As I have discussed before, all raiders should ensure that they have fully enchanted their gear in order to maximize their entire group's chance of success. No one wants to be the cause of a 1% wipe because they couldn't be bothered to spend a bit of gold, right? If this is good advice for DPS classes, then it is doubly so for tanks - hard-hitting bosses can stress out even the best healing groups, so why not ensure that we are innately as durable as possible.
Methodology
This guide will be broken down by gear slot, with my preferred selections for Bear-only, Cat-only, and hybrid (i.e. used in multiple sets) gear laid out. Alternative enchantments will be listed separately. Also, note that enchantments that are only available to people with certain professions have been excluded from this list - I see no need to tease ferals who don't have access to these perks, and generally they are best-of-slot any how, so don't really require being explicitly mentioned.
Head
Bear: Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (+37 stamina, +20 defense rating)
Cat: Arcanum of Torment (+50 attack power, +20 critical strike)
Hybrid: Nothing really. Pick either bear or cat depending on what your primary role is.
Other Options:
Until you're revered with your faction of choice, any of the resistance enchants from the WotLK factions (e.g. Arcanum of the Fleeting Shadows) of the TBC Arcanum of the Defender are decent stand-in for your bear hat, while the old Arcanum of Ferocity from TBC will keep your cat happy.
Shoulders
Bear: Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle (+20 dodge rating, +15 defense rating)
Cat: Greater Inscription of the Axe (+40 attack power, +15 critical strike rating)
Hybrid: Again - pick one based on your primary role.
Other Options:
Obviously the Lesser Inscriptions of the Pinnacle and Lesser Inscripton of the Axe are suitable stand-ins until you grind out exalted with the Sons of Hodir. If you're feeling particularly feeble in the health department, the Heavy Borean Armor Kit could also be considered.
Back
Bear: Major Agility (+22 Agility)
Cat: Major Agility (+22 Agility)
Hybrid: Major Agility (+22 Agility)
Other Options:
Mighty Armor looks good on paper for a tanking cloak, but I think that the agility enchantment still beats it out. Dodge and Titanweave are also out there, but Agility truly does beat them paws down. Greater Speed exists for kitties, but haste isn't all that hot if you're a cat.
Chest
Bear: Powerful Stats (+10 all stats)
Cat: Powerful Stats (+10 all stats)
Hybrid: Powerful Stats (+10 all stats)
Other Options:
If you can't afford Powerful stats just yet, Super Stats is still fairly snazzy, and better than the other options out there. If you're looking for a pure health boost, pick up a Heavy Borean Armor Kit instead of the Super Health enchantment - bear health scaling being what it is, you get more bang for far less buck. Finally, if you're feeling like a rebel, strap on Greater Defense - it's not all that great though.
Wrist
Bear: Major Stamina (+40 stamina)
Cat: Greater Assault (+50 attack power)
Hybrid: Expertise (+15 expertise rating) (Greater Stats if expertise capped)
Other Options:
For tanking gear, Greater Stats gives a modest increase to all stats, while Major Defense can be applied for a modest avoidance bump. Cats could consider Brawn, although it would be sub-optimal.
Hands
Bear: Major Agility (+20 Agility)
Hybrid: Major Agility (+20 Agility)
Other Options:
Like the cloak armor enchantment, Glove Reinforcements looks pretty but doesn't appear to be the proper choice for bears. likewise, Heavy Borean Armor Kit comes up short of the agility buff, and should only be used if your health is a huge problem area. Expertise, Major Agility, and Major Strength are all dps glove alternatives.
Legs
Bear: Frosthide Leg Armor (+22 agility, +55 stamina)
Cat: Icescale Leg Armor(+75 attack power, +22 critical strike)
Hybrid: Frosthide Leg Armor (+22 agility, +55 stamina)
Other Options:
If you're not made of money, Jormungar Leg Armor (bear) and Nerubian Leg Armor (cat) are cheap alternatives to the best-of-slot gear. Honestly, nothing else even compares to these.
Feet
Bear: Tuskarr's Vitality (+15 stamina, +8% run speed)
Cat: Icewalker (+12 critical strike, +12 hit rating) (Greater Assault if hit capped)
Hybrid: Superior Agility (+16 agility)
Other Options:
Greater Fortitude offers more stamina than Tuskarr's, but without the run speed - personally I believe that the speed boost is worth the small loss.
Weapon
Bear: Major Agility (+35 agility)
Cat: Massacre (+110 attack power)
Hybrid: Major Agility (+35 agility)
Other Options:
Depending on its proc-rate, Mongoose can be better than Major Agility for tanking bears. Cats can also consider Berserking (if they switch weapons when going to bear form to emergency-tank), or Accuracy (if you really need the +hit rating).
22 comments:
I think that Mongoose is going to rival major stam for weapons even post 3.0.8. Goose ends up being around 45-50 agility on single-target fights, and 120 agility on multitarget fights. At this point I'd rather have the 45-50 agi over the huge amounts of stam.
I guess it also depends on the amount of stamina that you currently have. Personally I find myself feeling that I need a bit more, even when fully raid-buffed. The new weapon enchant would go a long way towards that.
Excellent writeup, Karthis, thank you. One addition: leatherworkers get the option now of +90 stamina to bracers. It's ridiculously overpowered, but hey, I'll take it!
It never occurred to me that Mongoose wouldn't have a 45 second cooldown like so many procs. Does it really stay up when multimob tanking? Can Swipe or Maul proc it twice?
Mongoose doesn't have any cooldown. When multimob tanking it stays up effectively forever, at least on 6+ mobs. It doesn't have as high an uptime on 3+mobs, but it's usually up. And it'll refresh itself.
Swipe and maul effectively can proc it multiple times. I say effectively because it'll only trigger once per swing no matter what, but you get a separate chance per hit. So swipe on 30 mobs means 30 chances of goose triggering. It's really quite strong and a lot of fun to play with.
@Flyv:
I purposefully excluded all crafter-specific enhancements since they're pretty much all best-of-slot.
I go back and forth on the stam vs. avoidance / mitigation issue. We haven't quite started raiding yet (tomorrow), but in Heroics at 80, I find that it depends a lot on the healer. With one of our guilds healers, I think I could have 60k HP and still die without a lot more avoidance / mitigation, because the incoming damage is greater than his heal rate. With another one, though, he can always get me back up, although I sometimes get dangerously low, so more stam would probably be better.
Overall, I'm sure there's some point where you have 'enough' health -- I'm just not sure where that point is.
(All that said, it's hard to turn down Mongoose. +120 agility up basically all the time on trash is nice.)
Great timing. I hit 80 last night and have been busy crafting gear (Just made the arctic pieces & am closing in on 440 LWing for the rest) and in need of enchants. So many things to get done, I wasn't sure what to look for. Now, I've got to gather mats.
@ Flyv. Don't forget the LWer's 114 AP to bracers for Cats. It doubles the effectiveness of some gear.
As always great guide and thanks so much. Still I was thinking that goose might be nice for cats once we get swipe?
Hi, my dear bear!
** This isn't refering in any way to the post at hand, but I wanted to make sure you see it. Sorry about that. **
I enjoy your blog greatly and learn a ton from your posts. Thank you!
Anyway, I spent a ... few hours building a new UI (incl. macros) and your better stance bar is of course a part of it. As it is, I actually live in the delusion that I could improve it slightly, watch this:
Instead of using two buttons for you travel and aquatic form, you can merge them into:
#showtooltip
/cast [swimming] !Aquatic Form;!Travel Form
I let you figure out what it does :). You could probably upgrade this and include the flight form (using [flyable]), but not having the pleasure of flying yet myself, I leave that to you.
Keep up the good work!
@Karthis and Kalon
First let's talk mongoose, there is an internal cooldown for warriors as this has been the enchant of choice through BC, I tested it extensively, and also rogue enchant of choice through TBC. I have never seen 100% uptime, at most it was a 30-35% uptime, so it may be broken for bears right now and weapon procs. If not this would probably be the enchant for warriors right now too, I am going to do some more checking to see if the internal cooldown was removed.
Karthis - Best glove enchant for bears has to be armsmen, 10 expertise and 2% threat is huge, although threat isn't so much of an issue on 90% of fights there are some that come to mind that the threat is needed. Last week on patchwerk I was sitting at 7-8k TPS, the 2% buff is 140-160 TPS, I don't think anything else in game increase threat by that much plus the expertise which is actually valued over most other stats in tanking for the reduced parry gib and the increased threat.
@Vak:
I've never been fully sold on Mongoose, although anecdotal evidence suggests that for bears it has a silly up-time. Could be a bug, as you suggest - I'm truly unsure.
Armsman is 2% threat and 10 parry rating. If it was Expertise and Threat I'd be all over it in a heartbeat, because I love that stat.
Sorry Karthis, I was thinking expertise, because those were the two enchants I was bouncing between. See I should not post comments from work.
WTB Baer parry?
Vakfoosh - it's easy enough to test goose having 100% uptime (and this is how I did it) - go farm supplicants in BT. 30 mobs, swipe, go nuts. It was up 100% of the time, and it never went below 10 seconds. I see it self-refresh quite a bit when doing multiple mobs. It's very possible that there's a bug associated with it. My suspicion is that warriors just don't have the same issue because they cannot physically hit an unlimited amount of mobs the way a bear can, and tclap does not use on proc effects.
Kalon,
We so need to not discuss in comments but eh, Karthis will get a laugh.
I would agree typically on the number of mobs as a great way, but then I look at SnD rogues who dual it and see it fall of MH or OH. I don't know, 100% up time on 120 agi just seems so unfair.
But the warrior chant will still be stam I think, as I don't see too many warriors with 40k unbuffed health.
Is the titanguard enchant really gone?
Yes :( Thank you for the reminder to update this article.
I'd agree that the run speed from Tuskarr's Vitality is probably better than the extra Stamina from Greater Fortune on boots. However, the run speed from Turskarr's Vitaly doesn't stack with the Death Knight Unholy-talent "Unholy Aura". So if you regularly are in raid with an Unholy Death Knight, it's probably best to stick to the Stamina-enchant. If your Unholy DK doesn't have Unholy Aura, then maybe you should encourage him to take it - 15% speed for the entire raid is probably worth the 2 talent points.
I know I'm late to the thread here, but with the addition of kitty swipe, how does Mongoose stand up to other dps enchants?
At it's best, Mongoose is still not superior to Massacre. (90 agility = 90 attack power, plus some crit).
Kitty swipe is also not sustainable - it's very bursty. (And it's not used for bosses, really.)
Thanks for the answer, that was a stupid question (bosses, oh yeah). I guess I was up too late last night raiding...
Mongoose does NOT have a cooldown, it is still the best weapon enchant out there for bears, especially for multi mob tanking. If you're tanking several mobs, it is almost always up. It is more than worth it to the hardcore bears out there :)
Also, I would like to add that engineers can now add 884 armor to their own gloves, which is a ridiculous amount of extra armor if you're a leather wearer :)
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