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Should I upgrade my weapon or Armor? (Bear Tank)
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Post by
797752
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
yodadoe
For both feral specs, a weapon upgrade is one of the most important things. Gear is for stats. A new weapon provides stats AND a DPS increase. So it's always your best upgrade. For bear, it's going to increase your threat, which these days, is pretty important, as our AoE threat kind of sucks right now.
Considering that we get ZERO use from resilience in PVE, the two gear upgrades are not as big of an upgrade as the item level would otherwise indicate, since you have that wasted stat. So I'd definitely go with the weapon. You still get a DPS upgrade from the weapon damage.
A few unsolicited pieces of advice for you, since you posted your armor link:
Most people agree that we shouldn't gem for straight stamina or straight dodge. You may be aiming for tasty socket bonuses with those primary-colors-only cogwheels? I'm not sure... However, stamina-stacking died with the last expansion. Gem for Agility, using Agility+Stamina purple gems in blue sockets and Agility+Dodge gems in yellow sockets. Gemming some Agility+mastery is an okay option as well. That meta is good, of course...
Post by
797752
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Post by
yodadoe
Hmm... since you threw up those stats, gaining that much agility and stamina for those two pieces of armor seems pretty darn nice.
As for caps and percentages to aim for, I have yet to see anything agreed upon in that respect. I stack mostly agility, though I do use one stamina trinket. I tank raids for my guild and everything works out well. My healers like what they see. But the other feral tank in my guild stacks a lot more stamina than I. He uses two stamina trinkets. And he does well too. Some people have argued that you should reach certain health value before stacking Agility, but others shoot down that argument. Most people I read and trust seem to say that you just get higher item level stuff, aim for Mastery first and Crit second, when choosing gear, and gem for mostly Agility, while using hybrid gems for socket bonuses. A healthy amount of stamina is probably good, but just don't stack stamina like we used to in LK.
Post by
109094
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Post by
Calda
Just a quick note. Never. Ever. Ever. Gem dodge. Due to DR you just gain a lot more from other gems than you would from dodge. Besides, agi also gives crit and ap, which also are 2 of our biggest survival stats.
Just my POV
Post by
109094
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Post by
LookOut
However if its a nice socket bonus then dodge/stam is perfectly acceptable
Or dodge/agi
Post by
109094
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Post by
129046
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Post by
LookOut
However if its a nice socket bonus then dodge/stam is perfectly acceptable
Or dodge/agi
no stam?
twitch twitch
(but yes that would do too)
Do we even have a gem like that?
Polished Ember Topaz
Check Thror's "gem guide". It's in there :)
P.S. very few people seem to know of its existence on my server. Whenever I look em up on AH, there's 1 being sold, tops. And at a ridiculously high price at that. Makes me happy I'm a JC myself (except that that particular cut doesn't sell -_-)
Post by
797752
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Post by
533581
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Post by
109094
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Post by
yodadoe
To be honest, you don't need to get every single little detail perfect unless you're really pushing the envelope and doing progression in heroic raids. For those people, I have heard that stacking more stamina is essential, and you just have to depend on your healers managing their mana efficiently to make up for the higher amount of total healing you will need. The primary reason we stacked stamina in the last expansion was because healers effectively had near-infinite mana and could bomb you with their biggest/quickest heals all night. So it just made more sense to have a huge health pool and be able to take 4 hits in a row with no heals instead of being able to take only 2 hits in a row and hope RNG doesn't screw you THIS time and you are hit thrice in a row with no dodging. If you have a competent team (a healer who knows how to manage mana and DPS who don't stand in poo and require healing and can post huge DPS to get the boss down fast), then you can afford to stack stamina at the expense of Agility (read: dodge) so you can withstand the ministrations of an angry heroic raid boss. But for most of us, Agility is best, primarly b/c it reduces the mana strain on healers and is especially nice for multiple trash mobs hitting you all at the same time... dodge is really helpful there. Agility also helps with threat for those AoE trash mobs while stamina does not.
Post by
yodadoe
As for trinkets, the general consensus is that you should collect them like Pokemon cards as you can. For the first time ever since I've been tanking, we actually have a wide variety that are useful to us. When I started in BC, it was bonus armor trinkets or go home. In LK, it was stamina. Now they all have their usefulness depending on the fight. That TB trinket would be great for an encounter where the boss throws up some large magical attack, like a dragon's flame attack or something. You could pop the trinket beforehand and resist much of that damage. Stamina trinkets have their place too. But as expected, Agility trinkets are all the rage.
Tia's Grace
from heroic Lost City, while only a 346 rare, is generally regarded as one of the best all-around tanking trinkets for us this side of heroic raid trinkets. 285 Mastery + 340 Agility is freaking amazing.
Post by
blowtorch
Try to get
Skardyn's Grace
if you can. Another very good mitigation trinket.
Post by
797752
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Post by
curlymon
Mirror is only good on select fights that have heaps of magic damage. Riddle is the better of the two and honestly not a bad choice but your best "pre-raid" is going to be
Fluid Death
and
Tia's Grace
.
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