Treat T12 Normal like Heroic? Stamina is more valuable until we get more gear?

[Lightmgl]

Alot of people aren't mentioning some of the facets of the non stam gear and the tanking too. If the spikes are predictable, its on you to use your cooldowns to reduce them. On Shannox you know you're gonna eat alot of damage when he gets the spear back. Save your Death Strike, Shield Block, or Holy Shield for that and you don't need the extra health pool because you know you're going to heavily reduce the melee attack that goes with it. Other reactives like Power Word Shield and Earth Shield are going to help further mitigate this. You know you are going to be eating some serious damage during Frenzy too so save the heavy emergency cooldowns for that.

If you move beyond skill usage and start looking at some of the non stam options like Spidersilk Spindle you'll realize that if you take that dangerous burst you'll proc a 17k absorb shield on yourself to help mitigate. Thats much better then having the stamina trinket to cushion it in the first place as you get the health when you need it, and you get alot more than you would get by throwing on a 544 stam trinket. Also if you are using gear like this with the increased mitigation it is much more likely that you and your healers will have mana/cooldowns for the specific bursts instead of being forced to use them at other points in the fight because of less avoidance or blocking.

There really isn't any outright burst in the game that can kill you regardless of whether you go for stam or avoidance unless you eat it with absolutely none of the things that the game gives you and the healers to help you deal with it or you screw up a mechanic. It might be a bit more of an issue in 353, but certainly not 359 or 359 with mixed 365. I'm sure Heroic T12 is when we will have to pick it up a bit. Some of the pieces seem to add massive amounts of stamina compared to their non heroic versions as do specific slots of 378 (shields lol).

tldr; I'd rather be smart about dealing with the burst and having the increased mitigation the rest of the time. Makes it easier to keep you up and makes it easier to keep the raid up. Block capping as a Warrior also isn't too much of a dream anymore, especially if you are a Night Elf. I'm already looking at 86% combined B/D/P as a human unbuffed and I'm far from optimally geared for it. Bosses still appear to have a 5% miss chance too so if I was a Night Elf I'd already be looking at something like 93% avoidance unbuffed. If you're not hitting it 100% of the time you're certainly gonna hit it 66% of the time once you get 4 piece, very easily.

[swelt]

The whole discussion shifts if you can reach 'unhittable'. Once you get the magic 100% (or 102.4?) combined b/p/d/m then you can factor in block as a given reduction on physical hits when calculating how much stamina is 'enough'. Until you get to that point however, 'enough' stamina is going to be loosely defined as whatever the biggest unblocked spike is.

I don't think it's helpful to focus too heavily on Shannox, but I also don't think you can say that you can mitigate all his spike damage through cooldown usage. Sure, you know he'll do a spike right after he gets his spear back, but that isn't the only time he's going to do a melee and arcing slash combo and it's the ones in between where you also have the DOT to factor in.

[Kazistrasza]

Last night our 10-man guild got our first Firelands raid in. We all went in pretty much right at a 359 ilvl as we only got one Halfus and one Chimaeron kill in before the patch (we started the guild REALLY late into the tier). Both I (DK) and our pally tank are currently gemmed stamina and stamina hybrids.

When we killed Shannox he was handling Riplimb and was never in danger of dying at any point. However, I was handling Shannox and even with the smaller hits from 10-man there were a few times where I saw my health get really low that I might not have survived if I hadn't gemmed for stam. Honestly, I died in the end anyway IIRC to a an unlucky spikey between two heals being cast and everyone but the warrior managed to dump enough threat for the pally to pick it up and finish the last 1mil HP.

When we killed Beth'tilac, I was going up top to tank her while our pally handled the adds down below. Again, healing him was never an issue once our DPS got set up better at killing the adds and he didn't end up with 2 drones and 2 spinners on him at same time. On our kill, I did again have an issue with almost dying and wouldn't have lived without the ~25k I picked up with I switched to stam from mastery. Granted, I got a couple parries on Unholy strike when trying to re-apply at that time so the damage reduction debuff fell off but I was still getting hit for more or less the exact amount of his Divine Light and Word of Glory for about 6 casts before I could be gotten up again (I was between CDs on this point).

As Loganisis already said, with flawless playing it really doesn't matter. However, even on 10-man for the first two fights I've done I'm seeing it beneficial for us to both be stamina and have that much higher EH. I dislike the WotLK model of tank gearing, because it was silly. However, I still think EH has its merits when you're capable of getting those bursts.

[Reev]

Logan, I did Shannox 25 man last night, and I definitely see what you mean. There's some definite spike damage there in 25s.

[Tengenstein]

Last night our 10-man guild got our first Firelands raid in. We all went in pretty much right at a 359 ilvl as we only got one Halfus and one Chimaeron kill in before the patch (we started the guild REALLY late into the tier). Both I (DK) and our pally tank are currently gemmed stamina and stamina hybrids.

When we killed Shannox he was handling Riplimb and was never in danger of dying at any point. However, I was handling Shannox and even with the smaller hits from 10-man there were a few times where I saw my health get really low that I might not have survived if I hadn't gemmed for stam. Honestly, I died in the end anyway IIRC to a an unlucky spikey between two heals being cast and everyone but the warrior managed to dump enough threat for the pally to pick it up and finish the last 1mil HP.

We just got out first kill tonight, i have mainly 359 gear; 157k health unbuffed and 52% block, my trinkets where Worm and Mirror, at only 2 points did worm Proc and both where in the last 30%, I really didn't feel in danger of dying until 2 of my 3 healers ate a magma flare.

[Loganisis]

Logan, I did Shannox 25 man last night, and I definitely see what you mean. There's some definite spike damage there in 25s.

It does makes sense there is bigger damage, you have 2 healers (wtb disc in the future though...) basically glued to you. But the margins for error just felt so frustratingly small. However, given time to reflect - it isn't as big of an issue - it's more adjusting to the fight better.

Some players who are more talented than I can do that a little faster. I needed to vent a little. I still think that the minor change in bad hit strings in 25m from switching from mastery-centered to stam-centered isn't going to result in any noticeable damage increase, but it will provide that slightly larger margin until I can get a few more 378s. Then it's back to mastery-centered and as much CTC as possible.

[Lightmgl]

In reality this is going to vary heavily from fight to fight too.

In some fights like Beth'tilac and Baleroc, avoidance should be the clear winner (especially Baleroc). In Alysrazor you're probably going to be gearing more for damage (hit/exp) and less for mitigation unless you find yourself having a really easy time killing your bird. In Majordomo it is a tossup as Stamina is much better for Scorpion but avoidance is much better for Cat. Once again it is a tossup on Rag too as the Seeds can lead to some serious burst, but I prefer Mastery there anyways since even just Shield Block reduces that burst alot and other cooldowns trivialize it. I would say it is a tossup on Shannox too.

Anyways hitting 102.4 is going to be easy as a Paladin and semi-easy as a Warrior (it will take more optimized gear and 2 trinkets with avoidance stats on them if you are not a night elf). I'm actually finding myself still preferring the 359 Alchemy Trinket dualed with the Beth'tilac trinket because it pushes me up to 95% raidbuffed avoidance. If I ditched a few of my dodge/parry pieces for mastery pieces, I would not be very far off the cap.

That brings up another interesting mathematical point we will have to determine for warriors. Is it better to shoot for 102.4 all the time and make your 4pc worthless (well not worthless but significantly less useful), or is it better to shoot for 94.4, and let yourself be capped 2/3rds of the time (1/3rd for shield block, 1/3rd from 4pc) and leave yourself a bit more vulnerable the other 1/3rd of the time in exchange for much higher stamina. I'm actually thinking the Warrior 4pc may get left in the dust and we may just choose to replace the worst pieces (Helm, Chest) with Mastery alternatives to help shoot for the 102.4 cap full time without sacrificing as much to get there.

[Loganisis]

In reality this is going to vary heavily from fight to fight too.

Yes - but the only fight I'm worried about burst down for that I've seen in Shannox. So it's the only I'm going to focus on primarily.

Anyways hitting 102.4 is going to be easy as a Paladin and semi-easy as a Warrior (it will take more optimized gear and 2 trinkets with avoidance stats on them if you are not a night elf). I'm actually finding myself still preferring the 359 Alchemy Trinket dualed with the Beth'tilac trinket because it pushes me up to 95% raidbuffed avoidance. If I ditched a few of my dodge/parry pieces for mastery pieces, I would not be very far off the cap.

This is basically irrelevent to the topic at hand. What to do right now? With 3-5 drops (depending on the slot) it's clearly going to go back to CTC-builds. But right now I'm more concerened with having 'enough' health to take the bursts reliably.

[kopcap]

Unittable is easily achievable in 378 gear with 2 mastery trinkets, with or without the 4 piece. We are going to talk about pushing block off the table rather than getting to 102.4

Heroic gear naturally emphasizes avoidance. Choice we gonna be having seems to be stamina vs avoidance, how to balance them.

[Reev]

Yeah, I'm thinking for 25 man, I may go back to a stam centered approach. Right now I think I only have around 180k fully buffed HP, and I'm seeing 80k arcing slashes and 80k melee swings (when unblocked, like 8% of the time), plus the ticking DoT. While the extra mastery is nice for keeping me from being low on HP when the arcing slash lands, the "worst case scenario" isn't unlikely in 25 man, so you kind of have to be prepared for it. I'm not liking that they've made a "worst case scenario" possible one shot again. I was pretty happy they got away from that last tier. Oh well.

[Lightmgl]

Yes - but the only fight I'm worried about burst down for that I've seen in Shannox. So it's the only I'm going to focus on primarily.



This is basically irrelevent to the topic at hand. What to do right now? With 3-5 drops (depending on the slot) it's clearly going to go back to CTC-builds. But right now I'm more concerened with having 'enough' health to take the bursts reliably.

I guess I misunderstood since you refer to Tier 12 in the topic and not just Shannox, I thought you were making a blanket statement about T12 based on your experience with Shannox.

Going back to Shannox then the only dangerous burst should be post Frenzy, and going back to what I originally said that goes with how comfortable you and your raid are with rotating cooldowns. If you feel like you need stamina because you aren't comfortable rotating your personal cooldowns with BoSac, Rallying Cry, etc. then you should definitely gear the stamina.

[Loganisis]

I guess I misunderstood since you refer to Tier 12 in the topic and not just Shannox, I thought you were making a blanket statement about T12 based on your experience with Shannox.

Well, this was a gut reaction to Shannox - which is what we did the first night. I had lots of attempts and at this point, this was my only point of reference. I should have changed the title to Shannox, but never really thought of it as the dicussion was mostly on Shannon. At the time i posted, Shannox = T12 for me.

Going back to Shannox then the only dangerous burst should be post Frenzy, and going back to what I originally said that goes with how comfortable you and your raid are with rotating cooldowns. If you feel like you need stamina because you aren't comfortable rotating your personal cooldowns with BoSac, Rallying Cry, etc. then you should definitely gear the stamina.

yeah, the issue is you can't have CDs up 100% of the fight - and it's in those areas where I don't have avialble tanking CDs and raid CDs are being used more for the AoE, I still want to make sure I can survive a worst case before I work on smoothing damage.

[Lightmgl]

Well, this was a gut reaction to Shannox - which is what we did the first night. I had lots of attempts and at this point, this was my only point of reference. I should have changed the title to Shannox, but never really thought of it as the dicussion was mostly on Shannon. At the time i posted, Shannox = T12 for me.



yeah, the issue is you can't have CDs up 100% of the fight - and it's in those areas where I don't have avialble tanking CDs and raid CDs are being used more for the AoE, I still want to make sure I can survive a worst case before I work on smoothing damage.

Thats strange though because outside of Frenzy the damage has never been bursty enough to take our tanks down in non stam gear unless the physical damage debuff drops off. Pre frenzy we're typically seeing a max burst of around 150k-160k if nothing is missed/avoided/blocked. Since having the extra stamina doesn't mean you will survive an additional hit after that without heals, it never seemed worth it to me so I opt for reducing the odds that that burst will ever happen to reduce the likelihood that I will ever be 1 attack/dot tick away from death.

I guess thats just how my personal tank philosophy has evolved. If the stamina is not enough to allow you to survive the next hit on you without heals, its not worth stacking it. Thankfully during Frenzy its pretty easy to keep up a rotation for most/all of it that will prevent the 1 shots.

Its a bit of an odd fight for Warriors/Paladins too since you can't block Arcing Slash for some reason, its a totally different ballgame for druids and dks tanking him since their absorbs can reduce it and that acts as having a larger health pool for them.

[theodisius]

Unittable is easily achievable in 378 gear with 2 mastery trinkets,...

Can you link a gear set that shows this? My calculations suggested that's true for my pally but I can't see it holding for a warrior.

[kopcap]

My computer is too slow atm to load that profile. I basically just put a together BIS list from normal T12 and heroic T11 with two mastery trinkets and T12 4 set with a head off piece, put mastery hybrid gems, reforged to mastery/dodge and ticked mastery elixir and food. Hit was off the table. Nelf warriors could get decimals off it in t11 anyway, can't be too hard now.

[gacktt]

Unittable is easily achievable in 378 gear with 2 mastery trinkets, with or without the 4 piece. We are going to talk about pushing block off the table rather than getting to 102.4 Heroic gear naturally emphasizes avoidance. Choice we gonna be having seems to be stamina vs avoidance, how to balance them.

Mastery trinket? there's only one tanking trinket with mastery, thanks to the whole "durrr no agi->dodge for you!" change. edit: ah I did not notice beth'tilac has a mastery trinket.

[klausi]

Unittable is easily achievable in 378 gear with 2 mastery trinkets, with or without the 4 piece. We are going to talk about pushing block off the table rather than getting to 102.4

It was almost possible for a warrior nelf using two mastery trinkets and a mastery elixir combo, reaching 101,x% during a Windwalk procc or using their trinket.

With two 391 trinkets and the natural gear increasement via itemlevel it should be possible for every race outside of proccs, especially considering some better itemized slots. Just compare your current gear to Pauldrons of Roaring Flame or Uncrushable Belt of Fury (422 mastery with gems, fourhundredtwentytwo!). But honestly i'm looking more forward to reaching (way) higher level of avoidance rather then higher level of ctc when i think of many of those boss's abilities. This might depend as well on raidsize where you're tanking, just have a look at the great differences on Shannox for 10m vs 25m gearing.

[Alysana]

Pauldrons of Roaring Flame

I must've missed this, but have they been confirmed to give mastery now? For a long time they were showing dodge+hit ingame but dodge+mastery on the armory.

Edit: Just saw the hotfix on mmo, completely missed it sorry.

But not only will stamina vs avoidance change based on the encounter, it'll also change heavily depending on YOUR healers. What works best for Xav might not work as good for you, purely due to his healers. If your healers are never struggling with mana and finding it a breeze to heal you, then you might as well stack stamina to increase their time to react.

It's really not as black and white as people try to make it sound like, we're not DPS where there's only one right path.

[GideonJura]

You're taking as a example probably the only fight in Firelands where stamina can payoff a bit more due to the fact of being required a certain mobility and a large amount of damage being in the form of dots.

From what i've seen so far (7/7 in normal and shannox in hc) there's no other fight where you can get so much of a large health pool.

[Loganisis]

You're taking as a example probably the only fight in Firelands where stamina can payoff a bit more due to the fact of being required a certain mobility and a large amount of damage being in the form of dots.

From what i've seen so far (7/7 in normal and shannox in hc) there's no other fight where you can get so much of a large health pool.

Yeah - as it's been pointed out - this post was made very early in the tier. It's been mentioned several times.

Really, this thread should be end :P