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

[Ziz]

Let's pretend that I don't want Relic of Niuzao because I am slightly insane instead of saying outright that I can't afford it right now. What should I use instead?

Either pray for Jade Warlord Figurine to drop, or farm Iron Protector Talisman. There's also a mastery trinket from MSV that you can use in a pinch, it's better than other non-stamina options.

So stamina is the way to go for trinkets it seems.

[theckhd]

1. He uses the Sanctified Wrath talent, which increases the duration of Avenging Wrath, and allows him to use judgment more during AW. That's why his judgment damage is so much higher than mine. I am bad about remembering to use AW at all.

2. His overall damage taken was 33% higher than mine! This is big. He's taking a crapton more damage than me, which is leading to him having more vengeance. This explains why even though we both ShoTR the same amount, his did about twice as much damage as mine.

3. He used light's hammer, whereas I was using Execution Sentence only as a self heal. I've already made this switch.

4. He used Glyph of Avenging Wrath, that heals him during AW. I use Battle Healer. His healed for 200k for the fight, mine healed for 1.5 million. I think going with AW talented to increase the duration and damage done, healing received may be a good idea, but I don't think glyphing it makes sense.

Why is my DPS so low, and his so high? Why does he take twice as many Celestial Breaths per minute than I do? Is he cheesing vengeance to increase his DPS? Is there anything I am missing that I can do to increase my DPS?

Comments, though I'll add the disclaimer that I haven't looked at any of the links:
1) I don't think Sanctified Wrath is necessarily better than Holy Avenger on this fight. It will change your damage source distribution, of course, but that's not what you care about. This fight has lots of tank swapping if you're using the usual strategy, so you run the risk of wasting some of the additional AW duration unless you time it perfectly (and even then, I'm not sure there's 30 seconds between swaps). HA is only 18 seconds, which is easier to fit in. I generally tank 2nd (the other tank goes first, then picks up the first add), so I stand in the breaths beforehand to build up a chunk of Vengeance and then go to town on the boss with AW+HA(+potion). That gives a huge DPS burst early on.

If you're bad about remembering to use AW (or HA), fix it! Use an addon to remind you - I have a WeakAura hud that shows me which cooldowns are available, and I've trained myself to check it so that I don't waste AW/HA as much. Another option is to make big pulsating/flashing icons appear when they're available. Do something to help train yourself into using them more often, because that will be a big increase in DPS.

2) The damage taken value in WoL isn't strictly correlated to Vengeance, because Vengeance is based on pre-mitigation damage, not post-mitigation. For example, if he took 33% more damage because he never used SotR, that wouldn't give him more Vengeance. However, based on your later comments, he's standing in extra breaths, which will give him more Vengeance. You might want to try doing that as well.

3) LH should be slightly more DPS than offensive ES on this encounter, and certainly more than ES used defensively. While the single-target portions would favor ES, you have several situations where you can hit 3+ targets with LH, which should help it pull ahead. I also use it as a raid cooldown - after every Total Annihilation one of us drops a LH on the melee. Your best use is to drop one on Elegon + all the remaining adds at the beginning of phase 3, because you can easily hit 10+ targets for the full duration.

4) GoAW is crap. Battle Healer is going to be so much more useful on that fight, provided you're using Seal of Insight. And you really should be using SoI, because the DPS difference between it and SoT is minimal (<4k DPS).

[UFTimmy]

Wow! Thanks for the response.

I enjoy Active Mitigation and having to hit to survive, but I am not sure I will ever be able to fully embrace tanks taking damage on purpose to help the raid. That just seems so counter productive.

So, part of my raid's issue has been failing to kill the "sparks" during the transition phase. Generally, someone lets one through when we were not planning on it, which leads to fewer stacks, and a lack of a "burn" phase when we would let the sparks through intentionally. I have always been really diligent about clearing stacks during the spark phase, to lower my damage taken.

Is that foolish? Should I be trying to take as much damage as I can, without dying, to increase my DPS?

[Egtheridon]

Depending on how much problems your healers are having, I generally just let my stacks go up to increase my vengeance, but as prot you can also do a few things that helps on sparks. First you can drop a concecrate before they come out, second when they come out if your standing on the edge of one set of three you can Avenger's shield right when they come out to hit all three, at that point you just chase one down the lane, ideally you can fish for avenger's shield procs so you have it up for the next set of three. Generally if one is getting through its more of a dps problem than anything and tanks can assist. Personally I can solo maybe the first spark because my vengeance from tanking, but after that its pretty iffy for me to solo kill sparks even without reseting my stacks.

[theckhd]

I have always been really diligent about clearing stacks during the spark phase, to lower my damage taken.

Is that foolish? Should I be trying to take as much damage as I can, without dying, to increase my DPS?

I don't think that debuff will increase your Vengeance at all (it's calculated before most buff/debuff effects, which is why SotR doesn't reduce your Vengeance taken). So there's no issue with resetting it.

[Ziz]

Let's pretend that I don't want Relic of Niuzao because I am slightly insane instead of saying outright that I can't afford it right now. What should I use instead?

Either pray for Jade Warlord Figurine to drop, or farm Iron Protector Talisman. There's also a mastery trinket from MSV that you can use in a pinch, it's better than other non-stamina options.

Well I saved up enough to nab Relic of Niuzao. But if I replace Ghost Iron Dragonling with the Valor stam trinket, I'm afraid I won't be able to reforge to expertise cap. I can't even get expertise cap right now. Here's my armory again so you can see what I'm doing http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/a ... Ziz/simple .

[UFTimmy]

I have always been really diligent about clearing stacks during the spark phase, to lower my damage taken.

Is that foolish? Should I be trying to take as much damage as I can, without dying, to increase my DPS?

I don't think that debuff will increase your Vengeance at all (it's calculated before most buff/debuff effects, which is why SotR doesn't reduce your Vengeance taken). So there's no issue with resetting it.

Interesting. So taking an extra breath or two will increase my DPS, but I should still reset stacks as I can. Thanks.

I too have "Bad" trinkets", I had the dodge trinket from Direbrew and the Ghost Iron Dragonling. I got the Relic from the faire, and replaced the dodge trinket from Direbrew. The hit/expertise/haste from the Dragongling seemed too valuable to pass up, even though it's a much lower ilevel. I'm working towards revered with ShadoPan to grab that one, though I haven't done any dailies in a few weeks.

[Ziz]

Yea, without Ghost Iron I will be much farther from the 15% cap (I think that's what it is) than I am now, which is about 10%.

[pbean]

Small question about the Elegon discussion... do I understand well that magic now also gives vengeance? Or has it always done that? I was under the impression only physical damage gave vengeance.

[Albirieo]

I've been lurking quite awhile, and I'm wondering if there's anything better I can do with my gear to get ready for LFR. I'm only a few points away from que and I want to be the best I can. Character I know gems, and enchants may not be viable, I haven't picked any out as I wanted to seek advice first before I go. Expertise is certainly not viable either as it's very low.

[econ21]

I was a few points short of the LFR requirement last night on my warrior alt and so in the end what I did was buy a relic of nuizao to close the gap. As theckhd has argued on this site, stamina is a great tank stat - perhaps especially when you are under-geared.

Another thing to think of, not so much for the ilevel but for power, is buying an honour helm so you can get a meta-gem. You can convert JP to honour and running Tol Barad is often a painless way to get honour (600 a victory).

You really need to gem and enchant though.

[Lastwolf]

I have always been really diligent about clearing stacks during the spark phase, to lower my damage taken.

Is that foolish? Should I be trying to take as much damage as I can, without dying, to increase my DPS?

I don't think that debuff will increase your Vengeance at all (it's calculated before most buff/debuff effects, which is why SotR doesn't reduce your Vengeance taken). So there's no issue with resetting it.

Interesting. So taking an extra breath or two will increase my DPS, but I should still reset stacks as I can. Thanks.

I too have "Bad" trinkets", I had the dodge trinket from Direbrew and the Ghost Iron Dragonling. I got the Relic from the faire, and replaced the dodge trinket from Direbrew. The hit/expertise/haste from the Dragongling seemed too valuable to pass up, even though it's a much lower ilevel. I'm working towards revered with ShadoPan to grab that one, though I haven't done any dailies in a few weeks.

I wouldn't take anymore breaths that is entirely necessary, as a tank your primary job is to hold aggro (which is easy these days) and your secondary job is to not die, the difference in vengeance isn't worth it, even if it did work.

[theckhd]

The difference in Vengeance is enough to double your DPS while off-tanking (0->40k+ Vengeance), at essentially no risk to you because you're not taking melees at that time. It's certainly enough to consider worthwhile.

[Fetzie]

What doesn't work for generating extra Vengeance is using Hand of Sacrifice on the other tank, probably because it counts as player damage.

[Taeron]

Is it just me or are the leg/hands tier pieces a bit underwhelming compared to non-tier drops from HoF, seeing as how both pants and gloves that drop in HoF have an extra gem socket.

I'm finding it hard to keep gloves/pants from tier just because of a shorter cooldown on AD and losing like 8k hp in the process...