Tanking - Overall Damage Mitigation SS

Zanthor · 05/24/07, 11:21 AM

I think I have this right, but I know that you guys will find any flaws in the math/logic here.

Basically I'm trying to compare the tankability of my different tanks - since it's hard to compare druids, warriors and paladins on the fly I wanted to see the overall damage soaking ability of each...

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...kcC81KtwDPd8TQ

I have looked and didn't find anything like this, however I wouldn't be surprised if someone else already made one better...

Thanks,

Maratai · 05/24/07, 11:35 AM

I'm not a math whiz either; but it looks like this will provide you a rough estimate. One thing re: crushing blows, as the values you have in that column look odd. I'd suggest factoring in armor there also, i.e. the druids higher AC will mitigate the crushing blow, and the warrior/paladin's armor will mitigate the crushing blows they take. Frankly, thats your first big hurdle, finding out how many crushing blows your warrior/paladin actually avoids. While theoretically they can avoid them all, I both cry and laugh when our MT war dies and says "I took a crushing blow" since this is the main rationale used against bear tanks. My understanding is that the Enemy attack speed and other factors often make it impossible to block the crushing blows for a warrior/paladin.

• zeidrich · 05/24/07, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by Maratai

I'm not a math whiz either; but it looks like this will provide you a rough estimate. One thing re: crushing blows, as the values you have in that column look odd. I'd suggest factoring in armor there also, i.e. the druids higher AC will mitigate the crushing blow, and the warrior/paladin's armor will mitigate the crushing blows they take. Frankly, thats your first big hurdle, finding out how many crushing blows your warrior/paladin actually avoids. While theoretically they can avoid them all, I both cry and laugh when our MT war dies and says "I took a crushing blow" since this is the main rationale used against bear tanks. My understanding is that the Enemy attack speed and other factors often make it impossible to block the crushing blows for a warrior/paladin.

Well, IMO anyone who tells you that they're 100% immune to crushing blows is lying.

You're only immune to crushing blows when you have shield block (or holy shield) up, and you are facing your target. If you get stunned, or your target moves so that he is not exactly in your frontal arc, or your shield block gets missed, or you've just drunk a potion (don't know if this was fixed this patch) or you've expended all of your charges, then you can be crushed.

I think expecting the occasional crush is often better than assuming it will never happen, and then wondering how your tank died so fast.

(Assuming it's possible to even survive a crush)

Iol · 05/24/07, 12:10 PM

The potion / instant cast bug was fixed in 2.1

The only time a paladin can be crushed now though (assuming the boss can't rip through 8 charges per 10sec) is in the latency between Holy Shield Buff ending (and cooldown resetting) and re-applying it.

Zanthor · 05/25/07, 3:52 PM

Crushing being avoided is a glass bottle exercise, in practice crushing does hit everyone - however Warriors and Paladins CAN close the gap at some point, which still means they'll be crushed less.

Basically the goal of the spreadsheet is to see how that works, of course the fact that it's not editable to the public means no one can see the math I'm using...

For an editable version take a look:
http://www.botbh.com/files/Mitigation vs 70.xlsx

Thanks,

Tasonir · 05/28/07, 6:08 AM

I recently made a post similiar to this on my guild forum, so I'm just going to copy and paste it here. The video may be slightly irrelevant, but as many people in my guild still doubt that anything but a warrior can tank, I figured an example of a druid fighting Mulgar may help, since we haven't downed him yet. Warriors really take about 1% crushing, but it's dependant on skill/latency, and I just went ahead and used 0% also. I also used a fairly high dodge low armor bear setup, you could lower the dodge and increase armor. The post:

Let's assume a boss hits for 10,000 damage (raw), and calculate the actual damage recieved.

Warrior:
10% reduction for defensive stance = 9000 damage.
Assumed 55% reduction from armor: 4050 damage.
Assumed 250 damage reduction by shield block: 3800 damage per hit, always. (no chance of crushing calc required)

Druid:
Assumed 68% armor reduction: 3200 damage.
15% chance for 4800 damage. (crushing)
Assume 40% dodge/miss, meaning 45% hit, 15% crushing hit: average hit for 3600.

Granted that crushing blows represent a spike in damage recieved; the druid still takes 200 less damage per hit.

Assumed armor values (and dodge/miss for druids) can tweak this either way, of course. Also, if the mob's raw damage is lower (10k is somewhat high, although in 25 mans it is even higher) then shield block is worth more. If you think these values are off, let me know. Is shield wall really the answer? I readily admit that warriors have a lot more emergency buttons, I only have two, and they aren't nearly as effective as shield wall (pocket watch, frenzied regen). What I wouldn't give to be able to use a healing potion, even.

I just find it hard to believe effects that last < 20 seconds really make the difference when you have to tank most bosses for 3-5 minutes. The prince's second phase is very short by comparison, but even that is going to be around 60-80 seconds by my estimation.

But if a druid can tank Mulgar, I don't see why we can't get the prince:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruqD2hy639k

Great video <.<

Tyvi · 05/28/07, 6:16 AM

Didn't you just give the Warrior 0% avoidance in your calculations or am I missing something?

Daboran · 05/28/07, 6:22 AM

Originally Posted by Zanthor

I think I have this right, but I know that you guys will find any flaws in the math/logic here.

Basically I'm trying to compare the tankability of my different tanks - since it's hard to compare druids, warriors and paladins on the fly I wanted to see the overall damage soaking ability of each...

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...kcC81KtwDPd8TQ

I have looked and didn't find anything like this, however I wouldn't be surprised if someone else already made one better...

Thanks,

Just a point to note, the Druid dodge value is way out for even a moderately well-equipped Druid (Karazhan/Gruuls Lair) I would actively have to change my armour to avoid +agi items in order to get as little as 22% dodge, even unbuffed.

Falk · 05/28/07, 6:29 AM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

Is shield wall really the answer? I readily admit that warriors have a lot more emergency buttons, I only have two, and they aren't nearly as effective as shield wall (pocket watch, frenzied regen). What I wouldn't give to be able to use a healing potion, even.

I just find it hard to believe effects that last < 20 seconds really make the difference when you have to tank most bosses for 3-5 minutes. The prince's second phase is very short by comparison, but even that is going to be around 60-80 seconds by my estimation.

"Oh shit" buttons are just that. They're meant to respond to the critical moments of an encounter. It's not a matter of a tricky phase lasting 60-80 seconds. It's a matter of having tricks to counter the short periods of spikes in damage/etc during those 60-80 seconds. NOT the entire 60-80 seconds.

Those abilities don't have to last the entire phase. If they had to, something is either very wrong with Blizzard's encounter design, or tanking gear choices.

(Or alternatively, shield wall can be used to give healers a reprieve to get some 5sr regeneration. YMMV)

Originally Posted by Liar

Didn't you just give the Warrior 0% avoidance in your calculations or am I missing something?

The average hit calcs and results for both Warrior and Druid in his post disregard avoidance. The avoidance quoted on the Druid part is merely to determine the ratio of hits to crushings.

Hoonboof · 05/28/07, 6:35 AM

Originally Posted by Liar

Didn't you just give the Warrior 0% avoidance in your calculations or am I missing something?

He did D:

What's typical avoidance for a decently geared druid anyway? @ The OP you really don't understand the difference last stand/nightmare seed/healthstone/health pot/ironshield potion/shield wall makes.

Example:

Warrior tanking a boss, takes an 8k hit that's followed immediately by a 9k cleave. It's no problem because he can just pop last stand, a health stone and a health pot, all before the big bad boss swings again, and then there's a beyond oh shit button if they're down (shield wall). A druid has basically got to stand there and pray to the gods above that he dodges the next attack.

Tasonir · 05/28/07, 6:51 AM

Falkon got it right above. The long explaination is as follows:

I did not give warriors 0% dodge. Or rather, I did, because I also assumed the druid has 0% dodge. I calculated damage taken per hit landed, which has nothing to do with your avoidance.

The reason that druid avoidance is required for the calculations is that you have to find out what % of HITS are crushing blows. Not what % of swings are crushing (which is always 15%). But if you dodge/miss 40%, then you are hit 45%, crushed 15%, and so it's 3:1.

If you wanted to know average damage per swing, then take the average damage per hit and multiply it by your chance to be hit: ie, 3600 damage x 60% chance to be hit = 2160 damage per swing. If the warrior is also at 40%, then 3800 x .6 = 2280 damage. If you want to give the warrior more avoidance, go right ahead. My numbers are merely an example.

As for complaints 40% is too high...40% is actually very low. My tanking gear is around 33% dodge unbuffed. Add a major agility potion and kings, and you're around 38%. Add a grace of air totem and you're at 44. Add scorpid sting and you're at 49%. Add 2% per insect swarm. Etc. You obviously won't have all of these things at once, but add whichever ones you do have at the time. Remember to count your roughly 7% miss chance as well as dodge.

40% is nothing high. If you can't reach that, you're sacrificing way too much for armor/hp.

Boevis · 05/28/07, 6:57 AM

Well, the druid does have a couple options ...
http://thottbot.com/i32534
http://thottbot.com/i28042
http://thottbot.com/i24551
Not amazing, but they're there.

I can also say with fairly high certainty that after the sets got buffed, no druid is walking into a fight prepared for tanking and being able to be 2 shot. (obvious exceptions being high growths on gruul and enrage on doomwalker)

As for druid avoidance, I run with 55% when I want to and still hit 18k or higher health and 25k+ armor, though usually I'm lazy and just bring my all purpose 32k armor gear with 45% avoidance.

Daboran · 05/28/07, 7:24 AM

Originally Posted by Boevis

As for druid avoidance, I run with 55% when I want to and still hit 18k or higher health and 25k+ armor, though usually I'm lazy and just bring my all purpose 32k armor gear with 45% avoidance.

I assume those are buffed values?

Even so, realistically you need to be capable of getting loot from Curator/Maulgar/Gruul to get those stats. If you were in a guild just starting Maulgar, it would still be a tough fight to itemize for, but yes the spreadsheet is too conservative really.

Boevis · 05/28/07, 8:29 PM

Originally Posted by Daboran

I assume those are buffed values?

Even so, realistically you need to be capable of getting loot from Curator/Maulgar/Gruul to get those stats. If you were in a guild just starting Maulgar, it would still be a tough fight to itemize for, but yes the spreadsheet is too conservative really.

But you don't need those stats for Maulgar/OT on Gruul. I did just fine pre-nerf Gruul with only t4 hat/shoulders, warden's hauberk, nimble foot treads, nomads leggings, and the various high armor items.

If you look at raiding with the obvious (to me anyway) method of "gear tanks first, everyone else second" then you will never really run into an encounter where a druid tank is getting 2 shot except where blatantly obvious.

Daboran · 05/29/07, 4:36 AM

Ok, I retract my statement. We ran Gruul's Lair last night for the first time since the patch and Maulgar hits like a girl now. Gruul seems substantially easier too despite the changes to increase shatter rate, probably due to the epic upgrades.