Bear Guide: 4.1+

[waat]

It's the buffs that make Stam and Agility virtually equivalent in value in terms of providing AP (and therefore SD size) assuming full vengeance. Without the buffs or the 4.3 buff to Stam, Agility would be ahead.

What are these "buffs" you're referring to?

[Arielle]

What are these "buffs" you're referring to?

Stamina: Bear Form(1.2), HOTW(1.06), Leather Spec(1.05), Kings(1.05), Might(1.2), and our passive 25% for Feral
Agility: Kings(1.05), Might(1.2), and our passive 25% for Feral.

Multiply Stamina by 1.5 for the itemization budget and they're nearly the same in terms of AP.

[waat]

Stamina: Bear Form(1.2), HOTW(1.06), Leather Spec(1.05), Kings(1.05), Might(1.2), and our passive 25% for Feral
Agility: Kings(1.05), Might(1.2), and our passive 25% for Feral.

Multiply Stamina by 1.5 for the itemization budget and they're nearly the same in terms of AP.

Yeah I posted all of that on the last page. I thought tangedyn was referring to something outside those

[Auroro]

Yeah I posted all of that on the last page. I thought tangedyn was referring to something outside those

That why it is in the list of "do not care and if you bring up the Agility vs Stamina fight i will drop kick you"

The only time Stamina is better than Agility is when you get full vengeance but it is only 0.003 better. Too small to make a different.

[waat]

That why it is in the list of "do not care and if you bring up the Agility vs Stamina fight i will drop kick you"

The only time Stamina is better than Agility is when you get full vengeance but it is only 0.003 better. Too small to make a different.

Stamina is better than agility if you're staying in bear form throughout the fight, and it's not because it's ".003 better" when you get full vengeance.

[Arielle]

Stamina is better than agility if you're staying in bear form throughout the fight, and it's not because it's ".003 better" when you get full vengeance.

It's worse at reducing damage. And whether its better or not overall is entirely dependant on how terrible your raid is at avoiding damage (aka how much mana healers can spend on you), and what kind of content you're doing.

Agility is better for Normal modes or less by a huge margin.

[Deleted]

I switched to more stam than agility purely because we have an awesome mastery. There's only soo much you can dodge in DS.
On Madness with Impales, agility won't do jack for you, whereas a massive healthpool will. Which is nice when I pop Frenzied Regen and have 526k HP for second impale (should it arise). Means I can eat a second impale without a CD practically (SD procced).

I enjoy the comfort of our larger healthpool. Agility is nice for raping the meres in dungeons though.

[tangedyn]

Going full Stamina on Madness is just suboptimal considering you should be spending more than half the fight in cat form even as the MT.
Stamina on its own won't help you survive Impale - you will still need CDs. And with CDs up, you will survive Impale easily whether Agility or Stamina stacked.
In case you didn't know, Impale leaves this debuff on you: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=106400 so you won't be able to survive a second Impale without a CD

[Deleted]

I maintank as bear and so my time in catform is greatly reduced.

I was aware of the debuff left behind. My larger healthpool allows me more comfort than most for soaking the incoming impale. Granted we don't get 2 on 10man. But if it arose, it would not be an issue.

[Zheryn]

I would not advise anyone going for anything other than agility really. I've had full agi gemming trough all of DS, and haven't had any problems with survivability. On Madness especially you want to squeeze out as much damage as possible. Last platform you want to push ASAP and in P4 you want to have as much DPS as possible from 10% and down and after 5% bloods it's just about burning the boss before he kills you so all damage is helpful. Extra stamina is pretty much useless on this fight except for maybe terrors, but you should have CDs there anyway. Also I've been in ilvl 397 or lower up until first Madness kill so wasn't really overgearing it either, no need for extra stamina.

I was in mastery/crit reforge for our first Madness kill to have stats that are useful in both bear and cat. Now I'm doing all bosses in Crit > Mastery reforge for even more damage.

[rated]

I maintank as bear and so my time in catform is greatly reduced.

I was aware of the debuff left behind. My larger healthpool allows me more comfort than most for soaking the incoming impale. Granted we don't get 2 on 10man. But if it arose, it would not be an issue.

Timing your CD properly allows you to deal with impales better. If you got a 2nd impale you would still die with out them regardless if you stacked stam or agility.

[klauskleber]

I wouldn't recommend to stack agi on Madness 25 heroic.

[Arielle]

I wouldn't recommend to stack agi on Madness 25 heroic.

Once you have enough EH to survive Impale, any additional Stamina is a pretty big waste of time.

[Deleted]

Any chance to update the guide to 4.3 soonish?

[tangedyn]

Any chance to update the guide to 4.3 soonish?

http://theincbear.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5

[waat]

Still cracks me up how much theincbear clique worships agility and considers stam useless.

Having HP breathing room = zomg gimping your raid

Having DPS breathing room = zomg that's the only viable way!

[rated]

Except theincbear doesn't worship agility and doesn't think stam is useless.

[waat]

Except theincbear doesn't worship agility and doesn't think stam is useless.

riiiiiight

Once you have enough EH to survive Impale, any additional Stamina is a pretty big waste of time.

[Arielle]

Having HP breathing room = zomg gimping your raid

No, it's that once you meet the EH requirement (based mostly on whatever your healers want), then extra Stamina is pretty useless. Further since DS is pretty much exclusively designed around Bearcatting, and Stamina does nothing for that, you are only gimping your raid (especially on Spine).

[tangedyn]

I can honestly say that my raid's first kills of Yor'sajh (9:55 with 4 alive), Hagara (2s before 4th transmission phase with 6 alive) and Ultraxion (5:52 with 5 alive) would not have happened if I was gemmed Stamina instead of Agility.
Meanwhile, none of the wipes were caused by me having not enough HP.

Could probably count Zon'ozz in there too, although I was in cat all the way and in cat spec. Our first kill was at 5:59 and we wouldn't have made it if I was forced to have some Stamina gemmed cat gear.