Making people merry, one blog post at a time

One thing that is always daunting for the majority of PvE content is gearing up — and our effectiveness being 50% dependent on that gear. Mention that only one or two pieces drop in a single dungeon, and it makes a new tank just a tad hesitant to move into a full-time job.

Tanking doesn’t have end-all, be-all rules and guidelines that other roles must strictly follow. It’s one of the more forgiving archetypes to play (as long as you’re able to get the job done, of course).

The most favorable stats are different depending on your class, such as Druids having little to no use for Parry.

I won’t proclaim to be an expert at this point, especially since  Tanking stat priority is still heavily disputed in the community right now as to what’s most favorable, but prevailing theories claim the following:

Warriors: Stam > Parry > Dodge = Mastery > Hit = Expertise

Druids: Stam > Agil = Dodge > Mastery = Hit = Expertise

Paladins: Stam > Parry = Dodge = Mastery > Hit = Expertise

Death Knights: Stam > Mastery > Dodge = Parry > Hit = Expertise

I list Stamina on top for every class, because personal experience dictates that stacking it is the most reliable way to provide effective mitigation, giving more time for healers to launch their spells. It also relies less on the Random Number Generator.

Example 1

Boss is hitting for 25k every 3 seconds, and you have 175k. That gives the healer 21 seconds to get at least one heal off.

VS.

Example 2

Boss is hitting for 25k every 3 seconds, and you have 120k HP. That gives the healer just under 12 seconds to get some sort of heal off.

Read on to see my final analysis of Tanking stats and a full list of gear that will put you over the threshold and into Heroics, to then have fun progressing there!
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