Feral Tank Gems

[Chilifan]

Rawr plays WoW better than any one ever will. It takes a perfect scenario and tells you the outcome, so don't take it for fact. Experience / Raid comp / Encounter determines the gems and enchants that best suit your needs. But since you probably can't regem, enchant your gear, and change the raid comp every boss, I recommend the following gem selections:

30 stam in blues
10 agi + 15 stam in reds
dealers choice when it comes to yellow (10 def + 15 stam, 10 hit + 15 stam, or 30 stam)

The gems are just a bonus to your gear. If you chose full stamina or full agility with ~20 gem slots, the difference is ~10k hp vs ~10% dodge raid buffed. You choose.

[Ormula]

This here is almost exactly the way i feel. Coming across a druid fully stacked with stam gems always makes me cringe because more often than not they wont even see the hard-mode content and they do it because Druid X from paragon/ensidia/server top guild (the people who actually need the stam) do it.

fyi this is for all WoTLK not just ICC patch.

Bear tanking is my offspec and I gem pretty much pure stam (A few mixed gems in there, but that was because my expertise was dangerously low). My main spec is resto, and let me tell you I hate healing bear tanks who don't stam stack. Damage is so sporadic and it's not like you're gaining AP for SD procs, you're just gaining armor and dodge (And we're so damn close to the armor cap anyway DRs ruins agi--> armor). I stack Stam because I've seen it from both the healers and the tanks perspective.

[tibben]

(And we're so damn close to the armor cap anyway DRs ruins agi--> armor). I stack Stam because I've seen it from both the healers and the tanks perspective.

I'm less than 39,000 armor fully raid buffed with my current gear:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...The+Silver+Sun

That is before Indestructible Potion (3500 armor), but tell me how that is anywhere near the armor cap (49,905)? I don't have two armor trinkets because Putricide will never drop his stupid Organ, and I don't have VDW's ring because it has not dropped for my guild and we've killed her 16 times now between normal and heroic 25, but even with both armor trinkets and Indestructible Pot and the rep ring proc I'd still fall short of the armor cap.

I'm also a Bear/Resto druid and I would rather a bear tank that is building their gear from the ground up get more avoidance/mitigation while they are gearing to get into ICC than gem pure stam. Don't forget this topic is about a new bear trying to get geared up for raiding, not someone who has a full set of 251+ gear and is raiding ICC 10/25 already.

[Alski]

Bear tanking is my offspec and I gem pretty much pure stam (A few mixed gems in there, but that was because my expertise was dangerously low). My main spec is resto, and let me tell you I hate healing bear tanks who don't stam stack. Damage is so sporadic and it's not like you're gaining AP for SD procs, you're just gaining armor and dodge (And we're so damn close to the armor cap anyway DRs ruins agi--> armor). I stack Stam because I've seen it from both the healers and the tanks perspective.

While that's the case for you throughout WoTLK the majority of healers i have raided with (up until i stopped ~10 weeks ago after killing LK) have commented that they prefer'd healing me over any other tank, all that extra health is doing is allowing the healers to make mistakes :P

[Myth]

Welcome to thread number 89,023,409,238,489,723,234 about how to gem for tanking.


Longest debate ever. Gem how you want. Hell, gem armor pen for TPS.

[exochaft]

Longest debate ever. Gem how you want. Hell, gem armor pen for TPS.

...my guildies are trying to get me to gem arpen in tanking gear, lol. It's more of a joke, but I was thinking of doing it just to rub people the wrong way when they see my profile and scream "OMG Foul on da bear, whar stam?!? Pwnzer da newb wit arpen gems!!" The extra stam isn't doing much for me anymore, once I get a bit more honor, I'm tossing in a few more agi/stam gems in place of my 30 stam gems... I might just throw in some arpen for the fun of it! I told all the DPS that I'm rolling main spec on DBW for TPS already, so they won't be too surprised. Only need approximately 850 more arpen before I'm capped!

Edit: Oops, forgot to mention.... bad, player, bad! Never use Rawr as the end-all answer to gemming, because, as people have already noticed from this thread, the majority of people do NOT know how to use it or how to interpret the results. Just because an item is on the top of the list doesn't mean it's the correct choice for you or everyone. Read the Points tooltips, most of what you need explained is right there. For more info (surprise, surprise), see my sig link.

Edit #2: (so sue me, I'm cooking dinner and going back and forth from the comp, I forget things in the process). Anyways, if you want to go by the "top of the list, 350k survival cap, full raid buffs, -20% dodge aura, 3-stack of Hellscream/Wrynn buff, etc"... yeah, Rawr tells me to gem 20 agi. Excessive HP is excessive! Restrictions may apply, void where prohibited, no substitutions, exchanges, or refunds, may cause bloating or swelling of the fingers, batteries not included.

[littlepiggy]

If you chose full stamina or full agility with ~20 gem slots, the difference is ~10k hp vs ~10% dodge raid buffed. You choose.

~5% dodge, not 10

hitting the armor cap.. lol

[Chilifan]

~5% dodge, not 10

That's right, they changed the druid agility to dodge modifier a while back. It's more like ~6.5% after buffs. The thing is... you can see 10k hp, and it currently gets increased even more in ICC. What you can't see is if you are going to dodge or not. I favor stamina over agility, but there is there such a thing as too much health? Maybe if your healers are running oom, but with a massive health pool, over healing would be reduced, and healers would be able to save mana in that sense.

[bavarcarus]

The endless agi vs stm debate. You should gem agi or stm, or maybe an enduring in a yellow. Rawr is a good guide, but you really have to know what you're doing to get it setup to answer your questions properly. If you're not doing progression all you should really do is run a fight and watch your health, if you never go below 20% health, then you have enough stm. A good tank gets a feel for what's needed based not only on their incoming damage but on what the raid's doing...can you survive with what you've got?

[Mammoth]

Different fights require different tank stats. If its spell heavy like Sindy or the LK doing reaper on you then you probably want a load of stam. If your being hit by melee all the time avoidance and mitigation is your friend, since the healers won't have to burn as much mana on you.

Normally this means I carry a selection of trinkets, but if you really really want to have a stam stacked set of gear for big numbers, make a seconds set and only use it on the fights where stam is better than mitigation.

The fights are balanced around all tank classes. As a bear you should already have more HP than them. Stam shouldn't be an issue for you. Use Agi/Stam and Stam; Hit/Stam if it has a good enough socket bonus. Never pure stam stacking.

Stam is the GS for tanks. Its an indicator of gear, not a real representation of your survivability.

[Rédempteur]

Stam is the GS for tanks. Its an indicator of gear, not a real representation of your survivability.

I haven't done ICC in a while, but bring a tank with less than 50k on marrowgar25 and he will get 2-shot, especially with 2 tanks.

Anyway, with the ICC debuff it's worth gemming dodge/stam anymore, so go with pure stam (with an extra for meta) if you're main tanking, or Agi/Stam if you're off-tanking. Also, if you're off-tanking, i suggest using 0/60/11 with KotJ.

The fights are balanced around all tank classes. As a bear you should already have more HP than them. Stam shouldn't be an issue for you. Use Agi/Stam and Stam; Hit/Stam if it has a good enough socket bonus. Never pure stam stacking.

WotLK disagrees with you. Blizz forgot we had less mitigation and went ahead and homogenized classes anyway. I don't feel special anymore with my 48k hp in almost full 264(i do use PP10 trink), when warriors have 49k.

[Strykie]

Stam EVERY socket.
Stam/Agil in 1 Red socket, preferably 1 that gives a Stam bonus.
If any other red sockets have +9stam Throw a Stam/Agil in there too.

[Vellah]

gem stamina