Feral tanking - Agility.

[TyGuy25]

There is two stories here, TL DR at the bot

One day we decided to run a random heroic, we get in on our mains (at the time ToC was end all) And here we are all decked out in 245's or better and we get into a Gun Drak. Our druid tank has a whopping 32000 hp and we're like "effe this is going to suck". We pull, the first few mobs die in seconds. We figure its us as the dps (hunter / mage / mage). We get to the boss and he died just as quick, and no one has pulled aggro yet, strange to us because we figure there is a gear gap. This dude as than bear tank, did 7.5k dps to the boss. we're somewhat in shock, so we check him out. Our buddy who is healing said he was cake to heal. He is rocking all 245+ druid gear, gemmed with agility, total cat druid in bear form. Look at recount, he dodge almost every attack, and kept up with the dps on the bosses. Was a fun run. It got me thinking, I want to try that on my druid, but she'll never get that gear.

Now that the PTR's are out, I made a pre-made druid. Full 245 teir, chanted agility or stamina, gemmed all agility, armor tanking meta gem. My druid is sitting at unbuffed(bear form)

34k hp; 32k armor (67% reduction); 48% dodge; 58% crit; 6.6k AP. Now then, she is missing full raid buffs, but as is her savage Defense absorbs 1500, she crits almost every hit so its up if not every, at least every other attack. If the Death's Choice procs, she goes up by 3% dodge and about 3% crit. In a raid, she would have fort / kings, at least 40k hp (more in icc lolz) But she'll have to be close to 55% (35 in icc :\) dodge, and will be close to 62% crit.

So why do bears not stack agility? Even with all that reduction are bosses just hitting to hard to make it viable, does chill of the throne just rape to much? It really just seems strange that druid can do so much threat, and have so much raw dodge for them to not want to do that.

TLR

Why dont tanking druids stack agi??!?!!?!111!?!

[tyden49]

I dont tank on my druid, but i know for all tanks stam is better because of RNG. You may be a mana sponge but what healers go oom these days. If your gemmed all agil and take a few hits in a row from a hard hittin boss you can say goodnight. But with the stam it gives your healers and extra second or so to get you up. Coming from a healer id rather heal a tank with a big HP and regulated dmg (even if it is a bit more) than a tank with a lower HP but spikey dmg.

[pewpewinface]

What tyden said is certainly true, and is probably the main reason: no respectable tanks primarily gem for avoidance stats because just because you have a 50% chance to be hit doesn't mean you won't get hit 10 times in a row =P Stam guarantees that you have some breathing room, especially if things go sour.

The secondary reason is that dodge has diminishing returns and that it takes more and more agi/dodge to get 1%. Stam stays good no matter how much you stack.

That bear probably only tanked in his cat gear for heroics since even in 3.2 people still vastly outgeared the heroics and more dps meant faster heroic.

[calibro]

You can do that in heroics, not in raids. I tank my dailies in cat gear (arp capped) and, well, mobs are dying fast even with all dps doing nothing, i manage like overall 7.5k+ doing HoL run.
This is fun but has nothing to do with actual game content.

[Deleted]

We did a little test some time ago:

We got us two bears with the same equipment, one with agi gems (me) and another one with stam only.
I got more threat due to more critical hit chance, thus more absorb, I think I had more armor and survived much longer due to my high dodge rating.

Overall, the healers found me easier to heal. I can survive 5 to 20 seconds without healing, the other one had to be healed all the time.

So I think, gemming AGI is useful for bears, don't take one without AGI gems.

[Richmond]

You simply came across a cat that didnt want to wait in the queue as a DPS, so he left his cat gear on and went bear. I do this all the time with the exception of the PoS and HoR HC. Although i average 5k over the course of a dungeon with about 4 on a boss - which is usually a steady 2nd when i look at overall damage at the end.

On a more raiding side, i doubt that guy could tank ToC 25 well, let alone ICC. Think about Gormoc's impales (unavoidable) and Jarax casting attack (if not interupted) most of these attacks would almost 1 shot an agility stacking bear. Walking into ICC, i imagine if you had above 40k HP you'd be alright on 10 man 4/12 but once you look at festergut / rotface onwards, you'll be eating the floor. ICC 25? Not a chance, i wouldn't bring a bear that didnt have around 43k Unbuffed, let alone fully buffed.

[Cortano]

Agility is a lot better outside of ICC, compared to how it fares inside

The more avoidance you have, the more valuable each additional point becomes: the chill hurts the value of avoidance a lot. Also, with the ICC buff, stamina scales better. The combined effects, along with a couple very heavy magic damage fights and burst hits, make stamina the clear choice for the current raid content.

The idea of gemming for heroics isn't going to get a lot of adherents. No matter -what- you gem, you are going to totally out gear them if you are wearing badge+ gear. Players tend to gear for the current level of raid content.

[arel00]

TLR

Why dont tanking druids stack agi??!?!!?!111!?!

You can do that in heroics, not in raids.

This pretty much sums it up. Most druids even use their DPS gear for heroics, including hard-capped ArP sets. When stuff hits that low and dies that fast, you'd better off doing damage than buffering hp.

The same goes for Naxx and Ulduar besides hard modes. Bu ToC normal you gem agi/sta, by ICC or ToC hard you go for almost full stamina, if not full completely (depending on raid, stats, etc). ICC25 or any ICC hard mode, and you'll be skyrocketing health.

[Deleted]

magic-based abilities like in lady DW cant be dodged.

full agi gemming will only be good when the 35% icc buff hits the live serves and you got around 100k in icc (without survial instincts).

[exochaft]

I feel bad for beating a dead horse over and over, but I suppose it never gets old!

EH vs TTL

[Driftage]

You will find that a lot of feral tanks mix in some dps gear when doing simple heroics. Reason being is because with our normal tank gear (assuming they are in ICC content), we sacrifice so much avoidance and threat generation (agility) in favor of stamina, as it is the only way for us to stay alive for fights that involve a caster boss (Lady Deathwhisper for example), or a boss that deals a massive amount of damage that can't really be mitigated (Soul Reaper from the Lich King followed by a melee=OUCH!). For heroics though, we like stuff to go fast (usually), so quite a few druids will mix in dps pieces (as every good druid tank should have a dps set) which allows them to generate more threat and also allows them to reach a higher dps.

[Cortano]

full agi gemming will only be good when the 35% icc buff hits the live serves and you got around 100k in icc (without survial instincts).

I don't think it will be good even then. It won't be good until the Chill is removed.

35% more health + 35% easier to heal is a lot like "35% reduction in damage taken". Health will continue to scale better than agility, as healing is increased at the same time.

You might switch gemming to hold more threat, as the extra survivability may not be useful, but gemming agility to increase survivability just won't ever work until Chill goes away.

[exochaft]

I don't think it will be good even then. It won't be good until the Chill is removed.

35% more health + 35% easier to heal is a lot like "35% reduction in damage taken". Health will continue to scale better than agility, as healing is increased at the same time.

You might switch gemming to hold more threat, as the extra survivability may not be useful, but gemming agility to increase survivability just won't ever work until Chill goes away.

This is more a point of view developed from one's own raid environment. While some people need more HP, others might have more than enough and could use some extra avoidance. It's really all dependent on your gear.

Already posted the EH vs TTL link, just seems people don't bother to read it. Increasing your HP is only effective if you're using that HP, otherwise it's not increasing your survivability. Sure, the ICC increases how much HP you gain and heals put out, but it's getting to the point of being ridiculous... hell, I thought it was ridiculous at 5%. You can either stack stam til the cows come home, or take advantage of the "free buff" to your EH and balance it out with more TTL stats.

Long story short, you stack EH to the point of what you need to survive burst, then you work on avoidance/TTL factors. Surviving stacking stam only works as long as the heals-per-second can maintain it (EH cannnot save you if HPS cannot contend with the DPS you take). However, if you have more than enough HP to take what's thrown at you, it's a dangerous game to play if you can easily increase the likelihood of an attack missing you than relying on nothing wrong occuring on the healing side of life. As always, the balance of EH and TTL varies per fight, per guild, yadda, yadda, yadda.

[frostbiten]

Yeah, 55% dodge is great, especially when I have 50% unbuffed stacking stamina. You'll dodge 1/20 more melee hits than me, but if you don't dodge the melee after soulreaper you're dead. (Probably dead anyway tbh) Whereas I take it and have health to spare. Your 34k unbuffed comapred to my 52 (or 39 if you meant caster form) will cause problems that you wouldn't have if you went with the general consensus and stacked stam.
TL;DR: Stacking agility has a minimal gain and a huge loss, proven even more in ICC, on both magic bosses, and melee.

[Deleted]

with 35% icc buff and icc10/25 hardmode gear you will have around 130k buffed... i mean, you dont even need that much hp. and rawr also suggest to get 20 agi gems in all when BiS geared

[Cortano]

with 35% icc buff and icc10/25 hardmode gear you will have around 130k buffed... i mean, you dont even need that much hp. and rawr also suggest to get 20 agi gems in all when BiS geared

Rawr suggestions are based on what you set your "stamina softcap" to be, which basically short circuits the calculations and places an arbitrary cap on things. You can change this behavior by changing the manually defined "softcap".

At no point does agility become a better "survivability" stat while Chill is still around. (The other advantages in terms of damage and threat may outweigh a minor hit in survivability though.)

[Mushy]

with 35% icc buff and icc10/25 hardmode gear you will have around 130k buffed... i mean, you dont even need that much hp. and rawr also suggest to get 20 agi gems in all when BiS geared

Please don't tell me you blindly trust default settings of RAWR ? ;_;

[Deleted]

Please don't tell me you blindly trust default settings of RAWR ? ;_;

ofc not... Did it with all possible buffs and debuffs (should be possible in a 25man raid), same specc as me (link in sig), mining and JC, BiS list from somewhere (can't remember, could be EJ or my own), lvl 83 elite mob and with the 35% icc buff.

[Gunwolf]

Druid tanks were well known in BC for being the "DPS tanks".....capable of doing as much or more then well geared dps players.

The reason you don't see many raid tanks stacking agility (it's usually stam or agil/stam) is cause dodge is nerfed in ICC, raid buffed crit is not important, and stacking stam is just better for taking larger hits, along with lots of armor.

[frostbiten]

But did you set the survivability softcap to 350000? My guess would be no. Rawr won't ever tell you to go full agility in ICC, ever.