confused about avoidance and crit for my current gear lvl

[elitref]

stupidly logged out as my main (fury) last night but you can see my talents at least on armory The World of Warcraft Armory and my prot gear and stats can be seen here WoW Heroes - World of Warcraft PvE character info & ratings

So i was a tank mostly at 70 and then found the blood lust at 80 for fury and its great, however its very useful for me to have a solid tanking offspec. I "did" know what i was doing fully as a tank at 70 and now am a little lost with correct priorities on stats.

One very important bit of information is that I very rarely raid and so please I know that if i get better gear things get easier but advice like " run TOGC to get XXXX is not going to help me.. if its something with badges then great I can do that.. (like the 25 badge triumph prot obvious one)

I collected this current gear set mainly thanks to running fury and getting lucky on rolls for my offspec, also throwing gold and badges at it, so its a bit of an odd mix of gear but its working well for me.
I focused on stam initially as i geared up and now have tried to get a good amount of hit, expertise and strive to get towards 75% avoidance.. (i realise that better gear gets me there more easily)..

I can very easily keep threat and keep alive through any H dungeon and most 10 mans and some 25's (dont get the time to raid.. im in the uk but on a US server - long latency ridden story behind that).
I look at my gemming though and my numbers and it just feels wrong/messy and the more I read on different forums, the more confused I get as there is quite a lot of conflicting information around.

What I need is some advice about my priorities on stats based upon my gear level essentially.. or am I actually in relatively good shape?
Is there one stat that I am so wildly wrong on that I need to regem to fix it ? My crit "feels" very low and I also have a feeling that gemming for parry is stupid but I am just not sure.

Thanks

[Glittersmith]

First off, if you are planning to tank raids then stamina stacking is the way to go for any boss that is "dangerous" as in that it can kill you if you get unlucky.

Gemming for parry is almost always worse then gemming for dodge since dodge will give you more avoidance most of the time. After the changes to dodge and parry ratings I think the breakpoint where parry rating gets as good as dodge is when you have a ratio of dodge rating : parry rating of 1.85:1.

For your current level of gear your crit looks to be where it should be.

Edit: Oh and wow heroes also shows you in fury gear.

[elitref]

yeah wow heroes shows fury by default but you can click the prot spec and it will show prot spec and gear and stats as well..
unlike the stupid armory that just shows talents if you click the other spec..

[Glittersmith]

Ah shiny feature.

[Fledern]

That's a damn good set of gear given what you had access to, and very well balanced too imo.

I would suggest switching those pure red gems to purple ones with stam included. Also blade ward is reputed to be a really crap enchant despite the expense. Considering your good hit level, i would suggest blooddraining, it'll be your mini-AD.

For shoulders, you might want to switch over to the tier9 one or the pure badge one when you've farmed enough triumphs from dailies.

You're pretty tight on the def cap so you cant do this right now but if you manage to get some leeway in the future, change out your def enchants for armor & hp.

If your tanking is as good as your attention to your gear, i'd say you could tank grand crusader 10man with that gearset - i know i've taken people with less gear & came out ok

[Mert]

I focused on stam initially as i geared up and now have tried to get a good amount of hit, expertise and strive to get towards 75% avoidance.. (i realise that better gear gets me there more easily)..

Avoidance has changed a little since TBC as your avoidnace stats now all suffer diminishing returns. In mainly 232/245 gear you'd probably expect to have somewhere in the region of 55% Avoidance (combined Miss, Parry and Dodge) and 14-19% Block Rating, depending on which pieces you pick up. Even if you gem pure Avoidnace into every socket and put avoidance-related enchants on all possible pieces you might end up with ~62% Avoidance.

[elitref]

Thanks very much for the replies, they are very helpful..

@Mert :
I have the following stats for Dodge, Parry and Block..
25.22%
19.49%
23.26%

So since that is 68% in total.. i should probably abandon gemming for anything other than stam ? (assuming i dont need to gem for def if i have a dodgy gear slot or something)

also i have gone out of my way to hit at least 26 expertise.. mainly as i did that with my fury spec.. but actually never thought till now if that is even that highly required as a tank..

thanks

[Glittersmith]

You should basicly gem entirely for stam, just don't forget to activate your meta. And for your avoidance numbers you forgot to count in the chance to miss and that block isn't an avoidance stat.

[elitref]

ok perfect, i am a hell of a lot less confused now..
im guessing the expertise is about right for prot since i have to face the boss and as fury the cap is 26 but really i can drop it down towards 20 even and still be good since i should be behind the mobs/boss whenever possible.

[Glittersmith]

Bosses can dodge attacks from behind though.

[elitref]

oh yes but being slightly under cap for expertise (and even hit depending on a number of factors) can be totally fine as it will be outweighed by dps benefits due to a lot more strength instead..

it varies though..
but thats fury.. and on that side of things im relatively on top of what im doing.. other than getting frustrated at not being able to raid..

/me is away to re-sign for the millionth time the petition to do cross region character tranfers..

[Mert]

@Mert :
I have the following stats for Dodge, Parry and Block..
25.22%
19.49%
23.26%

So since that is 68% in total.. i should probably abandon gemming for anything other than stam ? (assuming i dont need to gem for def if i have a dodgy gear slot or something)

Ah I see what you mean now - most people don't include Block under the heading of Avoidance simply because you're not really avoiding the hit entirely, just making it a little bit smaller. When people say Avoidance, they usually mean 5% Natural Miss chance from mobs + Miss% you get from Defense (around 4.5%ish after diminishing returns at 540 Defense Skill) + Dodge% + Parry%. Block is slightly different and so most people don't count it when they discuss Avoidance percentages and stuff.

As for how to gem, I personally only match socket bonuses of +9 Stam or higher. Any lower Stam or any avoidance stat, I ignore in favour of straight +Stam gems. For reds I personally use Agi/Stam, though Paladins get a little more from Agi than Warriors so you could either go Dodge/Stam or Expertise/Stam depending on what you favour. For yellows, you're almost always best going with Def/Stam, though you could use Hit/Stam for a fight where you need a high level of threat (Vezax, Hodir Hard, possibly Twin Val'kyr).

also i have gone out of my way to hit at least 26 expertise.. mainly as i did that with my fury spec.. but actually never thought till now if that is even that highly required as a tank..

thanks

Expertise does two things - firstly it increases your threat, as fewer attacks are getting dodged or parried and, secondly, it reduces your incoming damage by reducing your chance to grant parry haste to the boss. Since you're attacking from the front, going over the "soft cap" of 26 is no bad thing and isn't getting wasted - you could go right up to the "hard cap" (~56 I believe) which would mean none of your attacks can be dodged or parried. TotC gear is absolutely dripping with Expertise, so please don't feel you're not getting the most benefit from going over 26 - for a tank, we can go much higher and it'll still be very useful!