possilble kara OT?

[Ausbrehar]

im sure their has been many questions like this but...

im spec'd prot warrior and i want to know if i can off tank in kara for the first few bosses.

10.4k health
11.5k armor
460 defense
11.x dodge
14.x parry
15.x block

possible to OT first few bosses in kara?

[Aerath]

Check the warrior section - they might know better than me, but...

From what I see I'd be very hesitant to let you OT. You can be crushed and you can be critted, neither of which is a good thing.

[Twoflower]

no

1st thing : you dont want a prot warrior as OT but a damage warrior with good tanking equip.

2 : good tanking equip gets you to at least 490 defense and at least 12k life.

keep running 5mans till oyu have your gear together. build a fury armor kit while farming your def armor kit.

[everytimeidie]

I OT'd with 500 less HP and just 4 points more def., yet my parry, block, and dodge are much higher. We did fairly well considering what I've seen everyone say.

I figured I would of been the big eye sore for the group, making us whipe a billion times or something when in fact it was because we didn't have a certain class (I can't remember what it was now.) But if you're confident in your tanking abilities and you can find a group that will take you, try it out.

[XCompanion]

A fantastic healer can carry even a crappy OT.

Confidence and tank ability will not overcome a lack of gear for the single most gear dependent class in the game.

OP - If you aren't expected to really do your job well, but rather ride on the shoulders of the vets in your raid who stomp through kara, then you're fine; enjoy your epics. If you are actually a critical point for your raid then get yourself geared better because you aren't up to par.

[dwarfenhelm]

with only 460 defense you are going to be taking a lot of crits from the adds in kara and boss's would eat you alive. unless you have a really well geared healer on you then it will be a struggle to keep you alive.
to get 490 is really easy check the warrior forums out and you will find posts that show what gear to be looking for. your health and armour are ok to make a start in kara with but the avoidance you have is really poor and needs looking at, aim to have around 70% when all 3 are added together.
if i was leading a raid you would not get a slot on it until you had a min 490 def

[Ash Housewares]

if i was leading a raid you would not get a slot on it until you had a min 490 def

its just common sense

[Dalamin]

Above implies you are green kitted, buy the felsteel kit at AH (usually 40g a piece), ensure you are gemmed up, get some enchants, and if possible shield from badges (33 badges) and you should be good enough. Ghostly stewards will one shot you if you try to OT them in above gear.

[Ausbrehar]

well a little up date, i got 510 defense but backed it down to 503 to pick up some stamina. i did OT curator but we wiped because dps was a problem.

i still need more stamina though :(

[madman68]

We never use an OT for curator.

[Twoflower]

yeah, waht do you OT at corator ? there is only one boss.

[Mallstrop]

You normally have some one soaking, we let the usual off tank do that since it saves up bringing players in and out of the instance.

We like the bring 2 proper tanks still, it means we don't have to balance the group around CC so much.

[dwarfenhelm]

once opera is out of the way swap your OT out of the raid for a dps class that either adds cc or can swap to tanking if needed (bear/fury war) the only boss you need an OT on is netherspite and due to the way the beams work you can prob get away with a non prot specced tank. also the best person in a raid to bolt soak is prob aa afliction warlock

[Cerberus]

How exactly does this soaking thing work? Second on threat gets the missiles or something?

[clevins]

Yes. If you're #2 on threat when he shoots out the bolt, you get it. If you don't soak the healers need to watch everyone and, of course, the healer might get hit.

Without a soaker you need to 1) have enough stam in the raid that people can take the bolt and 2) keep your top dps topped up as they're most likely to get the bolt and could well take it in the middle of flares (or be able to react and heal up someone who dips low as a result of a bolt hit. That's the other reason to have a soaker - they stand off to the side, do a bunch of damage, but rarely get the flares. If the soaker has a bunch of arcane resist gear on they do a fair bit of damage to keep threat but mitigate a lot of the damage from the bolts. Ideally this approach keeps the soak and flare damage off any one person.

At a certain point in gearing, this doesn't really matter - it's harder for one person to keep threat, esp with resist gear on, people in the raid can handle the damage and the healers can easily keep everyone up. The only time to use a soaker is early on when the flares might stay up for a bit and people's gear is, collectively, closer to the minimums needed to do the fight.