Tank off spec - Should we ever gem/reforge hit/exp and why

Hello all,

new to the forums but have been reading for a while.

i wonder if someone could clear something u for me, i had a discussion with a few pally tanks about hit and exp.

My question is should i gem for Hit or EXP, i understand the mitigation stats but see so many times palladin tanks gemming HIT or EXP

i have tralled the forums and can't find a definitive answer about these two stats, should we gem for them, should we just take what we get passive, if we should gem for them why?

(sorry for the post if this should be somewhere else, its just i like to know all the facts when i play a class, so i suppose this all boils down to when should you gem hit / exp and why)

PS im new to tanking as my main spec is Holy (only decided to tank due to having alot of tank gear)

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/a ... ess/simple is my char (any advice would be great full because TBH not 100% sure what i am doing is correct)

No.

You should be avoiding hit and expertise like the plague. You don't (ideally) want either on your gear, and you certainly don't want to be gemming or enchanting for them.

The reason is that they are purely threat stats, and threat output is largely determined by a) following a reasonable rotation, and b) Vengeance.

Pre-4.1, there was an argument for 10 man raiders to have a set in which they were hit capped to guarantee that interrupts wouldn't miss. 4.1 made interrupts incapable of missing, so even that niche reason has disappeared.

Currently the only reason to stack hit and/or expertise is to increase your personal DPS at the expense of your survivability. In terms of killing bosses quicker, you're almost certainly better off sticking to survival stats and dropping a healer, so even then it's only really useful for parse chasing on WoL.

thank you for your quick reply, that information has given all i need, ill sort out my stats as soon as i get online.

I was looking at some of the top end tankadins (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/l ... l/advanced) and they seem to follow this rule which threw up my suspicions about hit / exp (basically they don't gem for it etc

Thanks again

Odd

Threat has use in farmed content, primarily as compensation for laziness. By gearing for higher threat over survivability, a tank can:

1. Generate more threat, especially in low-vengeance fights, allowing DPS players to ignore threat and pew pew during otherwise boring content.
2. Take more damage, giving healers something to do.

However such a set easily qualifies as a "gimmick" set - something used for a special purpose besides traditional melee progression content. And you can certainly do any content in game without it.

Not much to add that hasn't been said. These guys clear it up. The only thing I can add is you are going to do more damage as you close in on hit and exp but progression content the tank shouldn't be worried about that and just keeping himself alive.

When you start to hysterically overgearing content, threat paradoxally becomes an issue.
The new solution with heroics in two tiers should, however, alleviate this problem. Unless, of course, you prefer your VP 70 at a time in 20 minutes long runs through the old ones.

thank you all again for the useful information.

I have sorted out my Gear and also got a mastery/stam trinket combination.

I ran ZA lastnight and asked the healer hows the healing going they reply was keeping you up is easy (which was a good response)

one thing i did have an issue with is an over agroing warrior, i potentially think it may have been the warriors fault as all the other classes in the run where way below me on the threat problem, ill keep an aye on it in more run's and if it becomes an issue ill un reforge my hit/exp back to hit/exp

Thanks again

Odd

hey,

Oddness wrote:one thing i did have an issue with is an over agroing warrior, i potentially think it may have been the warriors fault as all the other classes in the run where way below me on the threat problem, ill keep an aye on it in more run's and if it becomes an issue ill un reforge my hit/exp back to hit/exp

Fury warriors got massivle buffed in 4.1 and their AE is really great plus you can't really outmaneuver them by pulling faster (they just heroicly jump or charge in). Have your taunts ready and be on the ball! ^^

Bye, RedAces.

You will also find that a lot of your best items will be Mastery/Expertise. Personally I do try to keep expertise soft capped. I play a human pally its its really, really easy to get to 26 expertise with a sword or a mace. Once its past 26 I forge away from it but I do find that the up front threat is better than moving my expertise below soft cap for the purpose of ever so slightly more dodge or parry %.

You have to consider that your first 26 points of expertise work twice as hard on your threat capability. Once you stop knocking off Dodge and Parry I don't consider it as valuable. Right now I do occassionally have my guildies getting close if I get a bad streak of misses and they get lucky procs. The new damage mechanics can be very streaky for certain classes and short term threat can be an issue in good raids.

All that being said, I would not forge into it or gem for it. Merely pointing out that you should aim to soft cap your expertise if possible through gear selection.

Plain and simple, NEVER gem for hit/expertise.

I imagine you're not tanking for a top-end guild, or one really pushing hard modes, since in most all cases they would recruit a new tank if they needed such a slot filled...


IMO, Expertise soft cap can really smooth out the rotation -- 16(+10) expertise = 13% less miss chance, for almost no point cost (~2.5% total loss from Dodge+parry before DR) (480 rating)
For that cost, I like having expertise soft-cap because I enjoy tanking more without the 25% chance to miss.. This mindset is not good for high-end heroic raiding, but as I said, I don't think you're in that boat.

Still, even as a casual tank, when you're geared two tierlevels above the five man heroics you farm for VP, by all means feel free to build a threat set where your aim is to go berserk.

When survival becomes an absolute non-issue you could as well make the content go faster.

That would be by the end of Firelands as far as troll heroics are concerned. I'd stick to a pretty survival focused set for those, even in 360:ish gear.

Wow, this thread has helped me a lot. Just registered to say thank you all.

For tanking the Zuls, there's a case for getting a decent amount of hit and expertise. I aim for capping them against L85 opponents, which I assume is the usual level of the trash. It partly depends on your gear, but I find I can swop only a few items (use licence to slay instead of a stamina trinket and the Ramkahen bracers enchanted and gemmed for expertise) with almost negligible loss of survivability. The Zuls are crazy unpredictable when PUGGing - half the time, you are running with superb dps who kill stuff so quick you are in little danger of dying and avoiding missing stuff helps make a smoother run in terms of peace of mind. And the other half of the time, you are running with awful dps and your damage might conceivably make the difference. (After wiping 19 times on Jin'do in one run, I decided making sure I did not miss the chains was worth equipping my "threat set", as I could not rely on others to down them.)

Yes after wipe streaks on end boss ZA and ZG with the usual smartass comments,I really consider getting my VP 70 at a time in a 20 minutes run. Besides I am really gettg annoyed doing the same two instances every week.

I am normally equip threat for the Zuls unless I am encountering a healer who is a bit weak.

Or the healer from today who was never there and said it in groupchat multiple times. Was really fun when the Fury pulled the boss while I was in the middle of explaining how the chains work.

I hear you. The same two stupid instances over and over and over just makes me want to claw my eyes out. I rejoice every time we take down a new boss in Firelands just because it means one fewer troll instance I have to run.

I swear this is the grindiest xpac I have ever seen.

I do run a hit/exp capped set for trolls, simply because unless I swap out gear I find vengeance hard to come by, which is not a good look when holding off i370 arcane mages.

Yeah must be hard to find keybinds for insta invis, mirror images and ice block in arcane spec with so many buttons to push . Or the blasphemy to ask for sheep.

It's a pug. People do what they want and complain if you don't facillitate it.

You can choose to go on a crusade of educating players as to how they should behave in instances, or just grind out your valor like a good little drone and be done with it. Back when I had a soul I may have tried the former a bit more, but having ground dailies and the same two troll instances over and over, I just do the latter. It's just part of the grind.

I started in BC as a pala tank and refused to heal. I lost my naivete and desire to educate player real quick back then. Somehow it was even easier in BC, no one dared to interfere in your stuff unless you did a bad job even when our rep as tanks was bottom of the barrel.

Ah well just blowing steam.

So yeah equip for threat in the Zuls and the trashfest at the start of Firelands. I reforged some expertise to hit or vice versa on some pieces to change in. There is enough tankplate loot that is useless otherwise.