I scopped as much as I could through past posts but I can't find my reference. I thought I read that above 10k AC you should start concentrating on stamina. Currently I am at 4800hps unbuffed and 11500AC with 242 agi and 172 str.

y question is, with these stats do I need to bother getting a ring with 100+AC and 20+ sta or should I work on finding items that can up my AGI and Str. I do lean towards tanking and have debated a few times if I should bid on the Mantle Of wicked revenge from AQ40? Looks > all and these things are ugly but I want to be the best OSB ( oh $hit bear ) there can be. With lots of AGI and AC but losing some crit %, will I be losing aggro capabilities without the % to crit that comes from my Abyssmal Shoulders?

for what it's worth I off tank alot and was told 8000 hit points or more is very good for tanking and as much armor as you can get!
I know it's hard to get that much hp but it's worth it so the healers don't blow tons of heals on you!

I wish I had that much Agil & Str. wow

I believe you get +% crit with agil ?

Not sure on the % to crit with AGI, I know it helps with dodge and AC. I never really watch my hits or crits. I was talked into using my Boots of the shadow flame (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=19381) for tanking over my Hive tunneler booties (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=21645) and I hate to say it was helping me keep aggro in Strath. But I lost some AGI and Str with the switch.

*sigh* I am so clueless with this stuff so much gear to trade out and try.

Agi does increase dodge, ac and crit. I think that 25agi = 1% crit, but I'm not sure.

If your guild lets you, DEFINITLEY get the Heavy Dark Iron ring. That thing is sick.

Do you have the talent that increases rage when you crit in bear? Cause if so, thats huge for threat generation, and crit and agi become even more important. When I tank, I piece together my gear in this priority: AC, dogde/def, stam, str. But I'm resto, so my crit rate and AP is really low to begin with, and I don't have the talent point to generate rage when I crit in bear. Basically I just spam growl and swipe. Though I did Tank Kurinaxx in AQ20 the other night incredibly well.

I was talked into using my Boots of the shadow flame (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=19381) for tanking over my Hive tunneler booties (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=21645) and I hate to say it was helping me keep aggro in Strath. But I lost some AGI and Str with the switch.
Boots of the Shadow Flame are better for DPS and better for bear tanking than Hive Tunneler Boots, so you're in a win-win situation there. Boots of the Vanguard on the other hand are much better for DPS, but not nearly as good for tanking.

EDIT: As for picking up a high AC ring, any of the big 3 (Heavy Dark Iron Ring, Ring of Emperor Vek'lor, Signet of the Fallen) are awesome for druids. When tanking I use Ring of Protection paired with Heavy Dark Iron, until I can get one of the other two epics.

y philosophy on this is to try and pick up as much AC as I can in slots like ring or trinket or back, so I have more flexibility in other slots where the AC difference isn't so great. What I mean by that is, look at the difference between using a top DPS ring like Circle of Applied Force (+12 Strength, +22 Agility, +9 Stamina) and one of those three rings. Most rings won't give you AC, so getting 100+ AC from that slot is significant. Compare that to using a tops DPS shoulder like Mantle of Wicked Revenge vs. a top tanking shoulder like Defiler's/Highlander's Leather Shoulders. Or using a top DPS belt like Belt of Never-ending Agony vs. Thick Qirajihide Belt. In both those examples you don't give up much AC and get a lot more DPS.

20 AGI gives the druid +1% crit. Compared to 29 AGI for the rogue and 50-something for the hunter.

The point at which armour stops helping, is about 16500 (against lvl60 opponents, 17625 (or thereabouts -- not 100% sure on the number) against bosses (which count as lvl63). Until that point, armour does not have any diminishing returns, so pushing your armour from 7 to 8k is about the same improvement as pushing it from 13 to 14k. ...so don't quite give up on that armour. :)

...and sta. Oooh, lovely sta. It'll save your furry butt quite often. :)

Being a raiding bear, currently doing AQ40 (we're working on Huhuran atm) that tanks most of the bosses in BWL, AQ40 (up 'til Huhu), and the lower instances when we can be arsed to do them, I find myself prioritising armour, sta, dodge, hit (until 5-6%), crit, str, in that order. Agi gives (as goa said) 1% dodge and crit for every 20 agi (the armour part is too small to matter much).

I guess what I'm trying to say is; don't give up on armour when you pass 10k. Get more, more, more armour and sta. They're both important. :-)

I tend to hover around 12k AC and 8.5k HP buffed.

Hi guys,

I was talking to a guildy about cloak of warding, and he/she said that (undoubted clock or something, the cloak that drops from DM tribute - i think it has 48 armour and something like 17sta and +5/7 to def (soz cant access alakazam to check)) is better.

they also said that at about 8k armour any armour above that is pointless and +def items are better.

y understanding is - the more AC you have the harder it is for mobs/players to crit you and it also reduces normal dmg?

y question is - Are +def items better than high armour items and why ?

Thanks

V

Sounds like you got that advice from a tanking warrior, and while I do agree redoubt's better for tanking warriors, tanking druids are kinda different. We don't get parry or block, so we need as much armor mitigation and dodge as possible to reduce the amount of damage we take. +def items are nice, but there's not too many of them out there for us. I have +25 def right now in my bear gear, but honestly I'd be willing to drop 10 or so of it if it got me more sta, dodge, and ac. The bear AC multiplier is so awesome for us, which is why items like cloak of warding and warden staff are so uber.

I'd encourage 20man raid+ bear tanks to get at least 10k armor unbuffed, 11-12k if you can, then start working on sta. Then +def, dodge, crit/agi, hit, str... something in that order. Everyone seems to have personal preferances as to the order, which is cool. :) I'm finally at roughly 12k armor/8.2k HP buffed, and love it. I don't have a ton of AP, but a decent crit chance and dodge chance, which I prefer. Add in battle shout and a few sunders from a neighborly DPS warrior, and my damage is more than enough to keep aggro.

As to the OP, I'd agree with trying to get that dark iron ring, that thing looks sweet, I'm hoping to get it as well. +armor rings are pretty rare, I'd say grab em when you get a chance, it's far easier to get damage armor to balance out your mitigation/aggro later.

Dont' forget the Ring of the Tortouse (sp?) sorry Im at work and can't look up this stuff. It is a simple quest you can pick up in southern Tanaris from the giant turtle...just return him to his mate in steamwheel and get a +120 armor ring...easiest "useable" item quest. Its a green, but I am still using it at 60 until I can get the dark iron ring and the ring of protection.

http://ctprofiles.net/1487840 <- my bear gear.

I do like more Hive Tunneler than Shadowflame, i got both too, and i use Shadowflame just for dps.

I was talking to a guildy about cloak of warding, and he/she said that (undoubted clock or something, the cloak that drops from DM tribute - i think it has 48 armour and something like 17sta and +5/7 to def (soz cant access alakazam to check)) is better.

I agree with Khar -- it's bette for warriors, but not for druids.

they also said that at about 8k armour any armour above that is pointless and +def items are better.


Armour stops being worth it at 16-17k, not before. Until that, it scales linearly (no diminishing returns or anything like that). Put equal focus on sta and armour from the start, and never stop until you reach the cap at 16-17k armour, or about 13.5k armour if you've got priests doing the inspiration buff on you. :)

y understanding is - the more AC you have the harder it is for mobs/players to crit you and it also reduces normal dmg?

Armour's only function is to reduce physical damage you take. It does not lower your chance of being hit or crit -- it simply reduces the damage you take (no matter if it's a hit or crit). Also note that armour has no effect at all against magical damage (fire, frost, etc).

y question is - Are +def items better than high armour items and why ?

For warriors yes. For druids no.

For every 25 def, a warrior gets:
- 1% less chance of being crit
- 1% less chance of being hit
- 1% dodge (not the same as the above)
- 1% parry
- 1% block (block removes a part of the damage, not all of it like miss, dodge and parry)

A druid cannot block or parry, so we only get the three first.

As you can see, defense is a great stat even for druids. Point for point, it's worth about 2.5 times as much as agi if you only look on damage reduction (agi also gives you increased damage output though).

However, we get even more mitigation from high armour, since it's multiplied by 4.6 (or 5.06 if you've got thick hide). :)

+def lowers mobs chance to crit you. AC only reduces psycial damage.

That's why many raiding guilds have a druid tank at patchverk, as he does insane psysical damage and doesnt crit.

Get youself a SHotM and a Warden Staff for extra armour that really help alot in bear form.Then Ench the Staff with +agi.This is quite expensive on most servers to do but believe me.Every beartank I know runs with those 2 items.

Indeed. Those are basically required if you want the high 16K-17K armor values.
Last night I was fortunate enough to off-offtank in AQ20 and we had a slight problem, on Kurrinax (sp?) the debuff stacks up to 100% healing mitigation on the MT, so you need to rotate your tanks...thus each of the 3 of us took turns as MT. NOTE: do not stand in front of any lobster types in AQ as they will devour your armor. Anyway, I was stoked...as were the rest of the party, until both MT and OT went down during the fight. Which left the lowly drood to save the day...and I did. My entire screen was filled with mega heals as our 6 healers blasted me with everything to keep our last line of defense alive. Needless to say the mob was at 30% when I took over...and the big bear pulled out the win. I was excited and was cheered by the rest of the group...I was the only drood and had been given a hard time (as they beleived I was not a "true" tank, as the RL had earlier argued). Well, we droodz got alot of acclaim after that raid as I continued to OOT with great results.

Heh, nice Bryne. Same thing happened to me a month or so ago. I was in an AQ20 pug and one of our tanks D/C'd before Kurinaxx. I volunteered to OT right away, but the PuG wanted to wait. We waited for a bit for him to come back, and after about 5 min or so, the RL said "ok, were gonna let the druid TRY to OT"

I had healed the fight countless times, so I knew to stay away from the bubble, and when to take aggro from the tank. Everything went incredibly smoothly, and I took far less damage than the tank. I had a couple priests whisper me afterwards that I was much easier to heal than the warrior. Probably due to my 13k armor ^^ (12k without pally aura).

People were jazzed after that, and I got to OT the rest of the instance up to Moam :) Super fun.

This sounds so familiar. This was how my guild discovered I could actually tank. After a while as OT, I started to get to MT AQ20 and ZG. Then, one day my 40 man tanking career started when the MT (and an officer) said to the raid leader "could you put [me] as MT2 instead of [newly recruited warrior] -- I'd rather have a druid I know can tank, than a warrior we haven't seen in action yet".

Now I'm a tank -- tanking is my main role in raids, and melee dps my secondary role (when they don't need me as a tank). I heal when we're short on healers, but luckily that's not often (I'm a bit burned out as a healer tbh, so I don't have much fun doing that anymore).

...so if you like tanking, keep showing your guilds that you can tank when they need one. They will hopefully realise you can tank sooner or later. :-)

Haha yeah, my beginning experience is pretty similar (gogo Kurinaxx). For the longest time my RL would let me be like the last MT, so off-offtank or whatever, and I started getting pretty upset about it, only because he kept putting DPS warriors on the tank list ABOVE me, and here I was specced and geared for tanking, while they were not. He also would tend to forget about me in emergency tanking situations, etc., and would call out for warriors to pick up certain targets but not me.

So I comfronted him about it, I told him that I considered myself closer to a prot warrior and a better tank than a DPS warrior. He told me that he didn't think I could hold as much aggro as a prot warrior, and gave me the usual hybrid lecture ("warriors can't emergency heal, YOU can"), which I kind of accepted (the emergency healing part at least), albeit sadly. He also said that I was a great tank, however, so he was going to try and remember me a bit more (he had this bad knack of leaving me out in most tanking situations like I said, too used to only warriors tanking).

So on our next AQ20 run, instead of having me be the last tank, he moved me up to the 3rd, above most of the DPS warriors, finally. As such I finally got to be one of the tanks on Kurinaxx, and without even MEANING to, I grabbed aggro early on, built up so much, that I had to stop attacking totally for one of the warriors to pull him off me. It was hilarious listening to him over vent, he was all "Setah (my char name)... *pause* you have too much aggro...*pause again* slow down...". After the run I was teasing him, "so... still think I can't hold aggro?" and he grumbled a bit, then admitted I proved my point.

Ever since then I've always been considered one of the primary MTs. He doesn't hesitate to have me tank before all of the DPS warriors and even before some of our lesser-geared prot warriors.

A couple weeks ago I got to be MT1 on a full ZG run because our prot warriors couldn't be there, and while he ended up pugging one, he still preferred to give me a shot at tanking the first boss we hit (was bat I think). I think he was still a little hesitant to do a full run without a prot warrior, which is why he grabbed the pug, but after letting me try and MT the bat boss, he said I did a great job, and kept me tanking all the bosses, with the warrior as an offtank. I was thrilled :D

We're finally hitting up 40 mans now, or starting to, and I get my fair share of offtanking, which makes me happy. I'm currently hoping to talk the other officers into letting me tank ony one of these weeks, now that we're downing her easily, so hopefully I'll get a shot at her too. :)

Hell, you will be supprised at how many people realize that druids can tank especially after the MT goes down. I have been into the tanking thing for a while now and I actually encourage our guild druids to rather go hybrid than full resto just so they can get a bit of tanking experience. That added, I was full feral but recently repecced to feral/resto just so I can get some healing experience. So far it works out nicely and I can still MT with the best of them but I carry 4 sets of gear into raids and that is a bit irritating (used to carry only 2 sets).

Kurinaxx is a great fight for a druid tank to show their stuff. I'd done a little bit of tanking, but was still almost always relegated to healing in boss fights until one of our early Kurinaxx fights. We had 3 warriors there, and despite me getting a battle rez in on one of them that dropped early, we were down to one with Kurinaxx still at like 20% health. He had 6 or 7 debuffs on and howled for help.

Fortunately, with only 3 warriors, I'd worn my tank gear for the fight, just in case. I shifted, Feral Charged, and hit Growl, and BOOM, Kurinaxx was on me like white on rice juuuust long enough for the warrior to drop his debuffs. We recovered and won. Kind of solidified my spot in the tank rotation.

What's more, it still gets mentioned sometimes.

"Gee, [Warrior], I remember when that druid charged in and did that taunt thing that totally saved your ass."
"Yeah, I know."
"You were going down so hard, and then, BOOM, he had a zillion aggro. Good thing the druid was there."
"YES, ALL RIGHT! I GET IT! I REMEMBER!"

hee.

Yea Druids make decent tanks. Ive succesfully tanked all bosses in ZG/AQ20 and some of the MC ones just fine. Id still rather do Damage or Heal than sit there mauling.

Oh, and to the above poser that wants to tank Onyxia. You better have lots of FR and health to tank her.

How much FR you suggest? I've been trying to figure that out, different people give me different responses, but I think our warriors who normally tank ony are only sitting at around 170-180 unbuffed, which isn't all that hard to get (I'm only at 100 now though :/).

200+ unbuffed is actually the better way to go, especially if you want to keep things easier on your healers mana.

Lorath and 9er has it right. Onyxia hits like a wimp. :) The dangerous parts of that fight, are the flame breaths (spike damage) and the fears (need to survive a short period with your healers feared).

I focus on FR and sta gear, like Lorath said. It makes me resist most of her breaths, and helps me survive through fears (even if I get a breath) until the healers are back on track. :)

(I'm kinda assuming alliance and fear ward here -- never tanked her without it, so I don't know how the fears will be on horde side.)

Alrighty.. I'll keep trying to get my FR up. Other than that I think my gear's good enough... mainly need to get the MC craftable gear, lava belt, corehound boots, etc. Would you suggest ony scale cloak +15 FR enchant or cloak of warding with +15 FR enchant btw? I have both, not sure which to get the +15 enchant on, lol.

And yeah, alliance. >.>

Definitely don't waste a 15 FR enchant on cloak of warding -- you'll (hopefully) be getting a better cloak. :)

yself, I never got around to getting 15FR on cloak, so I'm still using 7 FR on the ony cloak in my FR gear. You need to use the ony cloak on Firemaw, where you need FR gear. On the rest of the ony cloak fights you don't need FR at all (assuming you'll not be tanking Nef :-) ), so I'm not sure how much sense it makes to put 15 FR on your ony cloak -- there are so much better epic FR cloaks out there.

Only beartank I know that tanked Ony (on a druid only run \o/) had over 400 FR and he did a wonderful job BTW. :D

Well ... with 400 FR you can take a nice relaxing swin in any lava stream and still feel a bit chilly :P

xD So true.

I'm gonna try and get 200 unbuffed I think, only need a few things to get that much, luckily, and they should be fairly easy now that my guild's almost got MC on farm (they pretty much tore through the place over this past weekend, when I was gone, sigh, lol)... mainly need to get the dang craftable leather stuff from there, but we're still gearing up our prot warriors with their DI stuff. ;_;

Oh oh oh, ony head reward... which to take? @_@ I was so convinced on the neckpiece, because really that just seems better all-around, but now I'm unsure... 15 FR to trinket is pretty nice... granted, the rest of the thing kinda blows for tanking dr00ds.

I have the neck piece and am quite pleased with it. I just couldn't see giving up the AC I would have lost if I went with the trinket. I hate farmig and I never have any luck with the Burning Essense from BRD

Only beartank I know that tanked Ony (on a druid only run \o/) had over 400 FR and he did a wonderful job BTW. :D

When I tanked Ony I had about 260 FR I think. Anything over 315 is a waste (300 if it's not a boss), since that's where you hit the resistance cap of 75%.

(Note: I cheated a bit and brought some priestly dwarven friends -- tanking bosses with fear really is easymode for alliance bears compared to horde. :-( )

Well ... with 400 FR you can take a nice relaxing swin in any lava stream and still feel a bit chilly :P

lolz :D