Tailoring as a tank? (Monk)

[Tarazet]

Greetings,

I'm working on a Brewmaster. I spent today leveling Skinning 1-600 for the +480 Crit bonus, which I know is pretty decent for leather tanks, and to pair with my main's LW so I don't have to spend so much gold on leather in the next patch. For the second profession, I want to do one of the production professions. Tailoring appeals to me because I can easily farm the mats myself, and our server is heavy on cloth casters that I could sell 5.4 gear to, but I've been looking around for information on the profession perk - Swordguard Embroidery - and the details seem to be kind of scarce.

The downside to SE is obviously that it is an Attack Power proc instead of an Agility proc, like Engineering, so you don't get additional Crit or Dodge from it. But if the proc rate and uptime is decent, then I can still see it being useful since the AP increase would stack with Vengeance. It's an "old-fashioned" enchant that still might have relevance in MoP that no one thinks about. Anyone have Tailoring as a tank who can chime in and comment on what they've experienced? Is it the same as Cata where it was a roughly 25% uptime?

[Deleted]

Greetings,

I'm working on a Brewmaster. I spent today leveling Skinning 1-600 for the +480 Crit bonus, which I know is pretty decent for leather tanks, and to pair with my main's LW so I don't have to spend so much gold on leather in the next patch. For the second profession, I want to do one of the production professions. Tailoring appeals to me because I can easily farm the mats myself, and our server is heavy on cloth casters that I could sell 5.4 gear to, but I've been looking around for information on the profession perk - Swordguard Embroidery - and the details seem to be kind of scarce.

The downside to SE is obviously that it is an Attack Power proc instead of an Agility proc, like Engineering, so you don't get additional Crit or Dodge from it. But if the proc rate and uptime is decent, then I can still see it being useful since the AP increase would stack with Vengeance. It's an "old-fashioned" enchant that still might have relevance in MoP that no one thinks about. Anyone have Tailoring as a tank who can chime in and comment on what they've experienced? Is it the same as Cata where it was a roughly 25% uptime?

Skinning/Tailoring is awful as a tank, go JC/BS. Pretty much EOD. They will always be the best raiding profs.

[Deleted]

Skinning/Tailoring is awful as a tank, go JC/BS. Pretty much EOD. They will always be the best raiding profs.

Skinning is just fine for monk tanks, as 480 crit is decent.

Tailoring is prob not the best, I would go with Eng/JC/BS

[Tarazet]

Can anyone answer the specific question about Swordguard Embroidery? I know enough about the game that "X is bad/Y is good" isn't useful.

[Deleted]

Can anyone answer the specific question about Swordguard Embroidery? I know enough about the game that "X is bad/Y is good" isn't useful.

It's pointless.

[Tarazet]

It's pointless.

Why exactly? Do you know the current proc rate?

Engineering provides 1920 Agility with a 10 second duration and 60 sec cooldown, so 16.67% uptime which = an average of 320 Agi, which ~= 640 AP + 152 Crit rating + 241 Dodge rating.

According to this article about Retribution professions, if the proc rate is the same as Cata, then Swordguard Embroidery = a 4000 AP, 15 second buff with a 55 sec. ICD, so it will proc approx. every 60 seconds for 25% uptime and an average of 1000 AP. That's assuming the ICD is the same as it was in Cataclysm.

Also, both of the previous posters mentioned JC, which is probably one of the worst professions for a Monk due to the Serpent's Eyes only providing +320 secondary stat. That forces you to gem Agility to get the maximum benefit. I agree BS is pretty awesome with +640 Crit but I'm just trying to run the math on Swordguard Embroidery since all of the sites seem to dismiss it, but it looks potentially good to me. However probably better for Strength tanks since they don't desire Crit..

[Deleted]

Why exactly? Do you know the current proc rate?

Engineering provides 1920 Agility with a 10 second duration and 60 sec cooldown, so 16.67% uptime which = an average of 320 Agi, which ~= 640 AP + 152 Crit rating + 241 Dodge rating.

According to this article about Retribution professions, if the proc rate is the same as Cata, then Swordguard Embroidery = a 4000 AP, 15 second buff with a 55 sec. ICD, so it will proc approx. every 60 seconds for 25% uptime and an average of 1000 AP. That's assuming the ICD is the same as it was in Cataclysm.

Also, both of the previous posters mentioned JC, which is probably one of the worst professions for a Monk due to the Serpent's Eyes only providing +320 secondary stat. That forces you to gem Agility to get the maximum benefit. I agree BS is pretty awesome with +640 Crit but I'm just trying to run the math on Swordguard Embroidery since all of the sites seem to dismiss it, but it looks potentially good to me. However probably better for Strength tanks since they don't desire Crit..

If you're truly trying to min max, don't go for Swordguard.

[Deleted]

Why exactly? Do you know the current proc rate?

Engineering provides 1920 Agility with a 10 second duration and 60 sec cooldown, so 16.67% uptime which = an average of 320 Agi, which ~= 640 AP + 152 Crit rating + 241 Dodge rating.

According to this article about Retribution professions, if the proc rate is the same as Cata, then Swordguard Embroidery = a 4000 AP, 15 second buff with a 55 sec. ICD, so it will proc approx. every 60 seconds for 25% uptime and an average of 1000 AP. That's assuming the ICD is the same as it was in Cataclysm.

Also, both of the previous posters mentioned JC, which is probably one of the worst professions for a Monk due to the Serpent's Eyes only providing +320 secondary stat. That forces you to gem Agility to get the maximum benefit. I agree BS is pretty awesome with +640 Crit but I'm just trying to run the math on Swordguard Embroidery since all of the sites seem to dismiss it, but it looks potentially good to me. However probably better for Strength tanks since they don't desire Crit..

No the ICD does not begin until the proc effect wears off so it will only be active 15secs every 80 or so.

Let me get one thing straight though - you do NOT need AP as a tank. Vengeance will give you enough of that. Crit and dodge are 1000x better

[kain1614]

If you're truly trying to min max, don't go for Swordguard.

This here: Drop LW for BS for the Higher crit bonus. JC is good for the AGI bonus. AGI is crit, AP, dodge, which scales all of your abilities. So for Min-maxing it will provide the highest "Gear score" type of increase as it's points in all of the categories.

Just my opinion on that part.

If you're not min-maxing: Darkglow 1000 AP average doesn't appeal to me. In a raid environment where you have 40K AP or more, 10% isn't going to make a big difference. For Guard it only adds 7884 to physcial or 8672.4 for magical(assuming glyphed). For Expel Harm it adds 7862 or so (if my math is correct, I'll put string I used below from Wowhead).

[7 * (1 * (0.4 * 1 * (Mainhand Min DPS + 0 * (Mainhand Min DPS /2)) + (Attack power / 11) - 1))]

Note on string (I assumed min DPS was 15K for 2handed, non DW).

[Nairobi]

JC shouldn't be recommended to any tank (or anyone who favors secondaries) due to its poor interaction with secondary stats. It's literally the worst "production" profession for tanks this expansion, since none of the tanks use primary stats for ideal gemming.

That said, Swordguard isn't great, but the issues are 1) the proc is AP not Agi/Str, so you get no secondary benefits, 2) an AP proc, even with moderate uptime, is still a drop in the ocean at raid V levels, and 3) it's random (not static or controlled), which is never ideal as a tank.

BS/Engi #1 for this expansion. LW is not bad either, but since you're not looking for that advice, I won't dive in there.

[Tarazet]

No the ICD does not begin until the proc effect wears off so it will only be active 15secs every 80 or so.

That's the information I was looking for. Thanks!

- - - Updated - - -

I remembered I had my Mage with capped tailoring, so I enchanted her caster sword with Swordguard and put her on a dummy with a stopwatch watching the proc rates. 1.94 attack speed, so I'd see a little better with a dual-wielder and a little worse with a 2H.

1. 1:12.8
2. 58.7
3. 59.3
4. 59.6
5. 1:22.7
6. 1:05.9
7. 1:03.5
8. 1:22.4
9. 1:18.4
10. 1:05.9
11. 1:26.6
12. 1:00.5

So it seems the ICD starts as soon as the effect lands, not after it expires, and it can proc again in as little as 58 seconds. So it's still not optimal, but I can take it without feeling like I wasted my gold.

[Soraka]

AP is pretty worthless as a stat for a tank. It really only ups your dps slightly and does very little for survivability. 1000 AP is nothing compared to the 100-200k AP that tanks have from vengeance.

[Adrodd]

I leveled a tank to farm cloth on, but that's really the extent of it's usefulness.