Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Tanking Basics
Fjork — Fri, 11/21/2008 - 15:52
Trying to align this version a little better to Saedo’s style as his legibility is much greater than my articles.
I’ll be attempting to update each article to be PTR Tankadin Build 9704 equal. If the PTR has moved on from 9704, and there are further protection changes, they aren’t in here. I will update each as the new changes come out. I’ve removed a lot of information that was not only redundant, but confusing.
I also removed the ‘Gearing Out the Righteous Defender, and Glyphing Out the Righteous Defender book-pages for revision and rewriting. Each is outdated, but also takes like five minutes to load on my T1 connection at work. Look for the pages to be reposted soon!
Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King
Basics
The most important tanking mechanic is the Defense Rating. A tankadin’s first concern should always be the hallowed “Uncrittability”. This goes for all other tanking classes as well. Reaching uncrittability is extremely easy and inexpensive when reaching level 80. However, as mitigation, avoidance, and health are upgraded you will be relying more and more on trinkets, enchants, and gems to keep your defense rating uncrittable. Do not equip that upgrade if you will loose your 540 Defense! Wait until after the Raid/Heroic/etc so that you can change your gear or upgrade your enchantments.
A level 83 mob’s base attack skill will be 415 vs. our base defense skill of 400. To prevent critical strikes, our defense skill will need a 5.6% increase, or 140 added Defense Skill (540 Defense as opposed to the original 490). All math totaled, we would be needing 688.59 Defense Rating to achieve uncrittability at level 80.
The current stat conversions for Avoidance are thus:
· Defense – 4.92 Defense Rating per 1 point of Defense Skill.
o 25 Defense Skill (41 Defense Rating)
§ +1% chance to be missed
§ +1% chance to Dodge, Parry, and Block Skills
· Shield Block – 16.29 Block Rating per 1% Block Skill
· Dodge – 39.35 per 1% Dodge Skill
· Parry – 49.18 per 1% Parry Skill
· Agility – 30 Agility per 1% Dodge Skill
As can be seen, Defense Rating will be the cheapest route for overall Avoidance to begin, moving next to Block Rating, then Dodge Rating, and finally Parry rating.
Stacking Shield Block Rating ‘sounds’ like a good idea, but only XX amount of the damage is blocked, while the rest is taken by the Tankadin. Dodge is second best in that the damage is removed altogether. Parry tops the meters because the Tankadin dodges all of the damage, and then gets a ‘free’ swing back. This is also why Parry is the hardest to gear for, and shouldn’t be a primary focus.
The Tankadin’s Armor Value reduces the actual damage taken by X %. This is why Devotion Aura should be maintained through all Raiding.
It should be noted the Dodge Rating and Parry Rating each suffer from a different set of diminishing returns (approx. 1.95% per 2%) so it is sometimes a higher upgrade to get the item with a larger amount of Defense Rating over a large amount of dodge/parry rating since the 1% Dodge/Parry/Block gained through Defense Skill does not suffer from diminishing returns.
Primary Attributes
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Strength
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2 Melee Attack Power per 1 Str. HotR TPS Upgrade.
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½ Block Value increase per 1 Str. SotR TPS Upgrade.
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Strength is plentiful on a great deal of the tanking gear that will be purchased and equipped. This is a stat that a gearing Tankadin should rarely have any focus on. The only time a Str upgrade should be considered over Health, Def Rating, or Avoidance is if Threat generation is a serious issue and [Armsman] is already on your gloves with it’s 2% increased threat. End-raiding Paladins will begin to give consideration to Str more.
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Agility
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2 Armor Value per 1 Agi
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0.034 Dodge per Agility
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0.019 Crit Rating
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So at a glance, Agility isn’t all that it is cracked up to be, but when you consider that you are getting direct mitigation and Avoidance from every point of Agility, and it usually comes in +20 or greater ([37891]), this is a viable stat to consider when you have 540 Defense already. Most tanks will not gear specifically for Agility as the conversions for Shield Block Rating are easier to acquire.
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Stamina
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10 Health per 1 Stam. (Except for 20, which are 1 HP)
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Modified by Sacred Duty: Stam +8%
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Modified by Combat Expertise: Stam +6%
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Modified: 11.4 Health per 1 Stam
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0.3 Spellpower per 1 Stam.
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Obviously Stamina will be a stat each Tankadin will be giving a great DEAL of focus to. Many Gem-Sockets are Red with a semi-decent socket bonus. Most likely you will still be gemming [40008] in a good majority of them, though keep in mind you’ll need one Red/Orange/Purple gem for the meta-requirement on a [41380]. Not to mention that with enough stamina a Tankadin can easily cap 30,000 HP Raid-Buffed. This makes healers VERY happy. Especially when you mitigating even more damage.
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Intellect
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You will NOT be gearing for these. EVER. Don’t. Just don’t.
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Spirit
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The Weapon – Maximizing Threat Per Second
This is a “rough-sketch” example of comparing the stats on two damage weapons. Most specifically the Tankadins will choose weapons with high Stamina, Defense Rating, Avoidance, Strength, and Agility (in that order), however there will be situations where high damage is preferred. (Off-Tanking on Loatheb).
The Bonecrusher has a very high dps, which will contribute well to Hammer of the Righteous (dps*4), 140 Attack Power, and 3.5% Expertise (keep that bosses parry/dodge/miss rating down!) Each of these stats will assist in the overall threat-per-second on every single Tankadin ability and spell. A final thought to keep in mind, the slower the weapons usually have higher dps. Just sayin.
The Guardian has a very low dps, which will contribute very little to HotR (dps*4), 0.6% Crit Rating (which won’t even be felt by most tankadins), and 457 spellpower which will assist in every spell and ability of the Tankadin EXCEPT HotR.
However, since the Guardian contributes more Spellpower than the Bonecrusher, the AOE uses are much greater than the Bonecrusher. For 1v1 fights (Heigan, Thaddius, etc, etc) the Bonecrusher will win by a landslide every time. But on AOE fights (Gothik the Harvester, Trash Mobs, Noth the Plaguebringer, etc) the Guardian will almost always hold higher overall TPS, just not on the boss!
This is a good progression for your Tankadin’s Weapon:
· [44736] – Quest: Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper (level 75. EASY. Get this at 73)
· [Infantry Assault Blade] – Utgarde Keep (H) – This can actually carry you into 25mans.
· [item]Red Sword of Courage[item] – Utgarde Pinnacle (H) – Even the Naxx Swords are somewhat side-grades to this amazing tanking sword.
· [Slayer of the Lifeless] – As foretold by Salzman. VERY nice tanking sword, but you’ll have noticed by now your damage has started to slip a little. That’s okay, your TPS will pick back up.
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