Guardian: another gearing question

[burz 0]

Hey fellow druids,

I've got a question to the gearing of my bear. First, my arsenal-link:http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/shattrath/Eisenborke/simple

An example: You see the legs I have equipped. Recently, I got those:

318 armor / 1715 agility / 2573 stamina / 574 crit / 886 mastery - ilvl 880

So, if I equip them. I lose 570 vers. That is round about 0,7% less damage reduction. Is it worth to give up that much of the main stat?

And gaining crit, the worst stat I ever could get.

 

I just don't know how to equip. I would never equip an item with crit / haste I guess, even if it is +20 Ilvl or so. As crit / mastery are great defensive stats. 

Is there any indicator / formula like "take the item lvl in any case if it is +X ilvl, except trinkets / rings / neck"?

 

Would be happy if someone who knows better then me could answer.

 

Cheers

 

[Akiel 0]

The simple answer to your question is the most important stats for a Guardian are Armor and Stamina, then Versatility and Mastery.  So if you are replacing legs with something thats 20 ilvls higher, you get so much more stam and armor it is always worth it even if the secondary stats are not great.  Necks, Rings, and Trinkets you might have a little more problem with just using ilvl, but for all gear with armor on it, you should almost always take the higher ilvl gear. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by positiv2

[Bearbaws 0]

I hate to be that guy because I'm quite unsure of how bear tanks work even though that's what I'm maiming ATM. But as far as I'm concerned you need to look at all your gear not one peice and judge it on how much versatility and mastery you're getting combined from everything. Just chucking on gear because of the ilvl is definitely the wrong thing to do, and I think your healers will be proud of me for saying that even if they don't know it. You're going to have more health sure, but who cares we already have so much, I really do think bears need to focus on getting versatility until maybe the next patch 7.1.5 when they might be changing everything a bit for us so it's not as hard to properly gear bear tanks. Remember Armor is capped out at 85%, with a lot of iron fur procs you're going to be close to that including your neck enchant and Armor pots as cooldowns. Whereas versatility is a % damage reduction from ALL damage which is beastly epic, from all my vers gear which is on every peice ATM, the vers food buff, and my goblet trinket which gives you vers procing with ALOT of uptime, I can be sitting at 28% vers, haven't trialled how this will be yet, but I am tonight in mythic emeral nightmare and I think it will be amazing. 

The last bear trait (level 35) is a 10% increase to our Armor, this will be huge and not To mention this goes to level 55 meaning we get 20% armour increase in total 0.5% per level after 35, this 20% will take forever to get almost the whole expac, but the 10% won't. I am 1 level away from the 10% and what I'm saying is with what I've just mentioned and all the armour items (pots, neck enchant) on top of iron fur stacks, I believe Armor and stamina isn't what you should be looking for with gearing, aka any ilvl increase. I hope this helps, but keep in mind I constantly look for guides etc, as far as I'm concerned there is none, or I'm terrible at google, I still need clarification on a lot, and even knowing whether or not there is a versatility cap % would be good, I think everyone's just running around as a bear just as confused as the rest of us. 

[Akiel 0]

Even if you don't use the addon, look at the way a variety of people on the web rank the stats on for the Pawn addon.  Just type into goggle "Pawn addon Guardian Druid"  see how much higher stam and armor are.  Additionally with the changes coming in 7.1.5 where Blizz is specifically stating they want Ilvl to be more important by lowering the stat % of secondary stats, I would still consider the ilvl upgrade better on everything unless trinket, ring, or neck.  You can get to a high vers/mastery and take the armor and stam upgrades easily. 

 

Here is the string I used from EU forums on armory:

Pawn: v1: "Survival": Agility=1.03, Stamina=5.12, CritRating=0.7, HasteRating=1.4, MasteryRating=2.21, Versatility=2.30, Armor=35.74