Gearing up for ICC 10 Man

[SokartheTank]

Hello All,
I am a Tank and I have been trying to gear up so that I can run with my guild in ICC 10 Man (and Trial of the Crusader 10 Man Normal/Heroic), and I was wondering if I could ask for some guidance form the community on where I am at, and what I should change to be better prepared.

I have read the Bear Guide on MMO-Champion, which is an amazing wealth of information. I have also done research from other sites as well. I have also downloaded RAWR (which I mainly use, and absolutely swear by). Further I have been on Wow-Heroes, and it does put me in ICC.

Here is my Armory link:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...runner&n=Sokar

Any information, ideas, suggestions, critiques on my gear/gems/enchants/talents would greatly be appreciated.

Thank You in advanced!

Sokar

[getefix]

263 is hit rating cap. You're way over it and you're using hit rating gems to get socket bonuses. If you feel you need those bonuses then use defense + stam in them. Hit rating is useless for you.

Get mongoose on your weapon instead of 110 AP

Stay on the lookout for rings and neck pieces that don't have parry on them. You're wearing good ones, but they have wasted stats on them.

[Cheezee]

Socket bonuses with attack power do no scale with buffs so you don't really need to worry about meeting them in most cases. And what he said.

[Auroro]

Socket bonus that are ok to put the green gem in yellow socket: Stamina

Socket bonus that are ok to put the red or purple gem in Red socket: Agi or Stamina

Socket bonus that are ok to put the Blue gem in blue socket: Agi or Stamina

Anything other than Agi and Stam: you can put Stamina gem in it.

[SokartheTank]

Thank You for the information so far, from what was posted this is what I learned so far:

1. I should not pay attention to +attack power socket bonuses.
2. I know that I have to much hit, so I will change my gems.
3. I need to change my weapon enchant.
With that I do have some questions.
1. So with the other socket bonuses ( +agility and +stam) are the ones that I should keep?
2. When replacing my Yello socket gems, should I focus on more stam or agility or both ( agility and stam gems)?

That is all the question I have so far.

Thank you again, and if anyone has any more suggestion, they would be greatly appreciated.

[Sunshine]

1. So with the other socket bonuses ( +agility and +stam) are the ones that I should keep?
2. When replacing my Yello socket gems, should I focus on more stam or agility or both ( agility and stam gems)?

1. Agi and stam are both good socket bonuses to keep, but whether or not you should keep them depends on the magnitude. If you look at rawr (or comparable programs), you can get a stat weighting. Using that, you can decide whether the total effect is better with or without the socket bonus. E.g., for a yellow socket, if stam is worth X and def is worth Y, then find out whether 15*X + 10*Y + socket bonus is more or less than 30 * X.

2. It depends. That's the core debate of all bear druids. The short answer is "get a mix of both"; the more complicated answer is that it depends on your gear level, your progression level, your specific raid characteristics, and everything else. Get a mix of both, and adjust based on how things are going. Getting 2-shot? Use more stam. Not dropping below 35%? Use more agi.

[getefix]

If you plan on looking at festergut you should invest in many many blue gems

[SokartheTank]

Thank You again for the information.

I changed most of my gems, but I still have not totaly decided to fully gem stam yet. I also changed my weapon enchant to Mongoose.

After looking at me gear, I did have another question:
1. I currently have 2 peices of T9, I also have the ilevel 245 shoulders, helm, and chest(crafted). My question is: Is the 4 peice T9 bonus worth more than having the ilevel 245 peices?
2. I was looking at the next peice to upgrade with Frost emblems, I currently have the ilevel 226 belt and the ilevel 245 idol, my question is: Is the Frost emblem idol worth it more to get it first, or should I save up and replace my belt first?

Thank You all in advance

[Cheezee]

T9 is pretty lackluster especially if it means taking a 232 piece over a 245 piece. Generally all out stats are better than bonuses except in certain cases (ie T10 or T8 2 piece).

I played with the EoF idol a few weeks ago and it is awesome for boss tanking but not so hot for trash. The most annoying part (and I'm not certain if it is intended or a bug) was that applying lacerate would give you a stack of the buff, but only a 5 stack of lacerate would refresh it. It worked fine with Rake though. I returned it and went back to mutilation for most encounters and corruptor for hard hitting bosses (Festergut).

[Selverein]

The Idol is, imo, a trap. It is attractive because its cost is low but the gain will be minimal. I think it's best to save up for T10 as a priority, unless you have a really outdated piece of gear that needs the upgrade really badly.

[Richmond]

I'd go for one of the most expensive T10 items (I'd go with your Legs because its the bigger upgrade) The 2 & 4 Piece set bonuses of T10 are amazing for us, the quicker you gain them, the easier things will become.

Not only that, with the next wings of ICC opening up over the next few weeks, they'll be other boots, belts, wrist items that you could get your hand on, fair enough they wont be as good as the EoF ones, but i'd sooner wait for them, or wait for the craftable ones to become cheaper.

Check out http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=904 for some suitable replacements, i'm personally after the Armor trinket next (10 man)

To the point - I'd rather buy T10 pieces first rather than have say a belt drop that is only marginally lower that the one i just spent 60 EoF on (Would make me sad )

[YigiBareTank]

Looking at your armory it appears you've done very well looking at the suggestions and improving.

Personally, I gem agility since I only run 10 mans. Bosses hit for less in 10 mans and there are less healers spamming me, so I like the extra dodge/armor/threat over stam, but keep in mind that for 25s this is NOT a good idea and it is even a debatable one for 10 mans.
You are more than ready for ToC/TotGC, and you are good for ICC 10 man as well.

Spec and glyphs look good. You are doing well.

I am only speaking from experiencing the first 4 encounters in ICC, but I will tell you that so far CD management is VERY important. We need to be ready to pop Barkskin/SI/FR instantly if we get a healer spiked, both healers in D&D, when muradin/saurfang are starting to stack up their buff high and healer is in midair jumping back, and when saurfang hits you with a Mark of Blood and the off-tanks taunt misses (or just in general once Mark of the Fallen Champion goes out).

So your best bet is REALLY get a good feel for when to use your cooldowns, get to know how your healers heal. Personally my healers perform VERY well when shit hits the fan, but some healers freak out and do much better when CDs are popped preemptively and the fight is less hectic.

Edited to make it less wall-of-texty

[Cheezee]

Personally, I gem agility since I only run 10 mans. Bosses hit for less in 10 mans and there are less healers spamming me, so I like the extra dodge/armor/threat over stam, but keep in mind that for 25s this is NOT a good idea and it is even a debatable one for 10 mans.
You are more than ready for ToC/TotGC, and you are good for ICC 10 man as well.

Take your stam set for Festergut. Between 10 and 25 man his average hit on our DK tank was only 2500 more in 25 man (17.9k vs 20.5k). He was hitting me for 13.5k (average) in 10 man but I didn't tank him in 25 so I can't compare there. Probably 16k-17k if I had to guess though.

[YigiBareTank]

Take your stam set for Festergut. Between 10 and 25 man his average hit on our DK tank was only 2500 more in 25 man (17.9k vs 20.5k). He was hitting me for 13.5k (average) in 10 man but I didn't tank him in 25 so I can't compare there. Probably 16k-17k if I had to guess though.

I still don't think i'll be using stam for this fight. If i get hit for 13.5k average, i can still easily take 3 hits without dying (i buff to about 46k health) and gemming for stam wouldn't give me a 4th (or if it did it BARELY would, the stam gain is about 3k, so i'd buff to 50.5k).

I'd still rather avoid 4% more and take 2% less damage, in a 10 man raid setting.

Again, this is mostly due to:
1) I run with resto druid, resto shaman, disc priest, NONE of these classes rely on big heals like a holy paladin does
2) I run with a DK off-tank, so any fight that are very heavy on spell damage he will tank, since he has about 3k more health than me and a bit better magic reduction

Now i would agree that on fights like Gormok HM, Valks HM, etc. i'd be much better off as stam, but so far in ICC there haven't been any "oh no here comes *big boss dmg ability* make sure the tank is topped" so i haven't really seen a need to gem stam, yet.

[getefix]

I still don't think i'll be using stam for this fight. If i get hit for 13.5k average, i can still easily take 3 hits without dying (i buff to about 46k health) and gemming for stam wouldn't give me a 4th (or if it did it BARELY would, the stam gain is about 3k, so i'd buff to 50.5k).

I'd still rather avoid 4% more and take 2% less damage, in a 10 man raid setting.

Again, this is mostly due to:
1) I run with resto druid, resto shaman, disc priest, NONE of these classes rely on big heals like a holy paladin does
2) I run with a DK off-tank, so any fight that are very heavy on spell damage he will tank, since he has about 3k more health than me and a bit better magic reduction

Now i would agree that on fights like Gormok HM, Valks HM, etc. i'd be much better off as stam, but so far in ICC there haven't been any "oh no here comes *big boss dmg ability* make sure the tank is topped" so i haven't really seen a need to gem stam, yet.

Festergut is definitely an EH fight. Bring mitigation and bring stamina. He hits for ~26k on plate/bears (Wowwiki says so, I don't remember the numbers I was taking).

Professor Putricide's last phase looks like serious business too. Seeing a tank with almost 70k HP drop to half health in 1 second scares me and I may be doing some regemming for that fight as well.

[YigiBareTank]

Festergut is definitely an EH fight. Bring mitigation and bring stamina. He hits for ~26k on plate/bears (Wowwiki says so, I don't remember the numbers I was taking).

Professor Putricide's last phase looks like serious business too. Seeing a tank with almost 70k HP drop to half health in 1 second scares me and I may be doing some regemming for that fight as well.

I will have to try this fight out for myself to know for certain, but I'm definitely still of the opinion that in a 10 man raid vs. a fast hitting boss, avoidance > EH (to an extent, i DO use 1 stam trinket, maybe 2 for this fight, and all blue slots are still stam/agi)
I'll look over this again after the weekend when i've tried him myself.

[Cheezee]

I still don't think i'll be using stam for this fight. If i get hit for 13.5k average, i can still easily take 3 hits without dying (i buff to about 46k health) and gemming for stam wouldn't give me a 4th (or if it did it BARELY would, the stam gain is about 3k, so i'd buff to 50.5k).

I'd still rather avoid 4% more and take 2% less damage, in a 10 man raid setting.

Again, this is mostly due to:
1) I run with resto druid, resto shaman, disc priest, NONE of these classes rely on big heals like a holy paladin does
2) I run with a DK off-tank, so any fight that are very heavy on spell damage he will tank, since he has about 3k more health than me and a bit better magic reduction

Now i would agree that on fights like Gormok HM, Valks HM, etc. i'd be much better off as stam, but so far in ICC there haven't been any "oh no here comes *big boss dmg ability* make sure the tank is topped" so i haven't really seen a need to gem stam, yet.

I said I was taking 13.5k average hits; not every hit was for 13.5k as that would have made the fight rather trivial and it is anything but trivial. That was spread over 63 total hits (the first 2 inhales and only a few seconds into the 3rd). At three inhales you will have to chain cool downs or you are almost guaranteed the tank will die. Our DK had him for most of the 3rd inhale and only took 34 hits (I was in cat form with a 90% damage increase). If we had been reversed then I would have taken more damage.

[getefix]

I will have to try this fight out for myself to know for certain, but I'm definitely still of the opinion that in a 10 man raid vs. a fast hitting boss, avoidance > EH (to an extent, i DO use 1 stam trinket, maybe 2 for this fight, and all blue slots are still stam/agi)
I'll look over this again after the weekend when i've tried him myself.

Avoidance for this fight isn't really that teriffic. He takes chunks out of your health and your healers will be going "omg, so what do i do with this spore thing" (real quote from my 10 man last night). If he hits you twice without a heal you may find yourself eating the floor. We did it with three healers and I had about 52k HP and I lasted okay. We downed him in 5 tries I think.