Bear gemming stam vs agil in icc (with some rawr)

[autobahn1212]

Using rawr to compare gear I was stacking stack when icc came out , I didn't die to no avoidance but my threat seemed alittle lacking. I replace 5 10agil/15stam gems with 5 30 stam. Now the new rawr is saying I need all 20 agil gems. So has anyone test or have thoughts on stacking stam vs agil/stam or pure agil with icc dodge?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ands&n=Jinxcat

[Dargin]

If youre using that greatness to tank then you really need to be stacking stamina like crazy, or a better solution would be to replace that with juggernauts. Once you get 2 real tanking trinkets what I would do is 10 agi/15 stam in all red, and 30 stam in all blue. You shouldnt really need pure agi gems, especially for threat. If your threat is an issue you probably arent using a proper rotation or something, like using mangle a GCD late with an imp. mangle build.

[Sunshine]

If youre using that greatness to tank then you really need to be stacking stamina like crazy, or a better solution would be to replace that with juggernauts. Once you get 2 real tanking trinkets what I would do is 10 agi/15 stam in all red, and 30 stam in all blue. You shouldnt really need pure agi gems, especially for threat.

I disagree with almost everything you say here. Greatness is a very good tanking trinket. It's much better than stacking 2 stam trinkets. You likely don't need to stack pure stam anymore for any of the normal ICC content -- stacking agi or agi/stam is a much better idea, until you're getting flattened. Agi as a threat stat is *very* good.

[Dargin]

I disagree with almost everything you say here. Greatness is a very good tanking trinket. It's much better than stacking 2 stam trinkets. You likely don't need to stack pure stam anymore for any of the normal ICC content -- stacking agi or agi/stam is a much better idea, until you're getting flattened. Agi as a threat stat is *very* good.

Obviously you can do any normal-mode content with greatness...is that even an arguement? Normal modes are easy as hell, and if you need to use greatness for it because your dps is out-threating you then thats a problem in itself. Greatness is not an amazing bear trinket, it worked for a long time but you wont get in hardmode groups using it over a juggernauts, because JV is such a better tanking trinket.

[Degrador]

Obviously you can do any normal-mode content with greatness...is that even an arguement?

Given the OP was asking about ICC and there won't be any hard modes for it for probably 3 months, why are you talking about them? Not to mention we don't even have any decent data for how hard they hit in hard modes (and that Blizzard could modify them significantly between now and when they're released).

autobahn, current ICC bosses don't hit very hard which means if your healers are competent then you shouldn't need to stack stam (and for Deathbringer Saurfang you actually want as much avoidance as possible). Building up your agility for avoidance and threat is probably a good idea if ICC is what you want to focus on. If possible, having other stam stacked gear available is still a good idea though.

[arel00]

And by the way, JV sucks so badly it's embarassing. If you want EH there are WAY better ones.

[Nithian]

Obviously you can do any normal-mode content with greatness...is that even an arguement? Normal modes are easy as hell, and if you need to use greatness for it because your dps is out-threating you then thats a problem in itself. Greatness is not an amazing bear trinket, it worked for a long time but you wont get in hardmode groups using it over a juggernauts, because JV is such a better tanking trinket.

I'm amazed how many druid tanks still adhere to the "Stam > ANYTHING" ideal, and even more so that they advocate it to others without any situational advice.

-You want to impress scrubs/random pugs? Gear/enchant/gem straight stam for a "Big Number1!!!111!1!"

-You want to impress your healers, other tanks, GOOD DPS and get through content? Go agility for the avoidance/threat boost and make yourself easier to heal and impossible to over-aggro....(ya know, the key points of being a tank : ) ::UNLESS:: there is a specific situation that demands a huge lifepool.

Funny how this general idea has remained consistent for as long as bears have been tanking....yet it still needs to be repeated over and over and over.


OP: Gem/gear/enchant as if nothing is different about ICC. Oh, and give the above points a real, unbiased bit of thought.

[Sidonis]

The reason you need to gem Agility in every slot except to meet meta or to bump your hit a little, is because Blizzard is assuming you are, hence the 20% dodge zone debuff. 20% reduction is what Blizzard feels would be suitable avoidance if you're gemming purely for avoidance, so in essence you have to whether you were planning on it or not.

This is the same thing that happened in Sunwell. Not all bears gemmed purely for agility before Sunwell launched, but because some did and that was enough for Blizzard to put in a 20% dodge debuff, thus making it necessary for everyone to gem for avoidance, otherwise your avoidance is going to be even lower than what the content is tuned for.

[Teran]

Funny how this general idea has remained consistent for as long as bears have been tanking....yet it still needs to be repeated over and over and over.

What's funny is people telling folks who gem for pure stamina that they need to gem for pure agility. The individual needs of a player cannot be so easily summarized. We are not all in guilds that are killing heroic anub'arak 25 and such advice as "gem for pure agi" really isn't such a good idea considering the dps we are matched up against isn't out running our tps and we are often not being backed up by elite level healers.

Good tanking can't be simplified down to gemming for the "most optimal" stat. Good tanking is responding to the needs and challenges of your guild which sometimes means gemming for sta... or agi... or finding a balance between the two.

I've read (lurked) these forums for quite some time along with the ej forums and I've grown weary of people who equate being a "good tank" to gemming for agility or stamina.

[Sidonis]

What's funny is people telling folks who gem for pure stamina that they need to gem for pure agility. The individual needs of a player cannot be so easily summarized. We are not all in guilds that are killing heroic anub'arak 25 and such advice as "gem for pure agi" really isn't such a good idea considering the dps we are matched up against isn't out running our tps and we are often not being backed up by elite level healers.

Good tanking can't be simplified down to gemming for the "most optimal" stat. Good tanking is responding to the needs and challenges of your guild which sometimes means gemming for sta... or agi... or finding a balance between the two.

I've read (lurked) these forums for quite some time along with the ej forums and I've grown weary of people who equate being a "good tank" to gemming for agility or stamina.

Except that this situation involves a zone wide debuff that reduces your dodge by 20% whether you're fighting Lord Marrowgar on normal in 10-man, or Arthas on heroic in 25-man.

[bavarcarus]

No, it can't be simplified to either, and there's many discussions in these forums involving gearing yourself to have a certain amount of health to survive content you're running. Excuding progression guilds that are the firsts to be running new content on heroic mode, worrying about nothing but stm is much dumber that worrying about nothing but agility. You need enough health to survive long enough to give healers a decent chance to get heals off and past that you want mitigation. I survive fine on h25toc with alot of agi gemming using glyph and black heart with 51.5k health although our dps needs some improvement to get through it.

What's funny is people telling folks who gem for pure stamina that they need to gem for pure agility. The individual needs of a player cannot be so easily summarized. We are not all in guilds that are killing heroic anub'arak 25 and such advice as "gem for pure agi" really isn't such a good idea considering the dps we are matched up against isn't out running our tps and we are often not being backed up by elite level healers.

Good tanking can't be simplified down to gemming for the "most optimal" stat. Good tanking is responding to the needs and challenges of your guild which sometimes means gemming for sta... or agi... or finding a balance between the two.

I've read (lurked) these forums for quite some time along with the ej forums and I've grown weary of people who equate being a "good tank" to gemming for agility or stamina.

[Cheezee]

Greatness is not an amazing bear trinket, it worked for a long time but you wont get in hardmode groups using it over a juggernauts, because JV is such a better tanking trinket.

Lets see... Greatness provides:
2.03% dodge, 1.17% crit, 195 armor by itself
2.2% dodge, 1.28% crit and 214 armor with kings

When it procs those numbers jump to:
8.8% dodge, 5.06% crit and 843 armor
9.7% dodge, 5.6% crit and 928 armor with kings.

JV heroic (that's 58 ilvls above greatness) gets you 3211 health by itself and 3532 hp with kings + 5186 additional hp for 15 seconds which is not affected by raid buffs.

How exactly do you figure JV is better than Greatness?

[arel00]

While it holds true, to the very end, that specific needs must overcome EVERYTHING else, because it's your raid going there, and you're with those specific people, you can sometimes make a bit of generalization.

An example is what many people have been telling around here on gems.
It's advisable to stack stamina if you're on TotGC25.
It's not advisable to be at 60k+ health fi you're on Anub'arak.
It's useless to go pure stamina for lower content, because you won't need that much health buffer (this is merely a factor of the DTPS you face), if you never drop below 15k health, you can probably use less stamina.
It's best at pre-TotC content to gem pure agility, except on Algalon and Steelbreaker 25.
It's advisable to use Shifting gems in TotC normal (both) and 10men heroic.

Such generalizations can be made. Because in the end, there is a stat weighting. As long as you keep the content clear and your focus in mind, you can make *some* assumptions.

[Teran]

Except that this situation involves a zone wide debuff that reduces your dodge by 20% whether you're fighting Lord Marrowgar on normal in 10-man, or Arthas on heroic in 25-man.

I get the feeling you were trying to make a point but I'm not quite sure what it is. You're assuming that Blizzard is assuming all bear druids are gemming pure agility. There is a massive void here where the common sense should be. As for fighting Lord Marrowgar or Arthas, on normal mode a 20% reduction in avoidance is nothing. Every raiding guild of note on my server killed Saurfang, even mine. Even with me tanking. My avoidance may be down to ~35% from ~50% but despite not gemming for pure agility I manage to survive, hold threat, and remain an effective and viable tank.

...worrying about nothing but stm is much dumber that worrying about nothing but agility.

That is just a stupid thing to say. Both examples are equally dumb because whoever is stupid enough to worry about nothing but stamina or agility (or any stat) probably has no actual understanding of the game or their class and follows the advice given out on these forums without any cross referencing or research of their own.

[Rurikar]

I am going to put beacon on my bear tank.
He is going to get 20kHP a second.

Him dodging, does not mean I am not going to heal him.


So stack hitpoints or get a paladin so you can stack hitpoints. Nobody is saying AGI is bad because of this and this reason, people are saying stamina is the only thing that matters because it's the only thing that matters. Even if stacking AGI becomes the thing to do in HM ICC, at best it will be "on par" with stacking stamina. So why risk gimping yourself with silly gear sets when you can have absurd hitpoint pools and just soak damage that would be healed either way. If mages had 150k HP and could hold aggro like a champion then mages would tank even if it meant they got hit every single time.

For some reason most tanks in this game know nothing about the most important part of tanking, healing.

[Rurikar]

Lets see... Greatness provides:
2.03% dodge, 1.17% crit, 195 armor by itself
2.2% dodge, 1.28% crit and 214 armor with kings

When it procs those numbers jump to:
8.8% dodge, 5.06% crit and 843 armor
9.7% dodge, 5.6% crit and 928 armor with kings.

JV heroic (that's 58 ilvls above greatness) gets you 3211 health by itself and 3532 hp with kings + 5186 additional hp for 15 seconds which is not affected by raid buffs.

How exactly do you figure JV is better than Greatness?

Because a proc is not controllable and that is what tanking is all about. Most of the time it will proc when you don't need to take less damage. JV provides more EH and has the ability to shoot your health up another 5k which can and does save lives.

If you are fighting a patchwork dummy who does nothing but autoattack then sure, use greatness. For the rest of the game use something that can save you in a pickle and is overall a better tanking trinket.

[Kreth]

1. I gem on a socket-by-socket basis. Sometimes bonuses matter.

2. That said, the ICC -20% dodge debuff makes stam stacking make *much much* more sense. Say you're a bear with 50% dodge and can add enough agi to get 1% more dodge. That's a 2% (average) reduction in incoming damage. Now with the dodge debuff, instead of 50%->51% you're going from 30%->31%, it's closer to a 1.6% (average) reduction in incoming damage... and your dodge is still suffering from diminishing returns as if you had the original 50%.

In short, the ICC debuff encourages stam stacking.

[Sunshine]

2. That said, the ICC -20% dodge debuff makes stam stacking make *much much* more sense. Say you're a bear with 50% dodge and can add enough agi to get 1% more dodge. That's a 2% (average) reduction in incoming damage. Now with the dodge debuff, instead of 50%->51% you're going from 30%->31%, it's closer to a 1.6% (average) reduction in incoming damage... and your dodge is still suffering from diminishing returns as if you had the original 50%.

In short, the ICC debuff encourages stam stacking.

I think this interpretation of dodge is misleading. Rather than looking it as a percentage reduction, look at it as an absolute -- 1% of all attacks are avoided by that extra percent of dodge, and the total damage avoided is equal either way.

The ICC debuff means that the developers don't have to have bosses hit ridiculously hard to do their damage. If they plan to have a boss do 15k dps on a one second swing timer, at 50% avoidance, the boss has to hit for 30k, and you better have enough stam to take two hits in a row in case your dodge misses. At 30% avoidance, the boss only has to hit for 21k. Now it's a lot easier to survive in that unlucky case of getting 2-3 hits in a row.

Because you're taking less damage per swing, you don't need as much stam, because you no longer stand the risk of getting 3-shot in a string of unlucky non-dodges. You'll still get these unlucky strings, and you'll have more of them than in the case with higher dodge, but they're not nearly as hazardous.

[axxey]

I had 60k soaking on marrowgar, less than 50k for all the rest.

Turned out 3 tank heals got spiked at once and warrior keeled over, so just as well I was wearing high buffer zone gear.

Gear is fight per fight, both gunship and saurfang encourage avoidance due to boss mechanics of things happening when they hit the tank. Tanking left side on deathwhisper with multiple fanatics on the other hand could encourage more stam to give healers more buffer to heal through lots of necrotic strikes.

[Kreth]

I think this interpretation of dodge is misleading. Rather than looking it as a percentage reduction, look at it as an absolute -- 1% of all attacks are avoided by that extra percent of dodge, and the total damage avoided is equal either way.

Well, following this argument, you could say the difference between having 99% dodge and 100% dodge is similar with respect to total damage avoided as the difference between 49% dodge and 50% dodge-- but that would be misleading.