25-man Raiding Requirements (Burning Crusade)

[Trismus]

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

[fiere redfern]

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.

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).

[Shadowwolf]

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.

[Air]

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.

[Gutboy]

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

[JohnnieRat]

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)

[Belandand]

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.

[Rocknlock]

Or get the samething for free from the brewfest BRD boss