BiS Tanking Gear

I really don't gravitate towards pvp, you are correct!

PVP gear is great for survivability, but because the ap, and int (which converts to ap through talents) is so low that in a complete set of pvp gear your pet will be lacking in the threat department.

Using a few peices of pvp gear would probably work out, but since you aren't making a tanking set your main priority, i would evalute each slot individually based on what you have available to you.

I'm pretty certain that pets do not have resilience. It's something that PvPers have asked for but been denied. Hunter PvPers in arenas have been especially vocal about how it's not there. So there's no inheriting something they can't have.

My current (but not terribly well tested) set is mostly my PvP set (which is mostly iLvl 213). It provides nice armor and health. I'm at 700 resilience in my full PvP set. I don't value resilience for tanking, but really only switch out a few pieces that I really gem/enchanted for resilience.

Then again as you start to get into, it depends on what you're tanking and who you're with. It's more than two options. There are many roles of readers here:

+ overgeared-instance-clear-soloists
+ substitute tankers for 5mans and OTs for raids - for fun or out of necessity
+ raid MTs with encouraging [spirited] guilds

My biggest issue with PVP gear is not the lack of Int (although that is painful at times, yes) and ATP (even more painful!). My biggest problem is the lack of +hit. Remember that your pet's +hit is your +hit. Also remember that every attack your pet misses can mean another burst of aggro that doesn't get there. And finally, and most importantly, *Growl can miss*. Go grinding with a level 75 pet against a level 80 mob. The lower threat due to multiple missed growls will be felt very, *very* quickly. Trust me on this.

For me, that lack of +hit is the biggest reason I don't advocate PVP armor. One or two pieces (in particular the Wintergrasp helm is tasty) will likely not hurt too badly if you have the talent and/or gear to make up the lack of +hit, but making a full PVP suit would be too hazardous for my liking.

Yeah, the lack of hit is a problem.

Also resilience is not given to the pet and blizzard has been fiercely opposed to this. But blizzard is giving in on a great range of issues in the last year, so you never know.

Threat isnt just an issue with an enrage timer. You have to be able to beat inital healing threat, and you have to be generating enough to keep ahead of your dps. If you have disciplined dps that can throttle their dps and are ok with it, great. But if youre making the fights take three times as long, you may find that the dps won't want to run with you in the future.

Also remember that we lost a decent amount of threat from thunderstomp, so youve got more work to do.

Currently what im doing is just looking at all gear thats available to me and picking the ones i like best, usually trying to get a threat oriented peice and a stam peice for each slot, so i have options.

What this has lead to is using my dps peices as my threat peices, and hand me downs with gem slots as stam pieces. I gem my dps peices for AP, so that they are useful for tanking but also dps, although not optimal for (Survival) dps.

Tier gear is usually very good. The gem slots and even distribution of stats usually contribute to this, including the set bonuses. Set bonuses have been getting steadily worse for pet tanking though, so this may change. t5 was the glory days and its gone downhill from there.

As hunters we tend to have an independent mindset. Dont be afraid to lean on your healers. Get your health up to a reasonable amount for the instance, grab your mitigation talents, and then focus on threat. Of course this is general advice. Just don't fall into the trap i did, thinking that its all about how many hits you can take. You need that threat too =)

So it's clear now that come 3.2, we'll be using some PvP gear for the resilience. However, what other gear is desirable? DPS raid-wise, I'm usually in T8x2, T7x2, and a bunch of other iLevel 213+ gear. Pet-tank-wise, I'm usually just flipping to my PvP set and if solo'ng adding in my T5x2.

1) How much stamina are you guys stacking un-raid-buffed to get your pets to 40k?
2) Is there any juicy gear that I didn't give much notice before?
3) Enchant/Gem recommendations? All Stamina?

1. At the moment in my tanking gear I have 2291 Stam unbuffed. Some of it however is gemmed or enchanted for PvP or PvE, so when I re-enchant for a serious attempt I gain another 192 for a total of 2483. I thought about dropping Skinning for Mining to break 2500, but beating the guild warrior class leader on the DPS charts is too important.

2. The thing that jumped out at me was that you didn't mention is the crafted frost resist gear. Its terrible for threat, but the amount of stamina you get is great. My set for hard hitting raid bosses has all three mail pieces and the ring, but if you don't really need that last few thousand health, your threat will be much improved by using PvP or PvE gear in these slots instead. Also, the Saronite Mesh Leggings from Ulduar 25 have a very respectable amount of stamina as well as a boatload of AP.

3. For the most part all of my gems and enchants are full stam, except when I choose to get a socket bonus, I'll use either AP/Stam or Hit/Stam gems typically.

Its not BiS or anything, but I want to point out the new trinket from the new 5 man. The Black Heart: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47216

126 stamina makes it the best stamina trinket pre-Ulduar, and the best part is it drops on normal, not heroic, so you can reset the instance as many times as you need to. On top of that if you have a good group you can clear it in 15 minutes (about half of which is NPC's talking), so its very easy to get. Make sure to bring an enchanter while you're at it; 5 epic drops per clear means a Abyss Crystal for everyone in the group adds up quick when farming for an item.

Oh wow. Thanks for letting me know about that. I am in dire need of that much extra stamina, and the proc's fairly nice as well if I pull aggro while grinding. Wish it was an on-use ability, mind you. That would be *far* too nice to pop on my pet.

Still, two trinkets with over 100 stamina? Yes please. I'll happily give up my extra agility for that while tanking!