Tuesday, September 8, 2009

[Druid] Cat's 3.2/Coliseum loot ranking (UPDATED 10/15)

Okay, before we get into this and I'm flooded with questions: yes, I'm aware of the armor pen nerf upcoming in 3.2.2. Yes, this will incorporate those numbers. No, the sky isn't falling and armor pen isn't ridiculously bad. Yes, you should still stack and gem for armor pen, according to every simulation I've seen; it just means you should likely either keep Mjolnir Runestone/Grim Toll for a while and go for agi, or stack armor pen and skip it entirely (using things like Banner of Victory instead). I've reduced the value of armor pen on gear by about 5%, which is what I've seen this as a hit. It's still just a bit above agi, but not much. This is on par with what Rawr rates it in 3.2.2, and what FBN's simulations have it as. Remember, the only thing that's changing is how much you get; the actual value of it when you have it is still very high.

Also note that while the 4 piece T9 bonus for cats isn't so thrilling (it's about a 1% DPS upgrade at most), the 2 piece T9 bonus is quite decent. It's about a 2% DPS upgrade depending on how well you rake currently. It clearly has some good synergy with 2p T8 too, but you should know that you shouldn't worry about keeping 2pT8. The bonus is good, but it definitely doesn't beat keeping it around if you're replacing it with 258 gear, and doesn't really merit keeping around if you're replacing it with 245 gear for the most part. If you're curious, the best pieces of T9 to go for at 258 levels of gear are the head and shoulders. That's unfortunate as they're also the slots you can fill via triumph badges without trophies (specifically the Duskstalker Pauldrons/Duskstalker Shoulderpads and Hood of Lethal Intent/Mask of Lethal Intent), but there are better gloves, chest, and leg off-set pieces.

Now, here's the thing - at this point given how hard Anub'arak is (only two guilds in the world beat him on his first reset), I'm not sure it's all that reasonable to believe that there's going to be a lot of 258 tier pieces out there for most people. They'll be under massively high demand for all but the best guilds, at least for a fairly decent time. I could be wrong and there could be billions of the pieces, but if I'm right you'll want to plan on getting a lot of off-tier pieces wherever you can (as they will likely drop in greater frequency) and making sure that when you get a 258 token, you're not going to upgrade.

And that really speaks to going for head and shoulders as T9. Those are the only pieces with zero upgrades over T9.

Still, your drop rate is your drop rate; you should also try and upgrade whatever your weakest spots are when you can.

Finally, not everything is on Wowhead; particularly loot from heroic Anub'Arak and the tribute gear. When I knew of something that wasn't there, I put it on the list and put the text in red. These numbers may not be perfect, but the relative values should be correct.

Back:

  1. Vereesa's Dexterity/Sylvanas' Cunning - from Tribute (25) chest. 35.5
  2. Cloak of the Silver Covenant/Cloak of Serrated Blades - Tribute (10) chest. 34.63
  3. Drape of the untamed Predator/Cloak of the untamed predator - heroic(25) Icehowl. 32.15
  4. Drape of the Faceless General - 25-man General Vezax (hard). 28.01.
  5. Varian's Fervor/Garrosh's Rage - Tribute (25) chest. 28.0
  6. Drape of the Untamed Predator/Cloak of the Untamed Predator - normal (25) Jaraxxus. 27.7
  7. Cloak of the Triumphant Combatant/Cloak of the Victorious Combatant - from Tribute(10) chest. 27.58
  8. Drape of Icy Intent - 25-man Hodir (hard) - 27.03
  9. Might of the Nerub/Strength of the Nerub - heroic (25) Anub'arak. 26.94
  10. Might of the Nerub/Strength of the Nerub - normal (25) Anub'Arak. 22.83
  11. Drape of the Lithe - 25-man Ulduar (normal) - 22.79
  12. Shawl of the Shattered Giant - 10-man Kologarn. 22.23
  13. Drape of the Deadly Foe - 25-man Kel'Thuzad. 22.07
UPDATED: while the top piece is still not on there, some of the others have shown up - and they're great. Scores have been slightly updated. Not a lot of surprise though.

The back slot will have the most red text due to the cloak tribute rewards. If anything, this should point out to you that doing General Vezax and getting his cloak is a good idea; it's so awesome simply because of those gem slots. Otherwise, not a lot of surprises or really a lot of upgrades. Cloaks are usually hard to get and heavily fought over, so if you get an opportunity to upgrade it I'd recommend that you do so.

Chest:
  1. Cuirass of Calamitous Fate/Vest of Calamitous Fate - Heroic (25) Jaraxxus. 58.84
  2. Malfurion's Rainments of Triumph/Runetotem's Rainments of Triumph - Regalia of the Grand Vanquisher (heroic 25). 58.39
  3. Armor of Shifting Shadows/Vest of Shifting Shadows - heroic (10) Valkyr. 57.03
  4. Knightbane Carapace - BoE Leatherworking via Crusader Orbs. 54.86
  5. Malfurion's Rainments of Triumph/Runetotem's Rainments of Triumph - 75 emblems of triumph + 1 trophy of the crusade. 51.98
  6. Cuirass of Calamitous Fate/Vest of Calamitous Fate - normal (25) Jaraxxus. 51.44
  7. Embrace of the Gladiator - 25-man Thorim (hard). 49.78
  8. Armor of Shifting Shadows/Vest of Shifting Shadows - normal (10) Valkyr. 48.94
  9. Malfurion's Rainments of Conquest/Runetotem's Rainments of Conquest - 50 emblems of triumph. 46.34
  10. Winter's Icy Embrace - 25-man Hodir (easy). 45.44
  11. Conqueror's Nightsong Rainments - 58 emblems of Conquest. 42.05
UPDATED: the Cuirass was added to WoWhead, so this list is complete through 3.2. The values and relative values have remained largely the same, and this is the weakest of the 'better than T9.258 non-tier pieces' to upgrade. But it's still better.

Note that while the Cuirass/Vest is best in slot, the value between it and the T9 chest is very, very small. If you're especially hurting for a chest upgrade for whatever reason and you get a Regalia token, that's not the worst thing that you could upgrade. The heroic Valkyr drop is also very good and close to being up there, and may be significantly easier for you to obtain.

Feet:

  1. Icewalker Treads/Treads of the Icewalker - Heroic (25) Faction Champions. 46.45
  2. Acidmaw Boots/Acidmaw Treads - Heroic (10) Beasts. 40.22
  3. Icewalker Treads/Treads of the Icewalker - Normal(25) Faction Champions. 40.21
  4. Acidmaw Boots/Acidmaw Treads - Normal (10) Beasts. 34.69
  5. Footpads of Silence - BoE craftable from Runed Orbs. 34.12
  6. Runed Ironhide Boots - 25-man Iron Council (normal). 32.88
  7. Flamestalker Boots - 25-man Ignis. 31.6
A very boring upgrade path here. The difference between Acidmaw boots on heroic 10 and Icewalker treads on normal 25 is so minuscule due to the weakness of the rating system; Acidmaw Treads are great when you're below the hit and exp cap, but Icewalkers are great even when you're at the exp cap. Choose which makes more sense to you given your gear. If you do a lot of tanking, the Acidmaw will likely pull better double duty.

Finger:

  1. Band of Callous Aggression/Ring of Callous Aggression - Heroic (25) Faction Champions. 31.87
  2. Planestalker Signet/Planestalker Band - Heroic (10) Jaraxxus. 30.98
  3. Dexterous Brightstone Ring - 35 emblems of Triumph. 29.0
  4. Planestalker Signet/Planestalker Band - Normal(10) Jaraxxus. 27.56
  5. Brann's Signet Ring - 25-man Algalon quest turn in. 27.13
  6. Band of the Violent Temperament/Ring of the Violent Temperament - Heroic (25) Icehowl. 26.85
  7. Band of Lights - 10-man Algalon 26.83
  8. Carnivorous Band/Gormok's Band - Heroic(10) Northrend Beasts. 25.42
  9. Cindershard Ring - 25-man Ignis. 25.15
  10. Brann's Sealing Ring - 10-man Algalon quest turn in. 25.02
  11. Loop of the Agile - 10-man Iron Council (hard). 24.82
  12. Metallic Loop of the Sufferer - 25-man General Vezax (easy). 22.87
  13. Bloodshed Band - 35 emblems of Triumph. 22.83
  14. Godbane Signet - 25-man Yogg-Saron (easy). 22.68
  15. Band of the Violent Temperament/Ring of the Violent Temperament - normal (25) Beasts. 22.61
  16. Etched Band of the Kirin Tor - lots of cash. 22.3
  17. Band of Draconic Guile - 10-man Razorscale. 22.24
  18. Surge Needle Ring - 10-man Malygos. 20.84
  19. Strength of the Automaton - 25-man Flame Leviathan (easy). 20.08
UPDATED: This is an interesting choice that largely comes down to whether you have an arpen trinket or not. If you do, chances are the callous aggression are going to be best. If you don't and you're stacking arpen you probably want Planestaker + Dexterous.

Rings are very, very hard to come by. The Dexterous Brightstone is potentially upgradeable if you get very lucky, but other than that you're likely going to have it + one of the other two if you're at all lucky. If you're like me, you'll be hoping for some other drops along the way. Because an upgrade drops in both normal and heroic 10-man Coliseum, you should likely try and run that if you have the chance.

Hands:
  1. Gloves of the Silver Assassin/Sunreaver Assassin's Gloves - Heroic (10) Faction Champions. 44.43
  2. Malfurion's Handgrips of Triumph/Runetotem's Handgrips of Triumph - Regalia of the Grand Vanquisher (heroic 25). 43.54
  3. Malfurion's Handgrips of Triumph/Runetotem's Handgrips of Triumph - 45 emblems of triumph + 1 trophy of the crusade (normal 25, heroic 25, heroic 10). 38.69
  4. Gloves of the Silver Assassin/Sunreaver Assassin's Gloves - Normal(10) Faction Champions. 37.39
  5. Gloves of the Endless Dark - 10-man Algalon. 35.88
  6. Gloves of the Stonereaper - 25-man Auriaya. 33.84
  7. Malfurion's Handgrips of conquest/Runetotem's Handgrips of Conquest - 30 emblems of triumph. 34.45
  8. Conqueror's Nightsong Handgrips - 25-man Mimiron (easy). 31.92
  9. Gloves of the Blind Stalker - 28 emblems of conquest. 30.67
  10. Valorous Nightsong Handgrips - 10-man Freya (easy). 29.76
The heroic 10-man gloves beat the top tier gloves fairly well, making them a good priority to grab. Again, it's all about the sockets - and in this case the sockets are nicely colored, too. Even the normal 10-man Assassin gloves are pretty good, so if you're considering buying the tier piece anyway, I'd recommend holding off for as long as you can unless you'll be doing a significant upgrade to both your cat and bear set. That's a nice side point, by the way; the Assassin gloves are great for cat but not very good for bears, so you might consider taking the hit for your cat's set and going for the tier piece. Me personally? The heroic assassin gloves dropped, so I won't have to make that decision for a bit. :)

Head:

  1. Malfurion's Headguard of Triumph/Runetotem's Headguard of Triumph - Regalia of the Grand Vanquisher (heroic 25). 57.85
  2. Hood of Lethal Intent/Mask of Lethal Intent - 75 emblems of triumph. 53.19
  3. Malfurion's Headguard of Triumph/Runetotem's Headguard of Triumph - 75 emblems of triumph + 1 trophy of the crusade (normal 25, heroic 10). 51.33
  4. Stormrage Coverlet - 25-man Onyxia. 49.90
  5. Malfurion's Headguard of Conquest/Runetotem's Headguard of Conquest -50 emblems of triumph. 45.6
  6. Stormrage Helm - 10-man Onyxia. 44.61
  7. Mimiron's Flight Goggles - 10-man Mimiron (hard). 43.89
  8. Mask of Distant Memory - The Black Knight heroic. 43.5
  9. Conqueror's Nightsong Headguard - 58 emblems of Conquest. 43.14
UPDATED: the Onyxia helm is mostly good for the hit and expertise, but for cats hit is somewhat overrated. No armor pen and not a great differentiation makes it the worst of the 245 level helms, but not by so much that if you get it, you should get another helm in its place. Still, it's 4 baer.

I was shocked at how good the Mask of Distant Memory is, but looking at it it's quite strong if for whatever reason you're below the hit cap. Still, probably better to use the T8 piece if you're that low, as it'll stay decent for a longer period of time. As to the top of the list, I'd recommend going with the T9 helm if at all possible; it's one of the few pieces with expertise out there, and even though the Hood/Mask has armor pen, it's not enough to trump the higher ilvl.

Legs:

  1. Leggings of the Broken Beast/Legwraps of the Broken Beast - heroic (25) Beasts. 58.75
  2. Malfurion's Legguards of Triumph/Runetotem's Legguards of Triumph - Regalia of the Grand Vanquisher (heroic 25). 56.89
  3. Legguards of Cunning Deception - 25-man Yogg (hard). 51.72
  4. Malfurion's Legguards of Triumph/Runetotem's Legguards of Triumph - 75 emblems of triumph + 1 trophy of the crusade (normal 25, heroic 10). 50.37
  5. Leggings of the Broken Beast/Legwraps of the Broken Beast - normal(25) Beasts. 49.47
  6. Malfurion's Legguards of Conquest/Runetotem's Legguards of Conquest - 50 emblems of triumph. 44.64
  7. Leggings of Wavering Shadow - 39 emblems of conquest. 49.0
  8. Conqueror's Nightsong Legguards - 25-man Freya (easy). 41.96
There's a HUGE gulf between the 258 and the next tier of gear, and the hardmode Yogg legs sneak in there due to the extra socket and overall more useful stats. This is the best overall upgrade from set to non-set piece, so if you're going to skip using one piece of tier gear, make it for the 258 level legs from the Beasts.

Neck:

  1. Charge of the Demon Lord/Charge of the Eredar - heroic (25) Jaraxxus. 32.44
  2. Collar of Unending Torment/Collar of Ceaseless Torment - heroic (10) Beasts. 30.61
  3. Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant - 25-man Onyxia quest reward. 27.88
  4. Charge of the Demon Lord/Charge of the Eredar - normal(25) Jaraxxus. 27.53
  5. The Executioner's Malice/The Executioner's Vice - heroic(25) Valkyr. 27.3
  6. Pendulum of Infinity - 25-man General Vezax (hard). 26.84
  7. Collar of Unending Torment/Collar of Ceaseless Torment - normal (10) Beasts. 26.38
  8. Seed of Budding Carnage - 10-man Freya (hard). 25.77
  9. Broach of the Wailing Night - 19 emblems of Conquest. 24.49
  10. Favor of the Dragon Queen - 25-man Malygos quest reward. 24.25
  11. The Executioner's Malice/The Executioner's Vice - normal (25) Valkyr. 23.06
UPDATED: The onyxia neck isn't the best thing ever, but it does ever so slightly beat the normal 25-man gear neck. If you're hurting for an upgrade it's not too bad - though again, no armor pen hurts it some.

Man, Jaraxxus has been really stingy! If you're going for an armor-cap set, the Collar is what you want, but otherwise either it or the Charge neck are going to be good upgrades. Don't forget about the emblem vendor neck either as a cheap upgrade.

Shoulder:

  1. Malfurion's Shoulderpads of Triumph/Runetotem's Shoulderpads of Triumph - Regalia of the Grand Vanquisher (heroic 25). 44.61
  2. Duskstalker Pauldrons/Duskstalker Shoulderpads - 45 emblems of Triumph. 40.15
  3. Malfurion's Shoulderpads of Triumph/Runetotem's Shoulderpads of Triumph - 45 emblems of triumph + 1 trophy of the crusade. 39.61
  4. Spaulders of the Snow Bandit/Shoulderpads of the Snow Bandit - heroic(10) Anub'arak . 39.4
  5. Shoulderpads of the Intruder - 25-man Iron Council (hard). 36.83
  6. Malfurion's Shoulderpads of Conquest/Runetotem's Shoulderpads of Conquest - 30 emblems of triumph - 35.25
  7. Spaulders of the Snow Bandit/Shoulderpads of the Snow Bandit - normal(10) Anub'arak . 34.74
  8. Conqueror's Nightsong Shoulderpads - 25-man Yogg (easy). 33.44
  9. Shoulderpads of the Monolith - 25-man Kologarn. 32.56
  10. Treacherous Shoulderpads - 10-man XT (easy). 32.26
  11. Valorous Nightsong Shoulderpads - 10-man Thorim (easy). 30.97
  12. Valorous Dreamwalker Shoulderpads - 60 emblems of Valor. 28.05
  13. Shoulderpads of the Infamous Knave - normal Trial of Crusader. 27.79
While the 258 tier piece is really awesome, this might be a good spot to get something cheap that will work for a while, like the Duskstalker shoulderpads. The Snow Bandit hardmode drop from Anub'arak is pretty good too, though not for the armor pen afficionado.

Trinket:

  1. Death's Choice/Death's Verdict - heroic (25) Valkyr. 40.5
  2. Death's Choice/Death's Verdict - normal (25) Valkyr. 35.8
  3. Comet's Trail - 25-man Algalon. 31.3
  4. Mjolnir Runestone - 10-man Thorim (hard). 28.1
  5. Darkmoon Card:Greatness - BoE inscription. 26.6
  6. Dark Matter - 10-man Algalon. 26.1
  7. Banner of Victory - normal (Paletress) Trial of Champion. 25.3
  8. Grim Toll - 25-man Naxxramas (various). 20.1
  9. Mirror of Truth - 40 emblems of Valor. 183.7
  10. Shard of the Crystal Heart - 50 emblems of triumph. 140.0
UPDATED: just in case it wasn't clear, the best strategy currently is to go with Mjolnir and one of the Death's trinkets. If you can't do that, going with double Death trinkets and DM:G or Banner of Victory (depending on your arpen level) is going to be good. This is what Tun of Ensidia does to some success, for instance.

A lot of this depends on your gearing strategy. While the death trinkets are always going to remain on top, what you use as your second trinket depends on whether you're going for max armor pen or a balance or if you want to cap via procs. Mjolnir is the best for cap via procs, of course. Banner of Victory is the only option for max armor pen. Because there is just so much hit rating out there, I can't recommend going for the Shard of the Crystal heart. And yes, ignore Wowhead's rankings until they get good modeling for on use/proc values; these are from Rawr and from reading EJ.

Waist:

  1. Belt of the Merciless Killer/Belt of the Pitiless Killer - heroic (25) Valkyr. 43.92
  2. Belt of the Merciless Killer/Belt of the Pitiless Killer - normal (25) Valkyr. 38.01
  3. Soul-Devouring Cinch - 10-man Yogg (hard). 37.64
  4. Death-Warmed Belt - BoE leatherworking from Runed Orbs. 33.07
  5. Relic Hunter's Cord - 25-man Ulduar. 32.46
  6. Waistguard of the Creator - 25-man Mimiron (easy). 31.27
  7. Belt of the Twilight Assassin - 28 emblems of conquest. 31.21.
UPDATED: only changed the new score for the top belt. Rankings didn't change at all.

Even fewer choices for the cat than the bear. The hardmode 10-man yogg drop is an interesting choice; it has the rare expertise and two sockets, which may be a lot better than the 245-level Belt of the killer depending on what you have on personally. This is also one of the slots that changed most dramatically with the armor pen change; slots 3 through 5 moved all around.


Wrist:
  1. Armbands of Dark Determination/Bracers of Dark Determination - heroic(25) Anub'arak. 33.47
  2. Bracers of Swift Death - Leatherworking BoE via Crusader Orbs. 29.6
  3. Armbands of Dark Determination/Bracers of Dark Determination - normal(25) Anub'arak. 28.15
  4. Solar Bindings - 25-man Algalon. 27.72
  5. Fluxing Energy Coils - 10-man XT (hard). 25.83
  6. Armbands of the Wary Lookout - heroic Eadric in Trial of Champion. 23.67
  7. Mechanist's Bindings - 25-man Flame Leviathan (easy). 22.97
  8. Sinner's Bindings - 25-man Maexxna. 21.03
  9. Thrusting Bands - 25-man Noth. 20.83
  10. Wristwraps of the Cutthroat - 60 emblems of valor. 20.63
UPDATED: The armbands are even better than I originally thought. Otherwise no changes.

One of the better places to spend crusader orbs if you can. Rawr actually ranks them above the 258-level gear because of the hit cap, and it's likely that they'll be better for you as well as you get up in gear.

Weapons:

  1. Archon Glaive/Hellion Glaive - heroic (25) Anub'arak. 271.53
  2. Lupine Longstaff/Twin's Pact - heroic (25) Valkyr. 270.95
  3. Catastrophe/Grievance - heroic (25) tribute chest. 258.68
  4. Relentless Gladiator's Greatstaff - arena rating. 245.2
  5. Relentless Gladiator's Crusher/Halberd - arena rating. 241.08
  6. Archon Glaive/Hellion Glaive - normal (25) Anub'arak. 239.81
  7. Lupine Longstaff/Twin's Pact - normal(25) Valkyr. 238.34
  8. Attrition/Paragon's Breadth - heroic (10) tribute chest. 237.10
  9. Fordragon Blades/Anguish - heroic (10) Anub'arak. 236.96
  10. Reinforced Shadowstrike - 25-man Onyxia. 233.10
  11. Dreambinder - 25-man Freya (hard). 226.64
  12. Dark Edge of Depravity - 25-man Yogg(hard). 223.23
  13. Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned - 25-man Vezax (easy). 212.19
  14. Tortured Earth - 10-man Vezax (hard). 209.54
  15. Twisted Visage - 25-man XT(normal). 208.74
  16. Fordragon Blades/Anguish - normal(10) Anub'arak. 208.69
  17. Hammer of Crushing Whispers - 10-man Yogg (hard). 203.56
  18. Earthshaper - 25-man Yogg (easy). 201.08
  19. Journey's End - 25-man Kel'Thuzad. 195.41
  20. Hoperender - 10-man General Vezax (easy). 189.85
  21. Marrowstrike - Heroic Paletress in Trial of Champion. 187.9
  22. Spire of Withering Dreams - 10-man Kologarn. 185.59
  23. Relentless Edge - 10 man Ignis. 182.32
  24. Silvery Sylvan Stave/Staff of Feral Furies - 50 champion's seals. 150.2
UPDATED: the top end weapons shifted around a bit, but only a bit, mostly due to how much I value haste (not as much) vs how much FbN/Rawr do. Reinforced Shadowstrike is sadly not that great in the rankings due to the lack of a socket. It's better than many pieces from Ulduar, but it's the weakest 245-level weapon out there.

There are plenty of other weapons on the list between 19 and 22 - check the list if you like. The armor pen nerf definitely changed the values here quite a bit. Otherwise it's mostly governed by item level; the higher it is, the more FAP, and thus the more overall damage.

Idol:
  1. Idol of Mutilation - 25 emblems of Triumph. 27.2
  2. Idol of the Corrupter - 19 emblems of Conquest. 20.7*
  3. Idol of Worship - 25 emblems of valor. 17.2
  4. Idol of the Ravenous Beast - 15 emblems of heroism. 10.1
These are Rawr rankings. The rule of using Ravenous beast when you have high armor pen still applies. Also, the Idol of the Corrupter is only good if you're putting up mangle - but if you are, it's very good.

25 comments:

Jheusse said...

Excellent summary, thanks.

Side question: What values would you use for an updated Pawn scale based on the current rankings and projected Arpen nerfs that are inbound? I'm running with a very outdated scale I keep meaning to update.

Xarnen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Xarnen said...

As always excellent summary. In regards to set bonuses, I have a couple of questions.

If armor pen is still worth stacking, is 2p t7 worth keeping until tier9 stuff is available or just get the best upgrades available with conquest emblems?

Also do you feel the 2p t8 bonus still merits a hard look at keeping around for certain types of encounters? I'm thinking for the future if there are any "heartbreaker" type fights where you need short but high bursts of dps, the extra clearcasts for more shreds might be nice.

Thanks and good luck your with new guild!

kane said...

Extremely interesting..
I have only one question.
Could you rank JC BoP trinkets?
How good they are if I will use two additional sockets and fill them with ArP gems?

Lunk said...

"If you're curious, the best pieces of T9 to go for at 258 levels of gear are the head and shoulders. That's unfortunate as they're also the pieces you can get via triumph badges without trophies..."
This comment has left me a bit confused. I read it as you can get Tier9(258) head and shoulders for mere badges. It was my understanding that you can only get Tier9(258) from gear tokens from the last chest in heroic.

Kalon said...

Jheusse, I probably can't help you right now; I've not used and don't tend to use Pawn. I'll look into it and see if I can put something in.

Xarnen, 2pT7 is not worth stacking if you have one piece of 245-level gear to replace it. I miss having the longer rips, but the damage output was really slight. As to 2pT8, fights with high burst are exactly the kind of fight you don't want that bonus for. Clearcasting on rakes and rips requires both of these be active on your target, and it requires that you get lucky. I'd rather not rely on getting lucky and instead do consistently higher damage.

kane, the JC trinkets really aren't that hot. You can either get 42 hit or 84 AP along with 40 armor pen, and that ends up being worth about 12.1 points on the same scale I used prior. That's okay, but it doesn't match up to what you can get elsewhere, not by a longshot.

Lunk, you're right - that wasn't very clear. The unfortunate part is that you can spend your triumph badges on a piece for the head and for the shoulders (245) - but that as soon as you get a 258 token for the tier, you'd want to replace that instead of replacing another piece of gear. Ideally you could use those triumph pieces for a while, and more than likely you will anyway given the scarcity of the tokens. I'll clean up the text a bit to make it clearer what I mean.

Anonymous said...

I also use Pawn scales as a quick way to know if an item is an upgrade or not. I usually have a normal one and an "ignore expertise" one. With the gear coming out of 3.2, I'm going to change that to an "ignore hit" one, as I'm already 340+ !!

Toskk's calculator: http://druid.wikispaces.com/ToskksDPSGearMethod

has a custom Pawn scale generated at the bottom of the gear listings. Just input your stats and let it churn out the scale for you.

Swede said...

good work as usual

Tyyr said...

More of a question than a comment.

From what I've been reading, you still want to try and keep your crit at least up in the 55ish % range, even if you're gemming for arpen. Do you feel the 4pt9 bonus might have at least some benefit when gemming heavily for arpen, or is that taken into consideration when you estimate a 1% dps increase?

Kalon said...

Tyyr, I don't think that the 4pT9 bonus outweighs the benefit you can get from the offtier pieces in the same slots to the point that it will result in a win. For example, comparing the 258 tier chest to the best in slot piece, you get the same agility, neither have armor pen - but the offtier piece has an additional socket at the cost of some AP and crit rating. That's going to be a win. Same goes for the legs and (most especially) the gloves.

Now, it might be true that the 4pT9 outweighs the 2 additional sockets and the slight other improvements over (for example) the chest and legs if you're going for 258 pieces, but my suspicion is that if you're stacking armor pen everywhere else, you'll get a much bigger return if you go down a step and go for the 245-level chest (which has arpen) and the Yogg hardmode legs (which also have arpen). I haven't computed it totally though, but that'd be my guess.

The biggest problem I see with the 4P bonus is that it works against armor pen, really. If you're ripping, you want bigger rips, and armor pen does nothing there. If you're doing FBs more often it's because you have a high crit rate - and armor pen works against you there too (at least compared to agi).

But probably the most damning thing is this: unless you're in some of the best guilds in the world chances are you won't get more than 2 pieces of 258-level tier pieces. But chances are also good you'll get a lot of 258-level offtier pieces. That means 4pT9 with 258 is basically out of reach of most people, and taking the 245-level gear is definitely not worth getting the bonus over the offtier pieces.

Beable said...

Head pieces are either misnumbered or out of order. You have Tier 8 hat with value 46.9 under three items lower than 46.9.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering, will you be updating this Car Loot list as you did for the Bear List since Ony came out? Thanks. =)

P.S. Great list!

Patejl said...

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47854

is this (and its heroic version) really that bad? I didn't find it in the list

Kalon said...

Ah, yes, Gormok's band. Yeah, it's pretty bad. If you're really hurting it might be okay, but honestly? I'd just let all the other strength classes get it first. Including tanks.

Mittnacht said...

I dunno, Kal, Gormok's band is better than cindershard ring according to your gear weighting. And for a hit-capped kitty looking to stack arpen it is pretty attractive.

Anonymous said...

2 mistakes on your list
a.) twin's pact > hellion glaive
(at any time)
and both only the HC version is better than http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48705

b.) the trinket list makes it look like it is worth to have both of the proc trinkets. while its worth for threat tanking (no joke) and while it maybe worth it in ice crown (depending on equip) but will probably be NOT worth it (due to equip probably scaling crit over white and fb cap) it is NOT worth NOW: Runestone is the second best trinket AFTER one of the Death's Choices (does not matter which one). ArPn Softcap is still the way to go (after the nerf)

Anonymous said...

About Crit vs Str.

You probably want to stack Crit until you reach the soft crit cap that is.

100-24-HIT_MISSING-EXP_MISSING-PROCS.
Lets say you are hitcapped but miss 2% expertise for the dodge cap and your proc gives you 6% crit. Your soft crit cap would be 100 - 24 - 0 - 2 - 6 = 68%. The hard crit cap is 76 - you may reach that one without procs (Idol, Trinkets) hit can exp capped. After that one neither White Damage nor Ferocious Bite take any benefit from any further point of AGI or CRIT rating.

Upcoming versions of Rawr will take care about the crit cap that is due to Rend and Tear and Glancings

Strut said...

Kalon, I much appreciate your time and effort, and use your gear ranking system quite often. That being said, where do you rank Paragon's Breadth (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48710) on your bear tanking list? I found it on your cat weightings, although it there wasn't a direct link to it on the blog. Thanks!

Kalon said...

Mittnacht - I'll add it to the list then. :)

Anon - I disagree, but I tend to favor the value of crit higher than fbn does, and that's the only difference essentially. It's honestly not going to be particularly large one way or another; if you can get one or the other, you should.

The trinket list is normally taken with a grain of salt, but you're right; I should indicate that you don't want grim toll and runestone at the same time. Having both death trinkets would be useful though; both proc independently (unlike DM:G).

Strut, thanks for the kind words. Attrition and Paragon's Breath are the same, so I rank it a bit lower than Twin's Pact and higher than Anguish. I'll update the list.

ionas82 said...

It is with the exception of very high end gear the best to have Runestone and one of the PdC-Agi-Proc trinkets.

Grim Toll AND Runestone togather do make sense if you just started doing PdC AND have very low ArPen on your equip (like 200-300). The waste on ArPen due to double proc is minimal then plus you can reequip one of the trinkets at the time you do your double speed potion to reset the internal cooldown on, lets say, Grim Toll, so overlapping chance is reduced again. Anyway, with Agi Food 1400 - 655 - 612 = 133 ArPen on gear create no overcapping. If you have around 200-250 without Gems its still worth it to go with dual ArPen proc trinkets as long as you do not have one of the PdC trinkets.

King regards

Twin's pact is rated higher on Rawr as well, and that is with good reason.

Anonymous said...

Plus:

if you have the best of the best pdc equipment you can ever get and socket full arpen with one 10stats and meta gem, then you get a benifit of 70 DPS from dual pdc proc trinkets... thats not huge, but its an upgrade over proc trinket + runestone.

Kalon said...

Again, Ionas - I disagree. I understand why FbN and Rawr do the rankings they do, and I feel that the value of crit is still (marginally) higher than the value of haste. Again, the difference is really minor; it's 1 point here, and it's 10 DPS differential in Rawr. If you feel that this is in error that's fine too; you're free to evaluate as you see fit. For me, having higher crit rates is more important than having more melee hits. Honestly, getting either would be great.

On a side note, what's PdC? I'm guessing it's auf Deutsch, but can't figure out the P.

Keerjava said...

Hi! I was wondering where you would rank the item level 232 Reclaimed Shadowstrike/Thunderstrike that drops from 10 man Onyxia. While Thunderstrike seems much more for tanking, I am trying to compare the Reclaimed Shadowstrike with the Fordragon Blades that drop from 10toc (normal) Anub'arak in terms of dps. I'm completely torn and was hoping to pick your brain. =)

Thanks!

Kalon said...

Keerjava - at the top of my site there are links to my loot ranking weighings - you can use them any time to check these out. That being said, according to the weapon ranking, it ranks a small bit less than the Fordragon blades.

Anonymous said...

Im wondering where "Band of Callous Aggression" from normal 25 TOC sits among the list of rings.