10 January 2011

Best Cataclysm Tanking Enchants

Here is a quick list of the best enchants for not only Deathknights but all tanks in Cataclysm. Organised by item slot. A great site to see how your doing on gear score and enchants is WoW-Heroes.





Head


Shoulder

Chest
You have two choices here. I am personally inclined to saying that Peerless Stats is the better of the two is you take all tanking aspects into consideration such ans survival, threat and damage. Of course if all your going for is a huge health pool then Greater Stamina would be for you.


Pants

Boots
Three choices for this slot. With the new patch 4.0.6 lurking around the corner the Mastery enchant might not be the best choice for Deathknights due to the mastery nerf we are getting. Of course if your tank class relies heavily on mastery and you already have a speed boost go with the Mastery enchant. If you rely heavily on master and do not already have a speed boost I would go with the Lavawalker enchant. And if you are laking in stamina and/or need a speed boost go with the Earthen Vitality enchant.


Bracers


Gloves
Two choices for this slot. Again with patch 4.0.6 and the DK mastery nerf coming I think DK and other tank the do not rely heavily on mastery or are laking in HP
 should go for the Heavy Savage Armor Kit. If you are lacking in mastery or rely on it heavily go for the Greater Mastery enchant.


Cloak


Weapon
Again a few choices here. If your a Deathknight you will take your Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle or Rune of the Nerubian Carapace twice if your a dual wield Deathknight tank. An alternative for DKs has presented itself. If your staminia is at a good level you can switch to Rune of Swordshattering or Rune of Swordbreaking for equal or slightly better damage reduction. The consensus isn't out yet. For other tank you have the choice between Mending a healing enchant or Windwalk a dodge/speed enchant the choice is really up to you.


Off-Hand (for non DKs)

After some nice feedback from here I decided to add the hit and expertise enchants to the list. From what I understand hit and expertise help your Death Strikes land so when you need to Blood Shield you need to worry less about misses and dodges. You can also reforge for hit and expertise its really you to you.

This concludes my guide or list of tank enchants in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm as of patch 4.0.3a. As usual feel free to post and question or comments in the comments section.
Posted by Tusam at 6:08 PM
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8 comments:

  1. Zane/ChanniJanuary 16, 2011 at 3:40 AM

    I've been playing with my weapon runes, between Stoneskin gargoyle and Swordshattering and I can't see why we'd want to use Stoneskin gargoyle. 4% avoidance seems to be a better trait than not quite 1% mitigation due to the armor increase. granted, I've not been in raids yet, but everyone is still pointing to the old Stoneskin Gargoyle and i was hoping to find somewhere that might go into the reasoning why.

    Thank you!

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  2. UnknownJanuary 17, 2011 at 9:09 AM

    @Zane/Channi

    Excellent question. The reason I didn't have it in my post is simple, I totally forgot about it lol.

    Now for more serious stuff. The general consensus right now seams to be; for entry raid tanks to take Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle or Rune of the Nerubian Carapace(x2) simply for the extra stamina. Once your stamina is at a respectable level the favor seams to change over to Rune of Swordshattering or Rune of Swordbreaking(x2) for the mitigation. As a side note apparently runeforges are not affected by diminishing returns.

    I'll update my post to reflect theses findings. Thanks again.

    Here are a few sources:
    http://pwnwear.com/forum/runeforges-t840-45.html
    http://pwnwear.com/forum/death-knight-tanking-guide-blood-t703.html
    http://pwnwear.com/forum/tank-guide-t138.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJanuary 20, 2011 at 12:54 PM

    Updated the post with Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle and Rune of the Nerubian Carapace(x2).

    ReplyDelete
  4. T-DogJanuary 20, 2011 at 11:45 PM

    Death knight dual wield tanking is not viable in Cataclysm.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJanuary 21, 2011 at 11:45 AM

    @T-Dog

    Last I read it was. Do you have proof of this claim?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2011 at 8:47 PM

    http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110102-blood_dk_endgame_tanking_4_x/

    "Dual-wield tanking is FAIL
    Dual wield tanking is no longer viable. Any minor benefits are outweighed by the immense threat loss from all your strikes only taking into account the damage from your main hand weapon.
    Any further posts suggesting Dual Wield tanking may be viable would need to provide solid evidence of a significant benefit to outweigh the threat loss. See post here* for trade-off calculation."

    * http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t105485-old_cataclysm_dk_endgame_tanking_4_x/p13/#post1804072

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownFebruary 3, 2011 at 9:43 AM

    Thanks for the info. I'll update my post as soon as I get the chance, really busy lately.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousMay 9, 2011 at 4:35 AM

    Stoneskin v Swordshattering: I think there are a lot of factors here, and there really can't be a consensus because of that. It's an individual thing. For one, the more armor and stamina you have, the greater the benefit of stoneskin will be. That's why I believe swordshattering would be prefered for the tank that's still gearing up. Another factor is disarms: how often does it occur? In some dungeons/raids tanks will be disarmed quite a bit while in others they won't be disarmed at all--considering death strike is a huge part of DK's damage mitigation in cata, and you can't use it while disarmed, this might be a major factor in your decision.

    Also, don't sleep on Spellshattering as a tanking alternative. Grand Vizier Ertan, just for example, is entirely spell damage, and spell damage seems to be a much bigger part of cata in general. Not to mention a number of important DK abilities can't be used while silenced, so the silence reduction might also be very valuable in key situations. So if your phyical mitigation is already pretty good, this rune is something to seriously consider.

    Dual Wielding in cata: The main argument against it is the hit your threat will take, and while this is probably true, let's assume that even with this reduction in threat, you're still able to hold aggro just fine; then there really is no downside to DWing, so what then are the benefits of DWing? Two things: Scent of Blood and Blood Parasite (aka, blood worms). With scent of blood, your threat won't drop off quite as much, especially if you glyph rune strike, and the extra rune power can also be used for self-healing if lichborne talent is picked up. But the bigger advantage lies with the bloodworms, which will spawn at an exponentially greater rate while DWing (i've seen tests where blood worms spawn over 10x as often while DWing, but feel free to do your own tests), and keep in mind blood worms provide an AoE heal, so it helps the whole group, not just the tank. This could make DWing a VERY attractive option for off-tanks. But that said, if you do choose to DW in cata, be prepared to take a lot of flack from pugs ("ZOMG, this guy's an idiot, he's dual-wielding, boot him" etc.) so if you do choose to experiment with DW, best to do it with a guild group just to avoid all the usual pug drama.

    ReplyDelete

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