, therefore actually losing a few thousand health. Is the ~6000 heal actually worth it?

Edit: Did the math on chardev, and I'd be losing about 3200 max health with the re-gemming I'd have to do by equipping souldrinker. I'm pretty sure that's not worth it, but I'd still like confirmation on here.

[Darklya]

Morning All,

Ok i've come to these boards for advise, you guys always seem friendly and helpful unlike a lot of other Forums. I've geared through raid finder, but will be tanking with my guild this weekend (work has messed up my other weeks of raiding)

My problem is that i've recently managed to get to the Block cap numbers. But Since then i've managed to pick up a couple of options for Trinkets. I would also like a little help with my gemming, since i've almost always played dps or healer the gemming has always been easy. But with a tank i've just gone and tried to match all socket bonus for as much mitigation as possible.

This is how i'm geared at the moment

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/d ... lya/simple

Ok Trinket question 1st

ok i know Fire of the Deep is a good trinket and that's a keeper, my question is what should i use for my 2nd trinket.
I have 3 options
SoulShifter Vortex (raid Finder) http://www.wowhead.com/item=77970
Spidersilk Spindle (normal) http://www.wowhead.com/item=68981
Veil of Lies http://www.wowhead.com/item=72900

My 1st thought looking at them was that Soulshifter Vortex was the best, but since i've reached Block capped i'm not to sure. As what does all the extra Mastery from proc help with ? So i wasn't sure if this just ends up as a Stam trinket or if the proc on mastery is still useful or if it's just good for certain fights.

Then I thought I could equip Spidersilk Spindle, And change some of my Gemming/Reforging about. As equipping this puts me to about 108.74%

3 I thought that Veil of lies could be useful do to the proc being Dodge so it means that more pure mitigation over blocked blows. And it's only 34 Stam less than the Soulshifter.

Any advise would be great. Thanks in Advance
Darklya

[Wonton]

Mastery beyond the block cap on a Paladin is completely wasted, so Soulshifter Vortex is pretty much only a Druid/Warrior/DK tanking trinket. I'd probably go with the Veil of Lies in your case, since you clearly don't need the mastery from the 2nd one.

[Rhiannon]

So... Souldrinker Y/N? I'm at the point where I can equip it and still hit the CTC cap, but doing so over my Gavel of Peroth'arn would require me to re-gem a lot of Stam gems to Mastery, therefore actually losing a few thousand health. Is the ~6000 heal actually worth it?

Edit: Did the math on chardev, and I'd be losing about 3200 max health with the re-gemming I'd have to do by equipping souldrinker. I'm pretty sure that's not worth it, but I'd still like confirmation on here.

You can read the discussion between Pyrea, Hespherus and Theck in the successes thread from here onwards for some recent relevant discussion on the subject, but the tl;dr is that it's fairly rare to have a death occur in dragon soul where the extra hp will impact your survival more than the chance of the heal. Go with souldrinker, it does tons more dps and will contribute to preventing your death more than Gavel in most situations.

[benebarba]

So... Souldrinker Y/N? I'm at the point where I can equip it and still hit the CTC cap, but doing so over my Gavel of Peroth'arn would require me to re-gem a lot of Stam gems to Mastery, therefore actually losing a few thousand health. Is the ~6000 heal actually worth it?

Edit: Did the math on chardev, and I'd be losing about 3200 max health with the re-gemming I'd have to do by equipping souldrinker. I'm pretty sure that's not worth it, but I'd still like confirmation on here.

You can read the discussion between Pyrea, Hespherus and Theck in the successes thread from here onwards for some recent relevant discussion on the subject, but the tl;dr is that it's fairly rare to have a death occur in dragon soul where the extra hp will impact your survival more than the chance of the heal. Go with souldrinker, it does tons more dps and will contribute to preventing your death more than Gavel in most situations.

Just to provide a bit more on that (I had wondered about it): it's the fact that at our health pools and the resulting damage the heal from SD is actually worthwhile, compared to say the heal received from the mending enchant whose heal probably won't prevent your death because it is several times (IIRC) smaller and the enchant does nothing to your damage to help with encounter shortening.

[Wonton]

Hm. Well, they are obviously talking about the Heroic version, what with the "10k heal" business. The Raid Finder version only has 2.6% health drain, and my health pool is smaller too of course. I've always been a stalwart believer in guaranteed numbers over random procs, so I'm still not convinced that "5200 sometimes" is better than "3200 always".

P.S. Does anyone know if the additional swings from Reckoning can also proc it? Because that would significantly increase the proc rate in a real fight, I'd think.

[Rhiannon]

They're talking about normal souldrinker vs heroic morchok, but yes he has heroic gear so his hp is higher. Yes Reckoning can proc it. Look at how you're dying - if it's due to burst damage from full hp in a 2-3 second window then sure, more hp is better. If when you die the last time you were topped off is many seconds prior then the extra hps is generally more helpful. If tank death isn't an issue then go with the higher dps option.

[Worldie]

Remember that (despite anyone can say) your job is also dealing damage. The more dps you perform, the more slack you can carry from the dps.

[Wonton]

I'll give it a try, I guess. Just a little sad to have to re-gem so many things.

Something else that I've never realized before trying some things out on chardev - a Battle Shout or Horn of Winter buff actually gives me about 0.64% parry from the increased Strength. I've always taken Kings/MotW into account when calculating for that 102.4 number, but I've never thought of those particular buffs. I wonder what the uptime on them is - is it too risky to assume they'll always be up so that I can trade off a little mastery into stam when gemming?

[Rhiannon]

You ought to be able to assume 100% uptime on that buff as long as there's a remotely competent dk in the raid. As long as there's a priest in the raid for the hp bull a warrior should be keeping it up 100% as well. Shamans should be keeping it up close to 100% as long as armor buff's being covered by a paladin, hunters can keep it up by using cats if needed.

[benebarba]

Remember that (despite anyone can say) your job is also dealing damage. The more dps you perform, the more slack you can carry from the dps.

And if none are slacking then you are also helping end the fight faster. SD lets you get 2 birds with one stone, to some extent.

as for the buffs... depends on the raid. In LFR or PUG'ed raids, I'd assume you have MOW/kings and any food/flask you use. I wouldn't bank on having folks maintaining buffs properly... though that's a subjective call.

[Wonton]

Alright, gemmed and enchanted everything, and this item set works. I went for the unbuffed CTC of 101.19%, with the assumption that a Battle Shout, Kings, and the Parry food (which was surprisingly cheap at 30g a stack) will put me at 102.41%. Equipped item level is now 382, feels good. I might even start looking for some DS 10 next week.

[Nooska]

Alright, gemmed and enchanted everything, and this item set works. I went for the unbuffed CTC of 101.19%, with the assumption that a Battle Shout, Kings, and the Parry food (which was surprisingly cheap at 30g a stack) will put me at 102.41%. Equipped item level is now 382, feels good. I might even start looking for some DS 10 next week.

I would assume you get better CTC coverage from using the dodge food / feast - I have a hard time imagining that you have more dodge rating than parry rating (due to STR-> Parry) - even though at least I'm within 200 rating of eachother in my set for elixir usage.
(sadly mastery food is out for me due to having to donate fish for the fish feast and the lavascale catfish are hard enough to catch as is (even though I do my fishing on the AH)

[Fenrìr]

One thing you may do as well, is use the Mastery/stam food. While mastery beyond the cap is wasted, it can allow a gem or two to swap to a stam one or even a mastery/stam in a yellow/blue socket.

Netting you a little more health.

[benebarba]

Morning All,

Ok i've come to these boards for advise, you guys always seem friendly and helpful unlike a lot of other Forums. I've geared through raid finder, but will be tanking with my guild this weekend (work has messed up my other weeks of raiding)

My problem is that i've recently managed to get to the Block cap numbers. But Since then i've managed to pick up a couple of options for Trinkets. I would also like a little help with my gemming, since i've almost always played dps or healer the gemming has always been easy. But with a tank i've just gone and tried to match all socket bonus for as much mitigation as possible.

This is how i'm geared at the moment

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/d ... lya/simple

Ok Trinket question 1st

ok i know Fire of the Deep is a good trinket and that's a keeper, my question is what should i use for my 2nd trinket.
I have 3 options
SoulShifter Vortex (raid Finder) http://www.wowhead.com/item=77970
Spidersilk Spindle (normal) http://www.wowhead.com/item=68981
Veil of Lies http://www.wowhead.com/item=72900

My 1st thought looking at them was that Soulshifter Vortex was the best, but since i've reached Block capped i'm not to sure. As what does all the extra Mastery from proc help with ? So i wasn't sure if this just ends up as a Stam trinket or if the proc on mastery is still useful or if it's just good for certain fights.

Then I thought I could equip Spidersilk Spindle, And change some of my Gemming/Reforging about. As equipping this puts me to about 108.74%

3 I thought that Veil of lies could be useful do to the proc being Dodge so it means that more pure mitigation over blocked blows. And it's only 34 Stam less than the Soulshifter.

Any advise would be great. Thanks in Advance
Darklya

I missed this earlier - but I still recommend folks go get the Mirror of Broken Images from Tol Barad. Depending on where you are in rep, it may not be that big a grind and will net you a really handy magic resistance trinket with mastery on it (IIRC, with resistance aura and kings/MOW up, the on-use takes you up to something crazy like 50-60% damage reduction from magic for its duration). I've found it useful, and nothing is stopping you from swapping out for fights where you want one of the others instead.

As Wonton mentioned, soulshifter vortex you'd only be wearing for the stamina if you want to stay CTC-capped with 100% uptime- it's a pretty poor trinket for prot pallies at the moment. So I too would probably go with veil of lies out of your list.