A few pointers please

First of all, I'm not that experienced a tank. I generally gear for positive numbers on the gear I swap with, and have no real preferences or ideas towards mitigation, avoidance or stamina.

After having read a few threads about tankadins on the forum, I find myself becoming increasingly confused, since most people talk about changing stats depending on the encounter and how some items are better for these. With my gear, I just go for the defense minimum and if I get more defense from gear just by equipping it, so be it.

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...alls&cn=Hiposs

At the moment, I gem purely for stamina, without disregarding the meta req of course. However, I noticed a while ago that the trinket from the Onyxia questline has a bunch of mitigation and avoidance and considered switching my Black Heart trinket with that one. I just don't know if it's worth sacrificing 1200+ HP to get the defense rating and parry rating. Halp, please.

Any other pointers on my gear and spec would be greatly appreciated.

Basically when gearing gear for the encounter means generally gear for EH since almost every encounter that matters favors EH (armor and stamina basic EH calculator http://tankingtips.com/effective-health-calculator N-EH takes into account magic http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...rb_v=viewtopic) other than Anub. Change the gem in your headpiece to 15 stam 10 agility, get the pvp enchant on your shoulders, get 225 armor to your cloak, change the gem in your hands to 30 stam, get 275 health to your chest and make the gems in your legs 15 stam 10 agility and 30 stamina. An easy upgrade is switching out the T9 headpiece for the triumph head piece. I would grab the cloak followed by the belt with your next frost emblems. And keep the Black Heart EH trinkets for the most part are favored to avoidance and the proc on the Black Heart is great.

This might be a stupid question, but why agi + sta gems? And why the resi PvP enchant on shoulders? Some elaborating on the changes would be helpful. :)

As for shoulder enchant: well, PvP one is the best one when it comes to EH (and resilience lowers def "cap" a bit, to about 536 iirc). Hodir one is for avoidance sets only. As for agil/stam gems, well, paladins scale nicely with agility, better than warriors and dks for sure. And that +6stats gem in your head is awful from tank's point of view (+10 Nightmare Tear is bad too), second agil/stam gem is to match some nice socket bonus: you loose only a bit of stamina if you'll get them, but get some other stats (dodge armor and crit from agility). You are usually better when trying to achieve +9/+12 stami socket bonuses than just slapping pure +30stam gems.

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Originally Posted by Vegelus

You are usually better when trying to achieve +9/+12 stami socket bonuses than just slapping pure +30stam gems.

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Could it be used as a general rule to go for +9 and +12 stamina socket bonuses?

While gearing for EH:
- if you have 2 gem slots (one have to be a blue), then 9 stamina (or higher) bonus is a good one to get. This way you'll get 30+15+9=54 stamina, instead of 60, but get +10 agility/expertise/dodge/parry/defence/hit (at cost of only 6 stamina).
- if there is no blue gem inside, it's 15+15+9=39 stamina instead of 60. Not worth while gearing for EH.

- if you have 3 gem slots (with two blue slots), then 12 stamina bonus is a good one to get. This way you'll get 30+30+15+12=87 stamina, instead of 90, but, again, you get +10 of some other stat (at cost of mere 3 stamina).
- with only one blue slot it's 30+15+15+12=72 stamina only. Same as for an item with only one, not blue, slot and +6 stamina bonus, you loose 9 stamina to get 10 of some other stat. Which probably isn't worth the hassle.

Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying that.

Is it always in my best interest to gear for EH, or are there encounters where other stats/factors are superior?

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Originally Posted by Jiposs

Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying that.

Is it always in my best interest to gear for EH, or are there encounters where other stats/factors are superior?

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The Vast Majority of fights are EH, with very few exceptions, and even those can be done with EH gear, just might be a little harder is all.

The only encounters where it isn't in your best interest to gear for EH is A: Anub heroic because of his Leeching Swarm which heals him and the adds which favor an unhittable set and B: Any encounter where you are surviving easily and are constantly hitting an enrage timer you might as well focus on damage.

Thank you very much for explaining all this.