Gemming can be a powerful tool for any Paladin tank that knows how to do it correctly. You can with the right choices add hundreds of healthpoints, a percents of avoidance, or make it that much easier to hit the crit cap. Or, you can go where no tankadin has boldly gone before and stack so much spellpower that nothing (you hear me doubters? nothing!) is getting out of that Consecration.
Er, just kidding on that last count. Don’t stack spellpower.
The purpose of this guide is to provide an overview of every option we have for gemming our phat purps (well, not every option, I’m skipping green quality gems, and purple quality gems are not yet implemented). I’ll break it down by slot color and recommend which gems you should use and why, as well as provide overall advice on the quality of your shinies options.
First things first, when gemming here are your priorities:
When one is met, move on to the next one.
1. 540 defense
2. > 26k HP unbuffed (this can vary depending on your gear level)
3. 102.4% avoidance (by any means necessary, so block rating ahoy!)
4. 102.4%, with as much dodge as you can squeeze in
Things you never should gem for are parry, expertise, spell power, strength, agility, intellect, mp5, crit, hit, and other stats would get increasingly obvious that you don’t gem for as I continued to type them out. Like spirit. You don’t need me to tell you not to gem for spirit.
Your bread and butter gemming stats are stamina, defense, and dodge. That’s it. Everything else you need you should be getting from your equipment.
In case you’re wondering why you don’t gem for parry but you do for dodge, parry suffers from a very odd rating-to-skill rate. Generally, one +16 parry gem provides .33% avoidance, whereas a +16 dodge gem provides .40% avoidance. The choice is obvious!
(Although, be careful that dodge and parry suffer from crazy diminishing returns when you stack them too high. You’ll have to use all your gem slots to get those two stats to the point where you’d see very steep DR, however. Good to know nonetheless.)
Red
- Subtle Scarlet Ruby: +16 dodge (.40% avoidance)
- Regal Twilight Opal: +8 dodge (.20% avoidance), +12 stam (134 HP)*
- Stalwart Monarch Topaz: +8 defense (1.62 defense skill/.064% avoidance), +8 dodge
Yellow
- Thick Autumn’s Glow: +16 defense (3.25 defense skill/.13% avoidance)
- Enduring Forest Emerald: +8 defense, +12 stamina
- Stalwart Monarch Topaz: +8 defense, +8 dodge
Blue
- Solid Sky Sapphire: +24 stamina (268 HP) [this is honestly your first and last choice for this slot]
- Enduring Forest Emerald: +8 defense, +12 stamina
- Regal Twilight Opal: +8 dodge, +12 stamina
* This is assuming you rightly have Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise maxxed out.
Typically, you’ll find the best gem for each slot includes stamina (if not pure stamina for a blue spot). Stamina is the one stat you want to be pushing to the limit with every opportunity. This means red slots are best filled with the Regals, yellow slots the Enduring, and blue slots the Solid. This is, of course, after you are crit capped.
so we should never gem for expertise? should we only get expertise from enchants where possible? i read on the wow role forums that expertise is good for tank threat is why i am asking
shouldn’t the avoidance total for +16 def be .13×3(dodge, parry and block no DR taken into account) while once you hit 540 def 16 will only provide .34 with DR(diminishing returns) which you failed to mention
You forgot about Hit Rating. While not necessarily a avoidance/mitigation stat, it is require to generate threat. While it’s true that mitigation is more important than threat, timed encounters require out-threat your dps and missed taunts are costly.
@arthurion: You only need 26 ecpertise to get soft capped (16 comes from a glyph and talent) and the remaining 10 should come from your equipment. No need to gem for it.
@epic: You are very right! I will edit this post as soon as I get to a laptop. Commenting is already nigh impossible on this silly iPod.
@phil: As a tank you should have little to no trouble generating massive threat without hit gems. Paladin threeat is very OP right now and I can easily top the threat my dps is doing when maintanking. Save gem slots for your #1 job–staying alive–and check your rotation if you’re having trouble keeping up.
thanks that makes gemming my gear easier.. how about an article on enchanting for prot paladins? specially for weapons? i am using strength on Slayer (love the animation on it) and mongoose on Red Sword
Dodge is on a very high DR, so when you get to around i think 300-350 dodge rating, it sadly is better to stack parry but i never will just an FYI. And you should stack hit until you’re less than a percent away from hit cap, when you have affliction warlocks and arcane mages doing 5k+ dps on any boss you need good threat and missing a shield slam is bad.
@decix: I disagree, parry suffers some from the same DR dodge does, so dodge is still better because you get more bang for your buck. I don’t agree with gemming for hit either, as I’ve stated elsewhere. Your gem slots are better spent on effective health and avoidance than threat generation.
Edit: I just realized you were advising gemming for parry and dodge at the same time. I can see the logic in that, but that would end up requiring more gem slots than I’d be comfortable expending not on effective health.
@ decix
unless you are talking about Shield of Righteousness this is a paladin discussion
hit and expertise are good for threat but as Rhidach said, those are not the primary gemming stats… which is what we are discussing here
Actually expertise does near nothing for tankadins as only melee white hits and hammer of righteousness are affected by it. The rest of our moves all off hit and count as spells.Also interestingly enough stamina is functionally our biggest threat stat, as your sp is buffed to a huge degree by your stam
Subtle scarlet ruby is not in the game yet. Stalwart Monarch Topaz is from a rare recipe world drop and will quite likely be incredibly expensive if you can even find someone to craft it for you. I was scratching my head why I had never used those gems until I looked them up. Thanks for the guide though, great information.
@ sunwing
thanks for the info!!
now if only i could find a place with a gemming guide for retribution!!! at the moment i am stacking AP and crit everywhere
@modulok: Oh my, how embarassing! And I’m a JCer so there’s no excuse. I’ll edit the post when I get the chance. Thanks for pointing that out.
As for stalwarts, they’re going for around 50-70g on my server. Not too too bad. I’ve been tempted to pick up the design.
You should mainly be stacking stam tbh. Only reason you should stack something else is in order to activate your meta.
Def: Shouldn’t really be stacking this as it should come from your gear. You need uncritable, thats all
Hit will raise your TPS by a lot but shouldnt be stacking it in gems. If threat is a issue then your doing it wrong
Expertise: You should be using the glyph (for SoV) as someone pointed out. This will increase your TPS a tad and help with your avoidance but not enough to be gemming it. Also very costly (iLvl wise) to gem it.
Dodge/Parry. Shouldnt really stack these either. As pointed out both Parry and Dodge suffer from DR. In simple terms the more you have the more you need for 1% more avoidance.
As someone else pointed out there is a point where Parry is better to stack than dodge but I believe this is near impossible to get to atm. Dodge is your friend simple.
Saying this dodge/parry/def dont help with magic…Kels frost bolts are not mitigated by dodge etc and you should have resist sets for this (I lol at the thought).
As someone also pointed out more stam means more SP (through talents). Also remember that your real stam (through talents) is 114%. So say I have 10 stam, in fact I get 11.4 thought talents.
Lastly…..Professions. a paly tank (raiding) can easily get 32k+ unbuffed by being a JC and either a Miner or LW.
JC gives u 3 prismatic stam gems that also gives you meta immunity and provies easy sockets bonuses as well as a good trinket.
Both LW and Mining give you 50Stam followed by BS (2 stam gems) 48 stam and Enchanting 48Stam.
Opps btw I meant SHOULDNT have resist sets for kel!
Thanks for the Gem guide! An Enchant guide for Protection Paladins would be most helpful.
The optimal professions for any Tank are Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing. Jewelcrafting allows you to socket up to 3 Dragon’s Eyes (+41 Stamina per Solid Dragon’s Eye, +27 Defense per Thick Dragon’s Eye, or +27 Dodge per Subtle Dragon’s Eye). Blacksmithing gives you an extra two uncolored gem sockets.
What Meta would you recommend for a Protection specced Paladin?