372 Pauldrons of the Great Ettin - Protection?

I am still waiting for a Conq shoulder token to drop, but I noticed something. There really arent any good 372 tanking shoulders until you are killing Nef or Chogall on heroic. I picked up the 372 Pauldrons of the Great Ettin off H-Halfus for DPS but I notice that they have mastery on them.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=65142

Reforge crit to dodge/parry?

Right now I am using:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=59901

I am guessing stick with what I have, but the extra stam/str could be worth the trade off for losing a little CTC?

Saltycracker wrote:I am still waiting for a Conq shoulder token to drop, but I noticed something. There really arent any good 372 tanking shoulders until you are killing Nef or Chogall on heroic.

The t11 372 shoulders and the nefarian shoulders are pretty bad, nefarian shoulders are just not worth using.
Tier shoulders are only usefull for completing 4set.

Saltycracker wrote:I picked up the 372 Pauldrons of the Great Ettin off H-Halfus for DPS but I notice that they have mastery on them.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=65142

Reforge crit to dodge/parry?

Right now I am using:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=59901

I am guessing stick with what I have, but the extra stam/str could be worth the trade off for losing a little CTC?

Pauldrons of the Great Ettin will net you about 60sta, while your current shoulders instead would give you about 0.2%avoidance and 0.1%block
So if your not going for 4set, those are your 2 best options.

With crit reforged to either dodge or parry (whichever is needed to keep your percentages 1%-offset balanced), and a mastery/sta gem in the socket, they fall like this in my rankings:

Digren wrote:1. [Pauldrons of the Apocalypse] : Blackwing Descent (Heroic) Nefarian
2. [Reinforced Sapphirium Shoulderguards] : T11.5 : 1x Essence of the Forlorn + T11 shoulderguards
3. [Pauldrons of the Great Ettin] : Bastion of Twilight (Heroic) Halfus Wyrmbreaker
3. [Heaving Plates of Protection] : The Bastion of Twilight (Normal) BoE Raid Drop
3. [Pauldrons of Edward the Odd] : BoE World Drop

The tied ranking means they came out to be pretty much equivalent, though the Ettin first means they had an ever-so-slight advantage. I likely would have taken a maelstrom crystal over the Ettin if I had the option (and already had normal Heaving Plates), because I can adjust CTC versus stamina much more easily with a few gem swaps or an extra trinket instead of carrying two sets of shoulders.

I was about to suggest that you reforge crit to hit, add a hit gem and enchant, and make them part of your Rebuke gimmick set, but there is no shoulder enchant for hit. Nor is there a shoulder enchant for expertise for a roflstomp gimmick threat set. It's not that easy to make them into a usable threat piece.

/shrug. Pick the pair with the prettier graphic and vendor the other ones.

If you can block cap while wearing the pauldrons of the great etin, they are the best oppertunity cost for CTC<>stamina.

The added stam vs loss of CTC is really a wash I don't think your healers would notice either way, prob better as a crystal until you get your tier for the 4pc.

It's not a wash. It has better oppertunity cost then swapping a gem.

The real question you should be asking yourself, is if you will be allowed to bid on it.

That's a tough one, and I'd have to agree that added combat table coverage might be the difference - if you can get block cap with them, then you might be better off using them. I would be wary, however, because the 4set can be quite handy and the t11 shoulders are useful in that regard.

p.s. use #a335ee as the color for epics