Gemming advice - Hitzugaya

Hi guys. I used to be a paladin tank in tbc, but ive been out of tanking for a long time now so Ive forgotten a lot, and a lot has changed. In the last few days Ive decided to level my paladin to 80 and grind some tank gear in heroics. Im now at the stage where im crit immune with a nice chunk of health and can run heroics without too much trouble. Now im safely crit immune im thinking of trading out some of my defence with stamina, but Id like some advice on whether that would be "correct".

Here's a link to my armoury. http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kazzak&n=Hitzugaya

Im aware that there are enchants missing. This will improve as and when I can afford it. What im thinking so far is:

1) Replace the def gem in my belt with stamina.
2) In the legs, do I gem to fill the socket bonus or do I just go pure stamina? My thoughts at the moment are that 6 stamina is quite a lot, so I should gem towards it (which will also probably help towards my eventual meta gem).
3) Assuming I gem for the stamina, Im still pretty confused about how to do it. For the yellow socket I dont really need more defence rating so do I take a def/stam? And for the red socket do I go with an agi/stam gem? Ive heard agility has overtaken dodge in usefulness. Or do I just forget all that nonsense and gem for stamina? :p

Thanks for any advice or handy links to theory you can give me.

Cheers.

1. Yes, since the slot is prismatic, best to use it for straight stam and pickup the defense in a yellow socket elsewhere where the socket bonus is worthwhile.

2. 6 stam is ok if you gemmed (assuming cheap gems) you could go with def/stam in the yellow and dodge(or agi)/stam in the red and pickup 30 stam (24 and the socket bonus) and as you say it would help with the meta which does need a red if going with 32stam/2% armour. But it's not an essential socket bonus really. Depends, personally I like taking the socket bonuses.
You could switch your shoulder one to def/stam too for some extra HP

3. Depends on whether you want to meet socket bonuses, generally go for straight stam in blues, def/stam in yellow and either dodge/stam or agi/stam in reds. If you don't need the socket bonuses, things like expertise or block rating etc then just slap plain blue stams in them. Def is still quite a solid stat beyond 540 and will allow you greater flexiblity if you find an upgrade which has lower stam.

Additionally, you should knock up the http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44323 alchemist stone, the hp and dodge will be better than your existing one.

EDIT: Also, change your libram for one of the new ones, vast improvement over the lvl 70 one!

Doug's advice is spot on, but if you want another opinion please read the introductory sections of my gem and enchant guide.

I consider 6 Sta bonuses worthy of color matching, but others don't. They're right about on the edge of good or bad. Of course, if you need yellow gems to remain uncrittable, or need red gems to be block capped (for content where block capping matters) then of course organize the gems to get your socket bonuses.

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Thanks for the advice so far. Ive gemmed what I think will make me pretty effective avoidance wise and picked up a nice chunk more health aswell.

Bump with a new question .

In my current gear (armoury has updated) should I be able to tank heroic trial of the champion? I tried it today with all of the gear there except for the tank alchemist stone and got totally destroyed on the first 3 minibosses after the dismount. Ive heard its difficult to collect them up so we ran in again and this time I went in with holy shield AND sacred shield up and still got obliterated to the point where I had to divine protection within a few seconds. I then died within about 10 seconds of it wearing off. I can tank all other heroics Ive tried fine, but I know this one is supposed to be a bit harder. The healer had pretty decent gear. He was a priest with 19K mana (and didnt gem entirely for intellect). Am I not ready? Thanks.

It is unlikely you will survive the black knight on phase 2 even if you get that far. You ideally want at least 28-30k health unbuffed I would suggest. You should also always have HS and SS up when fighting. Don't let them drop off.

You need better gear first in all honesty in my opinion.

Bara makes a fair point, TotC can be tough on heroic.

Personally I have zero issues on my first 4 runs and maybe thought nothing of it. I winced at my 5th attempt to see the pally healer with the gundrak dungeon tanking q reward one, the beserker DM card and a pvp resillience trinket.
On top of that was ungemmed and unenchanted and spammed FoL 100% of the time.

Having said that, he somehow managed to get us through the first two rounds of bosses but couldn't heal phase3 of the black knight.

6th run the pally healer looked well geared but the dps was all ~2k and we really struggled to take out the shammy healer, dps almost not high enough to get him down through his heals. Didn't help that the rogue died in the rogue AOE within about 5 seconds in the 4 attempts we had.

I was running with about 34-35k hp instance buffed and on those last two occasions it wasn't enough! I think it can be run with 28-30k as bara says, but you need a decent healer and some DPS which can cope with nuking the bosses, expecially the first set.
I also think a pally healer isn't the best option as with the rogue aoe, and the black knight phase 3 group level damage it can seem tough. Not being unfair on pally healers, but thinks like the druid poison dispells for the rogues poisons are very useful.

OK thanks. Ill gear up a bit more first then . How does normal compare? Am I likely to be able to give that a go? Also in answer to "You should also always have HS and SS up when fighting.", I often find I have mana problems on small numbers of non-boss heroic mobs if Im using sacred shield. Maybe I need to pull faster and not let divine plea drop off. In any case, I always use holy shield.

hitzugaya wrote:OK thanks. Ill gear up a bit more first then . How does normal compare? Am I likely to be able to give that a go? Also in answer to "You should also always have HS and SS up when fighting.", I often find I have mana problems on small numbers of non-boss heroic mobs if Im using sacred shield. Maybe I need to pull faster and not let divine plea drop off. In any case, I always use holy shield.

Indeed. Never let DP fall off. If you aren't taking enough damage for SA to give you mana, and you're not blocking enough mobs for BoSanct to give you enough mana, you can safely chain pull and let DP give you mana.

hitzugaya wrote:OK thanks. Ill gear up a bit more first then . How does normal compare? Am I likely to be able to give that a go? Also in answer to "You should also always have HS and SS up when fighting.", I often find I have mana problems on small numbers of non-boss heroic mobs if Im using sacred shield. Maybe I need to pull faster and not let divine plea drop off. In any case, I always use holy shield.

If you have DP, Judgement of Wisdom and 1/2 SA you should be ok. If you find you are suffering mana starvation then only use 1 consecrate per encounter and rely on HotR as your primary threat on multi mobs. This won't work if your DPS outgear you though so take each situation as it comes.

You are good to go for normal mode with a good group.