Loading ...The Emblem of Frost Pick Order
- Sentinel’s Winter Cloak [50]
- Verdigris Chain Belt [60]
- Gauntlets of the Kraken [60]
- Cataclysmic Chestguard [95]
- Ymirjar Lord’s Pauldrons [60]
- Ymirjar Lord’s Greathelm [95]
- Pillars of Might [184]
- Boots of Kingly Upheaval [115]
- Ymirjar Lord’s Breastplate [95]
- Ymirjar Lord’s Handguards [60]
- Corroded Skeleton Key [60]
Skip: Ymirjar Lord’s Legguards [95]
Yes, I snuck the crafted pieces that require Primordial Saronite (23 Emblems of Frost each) in there this time. I’m not taking into account that the patterns themselves require a Primordial Saronite to buy though which you may or may not have to do as well.
Wait… I’m getting the Tier pieces last!?
Yes, they are lower item level than the other emblem pieces.
What if I’ve got a token to upgrade them?
Still take them last.
You’re going to have to start explaining
Fair enough 
Bonus Armor is amazing and it’s on everything. There really is a 4 way tie between the first 4 picks on the list. You’ll want to pick them up in that order if all of those slots have the same item level of gear for you. If they don’t, take the biggest upgrade. Just make sure you get those 4 first. Bonus Armor is just that good.
But, aren’t the set bonuses amazing!?
They are good, but when it comes down to raw survival they aren’t as good as Bonus Armor. Certainly there are going to be fights where the 4 piece set bonus is worth it and that’s why eventually we’ll pick it up, but for the time being while we’re working on regular modes in Icecrown, we’re going to just go with plain, old survival.
The 2 piece set bonus is another story as you can tell from the list as we’ll be picking up the 2 parts to it a lot earlier. With DPSers getting better and better gear at every moment, we certainly could use the extra punch offered by the 2 piece bonus especially since we’ll be sacrificing a lot of our threat stats for more Bonus Armor. (That said, if a fight requires a lot of threat, don’t rigidly stick with all your Bonus Armor stuff. Gear for the fight as always.)
Fine, I guess I buy that… but the trinket!?
Well… I need more in a Trinket than Stamina. So, this trinket comes off as really, really lackluster to me. Absorbing damage isn’t exciting at all. Compare the bonus offered by this trinket to Satrina’s Impeding Scarab and it’s clear that the emblem trinket got the shaft. And I’m not just saying this when comparing the trinket to high tier items, I wouldn’t use this Stamina beast over The Black Heart either. So between the two I’ve already mentioned that best it, Glyph of Indomitability which is still amazing, there’s also Heart of Iron and Royal Seal of King Llane.
Which really begs the question, why pick it up at all? Because you never know if the absorb mechanic will be useful for some fight. It’s also entirely possible that a fight will have only magic damage and it’d be nice to have this in our toolkit. Okay, who am I kidding… sometimes, you just want to show off how much health you can get!
December 24th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Wow, best christmas gift ever. ;D
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Grido reply on December 24, 2009 5:56 pm:
I agree, thank you Vene for the present. Merry Christmas!!
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December 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Great list Vene - it more or less agrees with my gearing priorities. But I might suggest expanding the post a bit further (even come up with a few lists) to match player context. Let’s say we have 3 types of players:
1) Clearing all Frost Emblem content: ICC25, ICC10, weekly raid, daily random
2) Clearing ICC10, weekly raid, daily random
3) Clearing weekly raid sometimes, daily random and occasionally a pug ICC10
If you’re like me, the 251 set pieces don’t make a lot of sense when we can get 264 drops from ICC25, even when you consider set bonuses because we’d have to have the tokens first. But someone who can only acquire 251 gear through raiding will have a different priority set than we might.
One of the most important factors for me when looking at gear priorities is how likely the item is to be replaced. The Cloak is awesome not just because of its excellent stat allocation, but also because the only cloak that can replace it comes from a perfect ToGC25 run. Not happening soon where I am, so I’m very comfortable using badges on that.
251 shoulders by contrast are a weak investment for me, because I can (and did) get the Boneguard Commander’s Pauldrons (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50003) from Gunship Battle 25. That may not apply to other players, so for them it may be higher priority than other pieces.
Overall though, great update for 3.3.
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Veneretio reply on December 24, 2009 3:27 pm:
Even then, I’d never replace the cloak with the one from the ToGC25 one.
I disagree with forgoing the tier shoulders for the Boneguard since the entire reason we’re getting the shoulders and helm is for our 2 piece bonus which is incredible.
Normally, I’d agree that different players under different circumstances will pick differently, but this list is pretty clear cut in my mind. The emblem armor pieces are just leagues better than anything out of ICC25. (which means they are godly compared to anything before ICC25) Like I said in the post though, depending on where you’re sitting on gear, you may flip the first 4 around, but I wouldn’t outright skip any of the first 4 no matter what.
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mister six reply on December 24, 2009 4:59 pm:
Assuming you’re upgrading from EH gemmed and chanted versions of ilevel 245 options in the following slots: belt (bloodied scars), cape (eredar), gloves (t9), chest (towering monstrosity) then the following is a list of items with the most EH bang for your emblem buck (using the calculator here):
belt: 51 Sta, 752 Armor 60 emblems +533 EH 8.88 per emblem
cape: 40 Sta, 571 Armor 50 emblems +414 EH 8.28
gloves: 36 Sta, 763 Armor 60 emblems +377 EH 6.28 per emblem
chest: 45 Sta, 1344 Armor 95 emblems +486 EH 5.11 per emblem
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Spinks reply on December 25, 2009 10:51 pm:
I’m guessing that like me, Veneretio was unlucky with that cloak drop. Cos other than that, your list looks similar.
mister six reply on December 26, 2009 1:27 am:
I think Vene has the cape. My guess is he’s prioritized it since it’s a) cheaper b) potentially even has a longer shelf life than the belt since the plagueworks wing drops a decent belt.
December 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Thanks for the post, Vene. I’ll have to digest it all more fully after getting some holiday stuff out of the way. Ho ho ho!
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December 24th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Thank you Veneretio. As usual, your posting has been highly anticipated. =)
Just a quick question, you are including the crafted ones because they are “easily” attainable or that are they actually better than the ones from ICC25 and ICC10?
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Veneretio reply on December 24, 2009 4:07 pm:
They are pieces that primarily require emblems to make so I felt they should be included. The legs especially are amazing and if they didn’t require such an insane cost, they’d be much higher on the list. The boots are pretty good, but there are certainly better alternatives out of ICC25 and ToGC25.
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December 24th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Sitting with 52 frost and was going to buy that trinket you have ranked 11th. I may just be getting that cloak today to replace http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45322 instead.
Thanks for the list I always look forward to them.
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Wiggum reply on December 26, 2009 11:06 am:
I’m in the same boat, and decided to get the cloak as well, instead of the trinket. The biggest reason that I’m getting the cloak first is that it’s the biggest (and only) upgrade for me in that slot (I’m currently wearing the same Iron Council cloak)…this is due to the fact that there is not a single other cloak that’s an upgrade from 10-mans. Anyone else notice that Blizzard doesn’t have a single ilvl 232 cloak in the game at all, and the only ilvl 226 tanking cloak comes from 25 man uld?
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Zellviren reply on December 31, 2009 12:41 pm:
Well… Don’t write off the Corroded Skeleton Key yet.
I picked it up first because I couldn’t get my hands on the Juggernaut’s Vitality and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’re going to do doing certain content again. There’s no real rush for us to do 25 man content (so TotC and Ulduar are out), with Ulduar generally not of interest to people now (so, no Royal Seal of King Llane).
Therefore, if you’re struggling for a nice stamina trinket, this is far higher up the list for you - as it was for me.
And, yes; that also means that I flat out disagree with Vene on his suggestion that The Black Heart is better than it. For me, it’s just not.
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December 24th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
You hate my gearscore and my health. I’ve had black heart for forever!
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December 24th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Well, I am not sure if all the armor is really worth it, yes it gives you amazing amounts of EH, but I have always felt that tanking is more of a balancing act between threat/avoidance/EH, and I have always valued extra armor because so little gear actually has it on it, but now since everything does, wouldn’t it be wiser to only use a few pieces? Specially since the bosses won’t hit quite as hard so you won’t need as much EH as you used to in say like ToGC, so avoidance will be some what more useful? Whats your opinion on this Ven?
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Veneretio reply on December 24, 2009 3:35 pm:
I’ve never felt that tanking was at all about balance. It’s about maximizing. If an encounter benefits from Armor, we go for crazy amounts of Armor. If it requires high threat, then we throw on high threat pieces. Avoidance, Block, all the same concepts.
We use the set that makes the most sense for the encounter we’re doing.
The beauty of Armor is it’s really, really strong against basically everything. (like Stamina) There’s never anything bad about taking less damage no matter what. I don’t think Armor suddenly gets worse because bosses don’t hit as hard. It’s still great. (and I think you’re going to find that even the regular bosses in ICC are going to start hitting really hard)
Ultimately, these pieces are going to take a long time to collect. Our goal is to have as many of them as possible when ICC Hardmodes launch since it’s likely these will require as much survival as possible.
I think you’re running into the dilemma that a lot of tanks are concerned about which is Icecrown radiance reduces your avoidance significantly and it worries you. You want it back to where it was. You want it balanced, but frankly, I don’t think that’s necessary.
Keep gearing how you always have.
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Pachi reply on December 24, 2009 7:19 pm:
It just seems to me that essentially grabbing the 2 set bonus, and stacking all armor and stamina gear is turning us into an EH sponge, kind of like a druid.
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Veneretio reply on December 24, 2009 8:33 pm:
Ya, kinda except with better utility and better block. I’ll take it!
Sage reply on January 1, 2010 3:06 am:
Those who like avoidance should actually be quite interested in armour. Both generally only work against melee damage (dodge/parry/miss/block should in theory work against elemental melee, while armour wont, though). The bonus to Armour is that it’s always on. Attacks like Impale and mechanics like Freezing Slash are on the horizon, apparently. Blizzard likes the idea of unavoidable attacks to test healers, and we have two ways to help healers in this regard: Stamina and Armour. This isn’t to say that Avoidance wont help, it’s that Avoidance isn’t always on, while Mitigation (armour) is. And sure, Avoidance is nice, it’s just I like something dependable. I can’t depend on Avoidance. :/
As to turning us into Druids…. it’s more like Blizzard’s hit every class in different ways, Druids least of all. Blizz wants tanks to have less Avoidance, because high avoidance is counter to their tanking balance. They want high health (high armour helping to increase health for most fights). Now who has high amounts of both….. Basically, Druids almost got a buff here, because they have insanely good stam scaling, as well as having decent armour, along with Agility being a combo dodge (better then pure dodge rating for them), crit, armour buff.
Finally, Armour reduces the damage you take from physical attacks, thus making you LESS of a damage sponge. Finally, although Armour doesn’t stop elemental melee, I think the only thing that does that are elementals (Koralon’s Molten Fists being a great and lonely example). Think of armour as the kind of Avoidance that you’ve never been able to stack, and thus gain great returns from stacking!
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December 24th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I disagree with the ranking of the Skeleton Key that low. It’s true that the on use is a joke, but at the same time, it’s an on use that, like stamina, is effective against magic damage. The more magic damage and bleeds involved in a fight, the less effective armor and avoidance become. Once we leave the lower spire, the fights are going to involve a ton of magic damage that will leave people using the glyph of indomitability, or other armor/avoidance based trinkets at a disadvantage compared to those using stam. This is particularly true for warriors, who’s magic damage reduction is extremely low compared to other plate tank classes.
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Furiat/Vege reply on December 26, 2009 11:20 am:
Get your facts straight:
bleed = physical damage = reduced by armor (check Gormok’s Impale DOT)
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Lindentree reply on December 26, 2009 5:16 pm:
As arms is my offspec, I can confirm that player-induced bleeds are NOT reduced by armor (this is part of why Deep Wounds is so good for us tanks!). I highly doubt NPCs use a different system for bleed effects.
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Furiat/Vege reply on December 27, 2009 5:49 am:
Then check all your wowlogs and/or tankspot theorycrafters. You might be suprised.
This isn’t the first time that NPC’s and player’s skills work in a different way.
December 24th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I’m really surprised that you put T10 shoulders that high on the list (or on the list period). The T10 shoulders is the last piece of tier gear I would get, for the simple fact that the T10.264 shoulders are so inferior to the Bone Commander’s shoulders off Airship 25m.
My priorities were a little different because 1) gear that dropped in 25m and 2) I already got an upgrade token from Saurfang 25m. I determined that the Helm is the strongest tier piece, so I picked that up first. Looking at the other slots, the Airship Shoulders are 100% superior to the T10.264, the Armor chest and crafted Armor legs are WAY too good not to use, so I concluded that I’ll go for 2-piece set bonus using Helm and Gloves.
But now that I look at it…. I was willing to give up the Armor on the Kraken gloves in order to get Tier 10 and 2-piece, but…. maybe you are right. The Kraken gloves are SO good (658 armor, more stamina…). With the Shoulders I’m only really giving up about 21 Stamina by taking the Tier 10 shoulders and getting two piece.
I guess this list was just what I needed to re-evaluate my decision.
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December 24th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I noticed that the crafted legs and boots lack defense. Do you think this will cause any issues with crit immunity as tanks gear up?
The pants are especially nice, but i wonder if I can even use them without heavily gemming or gearing for defense.
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Veneretio reply on December 25, 2009 12:16 am:
For regular raiders, they definitely won’t cause issues and as long as you pick them up later as the list states then I think you’ll still be fine even if you’re someone first starting heroics.
If you are finding it causing issues then definitely drop the boots. The legs are the far superior of the two.
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Krimm reply on January 25, 2010 2:33 pm:
I’m constantly dropping a couple of pieces when doing lower heroics; usually pants and gloves or pants and shoulders.
Even down 2 pieces, I’m still over 540 defense rating without def rating trinkets. It shouldn’t be a big challenge to pick up these pieces and still stay over the defense minimum.
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December 25th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Vene’s pick order guides were always best resource for deciding order of picking new stuff. However he always advised to use common sense for deciding.
Gonna make wild example:
If you have
iLvL 25 boots
iLvL 10 ring
and Vene’s list is about iLvL 35 items but order is
1st Boots
2nd Ring
You should pick ring first and then boots later since that’s best possibile upgrade for you. Have that in mind guys.
Merry Xmas
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Tobin reply on December 25, 2009 2:25 pm:
You’re completely right, off course, but there’s also another reason to deviate from this list.
Myself and the other tank (10 man guild) make sure we buy different gear for badges, so that there is no risk of ICC tanking drops getting disenchanted.
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Veneretio reply on December 26, 2009 3:31 pm:
I agree with this thinking for the first 4 pieces, but I still think it would be silly to start picking up any of the tier pieces before you have all of the bonus armor stuff.
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December 25th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Mookey is right there, some people seem to worrie about the guide being carved in stone and cant be altered with common sense…been reading Venes blog since beginning of TBC now, and he keeps reminding us all of using our ovn judgement to suppliment his lists…
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December 25th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Thanks for compiling this Vene.
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December 26th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I was doing my Rawr analysis the other day, being from a 10man guild, I was surprised at how many pieces from tokens are BiS for me. So if there are others out there in 10man only guilds. Better get started on smashing out those badges!
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Dreador reply on December 28, 2009 1:03 pm:
As far as Ilevel, the tier pieces in non-heroic (heroic is unavailable) are lower level and do not offer as good of stats. However you should always be looking at what the better upgrade is overall for sure.
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December 26th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Thanks Vene, and Merry Christmas! Been eagerly awaiting this one
Funnily enough I just picked up my 50th frost badge on Christmas Eve… agonized for a long time about whether to splash on the cloak or save a little more for the gloves… or just hold off entirely until Vene got his list up
Eventually decided to plump for the cloak, since I’ve been stuck in the Platinum Mesh version almost forever. Now I feel somehow vindicated! Guess that’s a measure of how much I’ve come to regard Vene as an authority on tank thinking
Hope all tankingtips readers are having a great holiday.
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Steele reply on December 28, 2009 1:20 am:
/sign… new cloak on christmas eve ftw… btw fellow 10-man-raider you might be interested in the boots from the 2nd boss of the first new dungeon? and theres a new shield at halls of reflection normal version first boss. been running those instances since the patch hit but no luck so far >.
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Stormscythe reply on December 29, 2009 5:24 am:
I did take a look at the PoS boots and HoR shield, but to me they don’t look like the Spiked Deathdealers or Northern Barrier, so I’m not going to worry about them.
The 10-man gunship shield, on the other hand… mmmmm.
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Steele reply on December 30, 2009 2:12 am:
Dont tell me the boots drop in PoS? I thought it was FoS? Omg did i really run the wrong dungeon all that time? =(
Noizlanif reply on December 30, 2009 9:55 am:
The boots drop in FoS off the second boss who people seem to love standing in the purple stuff.
December 27th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Thnkz for the post as usual great and it’s going to help me tons. I did my own research and guess what, I did find that in a way, the easiest way to get an upgrade for my previous back piece (cloack of the iron council) is to get the one u recommended from badges. Now question : you have posted preivously about the enchantments a warrior should get on his gear. I don’t really see witch one I would see fit for this cloack since I don’t really need anymore the +20 defense enchant.
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Belak reply on December 27, 2009 5:44 pm:
If you go back to Vene’s previous blog on enchants, I’m pretty sure you’ll see he said to play to it’s strengths. Since the emblem cloak is already packing over 700 armor, I’d definitely recommend enchanting it with more armor. Nearly 1000 armor on my cloak? YES PLEASE!
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December 28th, 2009 at 1:14 am
nice! i haven’t put together a 1-10 list on paper, but this looks very close to what i was planning (already got the cloak with +225 armor on it, of course).
as far as set bonuses, i’m not sure how many of them i’ll end up picking up at all.
2 piece = threat/dps only… nice if i get it, but low in priority.
4 piece = small damage absorption… again, not something that’s likely to be required (4 piece T8 was a far better bonus).
i also agree with your disappointment in the new trinket - i’m much more interested in the new gunship one.
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December 28th, 2009 at 2:52 am
Thank You Vene. I check your page every day for updates.
I picked the cloak first as well, since it was the biggest upgrade.
Saving my emblems for the belt now.
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December 28th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Great food for thought as always, Vene. I completely agree on the Bonus Armor front and I had already bought, gemmed and enchanted my cloak before seeing this, and had the belt next on my list, so glad to see I’m not the only one thinking that’s the way to go. One question though, would you still recommend Cataclysmic Chestguard > Pillars of Might if I scored a 251 chest yesterday but am still rocking 232 t9 legs? And, is that more or less due completely to the amt of badges/Saronites needed for the legs?
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December 28th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Great list… I disagree slightly with the corroded key trinket. While the “on use” ability might not seem that great, the 3,200 absorbtion is not included on the battlemaster cooldown, meaning that you can use both the Satrina trinket AND the corroded key trinket for a total additional health (effectively) of 7,810. For a tank with 55k armor, this is almost 15%. Granted, you can heal up the additional health from Satrina and NOT the key…. but still.
If that doesnt seem like a lot, remember that our last stand ability is 30% additional health on a 3 minute cooldown (unless glyphed).
Comparison….
Satrina + Black Heart
318 Stamina
4610 bonus health on use (3 min cd)
possible armor prob on hit (7k, 10 sec proc, cannot be controlled)
Satrina + Corroded Key
420 Stamina (extra 1k health all the time)
4610 bonus health on use (3 min cd)
3200 absorbed dmg (2 min cd)
7k armor is huge, no question. The problem with this scenario is that you simply cannot choose to use it when you need it. Also, while armor is hot for physical damage, its worthless for magical fights (think Lady Deathwhisper’s frostbolt).
Since these two abilities do NOT share the battlemaster cooldown (like using the two Satrina trinkets do), I believe the corroded key gives flexibility that the other trinkets do not. There is no question that when fights get rough, an extra 7k padding would be huge.
Something to consider.
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December 28th, 2009 at 10:48 am
The only bonus armor items I like are the chest (#1) and the belt (#2).
I like armor but not in a “forget-everything-else-kinda-way”…
Because of the huge amount of badges required and the fact you need to spend them on ilvl251 in order to get ilvl 264 tiers, I would definitely skip the gloves for example which will be replaced real soon by the Tier/25. [I guess if you don’t do ICC25, then you might want to stick to those armored gloves].
Also you are skipping the only tier item that has expertise on it. Those pants and the emblem chest are the only items with expertise. And as you said, because dps are getting better gear, threat will still need to step up. And we both know that the 2-set bonus and a little more strength from the gear isn’t gonna cut it in the long run.
For me, tanking for this guild (and the way the fights are designed) seems to make me balance gear while still switching a couple items here and there (trinkets for instance). But any case, I rarely go with a set completely lacking expertise, unless I have my un-hittable set equipped
1/ Progressing in a new raid
2/ Chill of the throne (making bosses hit not as hard)
3/ Amount of magical bosses coming up soon
All that makes me want to go or Stamina over anything else.
The only reason the emblem chest and belt are good, it’s because there is nothing better overall. I think I’ll stick with my emblem pick order: Trinket / Chest / Belt / T10-Gloves / T10-Pants / …. then probably T10-Soulders and T10-Helm.
Again, that’s just me. If you are still doing a lot of TOC and possibly TOGC25, I guess buying the bonus armor gear will help.
Thanks for the post, though I think it’s really hard to make a universal order as it really depends on the content you’re tanking, imo.
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December 29th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I like the list in general. I’d say get cloak ASAP, especially if you’re like most tanks and have something Ulduarish. After that, get the armor pieces like Vene indicated until the next wing is open.
At that point, it depends on your guild’s loot system. Any systems with decay/delay of any kind, you are better off getting your first token asap.
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December 30th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Armor doesn’t mitigate bleed effects.
1/ Logs never showed me anything proving otherwise.
2/ It wouldn’t make any sense if armor was to reduce your bleed effects: think about it for a sec. You’re bleeding, it’s a fact. Armor doesn’t reduce your bleeding, hey look! you’re even bleeding underneath you’re armor.
3/ Defensive stance, absorbs, stamina, internal/external CDs (shield wall, pain suppression, etc) are your only friends for a bleed.
As I said before, armor is pretty good if you’re still running TOGC, because bosses here hit like trucks. On the other hand, in ICC10/25 (mainly because of the mechanics - i.e. Chill of the Throne) bosses don’t hit very hard. I know it will be different in the next wings, but Blizzard kinda admitted that TOGC (gorlok especially) hit too hard which resulted in tank death (100%HP to o% in a very short period of time).
YOU avoid physical (melee) damage 20% less in ICC, right now. If bosses were to hit as hard in ICC as they do in TOGC then, the difficulty in stepping into ICC would have been MUCH harder (for tanks and healers) than what it is/was. That only means boss hit for less. Check your logs, compare, you’ll see.
Bottom line your armor mitigate a lesser amount of physical damage - It’s still mitigate the same % of physical damage.
Stacking armor would have been so true (and helpful) if this itemization was available for TOC/TOGC. But the current content is ICC, and a lot of magical crap is coming up our way. Do yourself a favor and get that trinket. Get it before those really expensive legs for instance. It’s a cheap item, 60 badges only and should be way higher on the list.
Another comment, if you don’t have he gold, completely skip the crafted boots (and obviously the pants!) ; don’t spend your emblems on Primal Saronite, save them for the belt, chest, trinket, cloak and tiers.
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December 30th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I was wondering why you list the T10 Chest and Gloves instead of the Helm and Shoulders. You get frost emblem chest and gloves already, and the helm and shoulders are the best 2 pieces from my standpoint.
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Veneretio reply on December 31, 2009 12:46 pm:
The helm and shoulders are already on the list and they are above the chest and gloves. So, we agree
I’m guessing you were probably just scanning the list quick.
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Aggathon reply on January 2, 2010 1:07 pm:
Yup, I’m slow, somehow missed that, okay, keen, lol.
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December 31st, 2009 at 6:45 am
You know, I’m feeling a little slow on the update for not thinking about this earlier, but if you’re stacking these new items with bonus armor, don’t throw away these as you upgrade their slot in ICC:
Glyph of Indomitability - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47735
Crusader’s Glory - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47967
The Arbiter’s Muse - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47116
(Most of you probably figured this out already, but I thought I’d spell it out for people like me who lack a firm grasp of the obvious.)
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January 2nd, 2010 at 5:34 am
I’m confused about the redundancy of hand and chest options on this list.
If the bonus armor on the 264 hands and chest (#3 and 4 on the list) is good enough that you suggest taking them first even if someone has the token to upgrade the tier pieces, then why are the tier hands and chest on the list at all? Is the idea to just have them around in case there’s a (rare) fight where the 4-piece bonus is more useful than the extra armor?
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Veneretio reply on January 2, 2010 10:44 am:
You are exactly right. It’s always good to have multiple sets of gear able to give you an advantage for different situations/bosses.
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January 4th, 2010 at 8:26 am
I made the legs for myself over the holiday and I would just like to say I cried when I put those bad boys on, they are beautiful…
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January 4th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I went for the 2 piece first (mistake) because I currently don’t have a fear of exploding in the ICC normal dungeons, and figure I’ll get enough badges by the time we start going into heroics.
Sadly it feels like the overall dps gain from the 2 piece of T10 isn’t much if a gain at all because of the 4 pce T9 giving you a much higher uptime on shield block.
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January 4th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Here I was thinking I was the only one getting thát exited over the bonus armor..
I still mainly walk around in Ilvl219 with the occasional T9-quality (not sure wich Ilvl) and a weak point in my boots and belt (both Ilvl200).
With 51 Frosts in the bag, that leaves 5 days to get my INSANE new belt! ^_^
As always, thanks for the nice guidelines in the world of Frost-badges!
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January 12th, 2010 at 4:09 am
Nice list but as i raid lead on my hunter and only break out my tank when we have no other tanks availabe, its bit off my pick order. My only tanking foray into ICC has been tanking Marrowgar and kiting the Big Ooze (any tips for keeping threat on it whilst kiting as a warrior it seems to like our healers alot). So Im going to be working with a limited badges to gear up, and i cant really afford to splash out on gear/have multiple sets. I personally would have to shift the gloves legs further down the list as Pug VOA 10/25 will give me a chance at “free” T10
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January 12th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Hi, Since you said the trinket should not be gotten and such I had a quick question. My tanking trinkets are currently the Monarch Crab(Still? Yes!) and The Black Heart.
So my question is, till Juggernaut’s Vitality drops, would Glyph of Indomitability be worth getting to replace the Monarch Crab in the meantime?
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Veneretio reply on January 12, 2010 5:05 pm:
Definitely. Glyph of Indomitability will last you longer than both trinkets you are using and I’d use it over Juggernaut’s Vitality myself!
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Tankdaddy reply on January 12, 2010 5:21 pm:
Why thank you very much =) for your answer and your quick response. Been using this site since TBC, so knew this would be the place to ask
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January 14th, 2010 at 3:39 am
As someone (warrior tank) who has been through plagueworks 25, i don’t know that i’d necessarily agree with some of what is being said here. The list is a great tutorial about what can be good, but let’s not get crazy with the idea of what the extra armor offers. It does help, and i currently use two of the pieces myself (cloak and belt). Remember 1 major thing, for each of these pieces that you pick that have the extra armor, you’re losing an avoidance trait. The Plagueworks encounters are such that healers can be, and frequently are, getting moved at inopportune times and little heals just aren’t going to cut it… and no matter how much armor you have stacked, it only does so much. That extra dodge (of course less likely due to the -20%) and parry can be crucial to survivability.
As for glyph of indomitability, i’ll just have to disagree on it’s practical use. I used it for about 2 weeks and found it’s returns to be minimal at best, especially when comparing it to 2k+ hp. During testing, i actually found Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman to be a stronger and more viable trinket when considering effective health. Actually, Purified Onyxia Blood Talisman proves to be a very strong trinket in ICC so far.
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Zarkath reply on February 5, 2010 7:33 am:
Well, Avoidance might save the day for you on some occasion, but since you can’t rely on it it’s pretty pointless. If you *need* a Dodge/Parry/Miss to survive there’s already something going horribly wrong and next time RNG might not like you.
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January 18th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Festergut is a fight where stam wins out. He’s going to two-shot you at three stacks of inhale. Bonus armour is for fights where you’re not going to die in two shots. When you take damage, the Glyph of Indomitablity is there to take a small amount (lets say 200 per hit on Marrowgar). That small amount will add up to a decent amount of damage removal, which helps healers when they’re stressed with other things (The upcoming fight, Veressa Dreamwalker, might be a great example of when healers will be stressed). It’s different strokes for different folks. As for Plagueworks trinkets, I’d suggest the Corpse Tongue coin. Like the Black Heart, but if you’re getting sub-35% a lot, it’ll have a high up-time on the armour (and a decent amount at that), along with dodge.
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Stormscythe reply on January 18, 2010 6:30 pm:
If Festergut is going to two-shot you at three stacks, then surely stamina would be equally as (in)effective in preventing that as armor, at least until the point where you had enough stamina to survive a second hit?
On the other hand, I can see the argument for more avoidance in Plagueworks. But the normal counter applies; you can’t rely on avoiding that second hit each time, because you’re going to get a bad string of rolls at some point. And with avoidance in ICC down below 50% for a lot of tanks, ’some point’ is going to pop up a lot sooner than you’d like.
I’m still inclined to gear for effective health, precisely because it’s a static, completely reliable constant. And with comparitively few options for increasing armour (against many options for increasing stamina), the Glyph of Indomitability remains a strong choice for almost all fights in my book.
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January 24th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
What about Expertise? There are so few ICC pieces with it that I am considering planning my gear around it - that is getting the tier pants and non-tier chest. Should tanks still try to get at least 26 expertise?
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January 25th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Seems it might get changed a bit with last change on T10 set armor.
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January 26th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Heya Vene, is Defender’s Code an overlooked trinket, or is it just off the radar due to the iLvl? I don’t see it mentioned anywhere nor have I found any post-3.3 discussion about it, yet, it’s (dare I say) crazy-good for IC (until you get the trink of Putricide), doubly so for newer tanks. Like many here I have “better” trinks to choose from, but every time I look at it I’m struck by how solid it appears, even now. Thoughts?
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February 2nd, 2010 at 10:56 am
Defenders code is not overlooked but replaced by Glyph of Indomitabilty.
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February 3rd, 2010 at 1:17 am
As of 3.2.2 The key now absorbs 6400 for 10 sec, quite a nice change in my mind. Enough that to make me, who is still using the black heart, switch over.
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February 3rd, 2010 at 1:40 am
So, Corroded Skelton Key has been buffed to absord 6400 damage over 10 seconds instead of 3200 over 20 seconds. Does that make it more worthwhile in your eyes Vene? I’m considering getting it now. I think combined with the 4 peice bonus, it would be a nice trinket on hard hitters like festergut.
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Veneretio reply on February 3, 2010 2:14 pm:
Absolutely, it’s a nice buff. I won’t change its spot on the list, but I will say, it’s actually worth getting now just still after everything else.
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February 3rd, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I agree, it’s a low priority compared to alternatives.
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February 4th, 2010 at 2:50 am
Would you suggest a change in the priority given the changes in bonus armor in the Tier 10 Chest and Gloves? Also considering that the new boss in The Vault also drops Tier 10 (Gloves & Legs.)
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gravelayar reply on February 10, 2010 11:39 am:
I surely will be buying the gloves and legs last hoping for the drop in VOA.
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February 6th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
I’ve finally gotten enough gold to buy the crafted pants or boots. But, since I’m always cautious of spending that much gold on something I decided to look through ICC drops in 25m.
There I noticed boots(http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50190#see-also) and pants(http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49964#comments). Are the craft-ables better than both of these? I can see both positives and negatives on both, but I always like second opinions.
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Socialdrunk reply on February 10, 2010 12:49 pm:
I would go ahead and get the crafted ones… Money is really useless, unless you buy gear with it and waiting for a drop is not the best strategy for progression.
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February 11th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
The Cloak and Kraken Gauntlets would have given me a number of increases in quite a few stats however for a few reasons, I chose the Skeleton Key as my first t10 upgrade. Reason number one (probably the worst) was that my trinket was the last low level piece of gear; low level meaning ilvl 200…so I got the ‘Epic’ Achievement. This trinket (absorb 6400) combined with the Indomitability trinket (512 dodge) made up for all those little buffs the lower level trinkets used to have. The Cloak and Gauntlets are respectively my second and third t10 items. What’s up with this new gear loosing so much hit rating for tanks; I’m not sure if I should be worried?
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Gnug315 reply on April 8, 2010 1:20 am:
The advice I’m getting from experienced tanks is not to worry about hit rating, as we’ll hit enough even far below cap. The one exception is we do need the taunt glyph for tank swap fights (if we’re low on hit).
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May 3rd, 2010 at 3:17 pm
What are people using when off-tanking on the LK fight? 4 piece tier or the bonus armor items?
Black Heart and Glyph of indomnibility or Corroded Skeleton Key? Assume I only have access to 10 man content and badge stuff.
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May 12th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
“Well… I need more in a Trinket than Stamina. So, this trinket comes off as really, really lackluster to me. Absorbing damage isn’t exciting at all. Compare the bonus offered by this trinket to Satrina’s Impeding Scarab and it’s clear that the emblem trinket got the shaft. And I’m not just saying this when comparing the trinket to high tier items, I wouldn’t use this Stamina beast over The Black Heart either. So between the two I’ve already mentioned that best it, Glyph of Indomitability which is still amazing, there’s also Heart of Iron and Royal Seal of King Llane.”
If all that is true, why do you happen to have a key equipped atm?
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Veneretio reply on May 12, 2010 2:25 pm:
A fair question. At the time I wrote this, the usage was half the value it is now and we weren’t gaining 15% health for free from the ICC buff. As I result, I now use the trinket.
If I were position the trinket on the list today, it’d go 8th, just after the Pillars of Might.
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Aeura reply on May 12, 2010 4:13 pm:
ahh alright, rereading my post I kinda seemed a little mean about it, so no hard feelings I was just wondering what changed
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May 17th, 2010 at 7:11 am
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Area+52&cn=Ookami
The 10 man group I am tanking for is currently on Sindragosa (we should have her down this week) and since we are starting to look ant LK it occurs to me that i should really own 4 pieces of the tier 10 gear for the set bonus. I am at 3/4 (one of the pieces are the Sanctified legs from VoA). So now I need to decide which piece I should pick up for the 4th piece, gloves or chest.
I appreciate any and all suggestions.
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Grune reply on May 19, 2010 12:23 pm:
I would say pick up the chest first because of the bonus armor your current one doesn’t have. But then you should pick up the gloves and get the pillars of might to replace your legs.
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May 20th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
I’m having few problems with your gear picks, i’m seeing a big lack of expertise on those items which is what the T10 legs give. No expertise = fairly bad tank. I’m at a point where i dont buy items because i will have to gem in expertise instead of stam.
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Onyxhorn reply on May 21, 2010 2:59 pm:
Honestly, I haven’t worried about Expertise too much since some point in the t9 content and haven’t run into any issues. Closest was when our Arcane mage decided he wanted to be the first bitten by BQL instead of our usual MM hunter and he blew a bunch of cd’s at the start to snag the #3 spot on the threat list. Omen had him cruising up to 128% of my threat until he was bitten. I told him next time just ask and I’d Vig the hunter.
Other than that, I’ve seen absolutely 0 threat issues anywhere else, unless you count holding aoe threat off of other tanks in trash situations, which I don’t since A) they’re a tank and B) it’s trash. Pillars is an absolutely astounding EH piece and belong in any boss set for my money.
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Trip reply on May 21, 2010 9:48 pm:
ah i see, well ty for the response so go stam or go home then? lol
i have the leggings of the lost hope that are better than the pillars
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June 22nd, 2010 at 7:44 am
I’m just a little bit confused. If I follow this list, I’ll be downgrading stat-wise when i reach the bottom of the list on armor. Is the 4 piece set bonus so amazing to justify the loss of STA and armor when going from the Cataclysmic Chestguard to the Ymirjar Lord’s Breastplate? They’re both 95 Frost Emblems, shouldn’t I just jump into the Ymirjar’s Lord’s Breastplate when upgrading from the Breastplate of the White Knight?
Wouldn’t the Cataclysmic Chestguard provider greater Effective Health, with it’s higher armor, stamina, and extra gem slot?
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Veneretio reply on June 22, 2010 8:38 am:
The other tier pieces are available on the list so that you have the option of using your 4 piece set bonus for some fights where an extra cooldown matters more than greater Stamina and Armor. For the majority of fights though, you won’t need to use your 4p t10 set which is why picking these pieces up happens after you’ve completed other gear.
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Galthen reply on June 23, 2010 5:20 pm:
Thanks for the clarification. Looks like it will be the cataclysmic chestguard for me then!
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