Feral Tanking Weapon in ICC10

[rated]

Dear posters, consider ALL 2h weapons, EXCEPT for the Warmace and Oxheart, were deleted from WoW. How would you, as a bear tank, choose between the two remaining weapons given that you are already past the expertise soft-cap, but not the hard-cap. Simple enough?

I would choose neither weapon. Im better off using a staff with agility on it and so are you.

[scorch109]

In about half the fights in ICC straight stam is better then armor and dodge as theres enough magic damage to counterbalance it anyways so really theres no reason to give the guy shit cause zomg he uses a str weapon.

[Greenmahn]

In about half the fights in ICC straight stam is better then armor and dodge as theres enough magic damage to counterbalance it anyways so really theres no reason to give the guy shit cause zomg he uses a str weapon.

well then get this http://www.wowhead.com/item=48517 shouldn't be to hard and that's allot of stam :P

[rated]

In about half the fights in ICC straight stam is better then armor and dodge as theres enough magic damage to counterbalance it anyways so really theres no reason to give the guy shit cause zomg he uses a str weapon.

If the OP wants to use an inferior weapon that isn't properly itemized for his class, then so be it. That's his choice.

P.S staffs have lots of stam on them too

[scorch109]

Staffs have nowhere near the stam of maces though the only staffs that are comparable are pvp and bloodfall. everything else is far less then a mace, and considering in tanking some stuff stam is more important then avoidance hey guess what it's better itemized then a staff.

[rated]

Staffs have nowhere near the stam of maces though the only staffs that are comparable are pvp and bloodfall. everything else is far less then a mace, and considering in tanking some stuff stam is more important then avoidance hey guess what it's better itemized then a staff.

There's more to tanking then just stam and more stam. Yes maces typically have extra stam in comparison to staffs, but if as a feral druid you find you NEED that extra stam from the mace to survive then your gear needs more improving than a weapon switch in my opinion.

For me im running with 80/84k health depending on trinket setup. Equipping a mace with superior stam to my staff would be pointless as my health pool is already high enough for the bosses im trying to down. This is why I would favor a staff with agility because agility gives us several benefits, while the strength on your mace gives you 1.

The only way id tell anyone to take a mace over a staff is if you had nothing else better to use. Or if you have threat problems and the FAP on your mace is considerably higher than on your current staff.

P.S if stam is a major concern for you a PvP staff beats everything.

[scorch109]

And what i was pointing out is on some fights stam IS your only concern. As a tank having only 1 weapon is a flawed concept you want one for max mitigation and one thats just lulls stam.

[Elessa]

And what i was pointing out is on some fights stam IS your only concern. As a tank having only 1 weapon is a flawed concept you want one for max mitigation and one thats just lulls stam.

Mention one relevant fight where stam is the ONLY concern. I'll be waiting.

[scorch109]

Blood Queen.

[Elessa]

Blood Queen.

That is only when you are offtanking. Also, making a special gearset for loot queen is just lol.

[scorch109]

You said give an example, I did. A stam weapon is better for all heavy magic damage fights. The agi is worth 300ish armor for heroic Bloodfall. Which is worth ~.25% physical damage reduction. so with a 10 man weapon it is about 30% less agi so worth about .16% reduction whereas the maces have the same amount of stam as a heroic bloodfall which is ~40 more. From an EH perspective the maces would win out slightly.
edit: and not to mention the warmace has 1 socket more then the 10 man regular staves.

[Richmond]

You said give an example, I did. A stam weapon is better for all heavy magic damage fights. The agi is worth 300ish armor for heroic Bloodfall. Which is worth ~.25% physical damage reduction. so with a 10 man weapon it is about 30% less agi so worth about .16% reduction whereas the maces have the same amount of stam as a heroic bloodfall which is ~40 more. From an EH perspective the maces would win out slightly.
edit: and not to mention the warmace has 1 socket more then the 10 man regular staves.

You forget to mention the 2% odd dodge that an equal Ilvl Agility staff gives. I'd take that 2% agility, 300 ish armor and the extra crit of your small amount of stam will provide.

Blood Queen is the worst example you could have put as well, the MT is aiming to have the best Mitigation / avoidance and the OT is aiming to have enough health to take at least 2 hits in a row without a heal. The OT takes exactly the same damage at the MT, so if the MT is a lolStam Stacker like yourself (Your gemming/enchanting makes me shiver, ps you have no enchant on your gloves, lets go with... More Stam!) then he becomes a big sponge and your OT will take shit loads of damage.

Only fight i'd see a heavy stam weapon taken over a agility one in ICC would be Sindragosa - even then i wouldn't take it because i know my class and Frost Resist pieces will provide all the extra help i need.

[Deleted]

Mention one relevant fight where stam is the ONLY concern. I'll be waiting.

Tanking the shadow guy at blood prince council also qualifies, as does soaking vile spirits at lich king.

[Duilliath]

Tanking the shadow guy at blood prince council also qualifies, as does soaking vile spirits at lich king.

Not particularly. If you grab enough Dark Nuclei, your stamina is largely irrelevant. You can have a Warlock or Hunter tank him (as I'm sure you remember) and those don't have half the health of a bear. If you feel you need more stamina there, you simply need to play the encounter better. Or, your fellow raidmembers (so they stop AoEing and stealing your black balls).

For soaking Vile Spirits, you'll need cooldowns with or without stam stacking. An added 300 health is not going to save you there.

//edit: The one situational use for a stamina mace (which still would include neither of those two), would be HC Lich King and solely because of how hard Soul Reaper + his normal attacks hit. Even there I'd still prefer a regular weapon.

[Beetlejuice]

A weapon is a stat stick to a druid, similar to a Hunter and you wouldn’t catch a hunter with a strength weapon either.

And here you are wrong. There is something called feral attack power that makes it more than just a stat stick. More than half your total attack power comes from the dps value of that "stat stick", so ferals scale with weapons as any other weapon wielder with his primary weapon. The only ones that should think twice before rolling first need on weapons are hunters on staves/spears and furies/arms on bows/crossbows/guns. Because that really are only stat somethings. Especially in case of hunters stat somethings with a high item budget but none the less no primary weapons.

About the str vs agi weapon discussion. Well a lot of ppl already tried to smart you up but since you seem to be resistant I give it another try. We are not talking about gemming for agi here. This is not like the choice between a 20 agi gem vs a 30 stam gem. This is the choice between 35 stam vs 146 agi. And choosing stam here is simply insane. Agi is a great stat for tanking druids, its only problem is that stam is very cheap itemized and scales good because of talents and icc buff. But at some point even that can't make up for the loss. Agi gives you crit (rage, threat, savage defense uptime), dodge (damage avoidance, savage defense uptime), armor (damage mitigation). Passing on loads of it for a very small boost in stam is a bad idea how ever you put it.

But just in case you still wanna fail hard I answer your original question. I would choose whatever suits my stats best. If i don't need the expertise the warmace is the obvious choice since it has the higher item budget and even though arp is the worst rating of all for a feral tank (haste and crit increase savage defense uptime, crit gives rage), it is still better than overcapped expertise. If on the other hand i do need the expertise i would go with oxheart. Lacking expertise a lot hurts your threat badly. A few more budget points in stam and ap won't make up for that.

[Sweaky]

weapon :277>264>251

[Greenmahn]

weapon :277>264>251

OH so wrong just cause a weapon has a higher ilvl does NOT mean it is better then a lower Ilvl weapon sorry But you have to actual know what stat you need. just cause you have a 6k gear score does not mean your better geared then a 5.3k gear score and just cause you have a higher gear score doesnt make you a better player as your post shows.

[Sunshine]

It's not about the gearscore; it's about the feral AP. There are almost no stats on the weapon itself that can make up the difference (about 400 AP), given that it's the same type of weapon (agi vs. str).

[Sweaky]

OH so wrong just cause a weapon has a higher ilvl does NOT mean it is better then a lower Ilvl weapon sorry But you have to actual know what stat you need. just cause you have a 6k gear score does not mean your better geared then a 5.3k gear score and just cause you have a higher gear score doesnt make you a better player as your post shows.

higher lvl has higer ap, that means better threaten dealing with some godlike dpser. so 277 looted gear is the best as in 25Hicc, is bloodfall (heroic)
I'm getting S8 277 lvl weapon, this is extremely recommanded for druid tanking. Highest lvl+highest hp
but for those player who don't play pvp, bloodfall(heroic) is the best.
Back to here, 264 looted weapons with agi is better than 264 looted str weapon, lvl of weapon is very important

[Greenmahn]

But he is referring to a tanking weapon and not having aggro issues the fact that the Items have more Feral attack power but oh i don't know Lacks the crit. Then the extra ap is wasted because he is missing out on Savage defense procs where a lower item level weapon has crit but is missing 400 Fap the lower ilvl would serve you better as you now have move uptime on savage defense so the lower ilvl would serve the tank better as a mitigation stat(if you don't consider the minor loss in threat that the 400 ap would give).

Or lets say the higher ilvl has more Fap and equal crit but now its missing the expertise and or hit. Your now missing more hits. Now you have to do the complicated math to figure out if the higher ap is equal or greater to the hits you will be missing.(either from a pure miss or a dodge/parry)

SO once again just cause an item has a higher ilvl(which is how gear scores are calculated) Does not mean the item is better for you then the lower ilvl weapon.

That's all i was trying to say in my above post. Sorry if it came off being an attack on anyone I just think that people try to simplify things to much at times and try to complicate things at other times.
Its never a simple thing when considering a weapon choice. However, (IMO) someone that takes a str weapon when they aren't having threat issues over an agilty weapon You know the ones designed for druids. Is Simply Fail.