Are you using the correct rotation?

I just finished recording a new video guide look for it in a few days.

What to take away from it while you wait:

If you do not have improved mangle, you use a rotation of mangle->FF->x->y. Well after "y" mangle will still have .5 seconds left on its cooldown. Some mods show that as having a full second remaining, which in turn gets interpreted as an entire 1.5 second global so they use something other than mangle instead of waiting the 1/2 second. Thus using mangle every 6th global instead of 5.

The same goes for imp mangle rotations of mangle->x->y. The difference here is that not every rotation will include a FF due to the difference in mangle and FF cooldowns. So only on rotations where a FF is present between mangles will this .5 second discrepancy occur. Thus you end up using mangle every 5th global instead of every 4th. What is every worse about this than the above situation is that YOU HAVE JUST WASTED 3 TALENT POINTS if you are falling into this trap.

Community Spotlight: Sometimes Warriors know what they are talking about

As many of you know I have a level 80 alt warrior, and as such I read a lot of warrior blogs as well as feral blogs.

My favorite warrior blog is http://www.tankingtips.com/, written by a good friend and my blogging mentor Veneretio (who just happens to be a fellow tankspot author). One nice thing about it is that he also covers a lot of general tanking theory as well, some of which I have been able to apply to my druid.

One example is http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/02/24/the-trash-caps/.

For trash mobs (level 82s), the hit and expertise caps are:

177 Hit Rating (5.4%)
22 Expertise Skill (5.5%)

Thanks to Satrina (tankspot moderator) and Vene for bringing these numbers to light.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: The best macro you probably are not using

I mentioned this briefly in my last post, "/targetexact". My exact macro that I change depending on the fight is
"/targetexact name
/script SetRaidTarget("target", 8)
/focus"

If you are simply typing /tar then that works, but if you are going to be making a macro anyway why not use this more precise method. It carries with it all the benefits of a standard /target macro with some added benefits.

The most important use of this macro is on bosses that spawn multiple types of adds at once from the same location. Trying to click on the correct one can be a pain. I first started using this macro on M'uru so I would not target the mage as it was running out but continue to find uses for it.

Using M'uru as an example, the adds both have "shadowsword" at the start of their names. Using "/targetexact shadowsword Berserker" instead of simply "/tar shadow", it would garuntee never targeting the mage.

The other use is finding things that spawn in random locations. Spamming that macro while spinning around your camera helps you easily find where the new add spawned and allows you to get to it much quicker than you would have if you had not marked it. The best example that comes to mind is trying to find spores while dpsing on Loatheb or finding the tree on Freya.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Lucky Charms make a comeback

The trash in Ulduar is not the "PULL AND AOE" trash that we have seen so far in this expansion. For this reason marking is becoming a factor again. In most cases when it is not the raid leader marking, it will be the tank.

When marking, try to keep the icons consistent. Most people use skull as the primary kill target, then x, sheeps are always moon and square, saps are always star and circle, etc (or whatever your guild/raid/group has decided on ahead of time). Before the run starts, assign each person to a symbol and state what you are using for your kill order to make things much smoother. This not only increases focus fire but also speeds things up by not having to call over vent or type out who is doing what target on each and every pull.

In your keybinds there is a section "Raid Targeting." This allows you to hotkey all your symbols directly. You can mark in combat, so say a CC cannot be reapplied because that person died, change that symbol to skull so the DPS knows to ignore the kill order and kill the broken CC instead. Manually selecting symbols take several seconds, use hotkeys or a mod.

There are also a lot of mods that help you mark. The one I prefer is called Baud Mark.

The final method is "/script SetRaidTarget("target", #)". This is the macro command to mark a target where 1 is star 2 is circle etc with 8 being skull. Where this comes in handy is on encounters that spawn multiple types of adds. By using this in conjunction with the "/targetexact" command it allows you to quickly target and mark the correct add. Some examples of where this can be useful in Ulduar are Razorscale, to some extent XT during the heart phase for pummlers, Thorim if you are tanking the arena, and Freya.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Emblem of Conquest Item Review

Emblem of Conquest Items to buy:

The first item depends on if you have Hood of the Exodus. If you do than get the T8 Chest Token first. If not, then the T8 Helm Token is your better choice and the chest should be bought second.

Next I would suggest the neck, but only if you do not have Boundless Ambition or the neck from 10 man Kologarn, both of which are better

The belt is an amazing threat piece, but it is still not as good as the crafted belt overall. It is also the cheapest item besides the necks and much cheaper (18x6 for the orbs) than the crafted belt. Good placeholder until then.

The legs are again a threat item, but overall worse than both the 10 and 25 man t8 legs.

For DPS:

The neck is almost exactly equal to the 25 man saph quest reward neck (worse if you are a JCer and used a prismatic).

The gloves are not even going to get a link because they are pretty bad. They are an upgrade from 25t7 but that is where it ends. Both t8 gloves are better, as well as the 25 man Auriaya gloves. Best in slot for gloves are by far the PVP gloves.



As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Raven Mount Tutorial

This week, I am launching my youtube channel with my first instructional video.



I recommend watching it on youtube if you are watching it in HD even if the sound is shifted slightly in parts.

This was just to get my feet wet with editing again as I plan to do several more instructional videos. If you like the idea post some feedback about what kind of things you would like to see. If you have specific questions about the video most of them are answered in the voice over but if they are not just drop a comment and I will be glad to answer.

One thing that is not mentioned in the video, you do not have to clear the entire room, but it is very risky. When he banishes himself the birds can agro other pulls, but it was not always the same pull every time. If you want to roll the dice and potentially save time you can but I recommend against it.

As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

(10 man yogg kill will be up by next week, server second AFAIK - my alt got the server first FFS alts)

Community Spotlight: Tentative Feral Raiding Specs for 3.1

First, I would like to give credit to of Teeth and Claws. Last week, he put up a post about possible specs for 3.1, found here tentative-feral-raiding-specs-for-3.1. A few days before that I posted my own write-up on Tankspot, found here 3-1-bear-specs. While I had already decided to use that post on tankspot for my weekly tip on patch day, I found his post refreshing because it gave me some more things to think about as far as specs, but there are also some things I disagree with (although some of my disagreements are with the comments left by other people not the poster himself).

SPECS

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is the base spec from which all the templates will work off of.

Survivability build: Slightly different in that you drop imp mangle to pick up Feral Aggression. Threat will be touchy with this spec but it has the advantage of never having mangle and faerie fire overlap.

Max TPS: MSS and partial KOTJ provide the highest sustained TPS with an option for burst threat at the trade off of armor.

Main Tank: Swaps 3 in FA for imp mangle from the survival build. The 2 points left over are throwaways that you can put anywhere (including shredding attacks if you wanted: see below).

MSS/Imp LOTP: This is my favorite spec to tank 25 with because we always have a frost DK dpsing so there is no need to grab IW. It is also the max TPS spec with ILOTP instead of those 2 in KOTJ.

MSS/IW: (that 1 lose point should be in PP) you can drop imp mangle to pick up imp LOTP and finish PP if you want. Remember, because of how the GCD works, 1 or 2 points in imp mangle for tanking is worthless, so drop all 3 or none at all. I put this up to show how gimp a build with both IW and MSS would be. It would be an interesting comparision to see which gives more threat, 4% damage or 5 expertise.

Imp Mark of the Wild

Is now a mandatory talent for all feral druids. If you have not yet done so, look at what it does now.

Imp LOTP
Go back in time to LK beta, I wrote this talent off and pretty much said I would never get it. Well I was wrong. I hate not having it especially for progression content, even if it is usually almost all overheal, it can be a lifesaver at the right times (example: getting hit by a spell for 75% of your life then procing the heal giving you just enough to survive the melee hit after the spell).

Shredding Attacks
Dual spec kills ANY REASON for having shredding attacks in a bear build, as I strongly do not believe in the so called "bearcat" spec. Sure, it works, but if I am going to DPS I do not want to gimp myself. If a boss is at 5% and the main tank dies, healers have more problems on their hands than worrying about the new tank not having defensive stance. Ulduar bosses hit way to hard in 25, so while you may get away with it on 10, in 25 you simply will not have the hp to survive 2 hits while wearing dps gear in that situation.

The lone exception is when you have to offtank the first 10-25% then start dpsing, which does not happen in Ulduar that I have seen.

MSS and KOTJ
As for KOTJ vs MSS for tanking, I did a comparison a while back. Since it is a 5 point investment, MSS gives you .8% damage per point. In Ulduar things hit to hard to be spamming enrage on cooldown but if you did, per point it would give you an increase of .833% per point. To extend that a bit, if use it every 61 seconds it becomes a .819% damage increase per point. Every 62 seconds gives .806% and every 63 seconds .793%. Thus, if you have even 3 seconds of downtime on enrage MSS yields more benefit without the armor reduction.

As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: DING! 80, What heroics to run, what gear to buy

Ok, so you just hit 80 and you need to start gearing up. How should you do it? Simple:

• I have some good blues from leveling, which ones are worth saving?
• What can I get before stepping foot in an instance?
• What heroics should I run first?
• So I ran a few Heroics, what should I buy with my emblems?
• I finally moved into 25 man raids, are there any valor items I should get?

What items should I have from questing or leveling instances?

There are several quests that give blue quest rewards, and a lot of people do instances while leveling. Are any of those items worth keeping?

• Short answer, NONE! Nothing while leveling will be used in anything remotely resembling your final tanking set. Here is a brief list of some that will get you started in heroics thought (both of the instanced quests can be done in heroic as well):
• Normal UP quest reward
• Normal CoT: Strat quest reward
• Icecrown Elite Chain quest reward

What should I spend my gold on?

There are some amazing items you can get before even setting foot into heroics. Most likely if you just hit 80 you will be short on gold, here is a quick spending list to get you started:

• Darkmoon Card: Greatness (AGI): This is the single best investment you can make. It is the best trinket for both DPS and tanking.
• Durable Nerubhide Cape: Since druids do not need defense, this is an amazing starter item.
• Trollwoven Spaulders: replaced only by 25t7 shoulders.
• Titanium Frostguard Ring or Titanium Earthguard Ring: Either one is worth it when starting off, but one of the two best rings in the game is from a heroic and easily farmed, so refrain from buying both.

Others that make the list but are easily replaced:

• Titanium Earthguard Chain
• Chain Gang Legguards
• Trollwoven Girdle

The most painful thing for a tank, out DPSing your group in a pug heroic

It happens, so if you want the most bang for the buck, here are the "must run" heroics and their tanking drops:

• Heroic UK x3: The best pre-25 naxx bracers and the best pre-ulduar belt both drop here, farm this place every day. As a bonus, the best non-epic tanking weapon drops here as well.
  
• Heroic Azjol-Nerub: Essence of Gossamer: Second best non-profession tanking trinket in the game (to the above greatness deck).
  
• Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep: Keystone Great-Ring: Second best tanking ring in the game to only 25 Saph.
• Heroic Violet Hold x2 (low priority): Staff of Trickery is the best heroic weapon in the game for DPS, and second best (arguably) for tanking to the above UK staff. Cloak of Gushing Wounds is another excellent heroic item that serves a dual tanking/DPS purpose. The reason this is a lower priority is because the instance generates 2 random bosses, so it is entirely possible to not see this boss after several clears.

Emblem of Heroism Items to buy:

Based on my earlier recommendations, things that might possibly appear higher on this list will already have an item of equal level in that slot and have thus been down ranked (noted with a star).

• Chestguard of the Lost Vanq: This is the very first thing you should buy with emblems no matter what. The chests available from heroics are very sub-par.
• Gloves of the Lost Vanq: Best gloves until 25 man raiding (since the nerf to the gloves from the CoT quest) and also gives you the 2pc (more important for cat than tanking though).
• *Chained Military Gorget*: If you crafted the neck above, get the gloves first, otherwise this would normally be my second item to buy. Best neck until 25 naxx.
• Valor Medal of the First War: I like having this around to pair with greatness deck for avoidance, but not a very strong trinekt especially if you are a JCer or an Alchemist.
• *Mirror of Truth*: If you are a JCer or Alchemist, or already have a greatness deck and essence of gossamer, then this trinket is definatly a must buy before valor medal. Combine it with greatness deck for a threat/trash set (until the 25 maly trinket).
  
• *Jorach's Crocklisk Skin Belt*: Not better than the belt from heroic UK listed above. Only buy if you have spare emblems or bad luck.
  

The following items are DPS items that should not take priority over tanking items but are good buys that have no comparable item from a heroic:

• Pendant of the Outcast Hero
• Idol of the Ravenous Beast

Emblem of Valor Items to buy:

Finally, you have moved into 25 man raiding. In this list, stars will denote items that are ranked lower because of other drops you have access to in 25 man raiding not other items on this list.

• Signet of the Impregnable Fortress: Best threat ring in the game, the def is kind of a turn off but the high stam and multiple threat stats more than make up for it.
• Legplates of the Lost Vanq: I was going to list this third because you can get them as a drop from 2 different bosses (and my guild gets 4 pairs a run), but the fact is these legs are way to good to be left up to chance (best tanking legs in the game ATM).
• Mantle of the Lost Vanq: As I said above, this is the only thing that replaces those crafted shoulders, but if you have them buy the legs 1st.
  
• *Platinum Mesh Cloak*: For threat, the best choice is the 10-Sarth 1D cape with a 16 hit gem, and for mitigation the best one if the one from 25 naxx off random bosses. This leaves this cape in kind of a bad place.

DPS items:

• Ring of Invincibility: Replaced only by 10+2 Sarth and 10 man maly rings. Best DPS purchase.
  
• *Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak*: Better than the cape off of 10 man Raz, but worse than all 3 of the other dps capes from 10 and 25 naxx.
  
• *Boots of Captain Ellis*: Dawnwalkers are better for DPS and Vile Depict are better for tanking, do not buy unless you are very unlucky.
  

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Are socket bonuses worth matching?

In a follow-up to the first tip, today's tip will focus on how to determine if a socket bonus is worth matching. (At the end I will include a small note for Jewelcrafters as most of this applies differently or not at all for those with access to prismatic gems).

There are some general rules to follow when gemming an item:

1. Guild progression.


2. How many sockets are on the item?


3. What color is the socket?


4. Is your meta active?


5. What are you using the item for - EH, avoidance, or threat?


6. What is the bonus?

Now, some of you may be asking yourself: How can the actual bonus be last on the priority list? Don't worry, all in due time. Lets go down the list in order.

Rule 1: Guild Progression

Guild progression is first for a single reason, Effective health (or EH). Short version, EH is the total amount of damage you can take without a heal before you die through a combination of stam, armor, and things like the mother bear talent and defensive stance. Avoidance has no effect on EH. The best way to help your guild progress as a tank in new content is by gearing for EH.

What does this mean? When gemming for guild progression you will have 24 stam gems in every slot and (unless there are 12 stam socket bonuses) you will never match a socket that is not blue. (On a personal note Xav and I were discussing how we both felt that avoidance has never been weaker than it will be in 3.1, based on the Ulduar encounters that we have tested on PTR so far.)

Rules 2 and 3: Number and Color

The next two rules are almost interchangeable, except when you consider that the bonus for matching a single socket will be something like 4 agi 8 ap or 6 stam, while the socket bonuses for matching 2 sockets are 1.5x more, 6 agi 12 ap or 9 stam.

My thought process on these two looks something like this:

It is that simple sometimes. Even if the bonus is bad, through a combination of 16 agi gems, 8 agi 12 stam gems, and 24 stam gems, you will almost never lose out by matching any socket that does not require a yellow gem (more on this in the summary).

This leaves 4 possible items, as only one item in LK has 3 sockets. Those 4 items are items which contain:

1. 1 yellow socket
2. 2 yellow sockets
3. 1 red socket 1 yellow socket
4. 1 blue socket 1 yellow socket

Rule 4: Meta

The next rule is one that does not come up very often but is something that must be addressed immeditaly: Is your meta active?

• The only meta that one might possibly use as a tank that has a yellow as a requirement is the RED. While I would strongly recommend against using it, if you are and you only have one yellow socket in all your gear, it is a given you will match the bonus no matter what it is.
• If you need either a red or blue gem to activate your meta and your gear only has enough sockets to just meet the meta requirements regardless of socket color, chances are your gear is at the point you still need to stack 24 stam gems and this is a null argument.
• If you do not have enough blue or red slots to met the meta and you wish to match the bonus that leaves you with an 8 hit/12 stam if you need a blue for your meta, and either an 8 agi/8 hit or an 8 hit/8 expertise if you need a red for your meta.

Rules 5 and 6: Item Purpose and Bonus

Finally, you need to look at what set you are going to put that item into. This is also the first place the socket bonus will actually matter.

• 1 yellow socket: As we already mentioned, items with only a single socket generally have weaker bonuses. As such, when using the item for pure EH, you will never match this bonus. For threat, you will always match this using either a 16 hit or an 8 hit/8 expertise. Now for avoidance, finally the bonus maters. If the bonus is an agi bonus then match it with an 8 agi/8 hit. Otherwise, use a straight 16 agi gem.


• 2 yellow sockets: Only one item in the game so far has two yellow sockets, but there will almost definitely be more. Again, no bonus can make up for the amount of EH lost by using 2 yellows gems. For threat, this is an amazing combination and you will match any bonus with any 2 16 hit or 8 hit/8 expertise gems. For avoidance, while a single slot trades 4 agi for 8 hit, here you trade 10 agi for 16 hit. Especially if you have already matched a lot of single yellow slots, it is probably best to avoid this bonus even if it is 6 agi in your avoidance set (and that was definatly not on purpose).


• 1 yellow 1 red: 3/3, yellow gems for EH just do not work. For threat this is another dream combo, and will match the bonus no matter what it is, only now you can also use a 16 expertise gem. For avoidance, you are trading 2 agi for 8 hit, so an agi bonus would absolutly be worth it.


• 1 yellow 1 blue: Finally, a yellow socket you will want to match for EH, using an 8 hit/12 stam along with a 24 stam to match a stam bonus, but avoid other bonuses. This is a decent combo for threat if the bonus is hit or expertise, using an 8 (insert more needed stat)/12 stam gem and a 16 hit (or 8 hit/8 expertise if the last insert was expertise). Avoid this for avoidance (/sigh I know I know) even if it is an agi bonus.
  

As you can see, only in 4 possible configurations of sockets did the bonus even matter, and in even more cases you will pick up extremely sub-par bonuses simply because the color was good. Take the free bonus and move on. Lets be real you would never gem a yellow in a 6 stam blue socket or a 4 agi red would you? So why gem a yellow for an 8 ap blue or 4 crit red socket? Even though I have personally already stated my disgust at that bonus on our t8 shoulders, I am still going to get it simply because it is there, it is red, and it is free. Also, activating your meta is not something that comes up very much, but having a dead meta happens more than you would think (last time I did it I did not notice for 3 weeks because it was my DPS meta) and you do not want to be that guy who gets called out on vent "hey dark, where is your second blue gem for your RED?" And yes for those who may be new to the game, the BC version of the RED took 2 of every color to activate.

Sorry, this is actually a lot longer than I thought it would be so for Jewelcrafters, consider yourself lucky. You not only never have to worry about your meta, but you have extreme versatility. You can pick up those 9 stam and 6 agi yellow bonuses. Number 6 holds much much more importance to you than it does non JCers, but you cannot ignore the others. A double yellow is not the place to put 2 prismatics to pick up a bonus, and if you can avoid it never put 2 prismatics in the same item. You still want to gem 41 stams for progression, and you can use 27 hits or expertise gems in blue slots for your threat pieces.

Like I said this is getting way to long so again I apologize for there being nothing in 2 weeks as I will be without internet till the 6th and I simply did not have enough time to finish my next topic (since I wanted to get the threat write-up done before PTR closed). I may put it up later in the week after I get back we will have to see.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Faerie Fire: Better than Swipe?

Reposted here and here some additional thoughts, please leave comments there for discussion as I will be disabling comments here.

Now, this was not what I originally had planned for this week (I promise I will post the socket guide next week), but I was asked a question on tankspot that got me thinking. Using FF on live in your rotation is not viable due to the "more powerful spell active" bug that has been in the game since LK beta and is still not fixed. Even with 5 minute FF on PTR, this bug still is around, so visit this post on the wow forums and bump it please.

With the buff to FFF's ap conversion on the PTR, will replacing a swipe with FF in your single target rotation result in higher TPS?

Assumptions:
FFF's crit rate is based off spell crit
10% spell crit (I have 8.75 tooltip, plus raid buffs this is probably a low asumption)
40% melee crit (37% tooltip unbuffed)
FFF hits for 730 (without mark this is what mine was hitting for with 4865 AP, please let me know if that is an unreasonable assumption)

Known:
FFF crits at x1.5
Swipe crits at x2
FFF crits do not proc SD
Innate threat of FFF is 674

-math-

Threat in this example is 1 point of damage gives 100 points of threat (blizzard uses 2 invisible decimals for threat that do not show up in game but do on the mod I use)
Casting FF in caster form gives 3600 threat
Casting FFF in bear gives two separate threat values, the 1st one is 132289, which is the innate threat. It then applies damage and with a 731 FFF, the number jumps to 291327.
Now, (291327-132289)/207.35 (the stance modifier) = 767 - damage done = 36 which as we already discovered is the base threat of FF in caster form.
Finally, take the 132289 threat from before divided by the stance modifier gives 637.99855 or 638, added to 36, gives us 674

SS's of three different values of FFF damage if you want to check the numbers yourself:
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4584/fffthreat.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2699/fffthreat2.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2456/fffthreat3.jpg

Now, to find the average value of FFF threat we need to take 730+674 which gives us 1404 threat. A crit is (730*1.5)+674 which gives us 1769 threat.
This gives us (1404*.9)+(1769*.1)=1440.5

In order for swipe to be more threat than FFF we set x to be the damage of swipe. x*1.5 and 2x*1.5 are the values of swipe threat for a non crit and a crit respectively.
This gives us (1.5x*.6)+(3x*.4)=.9x+1.2x=2.1x

1440.5/2.1=685.95=686

(1.5*686*.6)+(3*686*.4)=617.4+823.2=1440.6

-math-

Now, one thing I was not aware of while doing this testing is that on live, the max rank of FF is actually 152 threat in caster (rank 1 on live does 36 threat in caster), as opposed to the only rank on PTR being 36. This worried me because, even thought 10% ap is much more than 116, it might not be as good as I thought it was when embarking on this process. Until I ran the numbers on live and discoved the base bear form threat of FF was only 480. When blizzard removed the ranks on PTR they added that extra 116 threat directly into bear form instead of keeping it on the base ability. This means that one live, the innate threat of FFF in bear is 480+152 for 632 at max rank. That is a net result of a 42 base threat increase in bear on PTR even with the reduction of the caster form threat.

Conclusion:
Live FFF vs PTR FFF: threat increase of 42+ 10% of your ap.
Swipe must do at least 686 non crit to be worth using over a completely unbuffed FFF. While testing swipe at the same time as FF it was hitting for 394 unbuffed with 3/3 Feral Instinct.
Raid buffs that give AP in bear (might/battle shout, HoW/SoE, UR/TSA/AM will add a minimum of 215 damage to FF), underestimating the crit of FF, and possibly overestimating the crit of swipe will all 3 only increase the number at which swipe must hit for to surpass FF.
Realistic but non mathamatically proven guess, swipe will need to be about 800 damage non crit to be more threat than FF when accounting for crit percentages.

Blizzard, you finally gave us an ability to use instead of mangle, swipe, swipe on single targets, PLEASE fix the bug preventing us from using it as it is going to be an integral part of our rotation next patch.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Are you gemmed and enchanted properly?

The goal of this blog is to give advice, insights, and help to the community. The "this is new and looks interesting" posts, such as those of the past few days, will contribute a great deal towards that end. My main focus and purpose behind this blog however has always been this segment, which I will be posting once a week, usually on Tuesday. "Darksend's Weekly Tips" will contain guides on various topics ranging from gear to macros to tricks for tanking specific encounters. They will be the most informative, structured, and thought out topics to be posted on the site. The 1st two weeks are going to cover how to properly gem and enchant your gear. So, are you gemmed and enchanted properly?

Although maybe that question is to broad, perhaps the question you should be asking yourself is, "Is this item gemmed and enchanted properly for the gear set I am trying to fit this piece into?"

	Effective Health	Avoidance	Threat
Head	Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector	Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector	Arcanum of Torment
Shoulder	30 Stamina	20 Dodge/15 Defense	40 AP/15 Crit
Back	225 Armor	22 Agility	22 Agility
Chest	18 Stamina (only with kings and imp MOTW)	10 to All Stats	10 to All Stats
Wrist	40 Stamina	6 to all stats	15 Expertise
Weapon	110 AP (kinda)	Mongoose	Accuracy (before hit cap) / Mongoose
Feet	22 Stam	16 Agility	Icewalker
Legs	Frosthide Leg Armor	Frosthide Leg Armor	Icescale Leg Armor
Hands	18 Stamina	20 Agility	20 Hit / 15 Expertise
Red Socket	8 Agi 12 Stam	16 Agi	16 Expertise / 8 Expertise 8 Hit
Yellow Socket	8 Hit 12 Stam	8 Agi 8 Hit	16 Hit / 8 Expertise 8 Hit
Blue Socket	24 Stam	8 Agi 12 Stam	8 Expertise 12 Stam / 8 Hit 12 Stam

This includes no profession specific enchants, but it also excludes some enchants that could be arguably better. For threat on helm, the old world 34 AP 16 Hit from CE rep could be better until the hit cap. For pure avoidance to chest, 10 stats gives 12 agi with imp mark, SOTF, and kings. 22 Defense gives .07% more avoidance than 12 agi. For gloves, Armsman, despite giving parry, may actually be more threat than either of the enchants listed, especially if without either you are already hit and expertise capped. Finally, Tuskarr's Vitality gives much more utility than Fortitude, but for reasons of pure EH it does not make the list.


Next week in part 2 I will be posting a write up on how to decide if socket bonuses are worth matching.