At the moment, Proudmoore is dominating the Sunwell event, as reported by Gorgonnash. Current estimations put us at 7 hours until Phase 3 begins, and then a delay until Smith Hauthaa starts offering the new Heroic Badge rewards.
So, what's available? Let's go shopping...
Greaves of the Righteous Guardian (name subject to change) - To be honest, I don't find these particularly inspiring. They have zero Defense, zero pure avoidance, one socket, and a LOT of spell hit. While the spell hit is marginally useful for threat generation, these boots look to be rigged for AOE tanking - where spell hit isn't so important because a lot of your threat comes from Consecration, which cannot be resisted after the first tick. And in AOE scenarios the mobs are lower level so the spell hit cap is lower anyway.
Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor - Amazing. Decent spellpower, very high stamina, good defense, and amazing avoidance. These pants have "boss tanking" written all over them, and I'll be grabbing these as soon as they're available. The Warrior version Sunguard Legplates are slightly better for pure avoidance, but have Expertise in place of Spellpower. I'm inclined to say the former are still better, but the Expertise bears looking at.
Ring of the Stalwart Protector - High armor, stamina, and a lot of dodge. However, don't be fooled, it's a close match for a Ring of Sundered Souls from SSC. The former has more EH, the latter has more avoidance and crush removal. I'll look at getting this, but the lack of Defense puts me off.
Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate - High stamina, very high spellpower, but wastes itemization in spell hit again. Compare to the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian, and it's fairly obvious - this chestpiece actually has less stamina fully gemmed, and is sorely short on Avoidance. While this would be a decent threat piece, I'd be inclined to skip it. The Warrior version Chestplate of Stoicism suffers from the same problem, and has Block Value in place of Spell Power. I'll pass.
Girdle of the Fearless - A warrior threat-gen item. High Expertise and Hit rating, good stamina, and suffers again from low numbers of sockets. As a result, it can potentially have worse stamina than an Iron-Tusk Girdle, and is worse for avoidance to boot. And for threat, I'd advise a Belt of the Guardian, which also does double-duty for a block value belt.
In summary, there's some very nice options available, but there's also a lot of pieces which either aren't itemized optimally, don't fulfill their apparent purpose too well, or which have cheaper or more easily obtainable options available.
The pants are a gem though.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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6 comments:
I'm definitely getting the Chestplate of Stoicism for my pally tank to replace my Jade-Skull Breastplate.
First off, I'm all over the high defense rating. That will allow me to juggle around some of my other gear and possibly even drop some points in anticipation so I can pick up some other talents I've been eying up.
Second, almost 2% avoidance from the dodge alone. Need I say more?
Third, I'm a block value whore. This piece is one of 4 that have it that a paladin can wear. Two of them, the T5 and T6 chest pieces, I'll never see. The other drops off Nightbane and my guild still hasn't even attempted him and it doesn't look like we will. So I'm really happy this piece is available.
Note that the armor value listed by Wowhead is supposedly wrong. The value is actually "1765" instead of "1668".
I'm looking forward to picking up some of this gear :)
I'm in a pickle atm. I took armoursmithing and just upgraded the chest piece to it's 2nd phase using purchsed Primal nethers. I'm now thinking that it is not worth it for a tankadin... I am reluctant to drop it after all the coin and sweat I put in to make it. Is it worth the cost to put it in the bank and get another chest piece? Help please Zen! do your magic number crunching thing /beg :)
Get another chest piece. My Warrior (who I've talked about) is an Armorsmith and has the Bulwark of Ancient Kings, but there's no way I'd tank with it. While it DOES have high stamina and high armor, it's not a tanking piece - it's a DPS piece.
It's a lot more useful for tanking for a Warrior anyway, since their threat benefits quite a lot from the DPS stats on it. For us, it's no good.
As a matter of fact, I used to have Blacksmithing until I saw what was waiting for me and dropped it for Engineering. Best profession decision I ever made.
I'm also tanking with the Jade-Skull atm, along with the Timewarden's Leggings so I have a bit of a dilemma. I've accumulated about 130 badges and can't decide what to go for. I had my eye on the new Stoicism chest as it seems to be better than the Stoic Guardian chest for boss tanking. Maybe not a much better and I doubt I'd get it if I already had the Stoic Guardian chest, but given that I have neither I was inclined to jump right in with the 100 badge one.
Alternatively, I could get the new Inscribed legs that look so nice. I'm planning to keep collecting badges so I should be able to get the legs and one chest piece eventually.
So what do think? If you were in my position, what would you go for?
The problem with the Chestplate of Stoicism is it has less Stamina than the Stoic Guardian. With epic gems, it's at 93 stamina versus 105 stamina for the Stoic Guardian.
In exchange for that penalty, you get a bit of extra armor, 1.24% extra pure avoidance, 39 block value, but miss out on 35 spell damage. While I'm a bit of an avoidance freak and would love the extra avoidance, I'm inclined to say that the Stoic Guardian is a better choice for first chest piece. However, a Stoicism will be on the menu for me to grab eventually.
As for yourself, I'd look at what you are raiding and take the decision from there. If you're dropping Nightbane regularly, get the legs. If you're not, get the chest.
They both represent large upgrades to you, but you don't want to badge upgrade the slot you might drop upgrade soon.
I'm picking up Chestplate of Stoicism as a replacement to the Kara chest for my block set. Since my guild stopped running T5 contents, my odd of getting T5 is non-existing.
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