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Improving Sunwell Tanking Gear
Posted 06/06/08 at 3:06 PM by Theras
Sunwell Radiance has gotten me thinking: if our Dodge chance gets reduced by 20%, why do we have so much Dodge on our Sunwell tanking set? Let's make a gear list:
It's all a real shame. Let's hope WotLK has some more carefully considered tanking mechanics to prevent this from happening again.
[Helm of Uther's Resolve]If you enchant everything correctly, and obey socket color rules with [Subtle Crimson Spinel] in red, [Solid Empyrean Sapphire] in blue, and [Enduring Seaspray Emerald] in yellow (which I hear is in vogue these days for Brutallus), you're going to normally have the following avoidance stats in Sunwell:
[Collar of the Pit Lord]
[Spaulders of the Thalassian Defender]
[Crimson Paragon's Cover]
[Heroic Judicator's Chestguard]
[Lightbringer Wristguards]
[Lightbringer Handguards]
[Lightbringer Waistguard]
[Judicator's Legguards]
[Lightbringer Stompers]
[Band of the Eternal Defender]
[Ring of Hardened Resolve]
[Commendation of Kael'thas]
[Darkmoon Card: Vengeance]
[Brutal Gladiator's Gavel]
[Sword Breaker's Bulwark]
7.25% Miss (-5%)But let's pretend that every Plate piece with Dodge on it, and our Shield, is converted to Parry. Except for the Lightbringer Gloves, which already have Parry. So for example, our [Helm of Uther's Resolve] would have 41 Parry rating instead of Dodge rating. That would change our stats as follows:
9.78% Dodge (-20%)
18.59% Parry
35.62% Total
7.25% Miss (-5%)Surprisingly that's a small gain in total avoidance, with the added benefit of Parry also providing a very marginal threat increase. Now let's examine an alternative scenario, where everything is normally socketed with [Solid Empyrean Sapphire]s. Baseline:
0.00% Dodge (-20%)
29.43% Parry
36.68% Total (+1.06%)
7.08% Miss (-5%)Dodge moved to Parry:
7.50% Dodge (-20%)
18.42% Parry
33.00% Total
7.08% Miss (-5%)Also impressive. The final situation I'll analyze is if you are normally socketing everything with [Subtle Crimson Spinel]s for a maximum avoidance set. Baseline:
0.00% Dodge (-20%)
27.48% Parry
34.56% Total (+1.52%)
7.08% Miss (-5%)Dodge to Parry, including switching to [Flashing Crimson Spinel]:
14.48% Dodge (-20%)
18.42% Parry
39.98% Total
7.08% Miss (-5%)Curious. There doesn't appear to be a single situation in which we would not benefit from our Sunwell gear having been focused exclusively on Parry over Dodge, even considering the worse conversion rate. I guess that's an unfortunate side-effect of the ad hoc Sunwell Radiance solution. I still don't see why they didn't adjust our itemization appropriately, seeing as the ~1-2% we'd gain from the change wouldn't at all affect the 102.4% real avoidance Druids/Rogues we were seeing pop up. Since, you know, they can't wear plate.
0.00% Dodge (-20%)
33.28% Parry
40.36% Total (+0.38%)
It's all a real shame. Let's hope WotLK has some more carefully considered tanking mechanics to prevent this from happening again.
Total Comments 6
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Having parry instead of dodge lowers your avoidance in non-Sunwell areas, not that it matters.
Maybe the developers wanted someone to use the 10 parry cut. |
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That would make Commendation worthless...not really worth the effort. I think Sunwell radiance is a pretty elegant solution without introducing diminishing returns on avoidance.
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Are those stats counting the dodge you get from sources other than dodge rating? Agi, Def, and base 5% all give you dodge, that is also removed with Sunwell Radiance, so capping it at 0% may be not accounting for that. I'm not too familiar with Protadin avoidance levels, so perhaps you already accounted for that.
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Ashstrike:
Yep, it really doesn't matter. Sunwell tanking gear would still be better than Black Temple tanking gear if it were all Parry rating, and it would be also better at what it's actually intended for: tanking in Sunwell. Apama: I honestly don't think that Sunwell Radiance is very elegant at all; it's a ham-fisted solution to what accounts to little more than a design flaw. You shouldn't be able to reach 100% avoidance, full stop. The fact that Blizzard created items that put you up to absurd avoidance isn't really the real problem; the fact that you can reach 100% avoidance in the first place is. I'm sincerely hoping that they do implement an elegantly calculated formula for diminishing returns that doesn't overly penalize or reward you for having low avoidance, but doesn't make avoidance increase in value exponentially as you gain more. The armor --> damage reduction formula is a great base they could use for avoidance ratings, too. It would necessarily involve some additional intricacies to account for the four different types of avoidance, but that's nothing a little simple math voodoo and some matching reciprocal exponents can't resolve. Astrylian: I did take that all of into account. I'm not sure what you mean by base 5% to dodge though, since Paladins start at 0.65% to Dodge before any agility, defense rating, or dodge rating are considered. |
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Isn't the whole point of Sunwell Radiance to decrease the avoidance of all tanks by 25%?
In fact I don't think Blizzard wants to circumvent that effect, then they would be un-fixing their fix. |
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If you got the gear, you are past the encounter where it matters. From what i can tell, there is no Sunwell Radiance buff from Muru on. Not that it makes any sense "lore logic" wise, because you get closer to the sunwell.
Its a shoehorned fix for an absurd hittable system. Lets hope this gets changed with the crushing blow mechanics! |
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