Loading ...Sometimes it’s good to be really, really Defensive
With a new expansion comes a new higher goal of Defense required to be uncrittable at level 80. (540 Defense Skill - 688 Defense Rating to be exact) While it’s not possible to know for sure that this will be the exact value its going to be, what you can do now is prepare by saving your Highest Defense items. In fact, there may be a couple items you’d wished you’d kept that you’ve since thrown away 
Weapons
- The Brutalizer (22)
- The Unbreakable Will (21)
- Mallet of the Tides (16)
Chest
Feet
- Red Havoc Boots (32)
- Myrmidon’s Treads (30)
- Onslaught Boots (25)
Hands
- Gauntlets of the Chosen (35)
- Onslaught Handguards (32)
- Felsteel Gloves (25)
Head
- Battleworn Tuskguard (40)
- Onslaught Greathelm (36)
- Eternium Greathelm (34)
Legs
- Felstrength Legplates (40)
- Destroyer Legguards (39)
- Sunguard Legplates (35)
Shoulders
Belt
Wrist
- Onslaught Wristguards (21)
- The Seeker’s Wristguards (21)
- Eternium Shell Bracers (17)
Cloak
- Burnoose of Shifting Ages (26)
- Gilded Thorium Cloak (24)
- Cloak of Eternity (23)
Shields
- Bulwark of Azzinoth (26)
- Platinum Shield of the Valorous (24)
- Ogri’la Aegis (23)
Amulet
Rings
- Ring of Hardened Resolve (32)
- Band of the Eternal Defender (30)
- Band of the Abyssal Lord (27)
- Band of Impenetrable Defenses (26)
- Protector’s Mark of the Redemption (25)
Trinkets
- Scarab of Displacement (42)
- Shadowmoon Insignia (36)
- Adamantine Figurine (32)
- Brooch of the Immortal King (32)
- Dabiri’s Enigma (30)
Gun
- The Boomstick (13)
Level 70 gear for level 80?
The reality is that upgrades aren’t going to come to us as steadily as we may hope during our ascension to level 80 and becoming uncrittable is the most important task to complete for a tank upon hitting level 80. While we can reach uncrittable status still by adding in a little bit of Resilience, we are better off with the combination of uncrittable and avoidance that Defense Rating will provide.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I’ve been spending a lot of time calculating how to reach the defense cap again once the patch goes live. I am going down to 463 defense in my current gear and in an emergency move had to equip both defense trinkets to get capped again.
Defense to cloak and chest, here I come!
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September 30th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Devs want you to gem and enchant for defense now. So it is not too much of a worry.
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September 30th, 2008 at 12:18 am
The cap is pretty easy to get in the expansion with 77+ blues. Maybe you’ll need a couple defense gems and a couple enchants, but don’t think that you’ll only socket and enchant defense.
I don’t really know where the misconception about the difficult defense cap started. Maybe in the US premade server? Starting at 80 w/o tanking stuff must be hard
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September 30th, 2008 at 1:20 am
The stats on a lot of these items have been changed. In particular a lot of the badge gear has lost avoidance to gain some strength (though it seems there is a bit of a stealth nerf to badge gear thrown in too).
Chestplate of Stoicism is down to 34.
Gauntlets of Enforcement is down to 21.
Sunguard Legplates are down to 35.
Onslaught Legguards are down to 24.
Eternium Shell Bracers are down to 17.
Wristguards of Determination down to 16.
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx down to 11.
Bulwark of Azzinoth down to 26.
Kaz’rogal’s Hardened Heart down to 19.
Most tanks (especially those in badge gear) can expect to take a serious hit to their defense and avoidance beyond the loss of the 20 defense from talents.
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admin reply on September 30, 2008 7:38 am:
Thanks, updated! (you can tell it was late last night O.o)
I’ve also changed the item links so that they all reflect the new version in WotLK.
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Arvernien reply on October 2, 2008 10:09 am:
I’ve been gathering Badge gear and I’m a bit disappointed in the changes. Partly because I’m not sure exactly how strength is being changed (and what advantages it will have). How exactly does adding 29 strength to the
Girdle o the Fearlees compensate for the loss of defense and hit rating?
Would the expected changes to the badge gear change the pick recommendations?
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Meatgazer reply on October 2, 2008 10:17 am:
Well, the big benefit of strength is block value. 29 str = 14.5 block value in the new system. It also has some benefits from it adding attack power which increases threat (directly with the new Shockwave talent).
Granted the loss to hit rating and defense seems a bit more than the str, but hit rating is getting cut all over the place, because I think people want it to be harder to get hit capped (my poor spriest will need more hit gear!)
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September 30th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Any1 remember that you will gain 5 defence skill when u lvl up by 1 lvl… with the new expansion… at lvl 80, u will have a base of 400 compared to the current 350…
in BC i found the very 1st stat u would reach capped would be def at 490… juz by collecting all the greens and blue gears and some instance gears would be able to get u there… and hopefully that would be the same for WotLK… other stats imo would be harder to pull up…
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Orenus reply on September 30, 2008 7:20 am:
Yes, base defense will increase by 50, but the crit cap also increases by 50. Additionally, you will need approximately twice as much defense rating to achieve the same defense skill as you do at 70. Throw in the loss of 20 defense skill from the Anticipation change, and hitting the uncrittable mark *will* be more difficult at 80 than at 70. It’s not impossible by any means and it won’t require throwing +def gems in every socket, but it won’t fall into your lap like it did at 70.
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September 30th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Well I was shocked to see the number 540 defense “skill”. I have such value in my gear but it was too high for me to make sence. So, I searched the web for this, and found a topic in the official forum which was such a mess about this, that… well, to my point.
At lvl70, you need 490 def skill to be uncrittable.
Before 3.0, Anticipation talent gave you 20 skill points.
You also have 350 base defense on lvl70.
So you only had to gather 490 - 20 - 350 = 120 def skill
120 def skill is 120 * 2.37 = ~285 def rating
After 3.0 we won’t have Aticipation’s 20 skill points, so:
140 def skill is 140 * 2.37 = ~332 def rating
The difference is 47 defence rating. That is what you have to gather in advance, like other tanking classes (lacking Aticipation).
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September 30th, 2008 at 2:06 am
Now I got the point that you are talking about lvl80, where 540 def skill do makes sence, but I think most of us will change lvl70 epic gear around 77+.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
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September 30th, 2008 at 2:17 am
@70 you need 490 defense still (but you lost a 20 defense talent and items are reitemized for less defense overall so you are likely to have a drop of 20-40 defense skill upon patch day)
@80 you will need 540 defense (400 base and 140 from items… just like how its 350 base now and 140 from items)
as for the reitemization, remember that talents are helping you out too, the loss of 20 defense also gives you 5% base dodge now.
my warrior on live is about 10% from uncrushable with about 60% avoidance
my warrior on ptr is about 10% from uncrushable with about 60% avoidance still and she’s in badge/kara gear (gemmed for avoid/uncrushability as i have a druid as my effective health tank ~100k EH)
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September 30th, 2008 at 2:21 am
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&filter=qu=3;minrl=78;maxrl=80;cr=131:42;crs=1:1;crv=0:0#0-9+1
Blue items, usable between 78-80. Drops from normals, heroics, BoE BS plans. Without gems, you can take any combo of slots and get past the crit cap.
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September 30th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Don’t forget that you will need more defense rating than you think. its almost 5 rating for 1 point.
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September 30th, 2008 at 6:01 am
I specced down to 2/5 anticipation a long time ago. I think I’m in the 520’s now, so losing 8 points of defense won’t be killer.
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September 30th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Overall the change to anticipation is actually a buff, the old 20 defense gave us about 2.5% avoidance, the new one gives twice as much. I think overall we’re still losing a bit of avoidance between this and all the gear changes. But remember the sunwell raidiance aura will also be removed with 3.0 (pretty sure I saw a blue post about that), so for those of us worried about avoidance to try some last bits of sunwell progression, it should actually get easier overall.
For those who have to adjust their gear with 3.0 to remain crit immune, I’d like to remind of the following enchants (I read this on tankspot I think, some while ago):
Defense enchants on bracers and on chest are more “stat-rich” than their respective stamina/hp ones anyway, so before you change any gems, re-enchant chest and bracer for defense, you get more bang for your item-budget-buck that way.
After those 2 I would probably go for defense on cloak, and only then start changing gems.
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September 30th, 2008 at 7:23 am
You can do item searches in wowhead / wotlk to find the adjusted values for old items. I think mmo-champion is supposed to have a list of the adjusted L70 gear, but I haven’t found it yet.
You’re loosing defense both in talents, and in the trade off for strength on your old gear. But blizzard is aware that defense cap at 80 could be a bit tight, so I’m sure they’re keeping an eye on it.
Defense enchants to chest, bracers, and cloak are pretty good choices even now though. You’re getting a much better defense / stamina return on enchants than you do with gems. If you’re ever tempted to socket for avoidance, make sure you’re changing your enchants first.
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September 30th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I can hit 540 defense with what I have now. Losing the talents obviously hurts. Changing the stats on the badge gear hurts too.
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September 30th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I actually just started up a tanking blog after reading here and over a Tankspot for over a year now. First thing I hit on was the new defense cap and how much defense rating we’ll all need from since we all lost the 20 defense from anticipation. http://www.defensivestance.com
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admin reply on September 30, 2008 11:36 am:
Added to my RSS reader. Best of luck with your Blogging!
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September 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Any word if there will be a change to resilience counting towards the uncrittable cap?
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admin reply on September 30, 2008 3:10 pm:
They had talked about making resilience not work in PvE, but since revoked that change. So Resilience will continue to work exactly as it always has in which it does stack with Defense to help you become uncrittable faster.
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Tankette reply on October 1, 2008 8:27 am:
Same conversion ratio as now?
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Veneretio reply on October 1, 2008 9:40 am:
Nope, the new rate at level 80 is much more aggressive at approximately 93 Resilience Rating to 1% Crit reduction.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:27 am
I don’t know if I will be able to hit uncrittable with the gear I have now. Just Mallet of the tides, the pauldrons from ZA, and some of the trinkets that I ahve been storing in the dark reaches of my bank. Maybe doing some “farewell to TBC” raids, I can get some gear. =D
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October 1st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
On Beta and PTR my defense dropped to 471. I don’t have most of the items on this list to begin with and the ones I do have I’m already wearing. 3.0 spells the end of my raid tanking until I hit 80 and gear-up again. I’m not really complaining though. It’ll give me a month or so before the expansion hits to really pound some daily quests and build up my bank account. Northrend ain’t cheap.
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October 1st, 2008 at 11:20 pm
so in addition to this, i heard that crushing hits are “gone”. Is this true?
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Veneretio reply on October 1, 2008 11:44 pm:
Yes, Crushing Blows are gone. That’s true. (the article before this one mentions it
)
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Hao reply on October 2, 2008 12:58 pm:
DOH
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October 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
One thing to note. Unless something changes, being at the defense cap isn’t really going to matter until you start running heroics or raiding.
In my jaunts on test, you can tank normal instances, even level 80 ones, just fine without being uncrittable.
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October 4th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Yeah… i’m not liking them lowering the stats to add str, checked on the ptr and my def dropped quite a bit, but i guess they wont let us be too overpowere now will they hehe
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October 7th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Not really that big a deal, logged into beta, and I swapped adamantite figurine back into my gearset and was back up to 491. Still need to get my cloak and bracers enchanted, so if i go with def and steelweave, i can switch back to my threat weapon and still be uncrittable. I am happy as can be with the change, more strength, way more AP. I can actually round up and kill stuff off quick as can be now.
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November 20th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I am happy with the changes. At level 70 I had no problems getting past 490 (at 70 my defence was at about 506 after the changes). I had an old green trinket that gave me about 30 defence that I had to use). But I also have Karaz, ZA and all the good badge gear. Yes it took a while to get all that stuff, but your not going to be good in any class/profession, unless you put the time into it.
Also I want to thank all the posting made here. It helped me get to where I am today. Keep up the good work.
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