Gear Check/Advice Thread (All Specific Advice Requests Here)

Gab wrote:

econ21 wrote:The mirror is great on some fights, not so hot on others. The VP trinket is a good one to swap for it for most fights: a bit more mastery and an on-use ability that will help with the physical damage the Mirror's resistance is useless for.

As an alternative to the VP trinket, Stay of Execution (if you have FL revered) reforged to mastery is only something like .2% ctc less than Mirror reforged to dodge. Because of the trinkets I currently have I CTC cap around the SoE and on fights where the Mirror cd is too good to pass up I simply switch them out and only .2% ctc is wasted. Works fairly well IMO.

I need to get more firelands rep but that sounds like a great idea, thanks

gronc

Lorax wrote:Good morning folks, just hit 85 last night. ...
My questions are, did I do anything glaringly wrong with my gearing, and what content level should I be able to tank with this setup?

You did a fantastic job gearing up in such a short time. The only thing I would quibble with is that you ignore one or two socket bonuses, presumably to push your mastery. Personally, I find it hard to turn down free stats, so I would not forgo stamina, mastery or avoidance socket bonuses. You'll get to 102.4% sooner or later, but it's hard to force it if you don't have the ilevel. And while it's nice to have, you can tank normal raids a little short and not go splat.

For content, you should farm the heck out of the new 378 5-mans. Then go into looking for raid and Baradin Hold as soon as you feel ready (go as ret if you don't feel ready but meet the ilevel). You'll soon be ready for DS 10N.

Bit of question regarding trinkets. Our guild is 5/8 10M Normal, working on Blackhorn this week. I just got the Soulshifter Vortex and was wondering about what trinkets I should be using.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/w ... n/advanced

I have the Lifebound Alchemist Stone, Brawler's Trophy from Direbrew, LFR Resolve of Undying, and Veil of Shadows on top of the 2 I have equipped.

Any advice tankadins?

Assuming you need the fire of the Deep to remain CTC capped, I'm running with that and the Veil of the Shadows as my default set up at the moment. I have pretty similar options to you, but I swap the veil and the soulshifter from time to time if I want the 100 stamina more then the dodge proc. Right now I'm geared for heroic hagara so I'm actually running with the Veil of Shadows and the Soulshifter (as I find pure stamina worth way more then some CTC when dealing with Focused Assault).

On normal blackhorn I might run with the Fire of the Deep and the Resolve - the avoidance I find very useful in that fight. It's the one fight in the entire tier where Resolve of the Undying has any use, to attempt to avoid/drop off stacks of the debuff on phase 2.

Well I'm at 102.43 raid buffed with the 2 trinkets shown, using a non-mastery flask. I could go back to the mastery elixir to help make up some of that loss if I drop Fire of the Deep for something else. I will try Resolve on our next Blackhorn pulls and see what that's like.

Just bare in mind for a paladin, the proc of Soulshifter Vortex is useless, so you are really using only half trinket there.

you may want to consider mirror of broken images for fights where resistance is at a premium.

gronc

Worldie wrote:Just bare in mind for a paladin, the proc of Soulshifter Vortex is useless, so you are really using only half trinket there.

This is because I'm already at CTC cap and the extra mastery proc is useless?

Bakey wrote:

Worldie wrote:Just bare in mind for a paladin, the proc of Soulshifter Vortex is useless, so you are really using only half trinket there.

This is because I'm already at CTC cap and the extra mastery proc is useless?

Yes.

Damn, wish I'd passed the trinket to our Blood DK now...

Well you can always save it for a double stam trinket for madness

The value of Soulshifter depends on what other Trinket options you have. Yes, for a CTC shield tank the proc is useless, but it still has a lot of Stamina.

I am at CTC with 1 Mastery trinket and the LFR Soulshifter is my top Stam trinket. My only other Stam trinket is the 365 Direbrew trinket. I have only seen the DS shared loot Stam trinket drop once, and that was this apst Tues on heroic Yor'sahj while I was healing, I've never seen it on my tank. I think I saw the Beth'Tilac trinket on my tank once, and the other tank won it, so I have never had a 378 Stam trinket. The Stam difference between the 365 Direbrew trinket and the 384 Soulshifter is significant, especially given that there are only a few fights in DS for which the Direbrew on use is truly valuable.

Again, The Soulshifter may not be ideal for a Pally tank that should be able to reach CTC without the proc, but its Stam level is still decent, and for many of us the trinket is substantially better than any alternative in our possession. Until I get more trinkets for my tank, I will use the best option available to me, which for most fights is Soulshifter's higher Stam level.

Hello!

I've been a long time reader of this forum, but i finally decided to make a account and acually post something.

I was wondering if anyone got any suggestions about my character's gear / gemming / enchanting.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/g ... ake/simple

I got scales of life hc, but i am using veil of lies atm since i figured the dodge on it overwrights my block, and since dodge removes 100% of the damage it would be better.
What do you think i should use for trinket setup? also got the dodge stacking one from spine normal.

Regards // Renamedcake

ps. reserve the rights for any gramatic errors of spelling misstakes (swedish).

Renamedcake wrote:Hello!

I've been a long time reader of this forum, but i finally decided to make a account and acually post something.

I was wondering if anyone got any suggestions about my character's gear / gemming / enchanting.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/g ... ake/simple

I got scales of life hc, but i am using veil of lies atm since i figured the dodge on it overwrights my block, and since dodge removes 100% of the damage it would be better.
What do you think i should use for trinket setup? also got the dodge stacking one from spine normal.

Regards // Renamedcake

ps. reserve the rights for any gramatic errors of spelling misstakes (swedish).

Can't check the armory link at work, however as far as trinkets are concerned both Veil and Resolve are pretty weak and even more so for Paladins than other tanks. Both make Paladins effectively waste mastery as they push our block off the combat table when CTC capped. Also because you cannot control the Veil proc it becomes even weaker. Scales, imo, are far superior to either of the other two in almost every circumstance.

EDIT: Link to thread discussing Resolve.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32348

both Veil and Resolve are pretty weak

But what if you simpley make it so that you are only ctc capped with fully resolve stacks, since they dont fall off during combat (as long as you hit something) i figure that thats got to be a viable option, that way i dont waste any mastery. its hard to do for something like veil since its proc based.
I dont want to use scales since its use is so horrible.

Regards

Renamedcake wrote:

both Veil and Resolve are pretty weak

But what if you simpley make it so that you are only ctc capped with fully resolve stacks, since they dont fall off during combat (as long as you hit something) i figure that thats got to be a viable option, that way i dont waste any mastery. its hard to do for something like veil since its proc based.

You could balance CTC around the Resolve but there is the chance that you aren't going to be fully stacked when you need to be. Not to mention that dodge DRs pretty hard at T13 gear levels.

Mastery is much more effective for CTC capping and those freed up slots/stats could be converted to more stamina or dps stats which in general are going to be more helpful than some dodge.

I dont want to use scales since its use is so horrible.

Essentially a health pot that you can use multiple times in a fight isn't so horrible.

EDIT: Logged in Ret PVP gear so no comments about gearing, spec looks good though.

Renamedcake wrote:

I dont want to use scales since its use is so horrible.

Don't underestimate the value of the heal from Scales of Life. Use it right before you do a 3 Holy Power WoG on yourself and you increase your chance at an absorb shield to absorb some unavoidable damage.

sorry to keep bugging you all but, just got new gear last night. This gives me my 4 slot tier bonus (which means I bank my BS legs until I get the hat) I am now at ctc with my elixir, am gemming to max stamina as I keep ctc. I have the mirror now, when I slap in the vp trinket I go over the cap but its useful now to use the xtra dodge on certain melee heavy fights. I don't have scales, only the normal spindel, nor do I have the stay of execution.

My biggest concern is this makes my dodge and parry pretty far apart. I have been keeping them almost equal, but man these new pieces are all parry. Should this bother me? If I don't get the hat soon the vp hat makes it even worse.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/e ... c/advanced

any advice on anything, talents, glyphs, whatever is appreciated I love this place

gronc

gronc2 wrote:My biggest concern is this makes my dodge and parry pretty far apart. I have been keeping them almost equal, but man these new pieces are all parry. Should this bother me? If I don't get the hat soon the vp hat makes it even worse.

Don't worry about it. Just get them as close as you can through reforging and forget about it. Even if the end result is hundreds of rating points difference we're only talking about, worst case scenario, maybe .25% avoidance (no math just a guess from my reforging experiences in chardev). And as long as you are trying to balance them there is nothing else you can do. If there's an upgrade that pushes them even further apart it's still going to be an upgrade.

Renamedcake wrote:Hello!
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/g ... ake/simple

Assuming full Raid buffs, mastery food, mastery elixir and 150 stam scroll, which nets an extra 25 rating points vs Steelskin flask, you are sitting at 107.2% CTC. Which is 4.8% over the 102.4% number that Paladins should be aiming for. Even if you go with Steelskin and dodge food from the feast you are looking at 103.4.

Changing your bracer enchant to 40 stamina and changing the gems in your chest and legs to pure stam offer the best stamina ratio. Which can be seen in Theck's maths in the link below.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32711


You may want to reconsider the Purple gem that you're using in your ring to hit a +10 strength bonus. There are much more effective ways to gear for dps (threat) than reaching for a +10 strength bonus with a Parry/Stam gem.

Your reforging or lack thereof on some pieces is not optimal: Shoulders, chest, wrists, relic and gloves. You should be aiming at maximizing mastery not balancing dodge and parry for example your shoulders are reforged 74 parry to mastery when they could be reforged 163 dodge to mastery. Even though this might result in an imbalance between dodge and parry you are still freeing up more stats that can be converted to either more stam or more dps.

I imported your profile to Chardev.org (I highly recommend using this site for optimizing gemming and reforging). With a little tweaking I came up with these numbers. I'm sure you could mess with it a bit more and get better results but this was just a quick once over. Again this is assuming buffs, mastery food and elixir/scroll combination for both before and after changes.

+4550 Health (+325 stamina)
+4.92% Hit
+9 Expertise

-4.34% Avoidance
-4.62% CTC

Link: http://chardev.org/?profile=369262

First time linking a Chardev profile hope that works.

This puts you at 102.46% CTC. Alternatively you could forgo the soft expertise cap and addition to hit chance in favor of more stamina by swapping out your Fire of the Deeps with Veil of Lies but that would take a little tweaking and I personally prefer the extra dps with the 10% Dragon Soul nerf. But that's really up to you and your group and where your strengths and shortcomings are.

Sorry for the wall of text.

Gab wrote:Link: http://chardev.org/?profile=369262

First time linking a Chardev profile hope that works.

Link works fine. Is the reduce spell damage Meta gem intentional?

Allright, Thx alot for all the help! i've changed some stuff around as the site suggested, not getting as much stamina as it says, but its probaby coz you put in 4x 101 stam sockets. Thx for all the help, got one more quick question tho, I got the beth hc trinket, isnt that better then fire of the deep?

Regards // Renamedcake
sorry for all grammatic and spelling misstakes, from sweden.

lythac wrote:Link works fine. Is the reduce spell damage Meta gem intentional?

Thanks for confirming that for me Lythac. I left the Meta alone, I had assumed that Renamed was maybe progressing on Zon or Yor and wanted the spell dmg reduction.

Renamedcake wrote:I got the beth hc trinket, isnt that better then fire of the deep?

Obviously you get more static stats from FotD but the proc is better on the Beth trinket in most casses. I personally would be using the Beth trinket over FoD. I'm just not a fan of avoidance on use at these gear levels. You're getting a lot of DRed dodge and pushing a good amount of your block off the CT. It just seems wasteful to me compared to the alternatives.

Tankadins, tell me why this is a bad idea:

http://chardev.org/?profile=370281

After going all-out last night on Morchok with wings popped and not being able to pull threat over our DK tank, I want to try out getting closer to hit/exp cap and seeing how much better I can do. Is there a good reason to not do this? We're in 10N progression right now (5/8).

Very bad idea, you are not block capped in that gear set-up. You have the Veil of Lies buff and Windwalk selected, your CTC is only 95.46%

When you tried to take over from your co-tank did you have any vengeance at all? If your co-tank doesn't hold back sometimes there is nothing you can do to retain threat after a taunt.