Mastery or Stamina

[pallyballz]

I haven't touched my Blood DK since right before Firelands was released. Right now my DK is gemmed for Mastery mostly but im seeing a lot of DK's with straight Stamina as well after looking some up in top world guilds. How should I gem...Mastery or Stamina?

[Clevername]

from the pure amateurs perspective it appears those with top gear levels are going the way of heavy stam gemming but for intermediate to low gear levels looks like mastery / avoidance.

[Aoyi]

Either can be fine for normal modes. The top guilds are doing stam because you need it more for some of the heroic fights or at least enough to survive some of the scarier moments in the fights like Zon'ozz/Spine.

[wettlaur]

i whould go for mastery gems 9/10 times, just because stam will be on every single part of your gear, maybe not all of your trikest but yea. And if you really do want to go for more stam, you can alwats go for stam/mastery gems

[Scarybeasty]

Mastery all the way. On magic fights it is awesome with some extra stamina though. As i read a lot in this forums and i agree with wholeheartly. Go stamina if you cant survive the hits you take, when you dont get one shooted, go mastery.

[Darsithis]

Unless your stamina is so low that you're struggling to stay alive, you shouldn't gem for it, in my opinion. Stick with mastery OR with avoidance.

Do your best to get stam trinkets like the Soulshifter Vortex, for instance, which will shore up health and provide a great proc.

[Meeni]

It really depends on what kind of content you're doing (hc or normal DS).

The stammina stacking is used for fights like H yorsahj/H warmaster/H madness.
H yorsahj is because of the severe amount of magic damage you take, especially if you'r solo tanking it, and having avoidance for this fight is pretty much useless because you should have a maxed out bloodshield during the whole fight.
H warmaster is because of the 200k+ melee hits you're taking in the end of the fight, more stammina is less stress on you'r healers and a smaller chance of being 1-shot.
H Madness is because of the impales and the last set of adds in P2 (almost all their significant damage is spell damage).

In short, unless you're doing HM progression or have problems being 1-shot alot i would suggest you stick with the common thing and go for mastery and avoidance.

[learntotank]

I've just been gemming Puissant in Blue/Yellow sockets and Fine in Red, and that works just fine. Mastery and Stamina both have their pros and cons and I find a mix of both works fine.

-Estra

[Imoh]

I just have 2 sets of gear, one with heavy stam gemming and hit/exp reforging and one with mastery gemming and reforging, swapping between them as I feel the need.

It can be a pain to build 2 sets but LFR makes it a lot easier.

[Nyanmaru]

Your healers stay at 80% mana but you get close to dieing every 10s ? -> Go stam.
Your healers struggle for mana but your HP never dips below 80% ? -> Go mastery/avoidance.

Mastery stacking helps with taking less damage overall whereas stamina stacking helps with heavy spike damage. What's your main issue?

[Deleted]

im no dk-tank, but lately i realized, that our dk tank gemmed from mastery to stamina.
When i asked him why he did this, he told me that he already has lots of mastery on his gear right now and at some point going for stamina makes his blood shields stronger than going for mastery (your deathstrike heals for x% of max health, your bloodshield will be y% of the amount healed by deathstrike). im no dk tank, so i cant prove this fact but maybe this can really be a reason?

[hellboyy]

i really dont think healer running out of mana is an issue anymore, maybe on heroic spine+deathwing. if u r doing hard modes about 26 mastery is sufficient. stamina removes the possibility of sudden gibs. if its normal modes it hardly matters. stamina maybe better on madness.

[alucardtnuoc]

i really dont think healer running out of mana is an issue anymore, maybe on heroic spine+deathwing. if u r doing hard modes about 26 mastery is sufficient. stamina removes the possibility of sudden gibs. if its normal modes it hardly matters. stamina maybe better on madness.

Mastery works very well on madness normal, i single tank it on my dk who sits at about 32 mastery, i get a big enough shield to fully negate the first impale.

The way i do it is

1st = bloodshield
2nd = dream
3rd = bloodshield
4th = IBF
5th = bloodshield
6th = DRM + Army
7th = bloodshield
8th = IBF

[xtramuscle]

in that case hes only deathstriking for the minimum amount, regardless of if you're mastery or stamina stacked, you should aim for efficient use of deathstrike (either building a shield before a big predictable hit, or using it directly after a big hit for a huge shield). More HP = bigger max shield, but shield capping is only achievable on some fights, such as Morchok (pop ams stand in black stuff and preshield for next mini phase) Yorsajh, (either after a big voidbold tick, or by staying on this boss whilst he summons oozes) Zon'ozz, I don't think its really doable. On Hagara you have a choice between preshielding for focused assault, or using it mid assalut for a blood shield which will last the rest fo the melee swings until the next assault (my preferred tactic but I stam stack so I dont really come close to death even from a full assualt). Ultraxion you can build small shields when you're OTing, but not ideal (but she hits like a wet flannel so who cares right?) Black horn u can preshield when OTing, very important to do so, can't be done on spine I think? Madness cap whilst OTing..

If I were tanking 10man, normal or HC, or 25man normal I'd stack mastery all out. But for 25man (heroic) you simply need more stamina. With full HC gear you gain ALOT of mastery anyway, so stamina is the way to go IMO.

[SSHA778]

im no dk-tank, but lately i realized, that our dk tank gemmed from mastery to stamina.
When i asked him why he did this, he told me that he already has lots of mastery on his gear right now and at some point going for stamina makes his blood shields stronger than going for mastery (your deathstrike heals for x% of max health, your bloodshield will be y% of the amount healed by deathstrike). im no dk tank, so i cant prove this fact but maybe this can really be a reason?

Only true when considering minimum heals, which you shouldn't be getting often if you're doing relevant content.

More than likely an indication that he doesn't know exactly how DS works.

[Twilightdawn]

Unless your stamina is so low that you're struggling to stay alive, you shouldn't gem for it, in my opinion. Stick with mastery OR with avoidance.

Do your best to get stam trinkets like the Soulshifter Vortex, for instance, which will shore up health and provide a great proc.

Basically this, if you have a piece of gear with a good mastery socket bonus, try to use a parry/dodge + stam just to keep it up there
but i usually do all mastery

[lizon]

im no dk-tank, but lately i realized, that our dk tank gemmed from mastery to stamina.
When i asked him why he did this, he told me that he already has lots of mastery on his gear right now and at some point going for stamina makes his blood shields stronger than going for mastery (your deathstrike heals for x% of max health, your bloodshield will be y% of the amount healed by deathstrike). im no dk tank, so i cant prove this fact but maybe this can really be a reason?

What the...I don't even....

Tell your DK tank to open up his spellbook and read the tooltip for Death Strike. Stamina only effects the minimum amount of healing that you get from DS. Most of the time it will heal for more than that.

[Jackkernaut]

TBH, depends on the fight, some requires more avoid(Zon'onzz,Lolagara for Focus assault on HC,Blackhorn for obvious reasons,Spine's Amaglamations, Madness p2*) and some requires Stamina(Yorsa'j the unsleeping makes the tanks sleepy, loltraxion requires AMS after 22/45 seconds).
Madness Stamina and Mastery is pure quality of life due the fact some DKs love to trade thier CDs usage for BS stacking skills for the impales(although BS stacking mad skills required 4 times on HC madness due double damage xD) correct me if i wrong but 100k BS on impales on normal mode should suffice if you have Bone Shield up.
Morchok is 5 man dungeon boss quality have nothing to say about it.

[SSHA778]

Focused Assault cannot be dodged/blocked/parried. Only absorbed.

You cannot dodge/parry Tetanus. A stack is applied and the damage goes through regardless of dodge/parries.