Loot Rank Forums

Hello,

I'm curious how to weight my stats.

My priorities for DK tank

1) Get DEF cap at 540

2) Get Expertise cap at 22 (for heroics only)

3) Get hit cap at 8% or 263

4) sta > 1 str = 2 ap

Hey Ilala,

Your question hits on a difficult aspect of the concept of stat weighting.

You are obviously a DK tank, as you are concerned about being D-capped, which is definitely your top priority.

After that, however, your concerns are between three things, threat, max HP, and avoidance.

The stats involved would be:

Threat:
STR
AtkP
Expertise
Hit
Crit
Haste
ArP
AGI

HP:
STA

Avoidance:
Expertise (get parried less)
Defense
Dodge
Parry
AGI

Now the problem is you can't just throw stat weights around and then mindlessly follow the LootRank order, even if you have a defined preference of playstyle. You might accidentally un-D-cap yourself, for example. Or threat-limit your DPS. Or go just below the point where a hard-hitting boss will 2-shot you, instead of 3-shot.

Gearing a tank well is all about balance. Sure you can have stat preferences, but any weakness in your gear (threat, HP, avoidance) will wipe your raid.

With all of this in mind, consider what stats you prefer to emphasize and play around with the stat weightings so the gear that comes up roughly matches what you think is the better gear.

If I were a DK tank (and I'm not) my stat preference might be ranked like this:

(Higher is more important):
Defense
STA
Dodge
Parry
Expertise
Hit
STR
AGI
AtkP
ArP
Crit
Haste

And so my hypothetical DK tank LootRank could be:

Hungraa's Pretend DK Tank Weighting

Try this out and play with it. Figure out what works well for you and your raid!

Good luck,
Hungraa

Hungraa,

Thanks for the reply. I guess I should have been more specific. I'm curious about the weight and not the ranking. For example, assuming I hit the DEF, hit, and expertise cap; what weight would I give dodge or str?

Hey Ilala,

I think I know what you're getting at.

While most DPS and healers can make globals assumptions and theoretical calculations that will basically have LootRank spit out all of the best gear in perfect order (perhaps with the exceptions of DPS being hit/exp capped, or tier-set bonuses), tanks might need to make two (or more) LootRanks with certain assumptions, like being DEF/Hit/Exp capped, so they can emphasize the other stats more strongly.

Even so, I think the previous stat weighting I gave would be a great place to start, but if you find yourself well over hit or exp cap, simply change either of those stat weightings to zero and keep the rest the same. Defense can still be desirable even after becoming uncrittable, as it still gives dodge/parry (and block to non-DKs), and in the case where you get a big upgrade that does not have Defense that replaces a piece with defense, you'll probably stay D-capped.

Especially while beginning to gear up, I would probably suggest wearing nearly only pieces with Defense on them.


To address your specific question "assuming I hit the DEF, hit, and expertise cap; what weight would I give dodge or str?" I would have to say "that is totally up to you and how you play". STR is for dmg and threat, and if you're not threat-capping your best DPS, I would say you don't really need any more STR. But there are cases (Hodir and others) where "enough threat" turns out to be not enough anymore, if your DPS plays well.

The end point is that the stats a tank chooses to emphasize on their gear is totally up to their playstyle and what they need to achieve. Balance is really the key in the end.

Good luck!
~Hungraa

Hungraa,

Thank you for taking the time to reply with a very helpful post. I will mess around with several gear sets and then I will reverse engineer the weighting. Hopefully, that will help someone else. Since I just hit 80 that might take awhile though.

LL