4.2 Tank Stages and Cataclysm Gear Guide

I think the argument for a bis list is a valid one. Every piece of gear comes with an itemization cost and return. Some slot pieces are simply better itemized than others (or more precisely, over valued) when you consider the tradeoff that you make between the stats that are on the pieces vs what you can change through gemming/enchant changes, and reforging out of a completely different piece to get more optimal stats overall. If you've used a program like Mr Robot to optimize your gearset, you should understand what I'm getting at. For instance, gemming is a 3stam/2mast tradeoff constant, but if you find a piece that rocks 7stam for a 4 mastery tradeoff, the stam piece is going to provide the better return than the mastery piece regardless of your immediate need for mastery to reach the block cap. I know it's a little counterintuitive at first glance. But again, you take advantage of that overvalued piece by reforging/regemming other pieces. Simplistic as it sounds, you're basically assigning relative numerical values for different stats, and then calculating an overall value for the piece. I think Mr Robot does an awesome job of this, both by letting you determine how you value the individual stats, then calculating an overall BiS list, and showing you how to get the most bang for the buck with newly acquired upgrades by shifting stats through other pieces of gear, that quite often isn't obvious until it's shown to you. This seems a valid approach in that, for tanks anyway, more stam is never a bad thing, and excess mastery can be reforged/regemmed into other useful stats whether avoidance or threat, with trinket swaps having the ability to carry huge gear stat changes in order to take advantage of that over itemization. If we get to the point were you can max mastery after reforging away all available mastery without any mastery trinks/gems/chants, then..well..we'll all be rediculiously overgeared for the content anyway and the game will be essentially broken.

Short answer: there are valid best in slot lists. Just because you have to go one step further and figure out how to make incomplete sets become best for you, doesn't invalidate the concept of bis pieces.

Hello Digren,

I got a question at the examples of the gear. Are these exaples for stage 1 and 2 still up-to-date or can I better look at the bottem page for the list with all the items? Hopefully you will responce .

A short notice to Digren:

Brewfest trinkets probably have a place somewhere.

Stubblerump wrote:
Short answer: there are valid best in slot lists. Just because you have to go one step further and figure out how to make incomplete sets become best for you, doesn't invalidate the concept of bis pieces.

This would still be incorrect.

The relative value of any given stat changes (or rather may change) at given break-points. An example would be the relative value of an avoidance/avoidance piece compared with a mastery/crap piece (assuming other values to be equal).

Until you hit 102.4 you'd want as much CTC addition as possible, but as soon as you break that point mastery becomes devalued. You argue that a mastery/crap (in worst scenarion 'crap' is resilience) with mastery partially reforged into avoidance would be better than an avoidance/avoidance piece with the largest avoidance reforged into mastery, even if the tank reaches 102.4 in both scenarios.

The benefit of mastery is also its greatest weakness. It's worth triple the avoidance in terms of increasing CTC. That also means you devalue it by tripple the loss the moment you have to reforge away from it. A good example is the 384 PvP cloak that becomes a piece of junk if you reforge away 40% of the mastery that has it as second BiS in the first place.

Now, a different approach is obviously to start regemming in order to lose some mastery. At least stamina has a distinct value. You cannot, however, reforge into mastery. Another approach is to swap trinkets, but the problem with this take is that it's very much a one way trip. You just decreased your flexibility as dual mastery trinkets would always be bad, and possibly any combination where a mastery trinket is involved could end up 'wrong' (I don't have the numbers, so I don't know if it's at all possible to hit 102.4 with dual stam trinks).

Anyway, if you can't change your gear into getting enough more stamina to give your healers extra time (ie more overkill isn't worse than less overkill), then something else is preferred. This would hold true even if this something else was getting a marginally higher total avoidance, because a zero damage attack definitely does help your healers, even if you depend on RNG.

Edit: The above argument against extra stamina always being good for you is indirectly tied to the discussion here why SoI is always an inferior seal due to the pitiful self-healing in reality never giving your healers that extra breathing time.

Can we sum this up with:

Giving generic advice to all tanks isn't easy.

bazzur wrote:Hello Digren,

I got a question at the examples of the gear. Are these exaples for stage 1 and 2 still up-to-date or can I better look at the bottem page for the list with all the items? Hopefully you will responce .

I think the character models are a bit dated. I'll look into it, but a bit busy at the moment. Life happens. =/

I have a question about the "Back" Slot.
Why exactly is the PvP cloak ranked higher than the Thrall Quest Cloak. Currently im running with the quest reward but i tried switching it with the PvP alternative but i was rather frustrated with the result.

Here are the two chardev profiles, Quest and PvP
If i use the PvP Cloak i gain 504 HP, 78 armor but i loose 0,48% Avoidance, is that really worth it ?

Klorak wrote:If i use the PvP Cloak i gain 504 HP, 78 armor but i loose 0,48% Avoidance, is that really worth it ?

On those 2 profiles you also gain 0.57% block. The 2 profiles feature different gems in the helms?

504 HP + 78 armor + 0,57% block vs 0.48% avoidance.

There is a discussion on the cloaks a few pages back starting here.

Yeah, i had to switch the Gem in order to remain capped. Well i shouldnt say i lose 0,48% Avoidance, lets say i swap them for Block, but still seems like a bad trade to me. But thanks for the link.

I started playing again recently and am currently trying to upgrade to the best pre-raid gear. I have the Valor Points to buy bracers and am wondering about Bracers of Regal Force vs. Gigantiform Bracers. I know that the Regal Force ones are better but the only hit I have (besides my current bracers) is on my shield. So would it be better to take the Gigantiform Bracers to stay above 2% hit or are Regal Force that much better?

Thanks.

You don't need any hit at all. At some point you might decide it's something you want to experiment with gearing for, but it's never anything other than a perk or, like I said, an experiment, for when you want to make a goofy high DPS tank set.

If you're wanting more hit for a certain encounter and/or experimenting you're more likely to swap in trinkets or offspec gear, your main tanking set doesn't want to sacrifice any hit to increase your change of death. If you want to buy hit items from valor wait until you have all the other gear you can get to increase your survival. After a few seconds of the encounter from being hit you shouldn't have any threat problems.

Personally, I like the Gigantiform Bracers for two reasons. First, they have a lot of Mastery which provides good Combat Table Coverage. Secondly, I hate running lower than about 4% Hit and Soft Cap Expertise because missing several consecutive times really irritates me in my rotation.

Also, unless you are a top guild that undergears content and runs with few healers, I find that tanks rarely die to boss damage, and are more likely to die from mechanics: either tank fails at mechanics or healer fails at mechanics. Once everyone is comfortable with mechanics, dps vs enrage requirement or too many dps failing to mechanics seem to be the enxt most common cause of wipes that I experience.

Finally, a starting tank is likely to still be doing some Heroics, for which hit rating can come in handy. The new threat numbers are nice, but if you miss your opening few shots you can still have a problem.

Hrobertgar wrote:I hate running lower than about 4% Hit and Soft Cap Expertise because missing several consecutive times really irritates me in my rotation

Frankly I find this to be the most important thing whenever the debate strikes up for and against threat stats. It's so often the case that people "feel" like they need x amount of it, or not having it is "irritating", or something like that. I'm not going to dispute that, if it's how you like to play then it's how you like to play. But structuring an argument in favour of threat stats based around something like "the rotation just... feels nicer" doesn't play for me.

Yes, the best advice would be that there's a time and a place for everything, that sometimes you might want more threat stats and sometimes less, sometimes x or y, or z, or some combination of all or none of the above. These are things that as you grow more experienced, so long as you stay introspective, you'll figure out for yourself. And sometimes, some totally unintuitive gem will crop up in Advanced Theorycraft and Calculations.

But if you're going to give "catch-all" advice it's probably best to stick to the stuff that actually makes a measurable difference rather than what "feels better", is my opinon. The secondary stats on the Gigantiforms are very competetive, and I have two pairs of them for exactly that reason, but the fact is the operative trade is a whole pile of stamina for a whole pile of strength, which is very unappealing to us as tanks.

Digren wrote: Normal Raider. A stage three tank is a normal-mode raider on either 10 or 25. He or she seeks a best-in-slot set for non-heroic gear. For some tanks, this is the peak of ability. Others, depending on guild and playstyle, will use this as a stepping stone to reach stage five.

Bolded typo. Should be four.

Also under additional notes, it states t11 is purchased with VP. Not sure if this section is waiting for DS to be updated.

Quick list of 4.3 5 man gear with drop locations.

Helm: Annihilan Helm - Well of Eternity - Mannoroth and Varo'then
Shoulders: Pauldrons of the Dragonblight - Hour of Twilight - Asira Dawnslayer
Cloak: Iceward Cloak - Hour of Twilight - Arcurion
Chest: Breastplate of Tarnished Bronze - End of Time - Murozond
Hands: Gauntlets of Temporal Interference - Shared loot from the Echo bosses in End of Time.
Waist: Girdle of Lost Heroes - Shared loot from the Echo bosses in End of Time.
Legs: Bloodhoof Legguards - End of Time - Baine
Boots: Chrono Boots - End of Time - Murozond
Trinket: Veil of Lies - Hour of Twilight - Asira Dawnslayer
Ring: Queen's Boon - Well of Eternity - Queen Azshara
Shield: Corrupted Carapace Hour of Twilight - Archbishop Benedictus
Mace: Gavel of Peroth'arn - Well of Eternity - Peroth'arn
2h Mace: Pit Lord's Destroyer - Well of Eternity - Mannoroth and Varo'then

Thanks for the advice a bit ago. Also, really looking forward to seeing this updated for 4.3!

Just recieved my [Leggings of the Corrupted Conqueror]. What's better? The Ret or Prot ones? I'm guessing the Ret leggings because of the mastery, just want to confirm it here, thanks.

The prot 4pc is gamechanging. CTC is not problematic in t13, so there is no reason to rabidly chase every piece of gear with +mastery.

So Prot Leggings it is.

Is this going to be updated any time soon, that would be awesome.

Deflect wrote:Is this going to be updated any time soon, that would be awesome.

My bet is that its getting far too gearset dependent to really nail down gear rankings. Once you hit the CTC cap, mastery is no longer the lead stat for making one peice of gear better than one without mastery (which is largely how the gear lists for prot were made). And once that distinguishing factor is taken away its all a matter of a good balance between dodge and parry, which is gearset dependent and can be re-forged around somewhat.

Use the lists to reach the CTC cap, but after that they do not mean as much (or even lead you to less than optimal decisions). At least thats the way I see it right now.


EDIT: For instance, ranking gear by mastery (as we did for FL) leads to flawed decisions like buying an INT cloak and calling people that do not, crazy

right just go for EH and avoidance in you gear choice as soon as you have reached CTC cap. Of course, without losing it again.

Hey, I posted a notice at the top of the thread. I don't feel like I can maintain this right now given my lack of raiding. (And, having just moved and lacking internet access at home, my lack of playing at all.)

I can't unsticky things at the moment, but I'll get this unstickied so new people won't be drawn to my outdated guide. I'm focusing on getting my item enhancement guide up to date.

Digren wrote:Hey, I posted a notice at the top of the thread. I don't feel like I can maintain this right now given my lack of raiding. (And, having just moved and lacking internet access at home, my lack of playing at all.)

I can't unsticky things at the moment, but I'll get this unstickied so new people won't be drawn to my outdated guide. I'm focusing on getting my item enhancement guide up to date.

Oh Noes I have grown to rely on this great thread to help me evaluate my gear decisions.... guess its back to sorting thru gear on my own. Hope you get back to being able to play soon, thanks for all the hard work keeping these updated