T10 4 set bonus or x4 264 epics

Hi guys! - I did ICC25 last night and got some new upgrades from there. I am wondering if i should keep the T10 4 set bonus or go for the 4 epics that can give me a boost in other areas as Def, hp and armor. I compiled a list below to help out the comparision what to gain/loss. The hit loss can be reduced further by gemming hit/stam (zul) in some items. I know that the T10 4 set bonus is sweet to have but if its worth dropping for other stat gains.

ITEMS in question are: [Broken Ram Skull Helm] [Grinning Skull Greatboots] [Bracers of Dark Reckoning] [Cataclysmic Chestguard] vs T10 251 chest, helm and crafed 264 [Boots of Kingly Upheaval] and crafted 245 Bracers.

My reason in wanting a boots replacement is to get my expertise up from 11 to 27 and gaining 80 def. The chart below is showing before -> after equipping

GAINS:

636 Armor
540 def to 584 (5,60% to 7,36%) reduced chance to be hit + critically hit by bosses
46,1k -> 46,9 = 800 HP
19 AP
1% Parry
11 -> 27 Expertise = 16 expertise gained (6,75% to be dodged or parried)

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LOSE

T10 4 SET BONUS = When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 sec. Castable every 50 sec if u include duration.

0,52% HIT

It would help put my mind at ease if I can just get some tips/recommendations as where to go with my gearing atm.

Have a great weekend guys!

Why not both?

You can equip the appropriate set based on what you are tanking. If it's a boss that has huge damage spikes, go for 4set. If it's a boss that has consistent damage output, go for passive stat bonuses.

Of course thats an option too, just wondering what bosses in ICC would have huge dmg spikes compared to consistent damage output? so i know which bosses to swap around for as of right now ive just tanked 7/12 and havent really felt any issue =)

Counting only the damage affecting the tank:

Marrowgar: consistent
Lady Deathwhisper: consistent
GSB: spiky (on & off tanking)
DBS: spiky (taunt switches at high blood power can be deadly)
Rotface: consistent
Festergut: consistent (taunt switch at high stacks happens only once, IBF it)
Professor Putricide: consistent (shouldn't taunt switch more than once or twice, don't need 4set for that)
Blood Prince Council: consistent if strategy is properly executed, very spiky if not
Blood Queen Lana'thel: consistent
Valithria Dreamwalker: spiky (but generally so low you barely notice)
Sindragosa: spiky (breaths and blisterings)
Lich King: spiky (soul reapers)

Of course, some of these can change if you use a different strategy or if your healers aren't too careful about their positioning and get themselves indisposed more often than not.

Why do you value expertise as much in the first place? It's mainly a threat stat with very little impact on your survivability. Sure, a dodged Death Strike can cause a death, but so does a parried one and the bonus could save you in such situations. Parry-haste is somewhat of an issue, but 27exp is still far away from the cap.

The bonus is the strongest 4pT10 bonus upon all tanks. It's very reliable on a short cooldown. IMO, your gains don't outweigh its uses by any means.

Yeah and that's why i wanted to make sure that I am not being foolish by not equipping the new items just becuase of the bonus and if i wanted to have any of the items for later progression (Def vice versa)

Having more def rating on a DK can be very worth it as it increases the mitigated damage of IBF. Also, the helmet and the bracers are BiS (as ilvl 277). The boots are BiS against dragons and as long parry-haste is still an issue at LK you should use 'em there too. Expertise has its uses. However, dropping your 4pT10 is most likely not worth it.

As a tank you need to get in the habit of keeping multiple sets for different bosses, however if you're doing normals, nothing really hits hard enough to warrant the extra cooldown except Lich King so I suggest using the extra effective health set until you get to Lich King. For Sindragosa you wanna build a frost resistance/expertise set. Outside of Sindragosa, you don't really need expertise for anything else in ICC, keep some but don't sacrifice effective health for it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bensten

Having more def rating on a DK can be very worth it as it increases the mitigated damage of IBF. Also, the helmet and the bracers are BiS (as ilvl 277). The boots are BiS against dragons and as long parry-haste is still an issue at LK you should use 'em there too. Expertise has its uses. However, dropping your 4pT10 is most likely not worth it.

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Icebound damage reduction caps at 50% at 540 defense, which is the minimum you need for raids, you're not getting any reduction from 540 to 584 and up. Dark Reckoning are only BiS if you're a GS whore, Gargoyle Spit provide more effective health even if the GS is lower. Never heard of Lich King parry hasting, you might be getting confused by the attack speed increase he gets during Soul Reaper.

https://imgur.com/a/6XdQ3
http://armory.warmane.com/character/...ecrown/summary

This is the set i found to be most usefull on almost every encounter.

I do have another one that caps Parry Expertise for Sindragosa and Halion only i guess...
Altho, u can Tank these two Bosses with the set from above aswell, u just need to time ur CDs and Death Strikes in order to survive some random Parried attacks.
Rest of the Bosses wont require u to swap a lot of gear tbh, thats atleast how i see it.

As for any other set, i would not recomend u to skip going for 4/5 T10. Its a great tool and another Deff CD u get for free.

Another Itemisation that i used to use (when i wasnt Human) can be found here:
http://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=349830
In the "Itemisation" section.
U can also find how to cap Parry expertise, if u want i guess.

Overall, i think that u should cap Hit and Dodge Expertise, and after that go for as much Armor And Health as u posibly can.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

As a tank you need to get in the habit of keeping multiple sets for different bosses

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This is the most important takeaway of the thread. Keep that [Cataclysmic Chestguard] in your inventory OP, you'll find use for it all the way up to 25hc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

Never heard of Lich King parry hasting

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Parry haste was enabled for the Lich King for about a month after it got introduced, completely separate from the soul reaper haste. Imagine triggering a snake trap on pull and the tank getting parry gibbed. It was a bug that took some time to get fixed, but now it's no longer active.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gnimo

https://imgur.com/a/6XdQ3
http://armory.warmane.com/character/...ecrown/summary

This is the set i found to be most usefull on almost every encounter.

I do have another one that caps Parry Expertise for Sindragosa and Halion only i guess...
Altho, u can Tank these two Bosses with the set from above aswell, u just need to time ur CDs and Death Strikes in order to survive some random Parried attacks.
Rest of the Bosses wont require u to swap a lot of gear tbh, thats atleast how i see it.

As for any other set, i would not recomend u to skip going for 4/5 T10. Its a great tool and another Deff CD u get for free.

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You're missing the point of this thread. OP doesn't have access to BiS gear. It's obviously not worth replacing ilvl277 T10 with ilvl277 non set because both offer same effective health but when you replace ilvl251 T10 with ilvl 264 non set, you gain effective health in addition to added flexibility in reaching hit/exp/def caps, something you might struggle with if you don't have BiS gear. Couple that with the fact that safe for LK, normal bosses don't really spike that much and don't necessitate as much cd use, you're often gonna make your healer's job easier by just having more consistent EH. Once you move into heroic raiding and get your 264 T10, you're mostly gonna want to stick with that and rotate offpieces depending on encounter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eva

Parry haste was enabled for the Lich King for about a month after it got introduced, completely separate from the soul reaper haste. Imagine triggering a snake trap on pull and the tank getting parry gibbed. It was a bug that took some time to get fixed, but now it's no longer active.

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Sounds like the bug was affecting every single boss, not just LK. Either way it's gone and shouldn't affect your itemization.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

Icebound damage reduction caps at 50% at 540 defense, which is the minimum you need for raids, you're not getting any reduction from 540 to 584 and up.

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Based on what resource? IBF was introduced with no cap present and later blue posts changed tooltips and minimum reduction, but I can't find any entry indicating a maximum.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

Sounds like the bug was affecting every single boss, not just LK. Either way it's gone and shouldn't affect your itemization.

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Based on our latest raids this bug is still very likely to be present on LK.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bensten

Based on our latest raids this bug is still very likely to be present on LK.

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Do you have a WoL parse of your attempts to back that claim up?

If so, it should be posted to the bugtracker.

The log in question is this one. We experienced some weird damage spikes. Haven't analyzed it yet, tho.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bensten

The log in question is this one. We experienced some weird damage spikes. Haven't analyzed it yet, tho.

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There is no parry haste occurring in the log of the LK kill you posted, despite there having been some parries while the boss was on target. All attacks outside of reaper haste happen at the very least with 1.8 seconds inbetween.

Here's a frame-perfect example of a proof in phase three that parry haste is not enabled (no spellcasts that could interrupt the haste):

Spoiler: Show

[21:49:50.035] The Lich King hits Trollchy 39349 (A: 5573)
[21:49:50.181] Wolf hits The Lich King Parry
[21:49:51.574] Spinecruncher hits The Lich King Parry
[21:49:51.888] The Lich King hits Trollchy 22958 (O: 20144, A: 2760)

Here's a couple of occurences in phase two:

Spoiler: Show

[21:44:54.135] The Lich King hits Trollchy 43527 (A: 2760)
[21:44:55.697] Spinecruncher hits The Lich King Parry
[21:44:55.916] The Lich King hits Trollchy 37445 (A: 7500)

[21:45:01.294] The Lich King hits Trollchy 38018 (A: 3715)
[21:45:02.916] Rektrain hits The Lich King Parry
[21:45:03.144] The Lich King hits Trollchy 42547 (A: 1255)

Filter used:

Spoiler: Show

Tracking Soul Reaper to discount any parries happening within 5 seconds of SR fading from the tank (the melee haste portion)

(sourceName = "The Lich King" and fulltype = SWING_DAMAGE and targetName="Trollchy")
or (sourceName = "The Lich King" and fulltype = SWING_MISSED and targetName="Trollchy")
or (fulltype = SWING_MISSED and targetName="The Lich King" and misstype = MISS_PARRY)
or (spell="Soul Reaper" and targetName="Trollchy")
or (type=TYPE_DEATH and targetName="Trollchy")
or (spell="Quake")