Going by the categorization of elixirs post 2.1, (http://www.worldofraids.com/burning_...ons-changes/):

It looks to me like you have two options as a tank for consumables.

Elixir of Mastery + Major Fortitude for 400 HP, 10 HP/5, and +15 agi/str, or a Flask of Fortification.

Seeing as how a FoF will give you 500 HP and +10 Defense rating as well as lasting upon through death, is there any reason for a tank to use the two elixirs over the FoF in general?

Perhaps of course in some specific instances it would be better to use a Mastery + Major Defense/Fortitude, but I can't really think of one.

Thoughts, comments?

Only thing that comes to mind is resist fights, assuming the elemental protection pots take up the defensive slot. I imagine that most classes will be flasked all the time, assuming blizz hasn't screwed the pooch and made an elixir combination marginally better for a certain class.

wait, did I miss something in the patch notes? protection potions will count as defensive eilxirs? if so, so would ironshield and stoneshield potions. I don't believe that is the case.

Potion effects are separated from elixirs, ie you can still chain-chug stoneshield pots.

edit: They nerfed the timer on the elemental protection potions (ie fire protection potions), they used to be 60 min, now 2 min.

Flask - 500 HP and 0.5% total avoidance, + 0.17% block

Mastery/Fortitude - 407.5 (with Vitality) hp and 0.5% total avoidance (just dodge).

The flask is always better than mastery/fortitude.

Assuming 14k armor, imp. Devo, imp. Mark, and no consumables, the average tank is running around 15664k armor. That's 56.7% mitigation vs. a 73 mob. Adding 500 armor from the elixir bumps it up to 57.5%. That's 0.8% flat mitigation that doesn't rely on the random number generator. If you're chugging ironshield potions, the % goes down slightly. The 500 armor boosts mitigation from 59.6% up to 60.3%, a 0.7% boost.

Unfortunately you can't have fortitude and defense up, so you'd be looking at mastery (or major agility) and defense. That's either 157 health/0.5%dodge/0.7%mitigation, or 1.17%dodge/0.7%mitigation with the major agility elixir.

Gruul in the low teens (growth-wise) sneaked a crushing past me on our first kill for around 11k damage. The defense elixir prevented 77 damage of that attack. In cases like that, I'd rather have 500 more health. When the hits are smaller, the amount of damage prevented is even less, and the stamina is even better.

Long story short, I'm inclined to say that it's a pretty cut and dry case of FoF being superior to any combination of elixirs. Especially since not every boss deals nothing but physical, where the armor would do you zero benefit versus other damage types.

The 10 HP per 5 seconds really isn't that much to consider, the static 100 HP and 10 defense you get from the flask would be much better. I've yet to see any stories that a tank lived because his 10 HP5 ticked so the boss wouldn't kill him/her in the next hit.

Sure, there are going to be times where using armor potions would be more beneficial. But for learning content, flasks are the things that will be used when learning an encounter and then perhaps using different potions during real attempts will come into play which is quite the opposite case seeing as we use pots for learning and flasks for real attempts.

The flask is pretty much always going to be better than Mastery / HP elixir / Major Def. And like the person above me, not every fight is all physical damage in which armor does nothing.

Flask also last through Death, not tipping the balance but might be a lot less costy on wipe nights

I have been thinking about this myself lately, and the only reason I can see using elixers over flasks is if we are doing something like a quick HK and Gruul kill --- it would be cheaper just to throw on a mastery and defense pot or something like that.

For bear tanks, the double elixir combo is probably best.

FoF: 500HP, 10HP/5 0.33 Avoidance

Mastery/Fortitude: 481HP, 1% Avoidance (15stam*1.2*1.03*1.25=23.175stam from Elixir of Mastery)

Flasks were by far the cheapest pot on a wipe night. Too bad tanks will still chain chug armor pots on a majority of fights.