Tank Seeking advise from tanking Gurus.

Post by Lootacris

I just hit lvl 80, while following Yakra's guide. I been on 540 def for a while now, and currently i have 21. 9 k hp. Problem is my guidies want to go raiding and i keep second-guessing myself when i want to attempt heroics.

1) Is my current gear ok for me to survive heroics?

2) If There was one Heroic you would recommend, It would be ____ because (reason, time, # of potential tanking drops, Difficulty) plz keep my gear in mind

Link is below to see my current gear.

thank you again

-loota

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Post by ohappyhippy

1) Is my current gear ok for me to survive heroics?

First of all, asking yourself such a question is smart to do. "Do I have the right equipment to go through this heroic?" "Do I need frost resist gear or make sure there is a shaman/priest for class specific spells along the way?" "Do you have a healer that is geared enough to stay in those longer fights and react quickly if you suddenly start getting slammed?"

All these are smart questions to ask because as the tank, people will look to you as a leader, and if you are not comfortable or nervous... don't feel ashamed to tell your party... I've never ran this on heroic before, could someone help me mark mobs (or let me know extra or different boss tactics, if any)." The groups I ran with starting on heroics didn't mind at all marking the mobs to help out, or adding extra strat. and tactics info. about the place on heroic.... mainly because if you die as the tank, your parties survival then depends heavily on the gear and experience they have to rely on. Most of the time, to say the least if you die, the stress lvl's in the party raise 300% until the situation is back under control.

Now, once you have gotten yourself defense capped, I suggest to work on munipulating dodge and parry ratings as high as your can without dropping under 540 defense. Reason being, both these are TOTAL dmg reducers because on heroic... the fact you can block 1500 dmg with your shield.... doesn't mean much when the boss hits your for 3-5K even when you block. Also want to research where your upgraded gear drops and start with those places but also starting out, you want to keep with places like nexus, UK, Drak Keep (although king dread on heroic needs a teamwork group or better geared.)

And finally.... don't feel bad about your gear.... it's a simple fact that there really is a "wall" you have to push through when you begin heroics... plain and simple.... if your in a guild, see if you can find some nice better geared members or people on your friends list together because for a little while.... it helps with they can help "carry" you a bit until you start getting the heroic drop gear.

Hope I helped, I tried to explain the best I could...

Post by ohappyhippy

Pyroshen also made a very good point. If you are going to do heroics... also make sure you have a tabbard to a faction you need the rep for... if nothing drops... eventually you can buy the gear from wyrmrest for get the uber head enchant for argent crusade to help out :)

Post by Sakkura

Now, once you have gotten yourself defense capped, I suggest to work on munipulating dodge and parry ratings as high as your can without dropping under 540 defense. Reason being, both these are TOTAL dmg reducers because on heroic... the fact you can block 1500 dmg with your shield.... doesn't mean much when the boss hits your for 3-5K even when you block. Also want to research where your upgraded gear drops and start with those places but also starting out, you want to keep with places like nexus, UK, Drak Keep (although king dread on heroic needs a teamwork group or better geared.)
I have to disagree there.

Defense adds almost exactly as much pure avoidance as dodge rating (which is the most powerful in terms of pure avoidance), and the tiny lead dodge has is easily overcome by the facts that defense adds block (which is not huge, but better than nothing), that it balances the avoidance which minimizes the risk of diminishing returns, and that it adds more valuable types of avoidance; parry chance to slightly increase your threat, and miss which is the only avoidance that works while stunned etc.

Defense is awesome.

Post by Veritox

I too experienced a bit of a similar hump to get over after I was defense capped. I was relieved to see 540 under defense but quickly learned that 21.5k hp wasn't gonna cut it as far as mobs went. Just like the majority of the posters above me stated, stick to the easy heroics for a bit. Nexus is an easy 5 EoHs and you can get a decent helm from it. As you save emblems, you can get your hands on some very nice epics from the vendor in Dalaran. If you haven't invested in some of the crafted epics I would definitely look into them. They aren't the cheapest, but I'm still using my armor plated shotgun and titanium ring. After you've hit around 23k hp, start looking at some of the more challenging heroics. I basically looked at the epic drops from each of the heroics and compared them with my current gear. I then chose the top 3 improvements and hopped into LFG for those 3 heroics for the day. It takes a little while, but you'll make it through.

Good luck!

Post by marklartank

Defense adds almost exactly as much pure avoidance as dodge rating (which is the most powerful in terms of pure avoidance), and the tiny lead dodge has is easily overcome by the facts that defense adds block (which is not huge, but better than nothing), that it balances the avoidance which minimizes the risk of diminishing returns, and that it adds more valuable types of avoidance; parry chance to slightly increase your threat, and miss which is the only avoidance that works while stunned etc.

Defense is awesome.
sakkura speaks truth.

Post by xstasi

For my own personal experience, i'd recommend starting with Azjol Nerub.
Why?
First of all, there are very few trash mobs (almost the same number as bosses, if you exclude boss event trash), which means fast badges with a smooth run (the gear you can buy with badges is very low on numbers, but pretty heavy)
Also, Anub'Arak is one of those bosses which are easy on damage but hard on tactics.
So you'll have some fun wiping at Anub'Arak before you learn to avoid Pound, and you'll earn some dexterity as player ;)
If you want to go on easy challenges, both playerwise and gearwise, go for Utgarde Keep.
As for the stats, try to get all gems/enchants to gain 23k HP, then you'll be ready to tank pretty much everything.
Also very important, is to learn all your cooldowns and use them on the proper time.
Do not fear wasting them :)

Cheers!

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Tank Seeking advise from tanking Gurus.

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