Feral Tank Gemming Question

[Mijolnyr]

In Ulduar tanks take a massive amount of damage even when they are geared properly the idea that you can just stam stack and absorb the damage is ridiculous. Threat needs to be high for certain fights due to complex tanking methods but it isn't the biggest issue with druids. The biggest stat that separates nub bears from pros is the dodge% in raid while tanking. Our gear provides us with plenty of crit and AP, so stacking for these will add a minimal addition to our total mitigation. SD procs are good but a 35% chance to crit unbuffed is sufficient enough to keep it up the majority of the time in which I would also like to point out SD absorption is lacking in Ulduar person, 2k blocks when getting hit for 20-30k is nice but not going to make or break the tank. There are al`so abilities that bosses use that can be avoided but not blocked or negated by shields. Basically Dodge>>>Stam>SD.

With that its very obvious that we need to gain as much dodge as possible in this game. Everyone is yelling agi agi AGI, which is a great start because of the multiple stats it boosts, but when you get to Ulduar and even just full 25 man Naxx gear you get Diminishing returns for dodge per agi enough to reduce the effective dodge per agi to a small fraction of what it gave in lower gear levels. The only way to maximize dodge% is to balance out dodge rating with agi, and seeing as there are only a few items that drop with just straight dodge on them eventually the best gem for dodge% would be not agi gems but dodge raiting gems or dodge/stam gems. Yes you wil loose a little crit and ap but at Ulduar gear lvls dodge gives almost twice the % for dodge then agi does and thats more dodge which is greater than anything else you can gem for.

I currently stand raid buffed tanking over 50% dodge with no CDs running still maintain a large amount of crit and AP and maintain 5-6k TPS I don't touch agi gems due to the low amount of dodge they give for my tanking set.

[arel00]

The only way to maximize dodge% is to balance out dodge rating with agi, and seeing as there are only a few items that drop with just straight dodge on them eventually the best gem for dodge% would be not agi gems but dodge raiting gems or dodge/stam gems.

No.

The DR is calculated on your dodge chance, regardless of what you're using to get there. Agilty, dodge rating, and even defense are all accounted into the same formula when you have to calculate your Dodge DR.
The only change that will ever happen to gems is going for Defense in order to get Miss chance, but that is very unlikely to come anytime soon. Before that, it's agility and agility and agility again.

The game works this way, period.

[irdsyd]

I'm a druid who is dual specced for tanking and resto - and collected full sets for both specs pre-Ulduar as we cleared Naxx in early December and did weekly one night clears allowing the druids in our guild the collection of 3 full sets of gear.

Since Uldaur started I have been tanking. We have downed Yogg and are now up to doing the bosses hard mode - so I have some experience in Ulduar and in general the theorycraft and my experience suggests avoidance > stamina although it isn't as clear cut and divided as this thread sometimes suggests - depending on boss mechanics there is a minimum threshhold of stamina that can be important - and that minimum switches for some bosses (and yes people have pointed out context matters and you should try to gather a stamina/resistance set as well as an avoidance set).

My only observation on the stamina versus avoidance question is that ulduar melee gear tends to be overloaded with stamina so once you get a fair few ulduar drops in your gear the choice about what to gem for is simple. However, when you first start Ulduar or if you are a 10-man guild, then there may indeed be an argument for more balanced gemming though in general avoidance is always > stamina.

The reason I thought it might be useful for me to post in this thread are the more recent posts about the difference in healing a high avoidance tank and a high stamina tank and the belief that avoidance tanks lead to more spiky damage and therefore it all evens out because of overhealing.

Because I have a lot of experience healing (having healed through all TBC content and Naxx and healed as a druid, priest and paladin - but never a shaman) I thought I might contribute to this misconception. I am only trying to be helpful and not get into a heated debate.

In terms of spikiness the difference between a 40% avoidance tank and a 50% avoidance tank is very little. On a hard hitting boss where the mechanics are large hits at a certain rate both tanks will take spiky damage. The difference in 40% or 50% avoidance for a spam healer like a paladin where you are just trying to keep the tank out of the danger zone (the amount of health where one more hit could kill) as much as possible is that the amount of damage the higher avoidance tank is taking over a longer fight is 10% less. As an example lets say as a paladin you can heal at 3k hps and the boss hits at 5k hps average. The 50% avoidance tank will reduce this damage on average to 2.5k hps whereas the 40% avoidance tank will reduce it to 3k hps - your margin for error is less and the likelihood the tank will spend a lot longer in the danger zone is greater with the lower avoidance tank.

And as a healer of any class healing a tank the times when I can feel safe trying to conserve mana is when the tank is sitting at 100% health. In my experience high avoidance tanks give you a lot more of those periods where they stay at 100% health because of avoiding a number of hits in a row.

So my experience would suggest healing a high avoidance tank is easier.

[Leafre]

...you get Diminishing returns for dodge per agi enough to reduce the effective dodge per agi to a small fraction of what it gave in lower gear levels.

Ugh, ugh, noes. Dodge overall has DR, not dodge/agi. Dodge or dodge/stamina gems aren't for druids.