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

[Klaudandus]

Correct me if im wrong, but i havent seen any enchant/gem/gearing guide for 5.0.5

[Skye1013]

Gearing guide: Str plate pieces without crit.
Gem guide: Hit/Exp if not capped. Stam/mastery/haste if capped.
Enchant guide: See gem guide.


Ok, so this is a smartass response, but I'd imagine part of it is due to there being a couple of different gearing paths, making your gear/gem/enchant choices depend on which route you choose to go.

[Nova]

Hi everybody! First time posting, long-time reader.

Here's my profile.

In my guild, we're working with Mogu'shan Vaults. The encounter with Gara'Jal the Spirit Binder has brought some issues in yesterday's raid, mainly because my raid leader was pretty mad at me for reforging to Hit and Expertise and out of Avoidance stats, telling me that that's no proper tank, among other things. When it was my turn to tank Gara'Jal, sometimes the damage would spike up, and the healers were struggling healing me and my Voodoo companions.

I tried to explain to him that Mists of Pandaria's Protection Paladin model favors "DPS" stats over avoidance, as described both in Sacred Duty (here) and Icy Veins (here) as well as in Elitist Jerks.

Thing is, I need advice. This expansion's gearing model threw me off-balance, and I'm not sure if I'm doing my reforging right. As mentioned, I've been reading Theck's posts, WoW Insider's, Elitist Jerks' and Icy-Vein's, but it seems it's causing conflict within my raid group.

So, any tips and/or recommendations for my gear? Granted, I still have to farm Heroic Dungeons and craft me some gear, but I want to know if the direction I'm taking is right.

I'm favored towards the "control" model: "Hit cap, Expertise soft(hard) cap > Mastery > Haste > Dodge = Parry"

Thanks a lot in advance, much appreciated.

PS: I apologize for my English. It's not my native language.

[Klaudandus]

You are doing it right. The problem is that blizz went from us not caring about hit/exp to being completely dependent on it. Discounting divine purpose, we are very binary in our hp generation. Its just a big paradigm shift for everyone to see that any piece of plate gear is for our main spec unless it had intellect or crit.

[Nova]

Yeah... but isn't a bit extreme? In many cases, DPS gear is actually better for us than proper "tank" gear. I don't think that's a very smart move.

I mean, I'm all for Active Mitigation. But so active that we have to become almost DPS classes? In most fights I'm even outperforming our DPS players!

[Klaudandus]

Yeah, i know blizz reads this blog, but they sometimes drop the ball on things that are painfully obvious... So i completely understand where you are coming from

[Gab]

Tanks, not just Tankadins, can and should be out dpsing DPS on many encounters. Although this is highly dependent on the amount of damage aimed at the tank.

For example, last night, on our (10H) Stone Guard kill I pulled 210k while the nearest DPS was around 120k.

I'm gearing similarly to the way you are. Stam > Hit/Exp > Haste > Mastery. With this gearing philosophy you might end up taking slightly more damage overall than you would when gearing for avoidance but there are several benefits to preferring "control". Your damage intake will be less spikey, giving you and your healers plenty of time to react. You will be able to reduce any physical damage that is unavoidable such as some boss specials or bleeds etc... And finally you will be able to contribute a lot more DPS.

It does feel odd preferring a Haste/x piece, where x = hit, exp or mastery, over a dodge/parry piece but that's just how things are shaking out right now. Druids have competed with DPS for years for their tanking gear, no reason plate tanks shouldn't. The only difference with druids is that there is no dodge/x pieces, so Blizzard has made it feel weird that a Dodge/Parry plate piece is going to be disenchanted because that Haste/x piece is better for plate tanks...

As far as the tank swap for Spirit Binder is concerned. Make sure you have 5 HP banked so that you can transition smoothly with back to back ShoRs and make sure you get a vengeanced sacred shield up after the first couple of melees.

[Taeron]

Hello.

I'm a little lost as to how I should gem/enchant/reforge the gear I have/get. On one side, there are sites like Ask Mr. Robot, telling me to gem heavily in mastery, while going for hit and exp cap, so I stick pure mastery gems into no-color and yellow slots.

On the other side, I see people going heavy stamina after hitting hit cap, basically ignoring mastery and using color slots for avoidance+sta mix gems.

What's the consensus on this? What's the "right" way?

[Klaudandus]

There is no right way, just ways that fit your playstyle...

The spiky avoidance way

The control set

And the hardmode set


Askmrrobot is derping right now though. Using their control set, it has me shedding more than 6% of my mastery, even tho its the stat we're supposed to go after after hitting hit/exp softcap...

[Nova]

Askmrrobot is derping right now though. Using their control set, it has me shedding more than 6% of my mastery, even tho its the stat we're supposed to go after after hitting hit/exp softcap...

That, and it's reforging out of the Hit cap.

Another question. Shield of the Righteous reduces all damage taken, only blocked damage or just raw physical damage?

And last one: from what I understand, Vengeance makes your attack power go up based on the highest damage received, or it's cumulative? I'm trying to understand why my damage is sky-high in Stone Guard and not that high in Feng the Accursed.

[Sagara]

Quick fact checking - this is me.

I'm getting very close to the exp cap, but I won't be able to afford the Valor shoulders until next reset. Do you believe it's worth blowing a Living Steel for a weapon chain? At the very best, I'll be called in to help on Spirit Kings/Elegon.

[daishan]

MrRobot is doing some strange things playing around with custom weights I've managed to get it to spit out sensible numbers is a pain though.
SotR reduces all physical dmg taken for 3sec the size of the reduction is increased by having more mastery.
About vengeance I'm sure there's better explanations out there but no one corrected anything I wrote so I assume I've got it right http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=33086

[daishan]

I'm starting to lean towards the weapon chain even though I don't need it to cap, stats that are always there are looking more appealing.
When I did Elegon I deliberately aimed for 12% ish exp to be hard capped for the Lvl 92 adds, if you really want hard cap you could use elixirs, I like been a bit under hard cap so I can fine tune with trinkets and elixirs.
Another thing to think about is does your raid team need you to take as few spikes as you possibly can (by exp hard cap) or would some more haste for extra dps be of more benefit?

[Sagara]

Considering our getup, I'll more than probably be affected to add duty on Elegon. I'm hard-capped for 92 mobs, so I'll stick to where I am right now.

Thanks!

[Kardak]

Hello fellow tonklings,

I have been a long time reader on these forums yet very rarely post here. However seeing as how the stats in MoP seem to be all over the place i feel i am in need of some gearing advice.

My current profile can be found here:http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/quelthalas/Kardak/advanced

I have been persuing the hit and expertise hardcaps but very recently gotten into abit of a discussion on the matters of stamina and master vs haste. While i agree mastery being a good stat to go for after the hit/exp caps i am abit lost on the importance of stamina nowdays.

Any advice or critisism will be greatly appreciated!