[Tanking] Attempting to Reach 100% Avoidance - Page 11

Branar · 12/17/07, 2:41 PM

That said: in a raid environment, I don't think threat would be a major issue.

Really? Even with a gear set that is aiming for avoidance and not DPS?

I'm guessing that your threat generation in a suit that doesn't optimize a lot of important rogue stats (hit rating, for example) is going to be significantly less. Keep in mind that you're also attacking from the front, and many bosses parse at 13-15% parry (see posts in The Protection Warrior thread). That's a pretty big hit to threat right there, and it's not like you can get some expertise to mitigate it.

• Aldriana · 12/18/07, 2:28 AM

Well, it depends on your gear, clearly. A number of the earlier gear sets stated that reach 100% have quite a bit of T5 and T6 quality loot in them; thus, you actually wind up with quite a bit of hit rating, tons of agility, and so on. I mean, you certainly do *less* damage, but I don't think your damage drops by half or any such thing; and with the 30% aggro reduction that everyone else has from salvation, I think your aggro would be, if not spectacular, certainly adequate.

Quigon · 12/18/07, 3:17 AM

Originally Posted by suicuique

I disagree.
I'm sure you have access to most items on this list (heck even I lack only 2 items in this list), and I'd still bet that you would not give it a try (even assuming you'd get sponsored the needed gems/enchants for resocketing).

20 crimson spinels? That would piss half the guild off and take (at least us) 2 months minimum. I guess you could farm juts for this purpose, but I'm not sure that you'd get what you might expect. We have had more than a couple weeks now with 0 spinels.

• Aldriana · 12/18/07, 3:27 AM

Yeah.... I think this is the sort of experiment better done on PTR to start with; once someone does it on PTR and proves that a) it can be done and b) it's actually good for something, there's a chance a guild might spring for it; until then, it seems sort of unlikely.

koaschten · 12/18/07, 4:42 AM

The problem i rather see is stuff like Shadowmoon Insignia... we have 5 active warriors, 2 active ferals and we have seen like 3 drops so far. Not even talking about the occasional Paladin speccing Prot for Hyjal Summit. I am still curious though if someone will manage to get it working.

Is there yet a concise list on the optimum gear? And on a side-note, it might be reasonable to fork the rogue discussion out to a new thread.

suicuique · 12/18/07, 6:43 AM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

Well, it depends on your gear, clearly. A number of the earlier gear sets stated that reach 100% have quite a bit of T5 and T6 quality loot in them; thus, you actually wind up with quite a bit of hit rating, tons of agility, and so on.

Going by the leather list on page 5 (albeit for a druid) I'd say a rogue is going to lose a TON of damage potential.
Certainly in the 50% range. You'd end up at ca 1000 agi, but you'd be hit starved, and have way less AP. Remember that almost all your enchants and gems are to be avoidance oriented and not for damage purposes.

I mean, you certainly do *less* damage, but I don't think your damage drops by half or any such thing; and with the 30% aggro reduction that everyone else has from salvation, I think your aggro would be, if not spectacular, certainly adequate.

Keeping aggro is a lot more difficult than drawing aggro. Tanking is about keeping aggro the whole time. Add in a parry string by the boss (they parry a lot) and you are in trouble. Especially in those cases where snap aggro is important (think phase changes on Illidan, Zul'Jin, ...).

But this is just theoretical talk until someone tries it. I expect a phenomenal failure (for aggro reasons) though

Mideci · 12/18/07, 8:18 AM

So I think there might be a bit too much obsessing over the spinels. It seems that +8 agi rubies should allow me to get there unless something about 102.4% has suddenly become more magic. I'm going to work on getting copied over to the PTR, but I'm still lacking the Shattered Halls boots and an approrpriate helm. I'm not an engineer and we are not killing Zul'jin yet. It would seem the Grimgrin is the best substitute by far to the X11. I'll try to cover over with all the enchanting mats I can bring (not gonna be that many) to allow for as much of the gear to be put together. But honestly, I have mixed emotions about which is the bigger waste of my time (a) PuG-ing raid bosses on the PTR or (b) trying to convince my guild to let me tank Tidewalker for one pull after spending on the order of 800g.

One other stupid detail is that to make this practical ongoing requires a second set of Tier 5 shoulders. OK, perhaps "practical" was the wrong word.

Moogul · 12/18/07, 8:48 AM

Originally Posted by suicuique

Remember that almost all your enchants and gems are to be avoidance oriented and not for damage purposes.

Well, all gems will be Agi, not dodge, and same for enchants where a possible. For a rogue with Bok + Sinister calling, agi is more dodge than dodge rating, whilst also providing AP and Crit.

suicuique · 12/18/07, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by Moogul

Well, all gems will be Agi, not dodge, and same for enchants where a possible. For a rogue with Bok + Sinister calling, agi is more dodge than dodge rating, whilst also providing AP and Crit.

You are right here.
Nonetheless the helm, shoulder, wrist and legs enchant would not cater to your aggro holding needs ^^
(and the trinkets would be pure avoidance even for rogues)

Zure · 12/18/07, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by suicuique

You are right here.
Nonetheless the helm, shoulder, wrist and legs enchant would not cater to your aggro holding needs ^^
(and the trinkets would be pure avoidance even for rogues)

Regarding threat:

*Salvation means another player must generate 42.86% more threat to pass the tank, 57.14% more to cause the mob to turn to them from melee range, 85.71% more to cause the mob to turn to them from range. Tranquil air is rarely dropped, which would mean that after salvation another player would need to generate 78.57% more threat to pass the tank, 96.43% to cause the mob to turn on them from melee range, 132.14% to cause the mob to turn to them from range.

In other words, with liberal use of misdirects and proper group set up, a meter-topping rogue might actually hold agro doing 1/2 of his or her normal damage.

*Many classes/players do not even use the threat reduction tools available to them (e.g., invisibility, soulshatter, vanish, feign death, feint[lol]) to anywhere near their fullest potential, since traditional tanks generate enough threat to make them unnecessary.

*Unfortunately a complete avoidance tank doesn't benefit much from buff agro (PoM, Earth Shield, thorns effects), but in a pinch you could have all your melee attack from the front feeding a rogue tank an endless supply of combo points.

• Aldriana · 12/18/07, 1:10 PM

Originally Posted by koaschten

The problem i rather see is stuff like Shadowmoon Insignia... we have 5 active warriors, 2 active ferals and we have seen like 3 drops so far. Not even talking about the occasional Paladin speccing Prot for Hyjal Summit. I am still curious though if someone will manage to get it working.

Is there yet a concise list on the optimum gear? And on a side-note, it might be reasonable to fork the rogue discussion out to a new thread.

Well, the only list designed for a rogue so far is in post 50. However, it's a couple percent over the cap, so it's not really optimal. In terms of optimizing it further, one could go one of two directions:

1) Use easier-to-get, cheaper items, or
2) Use items with more rogue stats on them to generate better aggro.

Some investigation will need to go into determining the easiest to get 100% aggro set and the actual best set; I'll see if I have time sometime this week to work on that.

Originally Posted by Zure

Regarding threat:

*Salvation means another player must generate 42.86% more threat to pass the tank, 57.14% more to cause the mob to turn to them from melee range, 85.71% more to cause the mob to turn to them from range. Tranquil air is rarely dropped, which would mean that after salvation another player would need to generate 78.57% more threat to pass the tank, 96.43% to cause the mob to turn on them from melee range, 132.14% to cause the mob to turn to them from range.

Well, the thing to be careful with here is that it's probably not a good idea to try to pull stuff directly with a build that cannot afford to eat an accidental hit from behind; hence, rather than pulling directly everything would get MDed to you, which, last I checked, means you are not considered the "owner" of the mob, meaning you don't get the extra 10/30 percent margin before people pull. But, point remains: if you can generate 70% of your usual damage, you're probably fine. If you're at 60%, people will need to hold back a bit and use vanish, etc... but it's probably still doable. Below that would get iffy, but I think that 60% number should be totally achievable.

*Unfortunately a complete avoidance tank doesn't benefit much from buff agro (PoM, Earth Shield, thorns effects), but in a pinch you could have all your melee attack from the front feeding a rogue tank an endless supply of combo points.

I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read this. It's an excellent idea, and really calls into focus just how ludicrous this would be it if actually works. It does have the downside of hurting your melee's DPS, and it wouldn't work on bosses that cleave, but there are defenitely fights where you can conceive of doing this.

• Aldriana · 12/18/07, 9:09 PM

Originally Posted by koaschten

The problem i rather see is stuff like Shadowmoon Insignia... we have 5 active warriors, 2 active ferals and we have seen like 3 drops so far. Not even talking about the occasional Paladin speccing Prot for Hyjal Summit. I am still curious though if someone will manage to get it working.

Is there yet a concise list on the optimum gear? And on a side-note, it might be reasonable to fork the rogue discussion out to a new thread.

So, I put together a reasonable option in terms of a plausible gear set for making this happen as a rogue, by a couple of criteria:

1) Hit 100% avoidance
2) Don't use any high-end items that you wouldn't reasonably have anyway (i.e., no Shadowmoon Insignia)
3) Generate as much aggro as possible.

So, best option I've found so far:

[Slayer's Helm], Relentless Earthstorm Diamond + Delicate Crimson Spinel, Glyph of the Defender.
[Necklace of the Deep], 2xDelicate Crimson Spinel
[Slayer's Shoulderpads], 2xDelicate Crimson Spinel, Greater Inscription of Warding
[Thalassian Wildercloak], +12 agi
[Slayer's Chestguard], 3xDelicate Crimson Spinel, +6 stats
[Insidious Bands],Glinting Pyrestone, +12 defense
[Slayer's Handguards], Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst, +15 agi
[Belt of One-Hundred Deaths], Delicate Crimson Spinel, Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst
[Slayer's Legguards], Delicate Crimson Spinel, Nethercobra Armor Kit
[Shadowmaster's Boots], Delicate Crimson Spinel, Glinting Pyrestone, +12 agi
[Delicate Eternium Ring] +4 stats
[Band of the Eternal Champion] (or Revered ring), +4 stats
[Drake Fang Talisman]
[Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch]
[Blade of Infamy], +20 agi
[Umbral Shiv], 2xDelicate Crimson Spinel, +20 agi
[Barrel-Blade Longrifle], 2xDelicate Crimson Spinel

Everything on this list is reasonable rogue DPS gear, reasonably socketed for DPS, with the exception of 2 BoE items (Necklace of the Deep and Delicate Eternium Ring) and one Karazhan drop (Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch). Some of the enchants are screwy, but that just costs money; you don't actually have to request anything totally unreasonable for a rogue to have from your guild (although they might balk at the number of Crimson Spinels).

Now, if I'm adding this up correctly:

730 agility, 38 defense rating, and 98 dodge rating from gear; Adding an NE rogue's base 163 agility and 181 agility from buffs (see post 50 for details of what all these buffs are), plus 15% for Sinister Calling and 10% for Blessing of Kings, gives a total of 1358 agility. 38 defense rating works out to +16 defense, and 98 dodge rating is 5.18% dodge. Hence our total dodge rate is 5% (talents) + 5.18% (dodge rating) + .64% (defense) + 1% (NE racial) + (1358-11.5)/20 = 79.14% total dodge, minus .6% from being 3 levels below, for a total effective dodge of 78.54%. Parry is 5% base plus 5% from talents, +.64% from defense, minus .6% for being 3 levels below, for a total of 10.04%. And enemy miss chance is 5% + 7% (debuffs) + .64% (defense) - .6%, for a total of 12.04%. Hence, your total avoidance is

78.54% + 12.04% + 10.04% = 100.62%

against a level 73.

Note that actually getting a Shadowmoon Insignia in place of DFT allows you to do useful things like put Exec/Mongoose on your weapons which will significantly increase your DPS (and thus aggro); however, even without it you have reasonable DPS stats; by my count your unbuffed stats are 2168 AP, 31.38% crit, 105 hit rating, 25 expertise rating, and 350 armor penetration. Oddly balanced? Certainly. Weaker than a full T6 dps-geared rogue? For sure. But with a 0/20/40+1 spec, this could plausibly generate enough aggro to not drive your DPS nuts.

Moogul · 12/19/07, 8:00 AM

Great post Aldriana, nice to see that this isn't *that* far-fetched as we thought (though again, that many crimson spinels probably would require moving heaven and earth - a job for the PTR perhaps, if a few EJers with uncut spinels could copy across a few times it would at least be able to be tested.

One other thing:

Originally Posted by Aldriana

by my count your unbuffed stats are 2168 AP, 31.38% crit, 105 hit rating, 25 expertise rating, and 350 armor penetration. Oddly balanced? Certainly. Weaker than a full T6 dps-geared rogue? For sure. But with a 0/20/40+1 spec, this could plausibly generate enough aggro to not drive your DPS nuts.

I'm not a rogue, so I don't know their mechanics inside out at all, and I know that DW-spec is an excellent talent, but would not an 11/10/40 spec be better? ie. drop DW spec but get relentless strikes - particularly with setup + 80% dodge, relentless strikes seems like it should add a lot of damage/threat.

koaschten · 12/19/07, 9:04 AM

@Moogul
I plugged the gear Aldrianna listed into the spreadsheet and a 11/10/40 will do ~1250dps compared to 0/21/40 doing ~1310dps resulting in 0/21/40 being better for threat generation, especially as it includes Riposte.

Charsi · 12/19/07, 10:08 AM

Aldrianna, put a tank oriented enchant on the proposed legs since you've put one on the proposed helm. Nethercleft Leg Armor grants 12 agility, which will increase the final avoidance figure, where Nethercobra will not.

Also, I know you were going for a minimum of "off-spec" items, but simply substituting the Phoenix Wing cloak (or possibly the badge cloak?) for the Thalassian Wildercloak will likely net you a little extra additional dodge.

Combining the two approaches could get you over the line.