Prot warrior trinkets choice? and gemming: Stamina? Avoidance? Which one to use best?

[Drasnal]

I would extend the threat http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...s-for-warriors which was asking about blue trinkets to some epics and want to ask some gemming questions as well.
First, what I learned in the last weeks is taht hit / expertise is atm worthless for warrior tanks, as far as I am not in charge of interrupting which should be done by melee dps from what I understand. Because of that I am in the process of reforging every hit / expertise that I can into avoidance, atop of all mastery because I am close to the 14-15% margin for parry which will result in heavy diminishing returns from what I read in the theorycrafting formum here at tankspot ( http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...iting%EF%BC%89 ).

I was able to obtain the following trinkets (all heroic versions):
Darkmoon Card: Earthquake http://www.wowhead.com/item=62048
Heart of Thunder http://www.wowhead.com/item=56370
Figurine - Earthen Guardian http://www.wowhead.com/item=52352
Porcelain Crab http://www.wowhead.com/item=56280
Throngus's Finger http://www.wowhead.com/item=56449
Impetuous Query (normal version) http://www.wowhead.com/item=55881

...and what about:
Impatience of Youth http://www.wowhead.com/item=62469
Bedrock Talisman http://www.wowhead.com/item=58182

What would you recommend using?
I am using The Darkmoon Card and Porcelaine Crab at the moment. My biggest doubt is the Darkmoon card because I think the HP cooldown will not be very useful, or am I wrong. What about the Heart of thunder? Is it worth using, considering wotlk armor gear getting nerfed? Or should I save my points for the Bedrock talisman?

Reforged I am at
35962 armor
12.48% dodge
14.03% parry
47.77% block

12 Expertise
4. something hit

I could reforge some more expertise to mastery and I have to remove the expertise enchant on my bracers I think. I also regemmed 2 of 3 jewelcrafting gems from +101 stam to +67 mastery. Is this the right way to do or should I remove the last STA gem as well to put another mastery gem - or reverse that action? What about +30 stam + 20 mastery gems in yellow sockets. Remove them to +40 mastery?
Btw here is my armory link:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/characte...drasnal/simple

I would appreciate any help because right now I am very confused about stat weighting.

Thanks in advance.
Drasnal

[Demoneyes82]

Bah, I had a nicely written reply, and i lost it!

I use the procelain crab, reforged to mastery, and throngus's finger.

I keep two stamina trinkets in my inventory for those fights that need the extra HP boost

I'm planning on picking up the Impatience of Youth once i've got the mount (priorities!!! :P)

I agree that the Darkmoon card seems a little bit lackluster with only 10k hp click. For .2% less dodge I would take the crab over it, as the mastery proc happens quite frequently (don't know the ppm though), or at least seems to happen quite frequently.

As far as armor trinkets go (since the wotlk ones are being adjusted to be in line with the cata ones) I have no idea how they stack up against the others. I remmeber back when I was tanking BC raids, the bears were the ones that wanted the armor trinkets and we tended towards the sta/avoidance onces. Now with a new armor formula, i have no idea if they're any good!

I think i'll end up keeping different ones for different situations, a couple for avoidance, a couple for mitigation, and a couple for pure sta/efective health.

[Zaktraw]

Mastery is king.

I prefer 30 stam/20 mastery gems in yellow slots and have considered them in blues as well. As a JC I've just thrown my Solid Chimera Eye's where ever I don't need or want the socket bonus and tried to fill in as many 30 stam/20 mastery as I can. (mental lapse on the name while posting from my phone sorry!)

[Sifer]

I actually prefer the Mirror of Broken Images from Exalted Baradins but you linked the strength trinket.

A very nice amount of mastery and I find the damage that tends to be the biggest problem for is magic damage so its nice having an on use against that.

I ran with the finger and crab until I started getting epic trinkets, both reforged to mastery.

I dont consider the darkmoon card upto the same standard.

I would say its 10k too short on the hp buff for it to be really useful.

[gacktt]

Pure stamina is the way to go. The mastery+resistance trinket is excellent on a number of fights though.

[Drasnal]

Pure stamina is the way to go. The mastery+resistance trinket is excellent on a number of fights though.

From what I understand an read over the last weeks, max. stamina is a
concept of wotlk which is not up to date any more. Leaning towards max
health is transforming you into a mana sponge, which in times of ICC with
almost unlimited healer mana wasn’t any problem at all, but right now
avoidance is king because of the lack of healer mana.
I hope I am not confused about this topic at least.

See also
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...t-s-a-question.)

[Drasnal]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Wearing Thongus Finger and Porcelaine
Crab seems logical. The only thing I am missing in this constellation is
control. With the to trinkets I have max avoidance, because the will
trigger any 1:30 min I suppose (I don’t know if that’s true, I will rund
some heroic logs myself this night).
I am still a little sad that the Darkmoon Card: Earthquake is not that
good, even I got it quite cheap from the AH @ 4k gold it feels like a big
loss.

Still my question on whether to gem 3 times +67 mastery or 3 times +101
Stamina – or any combination or totally differnt – ist still quite
unanswered.

Thanks though to all of you folks, like always good and quick response in
this forum.

Cheers

[Fakemessiah]

I stack mastery for the benefit of even damage instead of spikes and easier to hit unhittable and have high crit block

Stam/mastery in all blues
Pure Mastery in all Yellows (JC Mastery gems also)
Parry/Mastery in all Reds
All gear reforged to mastery

I do this because I am for 50% block, 15% parry, and 10% dodge as my minimums. I want to get my block as close to 75 as possible because at that point your shield block becomes a mini CD where you take 30% reduced damage for a total of 10 seconds...you cant beat that.
Exp and hit are virtually useless right now since taunt doesn't miss, vengeance is enough to hold aggro, no parry haste on bosses. I would suggest everyone reforge out of those. The only exception i can think of is being in a 10 man guild and having no rogues, dps warriors, shammies, dks, or pallies to interrupt, then i would try and keep your hit capped so u can interrupt.

I use Both epic stam trinkets, Symbiotic Worm and Vial of Stolen Memories, on most fights.
The reason i do this is because with gemming/reforging mastery i lose a lot of stam, so i use my trinkets to counter balance.
on high spell damage fights i use Mirror of Broken Images for the on use of 400 spell reduction.

I have not found a reason to use throngus's finger, porcelain crab, and all others just dont benefit me enough in fights to use. I have tried all of them and i just dont feel comfortable with that low of HP.

The on use dodge is great from Vial of Stolen Memories, i use that with my shield block as a full CD. Shield block has turned into more of a defensive CD now on half of the fights, instead of using it every time its up

Seeing as how we drop below 35% HP on every fight very often, my mastery from Symbiotic worm is always up as well.

I dont like the darkmoon card as a prot warrior, its a wonderful bear trinket IMO, but i didnt like it as a warrior.

I am also a 25 man tank, they damage intake is a lot higher, so i prefer the HP. Especially for fights like Council, very high magic damage and chimaeron has high damage too
IMO 10 man damage intake is a joke on regulars, on heroic it is very different. I would probably use full avoidance just for the LOLz

[MellvarTank]

Stam won't help you on Chimaeron, the mechanics are designed against it.

You don't "lose stam" by not socketing it, you never had it to begin with.

[Roarc]

One stam and one avoidance trinket IMO surves best in most encounter atm. This means the stamina trinket from Stonecore endboss or Magmaw, both with stamina and great proccs, as well as the Hellscream Mastery trinket with an extremely good on-use. Other than that the alchemist stone is nice as well. For a blue the JC crab isn't bad either.

Most fights have both physical and magical damage. What tends to come in bursts is the magical side and here the Hellscream trinket works wonders (look at Nefarian for example). A fight like Chimeron actually disfavors stamina post the 120K mark for the tanks in normal 10M. Avoidance or block is way more efficient here.

[Fakemessiah]

@roarc
yeah i cant say much for the 10 mans because we dont do them so i dont know what is a good stam pool, i did in beta and just did comparisons from there

@mellvar
I have just found it useful to have that extra bit of stam on chimaeron is helpful during double attack and higher break stacks
Yeah bad wording, i meant i dont gain a lot of stam when i stack mastery

[Chasey]

Mana sponge! I wonder how your healers like throwing all that blue bar to keep you alive.

Wrath is gone. Stam is no longer king.

[Fakemessiah]

if you looked at my toon and stats you would see i dont stack anything but avoidance/mitigation

this was a trinket thread an i was referring to why i use the 2 trinkets i do, and why i use a diff trinket on other fights

I am far from a mana sponge and my healers never have a mana issue when healing me or my OT

[Kazeyonoma]

it's not about avoidance is king, or mastery is best, or stamina stack till infinity. The key thing is going for the smoothest damage intake possible which currently is trying to reach unhittability, while maintaining as large a health pool as possible to provide your healers with enough of a buffer for you to not drop dead before their heals land. Healers who are calling higher stamina tanks "mana sponges" are doing it wrong. Gone are the days of everyone sitting at 100% the entire fight, a high stamina tank just means he will take an extra hit while at 80% than the low stamina tank at 80%. Keep your good avoidance/mastery/stamina trinkets and have them in your bag, and swap them out according to the fight at hand. The rest of your gear at least in this tier, is pretty cut and dry about what is best and what is inferior, if the stats are so close that your losing your mind over it, it's probably not going to make that huge of a difference between the two anyways.

Healers don't go oom because they are casting their efficient heal repeatedly, healers go oom because tanks take inconsistent damage which causes them to react and fire off an ineffecient but big and/or fast heal. Smoothing out damage intake by having a larger health pool combined with mitigation in the form of armor and mastery for shield tanks will allow healers to better anticipate the healing required to heal you through out a longer fight and thus be able to better conserve mana, by spamming their efficient heal.

These discussions devolving into misinformation and STAM! no no no AVOIDANCE! NO U MASTERY! is getting tiring, the mentality of tanks, has and always has been, to make yourself be as reliable to heal and keep alive. Some fights lean towards using double avoidance trinkets, other double stam (most in the past 2 expansions) and even then, sometimes it was good to have some good on use trinkets for specific encounters. It was always based on the fight, and the current situation you are in your guild. The core driving mentality between mastery and stam stacking is that it makes you survive for as long as possible, as reliably as possible, for your guild to best have a chance at downing PROGRESSION level bosses.

[Mäcintosh]

/applaud

Mäcintosh claps excitedly for Kazeyonoma.

Bravo my good man, bravo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tengenstein]

I took Leaden Despair and Mirror of Broken images as my default HC trinket choice, Stam, mastery, 40% magic redution 10sec/min, and more armour when I drop low. seams pretty nice nice setup for most fights

I replaced Leaden despair with Symbiotic worm, granted mastery isn't quite as relaible as armour, but the extra passive stam seemed worth it.

I tend to swap in Unidentifiable Organ for most fights where i'm takinf multiple adds for a large portion of the fight, (maloriak, add taking on magmaw, solo taking Omnitron) thou come the nerf I doubt I will.

I tend not to rate the battle master type trinkets, i think i sity around 171k hp raid buffed, and an extra 11k just doesn't seem worth it as anything more than a panic button and i prefer strategic use of my Trinkets/cds , except for on chimaeron. whare they are really good at negating the double attack.

[gacktt]

The only time I don't stack stam is on nefarian where I use the incredible tol barad trinket. Everything else I value stam much more. I have about 167k hp baseline and 190k buffed, breaking 200k soon, I've never been close to death on any fight but nefarian and our healers are never going oom.

When our off-spec tank gets his epix I'll start getting pure avoidance pieces for chimaeron hard. That's about it for avoidance.

[Drasnal]

Thanks all of you!
What I get in conclusion is that what trinkets we use may vary quite a bit
from encounter to encounter.
-There are encounters that favour pure stamina trinkets with a nice
avoidance cooldown (either magical or mastery/ parry /dodge)
-others are fine with trinkets that have a nice proc and
-lastly there are encounters where you need max avoidance and controllable
avoidance procs.

Either way, that is not so important for heroics from what I learned what
some of you wrote once you reached a decent gearlevel in the lets say
middle to upper 340ies, right? (it is my impression too). Anyway selection
of trinkets can be crucial in progression raids.

Concerning gemming there are different opinions whether to max stam or max
mastery. I am of the opinion that avoidance is better and that it does not
matter if you have 150k or 175k or even 190k life. I think it is better to
block 50% of 1 million damage incoming (0.3*500k = 150k) than 30% of 400k
(0.3*400k= 120k) than having the 30k more life. But perhaps I am wrongly
evaluating the situation. Perhaps, with healers getting better gear it ist
he other way around. Time will tell, or perhaps someone is delivering
decent math about that. Perhaps in the end it is only a thepretical matter
of a few percent more or less. We will see.

As far as I am concerned, I will get avoidance up, right now sitting @
about 14.9% parry, 12.2% dodge and 47.2% block and 145k life - all
unbuffed.

I would appreciate if my conclusion has any totally wrong concepts or if
there is anything important to add.

Cheers

[Brage]

Your conclusion seems spot on.
Personally i'm sitting at 91% "unhittable" when raid buffed and i've gone for maximum mastery and reforged abit of my avoidance to mastery if possible or parry -> dodge for maximum benefit and healers love me.
Healtwise i'm at ~152k unbuffed and ~171k raid buffed and i've never needed anymore than that.
The problem with stamina stacking is basically human psychology; Healers see a health bar depleeted and they "need" to fill it again. So by stacking stamina, the only thing you're achieving is mana starving your healers aswell as risking a potential spike killing you.

[Wick]

Doesn't armor still reduce overall incoming physical damage? (seperate from magic fights which need more stamina, as it bypasses so many defenses)

I'm at my work computer, so am blocked from my gear look up tools, but I carry the 1200 or so armor trinket. I'm thinking of using the now very easy to buy ICC trinket with 1700 armor.

For those who crunch numbers far better than I, doesnt 1700 armor soundly reduce incoming damage more than say 260 mastery? (or whatever is on the common 346 or easily gotten pvp 359 trinkent)


Wick, Dalaran, Dolus Nomen Hic