Jayde

It seems to me that Scarab of Displacement destroys Styleen's. Displacement gives 1.6% additional mitigation due to the 10 defense skill gained (if I'm remember my formulas right) which, IMO, is substantially more valuable than +block% which is rarely ever used.

Not exactly, since Defense trickles down to Dodge/Parry/Block/Miss% it is still a pretty useful stat even if you are crit-capped.

 

Stein

Isn't dodge WAY cheaper than parry?

Wouldn't straight dodge/block be cheaper?

(edit: meant...less rating per 1%:

Dodge Rating: 18.9 rating grants 1% dodge
Parry Rating: 31.5 rating grants 1% parry
Block Rating: 7.9 rating grants 1% block chance
Defense Rating: 2.4 rating gratns 1 defense skill)

soo....60 defense rating gives 1% block/parry/dodge/miss/anti-crit...3% raw avoidance. cheaper than parry, slightly worse than dodge when you're blocked capped. could you get to the block cap on pure defense? heh...i bet this would crit cap you as well...ignoring block.

Arcane blast lover; champion of arcane specs everywhere!

 

Stein

<delete>

Arcane blast lover; champion of arcane specs everywhere!

 

Deadmerlin

I know Defense adds .04% to Block, Dodge and Parry. But can anybody give me an idea on how it reduces your chance to be crit on a boss versus equal level trash? Thanks in advance

 

CD

Healers only have the luxury of looking at incomming damage and cancelling heals when there's a buffer between the HP of a tank and the biggest spike he can face. If, as above, a tank has 15k hp and the biggest spike is 8k there will be plenty of opportunities for healers to react. If, however you do a fight like Maulgar where there's very little room at all between total hp and the highest spike healers will be forced to cast heals regardless of whether you are hit or not.
Stacking HP and armour will give a bigger buffer zone and make healers- and yourself as a tank- more able to react to damage and take advantage of your avoidance.

 

Sylveri

Parry can make you next attack faster than usual. I guess this is why Parry is more expensive than Dodge. For me, I will take Dodge over Parry (I am just a paladin who is starting learning tanking) because pally tanking doesn't rely on white hit a lot, though I still need to hit the mob to have a chance to apply Seal of Vengeance.

 

• Whiteknight

Read post #40 and post #42 in the quoted thread a little more closely. The combat log lists a crushing blow received 3 seconds after activating imp shield block with a base block rate of 24.74%

This is the only example I've seen and it's the reason I quoted that specific thread.

Yes, the thread isn't conclusive, but there is some *strong* evidence suggesting that our understanding of the single-roll table theory is flawed, and that block negating crushing requires at least 25% base block chance. More testing is needed to fully resolve this.

 

Emeraude

You completeld ignored my post where I said I went to fight level 70 mobs as a 60 Warrior with less then 25% block.

When Shield Block was up every attack was either blocked/dodged/parried/missed.

When Shield Block was not up, every attack was either blocked/dodged/parried/missed/crushing.

As the crushing table works like such: For every point of defense you are under 5 times your level, the chance of a crushing blow increases by 2%.

60 vs 63 = 15%
60 vs 64 = 25%
60 vs 65 = 35%
60 vs 66 = 45%
60 vs 67 = 55%
60 vs 68 = 65%
60 vs 69 = 75%
60 vs 70 = 85%

Unlike where most studies come from where it's against bosses with a 15% chance to be crushed, as you can see the mobs I was facing had almost 85% chance, which means that there was a much much higher chance to break through a block and crush if the mechanic worked like that, which it doesn't.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CX81UJZ8
For the lurking Phoenix Wright faithful.
http://bloodragingirl.blogspot.com/
My own blog!

 

Redd

One thing that has happened lately has totally shaken my thoughts on the crushing/block/avoidance relationship. While we were learning Nightbane at the beginning of every pull I used Dabiri's Enigma, and shield block, giving me 114% and change chance to block. There were multiple times where his opening hit was a crushing blow. I have installed fraps in hopes of capturing this activity again, but after getting the fight down we aren't having pull after pull for me to collect the data on.

As far as the crushing->avoidance argument, I have 37.68% dodge/parry, 23.54%, and I've seen crushings while shield block is up, that's a hair over 61% of the hit chart if they are rolled at once, with shield block pushing it well passed 100%, but if crushing/hit/block are rolled as a secondary after a hit is confirmed, then I would be at 98.54% leaving a slim but possible 1.46% chance to be crushed.

 

• Whiteknight

Yes, I missed your post.
That's really interesting results. I don't claim to understand how this works - all I do know (and all my post claimed) is that there is evidence that even a slight amount less than 25% block will allow you to be crushed by a boss mob when you're max level and shield block is active.

 

Dots

It is really hard to prove or disprove this simply because of lag and sync issues between server and client. The combatlog is known to lag all the time, often showing 2 normal mob hits at the same 10th of a second when that mob doesn't even thrash or anything like that.
As for Nightbane crushing you on the landing, did the server maybe not see you as facing him? So many things can go wrong in hectic raid situations, they just don't prove or disprove very much imo.
Of course I understand that it might just be true that you need 25+% block to be immune to crushings. Personally, I don't believe so because of my own observations with low base block% and the test Emeraude did. Very low block% , insane chance to crush, slow hitting mobs that don't screw up your combat log. That's a test I can believe in.

 

Arzy

is there anyone here who has 13k health unbuffed?

If so, can you please link your profile.

 

Plea

It's not a big goal to reach. Id have that with blue gems and new enchants, without stepping into raiding, check armory for the profile. Im not ever claiming that it was great itemization though, blues just tend to lack avoidance.

 

Cathela

I have 11.5k as a Paladin. Factor in that a warrior has a base 1.2-1.3k advantage over me, plus access to stamina in the ranged slot, plus the facts that I have several gems in need of upgrading to blues and that my boot enchant needs upgrading, and it's pretty easy to see that 13k unbuffed is perfectly attainable for a warrior.

EDIT: So yeah, just look at my armory profile.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

kaellie

here is a link to the european armory :
http://armory.wow-europe.com/charact...onde&n=Kaellie

I have just a little more than 13k unbuff ( 13874 on the armory but it was saved with the untallented shadow-priest buff)

Has for the % block, i have yet to see some crushing with shield block, every time I saw one it was when it was down due to fast hitting boss or lag from me that prevent me to fresh it.

has for armor+stam vs dodge+ parry, I think I will go with 2 sets of stuff and just switch whatever is better for the boss ( the truth is that I can't decided which whould be better )

 

Nezralix

I have a tough time with block value. Although larger shield slams are appealing, it just really isn't all that effective when mobs are hitting for 3000+. I don't think it's scaled appropriately with the increase in stamina and the increased NPC damage output that's been associated with the extra stamina. It's extremely powerful in non-Heroic 5-mans, but that really isn't saying a whole lot!

 

Morsexy

Ive personally always found this argument fascinating. A case can be made either way and I enjoy those discussions.

That being said its always been my priority to go for avoidance over pure stamina. Is that extra bunch of stamina\life really worth losing stats that in the long course of a boss fight, become more valuable? As for the argument that healers are going to be healing you anyways, well great. Healer theory craft seems to be about spamming a heal of a certain value that you can use for the duration of the boss fight. Having a higher block\parry\dodge ( in my case dodge, the cheapest of the two ) means in my opinion your healers have to enter the "oh shit" zone less often since you are less likely to have strings of damage like a druid does. We had our Druid MT Gruul and at least for me, it was very predictable looking at the damage he was taking roughly when he would die.

I think a bad example of what I mean is Nightbane, given that Im focusing about 95% of my attention on being ready to fear macro. At this point I seem to severely outgear Prince, but thats a fight where I am focusing purely on mitigation, and very rarely do I go below 60% on his enrage phase, and it is not that rare for the blocks from shield block not always be used in several strings. I know that some of the healers I play with will cancel spells mid cast if I am at 100% health and start to recast, which may be time consuming but I think is worth it.

If we had 6 gem slots, and you put in 6 Solid Star of elunes, and I put in 6 Subtle Living Rubies with full raid buffs you have 830 more life than i do, and I have 2,53% more dodge.

Assuming were buffed to the hilt, I have 15000 life and you have 15830. You have 5.5% more life, and if you have 19% dodge and I have 21.53%, I have 13% more dodge than you do. Granted I realize my example is very simple, and this isnt 2 + 2 = 4 yay! thats the right answer and that its somewhere in between. Given that you are being healed, I believe the dodge is much much more important.

If you were say an OT, and dodged Gruul's hurtful strikes a lot, and only occasionally needed heals at random intervals, then I would subscribe to the armor\stam side of tanking since you want to be able to survive more hits at a reduced rate before the flood of heals get to you, a perfect job for a Druid.

As for this, personally I dont see why you dont wear Styleens and the Hydross trinket, Ive always thought LGG was a terrible trinket (im a fan of passive anything) and now with the boost being fixed to 1500 life, its value for me is greatly diminished.

 

Gatzu

Morsexy what your failing to realize about "oh shit" moments is unless your fighting a trivial fight like Prince you will need to stack as much hp and armor as you can or that one time you don’t parry the boss will just kill you.

A perfect example is Gruul and reverberation. When your nearing the end of the fight if your rolling around with 15k hp I almost guarantee you are going to die to a reverb at the end when you don’t dodge or parry any of the attacks. On the other hand if you were stacking armor and hp you didn't have to get lucky to survive.

Remembering back on Patchwerk I believe Praetorian put it best when he said what would be easier to heal a tank with massive avoidance or a tank with 15k hp and max armor mitigation.

 

◊ Anias

You absolutely want a tank with maximized effective life as the "If I die the raid wipes" tank.

Tanks that don't wipe the raid when they die should be wearing some mix of "save healer mana" (avoidance) and effective life sets.

Once a fight is fully farmed and you start to outgear it - the avoidance set becomes more valuable to reduce consumable use.



But for first day hardest boss your raid has ever faced? You'll have less frustration with 42000 effective life than 36000 every single time.


Effective life in the above is how much damage (raw) the boss has to do to you to kill you, from full, in the worst case, with no help from an outside soure. Armor and HP increase this - avoidance does not.

That's my opinion, but the logic behind it is hard to disagree with.

Learning a boss is a process of steady wipes until you kill him. The first attempt is almost never a "healers ran oom, we wiped" event. It's usually "Something new happened, we wiped" event. By having a higher effective life (and thus increasing your time to live without help) you minimize the chance that something new kills you outright, which in turn gives more people in the fight a chance to react and maybe save you (including you spamming shield wall to save yourself), which in turn lets you get further into the fight as you learn it. Thus your gains from any given first attempt will be higher than an avoidance geared tank. (Obviously this is overall - someone out there always parries, and he's a jackass, but I bet his guild loves learning hard fights with him. Since we can't guarantee we're the "always parry guy" it's silly to use it as an example)

Your gains from living through that first "new" moment are really high. You may see as much as twice the length of the fight as the group that wipes on the first "new" event, and you may see a second mechanic that would have wiped you later.

Aside: This is the reason I feel that solid star of elune and the stamina change in general have no reason to exist. It changes the balance of "what gets me the highest effective life" dramaticly.

 

zork

just check out kungens equip:
http://armory.wow-europe.com/#charac...ridon&n=Kungen
the belt he had was the shat'ari one a blue belt with block. its a really nice avoidance setup.
now kungen wears this beauty:


if you are looking at vestiges equip:
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...gath&n=Vestige
she is taking mostly max hp > avoidance.
her gloves are tier5 which doesn't seem to be implemented yet *lol*

i think it depends on you, what fits best. avoidance or max hp.

maybe its the tauren hp bonus that kungen can focus a little bit more on avoidance.

RothUI Download - Tank Guide - Avoidance Calc - Threat Calc - Rothar - darkmasters.de

 

crucias

Prior to BC I didn't worry too much about stam, avoidance was definately my priority. My mindset was the same when my guild did karazhan. Avoidance was, and i believe still is, the way to go for karazhan. But then we stepped into Gruul's lair. On one of our earlier attempts we had everything under control and things were running smooth. Then i saw my hp drop from 100% to 0 instantly. When I looked in my combat log i saw a 12k crushing arcing slash hit at the same time as an autoattack. I was dealt 18k damage instantly. I started stacking stam after that night and now have about 14.2k hp unbuffed. The other night gruul crushing blowed me with an autoattack for 13k and he only had 11 growths on him. Mana seems to be less of an issue in BC due to flask of restoration, pallies & shamans on the same side, and other things such as itemization etc (of course this is coming from a tanks point of a view though, not a healers). So i'd say stacking stam is definately desireable for 25 mans, but for 10 and 5 mans I would go more for avoidance.

 

zork

demo shout on mob + armor pots on you?

armor is a big deal in there, but i thinks it is correct something around 13k+ unbuffed should be a goal to reach after 490 defense and after that avoidance.

RothUI Download - Tank Guide - Avoidance Calc - Threat Calc - Rothar - darkmasters.de