To Socket Bonus or To Not

[Quinnly]

Ok so I am slowly being out geared by my offtank because he has hacking rolls, and I notice he, as well as everyone else stacks 30 stam in everything.

Now I stack 30 stam everywhere thats not red just about, but should when I see a socket bonus worth 6 stam, I tend to put a 15 stam 10 def rating gem in. Should I forgo the small amount of def rating for the 9 stamina?

.09% dodge .07% parry, doesnt seem like much but the def buffer is always nice, and it does add up.

Tankspots thoughts?

And by these thoughts does that also mean to not gem dodge/stamina and keep on going with 30 stam gems?

[Trondhjem]

In my opinion, it depends on the socket bonus and the socket colors.

When I gem for progress, I leave out boni like +8 dodge or +6 def, I also don't even try to reach my +6 stamina bonus, when there is a red and a yellow socket in it.

Assuming that there is a +9 stamina bonus for ex. a blue and a red socket, it may be worth taking it.

On my aggro gear however, it's no real problem to go for some boni since hit/sta or exp/sta are very sensible choices. I even reccomend not to waste some potential by not using these boni. Anyway if your goal is to max out your HP pool, better drop some.

[vine]

It's not sensible to take a blanket statement of "always match sockets" or "+30 stam in everything, never match sockets". You need to balance your stats on a per-piece basis.

If you're building an all-round set: Maintain a decent level of hit and expertise, then gem for stam.

If you prefer to go stam then make sure you offset your low threat stats by eating the appropriate food.

[orcstar]

With ToC gear I notice my hit plummeting, so now in those yellow socket go "vivid" +hit/+stam gems and as a bonus I get more socket bonusses.

[Frazzle]

I pretty much always used the pure Stam gems. However, I am now finding that my HP is getting crazy high, so I have started socketing correct colours to match the bonus - usually a dodge/stam for red and def/stam for yellow (although I am about to regem some of those for hit/stam).

For me it was dependent on my overall gear level - I felt able to trage some HP for avoidance.

[Synapse]

Since every slot can get a +stam + something gem, You'll rarely see a situation where a survival socket bonus isn't worth getting.

[Rudolf]

I match for +9 stam but not +6 stam on red. It comes down to 9 stamina vs 10 dodge rating. I'm currently getting my butt kicked by Heroic gormok so for me 9 stam wins. 6 stam vs 10 dodge is crossing the line for me, but I can easily understand someone making the trade.

On yellow, since my +hit is dropping at an alarming rate, I'll grab +6 stam bonus with a Vivid gem. Might just get glyph of taunt and keep the same policy as red.

[nethervoid]

In BC I almost never went after a socket bonus, but as a new 80 tank in WotLK I'm finding the socket bonuses to help with trying to keep 540 def, etc. So far I have gone after all the socket bonuses because they have been def or stam related. Not sure I'd go after a hit or expertise bonus, at least at my level of gear.

Another thing to look at (correct me if I heard wrong) is to try and get the hit, expertise, and def on enchants to free up your gem slots for +30 stuff. Then the only time to socket for the bonus is probably if you need more def or the stam bonus is 9+.