Keep Your Old Gear

Currently we are up to Twins in Trial of the Grand Crusader. I have a feeling we’ll get those two down easier than Faction Champions. After that, it’s time for Anub’arak!
My job will change dramatically. On normal, I tank the big ole bug and Boston (DK) wrangles the Adds. He acknowledged later that I probably should have been on Adds originally, but it’s Normal mode and really didn’t matter.
When we face Anub’arak on Heroic, I’ll be on the Adds.
Why are Paladins and Warriors fantastic Add Tanks on Anub’arak?
The Adds have this lovely little debuff called Expose Weakness which causes you to take more damage (up to 225%!)
Block is a real powerful way to lessen this damage because the multiplication comes AFTER your block reduction. Worldlie on Maintankadin explains it this way:
The adds hit for about 5k unmitigated. Assuming you got 4k block value, this will result in a 1k hit (4k blocked).
Now let's add the debuff: they would be hitting for about 15k unmitigated... however, after block, they will only hit by 3k hit (4k blocked)! You see what I did there? Only the unblocked damage got multiplied. This means you can negate up to 100% damage with blocks, and that's probably the main reason for which you are tanking Adds as well.
He goes on to list out all the block gear you can find. I compared the list to what I have in my bags.
  • Head: Tier 9 232 Helm
  • Neck: Warlord’s Depravity
  • Back: Tattered Castle Drape
  • Shoulder : Sunreavers Defender's Pauldrons
  • Chest: Tier 7 200 Chest
  • Wrist: Binds of Hapless Prey
  • Hands: Teir 8 219
  • Waist: NONE
  • Legs: Tier 9 232
  • Feet: NONE
  • Rings: NONE
  • Trinkets: Coren’s Lucky Coin
  • Libram: Libram of Sacred Shield
  • Shield: Aegis of the Coliseum
  • Weapon: Shiver
I put this gear on last night for the Daily Heroic, although at times I swapped in my old Aldori Legacy Defender so the healer wouldn't get bored. The set works out to about 2700 Block Value. When Libram of Sacred Shield is up, and it should have a 100% up time, that jumps to almost 3200 Block Value. When Coren's procs, I'm approaching 3400 Block Value. I'm not quite up to the 4k Worldlie mentioned in his article, but I'm close. I did have Blessing of Sanctuary for the Strength buff, but I didn't have Kings or Mark or a Strength of Earth Totem. All of those would boost my Block Value. I'll need to fish up some Dragonfin Fillet so I have a nice Strength food buff.
I need to outfit the final gear with Epic gems.
I've already logged out for the night, but I'm thinking I should try my Darkmoon Card: Greatness as part of the set.
Where else could I improve this set? I could use some help with my Cloak, Waist, Feet and Rings.
My options for Cloak would be Cloak of the Iron Council from Ulduar, or Shadow of the Ghoul, a trash drop from Naxxrammus25.
For a belt, I have to hope for a Skadi’s Iron Belt the next time UP is the daily. I’ve let that thing get blown up multiple times. Now that I want it, it probably won’t drop. My other options are Waistguard of the Tutor from Naxx10, or Dragonscale Brace from Razorscale in Ulduar 25.
For a short term set of boots, I’ll pick up the Toxin Tempered Sabatons from Knights of the Ebon Blade. I’d prefer to find a pair of Inexorable Sabatons on the AH. These are a BoE drop from Naxx25. I trolled Trade chat several times last night and didn't even get a nibble. I know, crazy idea, trying to use Trade chat for actual Trade. I really wish the Auction House had a reverse Auction where I could put up a certain amount of gold and then someone could come along with Inexorable Sabatons and 'bid' the Sabatons to 'win' the Auction. Now even better than Inexorable Sabatons would be to grab Greaves of the Stonewarder, but those are only available from Ulduar25.
There are only two rings, Signet of the Earthshaker which drops from XT in Ulduar25 and the Unsmashable Heavy Band which drops in Utgarde Keep. It’s another Blue I’ve let be disenchanted multiple times.
I held onto my Coren’s Lucky Coin from Level 70. I have never once seen Lavanthor's Talisman drop in VH.
I'm really happy I held onto my old gear like the Bindings of Hapless Prey, and the old Tier stuff. I'm also happy I chose to hold onto the old Brewfest stuff like Coren's Lucky Coin. I've got a bank full of gear, but sometimes as a tank you're called on to make a weird set. I still have my Level 70 Defense Trinkets, and my old Figurine of the Colossus.
Now if we wait until IceCrown is out to try Anub’arak, there are some Block Value boots and belt from the Normal 5 man. It doesn't look like Ice Crown is coming out today (November 17th). If we get Twins down this week, I'll need to be ready for Anub'arak.

Having a project like this is really enjoyable. When I saw the daily was Utgarde Keep, I was actually excited because Unsmashable Band drops there, instead of ho-hum Heroic daily. We knocked it out in just about 20 minutes.

Comments

Tengen said…
Having just recently killed Anubarak on heroic after 3 weeks of trying, I hope you won't mind me offering you some advice.

Nature resist: If you have a hunter or shaman this gets much easier, but try to make it a point to flask with the nature resist and get the ebon blade head enchant.

Block Value: once you hit around 3500 block value (buffed) you begin to no longer take damage from adds. With libram up, my setup has about 4k block value.

Stamina: if you are able to field a full-mitigation set (ie 0 damage after block) the less stamina you have the better, because Anub will heal for less in phase 3, and you don't need it anyway since the adds don't actually hurt you.

Interrupts: I find that the adds only get off 1 shadowstrike per above-ground phase. The first wave of adds casts it, Anub will burrow before the 2nd wave of adds begins to cast, so you should only have to interrupt 3 times in the fight if everything goes well (once for each above ground phase).


You can view my gear setup at: http://chardev.org/?profile=318937

It's not passively unhittable, but most of the gear you can get in 10mans. You can replace the shield with the 10m anub one, and the t9.245 gear with t9.232 gear and the stats will be similar, same thing with the non-heroic version of my shoulders and the t8 gloves. This set sits at around 105-107% avoidance with libram up, so you can probably get away with not using the exact gear that I have and still be at the 101.8 you need to be unhittable with holy shield up.

Best of luck to you :)
Anonymous said…
Good point about holding onto old tanking gear for situational use. Just a heads up, though, you have the cloak labeled as a shoulder piece, and I don't see an actual shoulder item listed. I'm not sure if actually included shoulders when making the list and neglected to include them in your post or if you simply overlooked a slot when drawing up your list initially. In case it's the latter, I'll do the leg work for you. The best options for this slot that you likely have access to (based on the content you talk about raiding) are the Sunreaver Defender's Pauldrons (at ilvl 232: BV=151) or the T8 piece (at ilvl 219: BR=34, BV=126). If those aren't options, the Shoulderguards of the Solemn Watch, Burdened Shoulderplates, and Pauldrons of the Colossus all have BR but no BV on them. Hope this helps, keep up the blogging, and best of luck in TotGC.
Anonymous said…
In case you haven't seen it, Kalon posted about tanking Anub in ToGC25. It is written from the perspective of a bear main tanking the encounter, but it does include a useful discussion about some of the mechanics for the fight (ie- quantifying the utility of nature resist, the benefits of MS/wound poison, the impact of specific talent choices on the difficulty of the encounter, etc). Here is the link:
http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/10/generalnature-resist-for-anubarak.html

Hope this helps!
Honors Code said…
I fixed the Shoulder omission. Thanks for pointing that out. I actually use the Sunreavers Defenders Pauldrons.

I'll check out ThinkTank's article. Thanks for the link.
Argent said…
I think the Cloak of the Iron Council and Signet of the Earthshaker are both BoEs -- I think I've seen each on the AH. I don't know how you're doing on gold; they're probably both around 1500 or so at this point with T9 out, but they may be up now that tanks are building block sets.
Honors Code said…
I'm doing fine on gold and when it comes to my tank sets, money is no object. I'll my eyes on the AH.
Thorned said…
We do it like this:
we assign a dmg dealer to each add (so 2 in 10 togc) which kill the adds and interrupt the shadowstrike. they start the killing as soon as i have both adds on the ice below anub.

with this you never have more than those 2 adds on you which reduces the damage a lot making the healing of the add tank very easy :-)
Honors Code said…
I'd be concerned we would lost too much DPS on Anub is we dedicate a DPS to the Adds, but that will be Boston's call.
Dag said…
Eh nice pair of boots for ya

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45542

Uld 25 trash drop :]
One of the biggest additions you can make to your blocking set is Lavanthor's Talasmin from H VH.

As for the actual strategy on the fight, one thing to keep in mind is splash damage is your friend. If you tank anub on top of the icepatch you pull the adds to, then your melee DPS can cleave for a substantial amount of damage on them. Fury Warriors and Blood DKs in particular shine at this aspect. I would also suggest some +hit food to cover the hit gap on Holy Wrath to keep Shadow Strike interrupted.

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