Friday, October 31, 2008

[Druid] Bear item list and rep list for pre-naxx (UPDATED)

It's getting close to WotLK, and barring some last minute surprises we're pretty close to knowing what to expect on all the armor, weapons, and mechanics for bears. And per the rules of blogging for WoW, at least one blog post every month must be about gear lists.

This one's a bit different though.

I've gone through and listed per slot what I believe the best choice is for a bear that can be obtained before setting foot in Naxxramas. I've left out the Deadly Gladiator gear in this, as it's going to likely be out of most people's reach at first given its rating requirements. The rules, similar to what we had before for the pre-Karazhan cat guide, is as follows:
  1. If it costs arena points, list only the best of the arena points
  2. If it costs honor, list only the best of the honor
  3. List the best heroic drop
  4. List the best non-heroic drop
  5. List the best craftable
  6. List the best quest reward
  7. List the best BoE
If (for example) a BoE beats out all non-heroics, I don't bother to list the non-heroics. If a quest reward beats out a heroic I don't bother listing a heroic. Basically, I want to make sure that there is at least one 'easy' option, and if a harder to obtain option is worse than an easier one, there's no point in listing it.

The difference between this list and other lists is that it also lists some BC gear, so you know exactly where things rank and what to strive to get before WotLK comes out. Hopefuly that'll help you prioritize your gear choices before you get to WotLK and what you should roll on. The TLDR version: get a pillar of lol, thunderheart treads and wristguards, a badge of tenacity and then whatever other T6 or Sunwell gear you can get. If a piece of BC gear isn't listed, I thought that it was simply not that good or would be replaced too easily by early quest rewards or rep rewards. All BC gear is italicized.

The ranking has virtually no weight put on threat stats. This is because for Naxx, starting threat for bears is fine. It's better than fine - it's crazy. However, you want to get as much stam and avoidance as you can, and you really want to stack armor like mad. If you feel that threat is more of an important issue for you, I'd recommend taking this with a grain of salt; this is my view on tanking and threat's part of it may not meet yours.

I also strongly recommend using Rawr to determine what's best for you given your actual armor. While loot lists are nice they are glaringly deficient in being able to rank gear against other gear. Rawr does this superbly. Rawr does not support wotlk ranking yet, but it soon will; when it does, use that.

All gem choices are assumed to be basically sane and tend to favor stamina over agility. Yes, that means BC gear with more slots is favored over BC gear with fewer slots. The view is that if you're willing to wear it in Naxx you should be willing to at least regem and re-enchant the stuff.

This also doesn't take into account set bonuses. A quick word on that:
At level 80, the 2 piece Tier Four set bonus does nothing.
The 2 piece Tier 6 bonus (extra mangle threat) is pretty strong for threat.
The 4 piece Tier 6 bonus (extra swipe damage) is not super for boss threat but is great for AoE threat and for grinding.

The main reason I like loot lists is to be able to plan things like my rep grinds, what heroics I want to run always, whether I should bother with a certain quest reward (or even a quest chain), etc. Hopefully this will help you the same way.

Shoulder enchants:
  1. Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - Exalted with Sons of Hodir
  2. Greater Inscription of Warding - Exalted with Aldor
  3. Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle - Honored with Sons of Hodir
  4. Greater Inscription of the Knight - Exalted with Scryer
-The Aldor and honored Sons enchants are identical, and #4 is only slightly worse.

Head enchants:
  1. Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - revered with Argent Crusade
  2. Arcanum of the Defender - revered with Keepers of Time
  3. Arcanum of the Gladiator - revered with Shattered Sun Offensive
-no surprises here.

Weapon (bear)

  1. Enraged Feral Staff - 102.30. Heroic Utgarde Keep
  2. Pillar of Ferocity - 65.81. Mount Hyjal
  3. Bloodwood Greatstaff - 65.55 BoE
  4. Wildfury Greatstaff - 65.30. Serpentshrine Cavern
  5. Stave of Shrouded Mysteries - 64.50. Revered Kirin Tor
-get used to running Utgarde keep - you'll be running it for a while until the Feral Staff drops. The Stave of Shrouded Mysteries is not hard to get, but with 315 armor it's really a threat/dps weapon.

Idol (bear)

  1. Idol of Terror - Badges
  2. Idol of the Plainstalker - Quest in Borean Tundra
  3. Idol of Perspicacious Attacks - Grizzly Hills vendor
  4. Idol of the Wastes - Quest in dragonblight
-the idols from Wrath are entirely threat. The Idol of Terror is the best avoidance idol that exists, still. I'm bummed too.

Ring (bear)
  1. Keystone Great-Ring - 47.86. Heroic Drak'tharon keep
  2. Nerubian Shield Ring - 38.53. Heroic Ahn'katet.
  3. Band of Torture - 38.27. Heroic Oculus
  4. Titanium Earthguard Ring - 35.53. Jewelcrafting BoE.
  5. Ring of the Stalwart Protector - 34.23. badges
  6. Ring of Earthen Might - 33.92. Jewelcrafting BoE
  7. Iceforged battle-ring - 32.90. quest in storm peaks
  8. Violet Signet of the Great Protector - 30.10. Karazhan
-I've modified this since the last time to reflect some of the choices that are good without armor on them. Still, Keystone Great-Ring is really stellar, and you should run Drak quite a bit to get it.

Amulet (bear)
  1. Titanium Earthguard Chain - 43.44. Jewelcrafting BoE
  2. Chained Military Gorget - 32.95. 40 emblems of heroism.
  3. Amulet of Wills - 32.37. Normal Halls of Stone
  4. Torta's Oversized Choker - 28.83. BoE
- as of right now, the Earthguard chain simply is crazy good. If you're broke, go for the Amulet of Wills - but it's hardly necessary. The Earthguard chain is second best in slot period - only Boundless Ambition from Kel'Thuzad beats it. If you can't afford that or want something more avoidance-heavy, the Chained Military Gorget is quite good.

Trinket (bear)
  1. Offering of Sacrifice - (19.41) Heroic Gundrak
  2. Badge of Tenacity - (10.87)BC BoE drop
  3. Essence of Gossamer - 32.65. Heroic Azjol-Nerub
  4. Darkmoon Card: Greatness - 23.82. Quest for Darkmoon.
  5. Valor Medal of the First War - 14.53
-Another must-have trinket that you will use throughout Naxx, run Heroic Gundrak until it drops. Essence of Gossamer is a great stamina trinket, but it doesn't make up for that armor at pre-Naxx levels. The numbers in parenthesis are what these will be post-armor change.

Cloak (bear)

  1. Durable Nerubhide Cape - (37.22) Leatherworking BoE.
  2. Flowing Cloak of Command - 35.61. Normal CoT Strat
  3. Cloak of Tormented Skies - 31.13. Leatherworking BoE
  4. Slikk's Cloak of Placation - 31.10. badges
-Slikk's Cloak and Cloak of Tormented Skies are incredibly close to each other. Flowing Cloak of Command is great though.

Chest (bear)
  1. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes - 86.68. Arena rating, arena points.
  2. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes - 79.84. Arena rating, arena points
  3. Heroes' Dreamwalker Rainments - 79.00. 80 emblems of heroism, normal Gluth, normal 4 Horsemen.
  4. Harness of Carnal Instinct - 77.47. Sunwell Plateau
  5. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes - 76.24. honor
  6. Crystal-Infused Tunic - 66.21. Heroic Nexus
  7. Thunderheart Chestguard -64.82. Black Temple
  8. Exotic Leather Tunic - 64.39. quest in Utgarde Pinnacle
-And here we get to the 'PvP is the bomb" portion of the night. While it's arguable whether the increased threat from Naxx-level gear is worth the loss of agility and stamina compared to similar PvP gear at the same ilvl, when you're going pre-naxx it's not a contest usually. Because of the three gem slots the Harness of Carnal Instinct comes out over other items from WotLK. The T7.10 chest is the best chest you can get from PvE before Naxx-25.

Feet (bear)

  1. Hateful Gladiator's Boots of Triumph - 58.46. Arena rating, honor points
  2. Slag Boots - 52.41. Heroic Halls of Lightning
  3. Gorloc Muddy Footwraps - 46.97. Heroic Gundrak
  4. Thunderheart Treads - 45.67. Sunwell Plateau
  5. Shadowmaster's Boots - 44.00. Black Temple
  6. Jormscale Footpads - 43.16. Leatherworking BoE
  7. Rhino Hide Kneeboots - 37.00. Quest in Gundrak
- the Slag boots and muddy footwraps aren't that much better than the Thunderheart treads or (thanks to the sockets) Shadowmaster's boots. The Hateful Gladiator gear is really good though, and definitely worth it if you can.

Gloves (bear)

  1. Handwraps of Preserved History - 62.49. Quest in CoT Strat
  2. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves - 57.22. Arena Rating, arena points
  3. Heroes' Dreamwalker Handgrips - 52.16. 60 emblems of heroism.
  4. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves - 51.74. honor
  5. Gloves of the Forest Drifter - 47.37. Sunwell Plateau
  6. Gloves of Immortal Dusk - 42.78. Leatherworking BoE (requires sunmotes)
  7. Discarded Slaughterhouse Gloves - 41.69. Quest in icecrown
  8. Seafoam Gauntlets - 40.52. Leatherworking BoE
  9. Thunderheart Gauntlets - 39.78. Mount Hyjal
-The best gloves by far come from a quest for CoT Stratholme. Huge stamina, agility and expertise make these stellar. Do this early and be set for a while. The T7.10 that are available from badges are really not worth the expense.

Head (bear)


  1. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm - 85.04. Arena rating, arena points
  2. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm - 78.27. Arena rating, arena points
  3. Weakness Spectralizers - 74.93. Engineering BoE (requires engineering rating)
  4. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm - 71.13. honor
  5. Mask of the Watcher - 61.08. Heroic Oculus
  6. Shroud of Darkness - 60.27. Heroic Violet Eye
  7. Mask of the Fury Hunter - 58.03. Sunwell Plateau
  8. Headguard of Retaliation - 54.50. quest in Utgarde Pinnacle
  9. Thunderheart Cover - 53.75. Mount Hyjal
  10. Eviscerator's Facemask - 52.97. leatherworking BoE
Legs (bear)
  1. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Legs - 81.17. Arena rating, arena points
  2. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Legs - 73.84. honor
  3. Ravenous Leggings of the Furbolg - 70.31. heroic utgarde pinnacle
  4. Gored Hide Legguards - 69.23. Heroic Gundrak.
  5. Mind-expanding Leggings - 68.26. Revered with Kirin Tor
  6. Leggings of the Immortal Beast - 68.15. Sunwell Plateau
  7. Constellation Leggings - 55.15. Normal Halls of Stone.
  8. Tameless Breeches - 55.05. Badges.
  9. Eviscerator's Legguards - 54.83. Leatherworking BoE.
  10. Tattooed Deerskin Leggings - 47.84. Quest in Violet Hold
- Oops! The Ravenous Leggings are from Pinnacle, not UK. So it's a different beast entirely to get them. 3-5 are all very, very close, so pick which you like the most.

Shoulders (bear)

  1. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders - 59.69. arena rating, arena points
  2. Trollwoven shoulders - 59.03. Leatherworking BoE
  3. Spaulders of the Careless Thief - 54.79. Heroic Nexus
  4. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders - 54.14. honor
  5. Sprinting Shoulderpads - 51.48. Heroic Ahn'kahet
  6. Demontooth Shoulderpads - 48.55. Sunwell Plateau
  7. Thunderheart Pauldrons - 46.85. Black Temple
-At last, a good PvE-quality item in the shoulder shot that isn't PvP! And it's leatherworking, which makes it doubly awesome. Considering how hard it'll be to get the hateful glad shoulders, just go for the trollwoven set.

Belt (bear)

  1. Hateful Gladiator's Belt of Triumph - 55.95. arena rating, honor
  2. Sharp-Barbed Leather belt - 55.00. heroic utgarde keep
  3. Trollwoven Girdle - 52.29. Leatherworking BoE
  4. Jorach's Crocolisk Skin Belt - 49.23. Emblems of Heroism
  5. Ley-whelphide belt - 46.27. normal and heroic occulus
  6. Glitterscale Wrap - 41.59. Revered with Oracles
  7. Don Alejandro's Money Belt - 41.47. Mount Hyjal
  8. Belt of Natural Power - 40.45. Leatherworking BoE
  9. Waistguard of the Great Beast - 40.42. 60 Badges.
-Yep, yet another item from Heroic Utgarde Keep. Apparently the ancestors of Bear tanks were buried there or something. The Trollwoven Girdle is about *this* close to it too. And the Belt of Natural Power shows up here over Thunderheart because of the two sockets.I'd stay away from getting the badge belt here, unless you really like stamina.

Wrist (bear)
  1. Hateful Gladiator's Armwraps of Triumph - 38.72. arena rating, honor
  2. Bindings of the Tunneler - 37.97. Heroic Utgarde Keep
  3. Thunderheart Wristguards - 33.39. Sunwell Plateau
  4. Dragonfriend Bracers - 32.87. Exalted with Wyrmrest Accord
  5. Drake-champion's Bracers - 32.17. Heroic Oculus
  6. Njorndar Furywraps - 31.69. Quest in Icecrown
  7. Vindicator's Dragonhide Bindings - 30.23. BC PvP honor
  8. Eviscerator's Bindings - 29.62. Leatherworking BoE
  9. Band of the Swift Paw - 28.25. badges
-If you're playing along at home, the best two pieces of T6 to carry into Wrath, all other things being equal, are the boots and bracers. And yes, that's yet another awesome tanking piece from Utgarde Keep.

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woah. Fantastic job here. Thanks a ton, I have a feeling I'll be coming back to this page a lot in the coming weeks.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree. A great list - what a shame that PvP gear tops the list in many of the categories.

Micah said...

This is a great list! Will you be posting a similar list for Cat gear?

Anonymous said...

This list could change if Blizzard decides to go through with this. (Not have bear armor multiplier work on rings, etc.)

Kalon said...

Hey, Stealthfire - thanks for coming by and the kind words! I'll probably be tweaking this some as we get more info on Wrath (like where things drop) as well as overall mechanics. If there are other comparisons you'd like to see I'll add them in; in particular I'd like to go back and put in the Brutal/Vengeful glad stuff and show how it ranks compared to the new gear.

dfvanden - thanks also for coming by. And yeah, it bugs me too that so much of the PvP gear is so good for bears right now. On the flip side, it's going to be trivial to pick up a pre-Naxx starting set; between the crafted items, the PvP items and the various quest drops you're only looking at a couple of hard heroic drops. Unfortunately one is a weapon, but...

Micah - thanks! I do plan on doing a cat list here as well this week. It should, thankfully, not be so emphasizing PvP. :)

Felkan - yep, it could very well change, and I'll try and update things accordingly. It won't change at all for the leather items (or shouldn't drastically) as the PvP leather will still have more armor and stats that matter over any of the PvE gear. But some of the rings/trinkets/amulet choices will undoubtedly change. I really hope that they do this so that bears can get away from needing a trinket to be competitive.

Sterling said...

Fantastic work! A huge timesaver and a great resource to use over the coming weeks!

I have already forwarded it on to many other bear tanks.

David Reynolds said...

Amazing work. How did you find the item information? I'd love to see or compile a list for healers, but it's difficult for me to figure out where items come from using Wowhead's database. Doesn't seem to be complete Wrath origin information there. Really great job.

Kalon said...

Hey, David - thanks for coming by. :) Pretty much all the information is from mmo-champion, wowhead or the beta. Mostly from wowhead. A lot of times I had to do some digging; wowhead doesn't list item information natively for a lot of this, but in the comments they often state where a piece is. If not there, googling works as well. Good luck!

Tulabear said...

I was curious why you didn't list the Waistguard of the Great Beast (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33583) as a good bear belt. Seems like the two gem slots would make it pretty swank. I could be wrong, but I just wondered about your thoughts on it. ;-)

Kalon said...

Hey, Stacie - thanks for coming by. :)

The Waistguard of the Great beast is only slightly worse than the Belt of Natural Power - basically it's the extra stam on the BoNP that make it slightly better, but only just. I didn't list it just because I only listed a couple of BC items per slot. Hope that helps!

And FYI - this is the weight scale I used for leather armor for this system. I'll be going back and updating the posts with weight values so you can see how well things rate and whether it's important or not to grind stuff. I'll probably do that after the announced changes to the mechanics of a druid are ironed out.

Tulabear said...

Thanks a bunch for putting this together, btw. And thanks for the quick reply!

So with the changes to armor on weapons for bears, how are they going to stack up?

Kalon said...


So with the changes to armor on weapons for bears, how are they going to stack up?


I posted that elsewhere in my blog, but...the short answer is that Staff of the Forest Lord becomes #1 from BC, Stanchion of Primal Instinct #2. However, that assumes the armor is not being replaced with something useful. If it is replaced, all bets are off - and almost certainly it'll be replaced.

In terms of the #1 pre-naxx, it's still Enraged Feral Staff - but Stave of Shrouded Mysteries is a strong #2.

Anonymous said...

Great list. I was worried I'd have to spec to balance/resto if I wasn't able to find good feral items. This list helps out SO much! Thank you.

Anonymous said...

biggest pitty about the engi goggles is that druids can actually NOT learn to make them at the moment.

Kalon said...

biggest pitty about the engi goggles is that druids can actually NOT learn to make them at the moment.

Ugh, really? That's lame. Stupid engineering.

Anonymous said...

Your missing a few items,

Legs http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37644 drops off of Gal'darah in Gundrak heroic

Feet http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44297 AC exalted

Above two are prob best until Naxx 25. T7.10 legs may be a little bit better.

Trinket JC only http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=59759 and since your a JC socket it with 2 +41 stam gems for a total of 154 stam (231 effective in bear).

All the above are very good and prob better than what you listed for the slots

Kalon said...

Hey, Tygrathel, thanks for coming by. :)

On the boots of the neverending path, they come out as having a 41.61 score. That's good, but Jormscale Footwraps rank higher (due to the higher stamina) as do Thunderheart Treads (due to the socket). So those got left off correctly.

For the Gored Hide Legguards, they have a 69.23 rating. That ranks them right between Ravenous leggings of the furbolg and Mind-expanding leggings. They should be on the list, and I'll go ahead and add them. Thanks! (Though with the difference between the mind expanding and these being so small, I wouldn't grind AC rep for the pants. )

As to the Monarch Crab and Ruby hare trinkets, I tried to make this list as profession-agnostic as possible - but you're absolutely right. Both are very good for bears due to the sockets and massive stat boosts possible, though at the time of this writing the armor trinkets were still better.

Anonymous said...

I see why you did that. You gave 0 value to hit. Hit is still important for a feral tank so you dont miss for building threat in naxx or a heroic. With good dps they will still come close to you. Take a peek at the items giving even a even value to expertise to hit and your ratings will change. Both the above items I linked have tons of hit on them. Ples just stacking stam as a druid right now isn't best. You will want to use AGI gems where ever you can. The way you have the ratings setup assumes you will use nothing but 24 stam gems. Dodge is still very important until you start to bump the DR window at about 50%

Kalon said...

Hey, Tygrathel -

That's absolutely true - I don't value hit at all right now. The main reason I don't value hit is because expertise is simply better in all ways until you are expertise-capped than hit is - except for taunting. Even when dodge-capped, expertise still does better since it negates parries - and even if the boss does not parry haste, expertise is equivalent to hit. And thanks to the glyph of growl, you don't even need to worry about the taunt part.

Since the gear selected does not put you expertise-capped, I don't really value hit that much. And with all that expertise threat really isn't an issue. I'm currently 78 and easily doing more threat than level 80 Naxx-geared DPSers in instances. I realize that they'll be getting buffs to their damage output - but so will I, so it should be pretty similar.

That's all easy to say without having the experience though, so if I find that a lack of hit is really causing massive issues in threat when I run Naxx 25 with this guide, I'll revise it.

As to agility and stamina - I absolutely 100% agree. However, for pre-Naxx you want a lot of stamina. When you get Naxx-level gear you can start skimping on the stam a bit since it's basically everywhere, but early on I think you really want that buffer. Patchwerk's hatefuls hit for 20-23k on non-Naxx geared ferals, and they're doing the best of mitigating it. That's the benchmark that this is looking to hit.

This is ultimately the failing of any equipment guide, no matter what; at some point you want to have a balanced set of stats, especially for tanking. I mean, expertise is great until you parry cap, and then it's worthless - but how do you rank that reasonably? Same with hit, same with stam even - once you get to about 35k, you don't really need more stam - but until you do you still want that much.

I'm glad this discussion is coming up though. It's important when picking stats to be intelligent about it and not sacrifice too much for one thing over another. Personally, I would value crit over hit when tanking due to how rage regeneration and imp Leader of the Pack work, but I can see an argument for both - and you likely shouldn't sacrifice 50 hit for 10 stam. It really depends on what you want to do, but be smart about it; no gear list or guide on the planet will be able to figure out exactly what your dps, healers, or other people are like. At best it'll give you a good estimate on where to be.

Thanks again. :)

Anonymous said...

Mmhmm .. I OT patchwerk NP last weekend. I dont disagree expertise is important but so is hit. I just dont agree that hit has 0 value which is whats assigned. If you ran it about the same weight as expertise or even 1/2 both items I showed would be much higher. They really are just about best in slot until Naxx 25. I mean if you just look at the point system there the resist pieces are just about best in slot period and I think we can all agree just by looking at them that they are not.

Im also not sure what dpsers you run with but I tell you in the inital agro building stages they come close, In pure dps races they can come close and in fights where taunt is important .. 4 horsemen, Gluth, the slime guy in gundrak a missed taunt can = wipe.

Food for though.

Kalon said...

Tygrathel -

I mean if you just look at the point system there the resist pieces are just about best in slot period and I think we can all agree just by looking at them that they are not.

Yeah, the polar gear is not the best in slot; no threat stats and no agility is pretty poor. At the same time I could easily argue to use them as a set of starting gear simply because of the enormous stam, which would allow agility elsewhere. I really should write about that...

Again, it really comes down to whether or not you believe threat to be valuable and how valuable it is. As an example - if you do what you suggest and make hit half as valuable as expertise, the gored hide leggings do trump the ravenous leggings of the furbolg - but only 68.96 to 68.10. And then you could argue that the crit on the ravenous leggings brings them back into par with the Gored Hide leggings. And then you argue that the AP on the Gored Hide brings them right back up. You could then argue that expertise and hit should both be bumped, and that's reasonable - but I don't think that it's representative of what most bears are going to be looking for or wanting.

As to taunt resists - if a taunt resist means a wipe the solution isn't to get more +hit; the solution is to get the Glyph of Growl, as I said earlier.

And on DPSers coming close early on? I've never seen that happen with berserk. Unless a DPSer doesn't allow me to get a hit in, I can easily put up a huge threat lead. 10 mangles at the beginning of the fight tend to effectively wipe out any issue with threat. If that's not your experience, that's cool - and who knows, I may find it a problem. I do know that in fights where you must land one hit on a mob on your first try (the M'uru adds are a good example of this) stacking hit and expertise was necessary - but that wasn't the general case.

I would like to say that while I disagree with you, I really do appreciate your comments and I understand where you're coming from. I like this kind of discourse and I hope that you do as well. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Lets just say we agree to disagree. I feel expertise is worth more than you are giving it .. more like 40. Hit should be more around 20 or so. Defence should be removed since it is more or less useless now until you hit 50% dodge. I also do feel you overweight stam. To each their own Im just giving my opinion.

Kalon said...

Lets just say we agree to disagree. I feel expertise is worth more than you are giving it .. more like 40. Hit should be more around 20 or so. Defence should be removed since it is more or less useless now until you hit 50% dodge.

While I'm fine with the rest of the statement, I can't let the 'defense is useless meme' stick around. Defense is not useless at all; the avoidance it provides without considering diminishing returns is 2/3rds as much per point as dodge rating is. When you factor in DR, it gets much closer to dodge or agility. I don't recommend stacking it or anything like that, but it certainly is worth being on gear.

Anonymous said...

From my own toon sheet it takes about 40 dodge = 1 % of dodge but 132 defence to = 1% of defence which is consistant with what I know. At DR (about 50% dosge) defence is ok but for gearing up no which was the argument you made for hit. Yet you gave defence a 50 rating, expertise 22 and hit 0 and dodge just a 59. As you pointed out the resist set has no threat or avoidance stats on it but by simply using the numbers from wowhead its comes in #2 for boots and #1 for belt. We both know thats not true which is why I also feel stam is overvalued.

If you want me to go away and shutup I will just making a few notes I hope your not offended :D

Tyg

Kalon said...

From my own toon sheet it takes about 40 dodge = 1 % of dodge but 132 defence to = 1% of defence which is consistant with what I know. Yep, that's all correct - well, there's no such think as 1% of defense, but it's fine. It takes 4.9 defense rating to give .04% dodge, parry, miss and block. 132 defense rating would give 1% dodge - but it would also give 1% miss. So that 132 defense rating would give 2% total avoidance. Compare to 132 dodge, which would give 3.1% avoidance, and you can see how defense rating gives about 2/3rds value.

But that is before diminishing returns. The miss % diminishes far slower at the defense values that druids pack relative to dodge, so it makes each point of defense rating better in terms of giving overall avoidance. At 30% dodge rate you lose about 1.5% dodge to diminishing returns - but miss loses nothing with the same gear.

This is illustrated with Rawr as well - in Rawr, dodge rating for my character is valued at 26.7, but defense is valued at 19.6 - and that's in my current gear. In Naxx gear defense increases in value.

You're probably right though - defense is likely too high. The ratio currently from this that I use is 1.18 to 1; it probably should be closer to 1.3 to 1. That doesn't, in practice, really change all that much though, as you won't really be competing for things with defense vs. things with dodge.

Expertise has value here because it can act as a form of mitigation. It isn't hugely valuable for mitigation (about a third as useful as dodge) but it still can reduce parry haste, and that makes it useful. I've talked about that quite a bit elsewhere in my blog, so I'll not bring it up more again. :)



If you want me to go away and shutup I will just making a few notes I hope your not offended :D


I'm not offended at all. :) I don't mind corrections that are valid and criticisms that are reasonable and reasonably thought out. I don't guarantee that I'll change my mind on my statements, but I will listen. I think reasonable people can disagree on things and discuss it reasonably.

Anonymous said...

Not that it really matters right now, seeing we can't even learn the engi goggles at this point.

But they were only BoE for the beta. They got changed to BoP like the old ones for Wotlk release.

Anonymous said...

Gored Hide Leggins do not seem to be from Argent Crusade. Was just at the vendor and he does only sell some epic leather boots at exalted.

A real shame, they would have been a much nicer reward than the boots.

Kalon said...

Gah! Gored Hide Legguards are from Heroic Gundrak. Sigh. Sorry about that.

Anonymous said...

One addition for your legs list: Chain Gang Legguards, a BoE world drop that is selling on my realm for about 100g. The +117 stamina puts them very high, somewhere around #4 on your list I think. --Flyv

Anonymous said...

Fantastic article here, bookmarked, and I'll be visiting frequently! Thanks for this :)

I have a question tho about Defense Rating. It was my understanding after a guildie did some research that druids are naturally uncrittable with 3 pts into SotF. If this is the case, is it necessary at all to let Defense Rating on gear to have much weight when choosing one piece over the other, or is Defense Rating still a significant stat? Is there a cap that we should aim for?

Anonymous said...

Love your list, great work. I'm working against it for my bear.

I'm using the Legguards of Swarming Attacks for my bear set, and the Mind-Expanding for cat. I like the extra stamina. I know that druids who had a lot of raid gear from BC don't have the stamina problems I do, but I think working toward 30k hps in bear is a good idea. And I'm not quite there yet.

Graylo said...

You may have listed this somewhere and I missed it, but you probably want to include the Staff of Trickery in your weapon list.

It drops in Heroic VH and is fairly easy to get.

Anonymous said...

Ditto to Cdin.
Staff of Trickery (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37883 ) drops off of Cyanigosa in Heroic Violet Hold. It lacks armor, but with upcoming feral armor changes, I think this won't be too big a deal. :)

Great list, btw! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Great list, but the Chest and Head lists seem odd as "Pre-naxx" lists, being full of Naxx and Malygos drops.

Kalon said...

Eurybia - thanks. :) The main reason you'd want to use defense is because it provides dodge and miss. It isn't as good as dodge rating or agility, but it still is good. Don't stack it, but don't look at defense as useless. There's no cap to look for.

Beable - thanks as well. And yes, looking for more stamina is a good idea before Naxx. When you're fairly well geared in heroic gear and craftables you can move on from that and work for more avoidance.

Cdin - thanks. :) I had thought I had put on the Violet Hold staff, but it turns out that without the armor it just isn't worth it. When the 3.0.4 changes come out it's still not worth it compared to the Enraged Feral Staff, but the comparison is much closer. I still wouldn't recommend it for bears over Enraged, though it's a good threat staff. Amusingly enough in 3.0.4 the epic fishing pole from Kalu'ak will have exactly the same DPS value as the Staff of Trickery. (it won't be as good since it'll be missing agility, strength and stam, but it'll have the same FAP).

Anon - sorry, I had saved prematurely and wrongly for the naxx list. It should be mostly correct now. Thanks for bringing that up!

Anonymous said...

Great list, it's really helped me out a lot. Just wanted to point out that the flowing cloak of command drops in normal mode - don't know if anyone has pointed that out yet. Thanks for the help

Anonymous said...

thanks for the awesome list.
i've been working my way through and really feel the improvement of my character. good thing to know you're set when you reach a top item for a slot.

one addition:
Flowing Cloak of Command - 35.61. Heroic CoT Strat

this cloak drops not in heroic strat, but normal.

i guess that (and the fact that it's fast and easy) makes strat one of the first targets, top shelf gloves and cloak for beartanks - and not even herioic.

Hiattech said...

hey, i love the listing of gear and i've picked up a lot of it. my question now is, what are some of the best gems to pick (i don't really have any socketed gear yet, but i figure i'll start gathering) and chants for each of these slots? do you have a link to another site that you use?

Kalon said...

Anon and kelondra - thanks for coming by. Sorry I hadn't updated this in a while. The flowing cloak should be correct now.

Adam - that's a good question. I've mentioned gemming and enchanting in other places and what you should sort of aim for, and Karthis put up a great guide for enchantments. Still, I should do one for completeness. To answer you quickly - go for agility when you can or the socket bonus isn't good. Go for stamina, defense, dodge and expertise when you must meet the socket bonus or can't afford the agility. If you're going for a stam set, just gem stam.

Unknown said...

This is exactly what ive been looking for about an eternity :) Great job!!!

Hiattech said...

I know patch 3.0.8 just came out, so this is probably asking a bit soon, but I'm assuming you'll get to redo the weapons section due to druids ability to now use polearms and various other weapons having attack power added for druids. I'm kinda hoping this doesn't change much for me but at the same time, I think it'll open up a lot more for druids to use. Thanks!

Kalon said...

Hey, Adam - thanks for coming by. :)

Updating the pre and post-naxx lists is one of my todo list items. The short answer is that not a lot changes in terms of the best (enraged Feral staff is still top of the list) but Staff of Trickery becomes much more usable and Titansteel Destroyer becomes an option, though it's not a great one.

And amusingly enough, so does the Kalu'ak mastercraft fishing pole.

I'll try and get something together for this post later this week. Thanks!