Regearing for a druid tank for WOTLK (part 1).
We have seen the upcoming changes for druid tanking. There will be some fundamental changes to the way druid tanks do things. Amongst the biggest of them is how we gear. Defense is no longer at all necessary for the druid tank, with Survival of the Fittest offering a 6% crit reduction.
If you have moved past the Strength of the Clefthoof, this isn’t terribly likely to affect your core armor pieces (chest, legs, shoulders, helm, gloves).
However, the tanking druid often makes up his defense gap with extra armor slots, like cloak, waist, boots, trinkets, and rings. It’s time to reassess what you want out of these items. One assumption I’m going to make is that the average tanking druid is probably doing KZ, ZA, but not likely to be spending tons of time in high end 25-mans. Why am I making that assumption? Numbers, basically. About 90% of guilds are running KZ. Only about 30% are running SSC.
The way I see it, the most important stats for these items now will be armor (especially given that we are having to use rogue leather, bleah), Stamina, Agility, and Dodge Rating, with tertiary consideration given to Strength.
So, it’s time to look at what we might need to farm for best positioning ourselves in the new world of bear tanking.
I’ll start with necks. Under the current regime, necks are a great place to get some extra defense. Pick up a Necklace of the Juggernaut or a Barbed Choker of Discipline and the pre-SSC/TK druid tank was pretty well set.
After 3.0, we’ll want to be looking more towards Necklace of the Deep which is a crafted item from Jewelcrafters. On my server, it runs around 70-80g. That’s about the best we can get before going into the 25 man raids. It has two red gem sockets. With level 70 gear, you’ll probably want to go ahead and socket Agility gems. As you level, you might wish to replace those Agility gems with Strength gems.
If you simply can’t get your hands on a Necklace of the Deep, you will want to look to Karazhan and try to pick up either the Sabreclaw Talisman from the Shade of Aran or a Mithril Chain of Heroism from Chess. At that point, you are again looking at the Necklace of the Juggernaut or the Barbed Choker being your best options.
Turning to cloaks next, we are likely to see that Stam and Armor are our best bets for looking at cloaks. I know I was delighted to get my Slikk’s Cloak of Placation for my 30 badges. To be honest, it’s still pretty high on my list. It’s got a ton of armor and Stam with a healthy dose of Dodge rating. But the Thoriumweave Cloak from Mechano-lord Capicitus is nearly as good if you don’t want to spend badges. Maybe even better with all that extra armor. Another choice would be the Cloak of Blade Turning from Magister’s Terrace. Truth is, almost all the cloaks with armor on them also have either defense or resilience. But those are the three I think will be best in the new environment.
If you have your Guardians or Vindicator’s Dragonhide Bracers, at this point it doesn’t look like they are taking the huge armor nerf that the rest of our armor is. At least, it isn’t showing up on Wowhead as that at this point. That would certainly make those the best tanking bracers for a druid at this point. If you simply can’t stomach PvP, look to be the badge gear Band of the Swift Paw, for all of the huge armor nerf it’s taking, or the Bracers of Maliciousness from the Maiden.
Belts shouldn’t change much, as they weren’t really a source of defense. But the easiest one to get is still likely the Guardian’s Dragonhide Belt. which again, doesn’t seem to be getting the armor nerf at this point. Crafted items like the Belt of Natural Power will remain good, if nerfed. If you have the badges to spend but not the gold, the Waistguard of the Great Beast would be your next choice. And if none of those work for you, make a quick Chess run, hoping for the Girdle of Treachery!
I’ll look at rings, trinkets, and other useful items in another post.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Very informative, thank you
November 6th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Dudes - it sounds like the armor on the non-leather gear is going to dissappear…
THat means Slikks cloak, the violet signet defender ring, the armor trinkets, the necklaces…and earthwarden - it sounds like all of these are losing their armor with the expansion.
Those that retain their armor, they no longer get the armor bear multiplier. The leather gear retains its bear multiplier, but for the most part, we are no longer going to see gear or get good use out of non-leather pieces with armor.
Our ability to tank may have been just nerfed. maybe they’ll come up with some sort of +dodge gear, but since Blizzard said we are going to be sharing gear with Rogues, then who knows?? It could be all DPS gear. Nobody knows how this will go with the expansion. I’d love some insight from Blizzard.
Maybe they will drop more slotted items and allow us to use armor gems to supplement the lost armor. It won’t get the multiplier, but at least we can get back to high armor.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
@Ben,
Yeah, I wrote this before they decided on the nerf. Supposedly, they are going to do something to maintain our overall armor.
The change hasn’t actually been implemented yet. Maybe 3.4, we just don’t know. But I can’t really rewrite this until I know how they’re going to break things.