Feral Tank gearing for Firelands, Gem question.

[JoshuaNLG]

After reading through the Bear guide on both MMO & EJ, i've come to a deciding factor, that i'm stumped as to what gems i should be placing in my gear.

I've been taking hybrid gems fully, to keep a good balance of stamina & dodge/agility to increase my threat and survivability at the same time, however i've recently joined a guild (who seem to be lovely players) and are requesting for me to tank (off-tank i think) firelands for them, as-well as tanking BoT, BWD & such i assume.

Now for BWD, BoT & ToTFW, i feel my gear and gems are ok and suit the instances fine, however for firelands i'm unaware on whether my gems are right, if i should be re-gemming pure stamina in some slots, what enchants are over-all better for the encounters, etc.

Here is a link to my armory:
eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/dunemaul/Konah/advanced

I'm having quite a bit of difficulty deciding between enchants overall, i've been using askmrrobot as a guideline to help me gear, but some parts of it are rather confusing, for example it tells me to enchant my weapon with Windwalker, but to my knowledge, i understand the +130 agility is BiS enchant for bear tanks?

Overall i feel i would be able to perform exceptionally well in the raids, as i'm a dedicated and persistant player, i just want to make sure that i go into a raid prepared for what's coming, and gemmed and enchanted appropriately, i've been doing fine how i am now, but FL is a new tier, so i want to make sure things still hold the same.

(Yes i know i need to upgrade most my gear)


p.s.

1 Deaths to elevator boss (Blackwing Descent)

6 hours ago

...Numlock is a bitch.


Edit: A quick trinket question as well while i'm posting this actually, to save creating multiple threads
I'm currently sitting on Unsolvable riddle, fluid death, unheeded warning & Bedrock talisman, what would be the 2 ideal trinkets to try and keep equipped most of the time? I find myself constantly switching them out because i think ones better, but i can't notice much of a difference.

[Deleted]

If I was raiding as a Feral Tank, I would choose the following as my gems;

Meta Socket: +81 Stamina and 2% Increased Armor Value from Items. (Austere Shadowspirit Diamond)
Red Sockets: +40 Agility (Delicate Inferno Ruby)
Yellow Sockets: +20 Agility and +20 Mastery Rating (Adept Ember Topaz)
Blue Sockets: +60 Stamina (Solid Ocean Sapphire)

However, this is my personal preference and I have 0% experience in Feral Tanking.

[JoshuaNLG]

Well, it's a start and definetly more to go on than what i had.
Thank you! :-)

Loving the simon/yogscast avatar by the way!

[Aurlon]

Red = 40 Agility

If agility socket bonus:

Yellow = 20 Agility/20 Mastery
Blue = 20 Agility/30 Stamina

Something like that.

[bigbuddt]

I Off-tank for our Fireland occasionally.

I use something similar to the post above but use polished instead of of adept for yellow slots and shifting demoneye instead of solid for my blue slots.
I use 1 stam trinket with a mitigation CD and 1 with agility trinket. Hope that helps.

[rated]

If I was raiding as a Feral Tank, I would choose the following as my gems;

Meta Socket: +81 Stamina and 2% Increased Armor Value from Items. (Austere Shadowspirit Diamond)
Red Sockets: +40 Agility (Delicate Inferno Ruby)
Yellow Sockets: +20 Agility and +20 Mastery Rating (Adept Ember Topaz)
Blue Sockets: +60 Stamina (Solid Ocean Sapphire)

However, this is my personal preference and I have 0% experience in Feral Tanking.

You had me until you recommended a stam gem otherwise your other suggestions are good.

You may want to use http://www.wowhead.com/spell=73361 instead of adept ember topaz

Solid ocean sapphire needs to be thrown in a black hole along with the darkmoon tanking trinket and bedrock tailsman.

Edit: A quick trinket question as well while i'm posting this actually, to save creating multiple threads
I'm currently sitting on Unsolvable riddle, fluid death, unheeded warning & Bedrock talisman, what would be the 2 ideal trinkets to try and keep equipped most of the time? I find myself constantly switching them out because i think ones better, but i can't notice much of a difference.

Read my above commment for what to do with your bedrock tailsman.

Otherwise I'd recommend using fluid death + tias grace for most encounters. Keep 2 stam trinkets in bag for when you need bigger health pool and go get a mirror of broken images ASAP.

[tyggyr]

Your current gemming is probably good for what you're headed into.

Other observations: Bedrock talisman wasn't worth the VP it originally cost, and probably still isn't worth the JP it costs now, especially for a bear ... If you have Tia's Grace (reforge to dodge of course) or Essence of the Cyclone I'd go with one of those, or even the Porcelain Crab. Fluid Death which you already have is outstanding.

Pick up Moonwell Phial from the new dailies (Filling the Moonwell) when you can for when you want to swap trinkets for a stam boost.

[Cowbino]

Let me ask a question.

If you reforged the hit on Fuild Death to dodge, why would you gem mastery over dodge?

I think you gem slection is already good.

Now, stamina for tanks in this expansion is really like spirit for healers. You need some, but after a value it won't do you much good. I would aim for 180k raid buffed and after that focus on avoidance/mitigation.

For the 2 trinkets FD and some stamina trinket.

Edit: 180k HP for all FL. For T11 regular, after nerf I guess you can even have 160k HP raid buffed and it will be more than enough.

[Deleted]

windwalker is bis imo and as far as gems go, if your tanking firelands gem for stam unless its a good gem bonus . Aim for 200k hp buffed in firelands normal as there is a lot of fire dmg.
my armory. look up Arborescence on Tarren mill eu.

[Merendel]

I only use pure stam gem's as a temp placeholder as they are dirt cheep. HP is high enough as it is to not need to gem for it specificly. In most cases your better off going strait agility or Agi/mastery if you have good bonuses or need to maintain meta requirements.

[PickletheHutt]

Bear gemming, enchanting and reforging is really easy.

Unless you are pushing hard mode content while undergeared you should do the following:

1.) Meta - stam+2% armor
2.) Use two agility+dodge gems in the spots that get your two best socket bonuses
3.) Pure agility in everything else unless the socket bonus is AT LEAST 10 agility for each non-red gem.
4.) If you use yellow you will use agi/dodge if you use blue you will use agi/stam.
5.) Reforging: Reforge the least desirable stat to dodge on EVERY SINGLE PIECE. By far the worst stat for bear is haste, so always reforge that. After that you should reforge hit and if necessary reforge expertise or crit. Do not reforge mastery unless it is the only stat (see pvp gear). Mastery is by far the best secondary stat for bear.
6.) Your priority for everything (Including enchants) is AGILITY. It is a magical do-it-all stat for bear.

As for gear, bears scale very well with agility and armor and not so well with secondary stats. That means the best gear is often pvp. In fact, the best bear gear for firelands is wearing 4 piece ilvl 384 pvp for the set bonus UNTIL you can get 4 piece T12. YES, 4 piece 384 pvp is better than using regular 378 pieces until you get the 4 pc bonus. Reforge the non resilience stat to dodge and you're all set.

I recommend running BGs for a few days and buying the 371 pvp gear for the 4 set bonus (as a plus, you can get head and shoulders this way instead of needing tier tokens). Try to suffer through arena each week to cap conquest and buy the 384 pvp shoulders and head first.

Ignore all the people that don't know bears when they shout "pvp is for pvp, go get pve gear" and surprise them with being the best tank in your guild.

[Deleted]

I only use pure stam gem's as a temp placeholder as they are dirt cheep. HP is high enough as it is to not need to gem for it specificly. In most cases your better off going strait agility or Agi/mastery if you have good bonuses or need to maintain meta requirements.

look up how most tank druids are picking there gems, i tried going for gems to increase avoidance but it wont help you if your getting killed by fire dmg and there is a lot of it in firelands, avoidance was the way to go in t11 content but not for firelands. and inb4 "ooh if your dieing to fire then your healers suck" we dont mitigate magic very well so stam helps a lot.

[bigbuddt]

windwalker is bis imo and as far as gems go, if your tanking firelands gem for stam unless its a good gem bonus . Aim for 200k hp buffed in firelands normal as there is a lot of fire dmg.
my armory. look up Arborescence on Tarren mill eu.

Really Windwalk? I been using the agility one for ages. If that's true I have an windwalk enchant on my alt that I'm dying to find some use for, if anyone can confirm this that would be great.

[Deleted]

Really Windwalker? I been using the agility one for ages. If that's true I have an windwalker enchant on my alt that I'm dying to find some use for, if anyone can confirm this that would be great.

yeah i didnt think it was any good either, but i tried it in 2nights run to help on rag and it was insane how good it was, dodgeing more of those melee swings is a god send.

[uzumati]

Really Windwalk? I been using the agility one for ages. If that's true I have an windwalk enchant on my alt that I'm dying to find some use for, if anyone can confirm this that would be great.

Its really a coin flip windwalk can proc back to back and give a good avoidance boost but overall from watching logs it only has about 30% uptime over the course of a fight. I had Windwalk for a while and have gone back to 130 agi.

[Christan]

I Off-tank for our Fireland occasionally.

I use something similar to the post above but use polished instead of of adept for yellow slots and shifting demoneye instead of solid for my blue slots.
I use 1 stam trinket with a mitigation CD and 1 with agility trinket. Hope that helps.

get TB trinket, it is still amazing, aly cleaves / shannox last phase(or accidental(i call it stacking vengeance) stepping on an immo trap-just at the beginning
and only do that if you TRUST your healers lol...

but your gear is fine man, you really should get into some bwd / bot / even al'akir runs to try and get your 4p

but me,
agi red
agi dodge yellow
and agi stam blue

ofc if socket bonus is haste or something abysmal just ignore it and go agi or agistam, if you really feel you need the stam
but tb trink reforged to dodge is SEXY
also fire blades for baelroc, and last phase / tanking spark on ryolith, fire cleave blade on majordomo, etc... TB resist trinket is still a good tanking trinket
symbiotic worm is better than the firelands trash stam trinket imho.

but overall you are on the right track

notes:
imo take 2 out of endless carnage, less pulverize duration, means you use lacerate more, and with glyph 5% more crit, more chances to proc SD
you can get 3 lacerates and a couple of mangles / mauls before it runs out untalented

put them in KOTJ, amazing to start fights with since enrage does not increase damage taken anymore, and you will not have vengeance stacked.

also get rid of faerie fire and get glyph of rebirth, even when tanking a quick taunt / bres can save ya from a wipe, and many fights are dual tank scenario's
if a bres is called because someone elses is on cd, and they get popped with 20% hp...in firelands most fights they will die right after lol.
situational, but more useful than faerie fire which id take for heroics(dungeons)

[Vaelyn]

Let me ask a question.

If you reforged the hit on Fuild Death to dodge, why would you gem mastery over dodge?

I think you gem slection is already good.

Now, stamina for tanks in this expansion is really like spirit for healers. You need some, but after a value it won't do you much good. I would aim for 180k raid buffed and after that focus on avoidance/mitigation.

For the 2 trinkets FD and some stamina trinket.

Edit: 180k HP for all FL. For T11 regular, after nerf I guess you can even have 160k HP raid buffed and it will be more than enough.

Balance. The only thing that you want more than anything else and should stack as a priority over everything is Agi. You want a healthy balance of Stm, Dodge, and Mastery as they all contribute to your overall mitigation. You don't want to prioritize Crit, Hit, Exp and Haste, but with how they interact with Mastery, even they're beneficial. General rule of thumb is to go Agi first, with Mastery next, but throw in Armor, Dodge, Mastery, and Stm where you get the most bang for your buck

[Tharkkun]

Windwalker is the preferred enchant once you hit T11 heroic and beyond. But you can't go wrong with the straight agility and for those of us that do kitty and bear I'd stick with the 130 agi unless you're lucky enough to pick up 2 weapons.

Also T12 content hits like a truck. Gemming straight avoidance can be deadly so make sure you meet the stamina requirements to allow a buffer for your healers.

[Siri]

imo take 2 out of endless carnage, less pulverize duration, means you use lacerate more, and with glyph 5% more crit, more chances to proc SD
you can get 3 lacerates and a couple of mangles / mauls before it runs out untalented

Don't do this, this a bad suggestion

[exochaft]

Its really a coin flip windwalk can proc back to back and give a good avoidance boost but overall from watching logs it only has about 30% uptime over the course of a fight. I had Windwalk for a while and have gone back to 130 agi.

Highly depends on the fight. If you're nonstop tanking, you can have uptimes greater than 50%, if you you're OTing and have downtime you can see the proc go sub-30%. Back in T11 content, if I was MTing a fight, I'd have between 35-50% uptime depending on the boss according to my WoL's.

Beyond just the pure avoidance the enchant provides, the movement speed proc can be very handy on certain fights. Again, you are at the mercy of the RNG gods, but more often than not you can be sure you will be a zoom-zoom bear (because sometimes you don't want to waste Stampeding Roar for only yourself).

To be clear, I'm not saying Windwalking > 130 agi, I'm saying they both have their places. I personally keep two weapons: one with 130 agi and the other with Windwalking.

*edit* - Oops, forgot the whole gemming thing. Well, I still have the whole EH vs TTL in my signature, while the references are outdated, the point remains the same. Many of the fights in FL change exactly which stats you want, so if you're stuck with just one set of tanking gear and limited options, hybridizing your gemming between EH and TTL is the safe way to go. Sure, there's many fights where there's just melee smacking you in the face, but as a previous poster stated, there's a TON of magic damage and bleeds/DoTs that tanks have to deal with. There is no perfect solution since it heavily depends upon your own ability, your healers, the specific fight, and a myriad of other factors. In all honesty, you could go into FL on normal mode w/o gems, I was able to tank through FL on an alt with mostly ZA/ZG gear (w/o enchants, too) and never worry about dying.