Tank like a girl

Maybe you’ve come here to look at pre-heroic tanking gear, so why not get some links to pimp up the gear you’ll be going into raids and heroics with? I was going to look at enhancements next, but others already did the work, so here’s some gems I’ve been able to find.

• Anglachel over at The Meatshield Diaries has written a two part guide to enchantments for tanks
• Durnic at Orlyfactor has looked at gems for tanks in WotLK
• Bizzam at Tank Hard is also looking at tanking gems and enchants
  
• Rochelle at Tank Hard is looking at the glyph changes coming with 3.0.8

Thanks to those bloggers for some excellent guides.

As I keep mentioning, I also play a resto shaman. She hit 77 today, huzzah. I don’t want to spam my blog with a lot of shaman info, after all this is a tanking blog. However, a lot of people sounded interested in my resto shaman gear list similar to my pre-heroics prot warrior list. Here it is.

The only gear listed are mail drops or rewards, but don’t be shy when it comes to wearing cloth or leather if no one else is rolling. For those of you who care, enjoy. It’s my first attempt at a Google Spreadsheet, and I find it quite handy.

After my two previous posts looking at reputation rewards and craftable tanking gear, I have now looked at instance drops and quest rewards, compared all of them, and came up with my personal shopping list which I’ll use to gear up for heroics and entry-raiding. All items on the list are either available through reputation, questing or normal level instances. I am not including BoP craftables like engineering goggles or jewelcrafting trinkets.

A priority on the gear is defense. Once you hit the magic cap of 540, it will get easier to focus on gear that is more balanced than pure defense gear. This also means that in my top 3 per slot a higher def piece might be better until you hit the cap. For heroics you will need a defense of 535, for raid bosses you will need 540 defense.

On we go! As always, comments are very welcome.

 
Head:

• Tempered Titansteel Helm - Crafted by blacksmiths. Very basic stats, but big numbers when it comes to armor, stamina, defense.
• Helm of the Ley Guardian - Cache of Eregos in The Oculus. Excellent piece, with high armor, very high def, a red socket and hit rating for extra threat. Best blue helm outside of heroics for sure.
• The Crusader’s Resolution - reward from The Crusader’s Pinnacle in Icecrown. Very solid piece, but no socket.

Pet peeve number one. Why are all the helmet models the same? Lazy, Blizzard, lazy.

 
Neck:

• Titanium Earthguard Chain - Crafted by Jewelcrafters. Great stats and a socket, and the mats don’t seem too insane.
• Amulet of Deflected Blows - Skadi the Ruthless in Utgarde Pinnacle.
• Reinforced Titanium Neckguard - Icecrown quest reward for The Admiral Revealed

 
Back:

• Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - Honored with Wyrmrest Accord. Extremely nice cloak, and Honored is not that lofty a goal.
• Flowing Cloak of Command - Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme. Holy moly, that’s a lot of armor. Pretty nice.
• Screeching Cape - Erekem in The Violet Hold. You can get this cloak early if you’re lucky, not a bad way to go.

 
Shoulders:

• Crusader’s Square Pauldrons - BoE Trash drop in The Culling of Stratholme. Check the AH, you might get lucky and score these shoulders which are quite excellent.
• Pauldrons of Reconnaissance - quest reward for Halls of Stone. Run an instance, score this excellent reward, nice deal. And it’s not even a level 80 instance.
• Tempered Saronite Shoulders - Crafted by Blacksmiths. Hooray, non-spiky shoulders. Another lazy model issue, pet peeve number 2. These shoulders don’t have much to offer other than good chunks of basic tank stats, but they are so easy to get.

 
Chest:

• Breastplate of the Solemn Council - Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Hands down the best pre-heroic chest, very sweet deal. Buy your tabard now and be ready to burn through Wyrmrest Accord rep.
• Reanimated Armor - Gortok Palehoof in Utgarde Pinnacle. Also not bad at all. How about grinding rep in the Pinnacle? Would work for me.
• Silver-Plated Battlechest - Quest reward for Junk in my trunk in Utgarde Pinnacle. Another argument for Pinnacle as place to be for chestpieces. Grab the quest reward or the drop until you have rep, if you’re into that.

 
Wrist:

• Svala’s Bloodied Shackles - Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle. Okay, I get it, we spend a lot of time in that place. Great bracers.
• Bracers of Reverence - Quest reward for A Wing and a Prayer in The Oculus.
• Tempered Saronite Bracers - Crafted by Blacksmiths. The cheap way for a lot of defense.

 
Hands:

• Fireproven Gauntlets - Exalted with Kirin Tor. Just about the only possible thing rep with them gains us, so that’d be the last rep for me to grind. But very sweet gloves, no doubt.
• Daunting Handguards - Crafted by Blacksmiths. Massive amounts of defense, no kidding.
• Gauntlets of Vigilance - Quest reward for The Reckoning in Storm Peaks. Color me flabbergasted, tank gear with agility on. It’s like blast from the past.

 
Waist:

• Girdle of Obscuring - Mage-Lord Urom in The Oculus
• Tempered Saronite Belt - Crafted by Blacksmiths. There are few belt options, so it won’t hurt to go with the crafted one. It’s pretty nice.

 
Legs:

• Special Issue Legplates - Honored with Argent Crusade. Sockets make my heart sing, there are so few of them these days. Great legs.
• Daunting Legplates - Crafted by Blacksmiths. If you’re really out to get tons of defense.
• Void Sentry Legplates - Zuramat the Obliterator in The Violet Hold. Another piece with one socket, and that’s why it’s listed, because it makes gear more versatile.

 
Feet:

• Tempered Titansteel Treads - Crafted by Blacksmiths
• Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Clearly you’re grinding that rep first anyway, right? Pick it up with the chestpiece, win.
• Slaughterhouse Sabatons or Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - Meathook in The Culling of Stratholme or Honored with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. These boots are absolutely identical, they just look slightly different.
• Tempered Saronite Boots - Crafted by Blacksmiths. When you can get nothing else, the Tempered set will tide you over.

 
Rings:

• Titanium Earthguard Ring - Crafted by Jewelcrafters
• Dragonflight Great-Ring - Cache of Eregos in The Oculus
• Gal’darah’s Signet - Gal’darah in Gundrak
• Solid Platinum Band - Quest reward for For Posterity in Gundrak
• Staunch Signet - Quest reward for The Struggle Persists in The Oculus

 
Trinkets:

• Seal of the Pantheon - Loken in Halls of Lightning. Welcome to the only defense trinket pre-heroic and Naxxramas. Heed the words of Veneretio over at Tankingtips.com and keep your old defense trinkets. If you’re strapped to hit the def cap, you might need them.
• Sonic Booster - Crafted by Engineers. Massive massive amounts of stamina and a great threat proc. If you don’t need defense, definitely worth a look. If you are an engineer, that is. If you read the fine-print, you need 390 engineering to use it. Boo, fine print. Thanks for catching this, Daraxxus.

 
Main Hand:

• Eternally Folded Blade - Volkhan in Halls of Lightning. The strongest tanking weapon of that item level.
• Crescent of Brooding Fury or Hammer of Quiet Mourning - Quest reward from Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper in Zul’Drak. If you’re an orc, get the axe, and dwarves and humans should get the mace. Everyone else can just get what they like best.
• Blade of the Empty Void - Quest reward from Tirion’s Gambit in Icecrown.

 
Shield:

• Titansteel Shield Wall - Crafted by Blacksmiths. Save your pocket money for this shiny shield!
• Leeka’s Shield - Mal’ganis in The Culling of Stratholme
• Riot Shield - Xevozz in The Violet Hold
• Saronite Bulwark - Crafted by Blacksmiths

 
Ranged Weapon:

• Armor Plated Combat Shotgun - Crafted by Engineers. Nummy. Engineers will make some cash with these statsticks.
• Weighted Throwing Axe - quest chain in the Storm Peaks. Not the fastest thrown weapon, but still probably not bad on trash pulls.

And that’s it, the big shopping list. Hope some of you can use it. I have a gear plan, and I am gonna use it.

One of my readers recently said that it’ll be interesting to see how the blacksmithing plans compare to faction rewards. Or to tanking gear in general, I say! This is part 2 of my WotLK pre-raid and pre-heroics gear guides. Part 3 will look at gear from normal level 80 instances and the last part will be me looking, comparing and posting a gear guide similar to my old pre-Kara guide. Please note that Tankspot already has extensive gear guides out there. Me, I just love planning ahead. I always loved the gear planning, so I am having a lot of fun with this.

But today, crafted gear! I am looking at three professions in particular to see what they can do for us: blacksmithing, engineering and jewelcrafting. I am especially curious about blacksmithing, to see if it’s less disappointing than in TBC. I am currently at blacksmithing 400 myself, just got the ability to socket my gloves and bracers, and the state of blacksmithing finds me pretty happy so far!

Head:

• Tempered Saronite Helm
• Tempered Titansteel Helm
• Armored Titanium Goggles

What can I say, engineers win the head-piece game again. The goggles are very nice and offer a meta socket plus expertise. Are they good enough to be an engineer just for the goggles? I don’t think so. In the long term blacksmithing just offers more at the moment. But they are fine goggles. The Tempered Saronite gear is insteresting as you get most of this while still in your mid-70s. This provides a great headstart in the defense game.

Neck:

• Titanium Earthguard Chain

That’s a pretty lovely necklace that jewelcrafters can make if they have purchased the design from Tiffany Cartier. I don’t know about the mats yet, I have no idea if Frozen Orbs will be excessively expensive on servers, but the mats don’t seem that bad at all.

Shoulders:

• Tempered Saronite Shoulders

As with all the Tempered Saronite pieces, I really only have one complaint: that there had been room in the item budget for anything else than defense.

Chest:

• Tempered Saronite Breastplate

Wrist:

• Tempered Saronite Bracers

Gloves:

• Daunting Handguards
• Tempered Saronite Gauntlets

Waist:

• Tempered Saronite Belt

Legs:

• Daunting Legplates
• Tempered Saronite Legplates

Boots:

• Tempered Titansteel Treads
• Tempered Saronite Boots

Rings:

• Titanium Earthguard Ring
• Ring of Earthen Might

More Jewelcrafting goodness. The blue ring is probably a lot better for druid tanks, but might serve in a pinch. The steep def cap might necessitate the need for def on both rings though. The epic ring is most certainly very nice.

Trinkets:

• Ruby Hare
• Figurine - Monarch Crab
• Sonic Booster

A bunny is the stamina trinket this go-around, which makes me giggle like a girl. Oh wait, I am one. It’s a lot of stamina, but the on-use effect makes me blink a bit. I guess you could use it for extra mobility. The sockets are nice of course. All in all not that strong for a profession BoP.

Edit: Aha! Thanks to Veneretio I found that there’s a second trinket that’s more tanking oriented. It definitely makes more sense than the bunny. Love the crab.

Second edit: The biggest stamina trinket out there is BoE and made by engineers. 81 stamina is a lot, and the proc sounds very interesting. That would be a solid bunch of threat, on fights where health > avoidance. Very nice! Thanks for the tip, Krushchev!
Shield:

• Titansteel Shield Wall
• Saronite Bulwark

My favorite blacksmithing addition so far has been the ability to make shields. And not only shields per se, but shields that kick ass stat-wise. Nummy!

Ranged Weapon:

• Armor Plated Combat Shotgun

This nice gun will make engineers rich, despite us getting Heroic Throw. The stats are too good on this baby.

Summary:

The ideal tank in my world is an engineer who has close friends that do blacksmithing and jewelcrafting. You can supply all mats for all the great BoE gear that the other two professions can make, and still enjoy your OP goggles until you start raiding. However, blacksmiths got really boosted, and the ability to socket gear is really sweet. The crafted gear will be quickly replaced once you get into heroics and raids, but they will see you ready to tackle those without endless instance runs waiting for specific drops.

I am confused though that there are no specific BoP pieces for weapon- and armorsmiths, did they ditch this? Also, why can we not make at least one tanking weapon? Puzzling.

See also:

• Faction rewards for prot warriors

Welcome to my 100th blog post! As always, thanks for reading, and for this great occasion, I’ve done some extra legwork.

WotLK has brought us many factions, offering rewards. I’ll try to take a look at rewards to help me decide what reputation to grind first, and hopefully that’ll help you readers too. I can’t really make any weighted decision yet as I don’t know what else is available per crafting and drops yet, so take this as what it is: an overview of faction rewards.

Update:

Horde Expedition/Alliance Vanguard:

I neglected to post the rewards in my first version, so here we go, added!

The faction reputation has a bit of a twist to it. You have four different factions per side, and every quest you do for one of the four factions scores you half the rep towards Horde Expedition or Alliance Vanguard. You poison some stuff for the Hand of Vengeance for 250 rep, and your reputation with the Horde Expedition rises by 125. Interesting mechanism.

Anyway, what does that all gain us as tank?

Bulwark of the Warchief / Shield of the Lion-hearted

Same stats, different name, and a lazy model alliance-side. Horde clearly wins again. For this shield you need to be Revered, which should be easily attainable just from questing. I really like the expertise of the shield.

Argent Crusade:

The Argent Crusade has its quartermaster at the Argent Vanguard in Icecrown. Once you’re friendly with them, you can pick up their tabard to start the reputation grind via championing in level 80 instances.

• Special Issue Legplates - Available at Honored. Very solid piece with boatloads of def and hit. Reaching the new defcap of 540 won’t be quite that easy, so this will help.
• Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - Available at Revered. This is going to be the head enchant of choice to get us capped, methinks.

And that’s it, so our target goal for Argent Crusade is a minimum of Revered.

Frenzyheart Tribe vs The Oracles:

This is WotLK’s version of Aldor and Scryers, on a smaller scale, I guess. Both factions live in Sholazar Basin, either you side with the wolvar or the gorlocs. If you go with cuddly widdle wolvar, Frenzyheart rewards is what you’re looking for.

• Giant-Sized Gauntlets - available at Revered. Dodge and hit, so avoidance and threat stats, but no defense. Still, not a bad choice.
• Stolen Vrykul Harpoon - available at Revered. While we get Heroic Throw at 80, it’ll still have a cooldown, and besides we need nice stats to fill that slot for us anyway. This thrown weapon seems to be catering to rogues primarily, but I also wouldn’t say no to it.

What do the toothy gorlocs of the Oracles have to offer, in comparison?

Absolutely nothing. None of the faction rewards does anything for protection warriors.

The Kalu’ak:

Our roly-poly Tuskarr friends are mostly known for their fishing pole of OP-ness and their penguin pet, but do they also have tanky goodness?

• Ivory-Reinforced Chestguard - available at Honored. This is available at level 76, so this might give you a jumpstart when it comes to the def-race. Not bad at all, and very easy to get.

Kirin Tor:

Does this faction of mages have anything to offer for us? Their quartermaster is Archmage Alvareaux in Dalaran.

• Fireproven Gauntlets - Pretty nice stuff. Worth the grind to Exalted? I can’t tell you for sure yet.

And that’s it, so don’t expect too much from guys in purple dresses.

Knights of the Ebon Blade:

Renegade death knights with a hold in Icecrown sounds a bit more promising than guys in purple dresses, so let’s see.

• Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - available at Honored. Promising start, very nice boots, I dig. (Update: not sure why I made a booboo here and typed shoulders. It’s because I have this weird thing about shoulders. Thanks Adraxis and Pyroshen for pointing me towards it!)

However, that’s all that’s notable for me as protection warrior, which is a bit of a let-down.

The Sons of Hodir:

Based in Stormpeaks, this faction of giants looks like it’s going to be everyone’s ticket to shoulder enchants.

• Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle - available at Honored. This is the same shoulder enchant you were able to buy at Exalted from the Aldor, so not a bad start.
• Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - available at Exalted.

Again, that’s it, aside from two mammoth mounts. I want a mammoth.

Wyrmrest Accord:

• Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - available at Honored. Very ironic name, fancy cloak to wear when you smack things with your shield.
• Breastplate of the Solemn Council - available at Revered. That’s what I am talking about.
• Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - available at Revered. Again, great stats, tons of defense, pushing us to the cap.

And that’s it for the neutral factions. I personally will go for Wyrmrest Accord first, followed by Argent Crusade and chasing it with Sons of Hodir.

See also:

• Crafting for fun and profit

As I mentioned in my last post, I was very surprised to see that the new itemization also affects all former tankadin badge gear, offering us even more options to blow badges before Nov 13. I reckon I am not the only person in the world who was not aware of that change, so here I am, boldly looking at badge gear I never looked at before.

Chest:

Previously, there was only one plate chest for warriors purchasable with badges: Chestplate of Stoicism. This is one of the SSO badge items, costing 100 badges.

Its two contenders that previously were not itemized for us:

• Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian for 75 badges
• Shattrath Protectorate’s Breastplate for 100 badges

Let’s assume you are currently wearing Panzar’Thar Breastplate or below. The cheapest badge chest is surprisingly powerful, but with its chunk of dodge, it’s an avoidance chest. Of the three available chestpieces, I personally would still go with Chestplate of Stoicism because it has dodge for avoidance and SBV. I wuv SBV, and I personally value it higher than the hit rating on the former tankadin 100 badge chest. Which also is very nice, no doubt about it, a very solid threat piece.

Feet:

• Sabatons of the Righteous Defender for 60 badges
• Blue Greaves of the Righteous Guardian for 75 badges

More gear with pompous names for us! We went from 0 badge boots to two very solid pieces of gear. I can’t praise the 60 badges boots enough, they were a very pleasant surprise. In these days where we’re pressed to remain def-capped, it’s nice to have defense and very nice threat values plus two sockets available in that slot. The 75 badges ones are a bit disappointing compared. You lose 18 defense, 7 SBV and a blue socket, but gain 108 armor, 14 strength, 13 stamina and 4 hit. Basically, it’s a zero gain when it comes to SBV and stamina, and I am not sure the 108 armor and 4 hit are worth an extra 15 badges.

Hands: Nothing to see here, no extra gear in that slot aside from the already available Bonefist Gauntlets.

Head: Also nothing new here.

Legs:

Previously, we had Unwavering Legguards for 60 badges and Sunguard Legplates for 100 badges.

New on the scene: Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor

That’s a helluva lot of dodge on those legs, making them a fantastic avoidance piece. However, in two weeks we’ll start leveling, and dodge will do little for us. The Sunguard Legplates are more well-rounded because they have expertise as threat stat on them, aside from the dodge. Me, I remained with the Unwavering Legguards, because of the nice chunk of SBV.

Shoulders: Aw, come on, Blizzard, why did you never make tanking shoulders available via badges?

Waist:

We previously had two belts available: Iron-Tusk Girdle for 60 badges and Girdle of the Fearless for 75 badges.

As new option: Girdle of the Protector for 60 badges. Much like the Sunguard Legplates, this belt is well rounded, in both dodge and hit, with a widdle bit of defense. I would still always go with the Girdle of the Fearless. More defense, and the very attractive expertise make that one still a winner.

Wrist: Nothing. But why would we need anything but Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx anyway?

As summary, we get a couple more interesting gear options. Variety is never bad. Most previous warrior gear still comes out on top. Your mileage may vary.

Opinions? Share them.

My biggest fear when looking at patch 3.0 is that it would make protection warriors unable to tank successfully until we get our greedy hands on shiny new gear that follows the new itemization for protection warriors: lots of strength, lots of stamina. As example, in my tanking gear I currently have a whopping 600 AP.

My worries are alleviated now, as I caught a hint of a thread over at Tankspot. I hopped over to the WotLK version of Wowhead and started looking at the gear that I am currently sporting and lo and behold, most pieces had some heavy re-itemization going on. The stats as they were remain unchanged, but just about every piece of armor had strength added to it. All in all, I will see a total gain of 166 strength in my current gear, without losing any stamina. Warbringer Greathelm is losing its agility completely, but has more strength than currently to show for it. As far as shields go, Dawnforged Defender remains unchanged, but Shield of Impenetrable Darkness gains 22 strength.

This is fantastic news for me. Not just for me, for all of us prot warriors! It means that we will be able to rock the tanking, with all the buffs that we are receiving, with our old epics. Hey, bring on patch 3.0, I should be able to tank dragonhawks more easily then.

On Sunday I acquired the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve. As I am Exalted with the Aldor, I was dubious about this necklace which on paper looks great as a threat piece. Would it stand the test in an environment where I want to build threat as fast as possible?

First off, I had to swap gear around. I usually use Shapeshifter’s Signet for the expertise in my threat set, but I needed to swap in a defense ring to be able to still be defense-capped while wearing the necklace. Not ideal.

The test environment was a Heroic Botanica run. I ran with two mages, a feral druid and a paladin. We used little CC (one sheep on all 3+ pulls, two sheep on the one 5-pull in the instance, druid as OT on the satyr pulls at Thorngrim). The run was pretty much flawless with zero wipes and the only deaths were when a Gene-Splicer ran loose long enough to cast Death&Decay on all ranged people. Hooray for battle rez.

Incidentally, said pull was where I threw the towel regarding the necklace. When you dread the sound of a proc, you know the item’s not right for you. Basically whenever I got a proc in the early stages of a pull, I would end up too rage-starved to easily multi-tank mobs. I did not even have the rage to Thunderclap. Mid-instance, I went back to wearing the Barbed Choker of Discipline plus the Shapeshifter’s Signet, and things improved threat-wise. I also did not really notice any big jumps in TPS output even when the necklace didn’t proc, so it was all rather disappointing.

I think I will pick up Shattered Sun Pendant of Might next and will give it a spin. It should work out a bit better, but I will miss the stamina. Strangely enough, I find the Aldor proc superior to the Scryers proc on this piece. Go figure. Why not try balancing the procs so both factions would be fine?

Been busy busy, with nothing really. Based on our raid schedule, it would have been time for ZA, but as posted before, that fell through. Instead, it was time for Karazhan, for gearing more people. On first day Karazhan, we had a protection warrior and my partner’s druid as tanks. A lucky bear is now owner of the very shiny Moroes’ Lucky Pocket Watch, which incidentally was also my very first tanking drop in Karazhan. I was there with my rogue alt, and had a good time poking sharp swords at things. Things I learned were that Curator really sucks ass as rogue. I shall dub my troll rogue Angel of Death, because that’s what it felt like chasing after flares and bringing more damage to everyone in its path.

As amusing anecdote, I proudly proclaimed we would get R&J in Opera, and that I needed Romulo’s Poison Vial, and incidentally, this is exactly what we got and what dropped. I am a very loot-lucky person!

On Sunday, I was MT with my partner being OT again. In the process, she got gear off almost every single boss, including the squicky yet tasty Hentai Staff. Nightbane sucked as usual and took us three tries to kill him. I wonder if other tanks have a nemesis like that. I am literally so terrified of effin’ up on Nightbane that I make really idiotic mistakes. Every landing I end up using Thunderclap too early and I get heartstopping moments of him heading towards a healer before changing his mind in the last second. I don’t know if that’s because of Misdirect or me having a latency of 1200 ms yesterday. Maybe the effect of TC came through very late? I do not know, but Nightbane always manages to successfully use Demoralizing Shout on me in RL. The shadowpriest with the ancient Omen version getting aggro didn’t help with raising my mood.

We had one unlucky wipe on Netherspite, as people kept dying, but the second try was flawless. Same with Prince. Some miscommunication about what direction the raid should run to for avoiding an Infernal and sucky placement. Second try was fast and flawless again. We only had two healers, which can get tight in phase 2, but I was really boggling because I noticed no spikes whatsoever. I didn’t even have to use Last Stand because my health just didn’t seem to budge all that much. And just as I was marveling about the beauty of the healing and praising the healers on Vent, phase 2 was over already.

Afterwards I uploaded WWS as usual and got all happy and excited. Yes, I am just that girly. This number of just one crushing blow is pretty huge for me. Because he’s dual-wielding in phase 2, you can get very unlucky with Shield Block charges getting eaten up, leaving you open for the dreaded crushing blows that can cause very sudden damage spikes. As comparison, when I first tanked Prince, as scrub with little to no badge gear, I ate 20 crushes during our firstkill of him.

Yay for my DotH girls, as this was our fastest ever Prince kill with the highest DPS output we ever had on him, 4502.

On to Gruul next Saturday, I am pretty excited already. We have 16 sign-ups from my guild, two friends who will come for sure, and the seven open slots we will likely fill with *gasp* boys from our partner guild, Straw Hat Pirates. Let’s see if I can remain almost uncrushable on Gruul. Haha, who am I kidding? More like let’s see how long I can survive Growths before he makes mash of me.

After the raid ended, I randomly decided to do dailies on Isle of Quel’Danas and managed to hit Exalted with SSO. I went ahead and bought Dawnforged Defender and Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve, but the latter leaves me unconvinced. The problem is that I am Exalted with Aldor, and the Aldor proc kinda goes against the itemization design of such a threat necklace. Dodge, huh? I am going to give it a shot, but if I end up being rage-starved, I’ll finally save up badges for Brooch of Deftness as threat necklace. I am currently saving up for Ring of the Stalwart Protector, only seven badges to go. I always meant to buy the brooch as I had all other badge gear, and then 2.4 happened.

Now someone find me a list of badge picking order for rogues, much like Veneretio’s awesome list, okay?

The past couple days, the idea of a gear set article wandered through my head. It was originally sparked by an exchange I had online when I, the tanking bully that I am, talked a fellow prot warrior into taking the Boots of Elusion, which she didn’t want as she has Battlescar Boots. For me, the Boots of Elusion are the best possible avoidance boots you could get at that gear-level, so I wasn’t quite sure why she’d not be eager to snatch them up, until it occurred to me that they only make sense if you have different gear sets.

As protection warrior, it makes great sense to build several gear sets. You will want your solo DPS gear for sure, this is usually the same kind of gear you would use as dual-wielding fury type. As for tanking gear sets, what kinds of sets you need, all depend on what stuff you’re tanking. Me, I only do 10-mans and heroics these days, so I have two sets of tanking gear: threat gear and avoidance gear. The two sets are not hugely different, but it’s a bunch of choice pieces that I keep swapping out. Even though it’s just a couple of pieces, they make a world of difference tanking-wise and it’s noticeable to both DPS and healers when I switch gear sets.

Let’s look at a couple of current pieces of gear that are different in the sets I personally use:

Head: Warbringer Greathelm vs Eternium Greathelm

The first piece has shield block value along with defense, so this is my threat piece. Shield Block Value directly affects Shield Slam, so it’s a lovely threat value. The Eternium Greathelm on the other side I have gemmed for stamina. It has the stamina edge by one measly point of stamina, but it also has a lot more defense, ergo avoidance. This is why I use it in all physical boss fights, above my threat piece.

Main Hand: King’s Defender vs The Sun Eater. Basic differences between the two: KD has armor, higher DPS, +hit. TSE has dodge. KD creates superior threat, TSE is all about avoidance. I am currently waiting for Executioner to drop to enchant KD with it, and TSE will continue to have Mongoose.

Belt: Girdle of the Fearless vs Iron-Tusk Girdle. The former has more defense, more armor, more expertise, more hit and more stamina. The latter has dodge. Threat piece vs avoidance piece.

Trinket examples: Shard of Contempt + Darkmoon Card: Vengeance vs Moroes’ Lucky Pocket Watch + Commendation of Kael’thas. The first two pieces are awesome for threat. I hate H MgT, but that DPS trinket is da bomb. It procs on pulling, e.g. Definitely worth it. My avoidance trinkets on the other hand offer dodge, a life-saving proc and a stamina boost.

The pattern should be obvious by now. Stay carefully above your defense cap in your threat set, but go for stats that allow you a higher TPS output. Stats you will be looking for are block value, parry, hit and expertise. For bosses, look for gear with high dodge, stamina, armor. Now, I mentioned three ways to gear. Threat, avoidance, effective health. I obviously have chosen to create a strange avoidance-survival mix set, but it works for me.

I wear my threat set just about always these days. Heroics, Karazhan up to Prince and Nightbane. I can consistently keep my TPS above 1k in heroics, which makes me happy, and it makes DPS happy. Not having to hold back is a nice thing. In heroic UB I recently did a really sloppy pull in that damn hallway leading to the third boss, and we had three fen rays and three wasps on us. I lost aggro on one of the wasps once, and other than that, just comfortably tanked away. If I didn’t have threat gear, things might look differently.

A downside is of course the need for huge bags. I never have a lot of bagspace, because I lug around my DPS gear and the second tank set. Trust me, guys, it’s worth it. You might also wonder how easy it is to acquire different tanking sets. A mix already drops in Karazhan, and all the badge gear that was added with 2.4 is very heavy on threat stats. Same with tanking gear that comes from ZA. If I ever see any, oh cruel world!

Of course, the same day I actually cook up my own thoughts on different gear sets, the master himself posted about the fundamentals of gearing, a more professional and qualified version of my diatribe. Don’t miss out on it!