edit: After reading some comments and talking to a few people I will most likely be going boomkin and not even trying to bother with tanking. Thanks!
edit2: I have no boomkin gear… ideas to get started? I completed basically all of the outlands quests before making this decision unfortunately so that really isn’t an option and I haven’t done any heroics…so most likely ah/vendor gear.
I have 4-5 days played at 70 and almost finished all outlands quests (outside of some group ones and dungeon ones). I am running into an issue gearing though, I have no idea wtf I am doing. I will run a dungeon and see a drop, but for one reason or another it just doesn’t seem like an improvement. It might have hit/crit/exp/ap all on it but no agility so it seems like it is probably worse then the green I am wearing with 40 agil and 40ap. I am guessing that probably isn’t the case but I have no idea.
I have looked up guides, but the ones I find either are looking for kara gear (I haven’t done a raid and not sure if I will) or crafted gear for the most part. I just want to gear up in normal dungeons until I have the keys/rep to do heroics. Is there an easy way to know which items are improvements without having a solid understanding of the gearing?
I have been playing as feral because questing just feels so much better and I was thinking of giving tanking a try, but at this point I feel tanking will be really hard, just tanking some group quests I lose aggro because people do massive damage. So I might just switch to Boomkin. I love feral for questing, but for dungeons Boomkin just seems to make more sense. It is much easier to do more dps with less effort, for me at least.
Not sure what to do, but I know I definitely need some tips on figuring out which pieces of gear are upgrades. Anything anyone can offer to help would be amazing! Thanks!
I have an addon called Pawn. It “scores” gear when you hover over it for each spec. You can customize calculations, but I don’t bother. I am sure many would argue that it is not perfect, but it is close enough to be able to make a quick choice on things that are not something you are intentionally chasing.
Look up your pre raid bis set on icy veins and get attuned to heroics and kara. I’m sure you have some good gear you can get from the high lvl normal dungeons. Then you can progress into heroics/raids.
Heroics are harder than karazhan. You want to gear in dungeons for rep and gear then kara, but doing heroics when you’re on karazhan lockout.
If you want to tank you will want to have a chill group of people to group with. Pugs are a menace and its horrible for bears with weak aoe threat. Single target they pump but before you hit heroics you will want to be uncrittable at a minimum - i’ve been one shot on first boss in heroic OHB when I tried it day 1 of hitting 70. Karazhan isn’t as demanding on bears as you don’t necesarrily need to be uncrittable for most parts of the raid. Only fights I would say you must have uncrit is Netherspite, curator, Nightbane, Prince. Only Netherspite requires 2 tanks and bears are the weakest choice for tanking Prince due to his attackspeed and our inability to hit uncrush. Netherspite you just need uncrit because I run full cat gear otherwise and can tank him.
You don’t need to be BiS. Karazhan can be completed in a full quest set. You will have an easy time getting into raids as a boomkin because you don’t have to do good damage if you keep up your debuffs.
Loot! Where is the loot? Here is the loot!: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/atlasloot-enhanced
AtlasLoot Enhanced shows you dungeon/raid drops, craftables and reputation rewards. A must have.
https://wowtbc.gg/bis-list/feral-dps-druid/
I found this website recently, and I’ve loved it more than the common gear guides. Its straightforward with V arrow to see next best option if you don’t have the profession/gold for a craftable/etc.
You can swap it to Balance or Bear, and it shows prebis getting ready for raid, T4 content, and T5 content.
Also MOST people will be considerate if you say you are new to a dungeon or new to tanking. They will give tips to help you. Those who are rude will always be rude, and will not wait for aggro anyway.
I just downloaded it last night and played around a little. The only thing I noticed was it seems like I need to have the item in my inventory to be able to compare? Maybe I am missing something, I just don’t want to be the guy to roll need on gear only to realize it was actually a downgrade and someone else would have gotten more out of it.
For feral I agree with Rezlack. Use Nerdegghead’s guide. If you want more options you can also use seventyupgrades and use the standard presets for feral or boomkin.
One very important thing, get and keep Clefthoof Hide Leggings. These are available from a quest line. These are by far the best feral legs you’ll get pre raid and they actually beat out a lot of purples. If you didn’t pick those legs, or got rid of them, then do the quest for Shattrath Leggings.
Interesting, I guess I didn’t realize Kara was easier than heroics. Also I do have a guild but outside of raiding it doesn’t seem like they talk or do much together so I would likely pug and knowing it will be a pain I will probably switch to Boomkin just for ease of play, less stress, and ease of getting a raid group. Tanking just seemed like something fun, but with some many people geared so far ahead of me it seems like it will be very rough.
Personally I wouldn’t use pawn for figuring out if somethings good. There’s too many soft/hard caps that it doesn’t take into consideration - its stat weights for feral also just sucks when seventyupgrades has its stat weights from the druid discord anyways.
I am planning to switch to Boomkin now after reading some comments and talking to a few people. Besides hit are there any other considerations I need to account for that Pawn wouldn’t? If it is just hit I can use my best judgement as well. Like if Pawn says something is a 5% upgrade but I lose 3% hit, and another item is a 3% upgrade but I gain hit I could just make the judgement call at that point.
Not familiar with seventyupgrades it looks like it is just a website that helps with gear? If so and that is better than Pawn I will definitely look into that. Do they have an addon?
Seventyupgrades is kinda what pawn does but it gives you the full list of each slot and the value of the item. It’s quite good for seeing how good something is - but also suffers from the soft/hard cap issue. Personally I prefer having the knowledge of how good something is in comparison of multiple items which pawn isn’t quite as neat in the comparisons. Seventyupgrades doesn’t have an addon unfortunately, but the website is quite organized so it’s a good thing to keep around depending on if the statweights are set properly. However it also does have its flaws and overvalues some items in weird situations. While not necesarrily relevant to boomkins - due to their instant cast abilities - but casters have eye of magtheridon as a good item to go for because seventy upgrades doesn’t properly weight the 1% proc chance. Eye of magtheridon is an amazing trinket for prot paladins as tanks don’t have the liberty in stats to hit max hit rating while being a bad trinket for casters due to its 1% proc chance as you should be hit capped.
Ya usually it’s good to just shoot for the judgement call but there’s a lot of janky pieces that can be surprising in their efficiency. Going with another feral example - as it’s what i’m most knowledgeable with - resilience gear is mega efficient for hitting uncrit as a tank which provides you far more liberties in gearing and potential in threat vs mitigation gear sets.
