What/How to gem? FERALTANK

[Krayzz]

First off, here is my armory.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...asza&cn=Kereir

I'm having trouble deciding which gems I should be changing. I've heard agi/stam in red sockets, and def/stam in yellow sockets, and pure stam in blue. But what bonuses should I be looking for, and what gems should I change out?
The couple I'm almost certain about is an agi/stam in the red socket in my pants, helm, and maybe my shoulders?
Also, for my chest, should I switch to an agi/stam def/stam, or just agi/stam and a pure stam gem.

[Drelimar]

As a druid you should never ever gem defense as you get almost no benefit from it whatsoever. If you plan to raid tank your gems look fine aside from possibly replacing your helm's gem with a 10 agi/15 stam gem. Gemming Agility sounds good in theory, but with many bosses now having high unavoidable damage attacks (think Gormok's Impale) and large magical damage attacks (can't be dodged), you need a good pool of health to soak those types of big hits.

[Sunshine]

Def/stam or nightmare tears are definitely the way to go for yellow sockets where the socket bonus is worthwhile. I'd definitely replace some of your gems with agi/stam -- pants and shoulders, as you said. I probably wouldn't care as much about the chest -- 3 agi per socket is mediocre considering you have to replace 2 gems, but it could go either way. That yellow socket in your cape might be a good one to replace though -- I'd prefer 10 def and 21 stam (with socket bonus) over just 30 stam.

As a druid you should never ever gem defense as you get almost no benefit from it whatsoever. If you plan to raid tank your gems look fine aside from possibly replacing your helm's gem with a 10 agi/15 stam gem. Gemming Agility sounds good in theory, but with many bosses now having high unavoidable damage attacks (think Gormok's Impale) and large magical damage attacks (can't be dodged), you need a good pool of health to soak those types of big hits.

We do get benefit from defense -- at high gear levels, it's the same or more mitigation per point as agility, since it's using DR from miss instead of just from dodge. Right now in my tank gear, 10 defense is worth 0.16% avoidance (dodge + miss) and 10 agility is worth 0.13% (dodge). That doesn't mean I'm going to go stacking defense instead of agility -- I like the crit and armor too much for that -- but it does mean that it's a perfectly viable gemming option to get yellow socket bonuses.

As far as a large health pool, it's good to have, but once you have enough to soak the necessary damage from various boss abilities, more is pointless -- nobody needs a tank with 70k hp with this content. You may as well gem for avoidance after you get "enough" hp in hopes of stacking the RNG in your favor.

[enigmaran]

Drelimer is only partially correct on this one.

Krayzz, you are correct on the standard colors used to fill gem sockets.

For yellow sockets, defense/stam green gems (and of course your nightmare tear in one too) are the way to go provided that the socket bonus is at least 6 stam or agi.

Defense provides benefit of a small boost to dodge and the miss chance boss mobs have against you. As such, there is some tangible benefit to having defense as a minor stat.

Regarding health pools - yes for ToGC first 4 bosses you wanted to stack stam because of big hits. In icecrown, however, avoidance is becoming more useful so that agi does have a place. As long as you can survive 2 hits from the boss with no heals and still be alive, you're in good shape. I wouldn't be surprised to see agi/stam eventually going in blue sockets too.

[panth]

Feral tank should socket one Shifting Dreadstone for meta and all the other slots with stam gems. Shifting Dreadstone should be placed on item where ya would get the most benefit aka most stamina, if there is no stamina bonuses in your gear try finding a 8 agility bonus. Stacking avoidance is silly in almost every situation since stamina is not based on rng at all nor does it have dr. Threat shouldnt be an issue either since most leather pieces have expertise and hit.

[Cheezee]

Feral tank should socket one Shifting Dreadstone for meta and all the other slots with stam gems. Shifting Dreadstone should be placed on item where ya would get the most benefit aka most stamina, if there is no stamina bonuses in your gear try finding a 8 agility bonus. Stacking avoidance is silly in almost every situation since stamina is not based on rng at all nor does it have dr. Threat shouldnt be an issue either since most leather pieces have expertise and hit.

So sayeth the sponge.

[Mortalol2]

STA,STA and STA

[enigmaran]

go read the whole discussion on stamina versus agility...

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...ear-guide/555/

top post on that page is essentially a summary of the conclusion of the discussion

[Auroro]

go read the whole discussion on stamina versus agility...

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...ear-guide/555/

top post on that page is essentially a summary of the conclusion of the discussion

Thank you for bring that post.

I will have to said that both Mortalol-Misery and panth need to look at that post and rethink of what they are doing to their druid and the raid.

[klondikebear]

Druid win #3: not caring as much about avoidance
The idea behind diminishing returns on avoidance is the same as the one behind armor - while the absolute value per point of avoidance goes down as you get more of it, the relative value stays the same.

So for example: if I avoid 50% of attacks, getting another 1% avoidance reduces my relative damage by 2% - instead of taking 50 attacks every 100, I take 49, and (50-49)/50 = 2%.

But let's take 20% dodge off there. Now, that same 1% avoidance - which remember, costs the same as it did before - now makes me go from 30 to 31%. Which means that instead of taking 70 hits, I take 69. That's only a 1.4% improvement in incoming damage taken - or about a loss of 40% effectiveness.

So this makes avoidance about 30-40% less valuable than it was before. Think about that in terms of the gearing too.

from http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/200...nce-bears.html

we always link this as a trusted source, but apparently no one follows it. i guess the sky is falling. honestly I don't agree that 21stam + 0.016 dodge/miss is worth 30 stam you will never notice defense helping you unless you have hundreds upon hundreds of it
some of the best theorycrafters say stack stamina

[enigmaran]

Klondike - there's a few things wrong with what you're suggesting and with what that dude has to say.

1. That post was made before icecrown even came out, before any actual playing under the effects of CotT were experienced.

2. HE'S WRONG. His numbers he's throwing around are completely off, claiming a 10k health pool advantage for bears over other tanks.

I could go further into it, but before you throw up a link calling it "a trusted source" you should actually read the entire article and take its context into consideration. The post was made before we knew anything about icecrown gear, how hard bosses would hit, fight mechanics, etc. It's simply not the case.

[klondikebear]

It doesn't matter if noone experienced chill, if all it was was a number that could be easily computed as he did. the health pool thing isn't that far fetched, and has NOTHING to do with avoidance. It's *simple* math. Plus you're defending avoidance stacking before you know everything about icecrown gear, how hard bosses would hit, fight mechanics etc. Lich King gear isn't out, most people don't know future boss mechanics or how hard they hit, I will bet you that hardmodes hit hard enough to stack stamina, just like ToGC.. you'll see when the people who gem so much avoidance have to regem stamina like those who are already doing it

[arel00]

It doesn't matter if noone experienced chill, if all it was was a number that could be easily computed as he did. the health pool thing isn't that far fetched, and has NOTHING to do with avoidance. It's *simple* math. Plus you're defending avoidance stacking before you know everything about icecrown gear, how hard bosses would hit, fight mechanics etc. Lich King gear isn't out, most people don't know future boss mechanics or how hard they hit, I will bet you that hardmodes hit hard enough to stack stamina, just like ToGC.. you'll see when the people who gem so much avoidance have to regem stamina like those who are already doing it

If they'll make hardmode bosses hit like in TotGC, obviously after scaling them on ICC, they'll go completely AGAINST what they have been saying in all blues since months.

Dont' expect the bosses to hit lightly of course, but don't expect a two-hit-KO situation like in TotGC anymore. Because that's the reason they added Chill in the first place: forcing tanks to get hit more often so bosses aren't required to take away 60% of your life each hit to compensate.

[getefix]

It doesn't matter if noone experienced chill, if all it was was a number that could be easily computed as he did. the health pool thing isn't that far fetched, and has NOTHING to do with avoidance. It's *simple* math. Plus you're defending avoidance stacking before you know everything about icecrown gear, how hard bosses would hit, fight mechanics etc. Lich King gear isn't out, most people don't know future boss mechanics or how hard they hit, I will bet you that hardmodes hit hard enough to stack stamina, just like ToGC.. you'll see when the people who gem so much avoidance have to regem stamina like those who are already doing it

Really? So Much? I probably have a total of 60 agility and 20 defense from gems, That's 120 Stamina. A few enchants could be changed to give me another ~70 stamina. I'd rather maximize all my stats than ruin all my socket bonuses just to get another stam trinket's worth of HP.

[klondikebear]

Really? So Much? I probably have a total of 60 agility and 20 defense from gems, That's 120 Stamina. A few enchants could be changed to give me another ~70 stamina. I'd rather maximize all my stats than ruin all my socket bonuses just to get another stam trinket's worth of HP.

i could be wrong, but some of the people have 20agi which gives them more but anyways.. if we had the same gear and you gemmed your way and i gemmed mine, its a matter of about 1.2% avoidance vs 1962hp. maybe we should just stop arguing about which is better and tell newcomers to gem how they want as it won't make a difference

If they'll make hardmode bosses hit like in TotGC, obviously after scaling them on ICC, they'll go completely AGAINST what they have been saying in all blues since months.

Dont' expect the bosses to hit lightly of course, but don't expect a two-hit-KO situation like in TotGC anymore.

Oh I know they won't two shot us, more like three.. and technically they will hit harder, but obviously not relative to our gear because we'll have so much more hp(just from gear). they're still going to drop tanks like flys when people assume they won't because of the radiance. yes you have to use cd's, but festergut hits for 25-30K a hit, just wait till hardmode (you aren't going to have cd's up 100% of the 2 and 3 debuffs)

[rated]

Feral tank should socket one Shifting Dreadstone for meta and all the other slots with stam gems. Shifting Dreadstone should be placed on item where ya would get the most benefit aka most stamina, if there is no stamina bonuses in your gear try finding a 8 agility bonus. Stacking avoidance is silly in almost every situation since stamina is not based on rng at all nor does it have dr. Threat shouldnt be an issue either since most leather pieces have expertise and hit.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...ear-guide/555/

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...ear-guide/555/

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...ear-guide/555/

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...ear-guide/555/

Read ! Learn !

[Alski]

Oh I know they won't two shot us, more like three.. and technically they will hit harder, but obviously not relative to our gear because we'll have so much more hp(just from gear). they're still going to drop tanks like flys when people assume they won't because of the radiance. yes you have to use cd's, but festergut hits for 25-30K a hit, just wait till hardmode (you aren't going to have cd's up 100% of the 2 and 3 debuffs)

Its all well and good to use HM's as an example but not everyone will get to see them, so they should gem for the content THEY are doing/going to see.

[enigmaran]

The reason why it matters that the sources you are citing are from pre-icecrown klondike, is that when he wrote that he had no idea how hard icecrown bosses would be hitting.

I'm not going to bother going into detail again because we've had the discussion elsewhere on here, but suffice to say, stacking 100% stam is overkill atm.

[autobahn1212]

So sayeth the sponge.

Yea till you reach this level , which btw isn't hard

I was recently running with alot of agi gems at ~53k health, but experience with festergut (even with 2 stacks) made me crank that up to ~57k. I'm pretty sure he has a 2 second swing timer, so 2 20k hits with a 10k bloat in 2 seconds can happen (approximate numbers). Anyway the change made things much more comfortable although I went down to 5500 dps overall for the fight from the 6k I did before. Also finally got around to tuning rawr for the survivability I want to have.

stam is you friend , agil is nice but don't gem all agil then call everyone sponges, cause you'll get 2 shot and your healers cant heal that..

[klondikebear]

The reason why it matters that the sources you are citing are from pre-icecrown klondike, is that when he wrote that he had no idea how hard icecrown bosses would be hitting.

I'm not going to bother going into detail again because we've had the discussion elsewhere on here, but suffice to say, stacking 100% stam is overkill atm.

it might be overkill, but honestly i think it will save money/badges from havin to add more in hardmodes (im not poor, im cheap btw lol). healers don't have mana problems, so you could argue stacking more stam is better so you don't get gibbed, or avoidance so healers can catch up.. both viable arguements. there are no fights that favor avoidance over stam at this point (one could most certainly pop up) saurfang was proven to just be smart and have a priest, and tanks avoiding attacks doesn't matter and you can just kite saurfang on the boat alll day if you want and never take damage at all (in that case you could tank in any gear, lol) blood queen promotes the off tank to have alot of HP as they can't dodge the damage that they aren't getting hit for.

like i said before, its basically 1% dodge vs 1k hp.. its not gamebreaking, but to me i still like having more than needed for oh sh*t moments. and as a note, im using a staff for tanking and dps, so its got a 20agi and agi/stam gem in, plus my pants have a agi/stam gem + stam gem for the socket bonus..

he might not have known how hard the boss's hit, so anything about that could be wrong.. but unless im mistaken his avoidance math is still correct.