Gemming and Weapon Enchant? For Pally Tank

[Refain]

Hello I play a Paladin Tank on Rexxar US (Zwingli) and for awhile now I have been speaking with about 4 other tanks into progression (some farther then me and in 25 mans) and it seems to me that there are two ideas of gemming one for Stam, the other for Avoidence. Now my question is obviously which of them is better for ICC Progress raiding still stacking stam in every available slot? May it be a good idea to get a few different gems here and there for a socket bonus or two? What trinket should I use as I have both avoidence and health trinkets available, which one will give me the best survivability in ICC. Also what Enchant would people recommend for your weapon? I have always loved Agi for weapon cause of the Crit chance and the Dodge. However, I have seen that Accuracy can be a very good one or something like mongoose. Any comments or ideas on any of this is good and if you wouldn't mind making an argument for this I would appreciate it greatly.

[Stalswarrior]

For the most part EH is still on top, however fights like Deathbringer avoidance will serve you better cause he doesn't hard and the less he can hit you the longer it take for him to build runic power to do abilities.

I however have been going for pretty much any socket bonus with 9 stam or higher for sure and a lot of the 6 stam ones as well. I generally use dodge/stam or expert/stam. for red, either def/stam, hit/stam, or crit stam for yellow (just depends on the needs atm), and 30 stam for blue.

I have 2 EH trinkets and 2 AV trinkets that I have on me to use depending on the fight, never hurts to have extra gear for when needed.

Weapon enchant, use what will benifit you the most; Bladeward is the best avoidance, Accuracy is good if you need the hit, Mongoose is a good theat/AV enchant, Blood Draining is crap for pallies imo seeing as you already have ardent defender.

There are a lot of options no one is king, but each one has a purpose somewhere or another, use what will help you the most.

[krc]

For the most part EH is still on top, however fights like Deathbringer avoidance will serve you better cause he doesn't hard and the less he can hit you the longer it take for him to build runic power to do abilities.

Mongoose is a good theat/AV enchant.

Actually Deathbringer avoidance is only slightly better since it does not slow down the generation of his BP since you are tuanting him when ever he casts Rune of Blood and Mark of the Fallen Champion does damage on every swing not just when the tank is hit.

Also remember that Mongoose adds a good bit of armor at a reliable uptime. But anyways listen to Stals, EH is king and anything else where stacking avoidance works it is because it doesn't matter since the bosses hit so light.

[Refain]

I have looked at the gems for the various colors and I am stuck between a few Gem Descisions Ill post them here and any advice or input would be helpful.

Purple (Red Socket): Sovereign Dreadstone (10 Str 15 Stm) --- Shifting Dreadstone (10 Agi 15 Stam) --- or the ones with dodge,parry, or expertise all with 10 and 15 Stm.

Green (Yellow Socket): Enduring Eye of Zul (10 defense 15 Stam) --- Jagged Eye of Zul (10 Crit 15 Stam)

And do people generally agree with the statments made prior? When to or when to not gem for the socket bonus as compared to straight 30 Stam?

[krc]

Most tanks do this stamina on every socket unless the socket bonus is 9 stamina or higher and if its red they go with 15 stam 10 aglility/dodge/expertise and on yellow 15 stam 10 defense.

[Stalswarrior]

Actually Deathbringer avoidance is only slightly better since it does not slow down the generation of his BP since you are tuanting him when ever he casts Rune of Blood and Mark of the Fallen Champion does damage on every swing not just when the tank is hit.

Also remember that Mongoose adds a good bit of armor at a reliable uptime. But anyways listen to Stals, EH is king and anything else where stacking avoidance works it is because it doesn't matter since the bosses hit so light.

I agree thats why the only thing I really switch out is my trinkets, I wouldnt go all out on geming avoidance for it. I also agree with you on the mongoose, I kinda did this in a hurry cause I was at work at the time, but yes its a really balanced enchant.

And do people generally agree with the statments made prior? When to or when to not gem for the socket bonus as compared to straight 30 Stam?

Krc's reply is right, the main reason being that you are only going to loose out on 6 stam (60 base health) going with the 9 stam bonus, so take a minor loss in health to gain something else, and I would definately get all the 12 stam bonus's that you can get as well seeing as you will only be loosing out on 3 stam (30 base health). His gems are right as well, I usually use 10 Def/15 Stam for yellow unless I am low on hit but the other gems I stated earlier are all viable. Red I usually use dodge/stam but agi stam is also helpful in the fact that it gives eh/av/and threat.

[Spacecake]

Hello, i didn't wanna start a new topic here is a link to my armory ; The World of Warcraft Armory - Rêcêp @ Stormreaver - Profile

We are currently progressing ICC and im mainly offtank and sometimes mt.Should i basically go for stamina or keep my existing gear ?
I tried to put stam gems in unless they have a good bonus.(+24 stams are not a big deal, i will replace them with +30 asap.)
And what about my enchants ? I didn't enchant my shield cause i expect a better drop soon.I can have some help with my other enchants.
Thanks for your attention.

[Stalswarrior]

Doesnt look to bad overall. Some of my recomendations would be to put mighty armor on your cloak (225 armor), get glyph of indom in place of your brewfest trinket, I prefer to use tuskars vitality instead of greater fort for boots but thats a personal preferance and a requirement of my guild for doing fights like ToGC beasts where moving asap is needed. As you already pointed out switch the 24 stam to 30 which isnt a big deal but it helps. As for your shield I personally would put 18 stam on it reguardless its cheap (on my server anyhow) so even if you do replace it its not too expensive, and if it takes longer than expected you have it enchanted.

[winterbourne]

People here have mentioned the dodge/stam purple for your red slots to maintain socket bonus criteria, but it has been proven that agi/stam is just plain better. Probably even a bit more in the "Chill'd" ICC raids now.

[Dtain]

People here have mentioned the dodge/stam purple for your red slots to maintain socket bonus criteria, but it has been proven that agi/stam is just plain better. Probably even a bit more in the "Chill'd" ICC raids now.

I don't think this has ever been proven, everything I have ever read is it is roughly 98% as effective as dodge/stam (at least as far as prot pallies are concered) and comes down to preference of slightly more avoidance or slightly more other stats.

In the end the two gems are close enough I just don't think it has ever been proven that agi/stam is better, however If i am wrong please point me in the right direction!

[krc]

It has never been proven that agility is better but I and very many other people prefer to lose a slight bit of avoidance to have the extra EH from the armor. In overall "survivability" dodge is better but in a worse case scenario where you actually die agility is the better choice.