I am not a fan of stamina trinkets. I've seen a lot of PuG raids choose their MT and their OT based on health pools alone. Hit points do not a tank make. The ignorance about the mechanics of tanking is widely prevalent, but hit points seem to be the main source of contention. Don't get me wrong, health is good, we want a lot of it, I myself gem for it at the cost of all else. What I have a problem with is tanks falling into the false sense of security that stamina trinkets give. The most common are the two Brewfest trinkets. Easy to acquire, a ton of stamina, and some of the most useless wastes of two slots I've ever seen.
I think of it in terms of available space. Besides the base stamina on all tanking gear, there are three ways for a tank to expand their hit points. Gems, enchants, and trinkets. Let's break each of them down. Enchantments are easy, there are only a limited number of enchantments of any use to a tank in any particular slot. The decision of taking stamina where it's available is easily made, when compared to rather lackluster competition. Enchantments aren't really a problem for most people. The main battle comes between gems and trinkets. Any tank has only two available slots for trinkets. And even starting tanks have at least five or six (much more when in advanced gear) gem slots. Gems are static and do not change. They rely on no proc, no use effect. They are inherently boring stat raisers. Trinket slots on the other hand allow for procs, use effects, and stat raising. That combined with their scarcity makes a trinket slot many times more valuable than a gem slot.
So why waste those precious slots with something as dull as stamina? In the end, the stamina gain will only save you in a situation where any other trinket would have prevented it. I'm not saying all stamina trinkets are bad. Some of them are amazing. The Black Heart remains one of the best tank trinkets in the game. It provides stamina while not using it's limited space on more of the same. It provides the x factor needed to make a trinket worthwhile. Armor is amazing, and one of the primary reasons I still use Glyph of Indomitability. The overall damage not being taken by armor's reduction far outweighs the extra health given by stamina. I'd rather have thirty-five thousand hit points with seventy-three percent damage reduction than forty-one thousand hit points with sixty percent damage reduction. Taking less damage is always worth more than being able to take more damage. Who do you think the healers will appreciate more?
Okay, but how about magic-damage fights? I still hold the same viewpoint as Veneratio in this entry. You never die to just magic damage. If you do, something beyond something as minor as your trinkets is wrong. I'd rather be taking less damage from the enemy's melee attacks than trying to out-stam a combined magic/melee attack.
The last thing I want to touch on is please don't fool yourself into thinking because you have the most hit points you are the "better" tank. Tanking is so many more things than just being a meat shield, and a skilled tank is always in the right place at the right time, expects things to go wrong, and is the reason they don't. You don't need sixty thousand hit points to do that, just a lot of raid awareness and intelligent playing.
Tank smarter, not harder.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next entry for: Warrior Changes 3.3.3
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