To all the tanks who stack stamina (story inside)

[Kabbalah]

* Most theorycrafters suggest the following strategy:
[4] Once you've hit the 102.4% point, stack parry and dodge (mostly equally if possible, to minimize DR).

Ahh, now I think to know why people say stack parry and dodge after reaching 102.4%.

If you think about EJ when you said "most theorycrafter", then it's missinterpretation. EJ doesn't suggest stacking parry and dodge after hitting full ctc. They are saying reforge back to avoidance, which is different than stacking. Stacking involves gems and trinkets (if available) too.
Why is this little difference important? Because you can't reforge to stam.

[Gunslinger]

After reading all of it I gotta say the first part may be ok but the 2nd part is a total mess.

You've started mentioning WoW from a gamer's perspective introducing game elements such as levels, abilities learned when you attain certain level, stats on gear, teleportation.

However on the 2nd part you tell us how the healer bought a house, got mail delivered to her door, tied her mount near the griphon master, had kids etc. You can't change the "facts" in a story from part 1 to part 2. (Example of what you did: Say this was a Star Wars movie. Now part one is all nice and smooth but then all of a sudden in Part 2 they can fly and make light-sabers appear from their fingertips instead of carrying them.)

Also there's quite a few "plot holes" such as you say they get together in part 2 and do lvl 85 Deadmines... that dungeon is available at that level only on heroic difficulty yet you say that after that and a few other normals they went ahead and did heroics. More so you mention that the tank had run numerous dungeons in part one with success and gathered a large amount of gear. He arguably didn't need to borrow money since he could of searched in his bags and gotten the gear he needed. Yet another bogus thing in part 1... how was it that as tank and healer they had to wait 30 minutes for a group, it's unreasonable and more so you mentioned that when the dungeon was over he was searching for her yet they should have been teleported outside right in the place from where they left!

Oh and their feelings... you said that he was thinking she was sick and wanted to keep distance from her in part one yet in part 2 he marries her ... what's he gonna do when she's sick? Run away until she gets better? More so... wow characters cannot be sick... they can gain debuffs that can be dispelled or take damage and get healed... and she was a healer. Oh and another thing... NONE of the healing classes use arcane magic and you mentioned that her interest was to study it.

Another thing that bothered me was the whole "best friend" routine that's seriously lacking... how can you have a best friend and not talk or keep in contact for such a long time. The characters were very shallow, gullible and 1 sided. Everything that mattered seemed to be if you could do well in dungeons. It's like a kid's movie from Disney where if you can run faster than the other kids suddenly you're the world's savior and everyone wants to hang around you and chicks fall at your feet. Oh and what an ending... the "hero" learns his lesson and gets the girl but all she gets is to clean the house and look after the kids only dreaming of the days when she could have fun.

Another dreadful thing, where did you see items that increase stamina and reduce armor... all stats on gear are distributed according to ilvl. Also there's not much choice when it comes to gear now. The only things you can swap for more stamina from a tanking set are the trinkets (numbers will probably change depending on trinket ilvl, sockets) and gems.

Last but not least you must of had some really bad experiences with the LFG tool... heck I've seen people tank heroics in pvp gear with no sweat.

PS: I don't want to sound mean but that's my honest opinion about the story after reading it. I do not intend this to be insulting or degrading, it was an interesting approach towards making players that choose the tank role to look at more things than just stamina.

[Niun]

Ahh, now I think to know why people say stack parry and dodge after reaching 102.4%.

If you think about EJ when you said "most theorycrafter", then it's missinterpretation. EJ doesn't suggest stacking parry and dodge after hitting full ctc. They are saying reforge back to avoidance, which is different than stacking. Stacking involves gems and trinkets (if available) too.
Why is this little difference important? Because you can't reforge to stam.

Sorry, I meant "after you reach full ctc, then put any *additional* points into parry/dodge" (which would mostly be via reforging, as you suggest). You seem to imply a 'given' that you always gem/enchant/trinket for stamina and use only reforging for mastery, and then parry+dodge.

However, I would argue (as would some others), that once you've reached your appropriate level of stamina, you've reached it. And there isn't a lot of point in stacking it further (unless you graduate to more challenging content). So any *incremental* itemization budget you'd spend on mastery and then dodge/parry. Incremental can come from several sources. Maybe you got a higher ilvl piece of gear and instead of putting in a straight stam gem or a stam/mastery gem, you put in a straight mastery gem or instead of stam/dodge, you put in straight dodge. In practice, this would mostly come from reforging, but I wouldn't artificially limit it to reforging. For example, there are certainly cases where people put aside a stam trinket and switch it for a mitigation trinket or an avoidance trinket.

[Trinafer]

After reading all of it I gotta say the first part may be ok but the 2nd part is a total mess.

You've started mentioning WoW from a gamer's perspective introducing game elements such as levels, abilities learned when you attain certain level, stats on gear, teleportation.

However on the 2nd part you tell us how the healer bought a house, got mail delivered to her door, tied her mount near the griphon master, had kids etc. You can't change the "facts" in a story from part 1 to part 2. (Example of what you did: Say this was a Star Wars movie. Now part one is all nice and smooth but then all of a sudden in Part 2 they can fly and make light-sabers appear from their fingertips instead of carrying them.)

Also there's quite a few "plot holes" such as you say they get together in part 2 and do lvl 85 Deadmines... that dungeon is available at that level only on heroic difficulty yet you say that after that and a few other normals they went ahead and did heroics. More so you mention that the tank had run numerous dungeons in part one with success and gathered a large amount of gear. He arguably didn't need to borrow money since he could of searched in his bags and gotten the gear he needed. Yet another bogus thing in part 1... how was it that as tank and healer they had to wait 30 minutes for a group, it's unreasonable and more so you mentioned that when the dungeon was over he was searching for her yet they should have been teleported outside right in the place from where they left!

Oh and their feelings... you said that he was thinking she was sick and wanted to keep distance from her in part one yet in part 2 he marries her ... what's he gonna do when she's sick? Run away until she gets better? More so... wow characters cannot be sick... they can gain debuffs that can be dispelled or take damage and get healed... and she was a healer. Oh and another thing... NONE of the healing classes use arcane magic and you mentioned that her interest was to study it.

Another thing that bothered me was the whole "best friend" routine that's seriously lacking... how can you have a best friend and not talk or keep in contact for such a long time. The characters were very shallow, gullible and 1 sided. Everything that mattered seemed to be if you could do well in dungeons. It's like a kid's movie from Disney where if you can run faster than the other kids suddenly you're the world's savior and everyone wants to hang around you and chicks fall at your feet. Oh and what an ending... the "hero" learns his lesson and gets the girl but all she gets is to clean the house and look after the kids only dreaming of the days when she could have fun.

Another dreadful thing, where did you see items that increase stamina and reduce armor... all stats on gear are distributed according to ilvl. Also there's not much choice when it comes to gear now. The only things you can swap for more stamina from a tanking set are the trinkets (numbers will probably change depending on trinket ilvl, sockets) and gems.

Last but not least you must of had some really bad experiences with the LFG tool... heck I've seen people tank heroics in pvp gear with no sweat.

PS: I don't want to sound mean but that's my honest opinion about the story after reading it. I do not intend this to be insulting or degrading, it was an interesting approach towards making players that choose the tank role to look at more things than just stamina.

I didn't make the story as if players were controlling the characters. Yes, I know a thirty minute queue isn't very realistic if you have a tank and healer going together, but once again, this isn't from a human-character point of view. For me, it was hard to come up with something that attempts to be from a persons point of view. The story would have been different if there were humans controlling Arlin and Elique. I wanted Azeroth be their home, someplace that they love and care for. The reason I introduced houses in the second story, is because if there wasn't a logout button, where would they go? Would it have made sense if I would have left every evening blank? I should have put this in the story, but Arlin himself, brought the letter to Elique. There was no way I was going to introduce mail characters to this story. (Houses can be found in game, while mail carriers can't, I wanted to keep things slightly "real")

In the first story, the two were in love. It's pretty clear in the text, they were also friends, which makes your argument invaild. The current community in the game acts like Elique did in the first story, but with more feeling. Do most people take the time to go and help someone? No, that's not how it is at the moment. The reason they couldn't keep contact, is because I didn't put the whisper system in the story. Like I said in the above paragraph, this isn't two humans controlling two characters, it's two characters, or toons, in complete control, living in Azeroth. It would have been weird if I put something in such as-

Arlin walked around Stormwind, the wind blowing his hair about his face. He heard a voice in his head, and knew at once he was being whispered.
"How are you today Arlin? I hope you're doing great, living with Elique."

It just seemed weird to me. For the sickness, if you notice, this was when Arlin became full of himself, when he started stacking stamina, he didn't want to quit instances (dungeons) because of a illness. I'm sure if Elique or one of his children caught a sickness, he would care for them. I didn't add much of this, I want readers to think of the two characters in their own may (features, personalitys and so on). So I'll let you choose this on your own.

When I write a book, about anything, I don't throw the bone at the reader, I like to throw it a little bit off, so the reader has the choice of looking for it, or leaving it be. I want my readers to THINK, and not have everything put right on them.

I hope this makes some sense.

[Acidd06]

i didn't like it, not gonna lie.

[Asmodejjj]

Two things I don't get from the 1st part.

1. 30 min queue with a tank and healer? ARGH.
2. Armor >>>> stam? Make it avoidance instead, and I'll fully endorse this in a YouTube video. :P


On the overall, very well written.

[Deleted]

nice story!

[Kabbalah]

Sorry, I meant "after you reach full ctc, then put any *additional* points into parry/dodge" (which would mostly be via reforging, as you suggest). You seem to imply a 'given' that you always gem/enchant/trinket for stamina and use only reforging for mastery, and then parry+dodge.

However, I would argue (as would some others), that once you've reached your appropriate level of stamina, you've reached it. And there isn't a lot of point in stacking it further (unless you graduate to more challenging content). So any *incremental* itemization budget you'd spend on mastery and then dodge/parry. Incremental can come from several sources. Maybe you got a higher ilvl piece of gear and instead of putting in a straight stam gem or a stam/mastery gem, you put in a straight mastery gem or instead of stam/dodge, you put in straight dodge. In practice, this would mostly come from reforging, but I wouldn't artificially limit it to reforging. For example, there are certainly cases where people put aside a stam trinket and switch it for a mitigation trinket or an avoidance trinket.

No, I reforge and gem for mastery currently because I haven't reached full ctc yet.
But after that I would reforge excessive mastery to avoidance and then gem for stam. In this order while still keeping full ctc. I plan to do this because of the diminishing return on avoidance. Also stamina smooths out spikes unlike dodge/parry.

Edit: And no reason to say sorry ;P I understood what you meant. Putting additional points (due to excessive master) into avoidance. I just didn't agree with you doing it at the cost of stamina.

[Trinafer]

nice story!

Thanks, nice profile picture. I was staring at it for about a few minutes before I realised it wouldn't do anything *feels stupid*

[Niun]

No, I reforge and gem for mastery currently because I haven't reached full ctc yet.
But after that I would reforge excessive mastery to avoidance and then gem for stam. In this order still keeping full ctc. I plan to do this because of the diminishing return on avoidance.

The point I was making is that stamina past the "enough" line isn't incrementally helping your survivability and is better spent on avoidance (or mastery if you haven't reached full ctc yet). Even with the DR, you still get an explicit tangible benefit from additional avoidance. Up to the "enough" line, stamina gives you a better bang for that buck. Up the ctc line, mastery gives you a bigger bang for that buck. But once you've reached the "enough" stamina line and ctc, then avoidance gives you the best bang for your buck.

That doesn't mean that your particular strategy is wrong, because you may very well be graduating to tougher content. But assuming that the fights remain the same, you are better served by (incrementally!) gemming for avoidance rather than stamina in the situation you described. Even with DR, avoidance only reaches zero value once you hit 100% (or 102.4%) avoidance (almost certainly not attainable). Up to that point, it is worth than stamina past the "enough" mark.

[Genoflare]

wtf this is kinda gay
i'm glad you reserved this story for the alliance side...

[Trinafer]

wtf this is kinda gay
i'm glad you reserved this story for the alliance side...

Yup, because you know, we alliance are gay. Since we have blood elves and are full of kids... oh wait, that's horde.

Not to be rude, but why did you post in a thread, about something you thought was gay?

BTW, Elique is a female and Arlin is a male. Gay doesn't sum up the story.

[Omen321]

... You just need to not suck at the game. I am sitting at 13.21% dodge 13.41% parry .. 2 stam trinkets and 6 stam gems (3 normal 3 JC) and 2 Parry Mastery Gems and 1 Parry Stam gem.. And I am told by our healers that I am the easiest tank they have healed since Cata.

I am also apparently wierd and liek to be CLOSE to hit cap i have 2.12% away, because if there is one thing that pisses me off is using a crusader strike CD on a missed attack

[Defengar]

That story was great. Unfortunately its being ruined by a bunch of bitchety ass fail tanks who take offense to everything.

[Charo]

Which non gimmicky boss hits a tank for 90k with regular attacks?

Chimaeron of course! Hurr Durr. But really, Magmaw tends to hit pretty hard with the armor debuff applied.

Also, everyone else: stop living in WOTLK.

[MagusUnion]

That story was great. Unfortunately its being ruined by a bunch of bitchety ass fail tanks who take offense to everything.

As always... lol.... But then again... bad's will be bad's... and deflect their failures to the better players because they 'can'...


EDIT: A few pages back, several misguided people started to use Paragon tanks as an example as 'ok STA stackers'... you are missing the fact that they are all in endgame Heroic Raid gear. The stat's on the gear alone is enough to reach the 102% avoidance cap (which I now know is possible at base, holy fuck...) and because of this, frees up stats for either threat generation or Stamina...

Stamina and Threat is always priority 2 for any tank. You MUST ensure that you can endure the damage you are going to be facing in raids BEFORE attempting to improve on things like threat and hit. Taunts don't miss, and neither do AoE dots or AoE Stun effects... Thus you can get away with not prioritizing them as you gear for better survivability...