Tank Gemming

[Luztra]

Ok so I wanted to know othe optimal gems to use as a frost tank at 80. I see some guys doing straight stam spam, i see some people throwing strength gems in (ie stam + str) some places, i see some people doing stam and parry, hit and exp. What are important stats to gem for and what do you need to stay away from? Is strength good since it not only ups your AP but increases parry. How about geming for defense over the cap to add more overall avoidance?

[Nyanmaru]

str/stam is for the sole purpose of more attack power
stam is the way to go

Offtopic: frost is the worst tanking spec atm, I wouldn't recommend it

[Luztra]

my buddy said blood was better than frost at higher gear levels, but at the heroic level frost is fine. so imma stick with it till my gear requires me to go blood, just because i personally like frost.

[Nyanmaru]

You can also be fine in heroics with all defense or all avoidance gems, if you personally liked it or your buddy said so.

I don't say this to bully you, it's just that on personal preference, a few % difference in tank efficiency mean nothing.

[gaymer77]

You don't want to go over def cap ever. You want to stick as close to 540-545 as possible. As for the gems themself, there is nothing wrong with going straight up stam or def/stam if your gear doesn't give you def cap by itself or going dodge/stam for avoidance. If you find your threat is an issue (which is really hard to accomplish as a DK since their threat seems to be extremely high to begin with) then you could go str/stam.

[Nillo]

I'd say go for Stamina/Expertise gems in red slots at least until you have 26 Expertise, as it makes threat more reliable (several parries/dodges at the start of the fight are terrible) and gives more TPS per point than strength
Stamina/Def for Yellow slots as Def still gives the best + avoidance per point and hit isn't that usefull.
Pure stamina for blue slots.

If you mainly tank bosses like Steelbreaker where threat doesn't matter but health does go for Stamina and ignore socket bonuses.

[Ace23323]

str/stam is for the sole purpose of more attack power
stam is the way to go

Offtopic: frost is the worst tanking spec atm, I wouldn't recommend it

Stacking Strength also adds avoidance through forceful deflection.

Stacking stamina and dodge (never Parry) is the way to go. Frost tanking is certainly viable, even at higher gear levels. Frost DKs have awesome AoE threat, a few really nice CDs, and some good single-target threat (not as good as it was pre-FS nerf).

There isn't one "cardinal rule" to gemming...most of it is simply thinking about what would serve you best. For example:

Say you're at 25 expertise and just got a piece of gear with a red slot with a +6 dodge socket bonus. The best thing to put there would be a +8 exp./+12 stamina gem (or an epic, if you're rich). Of course, if you get expertise from another source afterwards (like the boots from reg. TotC), regem that with a +8 dodge/+12 stamina gem (or epic).

Or, for instance, say you just got a piece with a red socket and +4 strength bonus. +4 strength = 1 parry. Best thing to put here (assuming you dont' need expertise) would be +24 stamina and ignore the bonus.

NEVER gem for Parry...the DR on it is ridiculously low compared to dodge. Stamina/Dodge/Expertise/Defense if you're not capped should be the only things on your gems.

[plagueshard]

You don't want to go over def cap ever. You want to stick as close to 540-545 as possible. As for the gems themself, there is nothing wrong with going straight up stam or def/stam if your gear doesn't give you def cap by itself or going dodge/stam for avoidance. If you find your threat is an issue (which is really hard to accomplish as a DK since their threat seems to be extremely high to begin with) then you could go str/stam.

Post cap defense is better than parry, it provides more avoidance after the horrible DR is applied to parry. It also adds to the mitigation of IBF.

There's nothing wrong with going over the defense cap.

[Ace23323]

Post cap defense is better than parry, it provides more avoidance after the horrible DR is applied to parry. It also adds to the mitigation of IBF.

There's nothing wrong with going over the defense cap.

]

Well stated. A little cushion with the cap also gives you more flexibilty when choosing upgrades or different gear pieces. Its never a bad thing to have a little too much defense (of course, don't go 590 defense, either).

[gaymer77]

Post cap defense is better than parry, it provides more avoidance after the horrible DR is applied to parry. It also adds to the mitigation of IBF.

There's nothing wrong with going over the defense cap.

Where in my post do you see me saying anything about parry? I said dodge not parry.

[Sedative]

I gem all 30 stam.
/shrug

[NoAbloIngles]

Threat Gems:
Exp/Sta ( until reach 26exp )
Str/Sta ( if Exp soft caped - 26exp )
Dodge/Sta ( YES dodge its a Threat stat Rune Strike procs )

Avoidance Gems:
Dodge ( u should never gem pure dodge unless ur HP pool its really really insane )
Dodge/Stamina ( the best option )
DefR/Stamina ( only if ur below 540def skill )
Parry/Stamina ( only if you're a scrub, noob, faildk etc etc )

Hp Pool:
Stamina
Dodge/Stamina ( below 28%dodge nonbuffed )
Exp/stamina ( below 26exp )
Parry/Stamina ( only if you're a scrub, noob, faildk etc etc )

/thread

[Raptorg]

I only gem stamina and expertise/stamina gems.

[wanax]

Threat Gems:
Exp/Sta ( until reach 26exp )
Str/Sta ( if Exp soft caped - 26exp )
Dodge/Sta ( YES dodge its a Threat stat Rune Strike procs )

Avoidance Gems:
Dodge ( u should never gem pure dodge unless ur HP pool its really really insane )
Dodge/Stamina ( the best option )
DefR/Stamina ( only if ur below 540def skill )
Parry/Stamina ( only if you're a scrub, noob, faildk etc etc )

Hp Pool:
Stamina
Dodge/Stamina ( below 28%dodge nonbuffed )
Exp/stamina ( below 26exp )
Parry/Stamina ( only if you're a scrub, noob, faildk etc etc )

/thread

You do know they fixed parry so it doesnt suck nads right?

[fabian]

You do know they fixed parry so it doesnt suck nads right?

you should know that as a dk, 1/4th of your str is converted to parry rating, so gemming parry still sucks ass for dks, mainly because you've got shit loads already.

[Emcee]

Full stam is the way to go for best raid survivability. If there's a good socket bonus, def/stam in yellow, dodge/stam in red.

This is from a raiding perspective. Look up effective health vs avoidance.

Parry argument-Yes parry was fixed to where it doesn't completely suck (before dr, dodge and parry rating give same % avoidance) but it still sucks for DKs 2 reasons. The cap on parry is 40ish compared to 80ish which means the dr curve is much steeper so as you get more parry rating, it starts to give less avoidance than dodge per rating point. The second reason, DK's get a ton of parry rating from forceful deflection which counts towards dr. (btw, ironically, we had a nickname as a parry tank, but both warriors and pallies will have more parry than us in same gear lol)

Too much def argument - Umm defense actually gives decent amount of avoidance, it's not too far under dodge, more than parry, and more importantly, it's a yellow gem stat. dodge is a red gem stat. Assuming there's a good enough socket bonus to warrant using a yellow/green gem, what would you propose to use otherwise? I guess you can use hit/stam if you have aggro problems and don't have enough hit in your gear, but that's not the case for most.

[NoAbloIngles]

You do know they fixed parry so it doesnt suck nads right?

u know there is something named Diminishing Returns right?

Full stam is the way to go for best raid survivability. If there's a good socket bonus, def/stam in yellow, dodge/stam in red.

This is from a raiding perspective. Look up effective health vs avoidance.

Parry argument-Yes parry was fixed to where it doesn't completely suck (before dr, dodge and parry rating give same % avoidance) but it still sucks for DKs 2 reasons. The cap on parry is 40ish compared to 80ish which means the dr curve is much steeper so as you get more parry rating, it starts to give less avoidance than dodge per rating point. The second reason, DK's get a ton of parry rating from forceful deflection which counts towards dr. (btw, ironically, we had a nickname as a parry tank, but both warriors and pallies will have more parry than us in same gear lol)

Too much def argument - Umm defense actually gives decent amount of avoidance, it's not too far under dodge, more than parry, and more importantly, it's a yellow gem stat. dodge is a red gem stat. Assuming there's a good enough socket bonus to warrant using a yellow/green gem, what would you propose to use otherwise? I guess you can use hit/stam if you have aggro problems and don't have enough hit in your gear, but that's not the case for most.

QTF
something "funny" while farming(Rune strikes procs), wearing my dps gear im at 14.48% parry with HotW.
and 19.30% with all my str procs.



Also, stop posting, the question has a good answer's already, with a good explaination.
/thread

[jai151]

You do know they fixed parry so it doesnt suck nads right?

It's far from fixed. You still get slightly less per point of parry than of dodge because the DR hits much much sooner. So until they stop overvaluing the haste effect of parry (or better yet, remove it) and give it the exact same cap and DR as dodge, it will always be the inferior stat.

[Sedative]

Also, stop posting, the question has a good answer's already, with a good explaination.
/thread

Ok. But only because you said so.
/thread

[NoAbloIngles]

Ok. But only because you said so.
/thread

TY.

/thread