Time to Regem for Stam?

[Bodasafa]

So I had gone from the usual mastery hybrids and full stam in blues to all out mastery through firelands.

Now after gearing out in FL, I'm CTC capped at like 105% without shield block up (so passive).

I'll link the armory instead of listing other stats: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...asafa/advanced

So I see other top tanks (likely CTC passive capped as well) going back to Hybrids and full stam gems.

So keep pouring on the mastery or not? As I understand it more mastery is just gravy on top with more % chance to crit block for 60% right?

[Bigbad]

Stamina is certainly an option right now but if its best I'm not sure yet, currently 4/8 normal 25man after one raid and didn't really feel the need for more stamina (100,4% CTC 212k hp raidbuffed), will need to do at least a few heroic bosses to make up my mind. I'm aiming to get the last 2% CTC while keeping 1 stamina trinket and a stamina flask with mastery gemming.

One big factor is the raidsize, 25man tanks will want more stamina then 10man tanks in general.

Mastery after unhittable is about 0,31% damage reduction and effects about 0,9% (60% block*1,5% crit block) of all hits while avoidance past unhittable is about 0,37% damage reduction and effects about 0,7%(state of DR) of all hits. Mastery was clearly better before unhittable since it effected 1,5% of all hits but after unhittable it barely effects more hits then avoidance and has less overall damage reduction.

Gemming might depend more on trinket choice then anything else since you want to keep unhittable. Stamina is always good for progression while slightly undergeared. In your case I would go for socketbonuses your missing now with mastery/stam and mastery/parry gems and for the rest just see if you feel like you need more stamina. One small thing your parry:dodge ratio seems slightly off should be at 1,2-1,3.

[Bodasafa]

I'm a 10 man raider , forgot to mention that.

The reason I have a higher dodge than parry ratio is due to gift of the wild and my trinket. I'm seeing about a 1% increase to parry from Gift and IIRC about the same from the trinket, that's a 1 min CD. I'm also noticing the same trend from the top tanks I watch (with dodge being higher than parry by a % or 2), the only conclusion I could come to is the reasoning I used.

I plan on the Mastery with Dodge use vendor trinket, paired with the Stam and proc Mastery on chance.

Based on your math it would seem that going for more avoidance after CTC cap would yield more net gain, albeit a small one.

[Fetzie]

Don't forget that taking overall less damage does not necessarily mean that you are easier to keep alive. In some cases, while avoidance would mean you take less damage, getting more stamina might make you easier to heal as the healers have more time to react. Especially at the beginning of a patch when you don't "know" the instance, even more so with looking towards hard-modes, stamina can be the better choice.

[Bodasafa]

Yeah, I'm generally a fan of static things, instead of RNG chance to do something, so after CTC cap, going for more stamina feels like a more stable approach. I guess I needed the math Bigbad sited to help decide that.

It looks like maintaining CTC cap and then regeming for stamina where viable would be the best bet. The gains from geming hybrids in regards to avoidance will be really small.

[Rowdy]

Well, I feel like if you gut enough gear to be CTC-capped and able to swap some gems from mastery to avoidance/stamina, the HP you get from the gear is enough anyway. I simple started to gem for mastery/avoidance or mastery/stamina to get all the socket-bonusses to just max out the overall stats I can get and it wirks really well.

There is no "right" or "wrong" here, just personal taste and I always felt that after I am able to be healed decently, it is my job to reduce damage taken

[Bigbad]

I'm aiming for the vp + stam mastery proc trinket as well. Other option would be the vp + stacking dodge trinket but i would probably gem a little more stamina with those 2 trinkets.

With battleshout and motw your parry:dodge ratio would be exactly 1 which isn't optimal unless you really want to minimize DR. Trinket might influence it a little but it only has a 25% uptime but if you want to balance around the trinket you should also keep windwalk (600 dodgerating) with 30ish% uptime in mind. The only reason I see is to minimize diminishing returns, close to 102,4% with flask and/or some other gear maybe? mirror trinket comes to mind. But it just disregards Hold the Line.

As far as stamina goes I like the bigger buffer but if I rarely drop low i feel its largely wasted and i could help the healers out more with more mastery/avoidance. Can't wait to get into dragonsoul 2nd time tomorrow been fun so far

[kopcap]

I am sitting at 218k raid buffed with 6 DS pieces, Mirror/Spindle and stam gems. CTC on the dot.

Dropping Mirror for a 687 stam trinket gives about 3.6k HP after rebalancing mastery.

Trinkets so far pan out to be Mirror, Spindle, VP (about 5.5% on use) and Indomitable depending on the fight. Not a fan of Vortex and dodge trinkets.

[Bodasafa]

I'm still keeping the Tol Barad trinket around, I haven't seen a use for it yet in Dragon Soul, but I won't hesitate to pull it out if I see a ton of resistible magic damage in heroic modes. 1 Min CD is just to hawt.

[Dreador]

FWIW and I might be crucified for saying this but, Xav's gearing for FL heroic was to hit 102.4 exactly and then stack stam. Judging by his armory he's back to all mastery gems and 2x mastery trinkets, and I haven't seen another thread pop up on premoguild, so I don't know what is going on in DS.

[kopcap]

I'm still keeping the Tol Barad trinket around, I haven't seen a use for it yet in Dragon Soul, but I won't hesitate to pull it out if I see a ton of resistible magic damage in heroic modes. 1 Min CD is just to hawt.

Well here we go:

- High stacks of Void Bolt on Ooze Boss
- Scream and transition AOE on Warlord
- Tanking Dreadblade and Barrages on Gunship
- Bolt on Madness

And keep in mind that all these fights have some serious AOE element in them and your SW may be required by the raid, effectively leaving you with the trinket and spell block only.

Sure, lots of fights seem pure meley, thats great. But Mirror is still Mirror

[Bodasafa]

FWIW and I might be crucified for saying this but, Xav's gearing for FL heroic was to hit 102.4 exactly and then stack stam. Judging by his armory he's back to all mastery gems and 2x mastery trinkets, and I haven't seen another thread pop up on premoguild, so I don't know what is going on in DS.

Actually his current armory along with Graf from Vodka show them using hybrids.

[Dreador]

Ah, posted without looking. Been a couple days.

[klausi]

I am sitting at 218k raid buffed with 6 DS pieces, Mirror/Spindle and stam gems. CTC on the dot.

Looks like those 397 pieces (maybe that extra socket?) gave you a large bump. I'm sitting at 205k raidbuffed with ctc cap, 2 ds pieces + rag shoulders and mirror/spindle and there isn't much wiggle room for a large chunk of stamina gems just yet.

My actual plan is: getting ctc capped with mirror, spindle or the new vp trinket (maybe later ones reforged to avoidance to don't waste something) plus one stamina trinket and gemming mostly stamina (but maybe still for color?) after thinking about one of your post at MMO-C.

If i can get my hands on all mastery/x items (will take some time, yay 10m + running with another block tank) i maybe can even use a souldrinker weapon and two stamina trinkets, but their proccs doesn't look to tempting compared to mirror (magical damage reduction when i need it) or spindle (20k absorb when i really need it).

Fact: there's a LOT of unblockable damage and even with both tanks using their raidcooldowns every other minute i had a rather hard time surviving bursts for the first week of normal modes.

[kopcap]

I am playing a warrior. Swapped TB for Indomitable, now at 222k.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=77211/indomitable-pride

[Bodasafa]

I am playing a warrior. Swapped TB for Indomitable, now at 222k.

Indomitable?

[Bodasafa]

So I picked up Indomitable, still able to hold CTC cap, plus the equip on that thing is better than I thought.

[gom]

Has anyone tried out a full stamina setup? (as a warrior tank) I'm eager to test it out as soon as I get a second stamina trinket. It seems stupid to give up a 100% chance to reduce melee damage by at least 30% but on certain encounters in this tier I think it could be really good. I think on normal mode it doesn't really matter at all. The only thing which is dangerous for me atm is the Impale+Elementium Bolt Combo on the last platform madness of deathwing. On Heroic mode however lets see;

ah keep in mind this is 10man
H:Morchok: This is the only encounter we did so far. So his hits are decent but the dangerous thing is the stomp. Even a blocked hit and a stomp combo can be dangerous. I traded my ctc for a stamina trinket and for me it felt saver so I would definitively do this in a full stamina setup.

H: Warlord: I'm not sure on this one. Since your tanking 2 mobs for quite some time a ctc setup is probably better. on the other hand the thing what really kills you is the psychic drain

H: yorsahj: Since your doing this with 1 tank in 10man the magic damage from the void bolt is insane therefore stamina setup

H:Hagara: the big thing here is obviously focused assault. you can't outrange it on heroic mode according to worldoflogs you can't block/avoid it either furthermore you take about 15-30 normal hits over the entire duration of the fight. So I would do this in a stamina setup too.

H:ultraxion: I think it doesnt really matter here not too interesting damage wise. I think its also one of the easier fights in heroic as soon as you have the gear.

H: Blackhorn: CTC is probably the better choice here although the dragon has a really nasty burst magic breath in P2. Blackhorn hits also like a truck towards the end but overall you don't have that much spikes.

H: Spine: It depends on what your doing but because of the mechanic in it with the hp reduce stacking debuff I would also lean towards stamina setup

H: Madness as I said this is the only encounter where it gets dangerous for me because of the impale+bolt combo. I can only survive this with both cds last stand and shield wall also in P2 the fire damage from blistering heat is insane a stamina setup will come in handy there too.

Idk I think its worth a try for sure. Even fully gemmed for stamina + trinkets + souldrinker I would still be at 91% total avoidance. And you could easily shift in two mastery trinkets (spidersilk+fire of deep) whenever you need and your almost at 100%.

[klausi]

We (tanks) gear for worst case and an unblocked hit right after a stomp on morchok might crush you compared to a 10k hitpoints buffer when you don't need it. Or think of an unblocked hit with some angered stacks on bubble boy or blackhorn at low % .. ouch!

In full non heroic gear you can reach ctc with two stamina trinkets as a warrior but i'd prefer using mirror/new vp trinket + stamina gemming over a second stamina trinket.

http://chardev.org/?profile=292501 vs. http://chardev.org/?profile=303717

On heroic modes:
Morchok - stamina after ctc
Warlord - i need mirror for drain
Yor'sahj - i desperatley need mirror on this fight with all magical damage flying around
Hagara - i use mirror for the lightning phase but it only helps and isn't THAT crucial. We taunt on Assault, i can't reliably survive it without shield wall - adding another 10-20k won't make or break anything. I'm nowwhere in the risk of dying outside of assault, it's my raidmembers with stacks from icelance + her frostbolt.
Ultraxion - depending on our lineup i either go full stamina (shieldblock uptime = 100%) without ctc or full dps (26 exp, strength stuff, crit, etc)
Blackhorn - can't soak stuff without a mirror..
Spine - haven't done it yet on heroic
Madness - see spine

So going two stamina trinkets is out of question for 3/6 heroic bosses because i need the additional anti magic cooldown from mirror -> use different gear but that's easier said than done for 10m.

[mistersix]

Now that people generally have several pieces of new gear and a half dozen or so epic gems to play with what's the general rule of thumb we're starting to see emerge? Early on I was assuming a mix of:

Fractured lightstones, puissant elven peridots, fine lava corals, and solid deepholm iolites (and fractured chimera's eyes or solid chimera eyes)

but I'm seeing regal elven peridots and defender's shadow spinels popping up a fair bit as well (and flashing chimera's eyes)