Bear tank item comparisons - Page 52

Garithras · 05/28/07, 6:09 PM

Originally Posted by Bovie

So, what do you think? Is it important that Druids maintain this level of mitigation in order to continue to be serious contenders for MT, or do we have other strengths (read: larger HP pool) that make up for it?

There are two things to look at for tank survivability: spike damage and overall damage. The former can be compensated for to an extent by better healers, and the latter by better-geared healers.

Spike damage can be dealt with primarily via a more hit points and temporary buffs or bonuses such as potions, trinkets, abilities, and the like. Warriors indisputably have the advantage over other classes with consumables and abilities. Druids do have more hit points, but due to itemization, cannot reach 20% more (as is commonly perceived from Heart of the Wild) simply because the amount of stamina available on gear is somewhat less than for plate.

As far as overall damage, druids need far less armor that the amount it would take for a crushing blow to equal a warrior's normal hits. Their armor needs to absorb enough extra for that extra 50%, 15% of the time, to equal an overall 100%.

Originally Posted by Tasonir

While I'm not exactly sure how it will turn out, as I'm not a big fan of putting on large amount of +dodge gear (something of an armor/stamina buff), but I would assume that's the intended path.

As an aside, agility is a more efficient use of item points for druids to achieve the same amount of dodge as plain dodge rating.

Binkenstein · 05/28/07, 6:20 PM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

While I'm not exactly sure how it will turn out, as I'm not a big fan of putting on large amount of +dodge gear (something of an armor/stamina buff), but I would assume that's the intended path. Once we can no longer keep such a high armor lead over warriors, we'll have to replace it with an avoidance lead in order to keep overall mitigation equal.

Funny, because I remember (way back when) saying that warrior's high avoidance made their damage spiky, and that druids had more armor and less dodge, for more stable damage...Ah, they were simplier times.

Well, when you think about it, warriors usually have 40+ avoidance with dodge & parry.
Most druids would be ~35 dodge.

Most of the "spike-ness" of druids relates to crushing blows, which apparently will be changed in the future along the same lines as glancing blows.

Tasonir · 05/28/07, 6:25 PM

You have reason to believe the crushing blow mechanic will be changed? Where did you hear this from? It's the first time I have.

Darandor · 05/28/07, 6:36 PM

http://wow.stratics.com/content/feat.../logs/0001.php

Brannoc: *Mazrael* With the advent of multiple tanking classes in The Burning Crusade, Paladins and Druids are now competing for the role of main tank in 25-man raiding content, extending from Karazhan up through the Black Temple. Has WoW development reviewed the game mechanics of Crushing Blows? In 2.1, the Glancing Blow mechanic has been changed to assist DPS classes - has any similar discussion been undertaken for Crushing Blows

Kalgan: Yes, we have had a similar discussion regarding crushing blows. We feel they add too random an element for players in endgame content.

Kalgan: We expect to deal with this issue at some point in the future (although it may not be immediate)

Zzbzq · 05/30/07, 3:02 PM

Originally Posted by Jayde

You're missing my point.

It's not that it's any easier to scale up to 80%, in fact it is rather hard. It's the fact that if the cap is removed and people DO get to 80%, they are massively more survivable than before.

I think you're missing the point, and furthermore the amount of posting you do waters down the quality of your posts to the point where you post in every thread and never constructively.

Sorry--

The point is that the amount of armor needed to go from 75% to 80% is greater than from 70% to 75%. Each percent of mitigation is equal to the same amount of absolute reduction of DPS. But each point of armor is not equal to every other point of armor. It is very common for class-balance-forum-trolls such as yourself to try to sidestep this point by using sophistry about "total survivability" or other rubbish. Fact: damage mitigation from armor has diminishing returns.

Going from 75% to 80% better indeed be "horribly powerful" because for an equivalent amount of iLvl you could also get a "horribly" large amount of +stam, +def, +agi, or for that matter +fire damage.

In short, I should simply say "armor suffers from diminishing returns." If you disagree with this, you've been had. Each successive point of armor subtracts successively less incoming dps.

Crowbite · 05/30/07, 4:17 PM

Originally Posted by Zzbzq

I think you're missing the point, and furthermore the amount of posting you do waters down the quality of your posts to the point where you post in every thread and never constructively.

Sorry--

The point is that the amount of armor needed to go from 75% to 80% is greater than from 70% to 75%. Each percent of mitigation is equal to the same amount of absolute reduction of DPS. But each point of armor is not equal to every other point of armor. It is very common for class-balance-forum-trolls such as yourself to try to sidestep this point by using sophistry about "total survivability" or other rubbish. Fact: damage mitigation from armor has diminishing returns.

Going from 75% to 80% better indeed be "horribly powerful" because for an equivalent amount of iLvl you could also get a "horribly" large amount of +stam, +def, +agi, or for that matter +fire damage.

In short, I should simply say "armor suffers from diminishing returns." If you disagree with this, you've been had. Each successive point of armor subtracts successively less incoming dps.

2 things.

One; Fill out your profile.

Two; Have you ever looked at how armor works? Each point of armor adds exactly the same amount of mitigation as the last point. Going from 8,000 to 8,100 is the same amount of mitigation as 20,000 to 20,100 armor. Just because that wonderful percent number doesn't increase by as much, doesn't mean it's giving less mitigation.

Tuftears · 05/30/07, 6:14 PM

Originally Posted by Tytal

Two; Have you ever looked at how armor works? Each point of armor adds exactly the same amount of mitigation as the last point. Going from 8,000 to 8,100 is the same amount of mitigation as 20,000 to 20,100 armor. Just because that wonderful percent number doesn't increase by as much, doesn't mean it's giving less mitigation.

Here's the formula for damage reduction at level 70, per WowWiki:

Damage reduction percent = armor / (armor + 10157.5)

Damage reduction from 8000 armor: 44.05%
Damage reduction from 8100 armor: 44.36%
Damage reduction from 20000 armor: 66.31%
Damage reduction from 20100 armor: 66.42%

Assume you have 100000 health, and your enemy hits you for 1000 (before armor) every second, discounting crits, crushes, blocks, dodges, and parries. How long do you live?

8000 armor: 559.5 damage per blow, you live for 178.73 seconds
8100 armor: 556.4 damage per blow, you live for 179.72 seconds (increase of 0.99 secs)

20000 armor: 336.9 damage per blow, you live for 296.82 seconds
20100 armor: 335.8 damage per blow, you live for 297.79 seconds (increase of 0.97 secs)

However... It seems to me like the way armor has been factored, it's a linear increase, whereas if you get enough agility or parry, you can get an exponential increase in your survival, because it's not subject to the same equation - you get a fixed percent per 'dodge rating' or 'parry rating'.

Jayde · 05/30/07, 6:29 PM

Originally Posted by Zzbzq

I think you're missing the point, and furthermore the amount of posting you do waters down the quality of your posts to the point where you post in every thread and never constructively.

Sorry--

The point is that the amount of armor needed to go from 75% to 80% is greater than from 70% to 75%. Each percent of mitigation is equal to the same amount of absolute reduction of DPS. But each point of armor is not equal to every other point of armor. It is very common for class-balance-forum-trolls such as yourself to try to sidestep this point by using sophistry about "total survivability" or other rubbish. Fact: damage mitigation from armor has diminishing returns.

Going from 75% to 80% better indeed be "horribly powerful" because for an equivalent amount of iLvl you could also get a "horribly" large amount of +stam, +def, +agi, or for that matter +fire damage.

In short, I should simply say "armor suffers from diminishing returns." If you disagree with this, you've been had. Each successive point of armor subtracts successively less incoming dps.

I didn't realize this was about my participation in interesting threads. I suppose the many other forum-goers that frequent multiple active theorycrafting threads are also at fault for occasionally disagreeing with people.

Either way: I was a main tank for over 2 years, I don't need a lecture on armor mechanics. I know exactly how it works.

You are missing the extremely simple fact that it would be possibly to hit 80% mitigation right now with Imp. LoH and assorted other buffs, and such a leap in the practical mitigation cap would more or less trivalize many encounters. If you think the potential of chopping 20% of your incoming damage off is somehow trivial, you are not looking at it from a very analytical viewpoint. All raid content would have to be significantly rebalanced if this was doable.

It doesn't matter if it's hard. It doesn't matter if you think armor suffers from "diminishing returns." All that really matters is that if people CAN do it, they WILL do it...and it would make such a massive impact in terms of incoming damage that Imp. LoH/Inspiration + Bear Tanks would become the de-facto standard for tanking any high damage output encounter.

The cap is there for a reason. It's a cap. Removing the cap just because people hit is would be ignoring the point of the cap--which is to be, surprisingly enough, a cap.

Deathstorm · 05/30/07, 7:04 PM

Originally Posted by Jayde

I didn't realize this was about my participation in interesting threads. I suppose the many other forum-goers that frequent multiple active theorycrafting threads are also at fault for occasionally disagreeing with people.

Either way: I was a main tank for over 2 years, I don't need a lecture on armor mechanics. I know exactly how it works.

You are missing the extremely simple fact that it would be possibly to hit 80% mitigation right now with Imp. LoH and assorted other buffs, and such a leap in the practical mitigation cap would more or less trivalize many encounters. If you think the potential of chopping 20% of your incoming damage off is somehow trivial, you are not looking at it from a very analytical viewpoint. All raid content would have to be significantly rebalanced if this was doable.

It doesn't matter if it's hard. It doesn't matter if you think armor suffers from "diminishing returns." All that really matters is that if people CAN do it, they WILL do it...and it would make such a massive impact in terms of incoming damage that Imp. LoH/Inspiration + Bear Tanks would become the de-facto standard for tanking any high damage output encounter.

The cap is there for a reason. It's a cap. Removing the cap just because people hit is would be ignoring the point of the cap--which is to be, surprisingly enough, a cap.

Yes of course stats spiralling out of control is a bad thing but what's the point of giving Druids itemisation that brings them to this point to simply say sorry we know we designed you this way and we itemised you this way but there needs to be cap?

What value should I place in useful buffs like imp LoH or inspiration when I don't gain anything from them because I'm at the cap anyway? I might find your argument more persuasive if Druids weren't generally considered less desirable in the MT role and itemisation isn't really going to change that.

Jayde · 05/30/07, 7:21 PM

Originally Posted by Deathstorm

Yes of course stats spiralling out of control is a bad thing but what's the point of giving Druids itemisation that brings them to this point to simply say sorry we know we designed you this way and we itemised you this way but there needs to be cap?

What value should I place in useful buffs like imp LoH or inspiration when I don't gain anything from them because I'm at the cap anyway? I might find your argument more persuasive if Druids weren't generally considered less desirable in the MT role and itemisation isn't really going to change that.

Well, at this point I would view it more as a positive than a negative. One of my good friends is our Druid classleader, and he is tank/feral spec'd. He's our "MT Druid" right now. I mostly use Warriors not because I find him less desirable for tanking (he's an awesome tank, and his gear is great) but because I find Prot Warriors less desirable for DPSing.

But, that aside... the large buff to his armor values up to near the cap has led him to have a lot of freedom in re-evaluating his gear. He's starting to swap pieces out for more avoidance and/or stamina, and seems to enjoy the added flexibilty it has given him. Being tied mostly to the highest armor items (as that was a Druid's primary strength) really limited one's gear choices. That's not really a problem now.

He still has an assured raid spot--not just because he's the class leader, but because he's really worth the raid slot. Feral Druids are awesome, IMO. I'd also trust him to be able to tank basically anything we kill, and really only assign Warriors to it because they have nothing better to do in the fight. As he has a rather sick DPS and hybrid tanking/DPS set (another strong possibility with the increased armor--as you can get a fairly high armor/uncrittable/high AP+crit armor set going that is great for off-tanking then swapping to DPS) he is just so much more useful "floating" on most fights.

What does this mean for bear tank item comparisons? I feel like it makes things way more flexible and open to discussion. He was having a long chat, for instance, about his Forestheart Bracers vs. the Epic PvP Bracers, as he was able to get more HP out of the PvP Bracers with a Solid Star of Elune and didn't feel like he needed the additional armor on that slot. I think that's more positive than negative.

Deathstorm · 05/31/07, 2:26 PM

Originally Posted by Jayde

Well, at this point I would view it more as a positive than a negative. One of my good friends is our Druid classleader, and he is tank/feral spec'd. He's our "MT Druid" right now. I mostly use Warriors not because I find him less desirable for tanking (he's an awesome tank, and his gear is great) but because I find Prot Warriors less desirable for DPSing.

But, that aside... the large buff to his armor values up to near the cap has led him to have a lot of freedom in re-evaluating his gear. He's starting to swap pieces out for more avoidance and/or stamina, and seems to enjoy the added flexibilty it has given him. Being tied mostly to the highest armor items (as that was a Druid's primary strength) really limited one's gear choices. That's not really a problem now.

He still has an assured raid spot--not just because he's the class leader, but because he's really worth the raid slot. Feral Druids are awesome, IMO. I'd also trust him to be able to tank basically anything we kill, and really only assign Warriors to it because they have nothing better to do in the fight. As he has a rather sick DPS and hybrid tanking/DPS set (another strong possibility with the increased armor--as you can get a fairly high armor/uncrittable/high AP+crit armor set going that is great for off-tanking then swapping to DPS) he is just so much more useful "floating" on most fights.

What does this mean for bear tank item comparisons? I feel like it makes things way more flexible and open to discussion. He was having a long chat, for instance, about his Forestheart Bracers vs. the Epic PvP Bracers, as he was able to get more HP out of the PvP Bracers with a Solid Star of Elune and didn't feel like he needed the additional armor on that slot. I think that's more positive than negative.

I'm not concerned about replacing Warriors or viability given that raids are generally better off with 2-3 Druids regardless of if they're healing or not that's a fairly good standard to maintain. My point was Druids have this itemisation to give them a certain level of armour for a reason but that brings them to the armour cap which they can't exceed. Right now I'm running around with 32K + armour without buffs and I only have Tier 4 level equipment, perhaps it's merely a question of perception but if this tiered gear is being designed so I should wear off pieces that focus on agi/sta (and a sprinkling of def) and ignore armour surely then those tier pieces could be better itemised?

Yes this allows you to finally get away from that Smoking Heart of the Mountain or Mark of Tyranny which is a good thing but what's going to happen once you start piling on those pieces of T5 and greater? It strikes me we're back in the same position and more importantly to the previous posts, how would removing the cap change the current tanking status quo? With the very finest gear do you see Druids being a superior MT than a Warrior in equal equipment? For the MT role it strikes me this would only bring Druids up to Warriors given the lack of defensive stance (imp or not), crushing blows and shield block and I feel downright overpowered versus anything that just does normal melee damage anyway.

Boevis · 06/01/07, 1:12 AM

Originally Posted by Tytal

Two; Have you ever looked at how armor works? Each point of armor adds exactly the same amount of mitigation as the last point. Going from 8,000 to 8,100 is the same amount of mitigation as 20,000 to 20,100 armor. Just because that wonderful percent number doesn't increase by as much, doesn't mean it's giving less mitigation.

Huh? no, armor has diminishing returns post 60.

Originally Posted by Boevis

To go from 68.75 to 75 (a 20% effective gain) you go from 26310 armor to 35880, a 9570 increase.
Going from 75 to 80 (another 20%) you go from 35880 to 47900, a 12020 increase, 25.6% more than it took for the last 20% gain.

Originally Posted by Jayde

You are missing the extremely simple fact that it would be possibly to hit 80% mitigation right now with Imp. LoH and assorted other buffs, and such a leap in the practical mitigation cap would more or less trivalize many encounters. If you think the potential of chopping 20% of your incoming damage off is somehow trivial, you are not looking at it from a very analytical viewpoint. All raid content would have to be significantly rebalanced if this was doable.

Frist, show me the gear to hit 80% without LoH or at least Inspiration, Devotion Aura, and going to lengths such as armor enchants or the +550 armor potion that no one uses anymore.

Second, the majority of your point in this thread is baseless supposition, it's not going to trivialize anything that shouldn't be trivial by that point. Gruul and Magtheridon are supposed to be the Onyxia equivalent, Karazhan is MC I guess, these should be trivial by the time I'm anywhere close to breaking 77.5% DR from armor (t5). If you think going from t4 to t6 warrants a significant amount of ivalue spent on something that doesn't even effect the game, then you aren't looking at it from a very balanced viewpoint. Warriors will be able to reach an effective 85% DR at some point, but it makes sense that druids should be capped at 75% because that next 5% is "game breaking"?

Third, how exactly does it trivialize any current content for said druid, considering they will have practically (if not completely) cleared Hyjal and BT by the time they even can think about this. What's trivialized? months old content? The next expansion? They didn't rebalance Strat when druids were soloing it for their idol in Naxx gear, in fact it got nerfed again and again and again...

Larisroth · 06/01/07, 1:58 AM

Originally Posted by Boevis

Huh? no, armor has diminishing returns post 60.
Second, the majority of your point in this thread is baseless supposition, it's not going to trivialize anything that shouldn't be trivial by that point. Gruul and Magtheridon are supposed to be the Onyxia equivalent, Karazhan is MC I guess, these should be trivial by the time I'm anywhere close to breaking 77.5% DR from armor (t5). If you think going from t4 to t6 warrants a significant amount of ivalue spent on something that doesn't even effect the game, then you aren't looking at it from a very balanced viewpoint. Warriors will be able to reach an effective 85% DR at some point, but it makes sense that druids should be capped at 75% because that next 5% is "game breaking"?

Just a few quick questions, how does a druid absorb more than 75% of an incoming attack?
77.5% would be the correct figure for a warrior at the armour cap in defensive stance. How do they get an effective figure of 85%? Perhaps you could consider shield block as absorption. Along those lines we could look at crushing blows, which I guess would reduce the effective absorption of a druid, which is of course further argument for removing the cap.

Along that line, let's take 40% avoidance so that 50% of attacks crush, then your average blow will do 125% damage, so at the cap you're taking 31.25% average damage (37.5% for a blow that crushes). Where as a warrior in defensive at the armour cap would take less than 22.5% damage (depending on their block value). In practice warriors are much further from the cap than we are.

dukes · 06/01/07, 4:33 AM

Crushing blows are 15%, not 30% of attacks.

For a druid with 50% avoidance (5% miss, 45% dodge which is around what I'm running) you end up taking 100% from 35% of attacks and 115% from 15% of attacks, meaning you end up taking 52.25% of damage out of the 100% you should be. If you have 75% damage reduction, that's ~13% of total damage you end up taking.

For a warrior with 50% avoidance (10% miss, 20% dodge 20% parry which aren't hard values to achieve as far as i understand it) using shield block with decent gear, they'll take 50% of damage out of the 100% total. With 65% reduction, and then the 3.5% extra from def stance (effectively 69.5% reduction), they take 15.25% of damage.

This means a warrior will be taking the equivalent of 20% more damage total even without crushings. However shield block value makes this up pretty well. With 600 blocked per attack, any attack more than 3k damage ends up being less total on a druid. Morogrim is the only boss that I can think of that hits that hard without using magic/special attacks (of which there are a lot). As warrior block value scales up towards 800, it goes up to a 4k hit for it to be balanced. This also ignores the fact that a 4k hit is a 6k crushing, and a warrior will never take that spike of damage.

Warriors can also increase their armour value to greater than 65%, while right now druids can't. If a druid were to have 80% damage reduction, they'd end up with taking around 11% of total damage incoming, or nearly 40% or so less total incoming damage. A warrior would then need to have a tonne of block value, or 70%+ armour reduction to be competitive in incoming damage reduction.

Of course, this ignores the fact that magical attacks will always be better tanked by warriors, and threat will generally be better from druids. Both classes have their advantages.

Currently I just don't think druids are built for maintanking (because of the armour cap), although they can fill the role if needed. Blizzard seem to have ended up with the situation that Prot warriors are the best for MTing, Ferals are the best for OTing (due to being able to wear fairly good DPS gear and still tank) and Prot paladins just aren't really useful at all because of how good the other two classes are at the MT/OT roles.

If you remove the cap:
At 32k armour raid buffed, with LoH you'd be at ~40k armour. Add on inspiration (which should be up >50% of the time if you're MTing and you assigned healers well) and thats ~50k armour, which is something like 82%(?) damage reduction from armour.

A warrior at 18k raid buffed with LoH and inspiration would be at around 30k armour, which is ~71%(?) reduction.

That's a pretty big difference, no matter which way you look at it. I don't see why you wouldn't use a druid with a LoH rotation on stupidly hard hitting bosses (or at least at enrage points or whatever) if they removed the armour cap. It just makes sense in a pure damage reduction point.

Boevis · 06/01/07, 4:44 AM

Sorry, I should have added the caveat that we are assuming the 75% cap is removed. Jayde is making the statement that the removal would imbalance the game and require an entire reworking of mechanics to compensate. Myself (and others) propose that it will not imbalance the game any more than the addition of 12k (a 33.5% increase) armor ought to.

As a further example, pre 2.1 I was capable of OT on Hydross and MT on everything pre SSC with 22k armor fully buffed. 2.1 Brought me up to a nice 32k armor, this gain of 10k armor didn't suddenly imbalance the game, I'm certainly a more capable tank and it could be argued that Heroic Instances (with the additional nerf in 2.1) are now trivial. As a tank in 4/5 t4, full exalted everywhere, and member of a top 10 arena team (all pre 2.1 qq arena) Heroics, where the only reason I go is for my belt from Ramparts, gems, and to help other complete trials, should be trivial for me. Just like UBRS for a guild that can clear to Domo, I shouldn't sweat when doing the same content I did months ago. The next 10k armor I gain (along with the stats included in t5/6) should have the same effect, SSC trash shouldn't be a concern, every boss except hydross and vashj should be very capably tanked by druids, etc.