Tanking Pally stats

I just got my pally to 85 and want to try my hand at tanking for a change of pace (insta queues would be nice for a change). From what I've read, it seems like my first priority (other than Stam) is to get Hit to 8%. Then get my block up, along with Dodge and Parry (roughly equal to each other). Elitistjerks offered the equation:

102.4% (ideal cap) = [5% (standard miss) + %Dodge + %Parry] + [%Block]

Seems like they implied that the [5% + %Dodge + %Parry] should approx equal [%Block].

They also recommended forging for Mastery and always away from crit/haste.

Hit/Exp are secondary until you get to the 102.4% cap... (thanks to Vengeance you can miss sometimes).

Am I on the right track? Any additional thoughts/advice is appreciated.

one thing to be aware of is that pally, warrior and dk will no longer get more dodge from agility in 4.2. not that you'd be stacking it anyway, but something to be aware of when you are calculating if you've reached your mitigation cap.

Hit is next to useless; tanks don't need to gear for now (in fact 4.2 pallies will need even less hit than they do now).

You want to get your parry and dodge rating as close to each other as possible. Try to get those near 14% (primarily through reforging useless stuff like crit and haste, you shouldn't really have to gem for it).

For tanks mastery is super sexy right now, you want a shite ton of that so get that.

You will never reach the 102.4 in current levels of gear; it will take firelands to get you there so don't look to that as a goal.

If you take a look at flinte, he is pretty much optimized (I could switch shuffle so dodge to mastery and parry in a couple spots, but otherwise it looks good)

Robin

oh and the reason you want the parry/dodge rating as close to each other is because with one being way higher than the other say 1800 dodge and 1400 parry, you will gain more total avoidance by switching as much of the dodge to the parry as you can (i.e. you get more than the 1:1 trade-off due to diminishing returns)

the one problem I have with a decent amount of geared toons is that I love tanking on flinte (or sugref), but healing on the priest is way more fun. I have to find a way to do both I guess

Ah, diminishing returns... now I understand why dodge/parry rating should be equal.

I'll definately check out Flinte on the Armory/WoWHeroes for comparison. I'm the other side of the toon equation; a little burned out healing 5-mans on Katja, and at this point I really don't need any healing gear (other than shoulders, but we've decided they don't really exist anyway).

Thanks much!

There are a couple places I could shuffle (or use more expensive enchants now that crystals are affordable), just an fyi.

I'm not burnt out on any of my toons, I want to play them all. With our groups healing makeup, a priest fits in better than my pally (an aa/atonement speced disc priest is just silly on halfius, nothing like 60k heals for 2kish mana)

speaking of disc priests, it would be nice if at least one of the priests on my team had a disc spec. there are plenty of occasions when that would be extremely useful.

You wont have to worry about reforging out of crit or haste because tank gear doesnt have those stats... your going to see Mastery, Expertise, Dodge, Parry and Hit. Sugref is right about the hit/expertise thingy being a non factor... sure your gonna miss a few times but i tank on Dustil with less that 2% hit and only 7 expertise...

When your aqquiring gear early on your going to find there a vast number of items with parry on them, and dodge is gonna be hard to come by.... I know the Justice Point shoulders have 202 dodge and shoulod be one of the first peices you pick up with JP. Gem for stam/dodge or mastery/dodge early on to make it to the magic 14%. Youll find that parry is easy to get to 14. A good Heroic trinket that holds its own with the 359 ones is the Porcelain Crab from the last boss in Throne of The Tides... or maybe its the optional boss... (the MC/jump on peoples back guy) Its got 285 dodge and a nice mastery proc. Hope this helps any

speaking of disc priests, it would be nice if at least one of the priests on my team had a disc spec. there are plenty of occasions when that would be extremely useful.

Disc is dead simple to play. It isn't the blanket everyone with shields like it used to, however.

There are some really good guides out there. You can either go heavy on the mastery or a bit heavier on the haste. Which you choose is heavily dependent on your play style. Most of the guides do favor a mastery heavy build (the one on the wow forum is a bit out of date). With mastery heavy build, pw:s will have a higher HPM than gh. There are still a few fights where you can pre-shield (not the entire raid but a few at least) to make things easier.

Get the rapture addon and you can make the best use of your shields (via a mana return).

Siamon has two discs specs, one that enables me to shield the tank more often, and one that enables me to heal heal via doing damage. I'm thinking of dropping the shield one to try to learn holy, but I haven't quite decided (to make the most efficient use of pw:s you won't be shielding the tanks unless you get the rapture proc anyway). I just would need to learn holy...

Go ret imo.....

Take a look over on Maintankadin:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... 93fbcc629e

Their Gear Progression Guide is very well done and give you the basic stat's of what "level" tank you are.

It will also gives you a good idea of the gear you should shoot for.

I personally run with 59% block (so close to 60!) 11.86% Parry and 10.36% Dodge

and with the Mastery Buff Food and Raid Buff's I push well into the 66% Block Range. I think my Total Avoidance is around 87.89% ( last time I checked)

I like to have a good balance of Stam / Mastery - something about a big HP pool makes me happy. But there Heavy Mastery Builds and Heavy Stam Builds.

Just Depends on your play style.

Last edited by Curlystooge on Wed Jun 01, 2011 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The disc priest idea is a good one. Would be good for some heroic modes. Their healing has come up a lot now.