I typed out a minor opus talking about how elusive block cap was being for me and then the thunderstorm currently leveling the Boston area to ground decided to knock the power out  from my building. Lost to history now. I really don’t know why I type things into my email client here. No, wait, I do. Makes it look like work.

But, um, yes. The one thing that wasn’t eaten by the power flash was the update to the CTC spreadsheet. It’s now up to version 1.3.3, with the additional gain of a function that converts overflow mastery (more than needed to reach block cap) to stamina at a rate of 1:1.5 mastery to stamina.

The stamina number is then converted out to hitpoints with all the requisite bonuses: Touched by the Light, Plate Specialization, and Kings/Mark if selected in the buffs section previously.

Suffice it say when I finally hit the blockcap after the first raid night next week, that number will be deliciously pertinent as I start regemming mastery to stamina.

I’ll try to take another crack at the post — under better weather — on Monday.

Sorry for the huge gap between this post and my last. I went on vacation last week, to New Hampshire, for my annual retreat to the mountains. I love that state. (And not just because the booze is that much cheaper than in Massachusetts.)

But I digress. A lot has happened since my last posting!

Bye-bye birdie and hello Domo

Last week ES managed it’s first kill of Alysrazor, which apparently was hardscrabble and required a whole night to make it happen. Then Tuesday night this week for our follow up we four shot her. I guess that makes it farm now, haha.

The fight did feel a lot easier when we did it this week. Then again, so did much of Firelands. It felt like the place was hotfixed (and it was, as we later found out) when we plowed through Shannox, Rhyolith, and Beth with nary a peep of resistance. Especially Rhyolith, which was so obviously nerfed with the amount of armor melted away per volcano shooting up to 16. The trash also seemed to be nerfed as well, I kept wearily looking for those two packs of Surgers that shoot around and usually catch me flatfooted. They seem to have run off.

The common refrain was “that was nered, right?” and one of the shamans would reply “nah, we just got better.” I admire his optimism!

For Alysrazor though, we totally did get better. People were so much better about tornadoes — it finally clicked — and we easily killed her before she lifted off the second time. My hatchling dps was better than usual, as well. Though I chalk that up to having my 2pc t12 now.

Anyway, once the bird was plucked from the sky, we marched off for some early shots at Majordomo Staghelm. The trash was something of a nightmare at first, because people couldn’t conceive the logic behind the leaping cats. Once we got past that, and got three licks on Domo we called it a night. Best attempt, 51%. And it was abundantly obvious we needed to work on raid cooldown coordination and seed management.

Last night we went back to Domo and had a fantastic night of progression. Better than I can remember in a while. The flow was steadily towards a kill, and though it didn’t happen, we got so freaking close. 8% on our best shot. He’s as good as dead next time.

Tanking the fight is fairly boring, though there is some excitement when orbs go up and you need to find a nice place to shuffle to if the orbs are too close. (At least, that might be just me. I don’t like them close by.) And cat phase in general is basically spinning around the center of the room trying to keep your front to the felines.

The cooldown management, I guess, is fairly engaging.

Transmogrifying!

I’m stupidly excited about this. One of my deep, dark impulses is to favor gear based on looks before much else. I suppress this pretty effectively in Wrath, which was really hard for the past few weeks when I was half-blue and half-brown due to the competing aesthetics of t11 and t12. In single player, however, I feel no such compunction. I usually run around in games like Fallout with the best looking — and often flimsiest — armoring. It’s not my fault that a Regulator Duster looks so much better than t-51b Power Armor. I’m a victim of fashion.

Ok, I took a weird turn there. In any case, the first thing that hit me about the new system is the overwhelming, endorphic joy that I can ran from then until the end of my days with the Bulwark of Azzinoth as my shield. That alone is worth $15 a month. My next thought was no more wrestler belts! Finally I can dispose of that abomination from my avatar. And, hell, if the boots model sucks as well (looking at you, Mirrored Boots — Vanilla WoW called and they want their style back) I can fix that.

It’s a silly change, but the best silly change to WoW in a while!

When I logged on last night, the first thing I did was check out my bank and look over my collection. I have a ton of tier pieces accumulated: tier 4 (my very first tier), tier 6, tier 7.5, tier 8, tier 9, tier 10.5. I also have a complete set of the DK-style tanking gear from heroic Icecrown that I loved because it screamed “Blood Knight”. I love that aesthetic!

I think for weapons, I’ll be rocking Quel’Serrar (the original, level 60 version) for swords. I need to figure out which mace and axe I like. For shields, there’s no contest.

For armor, I’ll be making several sets and swap around depending on my mood. One will definitely be the Icecrown Blood Knight look, though I need Taldaram’s Plated Fists to complete the set. Another will probably be the Lightforge look-alike set, with Tabard of the Lightbringer covering up the Alliance deal on the chest piece. Then of course the tier 2 set, because how can I not?! Lastly, a t6 set, though I need a lot of the off-pieces to complete the look.

The end of threat

I’m really not happy about this, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to get very worked up about it. Threat is one of the few quantifiable measurements of tanking (aside from “is he standing?” and “why is he taking so much more damage than that warrior?”) and the removal of it, for all intents and purposes, feels so horribly wrong. I know why they’re doing it, they feel that tanking is hard enough and don’t want us to have to worry ourselves with threat generation. Moreover, it’s assuredly a move to boost the tanking population in LFD.

Still, I always used to pride myself on providing a more than adequate threat ceiling for my fellow raiders. It was fun to do my rotation as best I could and jump ahead of the pack on threat, and stay there, and hold there for the duration of the fight, never giving an inch. A threat ceiling was a mark of a good tank, and now, with the whisk of a pen (so to speak) that metric is gone.

Nonetheless, they broke threat at the launch of 4.0 with the introduction of Vengeance. Now they’re just finishing it off. It’s a shame, a damn shame.

On the flip side, the announcement also bore the news that tanks will be migrating to a system of more active mitigation. To which I say: YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES. I love active mitigation. The introduction of the new Holy Shield is one of the best changes to the prot paladin ever, because it gave us that short-cooldown ability with a huge amount of control over our survivability. If we continue down that road to a model where we’re spending a lot more of our GCDs buffing our mitigation rather than just dishing out damage, I could absolutely plant my flag there. So to speak.

In any case, I’m awaiting 4.3 with bated breath now.

This particular change came as a result of a reader letter:

Hello,

First I want to say that I’m a big fan of your blog and WoW insider column. Your CTC spreadsheet is a great tool but I have been having some difficulty with it that I thought you’d want to know about. Because I’ve got alchemy as a prof I’m getting an extra 40 mastery from elixir of the master that the spreadsheet isn’t calculating. Also I’d like to know if there is an easy way for the sheet to calculate how many points of mastery rating I am over 102.4. What i currently have to do is put in 40 points on an imaginary upgrade for mixology and then reduce that number until CTC is exactly 102.4. Also I have yet to get a single drop in firelands and our resto shaman has 4. Should I punch him?

Thanks for your time,
Starmartyr – Bloodscalp-US

Like Starmartyr does as a fix, I’d just add the extra 40 mastery in the upgrade space. Not entirely sure it’d be worth adding a “are you an alchemist?” checkbox. Though, I do hate there being holes where mastery can slip into and disappear…

In any case, his additional suggestion of a line telling you how much mastery rating you’re wasting once over the blockcap is a fantastic one. I’ve updated the sheet accordingly, and in section 5 you’ll now notice some verbage telling you how far over or under the blockcap you are. And, further, if over the blockcap another line appears and tells you exactly how much mastery rating you can safely give up once blockcapped so that you’re not wasting any itemization.

As to his last question: yes. A thousand times yes. One should always punch resto shamans at every waking opportunity.

Especially if they are named Vili.

After Friday’s column, I got a few emails from some folks asking me to show my work about my assertion that Ardent Defender was a damage absorb — rather than a damage reduction — effect. While I emailed out my proof, I figured it’d be a good idea to also share it here to a wider audience.

Here’s my two-part proof.

First, look at the wowhead spell details for Divine Protection. This is how the system parses the 20% damage reduction:

Now, this is how the spell details for Ardent Defender looks:

And, finally, compare that to the details for Power Word: Shield:

As you can see, AD runs under the hood just like PW:S and entirely unlike Divine Protection.

They say the proof is in the pudding, so for part two, I offer the following combat log I took the other day. I had Weriik, a warrior in my guild, duel me for a few seconds, using white swings while I had Ardent Defender up. These are the results.

[11:21:10.633] Rhidach gains Ardent Defender from Rhidach
[11:21:10.636] Rhidach casts Ardent Defender
[11:21:10.636] Weriik gains Enrage from Weriik
[11:21:11.510] Weriik hits Rhidach 1245 (A: 311, B: 699)
[11:21:11.819] Rhidach gains 746 mana from Rhidach's Sanctuary
[11:21:12.056] Weriik gains Raw Fury from Weriik
[11:21:13.052] Weriik hits Rhidach Parry
[11:21:14.772] Weriik hits Rhidach Miss
[11:21:16.482] Weriik hits Rhidach Miss
[11:21:18.167] Weriik hits Rhidach Miss
[11:21:19.524] Weriik's Enrage fades from Weriik
[11:21:20.070] Weriik hits Rhidach 2576 (A: 643)
[11:21:20.554] Rhidach's Ardent Defender fades from Rhidach

Those “A:x” numbers? Absorbs. Nothing else was up that could cause absorbs except Ardent Defender.

QED: Ardent Defender is a damage absorb effect. Which makes it amazing for Baleroc tanking during Decimation Blades, as you can’t reduce the damage, but like any disc priest can tell you, you can indeed absorb it through bubbles. And, now, Ardent Defender.

What this means for game balance is another story.

My luck never strikes in a particularly awesome way, just offers up some mild conveniences . For example, I’ve been farming Garr for two years now attempting to get his piece of Thunderfury, to no avail. If I was really lucky, that stupid thing would have dropped a good portion of my life ago. But it’s not meant to be.

Friday night I did something very uncharacteristic — I ran a heroic. This was to get me somewhat towards capping VP for the week, which I’ve been beyond terrible at ever since the new tier started. Of course, in my defense, I was on vacation the second week in — and in a different state at that — and didn’t really have the opportunity to run heroics. In any case, ran ZG with some guildees which (I feel like I’m giving a bad impression of my play ethic at this point) was also the first time I’ve run the new Zul’Gurub. I’ve never been to the Molten Front either. What can I say?

The run went really well, despite it still feeling very much old hat. At the end of the run I turned in the quest for killing the last boss and the Baron gives me a new quest to pick up some treasure in his wrecked statue in Booty Bay. Now, you’d think that even if I was too lazy to run the new heroics or the new dailies I’d at least have the fortitude to fly due south and pick up some free treasure. Well, you thought wrong! I shrugged and said I’d complete it another day and went to bed.

At the end of Tuesday night, post-raid, I went to MC for my usual weekly dose of crippling disappointment and, once I had finished weeping over the broken shards of Garr’s legendary-less corpse, I fired up the Last Relic of Argus to port myself far away from the place, my hearthstone still on cooldown.

And where should I appear when the loading screen vanished, but inside the busted statue of Baron Revilgaz, a yellow question mark beckoning me to claim my due treasures.

But could I bring myself to walk two feet into the statue and collect the booty? Eh, I guess.

The following night — last night — we spent the better part of the evening progressing on Alysrazor. No kill, unfortunately, but we got close and we’re definitely set up for a kill next week. With 15 minutes left to go, Zilga had us all head to Baradin Hold to kill Occu’thar as a palate cleanser.

When all was said and done, only one piece of PVE gear dropped: the Ret tier pants. Antigen groaned, having just bought his this week. And the other mainspec Ret was on standby that night. I ended up winning them for free, for offspec.

But then I got a dark thought… What if I were to gem/enchant/reforge them like tank pants. Would it be more CTC than the Legplates of Frenzied Devotion?

It turns out the answer is yes, by .7%. I’m not sure how entirely comfortable I feel about the whole thing, but more CTC is more CTC. Plus, in a week I’ll have the real tier pants. I guess I can slum it ’til then.

Not a fan of this gambit? The pugged healer in our otherwise all-guild heroic ZA after raid last night.

I’m not sure if it was the prospect of a run with four members of the same guild, or that it was heroic ZA, or that the tank was wearing ostensibly Ret pants, but he clearly wasn’t enthused at the prospect of running with us. (My paranoia convinces me it was clearly my gear.)

Closing fun fact: his guild was “Brospehs Before Hosephs”.

I had high hopes for that healer, believe you me.

Let’s be honest, Baleroc is supposed to be an homage to the Balrog. And, much like how it took the Fellowship to throw their token old guy at its fiery foe to overcome the challenge it posed, so too did Enveloping Shadows have to sacrifice Falowin on the altar of victory Wednesday night. Along with most of the rest of the raid.

Much like our best attempt the previous night, I ended up buying the farm in the single digits, leaving just Ronada to tank. He did his best to stay up, and even lucked out by having the next blades phase being an Inferno one. But, he couldnt’ last past the high damage and bit it around 4%. DPS started frantically plinking away at the boss while those of us who perished cheered from the sidelines. Then the boss enraged around 2% and it looked like we were going to suffer the same disappointment of the night before.

I watched Baleroc’s health as it trickled away. Suddenly, it passed the 400k point around when we wiped in that amazing, heartbreaking attempt on Tuesday. I allowed myself to hope. Then it was under 100k, well within the range of one dps to take care of and we still had several warm bodies up and kicking. It was going to happen.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity later in what felt like bullet time, Baleroc keeled over dead and coughed up his purples.

And one of those, unfortunately, was that accursed shield. (I know, woe is me, an upgrade. It’s still ugly as sin.)

I’m really looking forward to writing a column about tanking this fight. It’s probably one of the more intense, reactive fights I’ve ever tanked which requires a great degree of trust and communication between you and your co-tank. It’s very rewarding to have the amount of synergy required to watch each other’s backs and successfully make it to the end. Well, not that we’ve done that yet. But, we all know that’s the healers’ fault.

What a close wipe.

We steamrolled through our farm bosses last night, two shotting Beth, one shotting Shannox, one shotting Rhyolith, and then lined up to face Baleroc with a few hours left on the raid clock. Plenty of time to really learn the fight and get some good licks in.

It was hard going for a while, getting everyone on the same page, but piece by piece it was coming together.

For the tanking, Ronada and I worked out how to mitigate the Decimation Blades phase where I’d taunt off him if he ate a hit until I ate one as well, to buy him some time to get topped off. I would also reserve the right to blow Lay on Hands on him if the timing was right.

Second to last pull of the night and we had this amazing go, getting him crazy low and doing a great job on crystals and healing. Finally, at around 13%, I bit the dust with all battle rezzes expended. Ronada bravely soldiered on through a Decimation phase that just had to occur as soon as I died. He managed to get through most of it but died on the last swing of the duration.

With Baleroc at 9% or so, he turned to start murdering the raid. Plate dps did their best to hold him off while people tried to whittle the boss down. It was looking like it would be close, like we might actually get him down.

Then, at 2%, he enraged and just finished us off. The last straggler and the remaining DoT ticks signed off with the boss at around 400k health.

The pain was unbearable. Though, it gave us hope.

We’ll get him tonight.

Quick announcement! I updated the CTC calculator spreadsheet to version 1.3.1 and made the following changes:

• Removed any deprecated remnant agility formulas. I find some old formulas under the hood that allowed agility to be converted to diminish dodge, and took them out. Wouldn’t have affected any calculations in the previous version as there was no place to input agility.
• Added a “Reforge” field to the mastery grouping in the item comparison section. Not sure why I didn’t have this before, but now you can use that field to input the value of any threat or other stat that you want to reforge to mastery.
• Renamed “Threat Stat” fields to “Reforge”, for simplicity’s sake. Moreover, some might get more CTC out of a dodge/expertise item (for example) by reforging the larger dodge number to mastery instead of the smaller expertise number. In a future version I’ll make it cleaner for you to convert an avoidance value to mastery and then report the remaining 60% of the avoidance stat that you’ll still get.
• Last, but certainly not least, I added a section for buffs! Now you can input which buffs you have available and see those reflected in the total CTC number in the last section. This makes it possible now to use the sheet along with your armory page and work out what your total, raid-buffed CTC is without actually having to set foot in a raid or actually use any consumables!

I’m very excited about this version, it’s a huge step up for the sheet.

As always, please let me know if you spot any errors or if you have suggestions for how to improve it.

Last week I was out of commission while visiting the future in-laws over in western New York (I’ve been instructed under pain of death not to call it “upstate” New York) and missed the second week of Firelands raiding. Much to my chagrin.

I was happy to hear the guild managed to two-shot Shannox (after our first week of smashing our heads into him) and downed Rhyolith as well, on top of getting some good shots on Beth’tilac. Thus with high hopes and a thick coat of rust, I returned to raiding on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Shannox proved to be a bit of a pain again. We had some healing issues which lead to my survivability being tenuous. We suffered a few low-percent wipes because the healers just couldn’t keep up with the damage. Thankfully though, we ended up dropping him with an hour left in the raid, despite the terrifying appearance that a kill was going to elude us. With Shannox down, we raced over to Rhyolith and put some good attempts on him before closing out for the night.

Wednesday night we entered Firelands with some additional problems. We only had five mainspec healers on, forcing us to make one dps go offspec heals (though, not really “force”, he’s usually perfectly happy to help). We had another dps go offspec heals for Rhyolith, just to help with all the AOE damage. We then started throwing attempts at Rhyolith, managing to down him on the third try for our second kill. The first two were chance biting us in the behinds as volcanoes were popping up in the most inopportune places. Thankfully we adapted and our third attempt was marked by more fortunate volcano locations and a better handling of the driving wheel, so to speak.

And thus with Rhyolith down, we darted across the sulphuric plains to go work on Beth’tilac, and hopefully score our first kill. The game plan was basically the much-touted “zerg strat”. Allow me to tout it some more. We sent up myself as tank with two healers. The three of us up there darted about, avoiding meteors, and leaping down when required. All the dps were below and had no issue cleaning up any varieties of arachnid.

When Beth jumped down for phase 2, she was at 98% health and we went to town in earnest. I made an error that got myself and the other tank killed with Widow’s Kiss (ugh) and we ended up wiping around 20% or so. The next attempt, we figured it’d make sense to send two dps up top so we could get the boss down a little bit, to make the phase 2 zerg that much easier.

Speaking of up top, that being my first time doing the fight, I had a fairly fun time up there. It wasn’t nearly as terrifying as Shannox tanking, and the meteors gave me something to stay on my toes about. The scariest part was probably the first few seconds when I’m up there solo, but a quick burst of Divine Protection and Holy Shield made that small potaters. The damage intake was smooth, so my job was similarly just tank ‘n spank ‘n move sometimes.

Anyway, we proceeded as such with the new plan and when phase 2 started she was around 85%, if memory serves. Unfortunately, she managed to nab some spiderlings and healed up to full. Undaunted, we brought the zerg and started to whittle her down.

This time I did not mouth-breathe us into a wipe, and despite the healing getting a little sticky at the end, we easily knocked her over. Zerging her the whole way from full to dead. What fun!

Alas, none of the three tank pieces dropped. At least she’s a guaranteed easy kill moving forward, so I’ll have many weeks of disappointment to look forward to.

After I was done weeping over her disgusting corpse, I jumped off a cliff and met up with the rest of the raid by Baleroc’s gate. We really weren’t prepared for the fight, having discussed Alysrazor as the fourth-in-line, but the general assumption of the raid was that Baleroc would be easier so it’d make more sense to hit him next. Poor Antigen, who was leading the raid, was forced to quickly get a strat over the break and then recite it to the rest of us while people bounced around and did their very best to not listen. Still, undaunted, Antigen worked out a split with the healers and once we had a game plan we started to throw our corpses at the fight.

Emphasis on corpses, because learning that fight as a tank is… expensive. The plan was Ronada would start tanking, I’d taunt when he had two stacks, and then tank any time Decimation wasn’t active. If Decimation was cast, Ronada would take over until it ended. Unfortunately, the healers spent the night working out the mechanics and their rotation and attempts usually went something like, “Rhidach is taunting… Rhidach is tanking… Rhidach is dead.” Battlerez. “Rhidach is taunting… Rhidach is tanking… Rhidach is dead.” Ouch. Battlerez. Repeat.

Towards the end survivability was getting better, healers were able to keep us up during transitions. Decimation, though, usually spelled a death for Ronada. I’m honestly wondering if one tanking is the way to go, tank swaps seem like more trouble than they’re worth. Though, more practice may make that moot.

So, we ended the week 3/7 and well on our way to 4/7. Hopefully next week we’ll cross the halfway point and have a good show with Alysrazor.

I was tagged by Orvilius to take a crack at this, which was something his healer buddies originally crafted. This has already been answered by Miri and Achloryn, so I guess it’s my turn!

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?

Rhidach, a protection paladin (0/31/10). He’s been my main since September of 2007, when I came back to WoW after my first hiatus from the game.

2. What is your primary group tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Raids mostly. I’m pushing myself into running heroics again for the valor points, but it’s so painful. I ran Prot in battlegrounds a few times in Wrath — I loved Isle of Conquest.

3. What is your favorite cooldown for your class and why?

Definitely Guardian of Ancient Kings. Or, as I affectionately call him: Bananaman. 50% damage reduction, can’t beat it! Plus a little buddy that follows you around for a chunk of time.

4. What tanking CD do you use least for your class and why?

Lay on Hands. I try to save it for the best moment, which seldom comes, or I’m too dead to benefit from it thanks to my own inaction.

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?

Hrm, I’m split between two choices. One is our impressive cooldowns toolbox, which is vast and can cover varying degrees on incoming damage (not to mention the flexibility afforded to Divine Protection with the glyph, I love it!) The other is our various Hands and thus our raid utility.

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your class and why?

No gap closer! I want a Holy Leap, dammit. It legitimately does make us the weaker choice for a tank on some fights — like, Al’Akir for example, thanks to his electrocutes. Many Cataclysm fights seem to be designed around mobility, which is something we sorely lack.

7. In a raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?

I’m more comfortable wrangling adds, it’s when I feel like I’m in my element. Truthfully though, I’m probably better suited for bosses thanks to block and my stable of cooldowns.

8. What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?

Probably a DK, because I know he can’t out-threat me on adds. :)

9. What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?

Warriors. ‘Nuff said.

10. What is your worst habit as a tank?

I move around way too much. I’m a very jittery tank. Which often translates to too much movement and can lead to me LOSing a healer if not careful, or pulling a boss too far away from some beneficial puddle he just dropped (like Arcanotron).

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?

People attacking a target other than my own and then wondering how they pulled threat. GEE, I WONDER.

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with others tanks for tanking?

I think mine’s a little overpowered compared to other tanks, especially with regards to cooldowns. Which is why I found the whole sturm und drang over the Holy Shield buff to be hilarious because it’s only making us even more powerful.

13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?

World of Logs to check what my primary damage sources are and what my damage intake looked like, Visual Combat Table to see what my CTC is on the fly, Skada’s death meter to see what killed me after every wipe.

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your tanking class?

That it’s faceroll/easymode. Was somewhat true in Wrath, but Cataclysm really shook things up. Paladins are much more complex now. I love it.

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?

Cooldown management, and getting a handle on which tool is best for each situation.

16. So, how about that whole vengeance mechanic, eh?

I’d rather have to think about threat. I don’t like how it’s been completely removed from the table. I guess that’s great for survivability, but, eh.

17. Stamina, Combat Table Coverage, or total Damage Reduction?

Stamina right now (in the sense that I’m going dual stam trinks) as I’m starting Firelands. However, with dual mastery trinks I’m less than three percent from 102.4%… so close! Still, I’m not prepared to make that sacrifice just yet. A few more 378 pieces and I’ll go whole hog. Especially once the fights become more familiar and I’m more comfortable with my survivability.

18. What tanking class do you feel you understand least?

DK tanks, hands down. I’m not sure what keeps them from getting squished constantly.

19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?

I use WeakAuras for buff/debuff/effect notifications and Visual Combat Table (as stated above) for tracking my CTC. I have a slew of macros I use for various abilities, my favorite of which is the Divine Shield clearaura macro.

20. Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats (stam, mastery, avoidance), or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

My gemming is hybrid right now, so mastery and mastery/x gems to hit all the sockets. My trinkets are stamina trinks. I think that qualifies as balanced, for now. Like I said, I’m chomping at the bit to blockcap. I’ll see how long I resist.

For who to tag… I choose Chasey of Judging Chasey and the trio over at Sacred Duty. At least one of them should be willing to take a crack at this.