Edit: Now on Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6215342676488983573
Edit2: Was requested to rename the thread.
Spec
Any standard tank build. Improved retribution aura is handy, as well as redoubt + improved shield spec. Holy shield, improved holy shield, and ardent defender are also nice, and so is reckoning. Avenger's shield, precision, improved seal of the crusader, spell warding, and improved judgement are not needed. I use something like a standard 49/12 build, but ideally if you are only going to farm I would get improved retribution aura and figure out how to adjust those other talents. I know alot of people think retribution aura sucks, and that the talent sucks, but I personally feel the talent is incredible. Also, while I hate redoubt, this is where it really shines. And, of course, blessing of sanctuary is required.
If you are clueless about what I just said, just go ahead and copy this exact build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIx0zggqzVbe00b. You won't regret it. Just keep in mind this is a build suited better for farming, and while can serve as a good tank build, is not the best actual tank build.
Gear and Enchants - Shields
For starters, go get the Petrified Lichen Guard. This is obtained through having Honored reputation with Sporeggar in Zangarmarsh. If you are still leveling up, this is a great place to farm for a while to balance out the missing quest XP gaps. There is a repeatable quest to kill nagas across the lake that is rather simple. I highly suggest farming this as a retribution spec. While you are there make sure to stockpile glowcaps (the shield costs 15 glowcaps, not gold). You may even want two shields in case one gets broken and your bags are not full yet.
Next you need to enchant the Petrified Lichen Guard with a Felsteel Shield Spike. The recipe can be obtained when you are exalted with thrallmar/honor hold. This is a rather expensive enchant, so it is good to start planning ahead. The mats are Felsteel Bar (4), Primal Fire (4), Primal Earth (4). If you are the standard blacksmith/miner, you should be well on your way to getting the recipe and collecting these mats. Otherwise start farming the primal fires and enough gold to purchase the rep. BTW, a decent place for pallies to farm motes of fire is the south demon area of Ogrila up in Bladges Edge Mountains. You can combo the farming there while doing the kill 15 demons daily quest. If you have plenty of gold, keep checking the AH for decent prices. You can also get the mats for felsteel individually and have a miner smelt the felsteel for you.
As far as grinding to exalted with thrallmar/honor hold, the number one place to do this is normal shattered halls runs. I think it is covered in a separate topic, but 90% of the mobs in shattered halls are melee. If you are melee and sitting in at least the pre-kara tank gear (from the gear guide), you are more than capable of tanking this instance. Part of the value of this instance is that we don't require crowd control. Pull groups of mobs at a time, figure out how many you can take on. For example, I usually pull the first 6 or so mobs at the start as one group. Your group composition should ideally be 3 AOE classes and 1 healer. If you get some pretty good gear, your healer does not even have to be holy specced, he just needs to toss out a few heals. Basically tell them to wait about 10 seconds after you pull, then start in on the heals and AOE.
Gear and Enchants - Trinkets
While you are grinding the rep with thrallmar/honor hold in shattered halls, this is a good opportunity to grab a Figurine of the Collosus, one of my favorite farming items. Usually referred to as FoTC. Luckily enough, this drops of the last boss in Shattered Halls. While I have heard horror stories, odds are that if you grind to exalted in this instance you will end up with one. If not, all I can see is keep on grinding till you get it. Unless they somehow nerf this item, it is incredibly powerful for aoe grinding. On a 2 minute cooldown, this heals you for 120 to 180 each time you block an attack, and gives you about 3% block chance anyways, which is very important.
So far we have our shield, the enchant for it, and one of the trinkets. The next step is to get your next trinket. There are a couple choices here. For starters, the Alembic of Infernal Power has chance on being hit to restore 240 mana to you. Drops off the black stalker in heroic underbog. The proc has a 1 minute cooldown so its not that great, but this can help those of you that have mana problems while AOE grinding. It also has some added resilience which will help you if you are still below the defense cap against level 70 mobs (something like 485 i forget, see a different thread). This is not the best trinket there is, but it is decent. Do not use this trinket for tanking, it is only for farming and other purposes (resilience for a healer in pvp, like when pets and voidstalkers come after you).
A better trinket for mana issues is the Power Infused Mushroom. I prefer the mana one over the health. This returns 200 mana each time you kill something. It cannot proc more than once every 10 seconds, so it kind of sucks at the same time considering that quite often everything you are AOE farming will die at once, but sometimes things die over a spread out period of time. If you are using this trinket I highly suggesting targetting only one mob in the group at a time and trying to kill it quickly, instead of switching targets periodically, to increase the chance some of the mobs die more than 10 seconds apart. If you are having mana issues, this trinket is one way to solve that problem, and it seems way better than the infernal power trinket. I made the mistake of getting the health one while leveling and then deleting it at some point. If you still have the chance, get the mana one.
A step up from the mana trinkets would be Dabiri's Enigma. This trinket is understated in its effectiveness for AOE farming, it is absolutely beautiful. Why? Because, even though we have improved holy shield, you will find you run out of block charges quickly. Because even though you have a chance to proc redoubt, it is unreliable. This trinket basically fills in where redoubt does not. It gives you some basic defense, but really this is all about the use effect, which increases your block chance for a short period of time. Very important when holy shield goes down and redoubt failed to proc. It also works great in combination with FoTC, almost guaranteeing you will be blocking what feels like 90% of the hits, and getting healed for each one, which can easily heal you in total for 10,000 life, depending on what you are farming
. The sad thing about this trinket is that it comes from a quest you likely did while leveling up that gives you as a reward choice the starcaller's leggings, your first blue healing pants with really good stats. If you have not done this quest already and chose the wrong reward, consider yourself very lucky.
It is a group quest, so if you solo leveled, then maybe you skipped it! Anyways go check ASAP. Quest link.
Next comes the Darkmoon Card: Vengeance. This available from the Furies Deck and turned it at the Darkmoon Faire. It gives you 51 stamina base, and a chance to proc vengeance when being hit, which returns a small amount of holy damage. The proc does not seem to have a cooldown, or at least a very large one, and when you are AOE farming this will proc all the time, upping the return damage and helping you kill stuff faster. This is also a great tanking trinket. I would suggest farming gold and checking the AH every day for furies deck cards, it is nearly impossible to farm these cards on your own. Don't pay more than 200ish gold for any one card, this trinket should not cost you more than 1000g. I like this trinket because I use it for tanking, and the proc is primarily for threat in this case, but it serves very well for AOE farming. Blocking and returning more damage and being able to survive long enough to kill everything is what it is all about, and this fills two of those goals.
Finally, my personal favorite, the Gnomeregan Auto Blocker. I personally do not have this yet, I suck at farming badges lately and just made an FR set, but this is by far the best trinket to combine with the FoTC. The Auto Blocker is available in Shattrath from the badge vendor for about 50 badges. Although it may not seem that great at first without any stamina or block rating or defense, this trinket has tons of block value. That reduces the damage from each attack made on you that you block. This will actually provide you way, way, way more health when AOE farming than the vengeance trinket. If you are farming badges from heroics, get this trinket ASAP, right after you get your FOTC. Pop its use effect when you gather up a bunch of mobs and watch as you take almost 0 damage each time you block (or actually take 0!). I almost thought it was a bug there first time I saw "You block X's attack" in my combat log instead of seeing "X hits you for 500 (400 blocked)". This trinket will make that happen.
Other trinkets for consideration include the Season 3 rep rewards which increase your health or spell damage, and the Skettis exalted rewards (one that increases your spell damage similar to the power infused mushroom), as well as Darkmoon Card: Madness.
On another note, I recommend that you do not farm with the Moroes Lucky Pocket Watch. For AOE farming, too much dodge is bad. If you are rather undergeared (as in, you have only killed moroes in karazhan and got this trinket), it is OK to wear because using it to increase your dodge can help save your life when AOE farming. But as tempting as it is, the benefit of this trinket works backwards for you. The more often you block and the less you dodge, the faster stuff dies and the less mana issues you have.
Gear and Enchants - Other
Outside of some of the core items I mentioned above, the rest of the gear is primarily up to you, or at least it takes too long to write. Here are a couple pointers. Most of the gear you obtain in gearing up for Karazhan or later on through raids will work for AOE farming.
You always want to prioritize block rating and block value in your stat distribution. Dodge, parry, and extra defense is entirely unecessary and sometimes worse. I tried to explain this earlier with the trinket selection. Always go for block rating. At the time of writing this post, I have about 18% dodge, 18% parry, 11.5% total miss, 28% block chance, about 400 block value, and 350 spell damage. Stamina and intellect are important as well, but not as much. If you have 10k HP and 5000 mana, you can do this just as well. The extra HP is only a buffer in this regard if something goes wrong. You don't need 20,000 HP to AOE farm. It really is all about block rating. If you look at the gear list in the "sorted list of gear for reaching uncrushability" you will find alot of this gear is near the top, because of how block rating increases your block chance by alot.
I also advocate wearing T5 if you have any. At least two piece tier 5. It is actually better to wear T5 for AOE farming that it is to use gear from Black Temple and T6. This is because T5 gear has tons of block rating, block value, stamina, intellect, and spell damage, which is exactly what you want.
Here is a really basic list of items I would use, mostly sorted. It is not necessary to wear exactly these items, I am just trying to point you in the right direction. Hopefully you already have many of them, and some of them are not too difficult to obtain.
Helms:
* Faceplate of the Impenetrable (illidan)
* Battleworn Tuskguard (2.3 zulaman)
* Crystal Forge Faceguard (T5 helm from vashj)
* Faceguard of Determination (badge reward!)
* Horns of the Illidari (really easy quest reward!)
* Eternium Greathelm
* Oathkeeper's Helm
* Felsteel Helm
* Helm of the Righteous
* Greathelm of the Unbreakable
Neckpieces:
* Steamhinge Chain of Valor (easiest to obtain and the best for AOE farming!)
* The Darkener's Grasp (kaelthalas)
* Frayed Tether of the Drowned (SSC)
* Necklace of the Juggernaut has some avoidance on it but its still pretty nice (badge)
Shoulders:
* Pauldrons of Stone Resolve ZA
* Justicar Shoulderguards HKM
* Mantle of Abrahmis
* Shoulderplates of the Bold
* Spaulders of the Righteous
Cloaks:
* Ironscale War Cloak
* Burnoose of the Shifting Ages
* Cloak of Eternity
* Devilshark Cape
* Guilded Thorium Cloak
Chest Pieces:
* Crystalforge Chestguard
* Panzarthar Breastplate
* Justicar Chestguard
* Lightbringer Chestguard
* Jade-Skull Breastplate
* Vindicator's Halberk
Wrist:
* The Seeker's Wristguards (BT)
* Wristguards of Determination
* Bracers of Dignity
* Vambraces of Courage
* Vambraces of Daring
* Shatari Wrought Armguards
Hands:
* Crystalforge Handguards
* Justicar Handguards (better than maiden for aoe farming)
* Gauntlets of the Righteous
* Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden
* Thattia's Self Correcting Guantlets - the easiest to get blue with block value
* Topaz Studded Battlegrips
* Felsteel Gloves - an extremely good item to go buy for 50g if you cant get anything else
Waist:
* Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable
* Girdle of Mighty Resolve
* Girdle of Valorious Deeds
* Girdle of the Immovable
* Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard
Pants:
* Crystalforge Legguards
* Unwavering Legguards (new in 2.3)
* Felsteel Legs
* Legplates of the Righteous
* Kirinvaur Defenders' Chausses
Boots:
* Boots of the Protector
* Boots of the Resilient
* Jungle Stompers (new in 2.3)
* Red Havoc Boots
Rings:
* Seventh Ring of the Tirisfalen
* Signet of the Last Defender
* Andormu's Tear
* Dath'Remar's Ring of Defense (very good blue)
I personally prefer 2 piece T5 for the bonus to retribution aura, the ironscale warcloak, and miscellaneous pieces. Alot of these items are epics and if you cannot have access to them, using this gear may put you at very low HP (<10k). Do not worry, it is hard to understand at first, but the more block rating and block value you have, the better. You could AOE farm with 8k HP if you have 600 block value and 30% chance to block unbuffed. It is not all about HP when it comes to farming. Of course, if you have access to epics... well, they are epics.
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Warcrafter - The new CTProfiles.
