The only thing I can think of would be the use of an addon such as Movable Holy Power.

I feel like this is a bit of a dumb question, but I can't find a decisive answer anywhere (page 1 has some good info that makes me think I'm right here, but I'd like clarification). All the top prot paladins on my server in the top guilds are gemmed in a way that, to me, seems to be all wacky.

Here is my character: Piotr @ Dragonblight - Game - World of Warcraft

I was under the impression that until you reach 102.4% block/parry/dodge/+5%, you were to reforge to mastery whenever possible, then try to balance out your parry/dodge as best as you can to avoid diminishing returns. In addition, you are to reforge away from hit/expertise to this end, as well as gem towards it. Hence, I've outfitted myself in mostly pure mastery gems, with some parry/mastery and mastery/stam for socket bonuses. I've reforged all my gear to either mastery, or dodge to even out the parry/dodge discrepancy. As of this posting, I'm only at 88.1% total avoidance/mitigation, which means I still have quite a long way to go indeed before I get enough mastery to reach 102.4%.

The top tanks on my server, however, seem to gem for parry/stam, mastery/stam, and pure stam, depending on socket color. One of the top tanks, whose gear is way better than mine, only has 75.99% total avoidance/mitigation, 1.12% hit, and 0 expertise.

My question is, are my gems more or less right and should I continue to gem/reforge for mastery until I've reached 102.4% total avoidance/mitigation, or am I missing something here? The chart in the prot paladin thread confused me, as it appears that you only want about 50% of your total avoidance/mitigation to be from block, but I didn't think it was actually to scale since it has no corresponding percentages on it or anywhere else in the text. I feel like I'm overthinking this, but with my block chance at either 52.605% or 58.05% (depending on whether you look at the "Defense" section or "Mastery" section - not sure why the discrepancy there), I don't want to be wasting those points if there is some kind of "block cap" at 50% and I could reforge that extra 2.605%/8.05% into dodge/parry instead.

Thanks in advance for any help!

I think most people still consider mastery stacking to be the best bang for the buck. The issue for top tanks is that heroic raid bosses do hit hard enough to require some stamina stacking. However, at your raid experience level, you're fine to just focus on smoothing incoming damage. There's no block cap at 50%. While mastery smooths damage, avoidance is technically more efficient at reducing damage in the long term so it should be some part of your itemization. Like always some balance is good. It looks and sounds like you're doing it right.

The only other issue I'd mention is that technically you don't make dodge and parry perfectly equal to minimize loss to DR, there's a 1% gap that is naturally there but you appear to be right at that point already.

[quote=Kapnkillin;1839619]This isn't specifically a paladin issue, but since I'm a prot paladin, and I didn't see a tank forum, I thought I'd give this a shot.

I've noticed that armor does not seem to be keeping pace with other stats in Cata.


In addition, the Bedrock Talisman just seems to be a joke - 1028 armor is all you get for equipping it? The under 35% hp is nice, but the equip effect seems really, really weak - especially for something that costs 1650 valor points.


I think that is why we now have all the focus on dodge/paryy/mastery. Blizzard changed the mechanics of tanking to emphasize the mastery rating for reducing damage.

In regards to the trinket, I think its nice to get some armor out of a trinket. 1.2K is not bad at all, when compared to 0 for most other trinkets. I've found you want to be at the 60% dmg reduction, and if you're properly geared in other stats, that will already be the case.

Trying to understand logic on who best to give Shard of Woe first in the guild (what will serve the raid best).
What reasons could you think of that it should be a paladin over another healer class ?
Keep in mind that the "Reduces the base mana cost of your spells by 405" can be though of like this - "each time you cast a healing spell (that cost over 405 mana - aka Holy Power based heals don't apply), you gain 405 mana". This means whoever casts the most spells (that cost 405 mana at least) per minute will gain the most total mana from it (which would mean resto druids probabbly).

Certain classes might use it better in theory, but it's how they use it in practice that counts. I'd personally say "give it to the healer who is the cornerstone of that team" regardless of class. Meters can be good for tracking mana spent and gained and such.

Critical strike from Agility seems to be added into the spell crit stat on the paper doll. Does it actually apply to spell crit, or is it just a display error? With 99 base Agi and 549 from raid buffs, that's potentially 3.191% crit - not an incredible amount, but I'm trying to get some numbers to work out properly in a spreadsheet.

I've been leveling a paladin to help out when our second raid is short a tank and have been cruising the AH for BoE's. However, there seems to be two schools of thought in terms of stat weights. Wowhead has a relatively simplistic Stam > Mastery > Dodge/Parry > Hit > Expertise >> Strength >> Agility. However, Mr. Robot has a rather different weighting of Dodge/Parry > Mastery > Agility/Stamina >> Strength >> Expertise > Hit. Is one of them a better model than the other? Wowhead's largely follows the reforge/gemming recommendations of EJ's guide, but Robot's is apparently from Maintankadin's number-crunching, which is also a reliable site. What gives? Which one is better in terms of planning out my initial BoE's and gearing focus?

Past a relatively low (in terms of raiding gear at least) level of dodge/parry, mastery is strictly better in terms of overall damage reduction, and is less spiky which is generally preferred. If you are above that value, Robot's is just wrong. Whether or not you want stam above or below that is going to depend on you, what bosses you are facing, your healers, etc. For threat stats, as always see Theck's thread on maintankadin for the latest info, but the current priority is exp>hit>str. Whether or not an agi piece is worth it, I don't know - its threat value is minimal, and since it no longer gives armor it is just a worse dodge (I don't remember the exact conversion).

Now if you are just beginning to gear up, its certainly possible you haven't hit the point where mastery is less average damage reduction than dodge/parry, and then its up to you whether the slightly worse damage reduction is worth the somewhat smoother effect it gives.

There's a reasonable minimum amount of Stamina that I usually aim for when gearing tanks, which is about ~150k hp unbuffed. I usually aim for that before focusing on avoidance gems/enchants. You usually hit that spot comfortably with 346s / Rep gear. And then, for most (if not all) tanks, Dodge/Parry comes naturally with gear and Mastery is your best overall stat.

Once you start to hit raid hardmodes however, you'll find that some fights are better suited for more avoidance or a larger hp pool. By that time you should be able to make those decisions on your own, based on your tanking experience.

Theck on Maintankadin basically said the following: Mr Robot's default stat values are before diminishing returns as it takes DR into consideration, which is why Dodge / Parry is above Mastery in the initial values, and why Agility's value is quite high. And yes, he assisted in coming up with those values.

It does work out if you you look at the gear choices and recommendations it gives you. For example, it basically tells me to reforge everything to Mastery where possible.