Professions for a tank.

[Zao]

Hey, since there's nothing like it on the boards, I decided to make a short listing of the professions and the bonuses they provide.

Also note: This is not a "most convenient to have" list. So while I'm aware that you can craft stuff with BS and Engi, I made the list more with an eye on raiding than the beginning of cata.

Blacksmithing: Two additional sockets, =2*60= 120 Stamina

Leatherworking: http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/85007/drac ... t-stamina/ 195 Stamina - 40 stamina you could enchant as non-LW = 155 Stamina

Tailoring: http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/75178/ ~250 AP (1000 AP with a 25% uptime)

Engineering: Rocket boots, http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/82177/quic ... on-plates/ 300 Armor (1500 Armor with a 20% uptime)
http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/84427/grou ... ma-shield/

Jewelcrafting: 3x http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/52261/solid-chimeras-eye/ 3*101 stamina - 3*60 potential stamina= 123 stamina

Enchanting: http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/74218/ 2x 60 stamina = 120 Stamina

Inscription: http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/86402/ 195 stamina - 75 potential stamina = 120 Stamina

Alchemy: Alchemist's Stone. Not sure about Mixology. Flask gives 300 stamina, and Mixology should give something around a 40-50% bonus to that.

Skinning: Master of Anatomy (protip: sucks for tanks)

Herbalism: Lifebloom

Mining: Toughness = 120 Stamina

[Sconnell]

Engineering also has the following which could be of use in raiding:
1. High-Powered Bolt Gun which does this. According to comments on wowhead, it has a 0.5s cast and GCD which is quite costly, but could have some utility for pulls/aoe pickups/emergency interrupt. I'm not sure if there's an equivalent to Saronite Bomb which just deals damage but doesn't require cast time or a GCD.

2. [Flexweave Underlay] has some utility if there are any encounters where you risk suffering fall damage.

As a current engineer, I'm not a big fan of the use: ability on the Deflection Plates compared to the static armor boost from the old Armor Webbing. 1500 Armor doesn't seem that much, so I'll probably end up macroing the use: into death strike or something like that.

I don't think you can really evaluate it as equivalent to 300 static armor because as as tank you are not just concerned with the average incoming damage but how much damage you can take in smaller periods of time in which you could die. You can't approach the deflection plates as 300 static armor because you can't guarantee the 300 armor will be there when you most need it.

If you do save the cooldown to coincide with periods of heavy damage or low health, then you aren't using it on cooldown so you can't assume 20% uptime. But - if you do save the cooldown and use it at times of danger, and it makes a difference to you not dying, it's quite useful. 1500 armor doesn't seem like much though,

I'd rather either have a bigger effect with a longer cooldown (which is probably unrealistic because it might make engineering too desirable for tanks) or a more modest static armor bonus. Perhaps the cooldown rather than static bonus fits more with the theme of what Blizzard wants from engineering.

[Zao]

Yeah, engineering is complicated to evaluate as always.
In the end it mostly comes down to personal preference, since the differences between professions are small enough, aside from the 3 exceptions herbalism, skinning and tailoring. And assuming that we'll get a new Bracer - Stamina enchant.
I'm not too sure about the latter however, since thy added a Bracer - Dodge enchant, which could mean that their intention was to have that as tanking enchant rather than stamina.

JC will also loose worth when Epic gems launch, and BS will gain a bit if they don't change the values around afterwards.

[Gravity]

All the obvious choices are balanced from a tanks perspective, which is great. Means the 'interesting' choice is Engi. Decision otherwise is about arbitrary preference, not minmax.
I can stick with mining and enchanting.

[Marblecake]

All of this assumes that we will still be stacking stamina in an environment where (Blizzard intends that) we will only die if the healers go oom. We may very well be stacking mastery or avoidance, in which case JC/BS will reign alongside the mitigation from Engineering.

[Gravity]

Oh of course, good point!
The habit of analysis for stamina is hard to break. Mastery vs stamina will be a fascinating puzzle to solve for gem/enchant/profession.

[Zastiel]

I will stick with Engineering because it is fun! Second profession is Blacksmith, just to get a few gains with extra sockets but overall I never found it that critical to switch professions for a minimal gain at the end.

[Sconnell]

Ever since the recent changes to engineering tinkers I've had [Nitro Boosts] backfire reasonably often - they can send you boosting up into the air, or deal massive damage. Either of these things could fairly easily cause a wipe. I'd say that probably makes it pretty much unusable for a tank.

So, the [Grounded Plasma Shield] becomes the tank tinker of choice, which it looks like it was going to be anyway. The (or one of the) backfire for the plasma belt seems to be [Painful Shock] which could be either beneficial, benign or bad for a tank, depending on the situation. The main scenarios where it would probably not be worthwhile using the Plasma Shield are i) two tanks are tanking different mobs near each other, and you don't want to taunt the other tank's mob and ii) you're offtanking.

It looks like perhaps the design blizzard is going for for engineering is that the reliable profession bonus is the glove enchant, plus you get [High-Powered Bolt Gun]/[Explosive Bolts], bombs (but still no upgrade I could see from [Saronite Bomb]) and the parachute. After that, everything else is unreliable.

[Insolence]

Pity, those Boots were great for Defile.

[Sconnell]

Today in ICC, I used rocket boots in the blood princes room while waiting pre-pull. It backfired and sent me through the roof into Blood Queen's room, with no boss spawned and no way out that I thought of other than killing myself on trash.

[Sconnell]

Any engineers found where to get [Quickflip Deflection Plates] ?

[Gravity]

[Lifebound Alchemist Stone] is nice. Ideal for off-tanks who might not get trinkets. Not sure how it compares to other trinkets we'll get, and doubt it'll be upgraded along with raid tiers.

[Insolence]

By the way: New Mats for Blacksmith Bracer and Glove Sockets are 16 Silver each off a Vendor, so they're the same as free

[Zao]

Just had a talk with Nye from mmoc and he told me something devastating for engis.

The Plasma Shield has a (very small) chance to misfire not onlny to the 40y taunt...which would be bad enoughm but also to apply http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/82403/magnetized/

A 5 second stun is absolutely deadly on a boss, and even if the chance is on the 0,1% mark it still disqualifies the shield as a viable tanking option.

[Sconnell]

Thanks Zao - that's very useful to know. I'm not sure if any of the belt tinkers really give a tank anything now.
I still haven't discovered the tanking glove tinker, it looks like the tinkers are learnt while making other engineering items (possibly electrified ether.) I'm going to wait and see if any more definite information comes up before I spend a whole lot of gold making items to try and proc it.
On the plus side, I've made my engineering helm. I'm currently using the hit and expertise cogwheel sockets, and a WotLK metagem because I haven't found someone to make a cata one yet.
Edit: it looks like you can't "discover" new tinkers at 525 engineering. There's a similar issue where 525 Jewelcrafters can't get the random mob drop for their trinkets. There is also something weird going on with alchemy specs (potions doesn't seem to work, elixir one can proc potions.) So we can expect some profession hotfixes or some changes in a future patch. I wonder if changes will include the "missing" stamina bracer enchant and a glove tinker that's useful for melee/hunters.