Does tanking need hit/expertise cap?

[Stalfo]

I've read around and saw posts saying to get each capped and I have them both capped at the moment, but Ive been looking at top ranked guilds bear tanks and seen a bunch of them ignoring the caps and just reforging dodge. Now I'm inclined to believe these guys know what they are doing (looked at Paragon and a few others) and obviously they are either complete or deep into HM. Just seeing if maybe I just read the incorrect thing about getting capped or what you guys were thought.

[Ceridith]

Focusing on hit and expertise at this point in content will do far more to hinder your performance than help. The biggest concern is survivability, which means stamina and mitigation. As damage scales as your DPS gears up and new tiers come out, hit and expertise will be more important to be able to keep your agro scaling enough.

[drkbkr]

There's no more parry haste as far as I know, and threat is a non-issue at this point (at least once you're 10 seconds into the fight) so I wouldn't worry about it. Stats are pretty random though. I've reforged all hit -> dodge and I'm still at 5% hit. Haven't reforged any expertise though but I'm only at 5.

[Arielle]

Hit cap is only necesarry if you are relied on for interrupts (10m only) and should be done through Trinket(s) / Consumable(s), preferably not gear or reforging.

Expertise is a nice stat, and is actually better than Crit at the 346/359 level. Unfortunately Exp/Mastery gear is pretty hard to find.

[Kagonos]

There's no more parry haste as far as I know, and threat is a non-issue at this point so I wouldn't worry about it. Stats are pretty random though. I've reforged all hit -> dodge and I'm still at 5% hit. Haven't reforged any expertise though but I'm only at 5.

Then you aren't gearing properly. You should be looking for CRIT/MASTERY pieces, reforging crit into dodge. Once you start to replace those pieces (it may just be that you are wearing the best you have) You'll find far less hit on your gear. To the OP: There's REALLY no need to start a NEW thread on this topic that has been covered, as you pointed out, on several other threads. Ask your question (which has probably already been answered) on one of the existing threads. FFS, we've already told you what we thought.

[Siafubringer]

Ignore hit/expertise, forge mitigation, win. Threat is really not a problem now and this lets focusing more on the tank stats than dps stats (tanks happen to use)

[Elunedra]

it is tru that threat is not a problem at this point. but we do seem to get a nerf there next patch so maybe we do need hit / exp after that (or haste as it will buff lacarate)

[Ashareth]

The main problem with the whole hit/exp question is that it depends on a lot of things.

First, it depends if you are raiding or doing hc.
In the second case having a exp/hit cap set of gear is really nice, because :
- you don't always have a hunter/rogue to use tricks/md on pull (most hunters/rogues out there couldn't use it if their lives depended on it, and you don't always have one in the group ), so it helps on initial threat (and threat as a whole, since vengeance isn't stacked high most of the times, so you can easily strugle with geared people that have a big burst like Arms, Frost dk, Hunters and such)
- it helps a LOT with interupts, and most of the time you'll be the only one doing it
- It helps with damage output (and it's nice to be able to make it up for the inate dps out there).


In the first case, for most tanks, it's less desirable than avoidance/survivability because for the moment the problem is (with competent players and a decent raid comp) survivability, not threat.
DK are arguably the only ones whose survivability can be quite affected by miss/parry (delaying Death Strikes and as such, delaying healing/shielding from it and Blood Shield, making healing needed more important, and *could* lead to tank death if you get a bad rng streak like you miss 2/3 DS in a row or something), but theorycrafters out there seems to think it's not really noticeable and isn't worth gimping your survivability stats for hit/exp.

Damage output is something else, but not being hit/expertise capped isn't that much of a loss when vengeance is stacked (it's still one, but survivability is more important).

Since you will have a huge threat lead pretty much easily after 15/20s in the fight, survivability gets more important than hit/exp unless you are on interupt duty (in that case you WANT to be hit capped, exp being useless for miss).

[bendora]

Forge: Dodge
Gem: Stamina

That is it.

[fox1012]

Threat mostly isn't a problem, although there are times I'm worried, such as after Magmaw's dps phase, when I've slipped behind in threat, and a taunt puts me back on top.

I am sitting at 26 expertise to avoid getting parried, but I feel as though it's not a big deal either way.

I think your priorities should be

Getting your threat to a point to where it's not an issue.
Getting your health pool to a point where you have a comfortable amount, where you can take a few big hits without dying.
Getting your avoidance/mitigation up so your healers can focus on the massive amount of AoE that is happening.

I've read some things that ideally a tank is taking a small enough amount of damage and mitigating enough, that the healers can spam their most efficient heal, saving the great heals and such for emergencies.

[Deleted]

Hit and Expertise aren't overly needed. You get enough hit from items alone. In fact I'm 0% chance to hit anything less than an 87/?? boss and at worst you'll be what 1% miss chance? Big whoop. Get some yes, but just rely on gear to do it, don't gem or reforge it.

You'll want as much agility and mastery as you can get with some half decent stamina. Reforge any haste, then hit, then expertise, then crit into dodge and you're well away.

[Shizznizz]

Forge: Dodge
Gem: Stamina

That is it.

Sigh.

Forge: Dodge
Gem: Pure Agility with bits of stam for good socket bonuses

[staychill]

gemming agility will get you roflstomped in HMs

[Soisoisoi]

Short Answer: No.

Longish Answer: No, unless you are specifically needed to interrupt. Threat is a non-issue past the first few seconds(and Taunt&Misdirect/Tricks help with that). I believe every Tank-class is just going for Survival(Avoidance/Mastery/Stamina) over threat atm.

[Rushgarroth]

Sigh.

Forge: Dodge
Gem: Pure Agility with bits of stam for good socket bonuses

Lawl... FAILED

Go for STAMINA
DODGE

[Shizznizz]

gemming agility will get you roflstomped in HMs

Unlikely. HM's just increase the stam threshold slightly. Swap out some agility gems for stam or agi-stam.

[Barawr]

Unlikely. HM's just increase the stam threshold slightly. Swap out some agility gems for stam or agi-stam.

Have you used RAWR to get an idea? The moment you switch to Heroic T11 Raid settings it pushes almost all stamina since the survival soft cap greatly increases. As long as Astrylian's numbers are accurate for a proper survival soft cap and boss damage then much more stamina is required.

[Reesify]

Have you used RAWR to get an idea? The moment you switch to Heroic T11 Raid settings it pushes almost all stamina since the survival soft cap greatly increases. As long as Astrylian's numbers are accurate for a proper survival soft cap and boss damage then much more stamina is required.

I've used the "I've done heroic content and it doesn't hit hard enough to warrant stam stacking"

Does that count?

There's an HP threshold that should be met, I agree, but it doesn't mean stam stacking.

[Barawr]

Of course that counts! :-) If Astrylian's numbers in RAWR are a bit too high, however, it would be nice to have them modified so that the tool can more accurately give us results. I by no means rely completely on RAWR for gemming and I do a lot by "feel" as well. My guild isn't quite into heroics, but we are on the verge of starting so I'm just trying to preplan.

[dinokaze]

I've used the "I've done heroic content and it doesn't hit hard enough to warrant stam stacking"

Does that count?

There's an HP threshold that should be met, I agree, but it doesn't mean stam stacking.

I trust people who have completed heroic modes more than someone who has done a couple.