[Aragon]

Source: Kamani 3.3 releases a new 25 man. Don't be shocked if mobs will be doing 28k hits and low 50k doesn't cut it. I certainly didn't think I would need to gem for more stam after killing Archimonde the first time. Then the entirety of SW proved me oh so wrong.

As an old school tank, I don't have a problem with re-enchanting and resocketting for the encounters and content. The moment more stam is needed to soak giant bomb hits, I will be stacking stam and armor.

[Aragon]

Source: Dragaan He's socketing defense for anub adds on 25man heroic. Why he's not using block gear (and socketing that gear with defense) like most other add tanks, I'm not sure. But if you see tanks in big-name guilds socketing defense atm, it's for their anub add set.

We socket defense because it might be there to give a socket bonus while giving miss/dodge/parry/block totals equal or greater than dodge alone. Also, he may not have a better avoidance/mitigation item and using the same item for general tanking.

At nearly full 25-player ToTC gear, I'm over 570 Defense easily without gemming for it. I do have the enchants to step up some avoidance but I think it's just a progression of gear.

[Kazeyonoma]

No, Dragaan is correct in saying that the tank that was referred to was gemmed/equipped that way because it is the easiest way to handle add tanking on heroic anub 10/25.

[Dah]

So what are you sacrificing and down to what for inc^ Def?

[kroxix]

I sit at around 580ish defense in my regular tanking set...I only gem for defense where I am seeing a +12 stam socket bonus, which could change to hit rating soon, since hit is something I am struggling to find. I have around 43k hp unbuffed and 50% parry/dodge.

Pardon my gear, I usually wear 258 boots, 258 bracers, and a 245 weapon.

[krc]

Yeah there's so much defense on ToC gear alone that even if you don't socket for defense you will have an enormous amount of defense without even socketing or enchanting for it.

[Rawkz]

If you look at some of the 245 and 258 pieces you'll notice a lot of them are around 100 def rating and some are even higher. As far as socketing defense goes. its the only yellow gem you can socket for avoidance so that would be why it is there. Some people use it for socket bonus's and some people use it for Hm Anub25.

[Kazeyonoma]

you're sacrificing stam, because you're gemming +20 defense instead of +30 stam. some of the gear you'll see tanks running around with are laden with shield block value and shield block rating, this is for that same purpose. 101.8% miss/dodge/parry/block to make tanking heroic anub'arak adds trivial.

Gem Stam, EH is the name of the game right now, avoidance is probably not where you want to look into gemming anyways, despite defense being good for that as well as dodge. socket bonuses are worth it SOMETIMEs, but most times not.