130Agility or 195Stamina on bracers

[iorcedurmother]

Magic heavy or not, with the nerfs stam is almost useless there's no fights where you're taking hits big enough that stamina is necessary.

I'd say if your HP is especially low go with stam, but if not stam blows.

If you're taking too much magic damage use prismatic elixirs.

---------- Post added 2011-10-17 at 02:14 AM ----------

I hear this all the time, "its not wotlk", but the best feral tank in the world from paragon stacks stam, you have to remember that.

That's only because they're pushing End of the line heroics in the previous tier's gear pre-nerfs. Anyone else gets to the points they were at with a lot more stamina on their gear already and at this point dying shouldn't even be a risk for any tanks.

[Daetur]

I hear this all the time, "its not wotlk", but the best feral tank in the world from paragon stacks stam, you have to remember that.

This is because stamina is still king for ABSOLUTE BLEEDING EDGE PROGRESSION. This has been said a thousand times, and has always been the case.

However, for any content under the most punishing heroic modes, mitigation and avoidance tend to be worth more than stamina.

Unless you are working on Heroic Ragnaros, the winner is +130 agility hands down.

Only copy Paragon and their ilk (for tank gemming/enchanting, etc.) if you are working on the same sort of progression that they are.

[Deleted]

Ask your healers really...

Since it's already similar to WotLK with them having loads of mana and don't having to bother that much with overhealing, it's not much difference wheter they "waste" mana on healing you a little more due to you stacking stamina or due to overhealing you with hots/abilities that should always be on you as a tank anyway (Lifebloom, earthshield and stuff). Really, some healers might prefer you having bigger healthpool even if taking more damage - since they can heal it up anyway (and have better position in logs with healing done instead of overhealing lol).

[traen]

This is because stamina is still king for ABSOLUTE BLEEDING EDGE PROGRESSION. This has been said a thousand times, and has always been the case.

Whats the difference between "ABSOLUTE BLEEDING EDGE PROGRESSION" and your guild progression? Do you kill other, easier bosses or something?

You can't say "stamina is good only for paragon tank because he is the first one who tanks that boss", its not constructive. We all tank the same bosses. They all hit equally. As from healers point of view you should understand that "ABSOLUTE BLEEDING EDGE" healers have better reaction time, unlike your own healers who can leave your tank without healing for few more seconds.
You should say something like: "ok, this boss requires 180k HP because his average hit is 60k and that boss requires maximum possible HP because his average hit is over 100k". Be constructive.

[Deleted]

The difference is that ppl in those guilds usually have a lot less gear than most guilds will have when they kill it. Paragon for example had cleared firelands once on normal and once on heroic when they killed Ragnaros, so they still had a lot of T11 gear. So stamina gems can be used in that situation to make up for the lack of 378/391 gear.

However, guilds that have been progressing a lot slower through firelands, will very likely already have 391 items in many slots, and 378/384 in the rest.

[Rudolpho]

It tends to be Agility stacking is more important in a 10 man and stamina in 25 man. I'd think stacking agi would be good in 25 man, but if you are 10 man, the agi not only helps you mitigate more damage (making it easier on your healers) overall, makes you less spiky because you tend to dodge more and have higher average SDs (as well as more SD procs), and increases your dps...and yes, tank dps really matters for a 10 man...especially once you get to heroic rag and are trying to push 1 meteor in p3, or if not that then 2 seed spawns in p2 (I also go catform for each seed pop to spam swipe...and do more dmg to the adds than anyone else in our raid...swipe + tigers fury is stupid OP if you are hit capped and stack agi).

In a 25 man your dps is not going to have nearly the same impact and theres a good chance you will have enough healers that your health being a bit more spiky, but the pool being deeper, could be ok or even beneficial. I still think it would be better to stack agi overall, and especially again on a fight like heroic rag (because your healers will be strapped already, so you want to mitigate and avoid as much dmg as possible).

[Sarella]

It's erroneous to state your dps is not going to have nearly the same impact, not because of the percentages, but because it's akin to going "oh we can bring 9 healers, the missing 3-5 dps wont have nearly the impact as that many missing in 10 man."

Tank dps is very important and shouldn't be seen as an excuse for your tank not to work hard maximising his rotation. As for asking your healers, going to them and saying "should i trade 2% dodge for 8k health" isn't productive - how are they sposed to know! Watch for when you dip low in an attempt/fight and ask the healers if they had to use emergency healing/cooldowns on you due to panic - far more productive.

Generally speaking 130 ag vs 195 stam should err you towards agility. Your head enchant offers a similar agi to stam ratio, but provides dodge with the stamina vs... haste. Chest is 20 agi vs 55 stam Again, should you find a large % of health missing, you can use a steelskin flask.

[-Cynical-]

130 agi unless your in a World Top 50 Guild that is on bleeding edge content, Then you decide on your own enchants.

If I was in a World Top 50 guild, I would be changing Enchants/Gems/Trinkets/Armor for every boss as a Tank.

[Jenzali]

Almost everyone who responded to this thread is missing the point - this isn't about agility vs. stamina. This is about Leatherworking, and in fact there's (almost) no contest here. Let's quote what elitist jerks has to say about professions:

Professions

Leatherworking offers more stamina than any other profession. Jewelcrafting is the next highest, although it's only 3 stamina better than many other professions. Leatherworking, Jewelcrafting, and Blacksmithing all provide very flexible bonuses.

Alchemy: 120 stamina from [Flask of Steelskin] or 80 agility from [Flask of the Winds]. Resistance flasks or armor elixirs are also possibilities. You also gain access to [Lifebound Alchemist Stone], which is potentially useful for a new tank.
Blacksmithing: 2 extra sockets for up to 120 extra stamina from [Solid Ocean Sapphire] or 80 agility from [Delicate Inferno Ruby]. One of the better professions as its bonuses are very flexible.
Enchanting: 120 stamina or 80 agility from ring enchants.
Engineering: Quickflip Deflection Plates - Spell - World of Warcraft boost armor by 1500 for 12 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown or Synapse Springs boost agility by 480 for 10 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown.
Herbalism: Minor heal and 480 haste for 20 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown.
Inscription: 120 stamina or 80 agility from shoulder enchant.
Jewelcrafting: Up to 123 stamina or 81 agility from Chimera's Eye gems. Another flexible profession.
Leatherworking: 155 stamina or 80 agility. Gives more stamina than other professions and can also be useful for the level 80 resistance enchants.
Mining: 120 stamina.
Skinning: 80 crit.
Tailoring: Swordguard Embroidery - Spell - World of Warcraft chance to proc 1000 AP for 15 seconds.

Leatherworking gives the highest possible stamina bonus (155) out of any profession, 35 more to be exact - the others only give 120. However, wasting the bracer enchant on agility only gives you the same amount of benefit that any other profession does.

I'm not arguing the general agility vs. stamina debate - there's so many situations in which agility is better, stamina is better, or a mix of both is the most desired. But why give up 35 free stamina when you can just gem/enchant/flask agility elsewhere?

TL;DR - unless you're seriously overgearing the content and are just farming World of Logs tank dps rankings, I would go with the stamina enchant in all situations. Take it while you still can, because you don't get free lunch all the time, and if you don't take it, you might as well have chosen another profession other than Leatherworking.

Edit: Less extreme summary: If you still favor nearly-pure agility, but you currently have any enchants or gems at all that are stamina, drop those and replace with agility, but keep the stamina bracer enchant to get the most overall bonuses. For example, Assassin's Step (+25 agility to boots) is better than Earthen Vitality (+30 stamina), but +195 stamina to bracers is better than +130 agility, so take the best of both worlds.

[-Cynical-]

Almost everyone who responded to this thread is missing the point - this isn't about agility vs. stamina. This is about Leatherworking, and in fact there's (almost) no contest here. Let's quote what elitist jerks has to say about professions:



Leatherworking gives the highest possible stamina bonus (155) out of any profession, 35 more to be exact - the others only give 120. However, wasting the bracer enchant on agility only gives you the same amount of benefit that any other profession does.

I'm not arguing the general agility vs. stamina debate - there's so many situations in which agility is better, stamina is better, or a mix of both is the most desired. But why give up 35 free stamina when you can just gem/enchant/flask agility elsewhere?

TL;DR - unless you're seriously overgearing the content and are just farming World of Logs tank dps rankings, I would go with the stamina enchant in all situations. Take it while you still can, because you don't get free lunch all the time, and if you don't take it, you might as well have chosen another profession other than Leatherworking.

Because a Bear shouldn't be gemming stam anywhere else unless they are on Bleeding Edge content.

[Jenzali]

Because a Bear shouldn't be gemming stam anywhere else unless they are on Bleeding Edge content.

Straw man argument - if they aren't on bleeding edge content they wouldn't be min/maxing like this in the first place. But I'd be willing to bet that most casual-level healers don't have lightning fast reflexes to deal with the "no damage... no damage... no damage... no damage... OH MY GOD, SUDDEN HEALTH SPIKE!" model of gearing (i.e. pure agility). Healers at most skill levels prefer tanks that have a larger cushion.

My point holds in both casual raiding and for many situations in hard mode content as well.

And again, I am not arguing gearing pure stamina. I am simply arguing that this one enchant offers the best overall bonuses, even if you choose to gem/enchant agility everywhere else. Most bears with the Firelord title I have seen are gemming predominantly +20 agility +30 stamina gems and favoring a mix of stamina and agility enchants (and of course, all the leatherworkers taking the +195 stam). And dear god, please stay away from the +60 agility, +35 haste head enchant.

[Deleo]

The general understanding used to be get enough HP to survive 2 hits from the hardest hitting boss of the content you are doing and the go avoidance. This may not be the case any more as bosses have different mechanics these days. You may take other type of damages than just melee hits from bosses in between those 2 hits. There are also some fights that may favor one build over the other.

"The best druid in the world" argument is also wrong and only people with no brain who can't figure things for themselves follow it. What he does may be a result of having great healers and doing the content no one has access to. If I had healers who could keep me up no matter what without going oom I'd go full stam as its the more reliable choice but its proven mathematically that its not the optimal choice.

Overall the guy who said ask your healers and that other guy who said have different sets of gear gave the best advices so far. I have heavy agi gear for when tank avoidance/DPS matters and heavy stam gear for when tank HP is important.

P.S. Do heroics with agi gear and embarrass some DPS =)

[traen]

The difference is that ppl in those guilds usually have a lot less gear than most guilds will have when they kill it. Paragon for example had cleared firelands once on normal and once on heroic when they killed Ragnaros, so they still had a lot of T11 gear. So stamina gems can be used in that situation to make up for the lack of 378/391 gear.

However, guilds that have been progressing a lot slower through firelands, will very likely already have 391 items in many slots, and 378/384 in the rest.

This statement is invalid. Sejta was almost in full 378-391 gear on Ragnaros kill. He even had 4p t12, 2 of them were 391. Tanks have priority on gearing so it takes just 1-2 full clears to get most of the items needed.
In the same time if you play in casual guild, maybe you will get your gear through dkp, so your gear will actually be worse than top guilds tank gear.
Both your health pool AND mitigation will be lower. Is it good idea to stack agi in this situation?

[Deleted]

Sejta might be the exception then, Method's MT still had mostly 372 gear with a few 378 pieces when they killed Ragnaros world 2nd.

[dancm]

Almost everyone who responded to this thread is missing the point - this isn't about agility vs. stamina. This is about Leatherworking, and in fact there's (almost) no contest here. Let's quote what elitist jerks has to say about professions:



Leatherworking gives the highest possible stamina bonus (155) out of any profession, 35 more to be exact - the others only give 120. However, wasting the bracer enchant on agility only gives you the same amount of benefit that any other profession does.

While this consideration is a valid argument for choosing your profession, it's not a valid argument for actually min/maxing a specific fight. Why? You can't switch professions as fast as you can switch enchants.

[Braindwen]

Almost everyone who responded to this thread is missing the point - this isn't about agility vs. stamina. This is about Leatherworking, and in fact there's (almost) no contest here. Let's quote what elitist jerks has to say about professions:
-snip-

All that really says is that if you favor stam, then leatherworking is your best profession. Your post also explained exactly why you never use the 40 stam enchant unless you have no other options, and need more health.

Regardless of what you favor, you're probably using the 50 agi enchant instead of the 40 stam enchant. Why? well... it's better, especially considering 1.5 stam vs. 1 agi is what people argue about (and argument usually means they're close), so .8 stam vs. 1 agi isn't going to be close at all. Whether you're going from 50 agi to 195 stam, or 50 agi to 130 agi, you're still only gaining 80 stat points, since 1.5 stam=1 of another stat in terms of item budget.

To further clarify, let's do what you suggest and use the 195 stam enchant to bracers, and pick up the agi elsewhere. You lose 130 agility, gaining 195 stam, from the bracer enchant. To recover the 130 agility, you replace 3 solid gems with 3 delicates. Lost stam: 180, gained agi: 120. You could bump these to 195/130 by gemming 1/4 of a delicate over 1/4 of a solid, but 3 is the closest you'd get in reality. Notice that you didn't actually gain anything. Why? 195 stam has the same item budget as 130 agility, so you don't pick up anything extra. The cost of the 195 stam enchant ISN'T the 40 stam enchant, unless you value 40 stam over 130 agility, since the cost is the next best alternative.

I can see where the confusion comes from, but I hope this helps clarify things.

[Deleted]

Depends on the content, if you just run dungeons you should have enough stamina without stacking it. Dunno about raids tho.

[traen]

Sejta might be the exception then, Method's MT still had mostly 372 gear with a few 378 pieces when they killed Ragnaros world 2nd.

Yes. But they did it with 4 healers. Just different strategy. And we all know which strategy worked out

Anyways, now sejta got all the bis gear and he is still using full stamina set up. Its pretty safe to say that stamina stacking is his own, and his healers preference.

If I had healers who could keep me up no matter what without going oom I'd go full stam as its the more reliable choice but its proven mathematically that its not the optimal choice.

No one ever did any kind of such simulations.
There is 2 types of simulations available currently:
Pure survival: average time to death without healing. Stamina rocks here. Yes, you will be able to take more damage and stay alive longer if you have bigger health pool. In average agility is not going to safe you.
Pure mitigation: average damage taken. It is obvious that any kind of avoidance will rock here. All calculations are made assuming that you have 1hp. And you will not die no matter how low your HP is. Not too realistic, is not it? Only the vengeance part of stamina is taken into account here, so its obvious that it will be not the best stat.

But what do we really need to know is combined simulation. Where boss hits every 2 seconds with melee attacks, when there is aoe every 15 seconds, and healers have to stop healing to run out of void zones sometimes. And the main result of this simulation should show if tank was able to survive or not. And average chance to die. And average mana usage and mana regen needed to keep tank alive.
This simulation should be done for every boss separately, imitating his abilities. And it should be done for every healer setup separately as well.

There is no such simulation available so you can't really argue that some stat was proven to be better "mathematically".

I think its quite possible to create such simulation on non-official server. I mean one boss, 1 npc tank with 100-150-200-250 HP and you should play healer role.

---------- Post added 2011-10-17 at 10:19 AM ----------

The general understanding used to be get enough HP to survive 2 hits from the hardest hitting boss of the content you are doing

Lets say boss hits for 50k every 2 seconds. You say that 100k HP pool is enough? I really doubt it.
Tank should be able to take 3 hits. And its not like ability to take 4 hits is bad for him

Shannox 10man heroic is good example. 30k average melee hit. 47k cleave hit. Try to kill it with 100k hp tank!
Theoretically its not impossible. But in real situation there is always something that will prevent you from casting your heal in time.
traps, aoe, dog eating your face, tank running out of range.
You can 2man heal shannox without any problems with 200k hp tank, but just imaging how much effort you will have to make to heal 100k hp tank! You will have to basically spam heal him all the time to keep him alive. All 3 healers will be out of mana in the middle of the fight. And it does not mean that tank will not die from unlucky 3 hits in a row.

Real fight is different from simulation, you know.

[Kaeleena]

Every tank has the best way to gem to maximize survival and it's different for every tank.

Paladin: Mastery until CTC cap, then Stam, reforging Dodge/Parry to minimize diminishing returns.

Warrior: Stam/Mastery until you can reach CTC cap with tank trinkets (if you're using dps trinkets to each CTC cap you're doing it wrong), then Mastery> Stam, reforging Dodge/Parry to minimize diminishing returns.

Druid: Stam until minimum health floor, then Agi> Dodge> Mastery> Stam.

Death Knight: Stam> Mastery> Dodge> Parry.

[Braindwen]

I think its quite possible to create such simulation on non-official server. I mean one boss, 1 npc tank with 100-150-200-250 HP and you should play healer role.

Why would you pick such massively varying numbers? I have a bit more stam to gain than your average feral, thanks to a few sacrifices for my dps OS. Even so, I have about 21.5k health to gain from gems and enchants, assuming I ignore socket bonuses, only gem enough yellows for the meta, and make a few questionable enchant choices (+40 stam to bracers, earthen vitality to boots). If I switched Engineering with LW, toss in about 2.8k more health.

Gaining that much health costs me 940 agility, as well as synapse springs if I switch out eng. I gain 40 dodge rating from yellows, an additional 60 from enchants, but those hardly recover my losses. The end result is I'd take quite a bit more damage, and my dps offspec would suffer immensely, as well as my kitty dps while off-tanking. My tanking dps would suffer a bit too, but not quite so much, since my AP losses would be offset by vengeance reasonably well (like 70% or so).

Any competent tank has stam trinkets and uses them for fights where they'd help, so including them isn't really necessary. They'd still only add about 21-22k health, meaning about the highest health I can gain, going, quite literally, full-agility to full-stam in enchants, gems, and trinkets would be about 50k.