Min-maxing my death knight tank

Hi there! I am currently trying to push the most out of my gear as a DK tank on Loraeron and I feel like I'm missing HP when it comes to min-maxing gemming and item selection. Here is a link to my armory - https://armory.warmane.com/character...daeron/summary.

Right now I sit at 40.875k HP and 37.1k armor in frost presence and horn of winter, exp soft cap with food and a bit over taunt hit cap by 6 points.

So some obvious upgrades would be sanctified pieces, the plagueworks 25 neck, RS25 boots, vdw 25 ring, sindy trink and the pp10 trinket, although access to most of these are limited to me at the moment as I am mostly a 10 man normal raider and MT for my guild (PuGs and alt runs for bigger guilds are my main hope atm for the 25 pieces and HC pieces much much further down the line). The upgrades I will purchase soon will be the skeleton key for magic fights and the EoF sigil.

I currently also require the defense gems as I am at 541 defense and would be under the min otherwise.

But here's my issue. I feel as if I am gemming for hit and expertise too much and losing too much stamina. One of the server's most geared BDK tanks told me to stop gemming for hit and exp at all and say **** it to those soft caps by gemming pure stamina. I also own the HC Abomination's Bloody Ring which can replace the Ony25 ring. I would lose some resistances and armor (36.3k self buffed) but I can freely gem for stamina as my hit would be way over cap at 295 with my current set up. I could also use the marrow 10 neckpiece, but idk if the armor loss and stamina and parry increase is worth it for physical fights.

How should I proceed?

Also here is the spec I normally use - https://wotlk.evowow.com/?talent#j0E...g0xcMIz:mpi0VM. One on my armory is something I'm testing.

From my pov, its always better to get more overall stats, meaning, if you have to sacrifice some stamina to get some armor and hit/expertise, i would go for it.

Some may say that gemming full stamina is the best and only option, but i dont remember i ever saw tank getting killed cos he was missing 300-500 HP (which is 30-50 stamina).

If you still decide to sacrifice Hit and Expertise so you can get some extra Stamina, i would suggest you to get atleast 7% hit and 4% reduced dodge/parry chance on the target.
There is higher chance someone else will die if you miss an IT or you to die if you get dodged on Death Strike than there is a chance that you would survive if you had 500 extra HP.

As for what you should do now, its all up to you.
I can tell you cap Hit get arround 20expertise, or even cap it at 26 if you are not sacrificing too much of your survival stats, someone else will tell you go full stamina, someone might say get stamina and armor fak hit and exp, someone may say get stamina and some minor avoidance, in the end there is no perfect choice nor advice.

As i said before on these forums, from my pov hybrid gems are ALWAYS worth if they give you 9+stamina in return from matching sockets, and +6 stamina bonuses are worth if you are close to hit/exp cap and can get some extra higher armor item aswell.
I think that is the best way to get the overall best stats for all of the fights in wotlk.
The only 2 bosses i would make an extra set are LK and Halion 25m hc, rest are doable with any close to bis gear if you know how to use def CDs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aymxn7

stop gemming for hit and exp at all and say **** it to those soft caps by gemming pure stamina.

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There is a lot of validity to an approach like this.

The thing to understand as any tank is that Hit and Expertise do not play any kind of inherent role in your tankiness. It's not necessarily mandatory, or even beneficial, to seek out some kind of Cap for these stats the way a DPS player would. Hit Rating can be beneficial to cap for other reasons - for instance if a missed Taunt would spell disaster (..though you do have a secondary taunt in Death Grip). Expertise provides a defensive benefit on bosses that parry-haste. Apart from these benefits, most of what these stats offer you is simply threat.

Since you're a DK, it does certainly bear noting that these stats also minimize the incidences of Death Strikes not landing, which is of some help. I don't know that this provides a strong enough justification to sacrifice EH for Hit/Expertise however.

When i talked about Expertise gems i was talking about 10exp15stam ones...
Never use 20 Expertise gems.

There are 3 items i consider to be worth when it comes to these 10exp15stam gems.
First is a nobrainer, Helm. It will give you 10expertise for the loss of 3stamina.
Second is Chest. It will give you 10expertise for the loss of 6stamina.
Third is Belt. Its the same as chest.
These 3 items will give 30 expertise for the cost of 15 stamina.
This, with another big item (T10 Legs or Weapon) and 6 expertise from talents should give you around 20 expertise in total.
With the use of a Expertise Racial, and maybe 1-2 more 10exp15stam gems in Neck, Ring, Shoulders, there is a chance you can cap it at 26, and this is the trade i would take any time (but you will be fine with 20 exp anyway).

As for Hit rating, there is no item that will give you +9 stamina in return if you use 10hit15stamina gem, part from T10 legs.
If you can somehow get 7-8% hit, while using couple of 10hit15stamina gems, and in the end equip one extra Armor Item, like EoF Cloak instead of BPC one, than i think that is also a good trade.

Overall, if you want to use Hit and Expertise gems to reach some point, never use 20 Hit or 20 Expertise gems.
Use 10 hit / expertise 15 stamina gems wisely, and you will be able to fin in some extra Armor items for the cost of some minor stamina.

P.S. Talents are fine, the ones you linked, so there is no need to change that tho.