Vexryn's Cataclysm Master Tank Gear List & Gear Progression

Really awesome work

would just like to point out that the engineer's Quickflip Deflection Plates can in fact be applied alongside another enchant.

Lots of new updates added. All discovered epic World drops. All raid drop locations added. Cross-reference list now includes stand-alone lists for gear sorted by raid, and a separate list for all BoE gear you might find on the AH, from blues to epic world drops to raid BoE epics!

Bashe wrote:Really awesome work

would just like to point out that the engineer's Quickflip Deflection Plates can in fact be applied alongside another enchant.

Thanks for letting me know. Fixed in the enchant list!

Very nice work - you might add in the Tol Barad rep weapon, the only 346 weapon that is not a drop, and put in health warning about the BS chest - it is inferior to the JP one:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... 15#p633193

econ21 wrote:Very nice work - you might add in the Tol Barad rep weapon, the only 346 weapon that is not a drop, and put in health warning about the BS chest - it is inferior to the JP one:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... 15#p633193

As for the Tol Barad weapon, I presume you mean Ravening Slicer? I haven't actually put any Agi 1H weapons on the list yet. I do think there have been some interesting points made about the options for an Agi weapon, but I'll probably aim to give these agi weapons a separate place on the list.

As for the BS chest versus the JP one... I'm actually getting ready to do a fairly substantive rewrite to the guide now that I've gone through the gear-up process myself, and see the stats on items in much more detail (as well as experiencing how unnecessary it is to gear for threat now, even less important than the reduced credit I was already giving it!). The updated guide will shift emphasis on which epics you push for early, including notably the JP versus crafted chest, as well as things like the crafted belt versus the Omnotron drop in BWD.

Signet of the Elder Council, with the haste reforged to something more useful, is a superior survival option to most (all?) of the 346 rings due to the higher avoidance afforded by agility.

The random enchant 359 1h sword will drop from Al'Akir normal.

Hello, first must say brilliant post and has helped me a lot.

One thing I need to ask is what I should be trying to stack on my gear (dodge, parry mastery, hit, expertise). And what are the cap limits?

For example for fury warrior it is usually noted to gear in Hit(till 8%) > Expertise(till 26) > Strength > Hit(till 27%)> Haste(till rage gain is consistent)> Crit > Mastery > Haste.

At the moment I have 13.08 dodge, 12.19 parry, 3 expertise, 11.07 mastery and 6.39 hit..

What would you suggest that I start off trying to cap first as a tank (reforge, gemming etc)

Thanks for any feedback

superphil,

there are other posts you can research here, but for me, im prioritizing master>parry>dodge, hit~5% so that u have dont miss on L85 trash mobs, and stacks of vengeance will help w/L87+bosses for threat. there are currently no diminishing returns on mastery, so that is why it is my #1 stat, then--per theck--have ur parry at about 1% higher than ur dodge stat--reforge as necessary. my toon is human so i get 3 expertise for wielding a sword as well as 3 more for the Ramkahen revered ring and 10 w/seal of truth for 16, i would go no higher here. For heroics, like the 1st three pulls in stonecore, u still wont have enough avoidance to face pull the mobs and live unless u have good CC--esp on the earthshapers!

The Hardest hitting boss atm in my experience is Halfus Heroic (Drakes in particular). Smacking us for anything between 50k-70k unblocked. Mastery is pretty awesome there however aiming for 150k hp might be a bit low. I've gemmed entirely for Mastery but with two Stamina trinkets and am usually the last tank alive when wiping.

Vexryn,
Great guide. I wanted to help by updating you with the missing gems from your list:

Subtle Chimera's Eye - 67 dodge, bought with Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token
Bold Chimera's Eye - 67 strength, bought with Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token
Etched Nightstone - 15 str/15 hit, learned from trainer

I'm guessing you got your gem info from the beta cata site, which I think didn't have all of the designs cached. Hope this helps!

xstrykr wrote:Vexryn,
Great guide. I wanted to help by updating you with the missing gems from your list:

Subtle Chimera's Eye - 67 dodge, bought with Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token
Bold Chimera's Eye - 67 strength, bought with Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token
Etched Nightstone - 15 str/15 hit, learned from trainer

I'm guessing you got your gem info from the beta cata site, which I think didn't have all of the designs cached. Hope this helps!

Yeah, didn't have them available when I pulled this information from the cata.wowhead.com beta cache.

All fixed/updated now. Thanks for pointing out!

Mistake in the Quick Profession overview - Quickflips are linked twice.

Awesome guide.

Dunkan wrote:Mistake in the Quick Profession overview - Quickflips are linked twice.

Awesome guide.

Dunkan,
Can you clarify where you're seeing this? I'm not seeing them listed twice in the Quick Profession overview. I'm seeing once in the Quick overview, and then a second time further down in the Detailed Profession listing.

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Engineering - An extra cooldown via Grounded Plasma Shield, and an effective health cooldown Quickflip Deflection Plates in lieu of an alternative glove enchant.

Check the links there. GPS links to Quickflip. This is a great resource.

Dunkan wrote:

Code: Select all

Engineering - An extra cooldown via Grounded Plasma Shield, and an effective health cooldown Quickflip Deflection Plates in lieu of an alternative glove enchant.

Check the links there. GPS links to Quickflip. This is a great resource.

Thanks for letting me know. Fixed!

Has anyone checked to see the viability of this trinket?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=47735

Given, it's a 245 item, and shouldn't be viable anymore, but when I check the details:

Without the trinket I have 40245 armor. That gives me 60.65% DR.
With the trinket I have 42037 armor. That gives me 61.72% DR.

If a boss hits me for 100000, then without the trinket on, I take 39350 damage.
If I put my trinket back on, that same hit deals me 38280 damage, meaning the trinket prevented 1070 damage.

1070 damage is 2.72% of 39350 damage. That means that by equipping this trinket, I take 2.72% less physical damage than when I would not be wearing the trinket. I could be mistaken here, but that feels awfully powerful for a trinket from a previous expansion.

Thels wrote:Has anyone checked to see the viability of this trinket?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=47735

Given, it's a 245 item, and shouldn't be viable anymore, but when I check the details:

Without the trinket I have 40245 armor. That gives me 60.65% DR.
With the trinket I have 42037 armor. That gives me 61.72% DR.

If a boss hits me for 100000, then without the trinket on, I take 39350 damage.
If I put my trinket back on, that same hit deals me 38280 damage, meaning the trinket prevented 1070 damage.

1070 damage is 2.72% of 39350 damage. That means that by equipping this trinket, I take 2.72% less physical damage than when I would not be wearing the trinket. I could be mistaken here, but that feels awfully powerful for a trinket from a previous expansion.

Thels,
Indeed, there's a strange disparity of trinkets right now, because Blizzard nerfed the amount of bonus armor itemized to current Cataclysm gear, but did not go back to do so for prior gear.

Thus, you get armor trinkets in current content Heart of Thunder and Bedrock Talisman that seem quite radically inferior to Unidentifiable Organ or Petrified Twilight Scale.

In point of fact, I have no intention of buying the Valor Points tanking trinket because of this; the "old" Halion trinket (even regular, but certainly heroic) appears to be far superior.

Myeah, unfortunately I don't have either of those trinkets, since I stopped playing a little after we downed LK on normal and came back for cataclysm.

I would prefer these trinkets over stamina trinkets, since they're only slightly inferior on EH compared to Cataclysm stamina trinkets, but I doubt it would be easy to get a group going for them. Well, maybe the organ, since it's only 10 man, but it's still 7 bosses deep into the instance. At least the rest can be run through on normal.

Thels wrote:Myeah, unfortunately I don't have either of those trinkets, since I stopped playing a little after we downed LK on normal and came back for cataclysm.

I would prefer these trinkets over stamina trinkets, since they're only slightly inferior on EH compared to Cataclysm stamina trinkets, but I doubt it would be easy to get a group going for them. Well, maybe the organ, since it's only 10 man, but it's still 7 bosses deep into the instance. At least the rest can be run through on normal.

The Halion trinket would by far be the easiest to farm. 25% drop rate (he always drops one of the four trinkets), and there's some trash, but to say the least it's far less than doing 7 ICC bosses.

Granted, the trinket only drops on 25-man, but I suspect you could farm it on regular mode at least with far fewer.

I've never done the instance in the first place, though I did read up on some tactics. I guess I'll see about any reports of doing it HC with lvl 85's only.

Thanks for the input.

Unidentifiable Organ

Hmm, for WoTLK the sole reason for taking this was the armor - the proc was unreliable to stack with our levels of avoidance. Given lower levels of avoidance it should stack faster and we should retain the stack easier.

Thels wrote:Has anyone checked to see the viability of this trinket?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=47735

I never liked that trinket in wotlk, but I agree it does start to look interesting given your damage reduction numbers. Theckhd has computed the equivalence between mastery and armor:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... ic#p632421

He finds 7 armour is equivalent to 1 point of mastery rating. Given the amount of mastery on the 359 Tol Barad trinkets, they look to be superior. For example, this one:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=62468

seems to give more passive DR and higher on use avoidance (with agility worth about 60% dodge). But I guess you'd expect 114 item levels to be better.

That would mean the HC RS trinket would still be more useful than the Baradin's Wardens trinket?

Well, the base stat, at least. I'm not referring to the proc/on use effect.

I would still use the mastery trinket. The armor trinket might give you slightly higher average damage reduction, but the mastery trinket will do a far better job of smoothing out your damage intake, and has a more powerful clicky effect.

theckhd wrote:...and has a more powerful clicky effect.

Oh Theck, I love it when you bring the technical talk to my threads!


In all seriousness, I'm finding myself increasingly impressed with both of the Tol Barad trinkets. The on-use agility (quasi-dodge!) trinket is nice for a few fights, and I'm loving the mastery + on-use resistance trinket right now working on Nefarian.

Hrm, which reminds me, I think I need to add the on-use-agi trinket to my gear list here. When I posted it originally I had excluded agility gear, but in practice I would absolutely consider this one viable (along with the mastery/stacking-agility trinket that drops from Siamat in Lost City {if I recall correctly}).

More updates coming soon!