Minimum specs for a raid tankFollow

Specifically ICC-10 and ToC-10

Playing around with RAWR and Wowhead, I think I have a good list of gear to shoot for. The problem is that my HP seems to be a bit low as a Frost tank.

According to RAWR I am looking at 34.8K health, 27.6K armor, 563 defense, 28% dodge after DR, 19.35% parry after DR, and 5K TPS.

I have Hit/Expertise gems stuffed into red and yellow slots to help with TPS, mainly because I still seem to be having issues with AE threat against AE happy Hunters and Mages. Overall I'm losing about 50 STA from gems/socket bonuses due to the way I have the gems setup. Getting hit capped and nearly pushing dodge off the table in favor of TPS seems like more than a fair trade for less than 1000 HP.

I'm just curious if these stats would be good for the previously mentioned raids.

Never gear for TPS, it should never be an issue on boss and you don't raid to fight trash. Hit and Expertise gems are not a luxury you can really take.

34.8k HPs fully buffed is low especially if you included the ICC +20% buff. Not sure how your RAWR was set up.

Aim for at least 45k-50k HPs buffed at the boss not be a liability. Typically all 232 or better gear, with some 226 being ok as long as some 245 or better gets in the mix, will get you there.

When in doubt try and get in a PuG on your realm. Should give an idea.

Armories help as well.

edit: In looking at your query again you should be fine for ToC10, if the group isn't being overly elitist. I was thinking more ICC. Also in ToC there is no trash.

Edited, Jun 4th 2010 7:09pm by Horsemouth

I'm at 35k health unbuffed now in full T9 with random 245/200 rings and off-set pieces.

4800 GearScore means I can't join anything, though, so I'm pretty lost. Also, I'm crit immune, but using DPS bracers because I can't seem to find a 5-man that drops tank bracers.

And having to downgrade 26 emblems for the 226 belt just hurts me.

You could try using the Gear Planner on Magelo. http://wow.magelo.com/en/gear_planner.jspa
It lets you try out new gear – just set the filter to make it show where you want your upgrades to come from and put on everything you need. Their GearScore is pretty close to what the addon does so you'll know how much further you have to go to get around 5200.

Well, you want to upgrade your trinkets as soon as you can. Grab the Black Heart from Reg ToC and the Glyph of Indominabilty with Triumphs. You should also grab the +200 Dodge sigil--since you RS so much, it'll have 100% uptime, or close to it, and that's a lot of avoidance. Don't bother with the Bone Gryphon sigil until you have no more use for Frost Emblems--it's only 20 more dodge, and has a ramp up time.

Replace your keystone ring with a Titanium Earthguard Ring off the AH, and throw a +30 Stam gem in there. That's a flat upgrade AND will give you the defense you need to drop gems. The armor on the Keystone is nice and all, but not when it requires you to gem Defense (and take lower stam, str and, possibly, avoidance).

As an above poster said, grabbing a Friendly-rep ring would be helpful, and it's easy to get into rep runs.

You can grab a Shieldwarder Girdle for some conquest emblems.

Actually, can't you drop all your defense gems as it is? You only NEED 540 Def. I didn't do the math, but I feel like all your Def from gems won't drop you 15 skill. That's a lot of stam right there.

thanks guys, excellent advice. Right now I am thinking of my next frost badge purchase (will have to be wednesday as my server is down all day today) will hit me at 60 badges, will get me the belt as a solid upgrade. I also have the cash to get myself the Pillers of Might (and or the mats, of course) so that could help quite a bit, and get my GS up a little higher to get me into those groups.

I am going to keep running toc reg to get that black heart, it's so annoying when 3 people drop group after the 2nd boss dies (/sigh). I will be buying the sigil next, for sure though with my triumph badges.

To end up with something like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/profile=21440916

Although under defense at the bottom it says only 512, which I assume it isn't adding the weapon glyph for another +25, but that still only puts me at 532 :-/. after re-applying the less-beneficial, but (from what I understand necessary) shoulder + back enchants with the defense-laden ones it puts me at exactly 540 (when adding 25 from gargoyle).

opinions?

Also, is the glyph of Indom really better than the brewfest +170 stam trinket? I know there is a value/conversion for armor->effective health stam->effective health, but didn't know if that would make up for it (although I guess the on-use effect would be good when macroed with a cooldown or something).

Edited, Jun 8th 2010 5:38pm by Anobix

Armor is better in a time-to-live sense, but that doesn't make it ACTUALLY better. While your health pool remains low, it actually isn't that great a stat at all. Because if 2 hits from a boss will kill you, your healers HAVE to keep you topped off. Armor would only help if it means those 2 hits become 3.

So, once your health gets higher, armor gets better. At some point, it will surpass it in usefulness (at least, when considering a physically-intense damage scenario like most ICC bosses). But for a raid like ToC, health is going to end up being much better for many fights.

It's for this reason that I wouldn't use the keystone ring. The armor is really nice (and I'm the kind of person that loves passive mitigation), but if you only have 35K base health, I'd take the increased stam and avoidance (and strength) that the Titanium Earthguard Ring offers, even if it means losing that 3% increased Time to live that the 500 armor would give.



If you are PuGing raids, go for the threat enchant. You won't be able to guarantee those threat tools if it isn't a set raid group. You may end up in a 10 man without any Rogues/Hunters (or the ones you get may suck). 250 armor is only 1.5% or so increased time to live. Not worth chancing it, imo, without a raid group. And as I've said, the armor isn't useful when you are at the lowest level of gear for that raid.

[EDIT] And let's be honest--are your PuG DpSers ACTUALLY going to lay off? Probably not. They're gonna pull threat, die, possibly wipe the raid and then everyone will blame you. Because the world's just fair like that. [/EDIT]

Just an example:

Say a boss uses all physical abilities. Buffed, you have 40K health. His auto-attacks do 15K damage each (after mitigation). With that extra 500 armor, they'll do SLIGHTLY less. But it doesn't really matter--you are dead in 3 hits (without any specials used) regardless. If you have 45K health, buffed, though, then the little bit of armor will push you into the 4 hit range. Which is very useful.

When bosses use smaller damage auras/DoTs that are physical in nature, armor is also better. But not many do. And I'm not sure there are any in ToC. And some of the physical damage here ignores armor anyway, like many of Anub's abilities.

Armor is nice, but not something you should focus on when just starting.

Edited, Jun 9th 2010 3:19pm by idiggory

I like armor. Health is good but armor is pretty cool, bear tank so skewed point of view. But still armor is fairly sexy in ICC as there is a good chunk of physical damage and much of the magic damage is easily healable.

Also gearing for threat in any was as a tank is the dumbest thing in the world. If you are having issues then tell the DPS to back off. You can get MD, ToT and give DPS salv as possible helpers. If it is on a boss and they pull there fault. If its on trash and they die, who cares.

They should know better.