When to swap to stam stacking?

[Vynrael]

Basically, the title. I know my Unholy spec inside and out, but when it comes to tanking, I derp out.

I'm currently 377 in my tank gear, and I've seen a lot of DS DKs stam stacking. I have my armory in the sig, for any wishing to help a naga out.

And if I were to swap to stam stacking, would is be straight stam? Or Stam, Stam/Mastery, Stam/Parry gems for bonuses?

Any information on this is greatly appreciated.

Good Evening MMO-Champion

[Darsithis]

The only DK's that I am aware of that stack stamina are chasing heroic modes with a lot of magic damage. At iLvl 377, you should be stacking either dodge/parry or mastery. Definitely NOT stamina.

[laggspike]

The only DK's that I am aware of that stack stamina are chasing heroic modes with a lot of magic damage. At iLvl 377, you should be stacking either dodge/parry or mastery. Definitely NOT stamina.

Hmm, okay im at ilvl 393 atm, done 1/8 hc and working on yor'saj (spell?) and Hagara hc, they can barely keep my up*

not seen a single stamina stacking DK on my server tho, unless its a bad player :/ (you know what i mean right?)

[Beadyeye]

The only DK's that I am aware of that stack stamina are chasing heroic modes with a lot of magic damage. At iLvl 377, you should be stacking either dodge/parry or mastery. Definitely NOT stamina.

^ the latter part of this, really.

It's rare that I see DKs stacking stamina in the first instance on our realm to begin with. With my own gear I tend to use Puissant Elven Peridots and Fine Lava Corals (for those who are a li'l more strapped, the Dream Emerald and Ember Topaz of the same prefix) and work around dodge/parry/mastery either way. I guess I'm a blood DK that prefers the best of both worlds with Death Strike fun and a li'l more avoidance than most, but heck - each to their own.

Hmm, okay im at ilvl 393 atm, done 1/8 hc and working on yor'saj (spell?) and Hagara hc, they can barely keep my up*


not seen a single stamina stacking DK on my server tho, unless its a bad player :/ (you know what i mean right?)

...or the joyful players that make you cringe when they're specced 41/0/0... ugh.

[rinleezwins]

Our dk tank with 401 gear has 235k hp unbuffed and he can survive about anything. He never went down below 50% from impale on heroic madness with just his own cooldowns.

[Darsithis]

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that stacking stamina is a good thing, just that the only time I've heard of it is for heavy magic fights. That's it. I can't think of a good reason to do it myself. Stamina never equals, point for point, the value of mitigation or avoidance stats. At least not in T13

[Vereesà]

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that stacking stamina is a good thing, just that the only time I've heard of it is for heavy magic fights. That's it. I can't think of a good reason to do it myself. Stamina never equals, point for point, the value of mitigation or avoidance stats. At least not in T13

While definitely not a huge contributor, but an unglyphed VB will give the raid more health the more health the DK has.

[IllidariCouncil]

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that stacking stamina is a good thing, just that the only time I've heard of it is for heavy magic fights. That's it. I can't think of a good reason to do it myself. Stamina never equals, point for point, the value of mitigation or avoidance stats. At least not in T13

Yeah your basically giving up good stats to stack stam when you could be using something worth using if know what I mean. Personally I like stacking Mastery but then again I only do new heros and I like soloing. Im new to plate wearing in general so Idk the benefits of stacking stam I just know it wont solve nothing a healer cant fix. All my opinion though

[SSHA778]

I really don't understand extreme stamina stacking.

I really, really don't.

Your tank has ~270k HP buffed, more or less. Sweet.

Except for the part where I can create a gear-set with the same ilevel that takes about ~20% less raw damage, and outright mitigates ~15% more damage. Is 60k HP really worth that much? I strongly doubt it.

[cquirki]

Yeah im wondering when to swap to more stam aswell. I have 2 stam trinkets and i have prismatic elixir with the Mastery elixir and mastery food and had 4550 mastery. On wol I do a shit ton of healing but there have been cases(warmaster blackhorn) that I had not had a buuble up and gotten one shot by devastate mixxed with melee and roar. Stam would fix it a little.

Am I doing it wrong?
Do I have too much mastery?

[ccsabathia]

Our dk tank with 401 gear has 235k hp unbuffed and he can survive about anything. He never went down below 50% from impale on heroic madness with just his own cooldowns.

So you're saying that encounters are easy once you have the gear.

Thanks for the news.

[Fade to October]

I may not be a death knight tank as a main, but as my main (prot paladin), you only would stack stamina for magical damage since you cannot really resist it or gem for resist. You want avoidance. I know DK's do not block but you do have your absorption thing, if it works with CTC, I'd say avoidance after that. Stamina stacking is kind of pointless if you can avoid direct melee hits since no fights are just 'magic' damage or meat shield soaking. If I am wrong someone stop me now! c: honestly lol

[rated]

Yeah im wondering when to swap to more stam aswell.

Heroic madness.

[MorphexEU]

Stacking stamina isn't a bad idea, not when the player behind the keyboard really know how to play and is able to push out as many death strikes as possible. I am usually tanking 25man HC, and lets compare ultraxion 25man HC vs ultraxion 10man HC. In the 25man version i took less damage then the paladin tank. While in 10man, i took less damage then any other person in the raid, WITH A HUGE MARGIN.

On wol I do a shit ton of healing but there have been cases(warmaster blackhorn) that I had not had a buuble up and gotten one shot by devastate mixxed with melee and roar. Stam would fix it a little.

Stamina helped me, i barely dropped.

[MihmetCrido]

@rated As a Blood DK I would suggest avoidance for Madness which makes the impales very easy with proper shield-stacking before they hit, also you have Dream + IBFx2 + Army as 50% cds or more when you are avoidance. (You have one major cd for every impale along with Bone shield, the 378 dodge trinket and DS-shields. The impale dmg is around 810k if I'm remembering correctly, using a major cd + bone shield will leave 325k~ the trinket will absorb around 50k which leaves 275k~ which will require you to have a shield ranging from 50-100k to survive which should be very easy since one DS usually does the minimum amount. Tip: save ERW for Amry since it uses tons on runes, also save BT for a few sec before impale to have as big of a shield as possible along with preferably always taking the first impale so u have stack a 200k+ shield before the tentacle spawns and you should be able to keep that shield going.) Excluding external cds like HoS, Guardian spirit etc. Also I did not mention VB cus if best if you can manage with the glyph but if you have having issues don't glyph in and save for impales.

For stamina stacking, the more innate mastery you have the better stamina also becomes but it's not yet to a point where it more useful to have 270k hp and low mastery compared to 240k hp and very high mastery. Don't get me wrong stamina is still pretty good and it require MUCH less from the player but in term of number it's still inferior compared to the other ways.

Nuff rambling. TLDR: Stamina is decent, but not the best way to go if you want to minmax. Mastery>Avoidance>Stamina

[Nillo]

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that stacking stamina is a good thing, just that the only time I've heard of it is for heavy magic fights. That's it. I can't think of a good reason to do it myself. Stamina never equals, point for point, the value of mitigation or avoidance stats. At least not in T13

The thing is, that you don't really need more damage reduction in t13 level gear.
Just looking at most of my logs usually only about 5-20% of the healing I receive are direct heals and this is with stacking stamina.
So then the decision for me is between:
Going for more mastery/avoidance even though I already take close to no damage that requires healing
vs.
Going for more stamina, which is a decent dps boost (it being about 90% as good as Str), gives more stability against high unavoidable or bursty damage (mainly impales and 3 hit combos from Blackhorn) and slightly increases the value of base shield, max shield and VB 4pc unglyphed.

[kaelleria]

How do you figure stamina increases dps output?

I did some math in another thread... Using straight stam gems in every blue over stam/mastery nets you about 500-530 hp. This equals 9-10k hp. This increases your minimum ds heal by at most 700.

Just swapping to stam/mastery gem equates to ~400 mastery which is ~14% on your blood shield. Unless you are getting bursted down, which you shouldn't be, the extra 10k hp does nothing for you.

TLDR: Don't stack straight stam... ever.

[Drathos]

How do you figure stamina increases dps output?

I did some math in another thread... Using straight stam gems in every blue over stam/mastery nets you about 500-530 hp. This equals 9-10k hp. This increases your minimum ds heal by at most 700.

Just swapping to stam/mastery gem equates to ~400 mastery which is ~14% on your blood shield. Unless you are getting bursted down, which you shouldn't be, the extra 10k hp does nothing for you.

TLDR: Don't stack straight stam... ever.

Increases DPS output because of Vengeance.

[Seruketo]

I tank 25m HC Yors, Zonozz, and Ultraxion . I started stacking stam when I was getting killed in a single gcd.

[Mystile]

I tank 25m HC Yors, Zonozz, and Ultraxion . I started stacking stam when I was getting killed in a single gcd.

You're doing something incredibly wrong if you're dying in one GCD on any of those three fights. Try blood presence, and blood spec.