Vexryn's Cataclysm Master Tank Gear List & Gear Progression

vexryn wrote:

Digren wrote:This isn't correct. You need a [Helm of the Forlorn Conqueror] token to purchase a Reinforced Sapphirium Faceguard (T11). The Valor Point (not Justice Point) vendor only sells the chest, hands, and legs for VP. I checked this myself when writing my gear guide last weekend.

Hrm, on the flip side... it appears that the chest, hands, and legs are ONLY available for Valor Points. Wowhead only appears to have tokens for the head and shoulders for regular Tier 11. And then the Essence of the Forlorn buys one of 5 different tokens for the heroic tier upgrade.

So it looks like head and shoulders are only drops (for regular Tier 11), while the chest, hands, and legs are only Valor Points.

Yeah I saw that. So non-raiders can slowly grind out 3/5 while only raiders have access to the 4-piece bonus.

Digren wrote:
So it looks like head and shoulders are only drops (for regular Tier 11), while the chest, hands, and legs are only Valor Points.

Yeah I saw that. So non-raiders can slowly grind out 3/5 while only raiders have access to the 4-piece bonus.[/quote]


Well, or the "casual" raider can get 3/5 Tier 11 while only "better progression" raiders have access to the 4-piece bonus. Not knowing the bosses that drop the Head and Shoulders and their relatively difficulty, we'll see. But you're literally talking about almost 3 months of rigorous dailies just to get the 3/5 Tier 11 from 5-man dungeons only (not to mention the other Valor Point gear to buy), so I'm assuming that you'll have to be at least a casual raider to rack up enough Valor Points to see much of the Valor Point gear anytime before Valentine's Day or so.

Digren wrote:

Exogen wrote:Love this List, was exactley what I was looking for, Many thanks to you dude, and just a question below.

vexryn wrote:Reinforced Sapphirium Faceguard (Tier 11) - Essence of the Forlorn token - Dodge/Hit

I believe this to be incorrect. Essence of the Forlorn is used to purchase Heroic Upgrade pieces. The tokons to upgrade class pieces arnt droping from bosses after looking at WowHead.
So you would need to purchase Reinforced Sapphirium Faceguard with JP and then to upgrade you need to get a Essence of the Forlorn From Lady Sinestra (Speculation) and with the Essence of the Forlorn purchase a Crown of the Forlorn Conqueror and then you can upgrade your tier piece to Heroic version.

This isn't correct. You need a [Helm of the Forlorn Conqueror] token to purchase a Reinforced Sapphirium Faceguard (T11). The Valor Point (not Justice Point) vendor only sells the chest, hands, and legs for VP. I checked this myself when writing my gear guide last weekend.

After that you are correct. To upgrade from T11 to T11.5, you then use an Essence of the Forlorn, likely from a selection of T11 raid bosses, to purchase a Crown of the Forlorn Conqueror, and then use that along with your existing Reinforced Sapphirium Faceguard to buy a Reinforced Sapphirium Faceguard.

Thanks for clearing that up, I did it at Work where my WowHead tooltips dont work (Stupid IE) was was confusing tabbing between 2 sites.
Good to hear that a Casual cant get the full set.

Updated Mixology benefit of Alchemy, per a Blizzard blue post on hotfixes - it's now +120 Stamina when using the Stamina flask, putting it in line with other profession buffs.

Vex, great write up, this is by far the best one I have seen leading into Cat. My hats off to you on this, and thanks for a great guide.

Very nice compilation of information. Thank you for your work.

Just wanted to drop in an pass along my thanks for your work!

Vex--You da man! Many thanks for the comprehensive evaluation!

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

I'll be updating this list over the next 24 hours as we get any new details (including drops for a number of the epics) from the content going live.

I'll also be adding further updates over the next week as I grind out level 85 and the early gear itself, and discover any "unexpected changes" along the way!

In the meantime, if there's anything that you discover that's incorrect, or that you'd like to see added, please feel free to post in this thread.

Thanks, and enjoy!

/salute

Just pointing out Raz's Pauldrons drop in Blackrock Caverns from Ascendant Lord Obsidius, not Halls of Origination.

Just a note on Therazane reputation: you can hit revered from just questing and one day's dailies. I just did it at (low) L83. It's probably worth completing the Therazane quests just to "finish" the Deepholm story and get the Riftrent waraxe as a reward. It does not delay going to Uldum significantly: if you go to Deepholm immediately at L82, you will only be a couple of bars into L83 by the time you are done.

I agree getting to exalted is not a priority, but getting to revered for the ring (and questing weapon) is probably worth it.

econ21,

can you elaborate on the therazane rep? I started in mt hyjal and am now revered/guardians of hyjal, I next started in Vash'jir and noticed i was getting NO earthan ring reputation, so i stopped and moved on to Deepholme (what a miner's paradise btw!) I am currently in Deepholme getting earthan ring rep..and I am guessing from what you said that I will be getting Therazane rep at some point, right?

hrbngr wrote:I next started in Vash'jir and noticed i was getting NO earthan ring reputation, so i stopped and moved on to Deepholme

You can get about of 4k of Earthen Ring reputation in Vash'ir, quests with it start in a second subzone.

seigert wrote:

hrbngr wrote:I next started in Vash'jir and noticed i was getting NO earthan ring reputation, so i stopped and moved on to Deepholme

You can get about of 4k of Earthen Ring reputation in Vash'ir, quests with it start in a second subzone.

Don't forget this was hotfixed as per the post in the General forum as some quests were not giving the correct rep reward. No plans for this to be retroactively applied as of yet so you will need to grind the rep out.

hrbngr wrote:can you elaborate on the therazane rep?

It comes naturally in the later quests in Deepholm. It starts off with the Earthen Ring being attacked by Therazane, so they send you to try to win the favour of the big uglies. I enjoyed the Therazane quests and they do get you to revered with only one day of dailies required. Haven't bothered grinding past that yet though - better to move on to Uldum imo. I try to quest in the highest level area that will offer quests - more challenge and nicer loot. But I made an exception in Deepholm when I realised how close to revered with Therazane I was getting. I'll probably also loiter in Uldum, for cat people rep. You need 9m XP to get from level 84-85, so levelling in two zones sounds reasonable.

econ21 wrote:Just a note on Therazane reputation: you can hit revered from just questing and one day's dailies.

Hmm. I did the full quest chain, and I've done 3 days of dailies, and I'm still at 11185/12000 Honored.

econ21 wrote: I'll probably also loiter in Uldum, for cat people rep.

I can understand that.

KysenMurrin wrote:Hmm. I did the full quest chain, and I've done 3 days of dailies, and I'm still at 11185/12000 Honored.

That's odd. I wonder if the discrepancy is because my main is human and so benefits from 10% extra reputation?

KysenMurrin wrote:

econ21 wrote:Just a note on Therazane reputation: you can hit revered from just questing and one day's dailies.

Hmm. I did the full quest chain, and I've done 3 days of dailies, and I'm still at 11185/12000 Honored.

I hit 10K/12K from the primary quests and had to knock out one day of dailies to hit Revered. I'm guessing human 10% rep racial is the big player here.

econ21,
I've been tempted to stay in deephholme or at least go back and do the dailies as well. I've been trying to find Terborus for the sweet tank wrist that he drops: http://www.wowhead.com/item=67238

I am now also close to revered with Therazane and have been contemplating which tabard to initially wear in roics based on Vexryn's recommendations.

Since there are so few options for boot upgrades, I'll be going for Wildhammer rep for the head reward at revered and boots at exalted first--along with the dailies mentioned here http://www.wowhead.com/faction=1174#comments. Next, back to Guardians of Hyjal for the exalted tanking back since there are no dailies to help get me to exalted--currently at revered from completing Mt Hyjal quests. I'm already earthan ring revered--needed for the head enchant--so next would be Therazane for the Exalted shoulder enchant, and finally finishing up with Ramkahen for the revered ring and exalted wrist.

My overall philosophy is to try and make a mastery set per Theckd's list and then a threat set w/full hit and lots of expertise. I am also trying to match gear where possible to the same basic stats as our tier gear. For example, for the shoulder slot: T11= http://www.wowhead.com/?item=60358(dodge/hit) so my focus is to get http://www.wowhead.com/?item=58104 (dodge/hit). That way when/if i get the tier piece it slots in nicely with the rest of my gear

Just a nitpick:

vexryn wrote:Your only other epic wrist option drops from the Bastion of Twilight, and again given the itemization in Strength, I'd prefer the Ramkahen's Sandguard Bracers over the Bracers of Impossible Strength anyway. The Dragonmaw/Wildhammer Exalted Boots of the Sullen Rock / Gryphon Rider's Boots option is nice, which I'll grant is worth considering given the prospective Valor Point grind for Rock Furrow Boots.

I disagree with you here. Mastery is a very powerful stat for us, to the point that I'm prioritizing mastery gear very heavily. A parry/mastery item like Bracers of Impossible Strength is a stronger choice for survivability than the Sandguard Bracers, which wastes a good chunk of its itemization on expertise. Reforging can make up some of the difference, but you're still quite a bit behind. Example, using all pre-DR values (items with high avoidance fare even worse due to DR, so this is really a "best-case scenario" for items like Sandguard Bracers):
Sandguard: 190 dodge: 1.0752% avoid from parry + 0.1924% from STR, 1.2676% total attack table coverage
Sandguard with dodge->mastery reforge: 0.6451%+0.1924% avoid, 0.9538% block, 1.7913% total attack table coverage
Sandguard with exp->mastery reforge: 1.0752%+0.1924% avoid, 0.5572% block, 1.8248% total attack table coverage
Bracers of Impossible Strength: 0.7187%+0.2688% avoid, 1.5939% block, 2.5813% total attack table coverage

Similarly, Gryphon-Riders (3.4475% coverage with mast/stam gem) is pretty much a best-in-slot piece because of its favorable mastery itemization. Again, by reforging the expertise into Mastery you can get the Rock Furrow Boots up to 2.3239%, but that's still significantly behind.

A few notes:

• The wowhead tooltips are wrong. It's pretty clear that they're still using the level 80 parry/dodge conversion factor. This is trivially checked; Rock Furrow has 223 rating, which should be about 1.26% dodge using the level 85 conversion factor of 176.7. The tooltip claims 3.42%, which corresponds to 65.2 rating per %.
• You can come up with a general rule of thumb for reforging on items that have an avoidance/threat combination. If an item has A avoidance rating and T threat rating, the break-even point is found by solving (0.6*A/Ca + 0.4*A/Cm)=A/Ca+0.4*T/Cm, where Ca and Cm are the avoidance and mastery conversion factors respectively (Ca=176.7189 for avoidance, Cm=179.28/2.25=79.68 for mastery).
  
  Solving that equation, we find that T = (1-Cm/Ca)*A = 0.5491*A. In other words, as long as the threat stat on the item is larger than 55% of the avoidance rating, you'll get better attack table coverage by reforging the threat stat. This assumes, of course, that you're willing to sacrifice the threat stats.

Theck,
Thanks for your response about this.

In point of fact, I've come to a very similar conclusion as I've been gearing up and tanking this week. Mastery gear is at the top of my list; gear is "two survival stats" (i.e., some combination of dodge/parry/mastery) is priority over anything with hit or expertise, even if it has "extra" strength itemization.

I'm going to be doing a lot of updates to the guide this week, now that I'm settling down from my insane initial grind for the week (I did so many heroics, by the end of the first lockout I think I'll be exalted with three different factions, and revered with the rest!).

Also need to update some of the comments about rep grinds in light of what you get from questing, and given how hard you can and will want to grind heroics for rep, I'm realizing that I clearly need to revamp my valor point recommendations in the light of the timing of when you'll get exalted rep epics versus valor point gear.

And we're already heading into raids, and I'm seeing now that Blizzard basically put our "starter epics" on early raid bosses as well. Halfus (1st boss in Bastion) drops the bracers that compete with the rep ones (although I agree with you, I like the raid drop itemization more); Orbitron in Blackwing Descent drops a belt nearly identical to the Blacksmith crafted one, and Magmaw (which seems much harder than the preceding two) drops tank boots that are very comparable to the rep option.

Also have more clarity about what world drops are available as epics, and will incorporate that into the guide as well now that we see what's available.

Lots of positive updates coming soon!

I see you don't mention the engineering trinket? Elementium Dragonling

Any reason for this, or just missed it?

My experience so far after doing a bit of raiding is that Hit/Expertise gear isn't going to be particularly relevant for this tier. Our threat lead is so gigantic that there's simply no reason to worry about threat stats.

Some examples:

Chestplate of the Steadfast is superior to the 359 crafted Blacksmith chest despite the former being ilvl 346.

The Twilight Dragonscale Cloak (also ilvl 346) is another example. It outshines 359 pieces.

Right now I'm basically comparing items purely on the basis of survivability, since even with low Hit and Expertise values, I'm so far ahead on threat I can just switch to Seal of Insight and Word of Glory tank after the initial threat lead is established.

Great guide so far, really appreciate you putting it together.

I have a request for an additional section on reforging. Either links to something existing discussing it, or general guidelines for what to reforge to what. Theck's post above was a little beyond me, but the conclusion on reforging a threat stat if its 55% of the avoidance rating is a nugget I can use.

Lootrank is recommending reforging mastery into dodge for almost all pieces, which doesn't sound right to me at all. So a brief section discussing / linking to 85 caps with reforging in mind would be helpful.

Again, great work and I look forward to the updates.
Bamphh (Prot Warrior) & Bearki (Prot Pally)

edit: And of course I post before reading the rest of the stickys. Maybe just a link to the Item Enhancement Guide would cover all of this.