Easy to get, hard to keep.
December 9th, 2008 Posted in Class Discussion, Wrath of the Lich KingApparently a problem that was apparent in The Burning Crusade was that tanking gear was too easy to get hold of – people were able to hit the then-magic number of 490 defense without having nearly enough stats to run Karazhan sensibly.
I seem to recall that this was mentioned in one of the discussions at Blizzcon or the Worldwide Invitational, and that it would be harder for tanks to reach the new number (540 defense skill) this time around.
This hasn’t been the case – with minimal reputation farming, I was able to get all the rep-based defense pieces and get to 540 defense with minimum hassle and gemming / enchanting straight defense on almost nothing. In fact I found it so easy that I went back and re-enchanted some gear for health rather than defense, I was so far over the limit.
Now, however, I have a problem. Almost all the heroic and Naxx-10 gear I’ve come across has hardly any defense rating in comparison. True, once I’ve made my armor plated combat shotgun and sorted out the titanweave enchant on my cloak, I’ll be a bit healthier, but at the moment it’s disheartening to see all these upgrades drop and then have to grub around trying to work out how to get my def skill up again.
So, no, it wasn’t hard to reach uncrittable status. It’s a lot harder to keep it (and the next time someone refers to 540 defense as a cap, I’ll scream. It’s not a cap – every skillpoint over 540 gives you more avoidance and block).
In other news, I’ve seen plenty of Naxx bosses now. And the one thing about Naxx that strikes me is that while the encounters are a lot of fun, it’s a horribly ugly instance especially compared to everywhere else in lich king. Half the textures look like they’ve been borrowed from Undercity too. WTB [more Eye Candy] please!
2 Responses to “Easy to get, hard to keep.”
By Tankette on Dec 9, 2008
I started out with mainly crafted gear that come with very high defense. I have the 3 defense enchants as well. I don’t think I have any defense gems though. For a while I was able to equip two or three items that had no defense and were loaded with hit instead. But as I get upgrades, which have lower defense, I end up having to give up those threat pieces.
Getting the Seal of the Pantheon from regular HoL has really helped.
By Herc on Dec 10, 2008
It’s not that bad once u start getting more tanking gear from naxx 10 or 25s.
I’ve slowly got rid of my +defense gems. Now I just need to enchant my shield with defense and replace the enchant of my chest piece with +200hp.