Stamina Vs Avoidance

I have noticed, at least on my server, that stamina is considered drastically more important than avoidance. I am curious to see what other tankadins think in regards to this. I am not new to tanking, I have always preferred avoidance to stam when possible only because avoiding a large number of attacks seems like it would be easier on the healers than just repeatedly soaking them up.

On the flip side of this, what I hear is that when I fail to stack a good amount of stamina and reduce my avoidance, I'll be face down waiting for a rez. In my experience, this has happened rarely if ever. During boss fights (and even some heroics) I have found a difference of 5k health or 7k health to be a nonfactor because bosses hit for so much. If you have 40k health and a boss hits for 22k per swing, you're going to die in 2 hits. If you have 30k health, the same thing is obviously going to happen. This being said, if you have 30k health and 30% dodge, the odds of you taking that 2nd fatal blow is lessened greatly.

This is just how I see it. Is my reasoning flawed here?

Stamina is "how good a tank you are to the uninformed."

A non-tank looks at a tank's stamina to judge your gear. Some tanks use their stamina as an e-peen meter. The truth is closer to what you touched on.

Getting 102.4% avoidance is still important. Many tanks seem to think that just because crushing blows have been removed, they can go gung ho on stamina... this is not the case.

A good example is my warrior OT. He stacks stamina to the point where he doesn't even own any avoidance trinkets. Yes, he has more HP than me. And yes, he has to MT Patchwerk 25 because he gets gibbed whenever he tries to OT.
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I have a priest healer as well as my paladin.

I have one of the lowest stamina/health totals in my guild. I am just shy of 23k health unbuffed.

I wouldn't trade it for 28k health unbuffed, if it meant a drop in my avoidance.

From the healer aspect, 28k health with no avoidance means I spend 0 time outside the 5SR.

If you have good avoidance, I am not casting nonstop, which means my mana lasts a lot longer.

My favorite? If you're at the block cap with good SBV. So that even when you do take a hit, in heroics at least, it's no sweat.


My favorite thing to hear, when looking for a group, is for people to tell me my health is too low, they won't take me.

Call me when you learn ANYTHING about game mechanics.

When you look for a healer, do you ask what their mana pool is? Who gives a shit? Our priests have 1200 spirit. They regen like 1100 mp5 out of 5SR. They only have 17-18k mana. What about taking a priest who 24k mana, but only 200mp5, and 1000 spell power? No thanks.

Lots of classes can stack stamina. Get your tanking stats up first.

Aside from 540 defense(or uncrittable, if you use resil....lol) there's no hard and fast rule...

Whatever helps you live the longest. I would lean towards block cap before just stacking stamina with wild abandon.
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Good to know a few people agree with me. I'm floating around 25-26kk health unbuffed along with 27.5% dodge and like 14% parry or something. My block is pretty low but that's something I plan to work on. I think I only have 1 blue left to replace with an epic, which is my biggest priority at this point.

With full raid buffs and mongoose up I think I'm around 33k health with 31.8-ish% dodge. I like to think I'm helping the healers out a lot but I needed confirmation that I wasn't crazy.

I just got new gloves, chest, and a weapon. I have the mats to get them enchanted, but haven't seen my enchanter since getting them.

I also gemmed a few slots with pure str, when I could have chosen pure stam or if I wanted the socket bonus, pure parry or dodge.
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Finally, a post from the other side of the argument. Moar from both sides please. This might get interesting.

Once again, in a PUG if I see a tank with 21k HP in it I'm going to be concerned. I used to mine in my DPS gear and when invited to a group wait for someone to say that my HP was too low, then I'd swap over and hear "Oh...". I'm sorry but 21k barely cuts it in my opinion to do the more difficult heroics. If you use CC then maybe it's ok, but I like to pull at least 4 mobs at a time for faster clears, and because it's more entertaining to me.

With diminishing returns, it doesn't make sense to -gem- towards avoidance, nor does it make sense to put +STR gems on as it adds a very minimal amount of mitigation/tps. The only thing that does make sense would be to use DEF rating gems as they will overall provide you with more avoidance as a result. I've always used sockets as a way to increase my health pool, with the exception of meta requirements. I'm guessing (judging by your gear on armory) that you need to gem towards defense to hit the cap. That's fine and dandy, but when you find yourself reaching the defense cap with gear and enchants alone, are you going to keep stacking defense?

As far as getting a DPS to tank over someone with 21k HP, well I don't really need to do that because I am a tank; and when I'm a healer I don't deal with pug tanks because the majority of my experience with them are not enjoyable.

Do I think that Paladins need to be def capped before gemming stam? Yes. Do I think that Paladins need to be block capped before going all out on stamina? Yes. But as a tank you also need to be able to soak up damage well, and understand that when you're in the scenario that everyone's taking damage and you're at 50% of your health, 20k hp is going to give a much bigger window than 10k hp.
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Try not viewing everything here through the window of someone farming 25 man EoE.

Who the hell is going to ask for advice on stamina vs. avoidance if they are to that point?

I have 0 Nax 10 man drops. 0 Sartharion 10 man drops.

I am uncrittable. I'm close, but still 4% shy of block capped. I am lacking a glove, weapon, and chest enchant.

22 def and 20 parry rating probably isn't enough to make up 4% avoidance, but I also have some sockets to work with.

I'm also wearing ZA shoulders still. Not because I think they are somehow superior, but because I haven't gotten the drops I wanted from heroic yet (Pauldrons of Colossus being my primary goal).

We run Nax, and if I get some upgrades, fantastic. I'm not content to sit and wait for it though, I run heroics.

You think my stats are not good enough to do so? Pray tell, how would you gear differently than me, without doing heroics, in order to prepare for heroics.

Retsucks was asking opinions. I'm all ears too.

FYI, I have no problem tanking Nax, and it wasn't until I came around to MT that my guild was able to beat Patchwerk.

You say my stats are too low.....how do you figure?

I pull heroics 4+ at a time. In fact, most heroics don't really give you a choice do they? VH? Skadi? I HATE relying on CC, and I don't use it, or haven't found a need for it yet.
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People usually call it the def "cap", but by that they just mean over 540 and therefore uncrittable.

As far as stam vs avoidance, it is more often than not a situational decision. For instance, on a fight like malygos where phase 1 requires you to take massive magic damage to the face, I prefer to stack stamina. On fights like patchwerk where the only worry is melee attacks, I get up to about 30k raid buffed, and then pile on avoidance.

Pros for stam: The previously mentioned Argent defender activating at a higher health value. E-peen+1. Better vs magic.

Stacking stamina also gives you a more linear damage line. Rather than taking miss>miss>miss>10k>10k>10k , your damage spread tends to look more like miss>10k>10k>miss>10k>10k. You might look at that and think it is a bad thing to take more melee swings, but usually healers will be pre-casting heals on you anyway, and it leads to less overhealing.

Pros for avoidance: Gluth decimate. Any fight that has a gimmick that reduces you to low enough hp values to be one shot, I personally want to dodge that next attack. Less overall damage taken, which can lead to less healers assigned to you, which can also lead to death if they are slacking cause you just dodged 15 attacks.

My personal decision was to prioritize gear is this manner:

540 def> 102.4%> BV > stam.

With this setup, and using gear thats dropped for my i'm around 26.6k unbuffed. From my experience, anything besides maly and 3 drake sarth can be easily MT'd with 23k hp unbuffed. We are also the only tank class that can mitigate every single swing, and shooting for the 102.4% goal ought to be more important to you than getting 3-4k extra HP, except in very heavy magic damage scenarios.

edit: wow 3 posts went up while i was typing. we're all waiting for servers to come back eh?

I mentioned earlier that I gemmed for STR when I didn't need to, and could have gemmed for STA.

That was as a disclaimer, as in, I didn't follow the advice I am about to give.

However, since I'm still 4% shy of 102.4%, I would switch them to def before stamina.


I also mentioned that I don't have enchants yet on some new gear I just got.

When I look at gear for potential upgrades, I use RB to determine:

1.) Do I gain DEF?
2.) Do I get closer to 102%
3.) Do I gain BV?

I'll drop def to gain more total avoidance unless it drops me below 540. I have had as high as 560 def, but have, as you can see, gotten rid of 15 def in favor of higher overall avoidance/mitigation.

I'm surprised nobody said I should ditch the stupid ass BC trinket I've got in favor of the HoL trinket (I've been trying).


I have a hostile tone because you said I don't belong in heroics.....yet...I'm wearing 2/5 T7 gear, with some other heroic drops....and that STILL isn't good enough.

I said that judging a tank based on health alone is like judging a healer based on mana alone.

While we're at it, why not judge a rogue on attack power alone? Who needs hit rating anyhow.

Why focus on one single stat to base an assumption on?

I have far less problems tanking heroics than a lot of tanks with higher health.

I regularly pick up PuG healers that are undergeared and generally suck, and succeed anyhow.
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well looking at your gear, you are wearing some very high def blues. You obviously know you chest needs enchanted, but I think that the defense enchant on it is going to be needed when you flip over to epics that have less def but more stam/avoidance. Same with the shield enchant.

As far as not being able to do heroics, some of the harder hittin heroics would be more difficult with you tanking than a tank with 30k hp, and thats all there is to it. That being said, I was able to full clear 10 man naxx as a fresh off the boat 80, wearing all t6 and t6 equiv.