Need Expert Druid Tank Advice Please.

[scaredandbaked]

I have done 6 bosses so far. I just joined this new guild, we have 2 other tanks along with me. A pally and a DK, according to the healers i am squishy compared to them. I was gemming mastery stam, and reforging to dodge. My guild asked me to change from that to Pure stamina, so i did. Here is my current gear, any help would appreciate.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...%9Fheta/simple



thank you. i know i need the heroic leaden despair. has not dropped yet. i have the earthquake deck for its spot. But they say i dont need dodge as much as stamina.

[Deleted]

Maybe you should take a look @ Sejta ( http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...sejta/advanced ) He's Paragon's main tank and I think he knows what he is doing Gemming stamina seems right and reforging dodge is the way to go. Your spec seems to be in order too. I think you should change your cloak and gloves enchants to armor and stamina. After that, it's just a matter of skill and game play. Take a look @ http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...aclysm-Edition . There just might be some information you didn't know of yet.

EDIT: You don't need Glyph of Barkskin. You have a talent that makes you crit immune. Take Rebirth or Faerie Fire instead

EDIT2: Don't reforge mastery to dodge as you did with your belt. You can lose that hit instead.

[Selverein]

I have very limited tanking experience in this expansion but I do read Bear stuff a lot. That being said...

For gemming, I would strongly advise against mastery for bears. It's a lot of stat budget spent on increasing a bear shield that procs only 50% on crits which have also dropped to around, what, 25% for a tank? Maybe 30%?

Stamina is a safe bet, of course. I think people are still too easily impressed by a retardedly large health pool, so many will advise to gem fully for stam. It's not a bad thing per se, but I think a balance of agi/stam can be found. In my opinion, seeing how huge base health pools have become, a 60 stam gem doesn't seem that hot (whole drop in a bucket thing) while getting your dodge a couple percents higher could do your squishiness some good.

So yeah, stam or agi/stam for gems in my opinion. Mastery is still inferior to those. It's not bad, it's just itemization not spent as well as it should.

For reforging though, unless you badly need hit/exp to solve threat issues, dodge should be your best secondary stats. While inferior to equal amounts of agility, you can't reforge into agility (or stam) so it's the next best thing. Mastery here would be good too, but not everyone agrees on the topic since it's harder to incorporate into simulators (being a proc, relying on the boss' attack speed, etc).

Hope that helps a bit.
There's a Bear guide on these forums but it's a bit too general for my liking. The sticky on the official forums looks pretty solid so you might wanna give it a look.

Also, I agree with the above poster on enchants for cloak and gloves, but also boots and eventually get the better version of the chest stam enchant or the stats one depending what you prefer.

[Fojos]

They think you're too squishy and they ask you to gem stamina, what?

Red: Agility.
Blue: Agility + Stamina if the bonus is agility.
Yellow: Agility + dodge in two slots.

Dodge > Mastery > Expertise/Crit > Hit > Haste while reforging

http://theincbear.com/

[Andaja]

First of all, who are your healers? Looked at your guild armory and found two trees and one hpriest. I really hope thats not your setup. And if it is, tell whos on what duty, thou i doubt that the tank healing resto is stacking mastery in any way... And overall, they didnt looked that geared at all, all blues or so, so if they are less skilled i can see that you are squichy topic comin to play.

As for your chara, as people said, put atleast 225 armors on cloak, reforge hit, haste, exp to dodge rather then crit. Also, are you sure your meta is active? It requires two yellows right, you have one (unless they change requirements yersterday).

So all in all, make sure those healers are healing properly and not noobing out... is that hpriest even using lightwell at all?

[Artaius]

We def. are not too squishy, it's your healers in that case.
Sejta only gems full stam because he is tanking late game bosses obviously, and is probably just the soak tank.
Mitigation > All for regulars.
And a mix for heroics is pref'd.
What I do as far as gems/reforging:
Red - Agi/Stam
Yellow - Mastery/Stam
Blue - Stam
This gives reliable health with some mitigation.
Reforge to Mastery if there is none on the piece, dodge if there is, as I prefer mastery over dodge (more consistent damage mitigation vs. a chance to mitigate)
So I follow: Mastery > Dodge > Crit = Expertise > Hit > Haste

Also, if you have the gold to dump, I suggest dropping engineering and picking up a blue/epic (boe) helm, and grabbing say...jewelcrafting?

[Blacknite]

If they call you squishy you dont need more stam, you need avoidance.

Red socket, pure agi
Blue Socket, agi/stam
Yellow, dodge/agi or dodge/stam

Agi enchants where you can.

Reforge the least favored stat on EVERY piece to dodge.

Shouldn't be stacking stam unless you're tanking the cutting edge heroic material....and even then probably not.

[sp2danny]

Stamina only becomes important in hard modes. Agi all the way in normals.
There is a BC chant thats BiS for bears, Glove Reinforcements, gives 240 armor.

Here are the stat weights for normals

agility 43
base armor 36
dodge rating 33
stamina 24
mastery rating 16
expertise rating 15
strength 12
bonus armor 11
crit rating 10
hit rating 9
attack power 6
haste rating 2

This assumes you don't have a threat problem, you shouldn't really.
From this we take home:
Reforge to dodge on EVERY piece
Don't take gear with haste
Don't take tanking jewelry, unless it have dodge rating and bonus armor
Best red stat agi, best yellow dodge, best blue stam (delicate,polished,shifting)

Hope it helps

[Incite]

Like many have already said, but merits repeating: If your healers think you are taking too much damage, adding more stamina will do NOTHING to reduce that. At best, it will just LOOK like you are taking less damage as each hit takes a relatively smaller chunk of your total health pool. It may be that that's what they meant and in that case, it's not game breaking to over stack stamina at this tier of raiding. I've seen tank of all sorts of stat builds clear the regular raid content, so while we may disagree over what's "best", it won't stop you from killing any bosses.

That being said, in terms of mitigation for druids, agility is king. Agility gives you dodge, increases the size of your Savage Defense bubbles by increasing your attack power, and increase the uptime of Savage Defense by increasing your crit chance. Agility is so much better that blue jewelery and cloaks with agility typically offer more mitigation than epic items with strength, dodge, and mastery.

As for secondary stats, there are spreadsheets that will tell you what is best based on your current gear, but in general reforge any haste, hit, and expertise to dodge, and if an item is crit/mastery (which is ideal) reforge the greater of the two stats to dodge. If they are equal, reforge crit to dodge. Some have suggested mastery over dodge, which is more than viable. If you really want to min/max, run your character through a spreadsheet of some sort as stat weights are completely gear dependent with the diminishing returns of dodge and the complex interaction of crit and mastery for Savage Defense in play. DON'T use someone else's stat weights, they change depending on your gear.

[sp2danny]

There is another reason why you may have been squishy, look at this bug:
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...e-mark#post259
(now fixed)

[edanna]

1. Get two stamina trinket
2. Good job Reforge haste/hit/exp to dodge
3. Look at what the guy post look up Sejta from paragon and Ensidia Off Tank
4. You healers are pretty bad is they think that and now we just got buffed like I lost about 10k TPS it looks like but got something like 10-15% more armor reduction

[scaredandbaked]

First of all, who are your healers? Looked at your guild armory and found two trees and one hpriest. I really hope thats not your setup. And if it is, tell whos on what duty, thou i doubt that the tank healing resto is stacking mastery in any way... And overall, they didnt looked that geared at all, all blues or so, so if they are less skilled i can see that you are squichy topic comin to play.

As for your chara, as people said, put atleast 225 armors on cloak, reforge hit, haste, exp to dodge rather then crit. Also, are you sure your meta is active? It requires two yellows right, you have one (unless they change requirements yersterday).

So all in all, make sure those healers are healing properly and not noobing out... is that hpriest even using lightwell at all?

holy Pally, tree, and holy priest

---------- Post added 2011-02-10 at 02:54 PM ----------

thank you all

[Deleted]

Hi ßheta! I have a couple of questions and statements that might improve your druid tanking experience. I haven't fully read the other replies so I appologize if I repeat anything previous posters have said.

Don't be afraid to gem all stamina, if you - in bearform - have over 30% dodge and atleast 17-18 mastery (our softcap is 20) you're fine.

Also, please remove your Glyph of Barkskin since Thick Hide (Rank 3) makes you immune to critical attacks in raids. Please also consider replacing Glyph of Maul since it can be annoying in some encounters to only have Mangle for singel target.

As far as reforging goes, you should always reforge to mastery if a piece lacks mastery, and dodge if a piece has mastery (this ofcourse only applies if you're inder the mastery cap). I checked your armory and was confused that you had reforged away mastery for dodge. Reforge Haste > Hit > Expertise to mastery / dodge.

And your meta isn't active I believe. Put in two Puissant Dream Emeralds in your t11 legs and you're good to go.

[scaredandbaked]

ty, i forgot to look everything over. Ive done so many reforge/gem changes. Things look a little messy lol.

[Jodah]

Unless you are doing bleeding edge content you shouldn't be gemming pure stam. The reason Sejta does is because Paragon is doing HMs without the expected gear. Blizzard balances the content around an expected gear level and Paragon goes before achieving said gear level so their tanks need to be able to take the hits. For everyone else gemming pure stam only makes your healers work harder. Compare your gear to people are similar progression points NOT people far ahead or behind you.

As for reforging Dodge > Mastery > Expertise (before soft cap) > Crit > Expertise (after soft cap) >= Hit > Haste. Reforge the lowest to the highest possible.

[mascaron]

Unless you are doing bleeding edge content you shouldn't be gemming pure stam. The reason Sejta does is because Paragon is doing HMs without the expected gear. Blizzard balances the content around an expected gear level and Paragon goes before achieving said gear level so their tanks need to be able to take the hits. For everyone else gemming pure stam only makes your healers work harder. Compare your gear to people are similar progression points NOT people far ahead or behind you.

oh, so what works when you and your healers are undergeared doesn't work better when you and your healers are better geared? Your logic is infallible good sir

Question: Why hasn't Sejta gemmed differently now that they are no longer below expected gear level (as he's wearing all BiS as are the vast majority of his healers)?

[Deleted]

One thing that has not been said: you should be tanking bosses, not adds.

Our survivability (and to an extent, threat) sucks on adds. Keep the warrior/pally/dk on adds, you on main boss. If it becomes an ego problem to be seen as the "MT" then tell them to choose between optimization and egocentricity.

[Jodah]

oh, so what works when you and your healers are undergeared doesn't work better when you and your healers are better geared? Your logic is infallible good sir

Question: Why hasn't Sejta gemmed differently now that they are no longer below expected gear level (as he's wearing all BiS as are the vast majority of his healers)?

Are your healers as good at mana management as Paragon healers? And yes there is a point where stamina gemming becomes appropriate. 6 normal mode bosses is not that point. As long as you can take two - three hits in a row without dieing, gemming stam over agility is only putting more of a burden on your healers. Being a mana sponge does not make you a good tank.

[Kazlehoff]

One thing that has not been said: you should be tanking bosses, not adds.

Our survivability (and to an extent, threat) sucks on adds. Keep the warrior/pally/dk on adds, you on main boss. If it becomes an ego problem to be seen as the "MT" then tell them to choose between optimization and egocentricity.

THIS.


on Maloriak the raid but me on the adds and our less geared Warrior tank on the boss.... wiped 3 times and i told them "were changing tanks." 2 SOLID phase 2 attempts later we had the boss dead.

afterward i had to explain the finer points of Savage defense to them... and a new group of 9 people agree with us druids that savage defense SUCKS against add packs.


It would be nice if blizz would make our block more similar to the DK block.

[Ozy]

agility > stamina at this tier

Besides the dodge increase, your crit will increase also, this means more savage defense procs/absorbs.