3.3 Gem and Enchant Guide

theckhd wrote:
- Tank dies from too much damage -> Survivability problem
- Tank loses aggro -> Threat problem

Fair enough

Hm, DPS is riding my tail pretty hard,so I´d rather prefer to take hit even in progression set. Perhaps it´s different for LK hero, but well have to see. Losing abit of def is preferable in my opinion instead of reequipping to a piece I don´t even have perhaps..

Dantriges wrote:Hm, DPS is riding my tail pretty hard,so I´d rather prefer to take hit even in progression set. Perhaps it´s different for LK hero, but well have to see. Losing abit of def is preferable in my opinion instead of reequipping to a piece I don´t even have perhaps..

I don't mind using one gem slot to soft-cap hit, but its better IMHO to use some carefully selected gear items rather than get a small amount of hit from a gem. For instance, the Broken Ram Skull Helm and the tier gloves both have hit on them and are still very good pieces (2nd bis in both cases?) (Spaulders of the Blood Princes too if you can get your 2 piece bonus from something else). And always enchant your weapon with Accuracy IMO . Equipping these will get you a lot of hit that you would find hard to get from gem slots, and you're not sacrificing much at all to get it.

Now like you, I'm currently using a few gem slots for hit because I do not have all of the pieces I listed above. But my end state goal is to never use more than one slot for soft-capping hit or exp.

I wanted to let people know that I have been searching through the parses for my ICC nights to get a better handle on how Mongoose is working.

After a sample size of 9 hours of raid boss fight time, I can give you the following information.

With a 2.6 speed 1h'd weapon, I am experiencing an average uptime of 29.32% on Mongoose.

After looking through a sample size of 9 hours 32 minutes of raid boss fight time for a another raider,

with a 1.7 speed 1h'd weapon, they were experiencing an average uptime of 25.32% on Mongoose.

at 25%, it seems that mongoose is slightly inferior to 26 agi to weapon, and at 29% it is slightly better than 26agi.

The parses that I used included a variety of bosses running the full gamut of bosses available in ICC. My next plan is to go back through the parses and break it down on a boss per boss basis to get a better picture. At least with these types of general looks, it would seem that using a slower DPS weapon will yield higher uptime.

So, in a given fight, 25-29% of death scenarios are mitigated by having additional armor and dodge. The remaining 71-75% of death scenarios are hurt by having no weapon enchant benefit whatsoever.

This is based on the assumption that Mongoose procs are totally random, and thus randomly distributed throughout the fight. For Blood Draining, on the other hand, procs are clustered during death scenarios because it only fires when low on health. Thus, Blood Draining is usually available except when multiple death scenarios stack back-to-back, with no time to rebuild the buff.

Exceptional Agility of course is always present, and Accuracy has no survivability benefit in death scenarios.

In the content that I'm currently working on (LK10 normal) I'm normally the last to die, and I would agree that Blood Draining would be far better in a situation where you are experiencing tank death scenarios that lead to wipes.

At this point, our wipes on LK have been from infest in P1, Spirits in P2 not getting picked up fast enough (my cotank on my last night of work was not a tank by trade, so it took some prodding to get him to do things right) or Defile in P3.

At least for the time being, I would say that Mongoose is a fantastic enchant for someone looking for an enchant on their threat weapon.

Blood Draining is the EH/survivability enchant of choice.

Shoju wrote:In the content that I'm currently working on (LK10 normal) I'm normally the last to die, and I would agree that Blood Draining would be far better in a situation where you are experiencing tank death scenarios that lead to wipes.

At this point, our wipes on LK have been from infest in P1, Spirits in P2 not getting picked up fast enough (my cotank on my last night of work was not a tank by trade, so it took some prodding to get him to do things right) or Defile in P3.

At least for the time being, I would say that Mongoose is a fantastic enchant for someone looking for an enchant on their threat weapon.

Blood Draining is the EH/survivability enchant of choice.

I agree about Blood Draining but I would also throw +26 agility into the mix as a static constant. I have not even considered swapping for another enchant on my tanking weapon in ICC10 simply because I haven't yet experianced a tank death scenario that requires it. I expect the LK to make me re-evaluate this.

I don't think you can wrong with +26 agility for your tanking weapon. I don't like procs so mongoose isn't an option for me.

Barathorn

I would say that exceptional agility is probably a slightly better choice than mongoose in the current environment, if the uptime we've been seeing in parses is to be trusted. It's a bit lower than theory would suggest, but that could just be a fundamental limitation of the theory (nobody keeps to their 969 for 9+ hours straight).

Mongoose is probably still slightly better for threat at current uptimes, thanks to the haste bonus. But from a purely defensive perspective, Superior Agility gives roughly equivalent (if not better) average avoidance and eliminates the randomness inherent with Mongoose.

That said, I've been enchanting Accuracy on everything lately, but if I had to go with a defensive enchant it would be Blood Draining or Agility.

Hi

Since I respecced from blacksmith to engineer I was wondering if I should take the nitro boost enchant for the boots. I think the sprint can be veeeeeeeeery useful in certain situations (putricide & sindragosa hardmode, maybe even LK), imho definetly more valuable than 22 stam. I wouldn't bother about the boot enchant if there wouln't be these malfunctions, which are accordingly to other engineers very rare but still you will need a parachute, so no more 225 armor on cloak. So with 22 stam and 225 armor gone on enchants gaining some agi and the nitro boosts I'm not really sure, the sprint is really "expensive". I'd like to have 2 pairs of boots/cloaks to switch for bossfights, but since 277 valithria boots dind't drop once with 2 maintanks this is not a valid option currently :<

I would put the rockets on a second pair of boots (probably your older pair) and use them for those fights, if you wish to use them. I would not put them on my primary boots, and I would not recommend that others put them on their primary boots.

That said, I know a few tanks here do use them in their main gear set. The alternative 267 health isn't as great when health is so inflated right now in Icecrown Citadel.

Since ICC geats easier every few weeks I think most progress-guild tanks spend a lot of time in their TPS gear while clearing ICC, swapping to EH gear for LK Heroic (maybe Sindragosa or even Putricide too). Except these few encounters, the tanks rarely even drop below 70% HP, so agi on cloak and crit on boots seem to be the better option there (for good equipped tanks).
Personally I think, the boots could be very useful for Sindragosa Hero (thinking of blistering cold in p2 or a missplaced iceblock). Maybe even for LK (defiles), but I think I'd prefer stamina too for this encounter. Since pallies often tank the adds, stam on boots + armor on cloak surely is the best choice. For every other boss I'd say the sprint+crit is at least as useful as 22 stam which are never needed.
The sprint isn't as valuable for a tank as for a DD, but still it's a cooldown for some situations (not many...). The crit is a welcome feature for tps. In times of tanks running around with 70k+ HP, I think it's justifiable to pick up a futher tool by dropping 22 stam. Are there any other tanks here who took the nitro boosts?
I'm still worried about the malfunction...

I was looking at an avoidance enchant for my shield and remembered the shield block enchant from burning crusade and found that at my gear level it will provide more damage reduction then enchant shield: defense will provide. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anvilmar&cn=Brunice the math i was able to come up with for the 20 defence was that i would be gaining 0.1% dodge, 0.09% parry and 0.15% block rating, overall very minimal. With enchant shield: shield block being +15 block rating i was gaining a total of 0.91% block rating, so i personally believe at this point there will be more benifits from using +15 block rating over the +20 defense. on the same side im sure someone will argue the fact to use titanium plating for the 81 block value. Now that 81 block value is not going to do much other then increase threat for warriors, so i feel that the 0.91% block rating is worth more in terms that its another 0.91% chance to block another attack and mitigate another 1391 damage then it is to not have that aditional block rating and gain 81 more points of damage reduction. this being said i dont know what point in defense rating it's going to be more benifical to switch to the block rating then using the +20 defence.

What benefit does block rating provide for you, though? A 0.91% (assuming your math is correct) chance to reduce a 45k incoming hit by 2000 points? Remember that there's no value in becoming block capped whatsoever unless you are in a retro guild that restricts itself to Naxxramas or lower.

At the levels required now for progression tanks, neither block rating nor defense rating is recommended for shield enchants. The stamina enchant provides a direct increase in effective health and is the best option.

Old guide is old.