The Murloc Tanking Thread

This is the thread for all tanking discussion about gear/specs/classes/problems.

I have written a basic guide for all tanking classes at the top. Please add your knowledge and corrections.


Basic Numbers:

Defence Cap: 540

Melee Hit Cap: 8% (7% with a space goat in the party)

Expertise Cap: 26

Note 540 defence is not the “cap” for defence, it is the minimum required to tank in a raid. Defence still increases your chance to dodge beyond 540.


Gearing Priorities:

The first priority is to gather 540 defence. There are several enchants and gems that can help you with this. Druids can have 540 defence with talents and don't need to gear for it.

For advanced tanks it is recommended to have at least 3 sets of gear. A high damage set for trash, a max stamina set for bosses who do big hits (Malygos) and a mitigation set (high block) for bosses who hit fast (Patchwerk).

Having multiple sets requires you to have a lot of tank gear, so don't worry until you're at the point where you're upgrading your old tank gear. Never throw out old tank gear if you're serious about tanking – it might be useful for one of your sets.


Survival Stats (In Order Of Importance):

Paladins: Stamina, block rating, block value, armour.

Druids: Stamina, ???

Warriors: Stamina, Armour, Block rating, Block Value

Death Knights: Stamina, ???


Threat Building Stats (In Order Of Importance):

Paladins: Strength/hit, expertise, block rating

Warriors: Block Value/Expertise, Hit, Strength


Recommended Enchants For Tanks:

(Coming Soon)

Stats for Warriors:

Theese stats should be somewhat by order of importance.


Survival stats:
Stamina, Armour, Block rating, Block Value


Threat stats:
Block Value/Expertise, Hit, Strength
(Hit is always important (until cap) but assuming you have a reasonable amount, expertise and BV is to be focused on.)


A useful thread for tanks. (Warriors mostly)
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=2399#p25151

How are you speccing in 3.1?

For me it's a choice between going up the Holy Tree for a reduced cooldown on Lay on Hands or going up the Ret tree for a speed boost and more threat.

I think I'll go for Ret unless I keep wishing my Lay on Hands was cool in Ulduar.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0tAbuMusIufdts0hbh

I'm interested in seeing how YOU are gonna spec with 3.1 (especially you Paladins)

Here's the build i'm thinking of currently for prot.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0tAMuMGsIufkxf0hbc:pk0cmz

It got all the basic migitiation talents, along with this new (that i'm somewhat unsure of) Divine Sacrifice.

The imp HoJ is mainly a placefiller to advance, and could be swapped for 2/5 Divinity or 2/2 Divine guardian.

I've chosen to go deep ret and drop my 5/5 seals of the pure, as i think a 3% damage boost overall will do more good then that.

As for glyphs i will be using:
Divine plea: reduces damage taken by 3% while Divinge plea is active
Glyph of seal of Vengance: Increases expertise by 10 while SoV is active
Glyph of Hand of Salvation: Reduces damage taken by 20% when cast on self.

The last one is a rather experimental risky thing, it will require a minimum of a 20% threat lead. But if one can get that one suddenly got another 3 min damage reduction ability.

Any comments, critisism or own specs are most welcome

I can't see the point in getting improved hammer of justice over divine guardian myself, considering the stun doesn't work on most raid enemies and DG gives you 10% extra less raid damage, plus makes your Sacred Shield last for 1 minute and absorb 10% more damage.

Admittedly it's always better for a Holy pally to cast Sacred Shield on the tanks, but you can't rely on that.

The Hand of Salvation one should be fun to test.

Most likely speccing
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhbZMItrx0zidIzsGo:dZzMm
Note sure what 2 other Major Glyphs to add, as I have yet to check out all they glyph chan in 3.1

Putting this here as the tanks are the ones who usually control who goes in what group!

Since 3.1, Priests' Prayer of Healing is targetable on a party, although it still has the 30 yd limitation (36 with 2/2 Holy Reach, which is not a core Holy talent). So if possible we'd like to build the raid so all the melee dps are in one group - they usually take the most damage after the tank, and PoH is awesome for that. If there's only 3-4 melee dps (a rarity for the murlocs!), the tanks can be moved to the group with the healers/casters:

Group 1: melee, tank(, offtank).
Group 2: hunters, casters, healers, offtank(, tank).

This may have implications for some shaman totem auras, unless they've made them partywide in 3.1.

A couple of things I didn't realise from my first glance of the patch notes for pally tanks:

We're getting Demoralising Shout at last, and even better (for forgetful old me) it's applied passively through auto-attacks. This is great as DS reduces a lot of damage and we rarely have a warrior around. It does mean fiddling with my talent spec however to get it (Vindication).

Secondly, apart from the fact pally tanks are getting a passive, automatic Guardian Spirit on a 2 minute timer I noticed that Argent Defender talent has changed to reduce the damage of all hits that take you below 35%.

That basically means that every single hit which would hit me for 65% of my health will be reduced by 30%, it's almost a perma-shield wall.

I'd love to find out if the new Argent Defender will work on Steelbreaker. If it does, me and Gimi have built in soulstones on that fight and won't even lose aggro when we cheat death, eliminating the need to taunt.