Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
Dumping this here partly for progression advice, and partly just so that I have my upgrade plan written down somewhere
I've been running L80 heroics for a couple weeks with my bear tank, and have upgraded just about everything (gearscore is...hmmm...4400-ish now?). Armory here:
In actual dungeon conditions, I typically have around 40-43k HP and 31-32k armor. I can usually sustain somewhere between 5k to 6k TPS vs. single target or vs. my current target while AoE tanking. Dodge comes and goes depending on what my idol feels like doing. I think it peaks somewhere around 58% if my idol kicks in at the same time I proc my trinket. Couldn't say for sure.
There are still some pieces that can be upgraded solely from the LFD heroics, but they're getting to be fewer and farther between. From poking around with Rawr, these are the upgrades that are still available just from running heroics. Most of them are from ToC:
Gear
Belt: Belt of the Twilight Assassin - 28 emblems of conquest. A slight upgrade, but I think I've already got the emblems I need to buy it right now.
Feet: Treads of Dismal Fortune - comes from the champion's cache in ToC. This could take forever to get, depending on the whims of the RNG
Weapon: Orca-Hunter's Harpoon -- had a shot at this in HoR a few days ago, but I deferred to a guy who had been trying to get it for 2 weeks.
Wrists: Bracers of Swift Death -- technically this isn't from running heroics, but the recipe needs crusader orbs. I can get those from converting emblems of triumph. This would probably set me back ~500g on top of the orbs themselves.
Enchants/Gems:
My weapon still needs an enchant, but both Blood Draining and Mongoose are quite expensive. I have all the mats for Blood Draining, but I'd rather wait until I've upgraded to at least the orca-hunter's harpoon. I'm undecided as to which enchant I'd rather have. It's a question of TPS/DPS vs. survivability, but I don't know which way I lean at this point.
My current belt has 2x Solid Sky Sapphires (2x +24 stam) that Mookhow gave me. When I upgrade the belt, I'll gem it with Solid Majestic Zircons instead (2x +30 stam).
That one random +Hit gem in my helm will also be replaced with a Nightmare Tear (+10 all stats) as soon as I find someone to cut one for me from this dragon's eye I've got. At the time I got the helm, I was specced and queuing for DPS instead of tank while I built up better gear. My Hit was absolutely horrible at the time, hence the odd gem.
To be continued...
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
Last edited by Stathol on Wed Mar 03, 2010 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
So, the upgrade plan I've outlined will keep me busy for perhaps a week, unless the RNG decides to be real ***** to me. The obvious question then, is...what next?
If I want the "...of Triumph" (i245) gear, my understanding is that I'll need Trophies of the Crusade as well as a metric crap-ton of more emblems of triumph. The latter I can get from mindlessly grinding out more heroics, but my understanding is that the trophies only come from 10-man ToC (right?). Do people even PuG that? I'm not really sure where I need to go from here. My guild does weekly ICC raids, but I'm pretty sure I need the i245 set before I try to participate in that.
Other random thoughts:
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator would be a better tanking shoulder enchant, but it costs marks of honor. I'm not wild about PvP, frankly, and I don't even have a PVP gear set. Is it worthwhile to grit my teeth and build up PVP gear just to get this one enchant?
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
So, the upgrade plan I've outlined will keep me busy for perhaps a week, unless the RNG decides to be real ***** to me. The obvious question then, is...what next?
If I want the "...of Triumph" (i245) gear, my understanding is that I'll need Trophies of the Crusade as well as a metric crap-ton of more emblems of triumph. The latter I can get from mindlessly grinding out more heroics, but my understanding is that the trophies only come from 10-man ToC (right?). Do people even PuG that? I'm not really sure where I need to go from here. My guild does weekly ICC raids, but I'm pretty sure I need the i245 set before I try to participate in that.
Other random thoughts:
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator would be a better tanking shoulder enchant, but it costs marks of honor. I'm not wild about PvP, frankly, and I don't even have a PVP gear set. Is it worthwhile to grit my teeth and build up PVP gear just to get this one enchant?
The trophies come from the 25m ToC content. Each boss drops *one*.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
Argh. Sorry, this is confusing. I should have said 10-man ToGC (TGC?), not just plain ToC-10. Ostensibly the trophies drop from that, too. Or at least, that's what WoWWiki claims.
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
You get some number of them from the chest at the end, depending on how many attempts you have left. You can likely expect 3. If memory serves, it's 4 if you don't wipe at all in the whole clear.
In any case, as to the topic question, you can start dabbling in frost emblem stuff. You get 2 a day from the random heroic. You can get 5 from the weekly raid, which is usually very easy with tons of PuGs for it. Get some of these upgrades you already mentioned and you can tank ICC10 man, if you are so inclined, at which point the frost emblems will flood in. ICC is starting a series of progressive small nerfs -- a 5% buff to HP, damage, and healing. The first one already went in, and we'll probably see 5% more every... 3 weeks maybe?
I don't know what your server is like, but it's not rare for servers to have sort of standardized "PuG" raids. They aren't truly pick-up groups, as they tend to invite from the same pool of people. Get into one of those and show that you're capable and it may provide a good avenue for you in the future without any of the commitment raiding guilds tend to ask/require.
Oh, and that PVP shoulder enchant costs 10k honor. If you do Wintergrasp and complete a few of the quests in that one battle, you can earn ~15k honor or more for that one fight. If you could put honor to good use, but don't like PVP, I suggest doing Wintergrasp once or twice a week only, when you have WG quests to complete. It's obscene honor per time spent.
Indeed. 1 WG, 4 quests completed. 16,896 honor. Some 22 minutes + time to do the PVE quest after.
Granted you won't always win in one game, but it's still pretty sweet!
And maybe this is anecdotal and doesn't hold true, but it seems it's easier to win on offense. If this is the case you can try to plan to only do WG when your faction is on offense.
It's nice. I have 3 level 80 chars, and I run each of them through the weekly BG quests sometime in the week. Nice to pick up some offset items, or just spend the honor on epic gems.
My guild has plenty of JCs to do the cuts.
_________________ Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.
You can get a decent i-level 226 belt from downgrading some Triumph badges to Conquests.
You should be able to get upgrades for your staff, bracer, boots, ring, trinket from the new 5 man instances or probably even ToC5.
As has been mentioned, look at Frost Emblems too. The tank cloak is AMAZINGLY better than the one you're wearing, and was the first thing I upgraded on my tank.
It seems like no one raids ToC anymore on my server, so I'd focus on trying to raid ICC for more Frost Badges and way better loot drops. I'd upgrade the items I mentioned above first tho via the 5 mans. As a tank, that shouldn't take you too long.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
Aizle wrote:
You can get a decent i-level 226 belt from downgrading some Triumph badges to Conquests.
Yeah, that's the belt I've got listed in the OP
Aizle wrote:
You should be able to get upgrades for your staff, bracer, boots, ring, trinket from the new 5 man instances or probably even ToC5.
Also in the OP . But yeah, the remaining pre-raid BiS stuff for bear tanking is mostly in ToC5, except for the 2H polearm from HoR.
Aizle wrote:
As has been mentioned, look at Frost Emblems too. The tank cloak is AMAZINGLY better than the one you're wearing, and was the first thing I upgraded on my tank.
I'll have to examine this in more detail after I've done the other upgrades. I'm wanting to say that I have around 50 frost emblems now. That's only enough to buy 1 frost upgrade, so I need to prioritize. I'll work it over in Rawr and see what gives the most advantage.
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
A little bit of Rawrcrafting suggests you're right. Both absolutely and per-emblem, that cloak seems to be the biggest tanking upgrade that you can buy with Frost. If I've already got the emblems for it (maybe) I'll go ahead and grab that now. The tanking idol would probably be my next target for frost upgrades.
I also neglected to see Footpads of Silence as a possible upgrade. These would be better than the ToC boots I listed, but definitely requires more $$$
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
Last edited by Stathol on Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am Posts: 9449 Location: Your Dreams
50 frost emblems will only get you the cloak. (Actually, there's also a 30 frost emblem item for classes that use relics and such). The other frost emblem purchases will cost between 60 and 95 emblems.
30 frost emblems will get you an IL264 Libram/Idol/Totem/throwing weapon 50 frost emblems will get you an IL264 cloak. 60 will get you IL264 trinket, belt, or gloves. 95 will get you IL264 chest.
For Tier 10 gear, 60 frost emblems gets you the IL251 gloves or shoulders, while 95 will get you chest, helm, or pants.
_________________ Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails... ...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me █ ♣ █
_________________ Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails... ...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me █ ♣ █
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
Yeah, it's a little odd. The most expensive items actually offer the least boost over, say, the i245 "...of Triumph" gear.
You know, the more I play with Rawr, the more impressed I am with its accuracy. I dropped the mob level down to 82 and turned on the typical buffs I'd see in most 5-man groups. It came up with 5.4k TPS with an optimal rotation. That squares pretty darn closely with what I see in Omen vs. heroic bosses (threat tends to oscillate a bit between 5.5k to 6k).
As a new tank, that actually makes me feel a lot better. Last Saturday I had a streak of heroics that just did not go well at all. A couple times someone told me I wasn't holding threat well enough. I wasn't really sure what to make of that, and was beginning to think that maybe they were right. It's really hard to tell when you haven't been playing long enough to know what reasonable expectations are.
But if Rawr's TPS calcs are as accurate as the rest of it seems to be, then it looks like I'm pretty much generating all the threat I can with this gear. At which point, I think I'm going to have write those incidents off as over-geared assholes who don't know how to control their threat when they aren't in a 25-man ICC raid. I kind of suspected that was the case for other reasons, but I didn't have any numbers to back it up. There's nothing wrong with being overgeared for heroics, but you've got to make some concessions. People who think that every heroics tank should be able to hold aggro against 3 people who are each doing close to/more than 8k DPS just make me want to /ragequit.
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
You should be able to get upgrades for your staff, bracer, boots, ring, trinket from the new 5 man instances or probably even ToC5.
Also in the OP . But yeah, the remaining pre-raid BiS stuff for bear tanking is mostly in ToC5, except for the 2H polearm from HoR.
I would think that the 3 new 5 mans would have better bear tank stuff than ToC5. But honestly I haven't done much research on bear tanking yet, as my druid is only 52. It's agility and stam that you're looking for right?
Yeah, it's a little odd. The most expensive items actually offer the least boost over, say, the i245 "...of Triumph" gear.
You know, the more I play with Rawr, the more impressed I am with its accuracy. I dropped the mob level down to 82 and turned on the typical buffs I'd see in most 5-man groups. It came up with 5.4k TPS with an optimal rotation. That squares pretty darn closely with what I see in Omen vs. heroic bosses (threat tends to oscillate a bit between 5.5k to 6k).
As a new tank, that actually makes me feel a lot better. Last Saturday I had a streak of heroics that just did not go well at all. A couple times someone told me I wasn't holding threat well enough. I wasn't really sure what to make of that, and was beginning to think that maybe they were right. It's really hard to tell when you haven't been playing long enough to know what reasonable expectations are.
But if Rawr's TPS calcs are as accurate as the rest of it seems to be, then it looks like I'm pretty much generating all the threat I can with this gear. At which point, I think I'm going to have write those incidents off as over-geared assholes who don't know how to control their threat when they aren't in a 25-man ICC raid. I kind of suspected that was the case for other reasons, but I didn't have any numbers to back it up. There's nothing wrong with being overgeared for heroics, but you've got to make some concessions. People who think that every heroics tank should be able to hold aggro against 3 people who are each doing close to/more than 8k DPS just make me want to /ragequit.
So while I don't currently have bear tank experience, I do have lots of tank experience. I've tanked up to ICC as both Warrior and DK.
One thing that I've found with both tanks is that I often times have to change up my rotations for overgeared heroics vs actual raiding.
Several reasons for that. On the warrior, I can sometimes be rage starved in heroics, as I have so much mitigation. On the DK, I'm often rune refresh limited. So I need to make sure I'm doing a few quick high aggro things to keep most of the mobs on me while the dps goes nuts. Often times there's just no way to keep *every* mob on me, but generally by the time some aoe dpser on crack gets aggro the mob doesn't hit them more than once before they drop.
The other thing that I do on the warrior is pull more mobs, so that I can keep my rage up. For instance at the beginning of UK, after the first 2 mobs, I pull both sides of the entry way there and tank all 8ish mobs at once. That makes sure I have a full rage bar and so can keep going nuts on threat.
If you haven't already discovered it, I highly recomment tankspot.com for more info tank stuff.
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
Aizle wrote:
But honestly I haven't done much research on bear tanking yet, as my druid is only 52. It's agility and stam that you're looking for right?
Kind of. Stamina is #1. Both Stamina and Agility stack well, but stacking stamina will have a better overall contribution to your survivability. Agility is probably the next best defensive stat for us; however, agility is everywhere on feral gear. Armor is harder to get in quantity with bears, and with the -Dodge debuff in ICC, it's really important that you grab it where you can. Defense and Dodge are relatively low priority. Bears don't have to be defense capped (with sane talents), and we tend to have tons of dodge from all the Agi gear.
Aizle wrote:
I would think that the 3 new 5 mans would have better bear tank stuff than ToC5.
Oddly enough, not so much. There are some decent tanking items in FoS, HoR, and PoS (those are the 3 new ones?), but other than the pig-sticker, you can buy better gear than the ICC-5 drops with various emblems. Go figure.
Aizle wrote:
Several reasons for that. On the warrior, I can sometimes be rage starved in heroics, as I have so much mitigation
I'm not well enough geared to run into that much yet. But I also get a little bit of rage from dodging, due to talents. Rage can be a little anemic in the lower dungeons like VH, so I tend to not use demoralizing roar there, but OTOH those dungeons are the least likely to have someone doing >6k DPS.
Aizle wrote:
If you haven't already discovered it, I highly recomment tankspot.com for more info tank stuff.
Yeah; from what I've seen, though, bears tend to be the bastard child of tankspot.com. That was one of the places that I originally looked for a heroics bear tanking BiS list. They had one ... it was pre-WotLK
_________________ Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
Bear tanks were in vogue for a while, but really took a beating when WotLK first came out and they dropped by the wayside. I get the sense that they are coming back around.
That said, there do appear to be a few passionate bear tanks out on Tankspot, and I'm sure they would be happy to provide some guidance. I'll also poke one of my guildies. He's a AWESOME tank (player in general really) and he's rebuilding his tank set.
Yeah; from what I've seen, though, bears tend to be the bastard child of tankspot.com. That was one of the places that I originally looked for a heroics bear tanking BiS list. They had one ... it was pre-WotLK
Honestly, I don't really have much use for BiS lists. Often times the gear they have listed are items that I'm never going to see because they are 25 man raiding drops, which my guild doesn't really do.
Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:23 am Posts: 920 Location: The battlefield. As always.
I got lucky with my Harpoon - first run drop. Unfortunately, it's my DPS weapon for now; hoping to get the Tyrannical Beheader for that, then swap the Harpoon to tanking.
Still trying to shore up my tankset so I feel comfy tanking Heroics, too.
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. But yeah, the remaining pre-raid BiS stuff for bear tanking is mostly in ToC5, except for the 2H polearm from HoR.
