It all started when I got a whisper from a level one Tauren Warrior while I was getting ready for a three-drake Sartharion attempt.  This person was a tank from another server who is a reader of this blog and wanted to chat with me for a bit about tank gemming.  We finally met up a couple of days later on AIM and had a nice little discussion about that infamous yellow socket and he brought up an excellent point.

If you remember my first post I said that you should use +8 Defense +12 Stamina gems in yellow sockets since defense is so good for avoidance and mitigation.  This is well and good if you’re still looking for a little extra survivability when you’re first hitting T7 raid content in this wonderful expansion.

But…

What if you’re like some of us that are all epic’d out and have nearly all of the best-in-slot items?  Pick up some of these: Accurate Monarch Topaz.  That’s right, I just suggested a Hit and Expertise gem.  Why is this, you ask?  Well, just like how at the moment the cookie-cutter spec is all about damage and threat versus mitigation and Effective Health, why not gem that way too?  If you’re at the gear-level where I’m suggesting you do something like this you have almost all, if not all, of the raid content in this expansion on farm so why not do more damage and get through it faster?

I was looking through my WWS parses for Patchwerk and noticed that even with 158 hit raiting and 41 expertise, I have a 3.3% parry rate on Revenge, 3.8% miss rate on Heroic Strike, 3.3% parry on Shield Slam and a whopping 7% parry rate on Devastate.  That’s a lot of threat and damage that I could have added back into the mix at the loss of a tiny bit of stamina and a tiny bit of defense raiting.

Now, of course, I’m not saying that adding a couple of gems will complete negate all of those misses and parries but the added expertise and hit will certainly help.  If you’re like me you have one (maybe two) yellow slots in all of your gear so this won’t break your bank if you follow this advice, but you just might find yourself doing a little more damage and making a little more threat then your fellow tanks.

The Bottom Line

Remember: the more damage you do, the more threat you put out and the faster a boss dies. It would behoove you to do all that you can to assist your raid in downing your content.

As an aside, while we are on the subject of Hit and Expertise, check out Vene’s post “Expertise is always better than Hit“.  It’s an excellent read and I highly recommend it.

Meta

• Eternal Earthsiege Diamond. There really is only one choice for your Meta slot and that’s this baby.  Not only is it a nice chunk of avoidance and mitigation in the form of defense, but the 5% Shield Block Value is just incredible.  I’m going into raids with over 1000 SBV even before I had a helm with a Meta slot, and this baby gives me about 50 SBV.

Blue

• Solid Sky Sapphire. Always and without fail I will slam a stamina gem into a blue socket because stamina is still an awesome survival stat.  Your healers will appreciate it; just ask Polgera.

Prismatic

• Solid Sky Sapphire. This section is reserved for your belt slot from the Eternal Belt Buckle and, for the Blacksmiths out there like myself, the sockets in our bracers and gloves.  My theory?  Stamina is good, but more stamina is better!  Maybe it’s just the Burning Crusade tank in me unable to let go of the STAMINA STAMINA STAMINA mentality but it’s worked thus far.

Red

• Guardian’s Twilight Opal. Expertise is the most important stat, in my opinion, that you can go for after you’ve reached 540 defense.  By pushing dodges off of the table, 25 Expertise is the best thing you can go for to increase your threat and your damage output.  Everything after that up until 57 Expertise is great for increasing your survivability.  This gem is fantastic for giving you more health and more expertise.
• Precise Scarlet Ruby.
  

Yellow

• Enduring Forest Emerald. Remember Veneretio’s post about How good is Defense?  Yeah, it’s that good.  Here I gem for it and stamina with a green gem.  In the early days of the expansion it was hard to find Jewelcrafters with this pattern since it’s so off-the-wall.  Every JC on my server had Solid Skyfire but only recently have their started to spend their daily tokens on this gem.

To you other tanks out there: now that the expansion has been here for a while how do you find yourself gemming?  Is it similar to my own concept or do you think I’m a nutjob?

Why do I think this, you ask?

Tons of Stamina is on Everything

Every single piece of tank-like gear I have found is loaded with stamina, for instance:

• Tempered Titansteel Helm (crafted): 168 stamina
• Tempered Titansteel Treads (crafted): 120 stamina
• Titansteel Shield Wall (crafted): 69 stamina
• Armored Titanium Goggles (crafted): 111 stamina
• Slayer of the Lifeless (Naxx 10-man): 57 stamina

That’s a ton of stamina, and all of those items are able to be obtained very early in the Wrath of the Lich King raiding game.

But most importantly, we will not longer need to have massive stamina pools because…

Crushing Blows are No More!

No longer will you have to keep Shield Block up to avoid those crushings!  No longer will Blizzard be able to modify a fight to make it more brutal by adding more crushings!  No longer will healers have to spam the bejesus out of you during flights like Azgalor or Teron Gorefiend; bosses that hit slow and hard and seemingly crush constantly.  No longer will your attempt be going perfectly and then be completely destroyed because the random number generator decides it hates you!  Hallelujah!

Because we will not have to account for chance crushings, our health pools won’t need to be anywhere near as large as they are now.

Does that Mean Stamina is Bad?

Oh no, no, no.  Don’t get me wrong, with the diminishing returns on dodge and parry, I still believe effective health will be the king of raid tanking, I just don’t think we’ll have to constantly gem every single socket with stamina.  This leads to a lot more versatility in our gear which is a great thing!

Then How are you Going to Gem?

• Blue slots: Stamina. Ha!  Threw you for a loop there, didn’t I?  My blue slots are going to get gems such as Solid Majestic Zircon or Solid Sky Sapphire because stamina is still important, I just believe that stacking stamina will not be the end-all-be-all in Wrath of the Lich King as it was in Burning Crusade.
• Yellow slots: Expertise, Hit Rating, Defense Raiting. Melee DPS characters are going crazy over the Accurate Flawless Ametrine and tanks should be no different, this is one of the greatest gems I have ever seen.  Similarly, if you’re not quite over the defense softcap then gems like the Champion’s Flawless Ametrine could give you a nice boost while adding Shield Block Value.
• Red slots: Strength, Dodge, Stamina. There’s the word “stamina” again.  Gems like the Regal Dreadstone make making a little dodge and a little stamina in a red slot appealing while throwing something like a Bold Cardinal Ruby in your gear would give you the solid mitigation that Shield Block Value is going to bring in the expansion.
• Meta slot: The only real choices are the Eternal Earthstorm Diamond for a little defense and a lot of threat or the Austere Earthsiege Diamond for additional armor and a lot of stamina.  If Blacksmithing really does allow Armorsmiths to put a Meta in their breastplate, I will be most likely be using one of each.