Picking Cider's Brain

[Oculis]

Hey Cider, Barashti here. I've been out of the loop in regards to tanking since the pre-BC patch. I haven't tanked anything on Kaganda since October, and I'm rapidly falling further into noob warrior status. This is a problem, since I'm spending time developing Maelstrom's tanks. With this in mind, I have a few questions for you, if I may.

1. When upgrading gear what stats should take priority? For example, I would assume priority along these lines:

Stam
AC
Block Value
Def/Res
Parry/Dodge
Agi/Str

2. Resiliance or Defense? From a quick search online it seems like gear has either one or the other. Assuming tanks would have at least some of each value, what is more beneficial?

3. I'm considering making every Warrior get the full Bold set. Not only because it seems like a good tanking set, but getting the set would show a certain amount of work ethic on their part, as it will probably take many runs. Is it a good idea to push them towards that? (More of a leadership question, I suppose)

4. When will your bring back the Batman tabard?

[Derenas]

Better stuff to collect than the bold set :O

[Ciderhelm]

Originally Posted by Oculis

Hey Cider, Barashti here. I've been out of the loop in regards to tanking since the pre-BC patch. I haven't tanked anything on Kaganda since October, and I'm rapidly falling further into noob warrior status. This is a problem, since I'm spending time developing Maelstrom's tanks. With this in mind, I have a few questions for you, if I may.

1. When upgrading gear what stats should take priority? For example, I would assume priority along these lines:

Stam
AC
Block Value
Def/Res
Parry/Dodge
Agi/Str

2. Resiliance or Defense? From a quick search online it seems like gear has either one or the other. Assuming tanks would have at least some of each value, what is more beneficial?

3. I'm considering making every Warrior get the full Bold set. Not only because it seems like a good tanking set, but getting the set would show a certain amount of work ethic on their part, as it will probably take many runs. Is it a good idea to push them towards that? (More of a leadership question, I suppose)

4. When will your bring back the Batman tabard?

My gear collection priority went in this order:

Get to 490 Defense
Find high Stamina items
Replace high Stamina items with high-Armor/high-Stamina items
Improve on those


There are a lot of good trinkets available that give a large pool of Defense Rating; there are also alot of good items. The Bold set is actually quite nice; however, the Shoulderplates of the Bold are the only one that were a 100% sure improvement over Tier 3. Caverns of Time Revered (very, very easy to get) has Timewarden's Leggings, which are stacked with all sorts of good stats.

I can't really say too much on what to get. I personally have two sets right now, a Shield Block set (useful since I'm Protection) and a boss-set. I use the Shield Block set for 5-mans, and the boss-set for boss encounters or what few raid zones we've seen.

[Oculis]

Thanks for the reply. Our plan is to hit Karazhan it the first week of March, and I'm going to be cracking the whip to get people geared up by then.

Derenas: No doubt there is better stuff out there than Bold. However, it's a decent pre-raid Tank set, far better than Valor was back in the day. My main goal for pushing the tanks to get it is to see who will put in the time and effort to acquire it.

[Derenas]

Yeah, for sure it would show that there was some effort put forth obtaining it, but theres also jade-skull breastplate, self-correcting gauntlets, etc for preraid tanking gear, you could probably compile a pretty sweet set of tanking gear from some of the tk instances, or even quest reward items. Jadeskull, self correcting gauntlets, and aegis of the sunbird are all great items and come from tempest keep instances, and sha'tari's vindicator waistguard is an awesome belt that comes from the quest reward for completing the arcatraz key, and im sure obtaining those items would show just as much effort and dedication, as obtaining the bold set would, just make sure you pick up the bold shoulders and a couple of solid stars of elune!

[Oculis]

Point taken. Frankly, I need to stop screwing around and get my Shaman to 70, so I can actually see the drops firsthand. It seems like every item database online is a bit sketchy on loot tables at them moment.

[Faranor]

I'd set bold as a baseline, but if someone assembles their own set of tanking gear that's better and can explain why it's better, it would be awesome.