Over the last two days, I managed to pick up the two tanking items I was saving for over the last couple weeks. (and for once, I logged off with my Tank gear equipped, so I can actually look at it in an easier to see place)
What I got were:
Saronite Sword Breakers (wrist)
and
Boots of Kingly Upheaval (feet)
(actually, I got them in the reverse order, which caused me a bit of an arrythmia. My old boots had defense, the new ones don't - EEK! Fortunately, the new wrists do, and my old wrists didn't)
If you click on the picture above (a screen cap of my equipment from wow-heroes.com) you will notice that I am missing 3 gems and 3 enchants (well, I'm a blacksmith, so it's actually 4 gems and 2 enchants, but eh...)
And yes, it's on my brand new items. Given what I know, I am mulling things over.
mull
mull
mull
See?
Eh-hem.
Anyhow, there are 3-4 MAJOR stats for pally tanks: (and are important for other tanks, just the numbers vary)
- Defense (prevents bosses from get crits on you - Capped at 535 or 540. I've heard both)
- Hit (lets you not miss, which helps immensely with threat. Melee capped at 230 for a Drae Pally)
- Expertise (helps reduce/eliminate parries, blocks and misses on the boss - 26 is soft cap, 54 is hard cap )
- Stamina = Health
If you look at my stats above, you will see:
I am one point below def cap (or 4 points over) Regardless, a single gem swap will fix that. (yes, there are 4 blue items on me, and I have two rare gems on that blue belt :P I never wanted to invest an epic gem on a blue item, to increase defense by 4 points)
- I am hit capped
- I have 189 Expertise points which is roughly 24 rating.
- I have 27k unbuffed
Clearly, I am not "all the way there" yet.
What is kind of scary is that, at a 4,700 Gear score (whatI have now) I am considered "ok, but rough" for doing ICC 10, which would say I significantly over-gear Naxx and Ulduar, yet I would need to gem for even MORE expertise to hit soft cap, which would limit me to only 2 more stamina gems, and not that much more health...
Back in the Naxx/Uld days, how the f**k did tanks get by with that low of health, barely being hit & def capped, and no WAY were they expertise capped?!?!?
Yes, I know they would have multiple sets of armor:
- one for EH (effective health, which is basically stamina and armor)
- one for avoidance (there are also stats for dodge parry and block, which I'm not even going to touch here)
- one for threat
- and maybe one or two or three with various resists (nature, shadow, fire, etc)
So, you could optimize one set with mega stamina and armor, while perhaps being below def cap, or hit cap or expertise cap, and have another set with defense, parry, dodge, and another with hit, expertise and strength boosts.
But wait, I *ALREADY* have 3 sets of armor - DPS, Tank and PvP. SO no, I'm not going to have multiple tank sets. Not only because of bag space, but also because I simply can't afford to buy (or farm for) multiple sets of gear.
So, I'm going to try to make a single "best of all worlds" Tank set and live with it.
As it stands I desperately need 3 new tanking pieces:
Waist
Neck
Back
(remember how I keep stressing that you should use wow-heroes/etc to check your gear occasionally? This is what happens when I don't can't easily check my tank gear)
I could also use a couple new rings, but eh, it is what it is. The bummer is that PvP gear is useless for tanking gear. It can work well for DPS, but not so much for tanks...
I t hink I'll just fix my one Def gem, add one expertise gem, and push everything else into health/stamina.
Unless anyone reading this hasa better/wiser suggestion?
