Mastery or Stamina?

[Bavlet]

Hi all, just a quick question i had. I have come across a lot of top Pallas stacking stamina in all slots, however i am currently stacking mastery in all slots, am i doing it wrong? :I

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...avlet/advanced

[Deleted]

Hi all, just a quick question i had. I have come across a lot of top Pallas stacking stamina in all slots, however i am currently stacking mastery in all slots, am i doing it wrong? :I

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...avlet/advanced

CTC cap then stamina.

[Sourjoe]

As a tank, you're going to want to get to 95% avoidance; which is your dodge, parry, and block all calculated together. Currently you're at 96.23, which is slightly over but not terrible.

Some tanks have reached avoidance cap through gear and reforging, and therefore have no avoidance stats to gem and can go for straight stam gems. For red gem slots get the parry/mastery, blue go with stam/mastery, maybe yellow too if you're that much over the cap. Go for a few socket bonuses like in your helm that offers stam bonus. Your parry/dodge are within 1% of each other which is pretty good for diminishing returns; personally I like to have my dodge a little higher because your parry gets bumped up with Kings/Mark.

[Deleted]

Bosses are technically 3 levels above you, so you need 102.4% combined avoidance, block and miss. This means (with the 5% chance for a boss to miss), that you need 97.4% yourself. After that, stamina is the way to go.

[Malthanis]

As a tank, you're going to want to get to 95% avoidance; which is your dodge, parry, and block all calculated together. Currently you're at 96.23, which is slightly over but not terrible.

This is slightly off. Full CTC is at a combined total of 102.4% (dodge + parry + block + 5% base miss chance). I can't click through to your armory at this moment, but if Sourjoe's number (96.23%) is correct, you're actually at 101.23%, so you're not that far off.

[shetan]

A lot of it has to deal with what you're comfortable with.

However, it is the general rule of thumb to get to CTC through almost any means necessary, the start moving mastery to dodge/parry while keeping dodge a bit higher due to raid buffs to the point that you're comfortable with your avoidance. I, personally, sit at 19% dodge/parry in a raid and am beginning to plan gear for exp/hit.

For me, I run Fine Ember Topazes in Red sockets, Regal Dream Emeralds in Blue and Yellow with the occasional Puissant Dream Emerald if I need the mastery. At your gear level, you should be more than capable of running those gems however you want and allow reforging to do some of the work as well.

What you see top end guild tanks doing is generally ~not~ the norm (e.g.: Laziel with his LoH tank spec for HM LK), etc. It is far more advisable to stick to the generally accepted patterns and work with your guild.

[MrWiggles]

Once i hit ctc i switched to stam stacking. Most of the dangerous damage in ds comes from magic, so having that extra health buffer has helped reduce stress on my healers.

[underdogba]

However, it is the general rule of thumb to get to CTC through almost any means necessary, the start moving mastery to dodge/parry while keeping dodge a bit higher due to raid buffs to the point that you're comfortable with your avoidance. I, personally, sit at 19% dodge/parry in a raid and am beginning to plan gear for exp/hit.

This is not the generally accepted consensus about what to do after CTC Cap.

The majority of challenging current content is filled with magic damage and other mechanics that favor going stam-heavy after reaching full CTC.

There are even some fights in this tier where it's worth not CTC-capping just to stack even more stamina.

[Nillo]

However, it is the general rule of thumb to get to CTC through almost any means necessary, the start moving mastery to dodge/parry while keeping dodge a bit higher due to raid buffs to the point that you're comfortable with your avoidance. I, personally, sit at 19% dodge/parry in a raid and am beginning to plan gear for exp/hit.

What you see top end guild tanks doing is generally ~not~ the norm (e.g.: Laziel with his LoH tank spec for HM LK), etc. It is far more advisable to stick to the generally accepted patterns and work with your guild.

And there I thought the general consensus for paladin tanks was mastery to cap then stack stamina.
Besides with how hard certain abilities hit in current content I really can't see avoidance being all that great.
- Morchok: unavoidable stomp followed by double damage for a few seconds => avoidance too unreliable here.
- Zon'ozz: Laserbeam + Autohits can one-shot tanks at 7+ stacks of his enrage.
- Yor'sahj: Almost pure magical damage here => avoidance useless.
- Hagara: Avoidance might work against focused attacks - but still I'd rather have a huge health pool against it.
- Gunship: Devestate + Shout = gief hp
- Madness: the really dangerous things here are unavoidable (impales in p1, large add dots in p2)

[underdogba]

And there I thought the general consensus for paladin tanks was mastery to cap then stack stamina.
Besides with how hard certain abilities hit in current content I really can't see avoidance being all that great.
- Morchok: unavoidable stomp followed by double damage for a few seconds => avoidance too unreliable here.
- Zon'ozz: Laserbeam + Autohits can one-shot tanks at 7+ stacks of his enrage.
- Yor'sahj: Almost pure magical damage here => avoidance useless.
- Hagara: Avoidance might work against focused attacks - but still I'd rather have a huge health pool against it.
- Gunship: Devestate + Shout = gief hp
- Madness: the really dangerous things here are unavoidable (impales in p1, large add dots in p2)

The best overall strategy in view of what the content is like is to mainly run a CTC-capped set that maximizes stam after achieving CTC, and having a few alternate pieces to swap in that might drop you a little below full-CTC but are gemmed exclusively with solids. Double-stam trinkets is also a viable possibility in this scenario (even if one of them involves dropping ilvl to 378), although in your regular gear you will probably want to run Fire in the Deep / Indominable Pride, and possibly swapping in the Mirror for times you're stacking stam to face magic spikes.

[shetan]

I tend to state "general consensus" as those who sim the numbers and do the hard math for people to draw his or her own deductions from.

Heroic progression and normal progression are two separate beasts altogether now. Never, in any of our H Yor'shaj attempts did I feel that the magic damage was so high that I needed more stam. It is the same with our Warlord progression: we're not wiping or coming close to wiping in P1 in which would be a tank death; it's P2 and the overall raid damage that we're trying to get over. I feel that if you're getting 1-shot at 7 stacks, you need to adjust your CD planning and maybe adjust ball strategy.

Maybe for Hagara I could see stam stacking for focused assaults...but that's nothing that some CDs cannot mitigate with taunts here and there.

Using nothing but mastery to continue to fill the gap as was the case for early on in this expac and keeping with that mindset is, to me, wrong. I would rather dodge or parry a melee swing than take a reduced 30% damage one as dodge/parry are first on the roll.


To the OP: you're never going to find many tanks who agree on one thing or another. The single best advice that can be given is to look at the content you're progressing on, see where ~you~ are taking the most damage and talk with your healers. Adjust your gear from that to include gems, trinkets, reforges, etc, until both you and your healers are fairly comfortable that you're not going to fall over dead if they need to drop a quick heal on a raid member.

[underdogba]

Using nothing but mastery to continue to fill the gap as was the case for early on in this expac and keeping with that mindset is, to me, wrong. I would rather dodge or parry a melee swing than take a reduced 30% damage one as dodge/parry are first on the roll.

This statement is extremely suspect and I think pretty conclusively demonstrates that the entirety of the claims made in the post are made up, as the poster does not understand the basic mechanics of the combat table, which is the central idea inherent to all paladin tanking theory.

---------- Post added 2011-12-29 at 03:34 PM ----------

Maybe for Hagara I could see stam stacking for focused assaults...but that's nothing that some CDs cannot mitigate with taunts here and there.

It's funny, you have it the exact opposite! This is the one situation where stacking more avoidance after CTC is actually good.

---------- Post added 2011-12-29 at 03:37 PM ----------

To the OP: you're never going to find many tanks who agree on one thing or another. The single best advice that can be given is to look at the content you're progressing on, see where ~you~ are taking the most damage and talk with your healers. Adjust your gear from that to include gems, trinkets, reforges, etc, until both you and your healers are fairly comfortable that you're not going to fall over dead if they need to drop a quick heal on a raid member.

While this statement is technically correct, it's essentially completely meaningless and unhelpful, because the OP is looking for actual advice, and not some patronizing statement about how "adjust[ing] your gear" will help you be more healable, without accurately discussing what those adjustments actually are, which is I think what the OP really wants to know and what practical players actually care about.

---------- Post added 2011-12-29 at 03:41 PM ----------

Never, in any of our H Yor'shaj attempts did I feel that the magic damage was so high that I needed more stam. It is the same with our Warlord progression: we're not wiping or coming close to wiping in P1 in which would be a tank death; it's P2 and the overall raid damage that we're trying to get over. I feel that if you're getting 1-shot at 7 stacks, you need to adjust your CD planning and maybe adjust ball strategy.

Just because you are not dying specifically does not mean that a larger health pool wouldn't give the healers more breathing room to add healing elsewhere. These fights are pretty squarely 60/40 physical/magic, and on Warlord the specific burst attack is magic. Traditionally this is the exact scenario where stacking health shines. This fact cannot simply be discounted by making vague claims about CD planning. For example, even with Glyphed Divine Protection mitigating the burst attack on Warlord, it's always beneficial to land on the other side of the attack with more health.

[davep]

This is slightly off. Full CTC is at a combined total of 102.4% (dodge + parry + block + 5% base miss chance). I can't click through to your armory at this moment, but if Sourjoe's number (96.23%) is correct, you're actually at 101.23%, so you're not that far off.

That's unbuffed though, so 95%+5% miss = 100% plus the raid buffs = about 102.4%

[Malthanis]

That's unbuffed though, so 95%+5% miss = 100% plus the raid buffs = about 102.4%

You know, I always forget about calculating for the buffs. Thanks for throwing that clarification on.

[underdogba]

This is slightly off. Full CTC is at a combined total of 102.4% (dodge + parry + block + 5% base miss chance). I can't click through to your armory at this moment, but if Sourjoe's number (96.23%) is correct, you're actually at 101.23%, so you're not that far off.

The easiest thing imo is to import your character into the Chardev website, and under Buffs select Horn of Winter or Strength of Earth, and Kings or Mark, and your food buff. The newest updated version of the site has a CTC field under the defensive stats that will simply you show you the calculated value after buffs.

Depending on how much parry rating you have, 101.23% should be just about exactly 102.4% after buffs.

[davep]

I would suggest getting the addon ReforgeLite also, it's amazing. It will get you as close to CTC cap as possible while estimating how much the raid buffs gives you, if you are over it will reforge mastery into dodge or parry depending on which it wants to get you evened up at. Using it I'm down to about 60% block with almost 19% dodge and parry when fully buffed, it gets me at exactly 102.4% when i have kings+horn/shout. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...pereira/simple

---------- Post added 2011-12-29 at 04:09 PM ----------

The easiest thing imo is to import your character into the Chardev website, and under Buffs select Horn of Winter or Strength of Earth, and Kings or Mark, and your food buff. The newest updated version of the site has a CTC field under the defensive stats that will simply you show you the calculated value after buffs.

Depending on how much parry rating you have, 101.23% should be just about exactly 102.4% after buffs.

Ya reforgelite does the same thing, great addon and don't even need to log out to refresh my character.

[MrWiggles]

focused assault can't miss, be blocked, dodged or parried so the best way to deal with it is preemptively move, having more health will allow you to live longer if you don't move fast enough.

dodge and parry is nice, but it is unreliable, stam is the best way to increase effective health after ctc.

[davep]

Personally what I did was after I felt I was going over CTC too much I dropped all my mastery gems for the 3 JC stam gems, 20 dodge/30stam(blue and yellow socket) and 20 parry/30stam(red socket). Then I used ReforgeLite to see where it would get me, if I wasn't at CTC I would change some of the 20 dodge/30stam for 20 mastery/30stam until I got back to CTC cap.