Originally Posted by dukes
6% dodge counts as a lot more mitigation than 6% damage reduction. See here for an explanation. 88 agility is also ~3.5% crit, which is not insignificant by a long way.
For bears, agility is worth so much point-for-point compared to other stats that I would go as far as saying it's the best overall stat. This doesn't mean "stack agility", it means stack agility within reason. |
Every analysis tool I've seen places a high premium on high armor items as best stat for any slot. I.e., Emmerald's lists, Rawr when you're not building that 100% dodge set, and so on. Badge is ALWAYS the best trinket, Violet/A'dal's are ALWAYS the best rings, Swift Paw are always the best bracers, Den Mothers are always best boots, Belt of Natural Power is best belt, T6 is always best armor... The only slot where the highest-armor piece isn't at the top is Cloak, and even then the best item is only 50 or so armor behind the highest. And then you're over armor cap.
Also, in a worst-case sense, armor mitigates crushing blows while dodge only pushes hits off the table (and not crushes). This makes armor mitigation "less spiky" and dodge mitigation "more spiky". Anecdotally, healers overheal less with less spiky damage and are more ready to heal you as a tank as opposed to others with more armor.
Finally, with the exception of multi-mob and undergeared scenarios, I've never heard of a druid having threat problems. At that point, the extra crit only lets a druid stop spamming specials, which reduces parries somewhat. But that's hard to measure and relatively minor to the overall picture.
Essentially, my argument is that armor doesn't stop being the best stat at 30k.
The limited number of arguments I'd think acceptable for not being close to armor capped in standard tank gear when you could be:
- You have stacked avoidance to a ridiculous point already (and eat Agi food, use Agi elixir, and Agi scroll even for farming pulls)
- You frequently have a shaman/priest as an assigned healer on you (rare for a tank, since resto shammies and CoH priests tend to be raid healers)
- You don't need to get better tank gear at all, for instance because you aren't asked to tank frequently at the T6 level