Not a gold related post today instead I'm focusing on tanking.
I have planned to start tanking on my death knight once she hits 80 (or earlier) and therefor I need to find a good tanking set to start out with, and as I am of the oppinion that everything can be bought for money I decided to focus only on stuff that can be bought before even setting a foot in an instance. So here's what I have so far, you may notice that the legs and boots aren't buyable but drops in ToC normal. I took them as they were the best stuff I could find that is easily avaible. Bear in mind I will use Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle that gives 25 defense skill, which will put me at 1 defense rating below the cap.
I also haven't got that much expertise but I think I will be able to manage with what I have, I think it is around 26-30 expertise (I get really confused by all those ratings) so it's enough to beat the dodge cap, but still not enough for parry (which is at 56 if I got it right). I also lack some hit (got like 10 hit rating with that set) which I plan to find a way to get, maybe through enchants.
Even if this set is far from perfect it should give me a pretty good view on how much it will cost me but as I am using wowhead to see the prices right now it may vary in-game.
I wont bother writing all the names as you can see them yourself by looking at the comparision.
The gear itself will cost a little less than 1800, that's pretty low as I will most likely get the JC epics cheaper as I can make them myself. The epic gems (which I may replace with rare gems instead as I probably wont keep my gear for very long) will together cost 375g + about 300g for the dragon's eyes required for the JC only gems.
That puts the total cost at 2500, or 1850 (I don't know how I got to that conclusion as I said earlier that the gear costs 1800 but I don't have time to check everything up once again) if I use rare gems, which I most likely will do. I consider this to be the maximum price I will pay as it will be pretty easy to get the stuff cheaper than that during a longer period of time (leveling from 70 to 80) by buying underpriced stuff or having them crafted with my mats. That is not counting enchants as I haven't decided what to get yet. The prices may not be exact due to the now ridicolous prices of titanium, but I'll take care of that later.
I'd love if someone good at tanking could give me some advice on either my gear, gems or enchants or just tanking in general.
Not just one Overton window
23 hours ago
OK...
ReplyDeleteFirst, if you are doing HC's you need 535 def (not rating). Or a healer who is ok with you getting crit. In a PUG the later is unlikely. If your going for raids then 540 def is the requirement. That is a hard requirement... 1x crit could wipe your raid etc etc.
After hitting the relevant def cap, I'd worry about stamina next. Whilst hit / expertise is nice, stamina is better. I'm coming at it from a paladin point of view not a dk, but I seriously wouldn't be gemming / enchanting for hit or expertise (beyond a minimal level) as gear tends to have enough to get you moving. You should have enough of a threat advantage that you can miss / be parried once in a while and still not lose mobs.
Finally, don't forget reputation rewards. You want to get at least honoured with Sons (shoulders), revered with AC (hat) ASAP. Both help with the def cap and other tasty stats (dodge / sta). Also, you may want to look at the Wyrm's - their honoured cloak is quite tasty.
Also, a 2nd ring from somewhere might be nice?
ReplyDeleteJoin PUGS as DPS and gear up through that? There's so many options that don't require you to spend gold: Wintergrasp for tokens & honor; ToC for easy epics; Heroics for badges in general.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYes, I know that there is a diference between defense rating and defense (didn't at first though) and as I said I'm maybe 1 (3 with rare gems) defense ratings from it. I don't know how much defense 3 rating is but I don't think it's a lot.
I will check the expertise and so a little, as i said I have no experience of aggro and got no idea of how much hit/expertise I'll need to hold aggro.
@The second Anonymous
I must have missed that, thanks for reminding me.
@Ben
Yes, I can and plan to do that. This was more intended to see if I actually could completly gear up a tank from nothing without having to spend ridicolous amounts on gold doing it. And of course use it to have some gear pieces in case I can't find anything else or if they wont drop.
At first my plan was to find a complete tanking set, which I almost have with some changes, but I then decided to only use parts of it if it was necessary.
Well as someone who is leveling a new main which is going to be main tank in our new hardcore 10 man guild (paladin however, not DK) this post was a good insight in to what other people do in the same situation :)
ReplyDeleteAnon is right however, ignore threat from gear for now - get defense till cap then stack stamina like there's no tomorrow.
Almost any serious player you grouped with would rather have a tank be a bit slower on building threat than one who dies randomly because they have too little health. You already said you realise being under the cap is unacceptable, so I won't comment on that :)
Again, thanks for the post and best of luck gearing up your DK!
Being a dk tank myself I can offer some advice :D
ReplyDeletehelm - titansteel tanking helm (meta ftw)
bracers - Valor badge bracers (boe)
belt - ulduar crafted belt
boots - ulduar crafted boots
now the crafting items are going to run ya a small amount of money but they are BiS atm (i think or atleast pretty damn close to it :P). So you can craft them and not worry about replacing them for awhile. (uld belt has 2 sockets + belt buckle making 3 sockets)
For expertise I'd stack stam. Dont gem for expertise imo as you'll pick up enough of it from your gear.
Prices on the crafted items really depends on your realms orb prices. Runed orbs should be fairly cheap by now. Crusader orbs might still be pricey so ToC crafting is out of the 2k picture :P
The titansteel items are generally pretty good for starting out and by now should be pretty cheap.