Hit level 70 last night. Just wondering if I need to base my PvP gear & enchants on whether I'll be in Bear or Cat form? Do I need to have my PvP gear with Resilience for cat form but then maintain separate gear for tanking in bear form when I run instances?

Seems to be a lot of factors to consider and Emmerald's list is straight DPS without factoring in the importance of resilience in PvP it would seem. Having trouble weighing gear according to what I want my toon to do. Am I that unorthodox? Is 70 cat form in PvP that rare?

Thanks!

First decide what you want to do.

Then gear for it.

A "typical" druid has a tanking set for bear PvE and a DPS set for cat PvE. If you want DPS gear for cat PvP, it's largely a matter of swapping out some of the +agility/+crit cat gear for +stamina/+defense bear gear, or just wearing cat PvE gear and doing arenas for arena gear.

I have a solid lvl 70 tanking set. And quest green/blue kitty set. I just starting doing PvP. I took my kitty set and added in a few bear pieces that had more +sta than their kitty counter parts without loading up on +def (not all that important in PvP). That's my "starter" PvP set. Mostly DPS, with improved +sta over what I use while questing. I also use my DPS trinkets (I don't have any PvP trinkets).

As I earn "real" PvP gear (should get my S2, or S3 gloves next week), I'll update the set.

...not sure how this happened...

LOL thanks. I'm wondering strictly about PvP and my only forray into the world of PvE will be if I need to have separate gear for Bear tanking. It would be ideal if I could tank in my PvP gear. It sounds like that's not possible though.

So as for my PvP set, it seems like you can mostly throw Emmerald's list out and go with the Arena / Honor rewards. I know you need enough resilience before you even consider going for more DPS, and the only gear that seems to have resilience is PvP gear.

It seems very cookie cutter but very necessary to have enough resilience. Does it sound like I have the right direction towards my PvP set? I will have separate Bear tanking gear.

Thanks again!

LOL thanks. I'm wondering strictly about PvP and my only forray into the world of PvE will be if I need to have separate gear for Bear tanking. It would be ideal if I could tank in my PvP gear. It sounds like that's not possible though.Not necessarily true. A lot of the pvp rewards are excellent for pve tanking, like the battleground bracer, belt and boots:

Vindicators Dragonhide Bracers - 2nd only to Band of the Swift, or best available if you need the resilience to be uncrittable

Vindicators Dragonhide Belt - only Belt of Natural Power and Waistguard of the Great Beast are better, unless you need the resilience to be uncrittable

Vindicators Dragonhide Boots - quite a few boots are better than these for tanking, but still very solid tanking boots

Overall the season 3 arena set, Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide XXX, is slightly superior to T4 for tanking, and probably comparable to T5 (not sure about how the t4/5 set bonus stacks up against s3 set, probably gives the edge to t4/5 if you can get the 4 piece bonus).

So as for my PvP set, it seems like you can mostly throw Emmerald's list out and go with the Arena / Honor rewards. I know you need enough resilience before you even consider going for more DPS, and the only gear that seems to have resilience is PvP gear.

It seems very cookie cutter but very necessary to have enough resilience. Does it sound like I have the right direction towards my PvP set? I will have separate Bear tanking gear.

Thanks again!
Resilience and stamina are the biggest stats you are going for in pvp, so yes, throw out Emmerald's list when looking at the armor upgrades. It's really straight forward: pick up the battleground Vindicator slots (boots, belt and waist), and the s3 gladiator set. For other slots like rings or neck, go for the battleground pieces as well. Until you can get those pieces, go with armor that has high stamina and agility. And if you have the points available, don't be afraid to get the season 1 gladiator gear using your battleground honor until you can get the s3 pieces. One nice thing is you can mix and match season 1, 2 and 3 gladiator armor and still get the 2 and 4 piece bonus. So wear the season 1 helm with the season 2 chest and the season 3 gloves and shoulders, and you still get the extra resilience (2 piece bonus) and boosted feral speed (4 piece bonus).

Sounds like a good plan.

It should be noted that some PvP pieces are good for tanking and/or kitty DPS. Just not all of them. Ex. resilience is a good way to reach the uncritable cap. And most PvP gear is high in +sta which is nice for tanking. However, it typically doesn't have as much armor, +hit or expertise.

Emmerald's list is strictly for instance/raid PvE.

Thank you both! That helps a lot. Three things I'm wondering about:

1) Does the upgraded Medallion of the Horde ONLY offer resilience or does it break more CC events? I was thinking I should get this first but I have a Trinket of the Horde already.

2) What is this "expertise" you speak of? And how does that compare to "+ Feral"?

3) How much +resilience and/or +defense should I have for PVP? For tanking instances?

I know all of this is already somewhere on the internet. But for all the research I'm doing, it's hard to find it condensed anywhere. This site and its community has been a blessing!

Thanks again. :dance:

2) What is this "expertise" you speak of? And how does that compare to "+ Feral"?Different things. Expertise replaced the old +feral combat skill. Basically, it reduces the chance your hits will be parried and/or dodged. See http://www.wowwiki.com/Expertise for more details.3) How much +resilience and/or +defense should I have for PVP? For tanking instances?To take on Raid level bosses (lvl 73) you need 2.6 crit avoidance (assuming you have 3/3 SotF). Both +def and +res help. To determine if you have reached this crit cap, run this script while wearing your tanking set...

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(2.6-(GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)*.04+GetCom batRatingBonus(CR_CRIT_TAKEN_MELEE)),1,0.5,0)

If the number is 0 or negative, you are uncritable. If the number is above 0, you require more defense or resilience vs level 73 bosses.

Can't help you with PvP. Though I'd guess the more +res you have the better. :flipbg:

Medalion of the Horde is the first thing you should get with honor. It allows you to break any form of CC once every 2 minutes (gives you a chance against warlocks). And it adds on a decent 20 resil.

Get as much resil as you can. Typically 400 - 450 is good for pvp. And you will want to have over 10k health.

I have heard rumours that that script doesn't work anymore tlbj.. Anyway, an easy method to determine if you are at the crit cap is to go to your character sheet and bring up the "Defenses" tab. Mouse over your Defense skill, and it will tell you the amount it reduces your chance to be critted by.
Then mouse over your resilience, and again it will tell you the amount it reduces your chance to be critted.

Add these 2 numbers together. If it's 2.6% or more, you are at (or above) the crit cap.

As noted above this only applies if you have the talent "Survival of the Fittest" (or SotF for short). This talent is arguably a requirement for any druid wishing to tank. I can't think of many reasons why you wouldn't want to get it if you are trying to be a good bear druid, however for the sake of argument if you don't get it, you need 5.6% crit reduction, instead of 2.6%.

Assuming you have Survival of the Fittest 3/3:
If you want to achieve the crit cap with only defense skill, you need 415 defense skill to do that.

If you want it via only resilience, you need 103 resilience.

It's perfectly ok to mix and match them, though :>


Also, regarding tanking belts:

[Vindicators Dragonhide Belt - only Belt of Natural Power and Waistguard of the Great Beast are better, unless you need the resilience to be uncrittable

I would beg to differ on this front; Belt of One-Hundred deaths has 20 expertise rating on it, which in my mind makes it a serious contender. It's a low drop rate from Lady Vashj though, so therefore out of reach for many druids.

Why expertise? 2 reasons.
First of all, if less of your attacks are dodged or parried, this means more will land, resulting in more threat.

Second, if a mob parries your attack, its next swing at you will come faster, creating a damage spike. Therefore expertise is also a useful stat for mitigation.


-Annikk

I have heard rumours that that script doesn't work anymore tlbj..It works as long as your base defense is 350 (and you have SotF). Mine base defense has not reached 350 (for some odd reason), which causes the script to give false positives.

The other night I let the first 2 trash mobs in SV beat on me until near death (exit instance and repeat) several times and my base def only went up 1 point (to 346). Last night we cleared heroic ramparts thru the first boss, my base defense went up 1 point to 347. WTF?

It takes a longass time to level defense skill. The final point took me literally weeks. Just keep tanking, it'll come eventually :>


-Annikk

It takes a longass time to level defense skill. The final point took me literally weeks. This weekend I spent most of my fragmented WoW time grinding various rep levels up to honored (for heroic keys and PvP gear once 2.4 is released). I finally hit 349. I must have killed 300+ mobs and got 2 points of defense. Yikes! Now, just one more point to go.