[Offtopic] Recruiting

On a totally unrelated note to ThinkTank, Fire and Blood is recruiting! We're specifically looking for ranged DPS classes and rogues right now, but will consider any quality application. We have currently beaten all T7.10 and T7.25 content and are working on Sartharion with drakes up. If you're interested, drop me a line or apply at the website above.

Some quick notes about us:

• Quel'Dorei is a CST server
• The raiding community here is young, as is the server itself
• Fire & Blood raids 3 times a week currently, 7PM central time
• We use a suicide-kings DKP style updated after every boss; ties are determined by attendance and loot council
• We're not the hardest-core players out there.
  
• We are a very mature bunch though; most of us are at least in college and many of us have families, careers, and lives outside of WoW.
• We believe that you don't raid to get gear; you get gear to raid.
  

Drop by, say hi, and feel free to ask questions. :)

[Druid] MOAR STUF (aka, Polearms)

Thanks to Runycat, I found out that Polearms are now trainable by druids. Makes sense, right? Hunters get to use feral staves (and they're converting strength to AP on them to make them more desirable), so druids now can use those hunter polearms. And we can all covet each other's neighbors, or something.

Trainers are in Stormwind and Undercity, in case you've forgotten.

So let's go to the comparisons! For bears, there's still no replacing Origin of Nightmares, Staff of the Plague Beast or even Enraged Feral Staff - they're just too good with the armor, even post 3.0.8. That one's pretty easy. They also have more stamina than any other druid weapons out there. It's not a contest.

For cats, though...

Black Ice (which drops from Malygos Normal) becomes the second best DPS weapon in the game. The huge hit rating is great and rare on any druid weapon, it has a ton of agility and a decent amount of attack power. It also looks like a druid weapon already; it's all crazy looking and funky and stuff. I really recommend this if no one else wants it; the hit rating will make it alone very valuable, and it has the highest agility of any weapon out there.

The Wraith Spear drops from normal Naxx from Maexxna, and it'll be worse than a lot of the other options for DPS. All of the feral staves, Inevitable Defeat...but it's not a bad one, and it should make for a nice alternate weapon if you can't get anything better.

Cryptfiend's Bite drops from Heroic Heigan, but it's not ideal. It has crit and haste instead of hit and haste, and only has 51 agility. Nice AP on it, but I'm not convinced that it's enough.

For those of you on a budget, the Saliva-Corroded Pike (yum!) drops from one of the random bosses in heroic VH, and will be close to the quality of a Feral Enraged staff for dps. And for an even bigger budget item, you can get the Whale-Stick Harpoon from Kalu'ak, which should be a very good early DPS option since you can get the rep so soon.

So - if you happen to be on any Malygos normal runs and that Black Ice drops - and no one else wants it - make sure to ask nicely. :)

And you don't even have to level your polearm skills either.

[Druid] The collected ideas on how to fix bears

Since this is threatening to take over various comments on various posts I've made, this will be the topic to discuss all the different feral alternatives to the way things are for bears. You might take a look at the posts on the tank forums, though there's a lot of signal to noise there.

In summary, a lot of bears aren't happy getting all of their ability to tank solely from talents. Between SotF, the new changes to SotF, the large amount of dodge, static threat, and stamina that bears innately get and the total lack of scaling stats for bears, we have a class that is essentially set for tanking regardless of gear level. There are no juggling of stats, they say; there's only agility. There's no balancing dodge vs. mitigation; there's simply getting the best ilvl leather you can get for your mitigation and then getting a couple more points of dodge from trinkets and rings, or maybe getting a couple thousand more armor if you stack it. Threat isn't important. Damage is still high. There's no impetus to gear up. There's no incentive to get better gear or even progress; druids are already awesome.

And make no mistake - druids are really, truly awesome right now. Remember Kara in 2.0, when druids did tons of damage, tons of threat, and were easily geared for Kara right out of the box? Same deal here.

And remember how lame it was when T6 came and there was nothing?

So it's not a matter of ability; from all indications druids are king of the hill for a large chunk of the fights in T7 right now, and that's not going to change meaningfully with 3.0.4. It's a matter of satisfaction.

What's unsatisfying? Gearing up. The rogue gear isn't that interesting for bears right now, and it would be good if a change was made to make it so. The multiplier on leather armor makes it kind of silly not to upgrade to the highest levels possible no matter what, but equally makes that brainless. It's not satisfying to not worry about things like being uncrittable, and it's not satisfying to have no 'large' upgrades in your future because everything is baked into your class. It's also unsatisfying to not have to balance threat. It's really unsatisfying to have all gear somewhat okay for you. It's not fun to have only one mitigation talent and one avoidance talent. Any solution should try to address the gear issue, the single source of mitigation issue, the single stat upgrade issue, the threat issue, and the fun issue.

Here are the more popular ideas on how to fix this.

1. Do nothing. Seriously, a lot of people advocate for this. Regardless of whether or not you think druid itemization and abilities are fun right now, the fact is that druids are just fine for tanking most things. They're still great on mitigation and damage incoming, especially on harder-hitting physical bosses. They do adequately against magic-using bosses thanks to barkskin, PotP and huge HP pools. There's nothing mechanically that says they suck right now, and there's no indicator that they're going to suck in Ulduar. That being said...it doesn't make the rogue gear or the tanking jewelry any more desirable, it doesn't make druids scale any better, it doesn't make gear exciting, it doesn't make tanking fun, and it doesn't answer any AoE issues.
2. Give bears parry. There are lots of sub-suggestions for this, such as having a strength->parry conversion, an AP->parry conversion, no conversion at all, and all with varying nerfs to dodge, armor, or other values. The big advantage is that tanking jewelry gets split between two groups: the blockers and the non-blockers. And the non-blockers would want the same gear, basically. This is even nicer, since with the changes to FAP you can have druids wanting the same amulets, trinkets, rings, cloaks and weapons. It makes defense better than dodge and makes it another stat that would be nice. It gives higher avoidance, which bears seem to be somewhat lacking (though this will be reduced in issue with the 3.0.4 changes allowing all different kinds of jewelry). Itemization would look better. What it doesn't do is make rogue gear any more useful, nor does it make druids scale all that well with anything other than agi except at high values of dodge. It doesn't have any offensive->defensive conversion. It doesn't give mitigation at all, though at least it makes less of a mana sponge. It only helps scaling marginally.
3. AP->armor. The advantage of this is that it's obvious and clear what the conversion is. 1 AP is one armor, period. FAP becomes a great deal for any bear no matter what. Strength becomes both an offensive and defensive stat. Rogue gear becomes far more valuable, and pvp gear becomes less valuable. The armor multiplier can be reduced so that it's not quite so insane and not quite so important to have the highest-ilvl leather you can. AP is also on every single piece of leather, so it's not like you won't get it. It even makes rogue jewelry fairly interesting. Both rogue leather and tanking jewelry become more valuable. The disadvantage is that AP gets multiplied a LOT by raid buffs, so you'd have to balance around that (I'd argue that this doesn't matter, as dodge/stam/armor already get boosted in raids). And it's not all that elegant, and may not be enough; bears only get around 4k armor. And it butts up against the armor cap issues yet again.
   
4. Crit/haste/ArPen/hit->avoidance. Similar advantages to AP->armor, except it only improves avoidance. The advantage is that it makes some rogue leather more valuable and some less valuable, differentiating what is 'bear' loot and what is 'rogue' loot. It gives another offensive->defensive conversion that is on the gear.It makes rogue jewelry better. The disadvantage is that only a few pieces have any one of those things; look at the feral tier gear to get an example of the stat differentiation; some has haste, some has expertise, some ArPen, all has some crit rating. It makes rogue gear only slightly more valuable. It's also unclear whether more avoidance is what bears need.
   
5. iLotP's cooldown removed. The advantage is that it's an ability that bears already have. They know how it works. It's a simple change. It makes crit better, which makes most rogue gear better. It makes hit and expertise better. 2% health every other attack (roughly) is pretty decent. This is downright overpowered when fighting multiple mobs, making it a nice fix for dealing with AoE. The disadvantage is that it's entirely reactive and based on luck, which means healers can't rely on it like they could an actual HoT, which basically means that it's useless in terms of making a druid more healable.
6. Give bears some kind of damage shield. There are lots of ways that I've seen this presented, but they all result in almost exactly the same thing - a way to give a bear block without actually giving bears block. Have iLotP prevent damage on the bear instead of a heal, have maul's damage do the same, have some amount of AP automatically reduce all damage by a fraction, make defense provide straight-up reduction of damage, etc. The advantage is that it is a separate, scaling form of mitigation that will allow for high armor without absurd armor as the only way to stop mitigation. The disadvantage is that they all feel a bit clunky mechanically; it would be hard to put them into a tooltip for a talent, for example.
   
7. Give bears block. Simply, give 'em block. Make block rating work for bears. Have block value calculated exactly the same way as warriors/paladins do. They would do it less, obviously - they do not have a lot of block rating gear compared to warriors/paladins, and have less strength - but they could keep higher armor in exchange for worse blocks. The disadvantage is that it really homogenizes the tanking classes, doesn't make rogue gear any better, and really feels like a thoughtless solution to a thoughtful problem.
   

If I were to rank these, I'd go like this:
3
2
6
(big gap)
1
4
5
(big gap)
7

But that's just me. I'm curious what y'all think, and what I've missed. Thanks!

PS: I've gotten a lot of reader mail and a lot of comments I've not answered recently, and I apologize for that. I'll be trying to catch up in the next few days. I really do appreciate the feedback, criticism, and kind words from everyone though, and if I don't respond to you immediately it's not because I don't want to; it's just that I haven't gotten the time yet. I will soon, or I'll shamelessly steal your idea for the next blog post. :)

[Druid] Naxx 25, health and you

Last night was our guild's first 'official' 25-man raid. We did fairly well, downing spider, plague and half of construct wing before having to call it a night.

And as Flyv pointed out recently, it's pretty easy. The only difficult trash mobs were the gargoyles that, at 30% start casting stoneskin which will heal. Everything else was AoE killed without any concern. We didn't have any deaths in the entire raid until the start of the military quarter - 6 bosses in. We wiped exactly twice - once on Razuvious due to some confusion on the mechanics, and once on Gluth. We even did the Safety dance flawlessly.

We've got 3 raid nights ahead of us and I fully expect that we'll be able to clear all of Naxx in that time - and likely get a good couple of looks at Malygos. We've already downed Sartharion in 25 and may do that again, as it's an easy 4 emblems, a 22 slot bag and a couple of nice T7 gloves.

On a personal note, I got basically the best upgrades I could hope for on the run: Valorous Shoulders and Origin of Nightmares. With those two pieces I am over 40k health raid buffed along with 33k armor. Now, keep in mind that I'm a Tauren Leatherworker, so I get a lot of health from those two sources - but also keep in mind that I am still using T6 helm and chest, BC trinkets, BC cloak and only 3 pieces of Naxx gear at all (10 or 25 man). Everything else is dungeon blues or epics. I fully expect quite a few upgrades coming up, especially to armor.

The Patchwerk fight was pretty interesting too. Thanks to the higher avoidance and high health pool, I took 3 times as many hateful strikes (161 vs 49) as the next warrior tank. Each hateful hit for 3k less damage, and they were avoided 4% more often. This is factoring block into the equation as well; block simply does not compare with armor when you're talking a 50k base damage hit. Even with my fairly poor gear (this was before the upgrades) I was still doing better than the T7-10 geared tank. Threat isn't an issue on this fight except that I had to tone down my attack rotation as I was close to surpassing the MT (this is because hatefuls give extra threat, not because our MT sucks at threat generation or I'm OMG awesome at it). At least on Patchwerk there's nothing mechanically bad about being a druid tank. Whether it's fun or interesting or whether we have the right tools for easymode raiding - well, that's another post in the making.

It's also unclear whether something like Patchwerk is a fair benchmark for gauging tank strength and consideration. True, it's one of the only fights where a tank's gear really does matter, but it also heavily favors a druid tank due to the high damage hits and high soaking requirements. It's likely that Gluth is a better fight to compare, as tanks have to go back and forth and he hits for medium damage, allowing you to judge exactly how two tanks are doing in the same situation.

All in all, it feels very much like Sunwell Plateau did post 3.0.2. Gluth requires some actual coordination, so I expect it to take a few attempts to get it down - but it's not all that hard. Razuvious requires our priests to do something they're not used to, so I expect that to take a couple tries. 4 horsemen is probably going to be the next challenge after that, but I don't think it's going to be a killer either. And none of these things is going to require the fairly good coordination and performance that Brutallus (pre-nerf) or Illidan did. It's exciting to be downing new bosses and all, but it's somewhat of a letdown on how easy it is.

[Druid] The bear T7 list - pre and post 3.0.4, part 2.

The link to the first part of this guide - leather, leather, leather.

Welcome back to the second part of the bear gear guide for T7.

Unlike the leather gear, the non-leather gear has weights that are very different between classes. I tried to keep the agility/stamina/armor/dodge ratios the same from leather, but it didn't always work well that way (specifically for trinkets and weapons). In general, it's consistent with the other system. Note that the numbers in parenthesis are the values as if the armor change in 3.0.4 has not happened, so that you can choose good gear now and good gear for later. And unlike leather ,this significantly changes the ordering of gear, though oddly not at the top spots.

This is the list that I suspect will get the most feedback on, as a lot of it is more subjective and not perfect, mathematically.

Tomorrow I'll post a priority list of gear and what you should do to get it based on this. That's the sort of thing I do for myself when trying to gear up via dkp; hopefully it'll help you as well.

Weapon (weight used post-3.0.4; weight used pre-3.0.4)

1. Origin of Nightmares - 72.25 (120.65). Heroic Grobbulus.
2. Staff of the Plague Beast - 64.52 (107.20). Normal Heigan.
3. The Undeath Carrier - 62.16 (63.42). Heroic Heigan.
   
4. Enraged Feral Staff - 58.41 (105.56). Heroic Utgarde Keep
5. Staff of the Plaguehound - 56.82 (58.45). Normal Kel'Thuzad.
6. Staff of Trickery - 55.04 (56.15). Heroic Violet Hold
7. Inevitable Defeat - 54.51 (0).Heroic Naxxramas trash
   
8. Journey's End - 50.58 (53.36). Heroic Kel'Thuzad.
9. Witch Doctor's Wildstaff - 48.76 (48.89). Normal Gundrak.
10. Lightning Giant Staff - 41.04 (42.47). Heroic Halls of Lightning.
11. Stave of Shrouded Mysteries - 40.24 (62.85). Revered with Kirin Tor.
    
12. Wildfury Greatstaff - 34.01 (67.81). Serpentshrine Cavern
    
13. Pillar of Ferocity - 27.29 (65.09). Mount Hyjal
14. Bloodwood Greatstaff (63.76)- 14.97 BoE

- Note: this assumes that ghostcrawler misspoke the first time when saying that armor would be removed from staves and that armor would exist on them, we just wouldn't get a bonus from them. This also includes the FAP changes. The staves with armor still win out, but the undeath carrier comes a lot closer to Staff of the Plague Beast.

Idol

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

- There exists no epic tanking idol in Wrath. None. It sucks hard. Idol of Terror and Plainstalker at least provides some mitigation. Everything else is pure threat.

Really poor choice, Bliz.

Ring (weight used post 3.0.4; weight used pre-3.0.4)

1. Keystone Great-Ring - 32.78 (65.31). Heroic Drak'tharon keep
2. Gatekeeper - 32.26 (60.20). Heroic Sapphiron.
   
3. Titanium Earthguard Ring - 29.81 (27.81). Jewelcrafting BoE.
4. Signet of the Impenetrable Fortress - 28.77 (26.83). 25 emblems of valor.
   
5. Deflection Band - 28.16 (26.16). Normal Anub'Rekhan.
   
6. Hemmoraging Circle - 27.91 (26.04). Heroic Gundrak
7. Strong-Handed Ring - 27.43 (25.59). Heroic Anub'Rekhan, Patchwerk, Noth, Faerlina, Razuvious
   
8. Sand-Worn Band - 27.25 (25.42). Heroic Patchwerk, Anub'Rekhan, Razuvious, Faerlina, Noth
   
9. Signet of Edward the Odd - 26.43 (24.65). World drop BoE
   
10. Titanium Impact Band - 25.82 (24.09). Jewelcrafting BoE
    
11. Band of Torture - 24.41 (50.05). Heroic Oculus
12. Greatring of Collision - 24.32 (22.69). Normal Sartharion + 2 adds.
    
13. Nerubian Shield Ring - 23.50 (52.97). Heroic Ahn'katet.
14. Mobius Band - 22.91 (21.37). Heroic CoT Stratholme
15. Ring of Earthen Might - 22.59 (44.60). Jewelcrafting BoE
16. Signet of the Accord - 22.37 (20.87). Normal Sartharion.
17. Surge Needle Ring - 21.47 (20.03). Normal Malygos
    
18. Ring of the Stalwart Protector - 20.78 (45.73). badges
19. Band of the Kirin Tor - 20.75 (19.36). 8000g in Dalaran
20. Sealing Ring of Grobbulus - 20.09 (18.74). Normal Grobbulus.
21. Ring of Invincibility - 19.97 (18.63). 25 emblems of valor.
    
22. Iceforged battle-ring - 18.23 (48.99). quest in storm peaks
23. Violet Signet of the Great Protector - 16.67 (40.76). Karazhan
    

-Keystone Great Ring remains the best druid tanking ring, and Gatekeeper remains #2. Titanium Earthguard ring is a very good avoidance ring, and Signet of the Impregnable fortress should be a very good threat ring. And the nice thing is that they're all fairly close. Still - expect to either run Drak'Tharon keep a lot or buy a ring or two.

Amulet (weight used post-3.0.4; weight used pre-3.0.4)

1. Boundless Ambition - 34.39(54.66) - Heroic Kel'Thuzad.
2. Heritage - 31.80 (29.66 ) - Heroic Faerlina, Patchwerk, Noth, Razuvious, Anub'Rekhan
3. Favor of the Dragon Queen - 31.09 ( 29.01) . Heroic Malygos (from quest turnin)
   
4. Amulet of Autopsy - 30.69 (52.15) - Normal Heigan, Gluth.
5. Nexus War Champion Beads - 29.28 (27.31 ) Heroic Malygos (from quest turnin)
   
6. Titanium Earthguard Chain - 29.19 (50.75). Jewelcrafting BoE
7. Chained Military Gorget - 28.23 (26.33 ). 25 emblems of heroism.
8. Pendant of the Dragonsworn - 28.21 (26.32). Normal Malygos (from quest turnin)
9. Titanium Impact Choker - 25.82 (24.09). Jewelcrafting BoE
10. Pendant of the Outcast Hero - 24.55 (22.90). 40 emblems of heroism.
11. Drakescale Collar - 24.28 (22.65). Normal Malygos (from quest turnin)
12. Icy Blast Amulet - 24.21 (22.58). Heroic Sapphrion.
13. Shadowseeker's Pendant - 24.04(22.42). Heroic Ahn'kahet.
14. Fool's Trial - 23.14 (21.59). Heroic Noth, Patchwerk, Razuvious, Faerlina, Anub'Rekhan
    
15. Amulet of Wills - 21.34 (42.49). Normal Halls of Stone
16. Gem of Imprisoned Vassals - 21.24(19.81). Normal Kel'Thuzad.
17. Necklace of the Deep - 20.84 (19.44). Jewelcrafting BoE.
18. Necklace of the Chrono-Lord - 20.72 (19.33). Normal CoT Strat.
19. Medallion of the Disgraced - 20.19 (18.83). Normal Naxx trash drop
    
20. Collar of Dissolution - 19.67 ( 18.35). Normal Anub'Rekhan.
    
21. Torta's Oversized Choker - 18.80 (37.30) . BoE drop
    

- My, how the mighty have not fallen. Boundless ambition is definitely the best regardless of anything like an armor nerf due to the high stamina, avoidance and some armor thrown in. Note how close Amulet of Autopsy is to Heritage or Favor of the Dragon Queen. If you can't get any of these, I'd recommend saving for the Chained Military Gorget. Don't bother with the Titanium Earthguard Chain any more. It'll be too expensive for too minimal of a gain.

Trinket (weight used post-3.0.4; weight used pre-3.0.4)

1. Darkmoon Card: Greatness - 27.12 (24.94). Darkmoon Nobles Deck
2. Defender's Code - 18.63 (85.64). Heroic Heigan, Grobbulus, Maexxna, Gothik.
   
3. Valor Medal of the First War - 20.71 (19.04). 40 emblems of heroism
   
4. Essence of Gossamer - 21.19 (19.57). Heroic Azjol-Nerub.
   
5. Offering of Sacrifice - 12.05 (55.42).Heroic Gundrak
6. Repelling Charge - 14.96 (13.75). Normal Thaddius
   
7. Badge of Tenacity - 6.75 (31.03). BC BoE drop

- There just aren't that many good tanking trinkets for druids, at least not ones that are non-jewelcrafting. JC gets Monarch Crab, which would rank between the code and Gossamer. The Indestructable Alchemist Stone is the second-best trinket in the game when 3.0.4 comes out at 26.71. The values are the weights, but the ranking ignores this as weights cannot reasonably factor in the values you get from on-use. If you have any doubt why the armor nerf in 3.0.4 was done, look at the pre and post scores for defenders code. Darkmoon Card: Greatness is by far the best tanking trinket for druids, giving about 190 agility on average. Defender's Code is still strong for both the pure mitigation and the on-use. As always, you should have a collection of trinkets. For normal use I would go with Greatness and Gossamer, but have those, Valor Medal, Defender's Code and Offering of Sacrifice if you can.

Cloak (weight used post-3.0.4; weight used pre 3.0.4)

1. Cloak of the Shadowed Sun - 40.79 (67.35 ). Heroic Grobbulus, Gothik, Heigan and Maexxna
   
2. Gale-Proof Cloak - 35.39. (42.17) Normal Sartharion
3. Platinum Mesh Cloak - 35.31. (42.33) 25 emblems of valor.
4. Durable Nerubhide Cape - 30.25. (37.33) BoE Leatherworking.
5. Cloak of the Gushing Wound - 29.63. (36.45) Heroic Violet Hold
6. Drape of the Deadly Foe - 29.39. (36.94) Heroic Kel'Thuzad.
7. Cloak of Mastery - 28.74. (35.91) Normal Sartharion.
8. Cloak of Armed Strife - 27.98 (55.07). Normal Maexxna.
   
9. Aged Winter Cloak - 26.86. (34.38). Heroic Gothik, Heigan, Grobbulus and Maexxna.
   
10. Cloak of Holy Extermination - 26.86. (33.55) Honored with Argent Crusade
11. Ice Striker's Cloak - 25.97 (33.31). BoE leatherworking
    
12. Shroud of Reverberation - 25.92. (32.96) Heroic Halls of Lightning
13. Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak - 24.52 (32.18). 25 emblems of valor.
14. Flowing Cloak of Command - 24.15. (52.53) Heroic CoT Strat
15. Slikk's Cloak of Placation - 23.64. (42.70) 35 badges
16. Cloak of Darkening - 23.34 (30.83) Normal Razuvious
    
17. Shadow of the Ghoul - 21.78 (29.60) Heroic Naxx trash drop
    
18. Cloak of Tormented Skies - 21.76 (40.40). Leatherworking BoE

- This is a bit tougher to gauge, as no rating system out there rates both armor and additional armor separately. Still, this is what I'd be going for. The best cloak pre-3.0.4 is the best cloak post 3.0.4. The extra armor makes up for the lack of avoidance, and given the slightly greater stamina it goes ahead. Interestingly enough with this change, DPS cloaks show up here. Agility is simply that much better than dodge.

[Druid] The bear T7 list - pre and post 3.0.4, part 1.

The link to the second part of the gear list - jewelry, idols and weapons.

Here's the first installment of the gear list for bears. It's very large, so I decided to break it up into leather and non-leather items. This is all about the leather. I'll provide a link back when I do the non leather later today.

As you might have noticed from recent posts, I've been favoring agility over stamina stacking. Why? Because while stamina does help time to live and does give your healers a buffer for healing you, after a certain point it simply isn't useful. If you never dip below 30% health, that 30% health is basically wasted itemization. Sure, it looks great when you do LFG and it's nice to impress the n00bs with that 55k survival instincts/defender's code proc. But it doesn't really help with, ya know, tanking.

Agility, however, is always good no matter what. While dodge is subject to diminishing returns, each point of agility provides the same survivability no matter what. This is the same principle as armor; while armor doesn't give the same value for each point in terms of percentage reduction, each point gives a linear reduction of damage from the next. If you think of it that way, you can see why stacking agility makes sense. Agility also provides the most avoidance per point (raid buffed or not), crit, and a bit of armor. It is the only stat that gives mitigation, avoidance, and threat for a druid.

So here's the deal: you should have a good amount of health. That good amount is entirely based on your raid setup. I can't tell you how much you need. But here are some benchmarks to consider:
Patchwerk-25 hits the offtank for about 22k if you're a heroic-geared druid. 20k if you're naxx-geared.
Malygos-25 has a breath attack that can do 30k, plus a quick melee attack that does another 4k.
Sartharion-25 + 3 adds can (depending on the debuffs) hit for 35-39k.

Personally, I'm aiming for 42k raid buffed. That's enough to eat two hateful strikes with only HoTs rolling - and in practice that will not happen due to the other tank having more health at that point. It's enough to take on all other bosses. But again, this is entirely depending on what your situation is. And I won't cry all that much if I end up with only 40k.

Because of this change in philosophy, I've changed the rankings to favor agility heavily over stamina. This does alter the pre-naxx list, which is why I've kept these separate. I still think the pre-naxx gear list is correct because gearing up for naxx, you do want stamina aplenty. However, once you start collecting pieces that goes a bit lower in priority.

Threat and damage is still not a consideration in this list. I can understand why it might be - and if there's enough interest, I'll go back and revisit what I think the best threat stats are for a bear and how to optimize for it - but for normal tanking, at least right now, threat is simply not important.

The rating system I use is based on wowhead, and this is the weight:
Agility 110
Dodge 75
Stam 70
Defense 65
Armor 50
Expertise 22

That's for the leather pieces only. The nonleather pieces will have their own separate ranking system.

A big, special note here: this will be applicable and weighted for 3.0.4 changes. When there is a significant difference, I will list the values pre and post-nerf. Note that this only really affects jewelry and to a lesser extent a couple of leather pieces (the 226 ilvl pieces vs the 187 blues, if you're wondering) In general, there are very few pieces with no armor that also have good druid stats. In any case, the pre-3.0.4 change will be blisted in parenthesis.

A quick look into this reveals that if you're going to keep T6 gear for some reason (threat, perhaps?), the best pieces to keep are the bracers and belt. The worst are the legs and head.

Onto the rankings.



Chest

1. Valorous Dreamwalker Rainments - 127.02 Heroic Gluth, Heroic 4 Horsemen, Archavon the Stone Reaper
2. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes -126.81. Arena rating, arena points.
3. Chestpiece of Suspicion - 122.32. Heroic Instructor Razuvius, Heroic Gluth.
4. Tunic of Dislocation - 119.92. Normal Gothik the Harvester, normal Gluth.
5. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes - 119.80. Arena rating, arena points
6. Heroes' Dreamwalker Rainments - 119.72. 80 emblems of heroism, normal Gluth, normal 4 horsemen
   
7. Tunic of Indulgence - 119.64. Normal Grobbulus, Normal Gluth
8. Chestguard of the Recluse - 119.35. Heroic Malygos
9. Polar Vest - 117.37. *Leatherworking BoE.
   
10. Blade-Scarred Tunic - 113.47. Normal Sartharion.
11. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes - 111.97. honor
12. Harness of Carnal Instinct - 109.59. Sunwell Plateau
13. Darkheart Chestguard - 108.60. Exalted with Knights of the Ebon Blade
14. Crystal-Infused Tunic - 104.80. Heroic Nexus
15. Exotic Leather Tunic - 101.55. quest in Utgarde Pinnacle
16. Eviscerator's Chestguard - 98.90. Leatherworking BoE.
    
17. Thunderheart Chestguard -94.31. Black Temple

-The Valorous gear wins! Just barely. The Polar Vest is included because, honestly, it's not that bad and would be a good starting piece if you didn't have T6 or a quest reward. I'd still take the Exotic Leather over it for starting due to the expertise and AP, but I can see a reasonable disagreement - especially if you used it for stamina here. Still, it will quickly become outpaced by anything in Naxx. Also note how close things are to each other here - upgrades aren't big until you get to the top few.

Feet

1. Footwraps of Vile Deceit - 89.31. Heroic Loatheb, Heroic Gluth.
2. Deadly Gladiator's Boots of Triumph - 89.23. Arena rating, arena points.
   
3. Hateful Gladiator's Boots of Triumph - 83.83. Arena rating, honor points
4. Polar Boots* - 82.78. Leatherworking BoE.
5. Boots of the Worshipper - 76.76. Normal Faerlina, normal Gluth.
   
6. Slag Footguards - 76.38. Heroic Halls of Lightning
7. Boots of Captain Ellis - 76.33. 40 emblems of valor.
8. Dawnwalkers - 74.97. Heroic Anub'Rekhan, Heroic Gluth.
9. Boots of the Whirling Mist - 74.29. Heroic Halls of Stone.
   
10. Boots of the Neverending Path - 72.55. Exalted with Argent Crusade.
    
11. Gorloc Muddy Footwraps - 72.47. Heroic Gundrak
12. Jormscale Footpads - 70.25. Leatherworking BoE
13. Thunderheart Treads - 67.82. Sunwell Plateau
14. Rhino Hide Kneeboots - 64.59. Quest in Gundrak
15. Shadowmaster's Boots - 63.09. Black Temple
    

- The boot slot has so little, it's not funny. The Polar boots are actually pretty good largely because of how little there is and the ratio between agility and stamina compared to the next best thing; if you must get one polar piece, this is the best one to get. The difference between the three heroic drops is very small, so don't kill yourself to get one if you've already gotten another.

Gloves

1. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves - 84.64. Arena rating, arena points.
   
2. Handwraps of Preserved History - 81.68. Quest in CoT Strat
3. Valorous Dreamwalker Handgrips - 80.61. Heroic Archavon, Heroic Sartharion
4. Gloves of Fast Reactions - 80.61. Heroic Sapphrion
5. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves - 79.36. Arena Rating, arena points
6. Rapid Attack Gloves - 77.82. Normal Razuvious, normal Gluth.
7. Dislocating Handguards - 77.13. Heroic Faerlina.
8. Frosted Adroit Handgrips - 75.33. Heroic Malygos.
   
9. Heroes' Dreamwalker Handgrips - 75.33. 60 emblems of heroism.
   
10. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves - 73.80. honor
11. Gloves of the Forest Drifter - 66.35. Sunwell Plateau
12. Eviscerator's Gauntlets - 65.38. Leatherworking BoE.
13. Seafoam Gauntlets - 65.15. Leatherworking BoE
14. Gloves of Immortal Dusk - 63.09. Leatherworking BoE (requires sunmotes)
    
15. Discarded Slaughterhouse Gloves - 57.83. Quest in icecrown
16. Thunderheart Gauntlets - 58.65. Mount Hyjal

-Even with a higher weight on base armor, even with the agility changes, the Handwraps of Preserved History remain the best PvE bear tanking gloves. The gap is pretty small between this and the Valorous, so I'd recommend the Valorous to get the 4-piece bonus.

Head

1. Hood of the Exodus - 116.40. Heroic Gothik or Gluth.
   
2. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm - 114.44. Arena rating, arena points
   
3. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm - 107.68. Arena rating, arena points
4. Valorous Dreamwalker Headguard - 107.07. Heroic Kel'Thuzad.
   
5. Weakness Spectralizers - 105.36. Engineering BoE (requires engineering rating)
6. Helm of the Vast Legions - 103.49. Normal Sapphiron.
7. Heroes Dreamwalker Headguard - 101.71. Normal Kel'Thuzad.
8. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm - 100.36. honor
9. Mask of the Watcher - 92.25. Heroic Oculus
10. Shroud of Darkness - 90.92. Heroic Violet Hold
11. Mask of the Fury Hunter - 86.43. Sunwell Plateau
12. Thunderheart Cover - 79.90. Mount Hyjal
13. Cover of Silence* - 95.79. Heroic Thadius or Gluth.
    
14. Headguard of Retaliation* - 87.35. quest in Utgarde Pinnacle
15. Eviscerator's Facemask *- 86.28. leatherworking BoE

- Hood of the Exodus is a superb bear piece, and better than the T7. This should likely be the thing you go for over KT's head if at all possible. Note that the pieces with *s do not have metagems, and this ranking does not quite do the metagem system correctly. You should always, always have the Austere Earthsiege Diamond. Always.

Legs

1. Valorous Dreamwalker Legguards - 117.94. Heroic Archavon, 75 emblems of valor, Heroic Thaddius.
2. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Legguards - 117.63. Arena points, arena honor, heroic Archavon.
3. Leggings of the Honored - 116.25. Heroic Sartharion + 2 adds.
   
4. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Legs - 110.87. Arena rating, arena points
5. Heroes' Dreamwalker Legguards - 110.62. Normal Thaddius
6. Leggings of Fleeting Moments - 110.46. Heroic Gothik.
   
7. Gored Hide Legguards - 105.13. Heroic Gundrak.
8. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Legs - 103.29. honor
9. Leggings of Discord - 103.20. Normal Maexxna.
   
10. Mind-expanding Leggings - 102.66. Revered with Kirin Tor
11. Infectious Skitterer Leggings - 101.68. Heroic Maexxna.
    
12. Ravenous Leggings of the Furbolg - 101.15. heroic utgarde pinnacle
13. Chain Gang Legguards - 97.17. BoE from Violet Hold
    
14. Leggings of the Immortal Beast - 93.78. Sunwell Plateau
15. Eviscerator's Legguards - 90.48. Leatherworking BoE.
16. Constellation Leggings - 90.28. Normal Halls of Stone.
17. Tameless Breeches - 80.38. Badges.
    
18. Tattooed Deerskin Leggings - 80.00. Quest in Violet Hold
19. Thunderheart Leggings - 78.98. Black Temple
    

- Leggings of the Honored may deserve to be #1 here - they have a ton of stamina and a lot of armor due to their being level 226. They just don't have the agility that the Valorous or Deadly legs do, and if you're going for your 4-piece it's not worth it to remove this and have to get your T7 head. Per commenter Tygrathel, the Gored Hide leggings are really strong going into Naxx, and are better than a few options from there (thanks Tygrathel!) though I'd still recommend something with more stam when starting out.

Shoulders

1. Valorous Dreamwalker Shoulderpads - 93.83. Heroic Loatheb, 60 emblems of valor.
   
2. Deadly Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders - 93.83. Arena rating, arena points
3. Trollwoven shoulders - 89.84. Leatherworking BoE
4. Heroes' Dreamwalker Shoulderpads - 88.29. Normal Loatheb.
   
5. Hateful Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders - 88.29. arena rating, arena points
6. Concealment Shoulderpads - 87.23. Heroic Sartharion.
   
7. Spaulders of the Careless Thief - 83.83. Heroic Nexus
8. Spaulders of Egotism - 82.78. Heroic Razuvious.
   
9. Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders - 82.47. honor
10. Spaulders of Resumed Battle - 79.75. Normal Noth.
    
11. Sprinting Shoulderpads - 79.32. Heroic Ahn'kahet
12. Demontooth Shoulderpads - 74.13. Sunwell Plateau
13. Eviscerator's Shoulderpads - 73.80. Leatherworking BoE.
    
14. Thunderheart Pauldrons - 70.15. Black Temple

- The trollwoven shoulders remain very strong and should be a high priority pre-Naxx. Note how small an upgrade the T7 are over the Trollwoven; these should be a low priority to get until other gear has been achieved, and should be one of the later emblem purchases.

Belt

1. Deadly Gladiator's Belt of Triumph - 79.92. Arena rating, honor
   
2. Hateful Gladiator's Belt of Triumph - 74.77. arena rating, honor
3. Trollwoven Girdle - 73.94. Leatherworking BoE
4. Polar Cord* - 73.47. Leatherworking BoE.
   
5. Sharp-Barbed Leather belt - 73.36. heroic utgarde keep
6. Stalk-skin Belt - 71.13. Heroic Heigan.
   
7. Belt of the Tortured - 69.72. Heroic Patchwerk.
   
8. Jorach's Crocolisk Skin Belt - 69.17. Emblems of Heroism
9. Blistered Belt of Decay - 69.13. Normal Grobbulus.
   
10. Ley-whelphide belt - 65.94. normal and Oculus
11. Glitterscale Wrap - 62.78. Revered with Oracles
12. Eviscerator's Waistguard - 61.17. Leatherworking BoE.
13. Thunderheart Waistguard - 56.30. Sunwell Plateau
    
14. Don Alejandro's Money Belt - 55.48. Mount Hyjal
15. Waistguard of the Great Beast - 52.40. 60 Badges.
16. Belt of Natural Power - 52.30. Leatherworking BoE

- The belt availability for bears is horrible. Just atrocious. At least that makes it easy. If you get lucky and get the belt from UK, go with that. Otherwise, make a trollwoven girdle and be done. The deadly belt is a big upgrade and is likely worth grinding honor for, whenever it comes out.

Wrist

1. Thrusting Bands - 60.30. Heroic Noth.
   
2. Deadly Gladiator's Armwraps of Triumph - 59.77. Arena rating, honor
   
3. Sinner's Bindings - 57.25. Heroic Maexxna.
   
4. Hateful Gladiator's Armwraps of Triumph - 55.71. arena rating, honor
5. Wristwraps of the Cutthroat - 52.76. BoE, 60 emblems of valor.
   
6. Bindings of the Tunneler - 52.55. Heroic Utgarde Keep
7. Dragonfriend Bracers - 52.04. Exalted with Wyrmrest Accord
8. Cuffs of Dark Shadows - 50.92. Heroic Heigan.
   
9. Drake-champion's Bracers - 50.05. Heroic Oculus
10. Thunderheart Wristguards - 46.23. Sunwell Plateau
11. Eviscerator's Bindings - 47.07. Leatherworking BoE
12. Njorndar Furywraps - 46.45. Quest in Icecrown
13. Vindicator's Dragonhide Bindings - 45.94. BC PvP honor
    
14. Band of the Swift Paw - 38.78. badges

- The thrusting bands, thanks to their balance of stam, agi, and expertise come out very strong here, just barely edging out the PvP bracers. The badge wristwraps are an okay alternative, but I would spend this after you've gotten basically everything else you might want, as heroics and pvp and vendor items are close to it, and 60 emblems is quite a bit.

[Druid] The Polar gear

The T7 guide for gear will be out either later today or tomorrow, and should be a fully integrated guide with the other one so you won't have to swap back and forth. Which...is why it's taking a bit longer. :)

This is an addendum to that guide and the other ones I've written. And that addendum is: the polar gear ( Polar Boots, Polar Cord and Polar Vest) are not as good as the guides say.

And yes, they have a TON of stamina.

If you go by Rawr right now, these are either best in slot or damn close to it - especially for pre-naxx gear levels. And Rawr encourages you to put as much stamina in there as you humanly can. With those three items alone, you can have 595 stamina (assuming 24 stam gems). And that sounds awesome, right? Except it has no avoidance, no AP, no crit, no expertise, nothing. Same with my rating system - polar gear comes either on top or close to it.

But that's not quite right.

Now, at level 213 the Polar gear is definitely good starting material. There really aren't that many good chests that you can get pre-Naxx, and you can very easily make it a good basic chest - with 169 stam and 48 agility, for instance, it's pretty sweet. But it really isn't the best overall thing you could get (which is what my rating system would say) or close to the best (what Rawr says). Let's compare the Polar Vest to something similar (and not horribly hard to get): the T7.10 chest. The Naxx (and emblem) chest loses a socket and 80 stamina, straight out of the gate. Sure, it has potentially 56 more agility, but 56 more agility to 80 stam?

Yeah, that's actually a pretty good trade.

Why? Because you really don't need a trillion stam to tank in Naxx. There are two fights where stacking as much stam as humanly possible makes sense: Malygos's breath (where you can take 30k damage before reductions) and Sartharion + 3 adds (where you can take 35k-39k depending on whether or not you're debuffed in a certain way).

And that's it. And if you're raidbuffed, you can get that easily, in your sleep, if you have proper gear. Heck, that's just the agility; you'd also be giving up 132 AP, 54 crit and 35 expertise.

What about the Polar Boots? Well, compared to the Slag Footguards, you're losing 30 agility for 70 stam. That sounds like a bad tradeoff, save that stam doesn't matter so much and you'll be gaining some threat. For the belt it's worse - only a 51 stamina vs 30 agility difference and you'll lose about 130 AP and 30 expertise (assuming you're going after the Sharp-Barbed Leather belt, the best belt pre-or post-naxx save PvP gear).

Like I said - all of these things are viable. They're just not 'best', and don't let that huge stamina and people in LFG fool you - having a 40k health pool when you have 25% avoidance is a recipe for a really unsatisfying PUG.