Printable View
Ive recently begun aquiring alot of gear, and I am wondering as my guilds Main Tank, should I be going for dodge/parry or block on my gear? Alot of the things im finding have very little block and alot of avoidance, and I am really not sure which I should be stacking
For example when I buy my t8.5 chest I will be down 200 block but up almost 2% avoidance
Thanks
Also is it worth it to gem hit rating?
bump for help
More than ever, stop worrying about block. If you get it, cringe a bit, but accept. Rejoice when you trade block for avoidance.
Dodge is slightly better than parry, but neither is worth gemming for. Pick items with dodge/parry over block. And when you get gem slots, go for stats in the following order
1) Defense to 540
2) Stam to the max, unless you have threat issues. See 3+4 if threat is an issue
3) Hit if yellow slot, after 540 defense. Stop at 263 hit.
3) Expertise if red slot, stop at 26
Combo gems are your friend. Defense/stam, expertise/hit, Expertise/stam, Hit/stam, and so on.
Might be more beneficial to post an armory link.
The World of Warcraft Armory
Theres my armory, For all my red slots ive been doing stam/dodge gems, Should I not do that? Im retardedly over capped on expertise currently, good on defense, and sitting at 34.6k unbuffed with my new chest.
Your gear, gems and enchants look ok.
I'd go for 20 hit rating rather than 18 sta on gloves with your totals, but hey =]
Good point, I actually should, and will
I'd lose some expertise in favor of hit if I were you - hit does far more for us paladins then expertise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quinnly
That being said, I'd swap your salvation glyph out for a seal of vengeance glyph - that makes is ridiculously easy to stay on the soft expertise cap.
Your other stats look okay, but I'd really try and get your defense up if I were you. It's a good stat for paladins, one of the best defensive stats there is untill you hit the block cap, and it's very handy if you have a nice buffer of it should one of your upgrades have less defense.
(Item Comparison Tool - World of Warcraft for example.)
I generally run vengeance but I dropped it for salv due to being over the expertise cap without it, Ive just been taking the overall upgrades recently, unfortunately its all had expertise :\.Quote:
Originally Posted by Martie
About what defense rating should I un gem for it at?
The expertise softcap is 26, I see you got 23 without the glyph of seal of venegance.
Up to the expertise hard cap (52 or so?) you still benefit from expertise. It is likely that your next upgrades will reduce your gear-expertise score. Up to you really. =]
Defense is all-around yummy, even past 540. If you look at how nicely your chance to be missed and your avoidance increases and consider that the amount of defense rating per piece of equipment fluctuates a bit, having some spare defense rating is a good thing.
It is usually a good idea to enchant and gem to the strength of the piece. Your MT kit should have everything aimed at survival - with possible exceptions such as weapon enchant. Any secondary bits, BV kit and other sidegrades are prime candidates to have hit enchants. Also consider the benefit of swapping in a +hit trinket if needed. You can do that easily if all your other slots are maxed out on survival.
For a BV set would I want to gem a bit of strength into it? Or would a full block kit set me up with the cap?
Also is t8 helm worth using as a main tank with the amount of bv on it?
The T8 set is rubbish, only the chest and pants are worth considering.
A block set is used for heroics, trash or exceptions. The idea is more threat than your MT kit. So by all means, put in strength and hit gems.
as i have been reading these posts i can see now that i have been doing things a bit wrong with my pally. i usually gem stam and def (whenever needed) but whenever i get a red gem i put in a straight parry one since its my hardest stat to keep above 20% but i guess thats not a good move. my hit rating is nowhere near where it should be i suppose. funny thing is i never have trouble with threat and i am not at all squishy even though i know my standard health is nowhere near where it should be. please lemme know of any tips that would help me out to be a better main tank. ty i would post my armory here but i dont really know how to do that the way you guys did so ill just do this.
The World of Warcraft Armory
Never gem for parry! There is formula as to when to gem for parry but it still diminishes faster. Looking at your armory you are gemming wayyyyyy to much for parry. You are missing out on lots of EH/stam by doing this.
ok ok gotcha. heh i though i was getting a bit to obsessed with the idea of parry. but what do i gem for now im seeing the half and half gems are the way to go but which ones do i know to go for? with no threat issues should i just do dodge/stam def/stam. or lol parry/stam? or just go full stam?
I disagree with a couple of things said in this thread, I'm afraid. Firstly, I'd never want to gem for threat in my MT set unless I was really struggling to keep on top. Paladin threat is silly high anyway and besides you get more threat per point of Strength than of Hit Rating, even if you're below the hit cap.
Due to the change in the way SoV swings happen as additional attacks, Expertise is also now a more viable stat than it was previously, since we get additional swings which means additional chances to be parry-gibbed. Don't gem for it, but don't turn your nose up at gear with it on, basically.
It is true however that you want EH and Avoidance before Block. Put +30 Stam gems (Solid, blue) in all your blue sockets, plus any other socket that has a crappy bonus. Put +10 Def/+15 Stam gems (Enduring, green) in your yellow sockets even if you're already above the defense minimum and put +10 Agility/+15 Stam or +10 Dodge/+15 Stam in your red sockets (Shifting or Regal respectively, purple). Agi or Dodge is really personal preference - Dodge is slightly more avoidance, Agility is avoidance, armor (EH) and crit (threat). Personally, I go for Agility.
Despite the changes, Parry is still worse in avoidance terms than Dodge. The formula was calcluated by Theck on Maintankadin and is as follows:
So don't gem for Parry until you get to that point.Quote:
If your personal ratio comes out above 1.88 parry will be better, and if it's below 1.88 dodge will be better.Code:(character_sheet_dodge_% - 10 ) / (character_sheet_parry_% - 10) = 1.88
Unfortunately it looks like you've logged out in your PvP stuff so I can't comment on your gear but your spec looks okay but a little sub-obtimal in my opinion. No points in Spiritual Attunement - do you find you have mana issues? Most tanks go with 1/2 there. I'd take the points out of Reckoning as even though it's better since the SoV change it's still our lowest threat stat. Free those four points for Divine Sacrifice/Guardian or Divine Sacrifice/Improved Hammer of Justice and then 1/2 in SA.
In your Ret tree, going down to Crusade is a good move in terms of threat (and should mean you never need to gem/enchant for threat as I mentioned earlier). You may wish to take Persuit of Justice for the slight boost in manouverability, but that's personal choice more than anything. You may also wish to consider putting 2/2 in Vindication (take some points out of Conviction if you need to) as it now acts as Improved Demo Shout without using up a GCD - this can reduce a boss' attack by 15-20% and on some specials such as Thorim's Unbalancing Strike, it can cut damage by almost 50%.
But to answer the initial question from the OP in short - yes take avoidance over block on your MT set wherever possible, but bear in mind that Block Value is still very good where Block Rating gets wasted most of the time. Very few pieces have BV without BR, but they are around (8.5 gloves, for example). You still want avoidance over BV, but a small amount of BV gear without BR on it can be nice.
Thanks for all the input in august but now as it is things are changing alot for us tanks with that chill of the throne being tossed on us. i did follow that rul and for every blue gem without hesitation toss a 30 stam gem in their i also follow suit with the yellow gems because the green 10 def/15 stam gems are useless to me seeing since my defense is always at an all time WAY over the cap at one point it was at 580 and have finally settled it at around 560 yet my sword grats me enough defense to put me back at 580. however im seeing a couple other pally tanks on my server just do nothing but stack stam and my off tank who is also another pally tank does the same yet i see myself getting more survivability than him. i use the 10 dodge and 15 stam in the red gem slots i get so im not sure if thats the case of because im using different trinkets than him. my armoryt is posted up above in a previous post let me know if i am doing anything that may be affecting my performance as a tank or if you guys have any tips. thanks
Oh boy, where to begin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Theblueblurr
Your spec is completely off. There is no way you can do a 969 rotation with that spec, which is a fundamental must for prot paladins. You need to go into the ret tree further to get at least one point in imp judgements to enable the 969 rotation. For threat, get out of reckoning and seals of the pure, dump your point in the ret tree to get crusade (Crusade is much better than reckoning/seals of the pure). You will also need to get rid of all of divinity (a now subpar talent), and lose one point in spiritual attunement. Even if somebody provides the debuff in the raid, having 2/2 Judgments of the Just is recommended.
You logged off in dps, so not much help there.
Second, never gem dodge on a paladin, use agi instead (i.e. agi/stam). This is assuming your expertise is in order.
Depending on your hit, feel free to use hit/stam. Notwithstanding Mert's equally valid comments, hit is great for threat, as long as you are getting a 9 or 12 stam bonus out of it.