Let’s Talk about Trinkets!?

What do trinkets have to do with comparing these two leg pieces? Nothing and perhaps everything.

Sunguard Sextant
138 Armor
21 Defense Rating
35 Dodge Rating
23 Expertise Rating

Icon of Unwavering
10 Stamina
30 Block Rating
59 Block Value

Which trinket would you use? If I make the Sunguard one cost 25 badges more than the Unwavering trinket, does that change your decision? Should the cost of an item even matter to you? Not really.

This is the best way I know to show you the difference between arguably the best Pre-Sunwell Legs in the game and a pair you wear to just muck around on trash.

• Sunwell Radiance
• Protection Paladins
• The Furies Deck
• Quickening Blade of the Prince vs King’s Defender
• Tanking Nightbane
• And More!

Hyjal Summit

0. Trash Loot

Pepe’s Shroud of Pacification is a welcomed addition to your threat set, but won’t replace the ever amazing Slikk’s Cloak of Placation for Survivability.

1. Rage Winterchill

Drops nothing for you… let’s keep moving along.

2. Anetheron

Our first tanking item to question is The Unbreakable Will. Impressive dps, nice fast speed, armor, stamina and defense. All and all a very nice tanking weapon.

• Is it better than Mallet of the Tides though? Nope.
• And if you are an Orc then it’s not better than Cleaver of the Unforgiving either.

Is it worse than those though? Nope. So basically, if you’ve been really unlucky in your travels, it’ll be a welcomed upgrade over King’s Defender. If you haven’t… well then just pass it on to your dps warrior. (you’ll be reading that a lot this article)

3. Kaz’rogal

Kaz’rogal’s Hardened Heart drops from Kaz’rogal (big shocker, I know) and is a welcomed addition to your gear. Rather than running down the list, I’ll just sum it all up in… Yes, this is an upgrade over everything before it.

4. Azgalor

• Gloves of the Forgotten Protector (Onslaught Handguards)
• Glory of the Defender

Your first piece of your Tier 6 set is the gloves. While they certainly are a significant survivability increase over what you’ve attained previously, they lack any threat stats for the most part. More to the point with these being so strong for the rest of your raid and your endgame gloves dropping early on in Black Temple, it really comes down to the question of whether or not you are the Main Tank. The Main Tank should pass since they’re more likely to get Teron’s pair whereas an Off-Tank is better off picking these up since Teron may never drop enough pairs of gloves for them.

Glory of the Defender is basically equivalent to the new Badge chestpiece and it’s not as strong as Zul’jin’s Chestguard of the Warlord As a result, you’ve got another item you’ll be seeing drop and sighing as you watch it go to one of your dps warriors.

5. Archimonde

Helm of the Forgotten Protector (Onslaught Greathelm)
The 2nd piece of potential Tier 6 you’ll be seeing is unfortunately pretty lackluster. In all honesty, it’s really only worth wearing once you can get the 4 piece set bonus which is amazing. Pick it up way later once everyone else has gotten their fill. The helm you want to be wearing until you get the 4 piece bonus is the now amazing Battleworn Tuskguard.

Black Temple

0. Trash Loot

Nothing to see here… moving along.

1. High Warlord Naj’entus

Eternium Shell Bracers
The bracers represent a pure survival piece which means you won’t be able to ditch your Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx anytime soon since it fills in for your threat set. Regardless, you should be picking up these bracers eventually.

2. Supremus

• Pauldrons of Abyssal Fury
• Legionkiller
• Band of the Abyssal Lord
• The Brutalizer

Supremus is a tank’s dream with 4 potential items to pick up once you make it to him. The Pauldrons are strikingly similar to Naj’entus’ bracers and should be basically treated the same way. Make sure to pick them up eventually, but for your threat fights you’ll be still using your Destroyer Shoulderguards that you’ve hopefully acquired long ago by this time.

The Legionkiller is an interesting dilemma. It isn’t as good as Teron’s rifle in terms of pure survivability. It isn’t as flexible as the Khorium Destoyer, but at the same time you won’t find the same balance of threat, avoidance and stamina all in one gun like this one. It’s certainly not necessary to pick up, but you won’t look out of place using it either. That being said, I can’t say that I’ll likely ever use it. Overall, this one’s a coin toss and is more a matter of personal taste than anything else.

Up next, Supremus’ ring features huge amounts of Stamina coupled with a bundle of Defense and Hit Rating too. Despite it’s massive stats make no mistake, it’s a threat piece. While it certainly trumps your old Karazhan ring, it still won’t beat the combination of Tidewalker’s Ring of Sundered Souls combined with the new Ring of the Stalwart Protector for low threat, survival style encounters. It sits quite nicely beside the Band of the Eternal Defender though.

Finally, Supremus’ real gem, The Brutalizer. For everyone short of Humans that may decide to continue using Mallet of the Tides, this is easily the best weapon you’ve seen at this point in time in the game. Hopefully, you’ll be lucky enough to see more than a few drop for your raid.

3. Shade of Akama

• Praetorian’s Legguards
• Myrmidon’s Treads

If you ever needed another reason to justify bringing a dps warrior to your raid, you can add to the list picking up all the old tanking loot that badge items have made pretty vanilla now. The once godly Praetorian’s Legguards now take a backseat to the new Sunguard Legplates where as Akama’s Treads remain the top boot pickup by a large margin.

4. Teron Gorefiend

• Gauntlets of Enforcement
• Rifle of the Stoic Guardian

Teron presents you with 2 very strong pieces for your trouble defeating the first challenging boss in Black Temple. His gloves are just all around amazing and will easily dwarf your Tier 5 as well as make you hesitate before even picking up the Tier 6 gloves as we discussed earlier. The Rifle while not the all around all-star that the gloves are is still a very solid survival focused piece that you’ll definitely want to pickup. The quick shot speed of the gun is just a little extra icing on the cake.

5. Gurtogg Bloodboil

• Girdle of Stability
• Shadowmoon Insignia

Gurtogg’s Girdle competes for your gear slot with the new Girdle of the Fearless and for the most part, loses. You’ll still want to pick it up since it’ll aid you in the Reliquary of Souls fight, but for the most part this piece while Stamina heavy just doesn’t have the strong balance of stats that the new Girdle boasts. On the flip side, the Shadowmoon Insignia is still an extremely desired, high avoidance trinket. For many fights, it’ll finally take the slot that Moroes’ Pocket Watch has had a strangle hold on for seemingly an eternity.

6. Reliquary of Souls

Pendant of Titans
The Pendant joins the ranks of the bracers and shoulders acquired before it offering a solid piece for fights that warrant extra avoidance. While this neckpiece does feature Hit Rating that isn’t enough for it to replace your Brooch of Deftness.

7. Mother Shahraz

Pauldrons of the Forgotten Protector (Onslaught Shoulderguards)
While it potentially hasn’t been too long ago since you picked up a new pair of shoulders off Supremus, the Tier 6 shoulders are the first piece of Tier 6 you’ve ran into that screams, “Take Me!”. Which isn’t too say they are a massive upgrade over the Pauldrons of Abyssal Fury, but nonetheless they are an upgrade (especially if Supremus wasn’t kind to you) and are definitely the first piece of Tier 6 you should be pulling out the “I’m a Tank, that’s mine” card should guild have given you one when you signed up.

8. The Illidari Council

Leggings of the Forgotten Protector (Onslaught Legguards)
When compared to the new badge legs and Akama’s, the Tier 6 legs offer large amounts of Avoidance at the cost of a ton of Stamina. Not a great trade really and as a result these legs should be treated just like the Tier 6 helm in that you should eventually pick them up, but don’t be first in line and only wear it once you’re able to use the 4 piece bonus.

9. Illidan Stormrage

• Faceplate of the Impenetrable
• Bulwark of Azzinoth
• Chestguard of the Forgotten Protector (Onslaught Chestguard)

Finally the end of your Black Temple journey, Illidan sports an impressive set of 3 highly sought after items. The Faceplate which once was delegated to the category of “I wish I could wear” is now very desirable thanks to the option of picking up additional Tier 6 in Sunwell and still maintaining the 4 piece set bonus. The Bulwark is an obviously godly shield that you’ll happily snag if you know what’s best for you and the Onslaught chest is absolutely amazing. It’s the strongest piece of Tier 6 you’ve seen so far by a long shot and definitely something you want to get as soon as possible. All in all Illidan’s loot table is definitely worthy to be attached to the final boss of Black Temple.

The Common Parts of an SSC spec

If you look over the 4 specs that follow, you’ll notice a number of common talents amongst all of them that make up the core of all the specs you’ll use in Serpentshrine Cavern. I’ve added a brief explanation to each talent selected to help give some insight behind what makes up a stable spec.

a. 5/5 Deflection - 5% Parry is a steal and nothing competes with this.

b. 3/3 Improved Thunderclap - Decreasing a boss’ attack speed by 20% rather than 10% is just as huge as it sounds.

c. 5/5 Cruelty - Some skip this, I’ve found that it’s an excellent place to get additional threat and easily the best 1st tier talent to get to the Fury tree’s 2nd tier.

d. 2/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout - The first less than obvious choice on the list. 2 points are always placed in this talent due to the fact that it’ll remove the maximum amount of Attack Power from a boss. It’s not to say that specs without it can’t exists, but for the sake of my journey through SSC in the past, I’ve always happily ran it.

e. 1/2 Improved Bloodrage - 1 point in this talent is nice to have in order to get to that magical number 17 as soon as possible. (17 being the amount of rage necessary for Shield Slam with 3 points in Focused Rage) While certainly specs could exist without this talent as well, it finds it’s place into every spec due to the lackluster or very specialized talent options in the 4th and 5th tiers of the Protection tree.

f. 5/5 Anticipation - 20 Defense Skill points is huge and I wouldn’t advise running a spec without the full 5/5.

g. 5/5 Toughness - Like Anticipation, I wouldn’t advise running a spec without 5 points in this talent. 10% Armor in the 2nd tier is an absolute steal.

h. 5/5 Shield Specialization - The little bit of rage generation is nice, but more to the point it’s the pre-requisite for one of the most essential protection talents in the game.

i. 1/1 Improved Shield Block - One of the few talents I can absolutely say without a doubt must be in every single Protection spec.

j. 1/1 Last Stand - Very nice to have and at only 1 point there’s really no reason not to take it.

k. 3/3 Defiance - See Improved Shield Block.

l. 1/1 Concussion Blow - Rarely contributes to most boss fights, but it’s the pre-requisite for another of the must have Protection talents.

m. 3/3 Shield Mastery - This talent should actually read increases your Block Value by 30%. An amazing threat/mitigation talent.

n. 5/5 One-handed Weapon Specialization - An excellent threat talent that actually increases the damage your Shield Slam does as well.

o. 1/1 Shield Slam - The best threat move you have in your arsenal.

p. 3/3 Focused Rage - Reduces the rage of all of your threat moves and much, much more. Another “should be in every Protection spec” talent.

q. 4/5 Vitality - A great talent and the only reason why you see only 4 points here rather than the traditional 5 is because I slipped in an off-tank spec.

r. 1/1 Devastate - Every since it got buffed to be better than Sunder Armor in every way, there’s very, very few reasons to ever not take this talent at the bargain price of 1 talent point.

54 talent points total

That leaves us with only 7 points to customize the different specs. Believe it or not this is going to make a big difference.

4 ways to customize 7 points

1. 8/7/46

+1 Improved Bloodrage, +2 Improved Shield Wall, +3 Improved Defensive Stance, +1 Vitality

• Hydross the Unstable
• Fathom-Lord Karathress (or Shaman)
• Morogrim Tidewalker MT
• Lady Vashj

These 4 bosses feature heavy magic elements while not being terribly challenging threat-wise which makes the points in Improved Defensive Stance valuable. Improved Shield Wall is probably the least valuable in the Fathom-Lord fight, but the other 3 all have moments where you’ll be thanking your lucky stars (as will your healers) for that additional 5 seconds of being seemingly indestructible. The extra point in Bloodrage is nice and maxing out Vitality should always be pursued when taking on a heavy hitter.

2. 8/10/43

+3 Improved Demoralizing Shout, +3 Improved Sunder Armor, +1 Vitality

• The Lurker Below

5 points in Improved Demoralizing Shout is excellent for this fight so that you can allow the Warlocks to use Curse of Recklessness on the boss. (thus increasing physical damage done and your own threat) Improved Sunder Armor is maxed out in an attempt to allow melee to dps as hard as possible. Vitality is maxed out cause it’s more health is good.

3. 11/7/43

+2 Improved Heroic Strike, +1 Anger Management, +3 Improved Sunder Armor, +1 Vitality

• Leotheras the Blind

This is the most threat heavy of the 4 specs thanks to Improved HS, Anger Management and Improve Sunder. Vitality is once again maxed out because it’s easy enough to do it and it’s a boss you’ll be tanking. Your role in this fight involves a lot of burst threat so being able to spam Sunder Armor and Heroic Strike as efficiently as possible is very valuable. Anger Management really shines in this fight since during the downtime of form changes you’ll want to be accumulating a full rage bar as fast as possible.

4. 8/11/42

+3 Improved Demoralizing Shout, +1 Piercing Howl, +1 Improved Bloodrage, +2 Improved Taunt

• Morogrim Tidewalker OT

The additional points in Imp Demo Shout are simply there to make way for Piercing Howl. Piercing Howl is amazing for handling the Murlocs in this fight as is Improved Taunt. Improved Bloodrage is nice to max out in order to aid in filling your rage bar during the downtime between Murloc waves.

Final Thoughts

If you’re anything like most warriors, you’ll often find yourself sitting at a 50 gold respec and perhaps you are hesitant to respec for a particular encounter. When you think about it though when you are already chugging potions, eating food and using flasks for a progression night, 50 gold really is a small price to pay to increase the raid’s chances of success.

The more you develop yourself as a leader, the less of a leader you are.

That’s the truth. We can fight against it and that’s often as leader how we fail, but we can’t escape it. Every step of the way your raid is getting stronger, smarter and requiring you to do/say less. There’s a certain skill as a leader to be willing to let go. A true leader trains leaders. Which isn’t to say that you should stop leading once you’ve developed a competent raid or that you should step down, but instead realize that at some point in time you aren’t going to have to tell people how to play anymore. They will know. Understanding how they grow and what they know is the true challenge.

To that other 32% of you…

If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that you will never be as strong a tank as you can be until you are a leader. You don’t have to be THE progression raid leader, but you better be leading your 5 mans at the very least. (something as simple as marking targets even) As your guild progresses, you should take the opportunity to lead the 10 mans and the lesser 25 mans too. That’s the only way you truly get a complete understanding of the content. Not just how the content affects you, but how the content affects every class and in turn how every class affects your own.

#showtooltip item:32578
/use item:22105
/use item:22104
/use item:22103
/use item:32578

Basically all in 1 button, it uses the biggest Healthstone possible and if no healthstone is available then it tries to use a Charge Crystal Focus. I’ve tweeked it a little to show the tooltip for the Charge Crystal Focus since those are stackable to 20 and it’ll let you easily keep track of how many you have remaining.

• Heroics
• Spell Reflect
• SSO Neck
• Cloak Enchants
• Pizza
• And More!

Differences…

First and foremost, it’s pretty easy to see that the Brooch nets us 9 extra Hit Rating and an additional 3 Expertise which gives the Brooch a clear and obvious edge right out of the gates. The Shattered Sun Pendant is unique though in that once you are exalted with either the Aldor or Scryer faction, the item gains a proc.

The Procs

• Aldor: 100 Dodge Rating over 10 seconds
• Scryer: 100 Expertise Rating over 10 seconds

The Aldor proc immediately reminded me of the talent Improved Revenge. It’s got the best of intentions, but the reality is that gaining a chance for a chance to dodge is likely to get you rage starved more often than result in any real benefit. The Scryer one is more interest, but my gut tells me that this smells far too much of Wrath.

To be a Scryer of sorts

Just like the dodge rating proc of the Aldor, I’m going to discount the survival aspects of this proc for the most part. It’s there, it exists, but it’s certainly nothing to get too excited over and for the time being we’ll ignore it’s benefit. So, let’s examine the two pieces threat-wise. 100 Expertise Rating for 10 seconds with a high proc rate and an internal cooldown of 45 seconds = 22.2 Expertise Rating. (assumption #1) This is calculated by multiplying the proc’s overall rating (100) by 0.2222. The quick conclusion we’ll jump to is OMG that’s way better than 9 Hit Rating and 3 Expertise Rating for threat.

Is it though?

Math Time

100 Expertise Rating / 3.94 = 25 Expertise Skill. Since that passes 23 Expertise, (the mark to remove dodge from a boss’ attack table) we know that 2 points of Expertise Skill are going to be less useful and in terms of threat exactly the same as Hit Rating. The key to finding out how useful this neckpiece is though is seeing just how much our gear has to progress Expertise-wise before the benefit of the proc is inferior to the static bonus offered by the Brooch. (and if this point even exists!?) For simplicity sake even though parry rates are known to vary from boss to boss, we’ll assume the Expertise cap is 46 57 Skill. (assumption #2)

91 Expertise Rating = 23 Expertise Skill (the Dodge cap)
-23.64 Expertise Rating or 6 Expertise Skill (Defiance)
-18.00 Expertise Rating (the neck itself)
= 91 - 18 - 23.64 = 49.36 Expertise Rating

Which tells us that guaranteed only 49.36 of the possible 100 Expertise rating of the proc will go towards the Dodge cap with the remaining 50.64 Expertise Rating being the equivalent of Hit rating since it only contributes towards the Parry cap. Despite the fact that not all 100 will be treated like Expertise and if instead we assume the proc was 100 Hit rating, the average of 22.2 offered by it would still be stronger than the 9 Hit and 3 Expertise rating static advantage of the Brooch. This means that the mark in which the Brooch passes the Pendant is greater than 23 Expertise Skill. So, let’s convert everything to Hit rating.

1. Brooch advantage = 9 Hit + 3 Expertise = 12 Hit rating (post-23 skill)
2. Pendant Proc Average with 100 rating over 10 seconds = 22.2 Expertise = 22.2 Hit (post-23 skill)

Point 2 assumes no waste, yet once we are beyond 23 skill, there are only 91 points left in accordance with our 2nd assumption and as a result, there must be waste giving us the following point 3:

3. Pendant Proc Average with 91 rating over 10 seconds = 20.2 Expertise = 20.2 Hit

Now in order for the Brooch to be greater than the Pendant there has to be enough wasted rating that the proc results in an average under 12. (the static bonus offered by the Brooch)

x * 0.2222 = 12
x = 12 / 0.2222
x = 54

4. Pendant Proc Average with 54 rating over 10 seconds = 12 Expertise = 12 Hit

182 Expertise Rating = 46 Expertise Skill (the Parry cap)
225 Expertise Rating = 57 Expertise Skill (the Parry cap)
225 - 52 = 128 rating / 3.94 = 43.9 Skill

The Magic Number

44.

What this all means! (finally)

The Scryer SSO Neck is surprisingly powerful and assuming you are Exalted with the Scryers, the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve will be stronger than the Brooch of Deftness until you hit 44 Expertise Skill while wearing the Pendant. (at that point, you should swap them) As a result, even the vast majority of tanks should be dropping the 20 gold to pick up this new rep reward.

What’s new!?

Chestplate of Stoicism, Sunguard Legplates, Girdle of the Fearless and Ring of the Stalwart Protector. All 4 items represent slots where previously usable tanking badge items resided. For those of us that already had all of the previous Badge pieces this may be somewhat disappointing but, it’s gotta be a bit of a relief to those still working on getting them all.

Let’s Recap

The Old Order

1. Unwavering Legguards (75)
2. Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx (35)
3. Iron-tusk Girdle (60)
4. Bonefist Gauntlets (60)
5. Slikk’s Cloak of Placation (35)
6. Brooch of Deftness (35)
7. Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian (75)
8. Sabatons of the Righteous Defender (60)
9. Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 (41)
10. Farstrider Defender’s Cloak (25)

Old Obsolete Items

• Azure-Shield of Coldarra
• Faceguard of Determination
• Necklace of the Juggernaut
• Ring of Unyielding Force

The New List

What to Get!

1. Girdle of the Fearless (75)

The Girdle easily secures spot #1 thanks to a healthy chunk of Expertise, Hit, Defense and Stamina. Those of you that already have the previous badge belt with still want to get this ASAP.

2. Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx (35)

Securing the 2nd position for another patch, these bracers maintain their spot (jumping past the legs) thanks to a greater appreciation of just how powerful Expertise is as both a threat and survival statistic. When you add to that high Stamina and Defense rating, you get yourself a perfectly itemized piece.

3. Ring of the Stalwart Protector (60)

Huge amounts of Armor and Stamina along with a solid amount of avoidance. This is simply put the best survival style ring in the game. That being said if you have an issue with low threat generation, this pieces moves lower down the list.

4. Sunguard Legplates (100) Unwavering Legguards (75)

Yup, I’ve got them both here. This is somewhat of a “whatever you get first” situation with the new legs getting a slight edge over that of the old due to Expertise with high Defense Rating. For those that already have the Unwavering Legguards though, you’ll want to pick up the new legs only after you’ve finished off the remainder of the list and even then with Expertise so prevalent across so many pieces this spot may be the one place where you can justify maintaining some much needed Stamina and Block Value. Certainly even after you’ve purchased the the Expertise legs, the Unwavering Legguards will remain fantastic for trash mobs.

5. Bonefist Gauntlets (60)

Still staying strong in the 5th position, these gloves drop only a single spot partly due to lack of competition, but mostly due to the high amount of Defense rating on other pieces making this piece an easy inclusion in your threat and/or survival gear sets.

6. Slikk’s Cloak of Placation (35)

Also dipping down a spot, but don’t sweat it this cloak is still amazing. You will find yourself using this piece extremely often thanks to it’s very survival itemized orientation.

7. Chestplate of Stoicism (100)

The last piece of the new badge loot. It’s an easy replacement over the old paladin style alternative in this slot, but it really isn’t anything to get too excited about unless you are still stuck with a blue quality item in this slot.

8. Brooch of Deftness (35)

Don’t let this item’s low placement give you the impression that it’s weak. It’s still extremely strong and an absolute must have. However, the presence of the new, easily attainable Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve resulted in it getting knocked down a few spots from the old list. Ultimately, you need to pick up one of these two items for sure. Read the comparison article to determine which one is right for you.

9. Farstrider Defender’s Cloak (25)

Barely making the last pick list, it hit me that this cloak is the badge item I have used the most since day 1. It’s the best threat cloak pre-Tier 6 content and as a result will serve you well and often until then.

10. Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 (41)

Last, but certainly not least, the timeless Auto-Blocker taking up the final spot of this patch’s list. This can be largely accredited to so many superior badge choices coming along as well as it’s slot being trumped by the new, ubitious Shard of Contempt.

What NOT to Get

Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian joins the old list of obsolete items with the addition of the new badge chestpiece catered to warriors. Along with it comes Sabatons of the Righteous Defender because while there hasn’t been a reasonable badge alternative added in practice you simply will never make it to this item before superior or equivalent options present themselves. Not to mention excess badges are better spent towards buying a bundle of Empyrean Sapphires. Finally, Iron-tusk Girdle hits the “don’t get” books too since the slight avoidance upgrade it offers just doesn’t offset the benefits of additional expertise and hit rating from the new belt.

• T5 Helm
• Eternal Earthstorm Diamond
• Using different sets of gear
• What’s TPS/TPR?
• Karazhan AOE Tanking
• WoWhead Popups
• How much Expertise Rating do I need?
• Badge of Justice Pick Order
• Passive Uncrushable
• And More!