Tankadin Heavy stam vs. Aviodence

[Anaken]

I've been tanking with my pally since LK and i know that there are major diffrences from there to Cata. What I want to ask is I've been gemming and enchanting for avoidance stats especially mastery. But my health pool is only around 156k un buffed and people tend to voice their opinion on it in raids that its just to low and i can't take the hits. From where I am standing i'm taking them just fine and i do throw the stam gems in all blue sockets but its just not getting high enough. Is this something to worry about or is the avoidence much more important than the stam minus heroic modes of course? If im doining something wrong I would like to fix it so that i can tank with out the doubt in the back of my mind from the peeps not liking a low health pool. Thank you.

[sifuedition]

"can't take the hits" and not enough stam are two different things. Mastery should allow healers to use less mana expensive heals because of the way block works now. I have 145k unbuffed and my healers prefer me to a 170k stam stacking pally that fills in occassionally. It has to do with getting enough mastery (which is not avoidance) and dodge+block (avoidance). It also has to do with good cd usage. Don't save CDs until the fight is over or you are at 10%. Use them any time it looks like healers may need to start popping expensive heals on you or the raid.

[Loganisis]

It also has to do with good cd usage. Don't save CDs until the fight is over or you are at 10%. Use them any time it looks like healers may need to start popping expensive heals on you or the raid.

To build on this, know when the damage is incoming, most damage healers need to use big heals on you come at very specific points, double strikes, mangle, etc, etc. Know when these happen and use your CDs just before they do. Damage never taken is the easiest to heal through.

Additionally, if you know there is an AoE burst coming up, use a smaller CD just before that so the healers aren't as stressed keeping you up and trying to heal the raid back up.

[MellvarTank]

I'm seeing a whole lot of weird phrasing here.

Mastery = block = mitigation

Dodge/parry = avoidance

Stam = Stam

If you are tanking hardmodes then you need more health. If you are tanking normal modes you are fine with the amount of health you have. What trinkets are you using?

[aresius]

Imho, the awnser to the whole thread is "it doesent really matter". As already pointed out in more then one post at maintankadin, the difference from gemming exclusively stamina and gemming exclusively mastery is a ~20K hp for 3% mastery trade-off. Its not much either way. If your gemming for socket bonus with *any* tank-stat gem, your good enough for normal modes. go for a mix and trade trinkets for higher effective health fights or higher avoidance fights.
I think those 3% mastery or 20K hp only have a chance to be a significant difference from a possible loss to a win in a undergeared hardmode scenario (i wouldent know, havent been rading much), gemming with a specific fight in mind.

[Chasey]

Without a link we dont' know what were looking at. 156k seems fine, what are you blocking and avoiding? Knowledge is your friend, there is ton of info around here and on maintankadin.com. Arm yourself with some of that info you will have a solid response as to why your health is fine. That might defuse some of this "you can't take a hit".

Armory or toon and server might help too.

[uglie]

Let's say that both stacking stam or mastery will allow you to take 3 hits without a single heal. With stacking stam your healers are going to have to "spam" their big mana expensive heal on you which will lead to oom faster for your healers. If you were to stack mastery you can still take 3 hits without a single heal but your heals will be able to "spam" their mana neutral or nearly mana neutral heal and not go oom nearly as fast. In both cases healers will go oom at some point in time but if you are stacking mastery it will take them longer to reach oom and thus the fight can (doesn't mean it should) go on longer because once the healer goes oom you are very close to death.
Lesson here is that healer mana is like stam, when healer mana = 0 you are dead, so your job as a tank is to conserve that mana.
At least that's the way I see it, but I've been running with the same healer for a while now and like to see her bored.

[Fatæ]

tbh i have a lower healt pool but my mastery is higher i think i have, 135817 clean and i don't get any complaints of my healers thus far. but its like said i use my CD's verry ofthen and i use every abilitie i have to self heal to incriese threat and to upper avoidance so to ease up my healers. also bare in mind that also your healers need to be geared and propper gemed enchanted + reforged it can be also on there end where the problem lies, i mean for you to take the hits like you have to you also need to get the heals needed.

best way is to talk with each other and sort it out together and see what you can do.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../padwin/simple

at this point my block is about 41% my dodge about 12% and parry 13% and i still need to have boots a trinket a relic replaced asap. so if i can take the hits and my healers can do the heals without me dying then you can for sure if your stats are at least above or arround my average. But i can only speak out of sperspective 10 man raid normal: we killed the first boss of BoT and ah darn i forgot the other ones name but we also went for the second boss on BoT and the healers can keep me up pretty good but we did not downed it yet because the healers are dying all the time so yeah ^^ they keep me alive pretty good.

regards

[Selyndia]

It depends entirely upon what you are actually doing.

If you are currently working on early normal raids, or doing 5 man heroics, then a high mastery approach is perfectly fine/ideal, and 156k unbuffed is more than enough for anything you are doing.

If you are doing the last couple normal raids (Generally Al’akir and Nef) or doing early heroics (Maloriak, Magmaw, Chim, Halfus, Conclave, etc) then you might want to start incorporating some stamina in just to help survive the huge non melee bursts that come up (Nef’s Crackle + Breath, Magmaw’s Mangle, Maloriak’s Engulfing Darkness, etc). While you will want to have the stamina to survive, mastery is still extremely important for many of those due to how hard the bosses normally melee for (On 25 man, generally in the ballpark of 80-100kish), that comes with their additional damage.

It also depends entirely on what you are comparing your health pool to. I had tanked with Death Knights for a while, and they routinely had substantially more HP than I did, but to help counter that, I would take less damage per hit; so it balanced itself out. Only a handful of bosses have “HP Thresholds” to deal with (Engulfing Darkness is pretty much the biggest one, though Chim’s melee’s during Feud also are important) so the total HP shouldn’t be the primary concern.

[flavve]

What you want to do as a tankadin is:
Stack as much Mastery as possible
Mastery = block
The Avoidance "cap" is 102.4%: when you have block+dodge+parry=102.4% you will have total avoindace, you will Block/dodge/parry every hit
this means that you can take big hits and block+holy shiled= 40% damage reduced.
So for tankadins Mastery is No.1

[MellvarTank]

The Avoidance "cap" is 102.4%: when you have block+dodge+parry=102.4% you will have total avoindace,

This just confuses people.

BLOCK IS NOT AVOIDANCE

At 102.4% block/parry/dodge/miss you will block every hit that occurs. It is currently unattainable for paladins, and only warriors are able to get there with shield block up.

[Selene]

I think a better term is "Unhittable Cap" not "Avoidance Cap"

[Loganisis]

Block Capped > unhittable > avoidance capped imo

[Fetzie]

block cap IS unhittable IS complete Combat Table Coverage. Same meaning, different words/phrases.

[flavve]

I guess everyone understod "avoidance cap" but ofc i mean "unhittable cap"

and yes in this phase of the game there is impossible to be "unhittable capped" but i still think its better to stack Mastery instead of stamina...

[Fetzie]

not "unhittable cap", just "unhittable". Being unhittable already implies that you have capped your block chance

[Illidra]

OK some clarification here.

the reason mastery is so good is because it mitigates hits.

the more you have the mroe often you block.

this SMOOTHES OUT damage intake, and means that healer can use steady healign instead of spikey healing thus saving them mana.

blue socket: mastery stam
red socket: parry master
yellow socket: mastery

this should make your damage intake smoother from the mastery, less from the avoidance, and mean your healers have a much more relaxed and even tempo'd healing pace.

unhittable cap is a moto point as it cannot be obtained fully in this tier of gear.

[Fatæ]

Well there is no way to take it simple, stamina is still a important stat but not of the cost of your survivability, we also have to bare in mind we have Vengeance and is i believe that it will be regulated by your maximum health and additional hit points, indirectly translate to additional AP.

Mastery is a universal stat that is depending on the player's spec provides different benefits. and also the glyphs you use on that build are pretty impotant. Mastery provides a block rating and currently for every point we gain we will receive 2.25% increased chance to block. So yes we want to turn as much to Mastery as we can till we reach our 102.4% when you hit that magic nuber you will stop and can balance the rest out towards other stats or at least that will be your goal.

by this you will calcualte in gemming - Enchanting - Reforging to reach that number. Betwean the point that you reach that number by gearing up you will not be able to top your survivebilty this is a time consuming process. So don't reforge like crazy everything in to mastery without thinking it trough and keeping an eye on your other stats, try to do this balanced as you go. I like to reforge with a survivalist strategy, if you are not at the cap full combat table you better reforge haste, crit, expertise, hit, dodge/parry in to mastery and never reforge to haste, crit. at later stage when you are at your magic number 102.4 % reforge mastery into dodge/parry for additional avoidance instead of mitigation but be aware of diminishing returns you can also reforge into hit expertise for additional threat if needed.

this is at least what i learned of it all, maybe some things have been changed during time and so on but i try to stick to this information thus far ;-)

regards

[Loganisis]

not "unhittable cap", just "unhittable". Being unhittable already implies that you have capped your block chance

Actually - logically, unhittable implies you won't get hit, and thus won't take any damage (this was rogue tanking in TBC if I recall the stories). Unhittable for current tanks is such a misnomer, but it is the community standard. It's easy to see where people would get confused who are new to the terminology.

[Dedic]

When a mob uses a melee attack, there are five possibilities: dodge, parry, block, miss, and hit. So saying "unhittable" is entirely logical within the mechanics of the game. Outside the game, it does not make sense entirely -- if you block something, the hit still landed. I agree with you in this global context, but within the confines of WoW terminology, "unhittable" makes perfect sense.