With Nether Vortex now BOE, and on our sever about 250g [although I've flipped a couple from 230g - 270g recently] there's never been a better time for a Master Swordsmith to reach the pinnacle of their profession - [Blazefury].
Blacksmithing and Swordsmithing have had a lot of people asking, "Why bother?" They are nerfed professions, they say. Well, I'm very happy with my professions, and here is why!
Firstly Armor. No, I'm not an armorsmith. The only thing useful here is some resistance gear, and I'm not even getting any use out of that right now. However, I've had some no brainer upgrades as I was leveling - so I have no complaints here. Plus... I'm a master swordsmith.
Secondly [Fireguard]. I did not have to hang out in Heroic Mechanar for [The Sun Eater]! I was exalted with Sha'tar well before this dropped for me. Since my philosophy is that a weapon should be about threat not mitigation [that's what armor and shields are for], Fireguard wins hands down. Fireguard was my first epic, and allowed me to concentrate on armor upgrades right from 70. Having this quality of weapon right from word go [or as long as it takes to get the mats together] really can't be understated.
Last of all, [Blazefury].
Is the 5x Nether Vortex upgrade from [Blazeguard] worth it? Yes. Yes it is. Here's why.
Although I don't have it linked on the side of the blog like I should, I am a big fan of Tanking Tips. After reading a post on The Threat Formula, I started to think about my different gear sets, and how to maximise threat. Then I thought about how much threat my new sword was giving me.
The upgrade gives:
+1 Hit Rating
+2 Agility
+3 Stamina
+6.2 DPS [or 86.8 Attack Power]
Most people just look at the stats and look at it as a minor upgrade, forgetting that 14 attack power = 1 DPS. About 90% of the extra threat comes from the raw increase in damage the weapon offers.
Still not convinced?
Let's look at it compared to a "real tanking sword" - [King's Defender] which I also have. Some of might say that it's not a fair comparison, since Blaze is a T5 level weapon based on it being crafted with vortex. Well, vortex is BOE so all bets are off, and I do have both - they are fun to dual wield.
In order to wrangle the most threat out of my gear, and still be tank enough - I've developed a system using Tank Points [use to benchmark the defensive aspects of tank gear] and the Effective Threat Formula. When I swap a threat piece for a tank piece, I want to know - how much extra threat can I generate for the loss in protection [effective health and avoidance/mitigation].
So my experiment was to devise the ratio: threat points gained / 100x tank points lost - and calculate it for my possible gear swaps.
When I swap [Barbed Choker of Discipline] for [Brooch of Deftness] I am getting less than half as much bang per 100 tank points than swapping [King's Defender] for [Blazefury]. To put that in perspective, wearing the [Brooch of Deftness] is about 4 times more effective at trading protection for threat as any other gear swap I can make right now.
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That's an interesting, and refreshing, take on tanking. Most warriors I see are concerned 100% with Stamina. They'll sacrifice avoidance for Stamina, and they wouldn't even think about giving up Stamina or Avoidance for Threat Generation.
ReplyDeleteAs a Paladin, I always looked at it a bit differently. You need to be great in all three areas - health, avoidance, and threat - to be an effective tank. For me, this means using some Paladin tanking items which seem sub-par in terms of avoidance, but are superior because of their added Spell Damage.
What is really strange, though, is a Paladin that doesn't go after any Spell Damage at all and gears up entirely like a Warrior. I know a group that was in Hyjal and had their Protection Paladin spend his DKP on the Unbreakable Will (the +Defense Weapon). Truly mind-boggling.
Keep up with the threat. People may look at you funny, but it'll pay off when the people running with you get better gear. They'll need you to generate more threat so that they can actually use that gear.