tanks in pvp gear!!Follow

short answer:

no, it shouldn't be, and no, they can't tank well in it

Proper PvE gear > PvP gear > PvE gear about 20 ilevels lower >>> The PvE gear people have upon hitting 85.

Criticizing someone for PvP gear depends on what they replaced. You hit 85 with greens anywhere from 272 to 318, a few 333 blues in random spots, and your gear selection is now limited to either what you save JP for (which requires running the instance), get as random drops (which requires running the instance) or pay out the *** for (which requires an *** full of gold). And then there's the crafted PvP stuff, which gives you a solid, if not optimal, base to build off of and is quite affordable.

If you had just hit 85, remember that crappy gear is a two-way street. You're in the same boat as the tank, gear-wise.

If you're a Death Knight, Paladin or Warrior, getting dungeon ready with PvE gear is pretty easy.

• You'll have about 2-3k JP upon hitting 85 (assuming you run some dungeons in Northrend and Cataclysm), which will enable you to get the T11 leg or chest armor.
• You do Thrall's quest chain (dunno what the Alliance equivalent is) and get a 365 cloak.
• If your alt has 1250 VP to spare, you can get the 378 bracers from there.
• You do the Firelands intro chain and buy the 365 necklace and boots from the vendor at Molten Front.

Heroic ready in max 2 hours, baby! Assuming you have another level 85, that is.

If you farmed quests instead of running dungeons (and therefore lack the JP to buy your T11 legs/chest), you'll have enough gold to buy whatever BOE epic pieces you can find in the AH.


Edited, Sep 14th 2011 5:22pm by Mazra

I disagree with you about PVP gear being viable for PVE tanking. While the odd PVP piece may be acceptable when starting to gear, later it's not. PVP gear just lacks all tanking stats bar stamina and maybe mastery. A tank with next to no avoidance is a bottomless manabarrel for a healer. A FL equipped good healer may compensate that... A new healer who tries to heal a PVPtank... expect to meet the floor many times.

Back when resilience worked in PvE, it would have been interesting, although I suspect still underpowered, compared to gear with "real" avoidance on it. Plus, a quick look at wowhead suggests that a majority of slots have DPS stats that are not mastery.

The 358 crafted chest might be a viable sidegrade for the real tanking 333 chest - but the latter is a reward from a dungeon quest that can be run in normal mode (at least for plate tanks).

So, yeah, no real excuse. DPS, sure (if the ilvl is good enough). Healers, maybe in an extreme. Tanks, no.

My 10 years old nephew giggled after reading the title of this thread, even him knows it’s wrong.

Druids get more tanking stats out of pvp gear, nyah. My druid's wearing the S10 neck for both bear and cat because the raw agi makes it better than my old ZG neck.

I'm not saying PvP gear is GOOD, but it's better than what most people wear when they just turn 85. The OP in their own words had just turned 85 so why should we be holding the tank to a higher standard? We know nothing about the instance, the OP's gear, what kind of PvP stuff the tank was wearing, what class it was, whether he pulled too many groups, there is not enough information here to blame the PvP gear.

Every healer, stepping from leveling to 85, faces a jump in difficulty because mana costs are based around them having the int and spirit of a much higher gear level. Tanks used to better-geared healers can also get overconfident and pull more than they should, ignoring CC. Heck, by not focusing fire or standing in fire the dps can even cause extra stress on the healer. There are a lot of things that can go wrong.

This. A while back I was healing regular heroics on my druid to try to get back into the swing of things. I'd run a few heroics with no issue, and then I get into a SFK run that's already downed the first boss. They're at the doorway into the courtyard. The tank pulls, I do my best to keep him up and he dies very quickly. I inspect him when we get back, and the moron is wearing all blue pvp gear and a few dps PvE pieces. He's wearing ONE piece of gear with dodge on it. He pulls again, we wipe again, I tell him to get some tanking gear before he tries to tank and drop group. Pretty sure it was a paladin, so he didn't have the excuse that bears get in regards to reforging.

This.

Bears can prefer the PvP piece if the itemization for the tier is bad, say haste/hit and the PvP piece is mastery/resil or even crit/resil. The larger agi/stam budget does a lot when the secondary stats on the gear aren't as important.

Plate tanks need the secondary stats far more than a bear to be effective.

There really should be a way to remove all PVP gear from PVE.

Occasionally you will find that swapping in a crafted blue will offer you far better stats than a quest item that is several levels out of date, but people rarely notice things like that...

For example: No one complains about the DPS who swaps in a pair of PVP boots because they far exceed his quest greens.


The problem exists when someone tries to fully gear via PVP gear. Not the player who's getting a small bonus by dropping 100G at the AH, but the guy who reaches iLvl limits by getting an entire set of PVP gear.

I wish my English limerick skills were as good as they once were.

So, a fresh 85 goes into a random dungeon. There are good odds that the other people in the group were at the same stage.



They also don't call it grammar for nothing, the shift key for nothing, nor do they call it iLevel XXX for nothing. The first couple of random dungeons can be train wrecks as people start to gear up and get used to the instances. New healers complain, new tanks complain. The sun will probably come up tomorrow too.

Is PVP gear optimal? No. Should it be weeded out as better options become available? Of course. Do we know why the tank was in PVP gear? No.

Sure, there are ways he could get around it, but we don't know why he was using it. Absent any proof to the contrary -- OP doesn't present any example of poor tanking skills other than the PVP gear -- it seems reasonable to assume that if he was wearing that gear it was because it was the most suitable he had as someone who would be tanking a random instance for new 85s. Note that OP did not say this was a heroic, and if he was a fresh 85 he would not have been geared for one. The tank may well be someone who does a lot of PVP and had PVP gear at a much higher level than his other gear.

LOL I think I made a thread about this like 2-3 months ago.

Tanking NORMALS with 1 peice of PVP gear on or the early normals with all level 85 PVP gear on is ok, but above that its a DEF NO NO. Same with Healing and some dpsing.


Now I was told the reason why people do that is because its easier to get the PVP gear then it is the PVE. This IMO is horsecrap.

A tank has 2 jobs

Job 1: Hold aggro like no other
Job 2: Survive by mitigating damage as much as possible

A PVP tank Mitigates 0 damage... so when the big dude is going to hit you with a hammer for 80K.. your going to be hit for 80K rather then 30%-50%- or even 0%...... well can't say that due to armor but still you get my drift.

Now my problem is with HEALERS as well in PVP gear.. you wanna talk about a quick MANA BURN. I'm constantly being told by healers in FULL PVP gear that I'm squishy on my DK and my PALLY...... LBOBBIT and DARKPOETT.. either way far from it. Both can tank Firelands Raids.....

Now my question is how in the blue heck I get to the 102% mitigation to be capped with DKS?! What is considered mitigation cap for a dk?!