Why is my Health ~SO~ low?

Until tonight I had 545 Defense, 28% Dodge or so, 19% Parry, and the rest in block. I had exactly 102.41 on my avoidance table. I wear full epics (mostly Naxx 10/Tier 7/Tier 7.5 peices [Naxx 25 refuses to let me win any rolls for tank loot], but the crafted dodge cloak for another week and a couple of heroic/badge items) and between my dodge, parry, chance to be missed (Defense Tool Tip) and basic mob miss rate I should have been avoiding ~55% of incoming melee attacks, unbuffed. Buffed, closer to 60%.

But I only had 26.7k Health. All the other MTs I know for other guilds have one or two blues left, and more health. 27k, 28k, 29. Warriors, obviously, have even more than that, and DKs have a good 3 or 4k more than that. And it's not just the stam trinks (although I have seen quite a few tanks with Essence and Commendation(!) running around). But I'm -- one person whose 25 Naxx I was supposed to OT and wound up MTing for said I was pimped out. And I have less hp.

I dont have mining, and although I have socketed as much pure Stam and Enchanted Stam on my bracers and etc and so on -- I was stuck with 26.7k. In full epics. Good Epics. Not trash peices like the tanking legs from H VH or the Frost Resist Crafted gear, but good Naxx 10/T7/T7.5 peices. I know there's some better peices in N25 and S3D and EoE25, but I dont have a guild that can run those often enough yet, not enough people.

Am I doing something wrong? I'm kinda tired of trying to get into 25 naxx and os runs competing with Pallies wearing a few blues, warriors wearing a lot of blues, and DKs in almost full blues simply because they have more stamina than me. I know there's a prediliction to look at HP as the clearest indicator of gear level and skill, but I'm the lowest HP Tankadin around who isnt starting Naxx 10, or it seems that way.

I took out the yellow defense gem I'd been using in my helm tonight and threw in a stam gem instead, lost about 24 defense (including socket bonus) and about .7 off my avoidance table, but my health jumped to 27.1k. In a couple days (as soon as I can get a Naxx 25 or Os 25 run done after reset) I can buy the Valor badge cloak to replace the one I have and I could socket even more Stam -- I'd still have the defense minimum, I'd just lose about 2, maybe 3 points off of my avoidance table, I'd be at ... 99 or 100 out of 102.4. But I might have 28, 29k health.

My question is... what should I do? What would YOU do? I get the debates about EH and Avoidance, but I think I'm pretty well balanced right now. With one gem change (Swapping that stam gem back to a defense gem again) I'd be avoidance table capped, but back to 26.7k health, which I know is ENOUGH To tank Sapph and Maly and Sarth, but not as much as the tanks wearing two or three or five blues have. Next week I could probably push my stam as high as 28k without changing any gear peices or becoming crittable, but I'd lose 1 or 2 points of dodge/parry/block off of my avoidance table. Is being capped on avoidance really worth being the lowest HP MT around?
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You should go back and but your gems the way they were.
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Okay, thanks. Done.

Can I ask why? I can guess, but I'd like to hear what you think.
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Having the lowest health is our flavor. It's a pretty serious handicap when you're trying to get your foot in the door, but we do have some pretty badass mechanics to make up for it and a fair number of people do seem to realize that. (...'cause bears aren't tanking everything.)

You can live a life of quiet virtue having good avoidance/block and low health, and have trouble getting spots, or

You can inflate your health, get to tank now and then and offend the sensibilities of a certain number of people, or

You can build an inflated-health set, show up for raids with it, and once you've got the spot quietly switch over to your more-balanced gear.

Or some combination of the above. You can get to the point where your health's pretty good even without a full-on stacking effort, but that only works when you're ahead of the gearing curve which requires lots of work, lots of gold and/or some luck on drops.
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Everything in war is very simple. But in war, even the simplest thing is difficult.

Make sure you wear a defence item in every slot ( cept libram and trinket ) . No more dodge cloaks necks or rings.
enchant chest cloak and shield for defence.
Gem for balance ( socket bonuses using green or purple gems ) or stamina.
Use a stamina and a defence trinket, or go straight 2x stamina trinkets ( if one is a JC ) .

When low on hp you might wanna get stam on hands if you're threat is fine. When both are fine agility is a good option. When defence is coming out of your ears you can always get health on chest or shield, do note this is not very cheap health though, this is the point where the second stamina trinket is becoming attractive, and most ppl will switch their cloak enchant to agility.

Obviously any of these above rules only apply if you can hold threat and burst threat as well...

With these simple rules, adapted to your current gear set you can easily get 29-30K in noob gear, and even 32K in the best gear. You will not gimp your avoidance it will easily be 56-58% or more in your boss set ( not in your block set obviously ) .

How is that for getting a foot in the door.

The main reason I can see for your lack of stamina is the use of a lot of pure avoidance to maintain unhittable. Though not necessarily a bad thing, but you are running with alot of avoidance. Dropping some avoidance in turn for block rating gear, will allow you to free up some slots like your badge trinket for a pure stamina trinket.

I'd also recommend using almost any other cloak than that crafted one, giving you alot more defense to work with.

Having low health is bad when fighting mobs who use magical attacks. This is ok, because we aren't specialized for fighting these types of mobs. We excel at mobs that deal physical damage. Additionally we excel at blocking more than warriors.

Warriors have more health than us because attacks that would be "hits" to them, would be blocked by us. We're taking off 1,500-2,000 damage from those blocked hits that warriors have to soak up. WE DON'T NEED LOTS OF HEALTH.

We have Ardent Defender. When our health drops below 35%, our mitigation jumps by an incredible amount

We have (Improved!) Devotion Aura which gives us more armor than our Warrior brethren allowing us to mitigate more damage.

We can become Block Capped giving us superior control over incoming physical attacks.

obtain reputation on your server, if people know you, then they will take you

seriously, get in runs with top guilds, know your stuff, do really well, and the word will spread like wildfire
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the thing is, paladins will have less health than our tank counterparts, Druids already have ridiculous health pools, DK's have a 10% modifier in frost presence, warriors have the highest base health (tauren specifically)

Paladin health will out-scale warriors in higher gear levels though.

As for your health pool at the moment, If you're not having issues staying alive, and your healers are comfortable, Why worry? Your stam will increase with gear upgrades.


If it's an issue, I'd drop the current cloak for a defense one, which will free up a few slots, you also have a TON of dodge, you might wanna get a few BR pieces, so you can drop a little dodge in favor of some more stam.
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Courage not of this earth in your eyes
Faith from far beyond lies deep inside

I rerolled professions simply because I was getting passed over thanks to low HP count. Right now I'm blacksmithing/jewelcrafting, in mostly heroic epics, badge epics, and a piece or two of 10-man raid loot, sitting on 28.8k hp, 25k armour (with devo up), 541 defense, and 98.6% avoidance after DR... sure I'll be pushing for that 102.4% as my gear upgrades but for now I'm happy.

That said, I'm probably going to drop my HP by a bit to get to that magic number because right now the guild I'm in is falling apart and I can't be bothered leaving until it all goes pear-shaped. Don't want a reputation for being the first rat to leave a sinking ship
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