PvP Gear on a Bear Tank?

[Cruciform]

Facts remain that ruthless gear outweighs most pre FL gear. What are the main stats of a bear tank, you should ask yourself.
Stam armor agi dodge & mastery*.... well ruthless has more of all(*mastery being exception, usually)of those things..... and as far as threat goes.... it doesn't.

Threat is practically no longer a stat, being how hard it is to LOSE threat. So what secondary stats, other than mastery, will you really be noting a distinct difference without?

[Kael]

Facts remain that ruthless gear outweighs most pre FL gear. What are the main stats of a bear tank, you should ask yourself.

While the gist of this is correct, there's one problem -- and it's the base issue that's being debated throughout this thread. Individual pieces of pvp gear should be compared to the AVAILABLE pve gear in each situation. At the same tier (378 vs. 384) pve almost universally wins out, but there may be exceptions. To get an accurate picture of whether or not a piece of pvp gear is an upgrade, you should learn to model your bear on a spreadsheet, input proper boss melee values, and look at your stat weights from there. Don't forget to weight each piece headed to 2p as +35 agility, and if you're approaching the 4p season gear, +40 agility for all four pieces. It may, or may not win out in various situations.

In case there's any question left, you can pretty conclusively say the 384 pvp is better than, say, 346 gear. As an aside -- if you're not dying easily and ever hit cat form for your fights, pvp gear is vastly devalued because of the stat loss that's somewhat less important for bears.

Edit: it's worth noting you should often compare 2 pvp pieces to 2 pve pieces, as you should be looking at your set bonus losses from there. And since I'm talking about the total thread, I'd like to reiterate that rings and trinkets really, really have to try harder to keep up because they don't have armor to scale.

[Auroro]

The increase on armor agi and stam is much more important than any even significant loss of dodge and mastery towards resilence. Basically if it's higher ilvl - it's better is a good feral tank gearing strategy. Yup, pvp can be awesome for tanking.

I see few people raising threat points up there. Let's not be ridiculous, any tank with at least one neuron still dimming up there can pick up adds before they aggro on the healer, that's not a dps stat matter, it's a skill matter. In long term threat generation (not that it's not useless these days) agi is the best stat anyway and that comes with ilvl.

Ok, all those "threat" Stats effected survival.

Hit/Exp/Crit effect how many time SD pop up.

Agility can help increase how big SD can get but if you keep missing then you are a little more spiky.

PVP can be better than PVE when it is one tier higher.

Let take a look using VP vs CP.

Ruthless Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes vs Obsidian Arborweave Raiment

Ruthless Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes
Season 10 Elite
Binds when picked up
Chest Leather
1869 Armor
+391 Agility
+646 Stamina
+40 Agility (Red socket)
+40 Agility (Yellow socket)
Socket Bonus: +20 Resilience Rating
Durability 165 / 165
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 384
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 247 (1.38% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 287 (3.63% @ L85).

VS

Obsidian Arborweave Raiment
Binds when picked up
Chest Leather
1820 Armor
+368 Agility
+611 Stamina
+40 Agility (Red socket)
+40 Agility (Red socket)
Socket Bonus: +20 Agility
Durability 165 / 165
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 275 (1.53% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 221 (7.36 @ L85).

Ok, now let put them against Askmr.Robot default stats weight for FL with the reforging as well.

Agility: 1
Dodge: 0.88
Armor: 0.71
Mastery: 0.48
Stamina: 0.31
Expertise: 0.3
Crit: 0.28
Physical Hit: 0.15
Strength: 0.126
Attack Power: 0.12
Haste: 0.04
Resilience: 0

Gear Score:

PVP: 471+(646(0.31))+(149(0.28))+(98(0.88))+(287(0))=799.22

PVE: 468+(611(0.31))+(110(0.28))+(110(0.88))+(221(0.3))=851.31

Different between: 52.09, 6.12% better than PVP.

If you want to count the 2p or 4p set bonus as well.

PVP 2p: 541+(646(0.31))+(149(0.28))+(98(0.88))+(687(0))=869.22

PVP 4p: 631+(646(0.31))+(149(0.28))+(98(0.88))+(687(0))=959.22

The PVE 2p or 4p set bonus does not give stats but they increase damages or survival, so I do not know how much Gear Score 2p will gain, but 4p I can find out.

If 110 dodge = 0.45%, then 10% should be around 2444 dodge. That Dodge % is not effected by DR.

PVE 4p: 468+(611(0.31))+(110(0.28))+(2554(0.88))+(221(0.3))=3002.03

PVE just left PVP at the starting gate with 2042.81 Gear Score ahead, 68.05% better.

[Deleted]

And not having enough valour isn't really a viable excuse anymore. I'm almost done filling out my kitty offset at this point.

You can't buy a four set with valour points.

[Raugnaut]

I would like to add that Expertise is equivelent to Crit, thus making the optimal Bear piece either Mastery/Crit or Mastery/expertise, as I saw earlier that your bear is saying that expertise/hit is bad. Its not, and both can be considered a mitigation stat given that all leather pieces will have a combination of Mastery, Crit, Expertise, Hit, and Haste.

For the PvP vs PvE thing, extremely higher ilvl pvp items win against a lower ilvl pve item due to the increased amount of Agility, a bears best stat, and with 4set, thats an extra 140 agility over say, t11

I personally tank 5-man heroics using 4 pieces of Ruthless glad for the bonus, even though 2 of the pieces are BiS non-heroic for Bear. 15% movement speed really helps in outdoor 5-mans!

[Sarella]

If you are just going to produce subpar dps while tanking, I hear guilds are always after a pally tank.
But seriously, it's all well and good you're going to wear your shiny pvp gear - but you could always try being less bad and getting the pve stuff for moar dps. By using pvp gear you are giving away around 3500-4000 useful stats. So hit cap is gone, expertise cap is nowhere near and that leaves what? 5% crit out the window. Well, you may die less but you just cost yourself 30% damage and got out dps'ed by a warrior tank... yay!

Bears help make enrage timers - be a bear!

[Deleted]

@Auroro

Agi is not only the amount of SD but its proc rate as well via crit.
Like I said it all boils down to higher ilvl = better, no matter the tradeoff in expertise.

No matter how much expertise you loose, the armor is still your strongest stat to avoid damage not to mention stam and agi increase.

Also both the major stats resulting from ilvl increase scale.

[Arielle]

the armor is still your strongest stat to avoid damage

No it's not.

Like I said it all boils down to higher ilvl = better, no matter the tradeoff in expertise.

2-roll combat system says you're wrong, but if you want to continue believing otherwise, that's your choice. I'm not going to allow you to spread misinformation to others.

[Deleted]

PvP gear is not as bad for bear tanks as other tanks/classes. Ideally you want PvE gear but if the overall stat gains outweigh the loss of the secondary stat that is wasted on resi then go for it.
I tend to value gear piece by piece, gains vs. losses which is not hard to do. If I ever use PvP gear then I prefer to use it as a stopgap till I get a better PvE piece for that slot, but overall PvE items are superior.

[tyggyr]

I follow threads like this one with interest, because as a bear aficionado who's also an altaholic slacking casual raider in a solo guild, I don't typically get much in the way of hard mode gear.

Rhyolith's been very reticent to give up a helm for my bear (and it's only recently that pugs on my server have been regularly getting Ragnaros down), and I was sporting Tsanga's Helm (359 for those who don't get mouseovers) with a shifting demoneye, and finally I decided to swap some VP to CP (I don't care for pvp action, so I wuss out this way) and pick up the 384 PvP Ruthless Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm.

The gemmed, enchanted and reforged wowhead gear comparison can be found here.

The advantages each has over the other in this case are:

• Ruthless Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm
  
  80 agi
  23 dodge
  104 stam
  163 armor
• Tsanga's Helm
  
  
  91 mastery
  101 crit

Note that the above stats are computed after gemming and reforging; there is no assumption of a PvP two-piece bonus either.

I think in this case it's a good tradeoff, but the 384 PvP helm should be considered to be a tier above the Tsanga's. Though the Tsanga's was ideally itemized for the bear, the PvP helm is heavy on mastery, so it has a good secondary stat.

[Arielle]

@tyggr It's actually 1.5 tiers above. A 384 PvP will always win against a 359 PvE. Every time.

[Sunfyre]

No it's not.


2-roll combat system says you're wrong, but if you want to continue believing otherwise, that's your choice. I'm not going to allow you to spread misinformation to others.

Since I'm about to dabble on my 2nd Druid as feral once it hits 85, can you go into a bit more specifics besides "You are all wrong"? I know you're a valuable member of this community but your posts on this have been pretty condescending and not very informative.

While I know a ton about balance, I know crap about bears.

That being said, it sounds like once I ding 85, farming honor for pvp gear will be my best bet for tanking initially as it will outshine any 5 man gear until 4.3. Once I have a 371 set and I begin farming valor points, generally the FL gear I start accumulating will outshine.

If this is correct, please let me know and educate me. I'd much prefer an in depth answer to "no. Wrong."

Thanks.

[tyggyr]

can you go into a bit more specifics besides "You are all wrong"? I know you're a valuable member of this community but your posts on this have been pretty condescending and not very informative

In his defense, I have to say Katarn's gone over this same topic many, many times, and I'm sure it gets tiresome having to continually defend the same points.

Search for his postings; chances are more than a number of his recent entries will answer your question.

[Bombkirby]

I've seen this question before and it came to the conclusion that the highest level of PvP gear is better in general for bears unless you can get your hands on reeeally strong PvE gear. The notion seemed solid and was backed up by many well stated facts. But on the other end of the spectrum there were people claiming PvE gear is better because "resilience is a wasted stat." which wasn't really backed up by any strong arguements other than "Its PvP gear, you can't do PvE in PvP gear!"

[Braindwen]

Since I'm about to dabble on my 2nd Druid as feral once it hits 85, can you go into a bit more specifics besides "You are all wrong"? I know you're a valuable member of this community but your posts on this have been pretty condescending and not very informative.

While I know a ton about balance, I know crap about bears.

That being said, it sounds like once I ding 85, farming honor for pvp gear will be my best bet for tanking initially as it will outshine any 5 man gear until 4.3. Once I have a 371 set and I begin farming valor points, generally the FL gear I start accumulating will outshine.

If this is correct, please let me know and educate me. I'd much prefer an in depth answer to "no. Wrong."

Thanks.

As he's responding an "expertise is worthless" post, I'd say the point is expertise ain't worthless. Specials (aka everything but auto-attack) rolls once to hit and then again to crit, so increasing hit/expertise increases your chance to crit with those abilities. Since our crit is so high, expertise to soft-cap actually outdoes crit for mitigation, making it the second best stat available on gear (3rd for reforging).
As for the pvp gear thing, yeah go for it. 371 pvp is better than pretty much any JP/dungeon gear, outside of maybe (exp/crit)/mastery 359 pve vs. haste pvp. If you can, get some CP too and grab 384s, that'll hold you until Firelands gear, especially the mastery pieces. I believe the 384 mastery neck is very close to the VP neck for example, though rag's neck far out-does it.
The biggest issue with pvp gear is that most pug leaders know nothing about bears, and don't see that the primary stat gain (agi/stam/armor) from higher level pvp gear out-does the secondary stat loss. It's also really depressing to see 1k+ resilience on your gear, sooooo much wasted itemization . Lastly, with only 1 stat on each piece to reforge to dodge, your secondary stats really blow in pvp gear. Gearing up for FL I dipped all the way down to 14 mastery, despite valuing it as my second best stat.

[Nayto]

In the context of the OP, I'd say getting the 2-piece has merits, but if he's still wearing 365 gear, he is clearly slacking. If it was my team, I would sit him and tell him to farm the 371 pieces at minimum.

I don't think anyone disagrees ruthless could replace almost anything you can find outside of firelands /Heroic t11; If I needed to gear a bear tank (from scratch) for firelands raiding, I would start with Conquest/honor gear.

I picked up the 384 PVP Helm and Shoulders to replace my 359's as soon as I could, as they were a clear upgrade for my tank set.

Never rule out PvP gear as potential upgrade, but you need to check YOURfigures.

[Arielle]

Since I'm about to dabble on my 2nd Druid as feral once it hits 85, can you go into a bit more specifics besides "You are all wrong"? I know you're a valuable member of this community but your posts on this have been pretty condescending and not very informative.

The OP's question was legitimate, and it was answered quite well.

The rest of the mouth breathers that came in here with no idea what they're talking about and start saying random things tend to piss me off.

But for your benefit I'll go a bit more in depth.

In TBC PvP gear was largely BiS because it had the most Bonus Armor (a few exceptions), and Resilience was much, much easier to come by in order to get the crit reduction you needed.

In Wrath PvP gear was BiS simply because it had the most Stamina, and the most sockets (which meant more Stamina). That's it.

In Cata PvP gear operates 6 item levels above the the relevant tier. That is while PvE went 346 -> 359 -> 372.....PvP went 352 -> 365. At launch the PvP 4pc was actually BiS at the 346/352 level because the 4pc used to be 180 Agility. That combined with the extra Armor (and to much lesser extent Stamina) made up for the relatively insignificant secondary stat loss. Especially since at the 346 level secondary stats that weren't Dodge or Mastery weren't worth very much.

Pretty early on the 4pc was nerfed, and 346 PvE gear was slightly better than 352, with the exception of the 2pc. The 346 helm and shoulders were pretty terrible, and the 2pc PvP bonus made up for the secondary stat loss to Resil.

However this is no longer the case for any sort of relevant content - defined as current tier normal mode raiding. The sheer amount of secondary stats you lose (plus any applicable Agility socket bonuses) on a BiS PvE piece more than makes up for the (minor) difference in Armor, Agility, and Stamina. The only cases where this isn't true is where you have a Hit / Haste piece because Haste is virtually worthless except for reforging into Dodge, and while Hit is worth more than Haste, it's not enough to counterbalance the Agility / Armor gains.

As for Expertise, it's actually more valuable as a mitigation stat than Crit at the ~378 item level because of the 2 roll combat system for specials (which is why you need to be hit capped as a Moonkin). Someone obviously doesn't understand what a 2-roll combat system is or how it impacts Bear mitigation. That's fine, but you shouldn't go around saying things like "Expertise's only value is for threat" without qualifying that with a "even though I don't know how the combat system in WoW works."

We (Reesi, myself, Tangedyn, and Fasc) have had an absurdly steep hill to climb this expansion to squish misinformation. Largely the fault of EJ being completely and totally wrong for the first 3 months of this expansion. We have extreme dislike for anyone that wants to take us backwards.

[Auroro]

We (Reesi, myself, Tangedyn, and Fasc) have had an absurdly steep hill to climb this expansion to squish misinformation. Largely the fault of EJ being completely and totally wrong for the first 3 months of this expansion. We have extreme dislike for anyone that wants to take us backwards.

What about me?

The only thing I dislike about your info is that you go agility heavy where as I go balance between the two stats. Since that debate is over with Reesi's post on stats builds. You can go whatever on the build.

We both agree that PVP gears is only good for doing FL until you get its' PVE replacement.

I will said that PVP does have place in time but once you hit FL heroic, you better be wearing PVE gears.

[Arielle]

What about me?

Your form your opinion based on actual real facts. That's fine. It's your opinion and you're entitled to it.

There are a lot of people in this thread that don't have a clue what they're talking about. I get mad at them.

[Deleted]

I lol'd at people mentioning threat, if a tank loses threat he is either dead or he charged in with his healing gear.