Glove Enchants, which one for Ulduar?

240 armor has fallen behind a bit since it hasn't been updated. I think 20 agi and 18 stam are close enough in itemization to be a choice, whether you want more avoidance or more stamina.

I am still dubious of agility gemming. It should be significantly lower than dodge for avoidance contribution, what is the conversion rate at 80?

For my money, more stam is king for hardmodes that demand as much HP as humanly possible to survive huge attacks that you will inevitably fail to dodge. The DR is just too strong to consider stacking avoidance a good idea because you can never get to the point where you're "stacking" it anymore, if that makes sense. Back on Brutallus you had no choice but to buff your avoidance, because taking survivable Stomp damage was a prayer to the gods of RNG. On M'uru you had the ability to move from 60% to 70% avoidance at the cost of some stamina, and seriously cut down on your damage intake. Now it's more like moving from 55% to 60% from changing those same bits of gear around. Before Sunwell, there was no doubt that stam stacking was king and I think the same holds true again. Even if they nerf bears, we will see tanks with 60k HP before Icecrown and you can bet that bosses will be designed around them.

20 Agi is worth 30stam in terms of Gem budget.

So if you take +18stam on gloves, then gem a red socket 8agi/12stam for a (say) 8stam socket bonus you have got
18+12+8=32stam
8agi

vs doing 20agi and 24stam for
24 stam
20agi

essentially trading 12 agi for 8 stam.

So if you take 18stam on gloves, you shouldn't be socketing agi/def anywhere?

Right, so I looked it up. I believe the correction conversion for Agility at 80 is 52.08 Agi = 39.35 Dodge for pure avoidance. With Kings, that's 47.35 Agi = 39.35 Dodge. So the 20 agi enchant comes out to a little more than a regular gem, maybe 25 stamina. So yes, it's a budget loss to go with stamina, especially if you value the crit (I don't, personally). The armor is somewhat worth mentioning, so I'm rounding up.

But that's not to say that it makes no sense to take that glove enchant and then gem for socket bonuses. Take the Boreal Guard for example, a mixed dodge gem is 14 dodge 12 stam, vs 24 stam. The socket bonus is the value lost, 6 rating points. In the gloves' case, you lose 5 rating points of raw avoidance. Whether you are willing to make the sacrifice also depends on the amount you stand to gain -- 6 dodge lost to pick up 12 stam is clearly a worse choice than 5 dodge lost to pick up 18 stam. Every socket bonus is a choice to weigh which depends on your own priorities, not just absolute budget values. You are partially right though -- someone who takes 18 stam to gloves but gems for agility has made a less clear-cut choice.

As for defense, socketing it is rarely a choice. Straight upgrades often lose bits of defense here and there that must be made up if you're riding the edge of 540.

+18 stam on royal watch gauntlets and armsman on t8.5 works for me.

theckhd post in "agility+stam gem or dodge+stam gem" thread wrote:My armory says I have 27k armor and 34.8k unbuffed health; raid-buffed those should be around 28k and 44k respectively. Plugging those in:

11*(16.6+28)/(44)=11.2
So 1 Stamina is roughly equivalent to 11 armor in terms of TTL.

Taking Thecks values of 28k armor and 44k health raid buffed.

16.6 Dodge Rating, 16.6 Crit Rating, 44 Armor OR
16.6 Dodge Rating, 16.6 Crit Rating, 4 Sta

So it comes down to 16.6 Dodge Rating vs 14 Sta. 0.84 sta/dodge ratio, which is lower then the shield 18sta/20def ratio of 0.9 and most wouldn't enchant a shield for 18sta.

For a general pair of gloves I would never touch +18sta.

There aren't many options, and all of the available options are terrible


imo just put a threat enchant on, so either +20 hit if you're low on hit, since missed taunts suck, or Armsman (+2% threat +10 parry rating). Makes salv a bit easier to work in, and cooldowns are what we lack most as Paladins.

Missed taunts don't suck since you have two. more to the point most tanks will have far less than a 1% chance of both taunts failing.

Majiben wrote:Missed taunts don't suck since you have two.

Makes tank swapping situations (eg Thorim trash) a tad more difficult though with RD. Taunting near bosses gets dicey too (Feral defenders) if you have to use RD.

Zoltar wrote:

Majiben wrote:Missed taunts don't suck since you have two.

Makes tank swapping situations (eg Thorim trash) a tad more difficult though with RD. Taunting near bosses gets dicey too (Feral defenders) if you have to use RD.

Although, if we're talking about adds/trash, typically you're talking about mobs that are level 81 or 82 for which you have a spell miss rate of 4 or 5 percent respectively. So missed taunts on adds/trash really shouldn't be an issue unless you're actively trying to avoid hit rating on gear.