Prot pally geming question

[hlx]

hi there
I was just wondering. I'm a prot pally with 152k health dodge/parry at around 12% and mastery at 50%. Right now my gemming strategy is this

• blue: stamina
• yellow: mastery/stamina
• red: parry/stamina
• prismatic: stamina

I am about to start raiding 10mans and I was thinking if at this point (ilvl 351) gemming for mastery might be a better idea. will gemming strategy like this work better?

• blue: mastery/stamina
• yellow: mastery
• red: parry/mastery
• prismatic: mastery

I know ofc it will reduce my hp but wont the mastery boost be much sexier gain? Or is stamina the king right now in raiding? (we are talking normal 10mans, no hardcore progression thing)
what are your thoughts/ideas?

[MorphexEU]

hi there
I was just wondering. I'm a prot pally with 152k health dodge/parry at around 12% and mastery at 50%. Right now my gemming strategy is this

• blue: stamina
• yellow: mastery/stamina
• red: parry/stamina
• prismatic: stamina

I am about to start raiding 10mans and I was thinking if at this point (ilvl 351) gemming for mastery might be a better idea. will gemming strategy like this work better?

• blue: mastery/stamina
• yellow: mastery
• red: parry/mastery
• prismatic: mastery

I know ofc it will reduce my hp but wont the mastery boost be much sexier gain? Or is stamina the king right now in raiding? (we are talking normal 10mans, no hardcore progression thing)
what are your thoughts/ideas?

I was tanking my first raid with 123k hp... and 35% block.... and i stacked stamina, worked "great". So, stamina is still the king.
Thats and example tho, but the stat prio is something like:

Stamina > mastery > dodge / parry > hit / expertise.

You dont have to worry about threat stats before another tier or two.

[amgor]

I'm currently gemed the same way as you are (blue : stam, yellow : mastery/stam, red : parry/stam, pris : stam) and do not seem to have any issues with it, as I am progression deecntly in 25s and 10s without that hindering me from what I can see so far. It's all up to you but personally I would stay the way your gemed currently.

Edit : From the stats you mentioned, you should be more then ready to start raiding 10s, regardless of gemming

[Revale]

blue = stm/mastery (unless JC = 3 Solid Chimera)
yellow = stm/mastery
red = parry/stamina

thats if your stm stacking, which this really isnt a bad way to go.

[hlx]

blue = stm/mastery (unless JC = 3 Solid Chimera)
yellow = stm/mastery
red = parry/stamina

thats if your stm stacking, which this really isnt a bad way to go.

and the most important question: is the stam that you are sacrificing from gemming pure blue gems good trade off for the mastery you are getting back?

[Hunaxor]

I have around 170k hp buffed and I have mostly Stam + Mastery gems. The way I see it is that if you have at least around 150k hp, you have enough to do anything. So stacking more stam seems useless to me, mastery and avoidances are much better here.

[rinleezwins]

Unless an item has 20+ stamina bonus, pure stamina gems go in it. I only have 1 mastery/stam and 1 parry/stam gem for 30 and 45 stamina bonuses. Bonuses like 10 parry or 10 dodge are not worth using mixed gems.

---------- Post added 2011-01-11 at 01:31 PM ----------

I have around 170k hp buffed and I have mostly Stam + Mastery gems. The way I see it is that if you have at least around 150k hp, you have enough to do anything. So stacking more stam seems useless to me, mastery and avoidances are much better here.

Stamina is our 3rd threat stat after hit and expertise.

[sally]

I was tanking my first raid with 123k hp... and 35% block.... and i stacked stamina, worked "great". So, stamina is still the king.
Thats and example tho, but the stat prio is something like:

Stamina > mastery > dodge / parry > hit / expertise.

You dont have to worry about threat stats before another tier or two.

Bolded parts are false. With healer mana as it is right now, avoidance (dodge/parry) and block (mastery) trumps stamina. I'd definately go for your later gemming strategy (although I'd still go mastery/stamina on prismatic as to not neglect stamina completely).

He's right about threat stats though, they can be completely ignored.

[rinleezwins]

Bolded parts are false. With healer mana as it is right now, avoidance (dodge/parry) and block (mastery) trumps stamina. I'd definately go for your later gemming strategy (although I'd still go mastery/stamina on prismatic as to not neglect stamina completely).

He's right about threat stats though, they can be completely ignored.

With my current gear I actually had to gem stamian for more vengeance and hit 26 expertise as we lacked dps on cho'gall.

[Aurzon]

Unless an item has 20+ stamina bonus, pure stamina gems go in it. I only have 1 mastery/stam and 1 parry/stam gem for 30 and 45 stamina bonuses. Bonuses like 10 parry or 10 dodge are not worth using mixed gems.

---------- Post added 2011-01-11 at 01:31 PM ----------



Stamina is our 3rd threat stat after hit and expertise.

I disagree entirely. You can't go full board on Stamina anymore. Try doing a couple raid bosses and watch as they break your face open like a walnut. Health is nice, but to an extent. You need a solid balance on everything, and considering how dodge, parry, and block have become MUCH more useful now (considering avoidance cap is nothing but a pipe dream anymore), there's no reason NOT to gem to match socket bonus. We stacked Stamina in Wrath because Avoidance got up so high, Blizzard had the choice of either making bosses deal magical damage, or adding in debuffs like Icecrown Citadel to remove avoidance caps.

Now that avoidance cap is gone, bosses have converted back to primarily melee damage, and therefore, it's much more beneficial to you to have better chances to dodge/parry those attacks, and have block to round off the sharp corners of your damage intake, and make your healers love you even more.

OP, your initial suggestion was perfect, and it's what I run with myself.
Blue = Stam
Yellow = Mastery/Stam
Red = Parry/Stam

[hlx]

i cant absolutely see reason for actively going for hit/expertise as there is no way you can loose aggro right now (and if you do dps will survive one gcd it takes to get it back)

my only concern with switching from +stam gemming to +mastery gemming is that in "progression fights" (as in particular raid group learning the fight, not hardcore paragon progression) more hp equals more room for mistakes, surviving a 5sec longer for mana starved healer to cast a heal and so on.

on the other hand more master/avoidance equals healers going oom less as you take less dmg overall.
thoughts?

[sally]

With my current gear I actually had to gem stamian for more vengeance and hit 26 expertise as we lacked dps on cho'gall.

That's a different issue. You regemmed to maximize your raid DPS (I assume you didn't gem like this before Cho'gall?). OP is just starting 10-man raids and will therefor not need a gemming strategy focused on maximizing raid DPS, but rather maximizing his own survivability.

[rinleezwins]

I disagree entirely. You can't go full board on Stamina anymore. Try doing a couple raid bosses and watch as they break your face open like a walnut. Health is nice, but to an extent. You need a solid balance on everything, and considering how dodge, parry, and block have become MUCH more useful now (considering avoidance cap is nothing but a pipe dream anymore), there's no reason NOT to gem to match socket bonus. We stacked Stamina in Wrath because Avoidance got up so high, Blizzard had the choice of either making bosses deal magical damage, or adding in debuffs like Icecrown Citadel to remove avoidance caps.

I agree avoidance is much better, but when it comes to 10 parry rating over 30 stamina, its useless to go for bonus.

Now that avoidance cap is gone, bosses have converted back to primarily melee damage, and therefore, it's much more beneficial to you to have better chances to dodge/parry those attacks, and have block to round off the sharp corners of your damage intake, and make your healers love you even more.

OP, your initial suggestion was perfect, and it's what I run with myself.
Blue = Stam
Yellow = Mastery/Stam
Red = Parry/Stam

When it comes to 10 parry rating bonus over 30 stamina, its useless.

[yjmark]

Stacking pure stamina just means you are making your healers work harder to heal you. The primary focus of Prot Paladins is to reach the coveted unhittable limit. The best way to do that is to stack Mastery. So you should be gemming:

blue: mastery/stamina
yellow: mastery
red: parry/mastery
prismatic: mastery

Once you are unhittable, then you can start to look at sacrificing Mastery for Stamina.

It's not that you "can't" gem for pure stamina. It's just not the most efficient way to go.

[rinleezwins]

That's a different issue. You regemmed to maximize your raid DPS (I assume you didn't gem like this before Cho'gall?). OP is just starting 10-man raids and will therefor not need a gemming strategy focused on maximizing raid DPS, but rather maximizing his own survivability.

We do not have a rogue or a hunter in our raid, so I started having threat issues and what I go with is 26 expertise, and maximized WoG self-healing every 3 holy power. Lost about 2% dodge overall.

---------- Post added 2011-01-11 at 01:49 PM ----------

Stacking pure stamina just means you are making your healers work harder to heal you. The primary focus of Prot Paladins is to reach the coveted unhittable limit. The best way to do that is to stack Mastery. So you should be gemming:

blue: mastery/stamina
yellow: mastery
red: parry/mastery
prismatic: mastery

Once you are unhittable, then you can start to look at sacrificing Mastery for Stamina.

It's not that you "can't" gem for pure stamina. It's just not the most efficient way to go.

Mastery is one of the best stats, but pure mastery gem is worse than mastery/stamina gem.

[Kadejr]

The Avoidance cap is not gone, it's still there. We need to reach the magic 102.4, again like back in BC.

For a paladin, myself I use the 81Stam and +5 Block meta and stack 20 mastery/30 Stam gems.

Mastery is the most important Stat for us, then Block, Then Dodge,and finally Parry. Parry being last, as we do not gain our mana back from the talent(only Blocking and Dodging).

I would recommend using:

Mastery/Stam for Yellow
Pure Stam for Blue
Parry/Mastery for Red (As there is no Dodge/Mastery or Dodge/Stam gem that is Red)

Buffed, my paladin is about 170k HP, and about 76.04 Avoidance.

[yjmark]

Mastery is one of the best stats, but pure mastery gem is worse than mastery/stamina gem.

Why do you think that? I'm just curious.

[sally]

We do not have a rogue or a hunter in our raid, so I started having threat issues and what I go with is 26 expertise, and maximized WoG self-healing every 3 holy power. Lost about 2% dodge overall.

Then you're probably doing something wrong. Even with no hunter or rogue in the raid I can go SoT and SotR for 20-30 seconds into the fight, then switch to SoI and chain WoG:ing without any threat issues at all. That's at around 1% hit and 2 expertise (12 with SoT activated).

[hlx]

Why do you think that? I'm just curious.

you mean why mastery is one of the best stats? or why pure mastery is worse then mastery/stamina ?

[yjmark]

you mean why mastery is one of the best stats? or why pure mastery is worse then mastery/stamina ?

I meant "why is pure mastery worse than mastery/stamina"? Sorry for not being specific.

In my head, the question is "Is 20 Mastery > 30 Stamina"? If yes, then pure mastery is better. If no, then pure stamina is better. If you feel they are equal, then I guess a hybrid is better. /shrug

Personally, I think 20 Mastery > 30 Stamina until unhittable. So I stack Mastery. However, I am open to discussion as to why this is not the best way to go and will adjust accordingly.