A little unclear on stats

Gemming & Enchants - Strength, Expertise, or Stamina? (or something else)

I'm at the point now where I'm getting quite a few different answers to this when searching through posts.

I'm not quite sure what stat I should be going after with my gemming and enchants. While it is relatively simple to pack on more stamina and granted that's always nice, I'm wondering if I should be happy around 30K unbuffed (@ uld 10 and a few bosses in 25 - normal) and start packing on some more strength or other stats. I have never noticed any threat issues on single target with mages and whatnot that were better geared than I am so I'm not sure if Str is the way to go, likewise expertise as I'd be hitting them more = more threat.

I have some options for switching gems around but after days of reading I'm still scratching my head.

If possible could some of you fine people check me out on Armory and give me some feedback?

Thx, DT

As always, it depends. Where are you weakest?

If you need more threat, go for stam/exp or stam/hit for the soft caps, 15% and 8%, respectively.

If you're not having threat issues, I'd recommend gemming for avoidance with stam/dodge and stam/parry with a preference toward stam/dodge.

And if you can maintain the defense soft cap, I'd switch out SSG for swordshattering on your weapon; that 4% parry isn't subject to diminishing returns.

On a side note, I noticed your frost tanking spec didn't have anticipation, toughness, or howling blast. Anticipation and toughness both scale with your gear so I'd recommend picking those up. Hungering cold is more of a CC ability than an AoE threat generator like howling blast, which you'll be able to use more often and in conjunction with killing machine procs.

Thanks for the input. I am leaning towards Stam/Dodge. I can't wait for the day I'm able to get off the SSG rune, but I just can't at this point with current gear.

Do you think I would be better served to gem for defense in order to ditch the SSG? I thought of that but am just thinking I'll stick with what I got and wait for some better gear to keep me at soft cap.

For the spec. I'm not sure whats showing up there, but the frost is my secondary PvP spec for horde killing (no offense if that's you), not tanking. I am and have been Unholy Tank since Lich King came out.

SSG is to good of an enchant to drop it for SwordShattering. Dont forget along with all the Defense it gives you it also has a stam modifier with it.

To me 30k Unbuffed hp is a little low especialy for any 25m Content While a high dodge and parry is nice some bosses in ulduar can darn near 1 shot you since raid buffed you will only be circa 37k Two shotting you if RNG fails is a huge posibility.

Gem 30Stam in all blues and 15Stam 10 dodge in all Reds and you'll raid that Hp up a lot. Keep your SSG so you dont loose 1k or more HP or more by having to Regem things for Defense instead of stam.