Shammy DPS for Heroics

[schlange]

My tank is now just about 485 on defense. So he is almost ready to try heroics. I still need more health and armor on him however.

My 4 shammy are still all elemental and have about 600 average +dmg. I was thinking of making one of them Resto speced as my tank has such low health and armor still. Is +600 healing and +600 dmg enough on the shammy team for doing heroics or do I need to spend more weeeks in BGs to get some better gear still?

Is there any BG or Arena gear that the Pally Tank should get? He has the S2 weapon already.

[Schwarz]

I would think you would be fine. Might as well try some out. I can guarantee you can get the first boss in Heroic SP no problem. I was around the same boat when I started doing heroics. Often you will have more problems with the trash than the boss it self. Go try it out that is the only way to know. Good luck.

[Biz]

My dps is undergeared and the first two bosses in SP and Ramps go down fine. I have a mage at like 605, moonkin with 650, and a hunter with only 1200ap. I can only imagine it being easier with shaman. If your heals can keep up with the damage you shouldn't have a problem.

[puppychow]

your avoidance is probably not high enough to remove crushing blows. trash is really going to hurt imo. some things I'd highly recommend:

- grind some gold out first, just do dailies and mining and whatever else.

- get a furies deck put together. you just missed the fair unfortunately, so 3+ weeks for next one.

- there is a BOE epic paladin belt (Belt of the Guardian) that should run you around 1000g. Its a nice belt, no badges need be spent.



The big problem is you are going to want stuff like the T4 helm/gloves/chest, and a ton of badges, and its hard getting badges as a mediocore geared pally tank. What I did was get my holy PVP gear (s2, bits of s3), respec holy, and run karazhan for a few weeks as holy - its fairly easy to get into power badge groups who are just looking for a healer. There isn't really any prot gear you can get PVPing, except weapon, so not much of a waste (and having a holy set is useful, its better than prot for instance boosting lowbies). Picked up a ton of prot gear from kara, and badges, and T4 helm/gloves. Then finally respec'd back to prot, this time with a ton of epic gear.

[Stabface]

your avoidance is probably not high enough to remove crushing blows

Ah man my personal pet peeve... sorry to unload on you here but :

THERE ARE NO CRUSHING BLOWS IN HEROICS

The -only- possible way you can be crushed in a heroic is if you are <L70 or your defense is <350.

[Coltimar]

your avoidance is probably not high enough to remove crushing blows

Ah man my personal pet peeve... sorry to unload on you here but :

THERE ARE NO CRUSHING BLOWS IN HEROICS

The -only- possible way you can be crushed in a heroic is if you are <L70 or your defense is <350.

hehe, yeah get me too

However, filling in 'the gap' most pallys who try to gear up for heroics encounter isn't so bad. Get the avoidance macro from our wiki or get the tankadin mod. You need 102.4% total avoidance (as a goal). Get as close to that as you can. The Belt of the Guardian is pro, but 1000g you don't have to spend. You can get the belt from the Arcatraz key quest. It is as good as anything you can get outside 25 mans. If you don't believe me, get the BotG and this belt and try for yourself. There is another post on these forums where I lay out some easy to get gear to get you ready to tank Kara or heroics. If I find it again I'll post the link.

[-silencer-]

My tank is now just about 485 on defense. So he is almost ready to try heroics. I still need more health and armor on him however.

Go to netherstorm and get Dabiri's Enigma through the quest chain. Trinket with +26 defense rating, much better than the Charm for use:+dodge you've got equipped. The rest of your gear is very similar to mine, you just need to work fully gemming out and enchanting your gear.
Here's the main things I see you're missing:
- Gem your gear.. +defense, +stamina..
- Enchant your gear.. cloak, +defense on bracers, +stamina on boots/shield, heavy knothide armor for +stam to gloves, +100/150 hp on chest, helm glyph (whatever you have rep for..), clefthoof leg armor for +stam/agi.
- Dabiri's Enigma trinket.
- If you don't have them yet, go back to netherstorm for the Nexus-Guard's Pauldrons.. I prefer them over the warchief's mantle, but they're very similar and will save you from needing to gem your mantle. Block rating & block value instead of parry is a decent plus, and +agility instead of strength also helps. You lose the two gem slots, so if you're not using them, the nexus shoulders are easily better.
- CE/LC/KoT Rep to revered will help out.. there's some decent rep loot available that are improvements to what you already have for damage mitigation.

The main goal now should be damage mitigation. 490 defense will make you uncritable, but 102.4% mitigation only applies to crushing blows if a mob is lvl 73. However, you still want a lot of mitigation to push more regular hits off the table. Also, remember positioning. Enemies attacking from behind you get to ignore your dodge, parry, and block mitigation, which means that opens up the amount of hits that aren't blocked/dodged/parried significantly...

Your spell damage is fine, mitigation could use some improvement, and then all you need is stamina. As for talents, you're very heavy into damage mitigation, but have you considered improved seal of crusader instead of improved judgement? That's another +2-3% crit from your shammy spells - very helpful in boss fights. I tend to feel improved judgement is better for ret pallies who need the dps boost of raining as many judgements as possible. I believe there's a breakdown of One-handed Weapon Spec vs Reckoning somewhere on the tankadin site or wowwiki.. I'd rather have Reckoning most of the time.

[Stabface]

hehe, yeah get me too

However, filling in 'the gap' most pallys who try to gear up for heroics encounter isn't so bad. Get the avoidance macro from our wiki or get the tankadin mod. You need 102.4% total avoidance (as a goal). Get as close to that as you can. The Belt of the Guardian is pro, but 1000g you don't have to spend. You can get the belt from the Arcatraz key quest. It is as good as anything you can get outside 25 mans. If you don't believe me, get the BotG and this belt and try for yourself. There is another post on these forums where I lay out some easy to get gear to get you ready to tank Kara or heroics. If I find it again I'll post the link.

/facepalm

Do you know what the 102.4% avoidance number is for? It's to push crushing blows off the hit table.

What you definitely want for Heroics is crit immunity which comes from having 490 defense. Beyond that yes Avoidance is good, but you don't need 102.4% avoidance for Heroics. As a matter of fact it's probably a bad thing to have it because you'll have to sacrifice a lot of HP to get there and risk getting gibbed before your healer can land a heal. And, a Paladin tank will tend to run mana-starved if his avoidance is too high - it's better to gear for higher Stamina to give yourself the buffer to absorb the hits, instead of risking your Holy Shield being down and eating a couple 4-5k hits when you only have 11-12k HP.

Check out the Maintankadin forums, they have some very good posts and guides on gearing for Heroics vs Raids.