Protection Gemming questions

[Nairobi]

Yeah, it's probably something I should do; I just never had the raw numbers in front of me pointing it out. I currently have 682k unbuffed, which I believe translates to ~715k in raid. My current stam gems come from a while ago, when I was dying to lack of heals on Horridon and Council (getting frozen because the OT didn't want to taunt is a death sentence...).

But things have changed since then, so I should probably reevaluate those choices (I mean, if I'm counting on self-healing anyways, might as well make it stronger). I'm sure you know how it is to get into a state and then find it hard to move out of it, especially if you haven't gotten any upgrades to push that change.

I had a really hard time giving up the Mastery/Stam paradigm at the start of MOP to go with haste. I felt like I was getting my teeth kicked in, and I likely was, as the whole idea of AM was still new-ish. I had actually benched the pal for my DK at the start of the 5.0 patch, but quickly gave that up (luckily), and had some re-learning to do.

That said, it's one of those things that I now look back at and wonder how we ever played without it. I mean, look at what you're gaining:

[Warning: Bad Napkin Math below}
Let's call that ~3000 haste you're picking up a flat 7%, for ease of argument. That means that you're essentially picking up 7% more melee attacks, ergo 7% more SOI procs. Your SS is also ticking 7% faster, meaning that you have 7% less time between shields. Your HPG abilities are coming available 7% faster, meaning you get 7% more ShotR casts, ergo 7% more uptime. This is further increased by DP (if you take it), to ~9% more uptime. All this also means 7%+ more DPS from you.

All that, for 30k HP.

So, thinking of it in terms like that, should make it at least a bit easier to make the switch.

[rhandric]

So, thinking of it in terms like that, should make it at least a bit easier to make the switch.

Yeah, I agree. The biggest reason I haven't changed my gems, tbh, is I haven't gotten any new pieces in at least a month, though my ilvl has increased by ~15 in that time (upgrading gear ftw). So I've gone from ~505 ilvl (which is, if not undergeared for ToT, a low threshold, where my stam on gear wasn't sufficient) to 521, without changing the gems with those upgrades.

[Zoopercat]

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot. Looks like you all have a good discussion going. I wanted to stop in since there are so many tanks here, to let you know of a feature we added about 1 month ago. If you click 'edit weights' - there will be a new stamina widget that lets you pick the level of Stamina you want: Max, High, Medium and Low. Each of these goes with a gemming strategy as well.

[Deleted]

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot. Looks like you all have a good discussion going. I wanted to stop in since there are so many tanks here, to let you know of a feature we added about 1 month ago. If you click 'edit weights' - there will be a new stamina widget that lets you pick the level of Stamina you want: Max, High, Medium and Low. Each of these goes with a gemming strategy as well.

The bigger issue is that the stat weights for dodge and parry is very unrealistic, also each tank has their own opinion on how important dps is, leading to very different opinions on how important crit is.

You got no option for agi/intellect - What?

Lacking options for pre-set soft capping expertise.
Lacking options to disable tier pieces

Weapon enchants / Trinkets being valued very weirdly

Cataclysm enchants are not added (mainly the BiS shield enchant)

Maybe sounds like I am whining now , you got a great tool, just a few tips on how it could improve. Also, is there no "Save" function for stat weights? Annoying having to completely redo every stat weight each time you use it.

[Deleted]

Also, is there no "Save" function for stat weights? Annoying having to completely redo every stat weight each time you use it.

AMR saves your weights by default, I think. At least, when I come back, it says I have "custom" weights to reflect my tinkering last time.

[Deleted]

AMR saves your weights by default, I think. At least, when I come back, it says I have "custom" weights to reflect my tinkering last time.

Hmm. Doesnt do that for me, but maybe because I dont use it often enough.

[Deleted]

Hmm. Doesnt do that for me, but maybe because I dont use it often enough.

Maybe you are right. Going back to it now, if you go into the weights screen, there is a "SAVE" button on the top left. I guess I pressed that rather than the weights being saved by default.

[Promdates]

The bigger issue is that the stat weights for dodge and parry is very unrealistic, also each tank has their own opinion on how important dps is, leading to very different opinions on how important crit is.

You got no option for agi/intellect - What?

Lacking options for pre-set soft capping expertise.
Lacking options to disable tier pieces

Weapon enchants / Trinkets being valued very weirdly

Cataclysm enchants are not added (mainly the BiS shield enchant)

Maybe sounds like I am whining now , you got a great tool, just a few tips on how it could improve. Also, is there no "Save" function for stat weights? Annoying having to completely redo every stat weight each time you use it.

You still get a benefit of Dodge/Parry. This whole thing about "DODGE PARRY IS 100% WORTHLESS" is just terrible thinking. Is it the best stat to go for? No, but it's not something that's just totally worthless and should be avoided like the plague/aids. Theck even did the stat weights for us on AMR, are you saying that he's wrong because he values D/P at 0.35?

Do you still receive armor from Agility? I know Paladins don't get any dodge from it anymore. Intellect just gives you spell crit, as the passive stops you from getting spell power from other sources than your normal attack power.

Soft expertise: This is the only forums where I've ever heard of anyone not going for 15% to be honest, everyone I know goes for 15% as they would rather minimize any RNG from parries they could possibly get. At certain gear levels, it's also hard to get rid of hit/exp. Did you try the "Enable Soft Expertise" option?

Disable Tier pieces: While people like to go for 0-2 pieces of T15, I've proved that you can go with 4 and still make 17-18k haste, and that the 4P can be beneficial. On top of that, you can disable the tier pieces if you uncheck the box from the item rankings. It removes them from any BiS list you make, but not from Best In Bags.

50 Mastery over 170 Parry, I've only seen one person use that, and it was Treckie during Sha of Fear progression. Don't think he's gone back to it since.

[Deleted]

You still get a benefit of Dodge/Parry. This whole thing about "DODGE PARRY IS 100% WORTHLESS" is just terrible thinking. Is it the best stat to go for? No, but it's not something that's just totally worthless and should be avoided like the plague/aids. Theck even did the stat weights for us on AMR, are you saying that he's wrong because he values D/P at 0.35?

Well, I do consider 0.35 to be a bit generous. I would trade 1000 dodge for 100 haste without even blinking. I found it kinda contradicting however that you consider expertise cap to be mandatory for reliability but you consider dodge/parry to be viable stats which are the grandparents of unreliablity.
Personally, I think 0.1 on both dodge and parry would be more realistic, however personally I value them at 0 as they are a dps decrease if you are using the AB glyph, which for me makes the -dps outweigh all positives of a dodge/parry.

On a reliability scale from 1 to Parry, expertise hard cap get a 2, since you can completely fix any reliability issues with expertise by bankig HoPo properly.

Do you still receive armor from Agility? I know Paladins don't get any dodge from it anymore. Intellect just gives you spell crit, as the passive stops you from getting spell power from other sources than your normal attack power.

Both gives crit, just a straight dps addition. Still needs to be in the stat weight list as they are relevant. You need to know how much dps you lose by switching a str piece to a agi/int piece and that is not possible with AMR in current state. You have to bring out your own calculator which kinda defeats to purpose of a site like AMR.

Soft expertise: This is the only forums where I've ever heard of anyone not going for 15% to be honest, everyone I know goes for 15% as they would rather minimize any RNG from parries they could possibly get. At certain gear levels, it's also hard to get rid of hit/exp. Did you try the "Enable Soft Expertise" option?

Yeah, you can use the Enable Soft Expertise option, but that is a long way around.

Yes, this is probably the only forum that talks a lot about expertise 15 not being mandatory, but this is also the forum that discussed it the most, and the outcome of the discussion has been a majority calling soft cap expertise viable or even superior. The RNG from parries can be negated completely by banking HoPo, leading you to gain dps, hopo, ss ticks and hps at the cost of absolutely nothing. And yeah, at certain gear levels it is hard to rid of hit/exp cap, but the goal is not to get rid of them, it is simply not to prio exp over haste. To goal is still to reach exp cap, just not at the cost of haste.

Pretty much everyone and their mother goes for 15 expertise straight of the bat, because that is the norm to do. That does not make it correct. We usually have sit downs talking with different prot paladins on my realm and other realms discussion protadin, what we think of talents current tier, specific boss fight tips, patch notes etc. We had quite a bit of discussion on the soft cap expertise and the consensus become that it was better, pretty much every paladin tank I know in-game goes for soft-cap expertise, mostly because we often had a logical discussion about it resulting in that becoming the preferred choice, and those that dont atleast admits it as a very viable option. Most people that actually tried it found it to be superior (as can be seen from a lot of posts in this forum of people trying it saying it felt a lot better).

Disable Tier pieces: While people like to go for 0-2 pieces of T15, I've proved that you can go with 4 and still make 17-18k haste, and that the 4P can be beneficial. On top of that, you can disable the tier pieces if you uncheck the box from the item rankings. It removes them from any BiS list you make, but not from Best In Bags.

If you raid 10 man, the 4p is not really that good. As far as I remember you raid 25 so I can understand you have a different viewpoint on the set bonuses, but you got to understand that the 4p is not that good in 10 man. I much prefer the reliability of using 4 well itemized items over getting 1 lackluster rng set bonus and 1 lackluster set bonus, not to mention the possibility of thunderforged. I also would never take a conqueror piece over anyone else in the raid. Getting the set is simply not a priority for me and many others.

50 Mastery over 170 Parry, I've only seen one person use that, and it was Treckie during Sha of Fear progression. Don't think he's gone back to it since.

I guess that is a matter of taste, but the option for both should still be there. Most paladins I know would rate parry low enough to make 50 mastery > 170 parry, but guess that is a matter of taste.

[Zoopercat]

Firefly, thanks for taking the time to post some feedback. Here's a few responses:

1. Exp soft cap: we have that option in the 'edit stat weights' menu. It's a check box on the left hand side.
2. Saving weights: If you're using the same browser and have cookies enabled, Mr. Robot will remember your custom weights when you return. Alternatively, if you save a profile, you can use the saved weights on any computer, browser, and even mobile device.
3. Tier pieces: are you asking to always ignore/include set bonuses? Or are you looking to not include them in BiS? If you wouldn't mind elaborating, that will help. We evaluate the set bonus with stat weights: we calculate how much armor you would need to equal the 4pc bonus, which we found to be 3,000 Armor. Then we apply the stat weight for armor to the set bonus. As you change the stat weight, the set bonus value changes with it.
4. Mastery Shield enchant - so you're saying that Mastery is 3.4 times better than parry? (which is the only way the Mastery enchant would be better). Not judging, just asking
4. We actually simulate every trinket and enchant that procs, for every class and spec. We then score them based on the resulting stat weights. Here's more info on how we handle trinkets, and here's the trinket page for Prot Pallies (the value listed is the amount of each stat you get from procs).

I didn't intend to hijack this thead (I just wanted to point out a new feature that sounded useful to the topic). But if you have any more questions and don't mind me hanging around here, I'll get you some answers

[Promdates]

I value them at 0 as they are a dps decrease if you are using the AB glyph, which for me makes the -dps outweigh all positives of a dodge/parry.

If you raid 10 man, the 4p is not really that good. As far as I remember you raid 25 so I can understand you have a different viewpoint on the set bonuses, but you got to understand that the 4p is not that good in 10 man. I much prefer the reliability of using 4 well itemized items over getting 1 lackluster rng set bonus and 1 lackluster set bonus, not to mention the possibility of thunderforged. I also would never take a conqueror piece over anyone else in the raid. Getting the set is simply not a priority for me and many others.

I have honestly stopped using the AB glyph as there's never a fight in ToT where it's better than something else. Yes, I do 25's... but even if I wasn't, I would still take the 4p because it is honestly that good. There are always ways you can abuse the bonus, just like we abuse mechanics where it gives us vengeance.

[celinamuna]

Firefly, thanks for taking the time to post some feedback. Here's a few responses:

1. Exp soft cap: we have that option in the 'edit stat weights' menu. It's a check box on the left hand side.
2. Saving weights: If you're using the same browser and have cookies enabled, Mr. Robot will remember your custom weights when you return. Alternatively, if you save a profile, you can use the saved weights on any computer, browser, and even mobile device.
3. Tier pieces: are you asking to always ignore/include set bonuses? Or are you looking to not include them in BiS? If you wouldn't mind elaborating, that will help. We evaluate the set bonus with stat weights: we calculate how much armor you would need to equal the 4pc bonus, which we found to be 3,000 Armor. Then we apply the stat weight for armor to the set bonus. As you change the stat weight, the set bonus value changes with it.
4. Mastery Shield enchant - so you're saying that Mastery is 3.4 times better than parry? (which is the only way the Mastery enchant would be better). Not judging, just asking
4. We actually simulate every trinket and enchant that procs, for every class and spec. We then score them based on the resulting stat weights. Here's more info on how we handle trinkets, and here's the trinket page for Prot Pallies (the value listed is the amount of each stat you get from procs).

I didn't intend to hijack this thead (I just wanted to point out a new feature that sounded useful to the topic). But if you have any more questions and don't mind me hanging around here, I'll get you some answers

Another problem is that you don't have int gear showing up. While we do get some benefit from str some of us would like to be able to edit the "main stats" stat weights.
(personally i'd rather use http://www.wowhead.com/item=95164 over my normal mode bladelord ring, yet it's not even on the list and i only found out about it a few days ago <_<)

[Gorfion]

@celinamuna I would love that ring too, but I don't see how we could even obtain it since blizzard's coding certainly wouldn't let us qualify for it; I don't think even holy spec would give the possibility of it dropping from oondasta. But as to the spirit of your request, it would be nice for agi/int gear to appear in AMR lists, since there are instances when they can be upgrades.

Looking at this thread made me realize I need to switch to more straight haste gems; I'm one of those people who randomly obsesses about meeting socket bonuses even when they aren't worth it. Time to dump a bit of stamina and gain haste yay! How high do you guys weigh strength in relation to haste? Trying to figure out if any of my strength socket bonuses are worth going for.

[celinamuna]

@celinamuna I would love that ring too, but I don't see how we could even obtain it since blizzard's coding certainly wouldn't let us qualify for it; I don't think even holy spec would give the possibility of it dropping from oondasta. But as to the spirit of your request, it would be nice for agi/int gear to appear in AMR lists, since there are instances when they can be upgrades.

Looking at this thread made me realize I need to switch to more straight haste gems; I'm one of those people who randomly obsesses about meeting socket bonuses even when they aren't worth it. Time to dump a bit of stamina and gain haste yay! How high do you guys weigh strength in relation to haste? Trying to figure out if any of my strength socket bonuses are worth going for.

I assume that "gear specialization" would affect world bosses (since they have same loot style as lfr).
Just need to remember to switch it from ret to holy for that boss.

[Nillo]

Both gives crit, just a straight dps addition. Still needs to be in the stat weight list as they are relevant. You need to know how much dps you lose by switching a str piece to a agi/int piece and that is not possible with AMR in current state. You have to bring out your own calculator which kinda defeats to purpose of a site like AMR.

last time I checked the conversion rate was 1%/10000 for agility and spell crit doesn't do all that much anyway.

[Deleted]

Looking at this thread made me realize I need to switch to more straight haste gems; I'm one of those people who randomly obsesses about meeting socket bonuses even when they aren't worth it. Time to dump a bit of stamina and gain haste yay! How high do you guys weigh strength in relation to haste? Trying to figure out if any of my strength socket bonuses are worth going for.

I usually value str, crit, int, agi and ap straight to their dps representations. I often have haste on a baseline of 3.0 as stat weight, and I put crit as the second base line at 1.5 While haste do not provide twice the damage as crit, it does however provide survivability increase, which is why I put it at twice the value.

I do base these stat weights at about 150k vengeance average~ If you have more vengeance crit and haste gets more value in relation to str, agi and int, and vice versa if you have lower.

After that, I just rate str,int and agi roughly based on crits value. Which would mean something like

Haste 3.0
Crit 1.5
Str 1.4
Agi 0.5
Int 0.1

As mentioned again, this is based on 150k vengeance average and is a rough estimate, not much math gone into it. More vengeance, higher value on haste and crit, less vengeance, higher value on str/agi/int.

last time I checked the conversion rate was 1%/10000 for agility and spell crit doesn't do all that much anyway.

Agi is worth about 33% of str and int about 7% of str at 150k vengeance, however agi and str scale better with vengeance, so at higher vengeance agi/int becomes better and vice versa for lower vengeance levels.

Nobody is saying agi is good, but neither is strength really and you still need to take it into account.

I have honestly stopped using the AB glyph as there's never a fight in ToT where it's better than something else. Yes, I do 25's... but even if I wasn't, I would still take the 4p because it is honestly that good. There are always ways you can abuse the bonus, just like we abuse mechanics where it gives us vengeance.

Yeah, I found myself barely using AB on any fight, mostly as a replacement for BH on those fights BH is bad, or if I do not want FS for whatever reason. Use FW on pretty much every fight.

At 4p, I think it is also a matter of playstyle. I do not often use cooldowns as a mitigation purpose, I use them more as oh shit buttons, so I wont be using DP on cooldown, which lowers the value of the 4p. I see a lot of people when checking other peoples logs say stuff like "Oh you only used AD once and GoAK twice you could have used them both 4 times". I sometimes end fights without ever using a specific cooldown, or well, I often pop them in the end. I save my cooldowns for emergencies or when I know I need one, and I rarely need a cooldown since I keep a tight SotR rotation. As long as I end a fight alive I do not mind not using my cooldowns a lot, as long as I dont die without using my cooldowns I am happy.

Firefly, thanks for taking the time to post some feedback. Here's a few responses:

1. Exp soft cap: we have that option in the 'edit stat weights' menu. It's a check box on the left hand side.
2. Saving weights: If you're using the same browser and have cookies enabled, Mr. Robot will remember your custom weights when you return. Alternatively, if you save a profile, you can use the saved weights on any computer, browser, and even mobile device.
3. Tier pieces: are you asking to always ignore/include set bonuses? Or are you looking to not include them in BiS? If you wouldn't mind elaborating, that will help. We evaluate the set bonus with stat weights: we calculate how much armor you would need to equal the 4pc bonus, which we found to be 3,000 Armor. Then we apply the stat weight for armor to the set bonus. As you change the stat weight, the set bonus value changes with it.
4. Mastery Shield enchant - so you're saying that Mastery is 3.4 times better than parry? (which is the only way the Mastery enchant would be better). Not judging, just asking
5. We actually simulate every trinket and enchant that procs, for every class and spec. We then score them based on the resulting stat weights. Here's more info on how we handle trinkets, and here's the trinket page for Prot Pallies (the value listed is the amount of each stat you get from procs).

I didn't intend to hijack this thead (I just wanted to point out a new feature that sounded useful to the topic). But if you have any more questions and don't mind me hanging around here, I'll get you some answers

1. Yeah I know about that. Was more referring that option being default, seeing both hard and soft cap values.
2. Guess I just been on to rarely for it to save it for me
3. Just an option for ignoring the "weight" of a tier bonus as it makes comparing items more annoying, and it would making a BiS list easier
4. I consider it to be yes. A lot of people do not, but I know a lot of people that do. I would trade 25 mastery for 170 parry. I mostly use the value of 0 for both dodge and parry when optimizing my character, sometimes I get naughty and put it up to 0.02
5. I guess, just gonna start locking trinkets.

Other: I think adding agi/int to stat weights and adding intellect items (plate + accessories) aswell as agility (accessories only) is important aswell. It would help a lot of people that do not realise how useful some agi/int items can be for us.

[Promdates]

At 4p, I think it is also a matter of playstyle. I do not often use cooldowns as a mitigation purpose, I use them more as oh shit buttons, so I wont be using DP on cooldown, which lowers the value of the 4p. I see a lot of people when checking other peoples logs say stuff like "Oh you only used AD once and GoAK twice you could have used them both 4 times". I sometimes end fights without ever using a specific cooldown, or well, I often pop them in the end. I save my cooldowns for emergencies or when I know I need one, and I rarely need a cooldown since I keep a tight SotR rotation. As long as I end a fight alive I do not mind not using my cooldowns a lot, as long as I dont die without using my cooldowns I am happy.

I mostly just use DP as a mitigation cd, unless it's megaera. I'll use GoAK and AD as my OH SHIT buttons though, cause honestly... paladins don't need that many of them. I do often call out for externals like Ironbark and Pain Suppression... cause well... yeah. But mostly depends on the fight.

[Deleted]

I mostly just use DP as a mitigation cd, unless it's megaera. I'll use GoAK and AD as my OH SHIT buttons though, cause honestly... paladins don't need that many of them. I do often call out for externals like Ironbark and Pain Suppression... cause well... yeah. But mostly depends on the fight.

I almost never glyph DP, so I only use it for those magical damage abilities, and on a lot of fights, those doesnt come up all the time. One some fights, there are simply no magic damage at all, but I still rather have another glyph than glyphed DP, which means I sit on dp for almost the entire fight.

I guess the 4ps value gets lowered a lot of you dont glyph dp.

[Nillo]

I still don't think we get crit from agi ~

[Deleted]

I still don't think we get crit from agi ~

We do. Easy enough to check the actual values.

I believe it is 10000 agi per point of crit or something like that. It is minimal but it is there. That makes me wonder if the dps stat values that theck calculated is correct though, since agi should probably be far lower than it currently is (currently sitting at 1/3 of the value of crit while it requires almost 12x more agi to get 1% of crit than crit.