Trading Conquest Down

First off, my armory:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... &n=Myranda

Secondly, some background:
My guild is just now clearing through Ulduar 10, while simultaneously doing Naxx25 to gear up others. The eventual goal is Ulduar 25. I am [sometimes] the main tank, and until this guild have mainly built my set out of what I could do with pugs. I just recently starting getting raiding gear.

Thirdly, the question:
With conquest badges flowing like water, I find myself (like so many others) trying to decide what to spend my badges on next. I have a spreadsheet that I use to model my character and from what I can calculate, my biggest emblem upgrade *appears* to be the Valor Medal of the First War.

The part of this that leaves me feeling a little dirty is that I'd basically be trading down 40 emblems of conquest for emblems of heroism. This means putting off getting the T8 gear pieces from emblems, among other things.

Are my calculations right? Should I trade down for the Valor Medal? Any other gear advice based on my current set (gemming/enchanting/etc)?

My Spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... xQmc&hl=en

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For 25M Ulduar you'd like to have 2x stam trinkets. First one you can farm from normal TotC, second one from AN or Ulduar.

As without a defense trinket it could be a bit complicated to stay uncrittable try to get something with tons of defense on it. Ring from valorous emblems is nice, so is T8 tier stuff.

My general philosophy has been to follow the following rules:

1) Stay at 540 defense
2) Stay at 102.4% Block+MIss+Dodge+Parry
3) Get Miss+Dodge+Parry as high as possible
4) Get Health as high as possible
5) Get Armor as high as possible (this is usually ignored and I just take the armor as it comes)

Since 3 and 4 are often in conflict, I tend to favor 2. My spreadsheet is set up so I can tell if I'm increasing my avoidance or not, and I'm always trying to.

The advice above, though, indicates that I should sacrifice avoidance for more health. I have over 51.26% avoidance now. Is this high or low? I assumed I just wanted to push this up as high as I could and have therefore been making gear selections based on what would move that number up while not sacrificing health or armor. Both health and armor seem to slowly climb anyway.

I plan on replacing my Seal of the Pantheon with the new stam trinket from ToC (Plan 1 in my spreadsheet). Based on my above rules, the Valor Medal increases my avoidance the most with no cost to my health or armor (and hence my perceived biggest upgrade).

Is Avoidance not as important in 25 man ulduar?

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I would say EH > Avoidance for Ulduar, particularly hardmodes.

And I definitely wouldn't get the badge dodge trinket. If you want an avoidance trinket, get the one from Ignis 10.

So if I should be gearing for EH, I should focus on buying stuff with my emblems which will increase my armor and my health pool, even at the loss of a percentage point or two of avoidance?

None of my badge options really seem to increase my EH by much. It looks like I can only hope to gain a couple hundred health or so from any one piece. How much avoidance is that worth?
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Lykaon wrote:So if I should be gearing for EH, I should focus on buying stuff with my emblems which will increase my armor and my health pool, even at the loss of a percentage point or two of avoidance?

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Yes.

For the most part just get the higher ilevel gear... T8, conquest neck, conquest gloves, possibly even crafted boots and belt are all really good options.

Thanks. That definitely changes my direction a bit. Sounds like I have not been putting enough focus on EH. I've just been letting that come with the gear and trying to get avoidance as high as possible. I think it's probably time to start building multiple sets more fully.

I have gear in the bank that I can toy with to get EH up and avoidance up, etc. Is there a reference here in the forums somewhere about EH vs Avoidance vs Threat, what constitutes each set, and when to use which?

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If I was you, id grab t8 chest and helm first, then conquest neck and gloves, then maybe grab orbs to make belt or boots.

I was thinking the same after evaluating with these with new goals. The chest in particular seems like a nice upgrade over what I have.

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It looks like you're in roughly the same situation I was last week. Most importantly, you need upgraded trinkets. The Black Heart from Regular ToC will net you ~1500 health, which should do you a lot of good, and will be a nice boost. You'll want to trade out Lavanthor's trinket first, because the Block Rating is nearly worthless. I'm not sure I agree that you'll want 2 stamina trinkets. Unless you're doing hard modes (which is doesn't sound like you will be), I don't think it's worth taking the iLevel lost towards getting a lower quality trinket. If you can get the stamina trinket off of Yogg-10, that would be amazing, and would be a good way to do dual stamina trinkets. I definitely would not do Black Heart and Essence of Gossamer at the same time though. The trinket off of Ignis-10 is also a good EH trinket, and would be worth getting.

As far as your emblem spending goes, I would look at something like: Neck->Legs->Chest->Head. Buying the Crafted Belt and Boots (in that order) may be a good investment, but they're rather expensive. I would think a better investment (at least to start with) would be to start getting epic gems in all your slots. Its a lot cheaper and you'll see a quick increase in your stats.

Make sure to keep running Heroic ToC every day. There's still a few upgrades in there you will want, especially the tank ring. Slap a Solid Majestic Zircon in there and replace your deflection band with it.

It sounds bad to tanks, but going by your un-buffed health is a decent way to judge how good your gear is (especially for high end content). Just keep increasing your health/stamina, and you'll be doing better. If the socket bonus is expertise/hit/very small, put in a blue stamina gem anyway.

yeah, definitely go for more stamina first, when increase your avoidance. Ulduar 25 is a little wake up call for healers, especially if you're still doing Naxx25. bosses hit for a lot more, and your low hp is going to be a problem.
I wound't worry about 102.4% so much, 1 or 2 unblock hits isn't gonna make much difference with that you're gonna be taking at first.

Get some more defense, replace your trinkets with 2 stam one, and you will be far better of already to do U25. Run hc for the chest and head T8.5, and gloves, it will also boost your avoidance for the loss of block rating.

Ragingsoul wrote:Ulduar 25 is a little wake up call for healers, especially if you're still doing Naxx25. bosses hit for a lot more, and your low hp is going to be a problem.

I didn't realize that 29k health was 'low' ... I thought I was doing pretty good.

sorry, let me rephrase, 29k would be low if you had 1 or 2 stamina trinkets, which you don't.

If you take Essence of Gossamer (if you aren't lucky on yogg10men ) + The Black Heart = 111+126= 237 stamina*11.448= 2713 hp

that would put you to 32k hp which is good to start Ulduar25 imo.

and getting some T8.5 from hc will easily put you to 33k btw