Honest Question about Nightmare Tear

Isetnefret wrote:Every single log we've ever run where I didn't stack stamina shows me taking FAR less damage per second, regardless of how hard the boss hits.

Far less than the warrior, druid, DK, or other paladin tanks we have.

Of course you were. Stacking stamina doesn't do anything to mitigate your overall DPS coming in.... that's exactly what "avoidance" means. But being a survivable tank isn't always about minimizing DPS. Remember that to date in the content, virtually no healers with halfway decent gear have been significantly mana capped. Because of that they're using bigger and faster HPS heals, overhealing quite effectively with impunity, and pounding the heck out of the new beacon of light.

Stacking stamina is about maximizing TTL - how much raw damage you can take, guaranteed, without getting a heal. Avoidance does nothing for this because every it's based on random chance. So just as you might dodge five hits in a row, you can very realistically take 4-5 hits without getting a dodge. There is no way for stamina (or in the case of most physical damage, effective health in general) to be missed. It's safe. it's clean. It's guaranteed.

Stamina stacking definitely puts more overall healing requirements on your healers, but gives them more time to react and more margin for error when they do. It also greatly increases the odds that they'll have time to heal you at all - because a hit that would kill you in avoidance gear will often leave you at 2-6k health in stamina gear, giving them a wind of opportunity to prevent a wipe.

Again, remember what you get point for point as a paladin for stamina vs, for the sake of argument based on the nightmare tear question, agility:

Stamina: health * 1.14 and effective health based on your armor scaling, spellpower * .3 * 1.14, increased ardent defender range * 1.14 * .35, increased bonus heal from ardent defender "save" * 1.14 * .30, increased healing from Judgement of Light (which shouldn't be scoffed at - it's currently healing me for nearly 1000 health on my swings, which is basically a free HoT). Huge huge gains with all the talents we have tied into stamina. All of these factors are mutliplied by kings or sanctuary.

Agi: dodge, less granted that dodge rating, a tiny amount of effective health from armor (but zero bonus against magical damage, of which there is plenty), and less threat than granted by TbtL. That's it. We have NO talents that scale Agility greater than its point for point value... we have a half dozen talents that scale stam. These effects are only multiplied by kings, not sanct, so if you're running 10 man hard modes without another paladin to keep kings on you agi falls even further behind.

Unless your healers are terrible, maximizing your avoidance isn't necessary and leaves a lot of the advantages of the paladin class unused. Have your warrior be the avoidance tank. Unless you regularly run with a great feral druid who you haven't mentioned, you're the meat shield king.

Zothor wrote:Stamina: health * 1.14 and effective health based on your armor scaling, spellpower * .3 * 1.14, increased ardent defender range * 1.14 * .35, increased bonus heal from ardent defender "save" * 1.14 * .30, increased healing from Judgement of Light (which shouldn't be scoffed at - it's currently healing me for nearly 1800 health on my swings, which is basically a free HoT). Huge huge gains with all the talents we have tied into stamina. All of these factors are mutliplied by kings or sanctuary.

Good points you made, just thought you may have a typo there, since a 2% heal of rougly 50k hp should mean the judgement will heal you back for just under 1000 hp.

TBH Its the best gem to use for a threat set.

10Str at the cost of 5stam is a VERY good rate of exchange if you value threat. You also gain 10int which is slightly helpful for increased regen from DivinePlea.

If threat isn't an issue, don't bother with it.

If threat IS an issue, its a good gem for a red/yellow socket.

Funtodin wrote:

Zothor wrote:Stamina: health * 1.14 and effective health based on your armor scaling, spellpower * .3 * 1.14, increased ardent defender range * 1.14 * .35, increased bonus heal from ardent defender "save" * 1.14 * .30, increased healing from Judgement of Light (which shouldn't be scoffed at - it's currently healing me for nearly 1800 health on my swings, which is basically a free HoT). Huge huge gains with all the talents we have tied into stamina. All of these factors are mutliplied by kings or sanctuary.

Good points you made, just thought you may have a typo there, since a 2% heal of rougly 50k hp should mean the judgement will heal you back for just under 1000 hp.

You're right, I checked my logs and it's my scrolling combat text lumping "2 hits" together. Still, it's valuable. I will edit the original post to reflect.

I know this is offtopic, but if you were to swap the str/stam gems in your pants for def/stam you would be able to pick up the 40 stam enchant to your bracers. Thats 40 stam at the cost of 16 str.

Armory, when you viewed it, showed my BV/Threat set.

My progression set is T8/8.5 (except the HORRIBLE shoulders that I only use in the BV set), though you did remind me that my progression bracers, with 40 stam, are probably good for my BV set as well.

My progression set, at the moment, is gemmed exclusively with Dodge/Stam gems, except for the T8 chest which has stam gem in the blue socket, and one Def/Stam gem in a yellow socket.