Where to draw the line: Gemming Stamina vs. Agility

As a druid tank. Just trying to figure out if I should trade of some of my gems/enchants. I'm currently sitting with around 37k HP unbuffed in bear form and around 40% dodge with none of my procs up (greatness, my idol, mongoose) and without using my trinket (Glyph of Indomitability.) If all of those are up I get around 54% dodge. I'm also hit-capped with 31k armor in bear form, 3.7% haste, 40% crit, 5k+ ap, and 10 expertise (2.5%) if any of that matters (Not gemmed for any of the stats in this sentence, this is from gear alone.) Just wondering if you guys would re-arrange some of my gemming towards other stuff (agi -> stam, stam -> agi, etc.)

Armory:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...inger&n=Eredor

Note: as of the time of posting this my new cloak hasn't updated on the armory. It's the Sentinel's Winter Cloak (Sentinel's Winter Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft) with the 22 agi enchant and a 30 stam gem.

Edit: I realize that HP vs Dodge is a fight to fight basis for some things, I'm just trying to get a over all idea of where I should normally be sitting, when I'm not in a fight that requires stacking stam/agi.

Well, my first thing I noticed is that you are very low on expertise. Which point for point, will net you a lot more threat then hit, not to mention parry-gibbing yourself.

My recomdatin would be to get ther tier 9 helm, which you can activate the yellow gem slot with a nightmare tear. (Easily the best use of a yellow slot)

Thats the only thing that really jumped out at me, rest of your stats kinda make sense for your gear level. I would just work on getting a few more upgrades via badges. (Which would include bracers of swift death and death-warmed belt with orbs).

Depends on your goals as to what you should gem for. Currently there's no real advantage in gemming for agility; nothing that you're going to face significantly favors avoidance over stamina, and at least one fight heavily favors stamina (Festergut). Since bears get the biggest advantage from stamina gemming of all the classes, it stands to reason you'd go that route.

My typical suggestion is to gem for stamina and swap trinkets/weapons as needed if you want more avoidance or threat. This gives a lot of versatility without forcing you to be in one set of gear.

Also, as stated elsewhere - you really should have gone for the 4pT10 first. The cloak isn't going to be nearly as significant an upgrade as getting tier pieces will.

And as stated above - your expertise is absurdly low for tanking. Almost unacceptably low. Expertise will be double the value of hit per itemization point (and that's if you were below the hit cap). Get rid of some of your pvp pieces in favor of some items with hit. The T10 legs, the T9 head - all good upgrades for your specific situation.

Yeah, bears get such an absurd amount of HP from Stamina that even when I have a single red socket that has an agility bonus, I still consider just slapping a 30 sta gem in it. =/

I'm aware that I need more expertise, but in response to all the people saying that I should be gemming it over hit: I haven't gemmed for hit at all, I am hit capped from gear bonuses only. So would you suggest I drop some of my stam or agility gems for expertise gems? I rarely have any trouble with threat generation unless I am completely outgeared by my DPS. I have only 2 +20 agi gems, the rest of my gems are +30 stam (except for my meta gem +32 stam and 2% armor.) So as far a specific advice: Get the tier 9 helm for a good bump to my expertise, work towards 4 piece tier 10. Questions I still need answered: Should I replace my 2 agi gems with stam or leave them so I'm sitting at 40% dodge, should i replace any of my gems for expertise or just try to get gear with it?

Well let's see if we can get ya to a good spot with out having to totally regem.

The rule of thumb for geming is as follow

1) Is set bonus +8 agi or 8 stam? If not. +30 stam in every slot
2) If it is red slots get +20 agi, blue slots get +30 stam, yellow get +10 to all stats.
3) If you already have a nightmare tear elsewhere in your gear then screw it, +30 stam in every slot.

The lowest "safe" expertise I would recommend would is at least pushing dodge off the table. So let's work on that. The quick and easy upgradesI can see are if you got Belt of the Twilight Assassin for 28 conquest badges, that would do a lot for ya. With 57 expertise on it. Now I normally wouldnt recommend gemming for it, but slaping a red expertise gem in that belt socket is a smart idea. You combine that with the t9 helm and ZOMG you pushed dodge off your table! Your threat just got a lot better and you shouldn't parry "as much".

You already got 2 dodge trinkets, between GoI and DMC:G you should be more or less set on dodge for a while. I would just focus on raw EH. Which, all things being equal, running H HoR and getting the Orca-Hunter's Harpoon.

After that, your next bigish upgrade would probally come from replacing your boots. Easist set to get that will give you a marked increase is good 'ole Acidmaw Boots. Drops off the first boss in ToC 10 so it really sholdn't be that far of a strech to snag these. As a bonus, it also has expertise on em.

After that you are more or less good. I would take ya to ICC! The Orca Hunter is a so-so weapon but it has a lot of nice feral stats. If you are able to pull a battered hilt out of your butt though, that would probably solve almost all your problems.

Thanks for all the helpful info Ska. Been running all three frozen hall's heroics every day since they came out, seen the harpoon twice and battered hilt 3 times, but the luck is not with me on my rolls. Guess I'll keep trying for those and work on following the rest of your advice. Thanks again for the help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liquidska

The rule of thumb for geming is as follow

1) Is set bonus +8 agi or 8 stam? If not. +30 stam in every slot
2) If it is red slots get +20 agi, blue slots get +30 stam, yellow get +10 to all stats.
3) If you already have a nightmare tear elsewhere in your gear then screw it, +30 stam in every slot.

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I would not follow this gemming strategy at all.

1) if it's blue or primatic (i.e. belt buckles, smithing sockets,etc.), 30 stam. Don't even look if theres a socket bonus or not.
2) If the socket bonus is not worth it (6 agility/8 stam or less), 30 stam
3) Meta is 32 stam/2% armor. Always.
4) Did I mention 30 stam gem?
5) If the bonus is worth going after, agi/stam is the way to go for red, possibly exp/stam if you are desperate (but you should be able to manage between talents and gear). If it's a yellow, try a nightmare tear first, then either hit/stam if you need threat and are well below hit cap (I highly doubt this), or defense/stam.

You should only gem with blue, purple or green.

There is no need to gem with red or yellow

If you even PEEK at an orange gem, delete your account. Now. No, really. And if you don't, we are gonna come over and shove that feral staff under each nail. Slowly...

As others have stated, the main thing you should focus on first is getting your expertise to at least 6.5% reduced chance to be dodged.

However, I see that you are currently only running heroics, so I'm not going to tell you stam or go home. Replacing any agl you have for stam is not something you need to worry about until higher tier content, just get that expertise up.