Bear Gemming in Rawr

[Tyrrandion]

Heya. I've recently decided to switch my MS from cat to bear on my druid. When looking at how I should change my druids gemming, i came across allot of weird things in rawr, which really made me confused, because I know rawr was made for bears, and allot of the gemming advice seems weird.

Heres my armory, first off:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&cn=Shanksteak

Some examples of weird gemming/gear advice advice
(I realize, my glyphs are wrong, I just changed it to bear.)

Back: the icebound cloak (232 cloak from frost lord ahune) as the BiS, over the badge cloak, and well above most 25 hm cloaks.
Neck: Has the agi neck i have on better than the tanking neck from H HoR, has bis as an agi neck instead of a tank neck.
Chest: Has the best gemming setup on any of the decent chest pieces (shadow seeker's, Ifrikus, Frigid noose) as straight 3 20 agi gems (not gemming for bonus, just showing 3 agi gems)
Hands: (changing to t10) has the gem as 20 agi instead of agi/stam (red socket)
Boots: with frostbitten, has 2 20 agi in yellow sockets. With impending death, has agi/stam in the blue socket, 20 agi in the red.
Rings: Has 20 agi in Yellow Gems, has the band of the bone collosus as better than all the tanking rings other than the 277 ashen verdict ring, has other agi rings as better than tanking rings
Trinks: Has DMC:G agi and Death's choice as the bis trinkets, with allot of good tanking trinks WAY down on the list (corroded skele key is below the monarch crab from JC).

The common element seams to be Agility is WAY over stam for gemming. Looking at the best druid tanks on our server, they all pretty much go straight stam for non red sockets, stam/agi for red. Do I have some settings weird on my Rawr, or what? Thought I'd ask some experienced Burrs. Peace, and thanks.

[Kalokagathos]

Now, i dont know a lot about rawr, but it seems like it's still insisting you're cat and not bear..

[Tyrrandion]

I double and triple checked, i have my bear build with bear as the model

[Cerus]

I don't use RAWR that often but it's possible it's reading all your DPS gems, meta etc as you being DPS. One thing for proper gem advice in RAWR is to set up all the raid buffs/debuffs and the tanking values (MT, boss type) etc etc. If all else fails just gem the way you know how to gem and then try loading up in RAWR again.

[scorch109]

You're above the survival soft cap you have set once you pass that it works on avoidance and threat.

---------- Post added 2010-08-06 at 08:02 PM ----------

oh and bone collosus and the expertise ring are better then actual tank rings.

[Tyrrandion]

You're above the survival soft cap you have set once you pass that it works on avoidance and threat.

---------- Post added 2010-08-06 at 08:02 PM ----------

oh and bone collosus and the expertise ring are better then actual tank rings.

I Haven't set any caps, so it must be default. Is the stock one the one i want to use, and if not, how do I change it? It seems like I'm going to screw myself on HP for avoidances, since it's primarily telling me to gem agi (maybe not too much of a problem on most of the fights w/ the 30% buff).

Thanks for the replies, and if you have anymore insights, keep them coming. Peace

[exochaft]

I Haven't set any caps, so it must be default. Is the stock one the one i want to use, and if not, how do I change it? It seems like I'm going to screw myself on HP for avoidances, since it's primarily telling me to gem agi (maybe not too much of a problem on most of the fights w/ the 30% buff).

Thanks for the replies, and if you have anymore insights, keep them coming. Peace

Common pitfall of most users of RAWR, so don't feel too bad about it.

Like any precision tool, 99% of the time you need to calibrate it before use. Otherwise, the information it yields is useless. That being said, I don't quite recall what the default settings are for RAWR on every single setting out of the box, but at least you should setup raid buffs, adjust settings for the content you're concerned about (I think default is 5man heroics or Naxx10), and make sure the Talents tab is reflecting the spec you want to analyze. This is by far the simplest method of calibration, but it's generally good enough for most people.

That being said, step back a moment, look at the Stats tab, and go under Summary to read the tooltips of Overall, Survival, and Mitigation Points (Threat Points, too, if you're concerning how that works). Understand what these tooltips means because it defines the entire module used for rating gear and how to use the gear information provided, and now you're leagues ahead of most users that just gravitate to the top of the lists via default settings. If you desire more info concerning the subject, go the EH vs TTL link in my signature (it's the same model basically, just switch out EH for Survival and TTL for Mitigation and it's roughly the same, close enough for a basic grasp of the concept).

Just keep in mind, just because someone's the "best on the server" doesn't mean much at all, I know on my server most of us laugh at people bragging about being the best on our server because our population isn't very stellar as a whole. It doesn't hurt to look at gearing choices of people that have more experience, but even ppl at the top of the raiding world don't fit the model of perfection for gearing (some still make very simple gearing mistakes).

Be that as it may, your situation may be different from those you observe... most people at the top don't need to gear perfectly because they raid with skilled people who make the models of "infinite healer mana" a reality (if there is infinite mana, stam stacking is generally no problem since healers never run out of mana). Most people don't get the luxury of working with a raid of 10/25 highly skilled players, some are lucky to have 5 in the entire guild... this is when tanking theory and gearing selections make a larger difference. You must use your knowledge of the people you work with and the content/fights you're facing to make gear choices work the best for you.

One last little tidbit for you: don't take empirical statements to heart. Specifically, don't fall into the trap of believing statements like "stam is always better" or "agi is always better" or any other absolute statement concerning how you should stack your stats. The weight of stats is always relative to what you currently have, and changing one stat will affect how all other are rated. This is why RAWR came into existence, to cut down on the math needed to compare items... the unfortunate part is most people still fail horribly at understanding the RAWR model and applying it correctly. Above all, remember RAWR is just a tool, you still need to use your brain to adjust you gear for specific encounters!