Twilight Guild Forum

Many people want to know what minimum stats and things to shoot for in raiding the 25-man. Typically I dont like excluding anyone from raids, unfortunately to make sure we meet with some progress and success in them, we need to make sure everyone in participation meets or comes as close as possible to meeting some minimum requirements otherwise these runs will be unnecessarily stressful and meet with much effort.

Ive compiled a list of stats for each raid role to meet to make it easier for people to have and know what they should be aiming for. Its hard to prepare for something if you dont actually have a known goal to reach, so hopefully this will make it easier. These numbers are based on my scouring the net some on WoW sites as well as some of my own knowledge of the classes. Im no expert by any means, but I've played the classes enough to be able to make a solid judgment on these things.

Ive broken it down into raid "roles" and not specifically classes as most of the stats are pretty standard for all roles with some slight variances for each specific class. I've tried to outline those variables as best as I can to help.

Please take a look at them, add your comments if you feel its necessary, and hopefully this will help our success on the 25 content a little more.

Key:

• > means "or more"
• ~ means "about"

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Healers
(Restoration Shaman, Restoration Druids, Holy Paladins, Discipline/Holy Priests)

General Stats:

• + 1500 > Healing
  (with everything else, dont sacrifice other stats for +healing. Mana pool, your hp, and mp5 are all just as important. You wont do much healing if you have low hp and die to unexpected or expected damage taken)
• 10k > Mana
• 7.5k > Unbuffed Health
  (there is a balance to this where you shouldnt be stacking on a ton of hp gear in place of other stats just to have more. Certain fights might require more hp than others so keeping +stamina gear is good for those occasions.)
• Mana per 5 seconds (MP5) while casting = 110 >
  (Druids can slide some on MP5 while casting due to most healing spells being instant and HoT's, however for long endurance fights it is still good to have this number as high as possible without sacrificing other stats. Some fights will require more MP5 than others, so possibly keeping some gear that has more regeneration stats in your bags/bank will come in handy for these battles.)

Optional:
These are stats that are helpful but there really isnt any set "requirement" for them for a raid role. There are many guides out there which offer up suggestions on these stats but generally these things will improve without specifically working on them with gear improvements and improving other stats.

• +spell crit
  
  
  Depending on what you are aiming for, different classes receive different bonuses from crit heals, most of this is dependent on trinkets, gear and most importantly talent point choices.
  
  • Paladins: Receive a bonus to crit heals with the talent Illumination (15pt Holy tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVxhMx) where 60% of the base mana cost of that heal is returned to you. This can be helpful and work well with mp5 for long endurance fights.
  • Shaman: Receive a bonus to the targets armor value by either 8,16, or 25%  for 15sec if using the Ancestral Healing talent (5pt Restoration tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZZxc). In higher end raiding, this bonus actually becomes very beneficial to the tanks as they gear up with higher armor values.
  • Priests: Recieve a bonus to the targets armor value by either 8,16, or 25%  for 15sec if using the Inspiration talent (10pt Holy tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bZ0xxc). As with Shaman, this bonus becomes more valuable on tanks as they improve gear.
• +spell haste
  This stat basically comes with the better gear earned from [item]Badge of Justice[/item] turn ins or ZA drops. This will reduce your casting time of all your spells by 1% for every 15.76pts of haste you have. In 2.4 it looks like this is also set to reduce the Global Cooldown (GCD) time which is currently 1.5secs down to a lowest of 1sec. At the moment I am unsure if and what the cap might be on this.

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DPS (Caster)
(Elemental Shaman, Balance Druids, Warlocks, Mages, Discipline/Holy/Shadow Priests, Retribution Paladins (to a small extent)

General Stats:

• + 900 > Spell Damage
  (dont sacrifice a great deal of other stats for +spell damage. Mana pool, your hp, spell hit, etc are also important. This is the safe starting number for 25's.)
• 10-12k > Mana
  (the more you have, the more dps you can do over time and less need for mana pots and such)
• 7.5k > Unbuffed Health
  (you need to balance your stamina with all your other stats. Some fights might require more, but this is a good standard unbuffed number to have for almost all. Mages tanking in the High King Maulgar fight of Gruul's Lair will require more, but that is just an exception.)
• Mana per 5 seconds (MP5) while casting
  (This one is basically a secondary stat for caster dps classes. Its extremely hard to balance mp5 with spell hit, dmg and everything else, so this stat tends to take a back seat in most cases. There generally isnt much gear for caster dps that helps with this so its very hard to bring this number up.)
  
  
  • Mages: Have the Master of Elements talent point to refund 10/20/30% of the base mana cost on spells when they are critical (15pt Fire tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZxgMz0c) or Arcane Meditation talent to allow 10/20/30% of your mana to continue regenerating while casting (15pt Arcane tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oi0Vc0c)
  • Druids: Have a the Dreamstate talent (30pt Balance tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tbrziIs0h) to allow you to regen 4/7/10% of your intellect in mana every 5 seconds to include casting.
  • Shaman: Unrelenting Storm (20pt Elemental tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hE00E00V) talent allows the Shaman to regenerate 2/4/6/8/10% of your intellect in mana every 5 seconds while casting.
  • Warlocks: Have multiple options availible to regenerate mana so mp5 shouldnt really be a focus at all. You have Life Tap, which can be improved with Improved Life Tap (5pt Affliction tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IV0b) and Demonic Sacrifice (20pt Demonology tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZfMczIdz) to allow you to sacrifice your Felhunter and gain a regen of 3% of your total mana every 4 seconds.
  • Priests: Have the Meditation talent (10pt Discipline tier) (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxMh0h) and also Shadow Priests have Vampiric Touch (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34917) which will gain mana equal to 5% of your shadow spell damage caused for you and your party.
• ~ (as close to) 202 Spell Hit
  (This becomes more and more important as we move through 25 content to insure maximum damage is being done to bosses and that your spells are not being resisted as much as possible. The spell hit cap is 202, or 99% which can be attained in various ways with various classes through gear, racial abilities and talents. Very simply, you will accumulate spell hit gear as we move through raiding, so working to get as close to 202 on a lvl 73 boss as possible is the main goal without sacrificing other stats of course.)
  
  Below is a chart outlining the spell hit needed based on class talents and racials in relation to raid bosses which are considered to be level 73.
  
  

  Current % Hit	Hit rating needed (per target lvl.)				Notes
  	70	71	72	73
  0%	38	51	63	202	No talent bonuses or buffs
  1%	26	38	51	189	Draenei Inspiring Presence
  2%	13	26	38	177
  3%	0	13	26	164	Frost and fire mages with Elemental Precision, paladins with Precision, shamans with Nature's Guidance
  4%	0	0	13	152	Priests with Focused Power, druids with Balance of Power
  5%	0	0	0	139
  6%	0	0	0	126	Shaman with Elemental Precision
  7%	0	0	0	114
  8%	0	0	0	101
  9%	0	0	0	89	Shaman with Elemental Precision and Nature's Guidance
  10%	0	0	0	76	Arcane mages with Arcane Focus, shadow priests with Shadow Focus, affliction warlocks with Suppression
  11%	0	0	0	64	Draenei shadow priests with Shadow Focus along with the racial Inspiring Presence
  12%	0	0	0	51	Shaman with Elemental Precision, Nature's Guidance and Totem of Wrath
  13%	0	0	0	38	Draenei Shaman with Elemental Precision, Nature's Guidance and Totem of Wrath along with the racial Inspiring Presence

  
  
  More information on spell hit can be found here (http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Spell_hit_chance)

Optional:
As with healers, these stats are basically secondary for the most part and will improve with gear/enchants.

• +spell crit
  Each caster DPS class has different bonuses to increase spell criticals of a specific school or spell or overall with talents. Each class spec somewhat dictates what you should look for on spell crits, for instance Affliction Warlocks dont have many spells that crit, most of the damage is done with DoT spells, so a high crit rating isnt necessarily needed. For Destruction Warlocks, you are essentially a "Dark Mage" where most of your damage output is casting and will benefit highly on spell criticals. Balance Druids, Elemental Shaman and Mages have a lot to gain from higher spell crits while Shadow Priests dont gain as much from it as not many abilities in a typical attack rotation can crit.
• +spell haste
  This stat basically comes with the better gear earned from [item]Badge of Justice[/item] turn ins or ZA drops. This will reduce your casting time of all your spells by 1% for every 15.76pts of haste you have. In 2.4 it looks like this is also set to reduce the Global Cooldown (GCD) time which is currently 1.5secs down to a lowest of 1sec.
• Spell Penetration
  This stat is primarily a PvP stat only. It doesnt work the same as spell hit rating, its primary function is to lower the resistances of your spells against things with resist and not below 0. Mobs have a base level of resistance to certain schools of magic, each boss might be slightly higher on some than others, but these resistances cannot be overcome by Spell penetration. Because of this, its typically a wasted PvE stat and not worth focusing on.

[/list]

Key:

• > means "or more"
• ~ means "about"

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DPS (Physical)
(Rogues, Fury/Arms Warriors, Hunters, Enhancement Shaman, Retribution Paladins, Feral Druids (non tanks))

General Stats:

• + 1800-2500 > Melee Attack Power  / +2000 > Ranged Attack Power)
  (This is a safe number for all physical dps to start around for 25 raids. The more you have, the more damage your abilities and auto attacks will do and this will increase with better gear.)
• 7-9k > Mana (Hunters)
• 8.5k > Unbuffed Health
  (Melee dps is generally not smiled upon on raid boss encounters on most occasions. What this means is that a lot of the time, you are going to take damage as melee dps no matter how careful you are about aggro control and whatnot. It could be AOE attacks, chain attacks, aggro dumps, etc. Because of this, stamina is a bit more important for your survival and knowing what events you will likely need more on is beneficial.)
• +200 > Chance to hit
  (Each physical dps class has certain talents at thier disposal to increase the chance to hit a lvl 73 mob. You want that increase to be at least 5% or more on 25 raids to insure that you seldom miss on bosses doing dps. Each class has its own "hit cap" where you reach a point with talents and gear that adding more +hit becomes useless. More information on hit rating can be found here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Hit (http://www.wowwiki.com/Hit) and http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17722-quick_links_prominent_class_threads/ (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17722-quick_links_prominent_class_threads/))

Optional:
These are stats that are helpful but there really isnt any set "requirement" for them for a raid role. How you increase these is basically left to your own judgment, but generally a decent level of +crit is good to have for all physical dps classes.

• +crit
  Your +crit is basically a key element on your damage done. Each spec differs slightly in how much crit is useful. Stacking +crit but having low overall attack power isnt going to be of much help as your crit's will not do too much more damage, so you need to find a nice equal balance.
• +haste
  This stat basically comes with the better gear earned from [item]Badge of Justice[/item] turn ins or ZA drops but can also be attained from some enchants as well such as Mongoose. This will reduce your attack speed by 1% for every 15.76pts of haste you have. In 2.4 it looks like this is also set to reduce the Global Cooldown (GCD) time which is currently 1.5secs down to a lowest of 1sec. At the moment I am unsure if and what the cap might be on this.

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Tanks
(Protection Paladins, Protection Warriors, Feral Druids (non-dps))

General Stats:

• + 490 > Defense
  (You need a minimum of 490 Defense to become uncrittable by lvl 73 mobs. For classes like Druids and Paladins, going beyond 490 isnt going to be of as much a help as improving other stats like dodge, etc.)
• 4-6k > Mana (Paladins)
  (The majority of a Paladin's threat comes from Holy damage done to the mob/boss. If you have a low mana pool, you will likely have trouble holding on to aggro on long duration fights. Additionally, a lot of your defensive abilities require mana to cast so you want a decent sized pool to be able to work effectively.)
• 14-15k > Unbuffed Health
  (Sometimes unforseen things come up and the amount of hp you have will determine how easy it will be for healers to keep you alive. If you have a low number of hp for a particular encounter or overall, it will require more heals to keep you alive and your healers will run OOM more quickly. For warriors, your stamina will offset the time between Shield Block renewals where there is a brief period that you can be crushed (http://www.wowwiki.com/Crushing_blow) by a boss. More stamina will allow you to soak some of those potential crushing blows (http://www.wowwiki.com/Crushing_blow) from bosses and not overstress healers. Unlike other classes, since you as a tank are going to be the primary person taking damage, the more stamina you have the better, however you still shouldnt sacrifice too much to get it in other stats.)
• ~ 300-400 Spell Damage (Paladins)
  (Like mentioned before, Paladin tanks generate threat with spell damage done to the target, having a good level of spell damage will help keep that high threat generation. You will have to balance this stat out with your avoidance needs but 400 is a relatively good number to have and not difficult to attain.)
• +spell hit (Paladins) and +chance to hit
  (For tanking, +hit is still an important stat. You can improve your hit rating with items that increase weapon expertise, racials and talents. Generally having a 5% hit rating on lvl 73 mobs will help avoid your special abilities from missing. For warriors, the higher +hit rating you have, the less likely your taunt will be resisted as well.)
• 13k > Armor / (Druids) 18-20k > Armor
  (Your armor is important as it will help reduce the amount of damage you take from mobs. The more the merrier, and 13k is generally a good number to start at as it should reduce damage done by roughly 50%. For Druids, more armor is important, so getting as far beyond 13k in Bear Form will help you since unlike Paladins and Warriors, you cannot Block or Parry attacks. This means as a druid tank, everything you dont dodge going to hit you for the full amount, so improving your dodge and armor values as a Druid is highly important. Spell hit for Paladins will decrease the chance that Avenger Shield misses and your judgments are resisted which is important since your threat is based on spell damage.)
• ~ 25% Avoidance
  (Your secondary avoidance stats should be as close to 25% as possible, which means Dodge/Block/Parry. For Druids, your dodge is all you have so keeping that high is as important as the other stats. For Warriors, you want your other avoidance statistics to come to roughly 25% totaled together. This will help mitigate damage landed on you and help longevity overall on raids.)

Optional:
These stats are beneficial to tanking, but arent an outright need for effective tanking.

• +spell crit (Paladins) / + crit
  Crits in general generate high threat, so having the ability as a tank to score some on a boss will help your overall threat generation. Foregoing other stats for crit isnt wise as defensive abilities is the key for good tanking survival, but balancing some crits in with everything else will help make it easier to keep attention focused on you.
• +spell haste (Paladins) / +haste
  This stat basically comes with the better gear earned from [item]Badge of Justice[/item] turn ins or ZA drops and enchants. This will reduce your attack speed by 1% for every 15.76pts of haste you have. In 2.4 it looks like this is also set to reduce the Global Cooldown (GCD) time which is currently 1.5secs down to a lowest of 1sec. Faster attack speed will help you establish threat a little faster, but overall its not a terribly important tanking stat.
• Resilience
  This is a superfluous stat really in PvE tanking. This stat only helps mitigate the chance you are crit, the damage done by crits and the damage done by Damage over Time (DoT) spells. Because of this, it really should only be used as a "fill in" for working on your avoidance as its not a direct replacement for Defense. Resilience (http://www.wowwiki.com/Resilience) doesnt help with crushing blows, so if you are at 490 defense, this stat isnt going to do all that much more for you aside from help on DoT's.

Basically what this means is that even if you pvp all your S1 or coming soon S2 gear, 100% PvP gear isnt going to necessarily provide you with meeting these minimum requirements for 25-man raiding success. Again, its not something pleasant to have to be picky about these things, but in order to make sure we have a chance at accomplishment in these 25 raids, these need to be met by everyone in attendance for the role which you intend to fill.

Its not hard to attain these stats, and if you need help any of the officers can provide advice as well as others in the guild. This forum is the best way to seek out advice and help on things like this.

If everyone planning to participate on the 25 raids doesnt make the attempt to meet these requirements, its most likely going to result in our not being able to kill any bosses and result in dare I say a waste of time for everyone in attendance. Thats something we want to avoid and we dont want people to become discouraged. Thats why I outlined these standards so that you know what to shoot for on your class and what we as officers will be looking for everyone to meet before we set foot in these 25 raids from now on.

If you need a guide on finding gear for yourself, I would suggest http://www.wow-loot.com/ (http://www.wow-loot.com/) as well as http://www.wowwiki.com (http://www.wowwiki.com) for class pointers and explanations on things.

Just remember that each instance gear and drops will help prepare your success for the next instance in progression. Upgrades need to be taken in steps so waiting for a specific drop in X raid instance isnt going to help you. Find the next best thing and work towards that and take upgrades in steps. Gear and item upgrading is a game of progression just like raiding.

Reserved

Reserved

Here is a wonderful guide for Warlocks on how to gear yourself up.  This includes how to achieve plus 1000 spell damage without setting foot into a raid,  how to gem your gear, and how to enchant your gear.  At level 70 it provides the optimal gear choices you would want (as well as were to get them) and also provides a second and third choice for each type of armour slot u have.

http://www.wowmb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15357

Are these stats based on being fully buffed?  My hunter barely reaches 9k mana fully raid buffed.  Depending on spec, a marks or survival hunters would want vastly different stats.  For a survival hunter, at least 600 agility is required for raiding.  Crit is another thing for hunters, around 18-20% for marks/bm, and 28-30% for survival.

Also, Prot paladins do not need spell crit or spell haste at all.  Spell damage and than expertise is much better for a prot paladin threat wise.  400 spell damage is hard to get until late ssc/tk.  300-350 should be enough for ssc/tk.

Overall, I think this is a really good post that should help alot of people out.  Thanks Shadow :D

These are minimum type of numbers for people to shoot for in raiding on the 25's based on suggestions from all over the net. Granted there is going to always be some variances based on spec differences. Thats where a keen sense of your class and spec go a long way. They are a guide to have some sort of established goal for people instead of playing guesswork as to what kind of stats they should be at. Im not saying if someone is 1250 atk power as a melee class they fail and they cant come to the raid, but work to get as close to that number as possible as a guideline. These numbers are reachable, and some even with very little Kara gear. My rogue is around 1500 atk power and shes got mostly Heroic epics and 70 blues as an example. Same with my Druid and my Mage, both have 900 or more spell damage and it didnt take me too long to achieve that. Most of this is attainable within a few weeks of Heroics and or Kara.

Also, im not suggesting Prot pallys go with Spell Crit and Haste, just saying they are optional stats and what use they might be for each. =)

Im trying to provide a blanket set of stats for each role as best as can be generalized without going into each class and spec individually.

Great write up Shadow! It's definitly a great bench mark of what we need to raid in 25 man content.
One other thing we might want to take a look at as well, as gettig 25 people online at the same time. It seems that is the worst thing that is killing us right now. Was it last week that we tried Gruul with 21?

Yea the attendance thing we are working on. There will probably be another post about some proposed ideas to remedy that in a few days as well.

Message to our rogues about gear: HIT RATING!

Our cap is -unbelievably- high.  You won't hit it, but you should get as much as you can.  Precision (combat tree) helps with -5% miss chance for five talent points, but the rest has to come from gear.

excellent post, although I'd like to throw this in about Fury warriors: the benchmark should be 1750 UNBUFFED attack power while sitting in Berserker stance. The reason for this is simple: you must be able to break 3000 buffed Attack power on a raid otherwise you are below the critical threshold: above 3000 attack power Bloodthirst is more efficient at causing damage then execute is. Below 3000 execute is more efficient (that's not to say you shouldn't execute).

Personally, with 1778 unbuffed AP while fury in Zerker stance I can hit almost 4k buffed attack power during a raid with WF + trinket + other buffs. Keep in mind, warrior attack power scales based upon a percentage, even with the same buffs a non improved berserker stance warrior will have FAR less.


-Tris

I need to ask a question about the 25 man raids. I am not quite up to the levels listed by Shadow in this post . I have about 12,000 unbuffed health and about 12,000 armor. My defense rating is at 345. I am spect as a protection warrior. My question is should I pull out of the 25 man raids I signed up for until I get better gear ( hoping to acquire some on Kara runs this week and get some enchants done to my gear) or stay in them with the difficulty lately in filling the 25 man runs. Apppreciate any and all input.
                                                    Thanks,
                                                            Kinjin

If you are spec'd to tank with those numbers, yea, it wouldnt be wise to go to the 25's. You need 490 Defense total for tanking anything beyond regular instances without being a strain on healers. if you have less than that, trash in 25 raids will eat through you without blinking an eye. Working on Kara upgrades, some craftables and some heroics will help you.

I've just noticed that my crit rating is much higher than my attack power, and I need to remedy this when I can afford the gems. I'm thinking of saving up for the 75 badge attack power trinket. Do you  think it's worth it?  Where can I find out the caps for warriors?

Kinjin,

My advice is to go DPS until you can get the tanking gear. I want to talk to you about it in game sometime, we'll definitely be able to figure out an upgrade path that will get you there ASAP (I know this because I did it myself not too long ago).


Luise,

You want 34% crit. Then you want to go for attack power exclusively. After 34% crit chance attack power adds more then crit rating in terms of dps, but before that they are both about equal (with crit rating being better the less of it you have).



-Tris

Not being a warrior, I can't tell if these numbers are correct, however I found this on the wowhead forums (http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=6241) and thought it would be useful for you to look over, Luise.

RE: hit caps, etc.

Quote
Q: How much hit rating do I need for ...?
A: Presuming attacker & defender are the same level, dual wielding has a 24% increased chance to miss & two-handed weapons have only 5%. This chance to miss is directly related to the weapon skill of the attacker versus the defense skill of the defender. Please note shields do not invoke the dual wielding penalty, thus they have the same 5% base chance to miss as two-handed weapons.

For level 73 raid or boss creatures the chance to miss is a total of 28% for dual wielding & 9% for two-hander weapons. To prevent special attacks from missing a player would need ~142 hit rating regardless of their weapon style. It is beneficial to increase hit rating beyond this value, but it is normally recommended to increase critical strike chance & attack power at this point. This does not mean to stop stacking hit rating. A guideline would be 142 hit rating, 1600 attack power, & 25% chance to critically strike, conservatively. The talent Precision is valued at ~47 hit rating, but will not show up on your character sheet. However, Cruelty & other such talents are shown (albeit against level 70 creatures).

Quote from: Trismus on March 03, 2008, 06:11:33 AM
Kinjin,

My advice is to go DPS until you can get the tanking gear.

I strongly dont advise this suggestion to anyone. I have a lot of dislikes about this for many reasons myself. Im not knocking you Tris, but this is really not an advisable solution imo, its a quick one yes, but not the best route to take.

For one, its unfair to the tanks who actually tank the whole time, being a DPS role you would potentially be rolling against people who are "toughing" it out and tanking all the way on tank gear, thats highly unfair to them. I know going DPS is a quick way to get into a raid if your tank gear is sub-par, but there is other routes to take to upgrade. My warrior has been to Kara all of 2 times, ive gotten 0 tank upgrades there and I manage to meet almost all the minimums of 25 raid tanking. Shes not geared to be the MT for Gruul or Lurker by any means, but I can certainly OT and hold my own if need be. I have tanked just about every Heroic instance in the game on her in that very gear as well, to include the rough ones like SL and Arc. So theres not dire need for epics to tank the tough heroics, just takes a little know-how and working to gear yourself up as best as possible in 70 instances.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Avynne

Craftables, and heroics are a good way to work on gear. Most of the heroic drop tank items are very close to Kara tank drops, and badge loot is superior to Kara drops. Theres at least 3-5 tank items that can be purchased from the badge vendor that are superior to a lot of Kara and in some cases 25 raids drop for a while.

[item]Blue's Greaves of the Righteous Guardian[/item]
[item]Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx[/item]
[item]Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian[/item] - Pally tank stats on it but still a damn good chest piece
[item]Chestplate of Stoicism[/item] Patch 2.4
[item]Faceguard of Determination[/item]
[item]Iron-tusk Girdle[/item]
[item]Girdle of the Fearless[/item] Patch 2.4
[item]Unwavering Legguards[/item]
[item]Sunguard Legplates[/item] Patch 2.4

As you can see there is plenty of badge loot to be gotten from heroics and also up and coming loot for them as well that will get you well in the zone of being able to tank in 25 raids.

My second reason I dont agree with this idea is you lose experience building time. A lot of people say tanking is easy, and some of it is, but there are times when experience comes in handy and you wont be doing anyone any help if you try to jump right into 25 raid tanking, or even Kara tanking having only tanked a few 5 man instances prior. Im a firm believer in experience is everything and while something may seem "easy" on the outside perspective, actually doing it and doing it well is a whole different matter. This is evident by PUGs, im sure we've all ran a PUG with the inexperienced tank who cant hold aggro or manage adds and it creates a stressful run. This has as much to do with a lack of experience as it does with skill.

There's some decent tank gear from quest rewards in netherstorm that's easy to get.
[item]Girdle of the Lost Vindicator[/item]
[item]Wind Trader's Band[/item]
[item]Junior Technician 3rd Grade Bracers[/item]
[item]Ring of the Stonebark[/item]
[item]Scavenged Breastplate[/item]
[item]Nexus-Guard's Pauldrons[/item] - these are really good, for avoidance.
[item]Natasha's Battle Chain[/item]

This belt is worth keeping for a very long time:
[item]Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard[/item]

Best boots you'll get in awhile:
[item]Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves[/item]

For prot pali's
[item]Thadell's Bracers[/item]
[item]Kirin'Var Defender's Chausses[/item]
[item]Starcaller's Plated Stompers[/item]
[item]Starcaller's Plated Belt[/item]
[item]Kaylaan's Spaulders[/item]

Nice trinket to get is:
[item]Dabiri's Enigma[/item]

Some of it's green gear, but it does get you the defense you need, so your not impossible for healers to heal you.

Just a couple of links I've found helpful when gearing up GB for tanking and lolprotdps:

Polar's Pre-Kara Tank Gear List
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/gear-lists-rankings/31940-polar-s-easy-pre-karazhan-tank-gear-list.html
This list is step 1 if you want to tank beyond 5-mans. Everything here is easy to get.

Berginyon's Tank Gear Rankings
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/gear-lists-rankings/32083-berg-s-tank-gear-rankings-03-19-2008-wow-2-4-a.html
Covers tank gear from Kara/T4 on up, with TankPoints ratings and his own opinions.

MaxDPS
http://www.maxdps.com/
Since I also maintain a DPS suit, this site helps me a lot in ranking each class of gear by (what else) max DPS. It covers any DPS class/build. I don't worry about filling in all my stats; I just check the boxes on the left for the level of content we are at, and then look at the rankings for each gear slot at the bottom.

Hope these are helpful...

GB

For anyone who is thinking about raiding as a ret pally in 25 mans: I would say a good base minimum is the following unbuffed stats. I'll also follow with about how much you'll get once full raid buffed/flasked.
>9,000 HP (almost every boss does something to damage melee in some way) --> Leads to around 11k HP
>4,800 - 5,000 Mana --> Leads to around 6k mana.
>1600AP (We aren't the most natural DPS class and need to compensate with a little higher base AP)--> Leads to ~2500AP
>30% Crit (Higher lets us stack Vengeance faster for 15% more damage) --> Raid crit rating depends on makeup... a feral druid and enh shammy with GoA can get you well over 40% crit.
=95 hit rating is our cap with Precision Talents... get it


(I'm going to post a guide for ret pally DPS and how to work with ret pallies to get the most out of our raid utility in the pally section as well)

By the 75 AP trink off badge vendors, are you talking about the Battlemaster's trink? If so, just stay away from that. Get the Bloodlust Brooch- 41 (?) badges and it will last you a long time.

Or get the samething for free from the brewfest BRD boss