Protection warrior: Stamina VS mitigation - Page 2

Vorsgald · 09/22/07, 11:14 PM

As long as you don't get bursted down and can hold aggro, mitigation is definitively the way to go.

Stacking stam means you are less likely to get bursted; but so long as you're already impossible to burst, helping the healers out by taking less damage is a plus. A while ago, while I was still in T4 equivalent gear, we did Magtheridon with 4 healers (we brought five, but one of them lagged out and was killed by random stuff during the beginning). I don't believe that with a stam stacking tank you'd be able to do Magtheridon with 4 healers.

Stacking stamina buys ONLY the burst protection. Stacking mitigation, once you already can't be burst, means that you can bring fewer healers to fights. My healers love my tanking style, and are very used to me chain dodging or parrying several times in a row and able to stay awake through it.

Obviously stamina stacking is successful, since a majority of the well-known end-game guilds have stamina stacking tanks, but since my guild is becoming successful rather quickly - and any reason we're NOT already one of the top guilds is not a result of my dying in fights, either through burst or healers running out of mana, but rather a problem of raid coordination - my claim is that both strategies are viable. Mitigation stacking is preferred, in my opinion, so long as your healers are capable. Stacking stamina requires more raw healing, but less skilled healers.
--Vorsgald

Junpei · 09/22/07, 11:27 PM

Several Sets of Gear

Stam Set
Mitigation Set
Avoidance Set
TPS Set

These will all generally mix and match with each other so your gear load won't be significantly higher then previous. Some sets are better for some encounters over others. A massively stam heavy set on Mother wins out over some of the bigger burst potentials (lolparry) whereas with an avoidance set Gurtogg is less of a stacking issue.

However, if you are set on one set. A stam heavy set will take you all the way through to Illidan, and with some good playing and shield block timing, can carry you through there too probably.

Tyvi · 09/22/07, 11:29 PM

EDIT: This is a reply to Vorsgald.

Two things: I checked your armory and I am pretty sure you meant to say "avoidance" instead of "mitigation". Mitigation means actually taking the hit and reducing it via armor. Avoidance, as the name says, is to completely avoid it.

The other thing is, I am really surprised how your healers can keep you alive at Morogrim with only 13k HP unbuffed or other burst damage mobs really.

While I am more a fan of mitigation than avoidance, here is a tip if you really want to improve your avoidance:

Replace the 12 stamina on your bracers with 12 defense rating. Replace 12 agility enchant on your boots with 12 stamina if you do not want to lose the stamina and you will gain 0.16% more avoidance (not counting the +0.2% to block).

Here is why:

12 agility gives you 0.44% dodge (BoK included) and 12 defense rating is 5 defense which is 0.2% dodge, 0.2% parry and 0.2% chance to be missed (and 0.2% block).

wizzy · 09/22/07, 11:46 PM

Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block are avoidance, it's armor and block value that's considered mitigation.

Mitigation: to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate
Avoidance: the act of avoiding or keeping away from

Block determines if you partialy block some of the incoming dmg, so unless you are classifying it as avoidance for say crushing blows then its more a mitigation stat mate.

Juelz · 09/23/07, 12:21 AM

Originally Posted by wizzy

Mitigation: to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate
Avoidance: the act of avoiding or keeping away from

Block determines if you partialy block some of the incoming dmg, so unless you are classifying it as avoidance for say crushing blows then its more a mitigation stat mate.

There is a difference between Block RATING and Block VALUE

Block Rating will modify your chance (%) to block an attack, this is avoidance.
Block Value will modify how much your block reduces the damage, this is mitigation.

The tendency by many Tanks is to stack stamina and armor for progression, since a high HP tank will not only provide a buffer to healers, but the consistant hits will help with rage irregularity.

Once progression has ended (ie. Illidan dead), you can tweak gear specially to cater to whatever your needs be.

royjoy · 09/23/07, 10:56 AM

Well, to make the Stamina VS Mitigation/Avoidance issue a bit clearer...

Let's look at an example tank with excellent gear, Kungen of Nihilum: The Armory

As you quickly see, he has full stamina. +15 stamina gems in every slot, except for only the Meta and a +5 agi/+7 stam gem to collect the +6 stamina socket bonus. Every enchant is maximized for stamina, including a Knothide Armor Kit on the gloves, except for giving up 3 stamina on the boot's enchant for minor speed, which is probably a decision based on various personal reasonings. He has even picked up Enchanting for +4 stats to rings, for that extra 80 hit points and a few other helpful stats. A final stamina boost, the old Presence of Might enchant is used instead of the modern Glyph of the Defender, due to the +10 stamina bonus.

If we trust Kungen's judgment in gear choices, as he is often considered one of the best tanks in the game, it is clear that Stamina is an important focus, as long as other minimum requirements are met, as stated previously in this thread. Becoming un-crushable and un-crittable are a couple of these, and possibly a chart/graph could be made to plot value of mitigation/avoidance/health and at what amount of the first two items does stamina surpass them as the primary need.

It is likely that stamina is weaker in value than avoidance and mitigation due to the fact that we are only looking at Kungen's enchantments and gem choices. Logically, the reason he is allowed to use full stamina in those two areas is because his gear is of high enough iLvl that it already provides him with the necessary avoidance/mitigation without any outside enchants or gems. Therefore, simply looking at gear, we can't quite decide at which point stamina is more important, but we can at least assume that eventually it will be the most valuable asset.

On a final note, to be able to focus on health, not only should you have the required other stats, but you need to have zero trouble keeping good threat. Obviously tanks geared this well know how to tank properly, and generate enough threat that all threat-increasing stats and bonuses can be ignored because they aren't needed to keep an acceptable aggro level, allowing the focus once again to stay on stamina.

I'm not really much of a theorycrafter, more of a logicrafter, but hopefully the conclusions I drew from this example aren't too far off, and with further calculations a strong decision could be reached.

Tauftamir · 09/23/07, 11:20 AM

There is always a danger in attempting to draw a conclusion based on the profile of someone like Kungen.
For a maximum stamina set, you could choose the following in place of the ones shown on the Armory:

[Praetorian's Legguards]
[Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer]
[Gauntlets of Enforcement] or [Royal Gauntlets of Silvermoon]

All with +15 Stamina Gems are superior choices for a Stamina focused tank.

The result of this discussion is one which is present in the Graphing Tank Damage Thread.
Tanks should collect a range of items which offer both Stamina and avoidance to use on different encounters depending on what is demanded for optimum performance.

I take my "job" as a tank as being "To hold aggro, while taking as little damage as possible". This means switching between items which offer Stamina and Mitigation, or Avoidance, or improved Threat depending on the dynamics of that encounter.

In reference to the OP, both tanks having both sets of gear is the best way forward, however when forced to choose one or the other, in general terms the Stamina/Mitigation set will be most suitable overall.

• frmorrison · 09/23/07, 2:02 PM

Originally Posted by royjoy

If we trust Kungen's judgment in gear choices, as he is often considered one of the best tanks in the game.

Even the "best" players may not know everything. For examples, Kungen does not have any extra weapon skill past 350. Now maybe the axe never dropped for him, or the 10% extra shield slam damage makes up for not using them, I don't think so.

While I don't know how much the extra 5 weapon skill reduces dodge and misses, I do know it reduces your miss rate by 3%, which is very nice for just 20 weapon skill, which otherwise would take 48 hit rating.

The answer, is it depends on the encounter, but many more favor stamina than avoidance.

Nubtar · 10/04/07, 11:03 AM

The real question of tank itemization (well, pre-BT/hyjall where threat isn't a concern) is how to survive spike damage.

Many tanks solve this solely via stamina. In my book this is a mistake. A warrior requires *some* avoidance to prevent spike damage via crushings. So the question becomes 'how much avoidance do I need to keep my shield block always up?' Some bosses this is very low, others it is high. On fights which have a fast attack speed you will require more avoidance to keep your shield block up than on bosses with a slower attack speed.

I still believe that stam is the best stat hands down for a warrior, and should be prioritized. Avoidance should not be fully ignored, however - if you strip all avoidance off your gear you will run into issues with taking more spike damage. That 1K extra health isn't worth it if you're eating crushings. It is also worth noting that avoidance scales better with cross buffs. It's fairly easy to shoot up 5,000 health from raid buffs, whereas your avoidance moves much less.

Crowl · 10/04/07, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Nubtar

Many tanks solve this solely via stamina. In my book this is a mistake. A warrior requires *some* avoidance to prevent spike damage via crushings. So the question becomes 'how much avoidance do I need to keep my shield block always up?' Some bosses this is very low, others it is high. On fights which have a fast attack speed you will require more avoidance to keep your shield block up than on bosses with a slower attack speed.

I think you are making a mistake to assume that tanks are going purely for stamina, most would tend to be going for stamina and armour to reduce the size of the attacks they do take and giving a buffer to reduce the impact of those attack, based on their judgement that they are getting sufficient levels of avoidance from their gear anyway.

Personally, for my default tanking kit I will tend to look for enough armour and stamina as possible and when I feel comfortable to reduce either of those then I will look for ways to increase my threat via block value or even some +hit before I would look to increase my avoidance. A notable exception would be something like the trinket from Moroes that also doubles as an extra 'oh shit' button on top of the avoidance it provides.

Cerwin · 10/04/07, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by royjoy

Well, to make the Stamina VS Mitigation/Avoidance issue a bit clearer...

Let's look at an example tank with excellent gear, Kungen of Nihilum: The Armory

As you quickly see, he has full stamina. +15 stamina gems in every slot, except for only the Meta and a +5 agi/+7 stam gem to collect the +6 stamina socket bonus. Every enchant is maximized for stamina, including a Knothide Armor Kit on the gloves, except for giving up 3 stamina on the boot's enchant for minor speed, which is probably a decision based on various personal reasonings. He has even picked up Enchanting for +4 stats to rings, for that extra 80 hit points and a few other helpful stats. A final stamina boost, the old Presence of Might enchant is used instead of the modern Glyph of the Defender, due to the +10 stamina bonus.

If we trust Kungen's judgment in gear choices, as he is often considered one of the best tanks in the game, it is clear that Stamina is an important focus, as long as other minimum requirements are met, as stated previously in this thread. Becoming un-crushable and un-crittable are a couple of these, and possibly a chart/graph could be made to plot value of mitigation/avoidance/health and at what amount of the first two items does stamina surpass them as the primary need.

It is likely that stamina is weaker in value than avoidance and mitigation due to the fact that we are only looking at Kungen's enchantments and gem choices. Logically, the reason he is allowed to use full stamina in those two areas is because his gear is of high enough iLvl that it already provides him with the necessary avoidance/mitigation without any outside enchants or gems. Therefore, simply looking at gear, we can't quite decide at which point stamina is more important, but we can at least assume that eventually it will be the most valuable asset.

On a final note, to be able to focus on health, not only should you have the required other stats, but you need to have zero trouble keeping good threat. Obviously tanks geared this well know how to tank properly, and generate enough threat that all threat-increasing stats and bonuses can be ignored because they aren't needed to keep an acceptable aggro level, allowing the focus once again to stay on stamina.

I'm not really much of a theorycrafter, more of a logicrafter, but hopefully the conclusions I drew from this example aren't too far off, and with further calculations a strong decision could be reached.

I have been watching Kungen for quite some time "he was wearing Junior Technician 3rd Grade Bracers when I started watching him" and I can say with confidence his build has always been to maximize stamina.

Melu · 10/04/07, 4:07 PM

Im going to keep this one short.

Avoidance is good up to some point. To make a long story short, the more avoidance a tank has the less they will get hit which can greatly reduce the threat they can do. I've drawn the line at around 30% dodge unbuffed. For lower instances like ssc and tk i suggest you keep avoidance as your main target. The only boss i think will give you trouble overall is tidewalker (I did not read the whole post so I dont know where you are atm)

After you reach your "dodge cap" i suggest you focus on +hit and parry. All the non set tanking epics from BT have dodge. You need more parry raiting per parry so this smooths out your avoidance. Another way you could do this is by geting more stam. You can see what I've done with my gear and you'll see what i mean.

Im planing on getting more block raiting and block value in the future along with parry and stamina while decreasing dodge.

EDIT: I'd like to add that stamina is not a gurantee of not getting burst. Burst damage will come form getting meleed a lot in a row. For example,

Boss attacks hit
Warrior attacks parry
Boss attacks hit
Boss attacks hit
Warrior is dead.

There were no crushing blows.

Also about stam, warriors die when they get hit a lot in a row high stamina wont reduce that chance of happening. Also as you move into BT you cannot afford to get crushed. You wont survive 2 13k crushes in a row regardless of how much stam you have.

Hudini · 10/04/07, 4:16 PM

Originally Posted by royjoy

As you quickly see, he has full stamina. +15 stamina gems in every slot, except for only the Meta and a +5 agi/+7 stam gem to collect the +6 stamina socket bonus. Every enchant is maximized for stamina, including a Knothide Armor Kit on the gloves, except for giving up 3 stamina on the boot's enchant for minor speed, which is probably a decision based on various personal reasonings. He has even picked up Enchanting for +4 stats to rings, for that extra 80 hit points and a few other helpful stats. A final stamina boost, the old Presence of Might enchant is used instead of the modern Glyph of the Defender, due to the +10 stamina bonus.

One very baffling exception is his shield, which is enchanted with block rating instead of stamina. Maybe he has a different shield for maximum stamina and this shield is usually used for crush avoidance...

Meyla · 10/04/07, 6:48 PM

Originally Posted by Melu

Also about stam, warriors die when they get hit a lot in a row high stamina wont reduce that chance of happening. Also as you move into BT you cannot afford to get crushed. You wont survive 2 13k crushes in a row regardless of how much stam you have.

I can only add that in BT/MH only one boss so far made me cry because of crushings (we'r 5/5 MH and trying Teron atm without Gurtog, so cant tell about bosses above this one) was Teron. I must add too, that it wasnt because I took sta gear above crush immune gear but because I just clicked VT button instead of SB (have to answer someone..). -_-

So my point is that so far I don't see crush immune gear to be so damn needed for BT/MH bosses, maybe for old SSC like Morogrim would be nice. Getting such gear is nice, but its better to get sta and threat gear instead, I think.

Melu · 10/04/07, 7:35 PM

This is a response to Meyla.

Yes i was talking precisly about teron gorefiend. I think in that example i gave the healers fell asleep a bit and thats why i died but they would have had to be very pro they had to heal aruodn 26k damage in 4 seconds. I didn't have last stand up if not i'd would have survived.

Bloodboil i'd say is a high avoidance fight too but thats open to preference.