130Agility or 195Stamina on bracers

[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.

[Navoan]

I wouldn't say I'm on bleeding edge progression at all (still being only 6/7HC), but for my 2 pennies I (and my healers) highly prefer me stacking avoidance. I have seen myself dodge 15 times in a row on Baleroc HC, I've seen myself solo tanking Alys and everything in-between and Agi vs Sta has barely been brought up because if I stack Sta (or mix though still favouring Sta) healers say the notice the difference and feel it's worse. I prefer it this way myself though if I was tanking 25s I'd maybe favour some more Sta.

For me: Agi > Mastery > Dodge > Sta > Expertise > Crit > Hit atm. I like keeping ~17 expertise as a sweet spot to ensure a higher upkeep of SD (and as mentioned before it helps my tank-dmg in 10man, I regularly do 16k+ DPS as a tank, higher on Rag HC where I can switch cat as well).

As to the main issue of which LW enchant to go for... mate it's personal preferance. Ball-park I'd say 25's use the Sta one but ensure you get Agi elsewhere or if 10man just get the Agi anyway and stack away

[Deleo]

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.

There is actually a simulation of this type. RWAR uses 2 type of points for tanks, one being mitigation point (avoidance) and the other being survival point (equal to formerly known as effective HP), sum of which presents overall damage a tank can take before dying. Focus on avoidance provides higher tank points. OFC it doesn't take RNG into account but over a long fight it should be accurate. Hence mathematically avoidance is better in general but stamina is safer when you are pushing high end content. Unless ofc you don't agree with the method RAWR uses for its calculations which is a different matter.

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.

Good job taking a small part of my post out to say exactly what I was trying to say. Here is the whole thing

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 then go avoidance. This may not be the case any more as bosses have different mechanics these days. You may take other types of damage than just melee hits from bosses in between those 2 hits. There are also some fights that may favor one build over the other.

Also if we are only accounting for normal boss hits then you should keep in mind that stamina works in brackets. If you have enough to survive 2 hits but not enough to survive 3 then any stamina above the 2nd hit threshold is wasted. But as I explained this is not the case anymore, as in FL about 20%-30% of the damage is magic and bosses don't attack with just one ability anymore.

[traen]

Shannox is actually good example to prove that "stack enough HP to take X hits" calculation system is totally wrong.

Its obvious that HP pool equal to 2 shannox hits is not enough in real situation. You can say "ok, lets take damage from 3 hits and aoe". Ok, you calculated 120k HP pool. Its still almost unreal to heal, but ok, lets say its bare minimum.

But now you have to go and calculate HP pool equal to Ragnaros heroic 25man "3 hits and aoe". And you will end up with 300k HP pool that is not even remotely accessible to any tank in current gear.

No matter what method of calculation you choose, you will never find any formula that will suite well for both shannox and ragnaros. Resulting health pool will be either too low to kill shannox or impossible to get for ragnaros. Stalemate.

[Lohe]

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.

This is typically not even true. If the boss hits for 60000 and you receive no healing at all then there is no difference at all between 120001 health and 180000. Stamina can (and will, mostly) be useless in a comparison of this type too because the difference between stacking stamina and stacking agility won't be 60000 health.

[Splosion]

Just had to because it amuses me:

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.

Half that post is derp.

OT, I think once again it comes down to synergy with your raid group. Talk to your healers, decide if they want you to take less damage overall (agility), vs having a smoother health fluctuation (stamina). I asked this question at the start of t11, and have done whenever I think there is an issue with my overall performance as a tank. It helps to not annoy your healers, because they'll get more stressed because of it. Some healers overheal, so having less health doesn't decrease that overhealing. you dropping to 50% vs 55%, might seems small but it does decrease overhealing of a spell they would have casted anyway.

There are two distinct philosophies here, stamina vs agility. The two seem close, and as such I'd put it down to a question to your healers.

[traen]

Good job taking a small part of my post out to say exactly what I was trying to say.

I'm sorry. I was not reffering to your own post as a whole, I just took it as example of what people usually say when they are asked questions like "What do you mean get enough HP? What amount of HP is actually enough? How should I calculate it?" They tend to say some silly things like "2 hits. 3 hits. 3 hits+20k Hp".

You know how people calculate "optimal health pool" in real life?
Maximum possible health pool - 10%.
Thats it. They never do any calculations. They never look at average boss hits, or on their damage taken. Ask any tank "what is an average shannox hit?" he will never know the answer.

They just think "Ok, stamina is bad and I should regem something. I have 220k HP pool fully stamina gemmed. 200k seems to be ok as well. Yeah, 200k is good number, now I'm uber cool avoidance tank".

I'm not kidding in any way.

[klauskleber]

I'm MT of a 25man 7/7 HC Guild and stam stacking. Why? Because I need the extra HP. Sometimes I find myself dropping really low and the only thing that helps is a larger HP pool to begin with. Of course avoidance is good, but when you brake it down you have to exchange 10.000 HP for 1% dodge, 1% crit and 1k ap (estimated). So with agi stacking you lose 30k hp and gain only 3% dodge and little more sd absorbs. During a 5min boss fight with a 1.8s swing timer these 3% dodge correlate to only 5 hits less taken and that's not even noticable. But you lost 30k HP and during progression fights this is often the difference between tank dead or alive.

I also compared our guild logs when different tanks where used for the same fight. And as a stam stacking druid, i take the least overall damage compared to a block capped paladin and warrior. The only time I drop low is when bad rng happens and I maybe take 5 full hits in a row. But this will always happen, even with 50, 60 or 70% dodge and there's nothing you can do about it except stacking stam.

Real world example:
Ragnaros HC hits me for up to 80k (post nerf). Add the magic damage that's all around (Burning Wound, Magma Trap, Hand of Ragnaros, Molten Inferno, Superheated) and you easily take 180-200k in 2 seconds. Good luck with that when you only have 180/190k HP max...

@ thread starter
depends on the content you are doing, my suggestion is agi for 5man, agi/stam for 10man and stam for 25man

[Healingftw]

So? I would say hes not the best then. I dont care about that others do, stacking stamina is still wrong.

You are just laughable, with zero knowledge about high end raiding and tanking.Keep on with the 5 mans/noob/normal mode raids and gem intelect or spirit if you want, wont have any problems there.

[traen]

This is typically not even true. If the boss hits for 60000 and you receive no healing at all then there is no difference at all between 120001 health and 180000. Stamina can (and will, mostly) be useless in a comparison of this type too because the difference between stacking stamina and stacking agility won't be 60000 health.

Oh cmon. Boss never hits for exactly 60000k and you never have exactly 180k health pool and there is always some kind of damage reduction done on you. Savage defense, priest-paladin shields. There is always some kind of healing done on you. Your own healing with leader of the pack, druid hots, normal heals.
Calculations with exact numbers and binary hits are useless.

Instead boss dps is taken. 20k dps, for example. And your health pool is devided by boss dps. 200k HP / 20k dps = 10 seconds.
Then goes your dodge chance. 50% dodge means that your time before death doubles. 20k dps becomes 10k dps, you will survive for 20 seconds.
Then goes savage defense absorbs. Lets say 20% of damage in average is absorbed. 10k dps becomes 8k dps, time before death becomes 25 seconds.
It was pure example, without any doubt rawr uses more complicated method, but still, he is working with average numbers. There is no any kind of simulation in it.

And as I already said, there is no simulations with "death" even in it. No simulation is able to calculate your chance to die with given amount of healing and no simulation is able to even calculate average number of damage you can take before death.

But if there was such simulation, overall, after 1million of iterations, average numbers in simulation would be equal to rawr numbers.

[Pawpurr]

So? I would say hes not the best then. I dont care about that others do, stacking stamina is still wrong.

no its not wrong. you are bad.

Avoidance doesnt get you anything worthwhile. Nobody likes spikey damage tanks, they like tanks who are predictable to heal. Avoidance certainly has its perks in this expansion (often stacking debuffs reset with dodge) but that doesnt make it more reliable than HP. the reason people preferred avoidance at the start of the expansion was healer mana constraints, which no longer exist at our gear level at the end of firelands.

[Vladinator]

The answer to the question depends on your current gear (if you lack severe agi for example) and if you got end game stuff already then it heavily depends on the situation you are in. And like already said, agi for avoidance and stam for health. Usually tanks carry spare trinkets for the "needs a lot of hp" fights that you put on for the delicious +500 stamina per trinket, other than that, I think all has been said that can be said.

I'd always advice to check what www.askmrrobot.com has to say.

[Braindwen]

So with agi stacking you lose 30k hp and gain only 3% dodge and little more sd absorbs.

Exaggeration is fun!
Since no sane tank ignores stam trinkets when they're necessary, we're talking a 20k hp drop-off at worst, and that's with someone like me who's agi stacked far beyond what's recommended or, well, smart. What can I say? dps is fun. The gains are roughly accurate, but I only say that because I haven't actually checked.

Not quite sure why you mention all different sorts of abilities that can and should be CD'd through, including magma trap and molten inferno. Assuming you're the one tanking when the seeds pop, that'd be the perfect moment for at least a barkskin, and guess what? An agi stacked bear with barkskin up has quite a bit more EH than a stam-stacked bear without.

Also, checking a recent 25 H-rag log with a bear tank, I see average hits of about 50-60k. 0 absorb hit of 68k, for example. There's a few weirdos, such as the second hit (before inspiration/AH is up, I'd guess) which was like 84k, and this oddball: Рагнарос hits Сверго 95827 (A: 41260). 137k hit ftw, I really dunno where that one came from. Didn't really affect anything as this druid didn't take another hit for almost 8 seconds. Btw, said druid is agility stacking, and reforging towards the hit/expertise caps.

[Nosonia]

So? I would say hes not the best then. I dont care about that others do, stacking stamina is still wrong.

You got math to back your point up? No... okay, move on then little one.

[Splosion]

I think this thread has become a flamefest.

[Deleo]

There is no need to argue over this really. As some of us pointed out, there is no single best answer to this question.

1- If you are doing T11 normal mode or 5 mans stam is not the best choice.
2- If you are progressing hardest available content then stam is a safer choice but puts more pressure on your healers.
3- Each enchouter's mechanics may favor one build over another, so be smart and switch gear accordingly.

[Lohe]

Oh cmon. Boss never hits for exactly 60000k and you never have exactly 180k health pool and there is always some kind of damage reduction done on you. Savage defense, priest-paladin shields. There is always some kind of healing done on you. Your own healing with leader of the pack, druid hots, normal heals.
Calculations with exact numbers and binary hits are useless.

You're the one who brought up a no-healing scenario in the first place. If it's so useless, don't bring it up.
When you start factoring in things like dodge and savage defense agility comes out on top anyway.
The only time you can get any decent numbers are when you tune it to a specific fight and at that point
it will always be enough health to survive a certain combination of abilities and then avoidance/mitigation.

Regardless of how you feel about players not knowing how much health is actually needed there are a lot of players
who actually do. 200k was the ballpark number needed for surviving a combination of pre-nerf rag's Hand of Rag,
a trap explosion, a burning wound tick and a melee swing occurring at roughly the same time.

[lizon]

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.

He also has some of the best healers in the world to compensate for his squishyness. You don't. Stack agility.

[traen]

200k was the ballpark number needed for surviving a combination of pre-nerf rag's Hand of Rag,
a trap explosion, a burning wound tick and a melee swing occurring at roughly the same time.

Exactly. I remember it really good because our tanks died all the time because of that "unlucky" combination.
And for some strange reason my average calculated number was not 200k. It was 180k. In the same time with some unlucky resists and heavy melee hits(ragnaros sometimes hits for 100k+, dunno why), this number becomes 220.
I remeber this situation really good as well, because we had 20 minutes whining when healers got minus dkp for losing tank. He was at 100% HP, in 1 seconds he recieved 210k damage from explosion, hand and melee hit, and died.

SO. 200k is not an average number, because average is 180. 200k is not the biggest number, because biggest is something around 220.
So what is it? Why was it chosen?

And I already wrote the right answer above. It was chosen just because it looks nice. Just because some tanks think that full stamina stacking is bad and they just took the closest round number that is lower than their max health pool. 200k is just magic number that has nothing to do with real calculations.

[Hulm]

Agility all the way. Its not WotLK to gem or enchant stamina. Your only source of stamina should be from Shifting purple gems in blue sockets. No matter if you have threat problems or no.

Instead of just brute forcing your opinion and telling others how you are right and they are wrong, you should instead source evidence/research to prove your point. Not because I think you are wrong, but because you are blatantly attempting to force people to believe you, which makes me assume you don't know what you are talking about.