Fun to watch your team advance

[Hachoo]

Just felt like posting an update. Haven't been doing much with my team the last week or so but I have spent some time getting some new items, spent some emblems, etc, and tonight marked a nice occasion for me. I ran Gundrak, then Drak'Tharon, then Utgarde Keep (All Heroic) with no wipes (and only 1 death on 1 shaman because I was too lazy to heal him just before a boss went down), chain pulling everything. My DK tank now has 28.1k HP unbuffed, 18.7% dodge, 18.1% parry, 25.6k armor, and my shamans are somewhere between 2000 and 2100 spellpower buffed with totem of wrath. I was worried that I wouldn't take down Novos and I didn't want to do him a bunch of times so I told myself I'd try him once. He went down fast and hard, no one fell below 50% life, was a really good feeling. I'm now seriously considering dropping mining on my DK for Blacksmithing (already have JC) just for those 2 extra gem slots to hit 30k hp unbuffed

Anyway, I'm sure others here have progressed faster/further than me in the same amount of time since I don't play too terribly much - anyone else have any "good feeling" experiences to share?

[puppychow]

I haven't had much time to play either but I've cleared heroic VH every day this week with 0 deaths and slightly over 30 mins each run. I wiped non stop for days a few weeks ago in this instance, and really the only thing thats changed is my gear, so yeah gear makes a huge difference! Today I had the Prince ethereal guy and the water girl, my two least favorite ones, but I killed em both without any problems.

last sunday I did Drak as well (it was the daily) and I 1 shotted Novos, had skipped him for 2 weeks since I considered him "too hard". I was quite suprised, with my greater HP and my resto shamans gear it was easy keeping everyone up, didn't have to move at all.

So yeah, I think once you hit a certain threshold of gear all the heroics suddenly flip from "omg i hate this goddamn game and I am quitting" to "wow... that was easy". Either that, or Blizzard slipped in hidden nerfs to heroics

[Shaitan256]

I'm now seriously considering dropping mining on my DK for Blacksmithing (already have JC) just for those 2 extra gem slots to hit 30k hp unbuffed

Wouldn't the leatherworking thing be more advancement? I meanif the stats on thottbot are right, you get + 90 Stam on bracelets(? ok could be that you then mis n enchantment? don't know what amount your missing but I guess that arent 52stam?) instead of 2 extra 24 stam or something. ok maybe you have some other plans with Blacksmithing, but this would be more of a benefit if you just want to push your HP. Just btw. ^^
http://thottbot.com/s57690 Link to the 90 Stam thing


Nice to hear that your advancing a lot Hope I get my stuff soon so I can rock the house too^^

Greetings,
Shaitan

[Niley]

hit 30k hp unbuffed

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).
This reminds me of those people that always ask what is my spell damage.....empty stat unless You consider all the other stats that are involved in Your dps, and tank has more stats to worry about than any healer or dps(stam/dodge/parry/defense/expertise/hit/armor etc). Just like main tank in my guild told me, there is nothing in this game that requires more hp, other then maybe sarth with 3 drakes and we use druid tank there, she has almost all best in slot, and 27k hp unbuffed, my guild cleared everything including glory of the raider achievement.
Now on top of that You're running a team with no healer, so less healing on a tank = lots more dps on the boss.
Just few more pointers :P
Might want to use all 3 jc gems in Your gear, and as i pointed above 41 stam is not always the best choice. 15 expertise to bracers is much better then 6 stam, unless you're expertise capped.
Your meta is considered to be one of the worst around, it will make You take about 30-70 less damage per hit, stam+2% less spell damage taken one is much better.
Last thing is Your spec, fix it, 1/5 rage of rivendare? That's an amazing talents...desecration increases Your dps only by 3%, RoR will give You more, no Bcb? I would just copy my spec, its sort of a cookie cutter spec for unholy Dks, I managed to pull off over 10k tps on 10 man patchwerk with it.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...das&n=Crisethe
And grats on making some nice progress!

and on that note...i kinda stopped boxing, no new challenges, grinding got a bit boring, no point in making gold, each of my toons have over 20k...my priest/mage combo got boring too..=(

[Hachoo]

hit 30k hp unbuffed

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).
This reminds me of those people that always ask what is my spell damage.....empty stat unless You consider all the other stats that are involved in Your dps, and tank has more stats to worry about than any healer or dps(stam/dodge/parry/defense/expertise/hit/armor etc). Just like main tank in my guild told me, there is nothing in this game that requires more hp, other then maybe sarth with 3 drakes and we use druid tank there, she has almost all best in slot, and 27k hp unbuffed, my guild cleared everything including glory of the raider achievement.
Now on top of that You're running a team with no healer, so less healing on a tank = lots more dps on the boss.
Just few more pointers :P
Might want to use all 3 jc gems in Your gear, and as i pointed above 41 stam is not always the best choice. 15 expertise to bracers is much better then 6 stam, unless you're expertise capped.
Your meta is considered to be one of the worst around, it will make You take about 30-70 less damage per hit, stam+2% less spell damage taken one is much better.
Last thing is Your spec, fix it, 1/5 rage of rivendare? That's an amazing talents...desecration increases Your dps only by 3%, RoR will give You more, no Bcb? I would just copy my spec, its sort of a cookie cutter spec for unholy Dks, I managed to pull off over 10k tps on 10 man patchwerk with it.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...das&n=Crisethe
And grats on making some nice progress!

and on that note...i kinda stopped boxing, no new challenges, grinding got a bit boring, no point in making gold, each of my toons have over 20k...my priest/mage combo got boring too..=(

My spec has been broken for awhile. I refuse to respec until 3.0.8 comes out. I need to respec all of my shamans as well. I've had this same spec since I left the DK starting area. Just don't want to rework it until 3.0.8 comes out and everything is final, as I'd hate to respec and then have to respec again a few days later.

I haven't used JC gems yet - I refuse to waste a 300g dragon's eye on a blue piece of gear. Also, I'm waiting on 3.0.8 to waste money on that because it will affect my defense and other stats greatly and I want to see exactly how things change before making any expensive decisions . The point to taking blacksmithing for the extra gem slots and 30k hp unbuffed wasn't really about gemming for stamina. I have a couple epic pieces of gear that I can't wear because my defense drops below 535 if I put them on - with BS I could gem an extra defense gem or two and then move to some epic gear that would give me 30k hp unbuffed as well as a lot of extra dodge. I'm currently only using 1 dragon's eye gem and when I gem the other 2 I'm planning on doing one +27 dodge rating and one +41 stam. Then again, losing mining means -500+hp so it might not really end up being THAT much of a buff.

Aside from that, having extra staming isn't completely worthless. Thats really the only thing that has changed on my DK in the last 2 weeks (went from 24.4k hp to 28.1k) and it honestly has made things that were a bit tough before quite a lot easier now. I guess its the difference between 1 more LvB/LB volley or having to 4x LHW maybe. As you can see I also gem for dodge quite a bit and will probably be replacing the gem in my earthguard chain with a +27 dodge gem here shortly.

Still trying to decide on BS vs Mining though - the 500HP is nice for mining but getting BS gives me more options and those new tanking weapons coming out still say BoP - if they end up staying BoP then it would be really nice to be able to craft one that gives +90 parry or +90 defense rating.

[Klesh]

Still trying to decide on BS vs Mining though - the 500HP is nice for mining but getting BS gives me more options and those new tanking weapons coming out still say BoP - if they end up staying BoP then it would be really nice to be able to craft one that gives +90 parry or +90 defense rating.

No 2h BoP tanking weapons.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/1376...deflector.html

The stamina enchant to weapons got removed too.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/1431...d-removed.html

[Hachoo]

Bummer - would have rather had them be available in some way shape or form. Oh well, the new runeforge enchant should pretty much solve all my potential defense problems. I need to find the sigil they're talking about also and how to get it.

Edit: Bleh...found it - its only a chance on use to give +defense. Wtf? Based on the blue post they made it sound like the new sigil will solve the defense problem for DKs but a sigil that only has a chance to proc +defense is retarded - can't use that to reach the defense cap.

[Bigfish]

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).

I'd have to disagree here. You really have to weigh the increased survival time versus increased incoming DPS. Personally,I'll take the HP in a general situation that doesn't involve stacking the hypothetical odds in favor of avoidance. It has its trade-offs, such as increased load on the healer, however, as a boxer I find Stamina has a much higher benefit to not only my tanks, but all characters in general.

Edit: Upon further number crunching using an item point based model, the marginal benefit of Stamina has decreasing returns to scale, while the marginal benefit to avoidance has an increasing returns to scale, which means at some point, yeah, you will be indefenitely better off stacking avoidance. The Problem i see is that you don't reach that point until you hit about 52,000 HP. The obvious problem here is exactly as I put forth before: The healer has to spend more mana and put out a higher HPS to keep you up. More theorycrafting to come!

[Hachoo]

Forgot to add - I still have absolutely 0 issues holding aggro on everything. I'm not going to collect hit or expertise on purpose unless I have said issues. As of right now the only expertise/hit I have is what came on gear that were upgrades for me. I see no point in gemming or purposefully gearing for it unless I actually need it to hold aggro.

[Bigfish]

Upon further delving, the point where avoidance's utility surpasses Stamina's is about 64% total avoidance if you ar at 22000 HP, at which point you are always better off stacking more Avoidance than Stamina. However, this also assumes a 1:1 trade off. Given that tanking gear in WoW never focuses solely on Stamina or Avoidance, you rarely face an issue of which point you want to grab next, so much as which piece of gear offers an upgrade.