What in the math is going on here?!

This is going to be a very, very brief post.

I just wanted to say that, as far as gearing my beloved bear...I'm so sick of looking at numbers...

So very sick of looking at numbers.

I've gotten two different staves as upgrades to my Orca Hunter's Harpoon.  Considering that bear is only an off-spec, it's not very often that I can snag upgrades like this, so I was pretty excited.  I'll share them with you later.

But I wanted to tell you that I was up way past my bedtime last night staring at my character screen.

By the time I gave up and logged out, everything on the screen just made me want to scream.  It had begun to look like this...

I couldn't stack stamina like I used to because I found myself unable to reach the hit cap.  When I reached the hit cap, I was too far under the soft expertise cap...when I got to the soft expertise cap...I didn't have enough dodge...

So...by the end of the night...this is what I ended up with:

Defenses

• 51,367 Health - Self-Buffed (Mark of the Wild) and shifted into dire bear
• 47% Dodge
• 26,494 Armor

Melee

•  4555 Attack Power
• 26 Expertise - At least I won't get Dodged while tanking.  
• 255 Hit, which, according to my character screen in-game, means I'm hit-capped
• 50% Crit chance.

I still need to make sure I haven't missed any enchants or gems, but for the time being, I give up.  I've never been so frustrated with numbers in all of my life.  If I tweaked this stat, then that stat fell below cap.  If I nudged this stat, then yet another stat would plummet.  

Out of curiosity, I decided to tank H:AN and see if anyone could pull threat from me.  The group I was with didn't do enough DPS to really test it out...so I'm going to have to wait and take someone I know I've struggled to hold threat against in with me and see how it goes.  Figures...When I don't want my threat generation tested - it gets tested to the max.  The one night I DO want it tested, I get put into a group with a few brand new level 80's. 

I will say that my own dps impressed me.  I was doing roughly 3k single target if I actually followed a steady rotation.  When I didn't care about rotation, it dropped to the mid 2k range.  Yes, I know that tanks don't "need" to worry about their DPS as much as their threat output.  

I'm staring at my character screen feeling like a total noob right now!  I think I might just need a few hours away from the numbers!  I'll be back later or tomorrow to show you the new toys!

With great love and no math,

Des