Tank Question: Stam vs Mastery 10 Man Normal Raids

[Zaiosrs]

G'day Everyone,

Just been trying to research this question for a while now and hoping to find some help here

I have been playing catch up gear wise on my warrior to tank in our 1 Casual 10 man normal mode raid and so far I have been gearing like what I have seen most Warrior tanks do, running Hit to Cap > Expertise to Cap > Stam > Mastery > Parry > Dodge (as a simplified version).

Now that my item level and gearing has caught up for the most part, I was wondering if I should look into gemming/enchanting/etc towards mastery vs stamina in the hopes of being a bit more useful in my raid group.

Focusing on Stamina for gemming/enchants/etc has given me a nice health pool in order to soak hits as/when needed, but other things like dmg out put, etc are very much behind the rest of the raid grp and I feel fairly useless outside maintaining sunder on the target/s.

Would gemming/enchanting/etc Mastery (now that my gear level is high enough to have a decent amount of stam naturally from gear) prove to be more useful in raid as far as more Block/Enrage up time for dmg output (or even some crit gear) be something to consider? Or should I stick to Stam?

We don't really look at Hardmode content, or going for server first kills, etc, just trying to make my tank as useful as possible. Our raids other tank is a monk tank, so he already has insane dmg output, but takes more dmg then me already, and thats how we have kind of been tanking together to date, I'll take the larger hits as needed while letting him use his dmg output to the best use (tortos adds, Lei Shen lightning balls, etc)

Thank you in advance for any help and advice

Zaiosas

[bgwilly31]

from what ive heard it doesnt really make a difference in 10 m. The best warriors pushing hardmodes go stam.

My off spec ive recently just switched over to a stam build. Havent needed to fill in tank role yet since i switched but i will try and report once i do.

[Valech]

10 man normal mastery is superior. You´ll need stamina only for surviving those big hits at 25 man and some 10 man heroics.

[Deleted]

10M PoV: For progressing in heroics you'll want stamina if you undergear content, but 4 months into the current content with several thousand valor points earned and spent on gear & upgrades it's highly unlikely you still need a 10% buff. For some special fights/jobs like tanking bats on Tortos or keep Marli busy you can still equip stamina trinkets*.

Ps: monks are imho stronger on harder hitting bosses, especially after obtaining their 4 piece bonus. There are just to few things we can block to come out on top damage taken wise if/when the monk gears & plays correctly (and if you take their self healing capabilities into account... which you should ) .

* i forgot to do exactly that just yesterday and went in with two dps trinkets, strength food & flask ...

[19:44:29.657] High Priestess Mar'li Wrath of the Loa YOU 139995
[19:44:30.030] Kazra'jin Reckless Charge YOU 87750
[19:44:32.107] High Priestess Mar'li Wrath of the Loa YOU 131403
[19:44:32.483] Sul the Sandcrawler Sand Bolt YOU 145168
[19:44:32.801] Frost King Malakk hits YOU 129827
[19:44:32.801] Frost King Malakk hits YOU 63544

My shield barrier just ran out before that and spell reflect was already on cooldown. That's 700k damage in a 3 seconds window. I was just on my way from Marli's add back to the team, intervening my co-tank to eat some frost stacks when a kicker missed a Sand Bolt. This *can* happen and only stamina or unhuman reaction time might have saved me from that death.

[Valech]

10M PoV: For progressing in heroics you'll want stamina if you undergear content, but 4 months into the current content with several thousand valor points earned and spent on gear & upgrades it's highly unlikely you still need a 10% buff. For some special fights/jobs like tanking bats on Tortos or keep Marli busy you can still equip stamina trinkets.

Ps: monks are imho stronger on harder hitting bosses, especially after obtaining their 4 piece bonus. There are just to few things we can block to come out on top damage taken wise if/when the monk gears & plays correctly (and if you take their self healing capabilities into account... which you should ) .

I would just like to add, that you shouldn´t take ANY hits from mar´li as a warrior at all..

[Deleted]

I would just like to add, that you shouldn´t take ANY hits from mar´li as a warrior at all..

And how do you do that? We take 25% less damage from magic so we're probably the best tank for that, but you'll have to aid in your camp most of the time (stunning adds, prevent freeze on your co tank) and can't interrupt/reflect her 24/7. And you don't want her to stay next to the camp due to the healing add outside of the empowered phase. Unless of course it's not your duty to keep her occupied

[Valech]

Glyphed spellreflection, specced Massspellreflection, specced disrupting shout and the standard pummel. If anything comes through that you may soak it with barrier. But that will rarely happen.
You can stunn every second add with shockwave, if you don´t happen to hit three targets. And taunting Malakk + cleaving a bit on him until the first tanks re-taunts shouldn´t interfere with pummeling or spellreflecting.

[Deleted]

Theory and practice or are you talking about 25M stuff?

a) As soon as frigid assault is going to happen you can't stand next to her. Thus you can't interrupt her during the last ~ 4-5 seconds and run away or she'll follow you and most likely causing a wipe. You can't bring Malakk to her because the rest of the raid is cleaving him next to Sul and you most likely don't want a second (or third, depending on farm or progress) empowered frostbite.
b) Safeguard is noticeable stronger (frigid assault is the tank spike damage phase after all) compared to a single reflected wrath (150k damage) once every 60 seconds imho.

She casts nonstop, so one cast every 2.5 to 3 seconds to catch. You only get a breathing room every ~ 30 seconds after the first set of Blessed Loa Spirits. This only works with alternating barrier with your other spells or see the problem below:

0 Pummel
3 Spell Reflect
6 Disrupting Shout
9 Mass Spell Reflect
12
15 Pummel
18
21
24 Spell Reflect
27
30 Pummel

versus

0 Pummel
3 Barrier
6 Spell Reflect
9 Barrier
12 Disrupting Shout
15 Barrier
18 Pummel
21 Barrier
24 Mass Spell Reflect
27 Barrier
30 Spell Reflect
etc

But in practice i run around all the time slowing/catching/stunning (i run there with warbringer, shockwave AND storm bolt to take care of things) barely have time for caring for Marli actually and my aoe damage contribution is more important. This might be different in your raid (totally other comp?), but to be honest outside of that rare death you can basically ignore her with the way we play it. This fight comes down to dps Sul fast enough (= no sand storm) while aoe the rest of pack, handling the blessed spirits and don't overnuke your raid on Blanka while utilizing the empowered bars to it's fullest potential.

edit: well, anyway this was about stam vs mastery. I just wanted to point out that there might be occassions where you could (only?) live with stamina, but unless you undergear content i'd highly encourage going for mastery on 10M so you smooth out your damage intake.

[Valech]

Are you talking about heroic? Will answer your post after raid.