Another way to "abuse" whis would be in any basic tank'n'spank fight, with a enrage that only increases the boss's melee vs the tank.

Who cares bout threat gen? You stand there Auto attack for a couple of minutes first, its not like anyone else has to do anything...

When the tank has enough threat, DPS can start a bit. Sure it'll take ages, but eventually, you'll get the kill.

I can see it now ....

Guild Master: Uh guys? One of the bosses in our instance save is .... missing.
Tank: Nah, I grabbed Bob the hunter and Dave the druid and we killed him last night. Was only caster lewt. Meh.

That's a very interesting project, sounds like a lot of fun if it works!

Also, for a ring slot, if I'm not mistaken this ring, Elementium Band of the Sentry - Items - World of Warcraft, is better than the Band of the Eternal Defender, for avoidance.

there is a 3% dodge pot you can take, it's a non-repeatable quest reward though :/

Why do you need the hunter and druid? Even a warrior on his/her own will do the damage eventually, and if you're 100% immune, why risk it? :-)

That said, *are* there any melee-only bosses in the current endgame?

Druid Two piece dungeon set is 35 dodge rating while rejuv is up.

If suffering works on boss level mobs, then you could have a warlock chain summon voidwalkers and continually re-apply it for a further 10% hit reduction.

If anyone actually managed to successfully trivialize difficult bosses by doing this, then you can bet Blizzard would put a cap on avoidance, or a guaranteed minimum chance to be hit.

Doing things like Vashj phase 2 & 3 without dps touching the Elites could be an amusing experiment as well. 'course, in order to get this set you need to clear every encounter in the game so usefulness on current fights is very academic. There likely will be encounters in Sunwell Plateu where stacking avoidance to absurdity will be handy for offtanking situations so it's good to keep track of the items wanted for it if you're far enough along in progress to be able to.

Edit: To be honest I'm amazed that they haven't implemented a linearisation in effectivity, like the one for armour, with avoidance and resistance long ago. Faster-than-exponential returns on investments at the high end makes balancing their cost compared to the wimpy linear increases from armour and health an impossible task.

why do people assume the only damage tanks take is only physical? You can easily build a full rage bar with the extra crap raid bosses throw at you

It wouldn't be enough rage to hold an appreciable amount of threat over the DPS though.

I would think a druid might have an easier time getting to 100% avoidance with the huge returns on agility but I haven't run the numbers

100% avoidance would yield a tank that could easily single tank Gurtogg with only minor healing needed.

A 100% avoidance tank could theoretically solo Gruul. However, there are a couple of important numbers to point out:
- After the first fifteen minutes, cave-ins would do enough damage to one-shot the tank.
- Assuming 500 dps, it would take just under two hours to finish him off.

I'm not sure how much time passes between cave-ins, but I'd be very impressed by the tank who can dodge them perfectly for over 100 minutes.

You would actually 3 man it because of the need for scorpid sting and insect swarm in the calculations.

I just came from a night of Vashj tries, and yeh, that would be nice. Would save up loads of DPS we can use on the striders. Striders kept nailing us.

Anyways, sry for the offtopic.

I'm pretty sure (though not 100%) that a Scroll of Agility won't stack with an Elixir of Major Agility. I know with utter certainty this is the case for Strength Scrolls and Elixirs.

It is a pity that Blizz changed raid boss killing buffs to not work past level 63 (I think) because then you could kill hakkar and get another 50 agility.

Now, I don't remember the exact druid conversions, so this might be off by a bit... but, for a feral druid:

Deathblow X11 Goggles, 10 agi/Relentless Earthstorm Diamond, Glyph of the Defender
Necklace of the Deep, 2x10 agi
Thunderheart Pauldrons, 2x10 agi, Greater Inscription of Warding
Phoenix-Wing Cloak, 12 agi
Auchenai Monk's Tunic, 2x10agi, 1x4agi/5def, +6 stats
Insidious Bands, 10agi, +12 def
Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation, 2x10agi, +15 agi
Belt of Deep Shadow, 2x10agi
Skulker's Greaves, 3x10agi, Nethercleft Leg Enchant
Shadowmaster's Boots, 2x10agi, +12 agi
2xDelicate Eternium Ring, +4 stats
Shadowmoon Insignia
Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch
Stormherald, +35agi

Now, if I added this up more or less correctly (which, admittedly, is something of a large assumption), with raid buffs this leads to a druid with about 1041 agility, 191 dodge rating, and 101 defense rating.

101 Defense rating is +41 defense, or +1.64^ to dodge and enemy miss rate. Hence, the enemy has a miss rate of 5% (base) -.6% (level) + 1.64% (defense) + 5% (scorpid) + 2% (Insect Swarm), for a total of 13.04%.

191 dodge rating is 10.09% dodge. Druids get a passive 4% dodge, with another 1% for being an NE. And 1061 agility, at 14.73 agility to the dodge, works out to 72.03% dodge. Adding that up, we get 87.12% dodge, minus .6% for the level difference, is 86.52%

Adding that up, we get a total avoidance rate of 99.56%. Which, admittedly, is not quite there (unless I made a mistake in my numbers somewhere; if someone who knows druid mechanics better than I do would like to check, that would be great). But if we could squeeze out another 6 agi or so somewhere, we'd be done. Any ideas?

If a warrior ever managed to achieve 100% avoidance, what would the best talent build be, for maximizing tanking performance - ie, threat?

I'd say maybe a build such as this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Decreases rage cost on a lot of things, increases rage generation and threat generation.

I don't know, as was said on some posts, it could be viable in some fights, maybe more if people could make it work.

Full raid buffs? Including Grace of Air Totem, foods, class buffs, BoK and Survival of the Fittest?

As far as I can see, a druid with 100% avoidance would tank better than a warrior, due to threat generation from personal damage alone. But I'm no expert in tanking.

Wall of text inc:

Anybody considered trying this on a hunter?

notes to self:
25 agi -> 1 dodge%
19 dodge rating -> 1% dodge
2.36 DR -> 1 defence

Build I am using: Build
Special notes: gives 9% extra agility

-5.45% dodge base (Source) @70 + 14% dodge from imp Monkey + 3% talented dodge + 1% (NE hunter) racial
5% base parry + 5% talented parry
5% base miss + 5% scorpid + 2% boomkin

using lootzor search of this

Items:
Helm: Deathblow X11 Goggles (12 def meta, 10 dodge) - 48 agility 10 dodge, 12 def
Neck: The Darkener's Grasp - 23 dodge, 27 defense
Shoulders: Gronnstalker's Spaulders (2x 10 dodge) - 34 agil, 20 dodge
Back: Phoenix-Wing Cloak - 27 dodge, 22 defense
Chest: Auchenai Monk's Tunic - (2x 10 dodge 1x 10 defense) 24 agil, 20 dodge, 10 defense
Legs: Bow-stitched Leggings (3x 10 dodge) 42 agil, 30 dodge
Bracers: Insidious Bands - (1x 10 dodge) 28 agil, 10 dodge
Gloves: Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation - (2x 10 dodge) 35 agil, 20 dodge
Belt: Belt of Deep Shadow - (2x 10 dodge) 32 agil, 20 dodge
Boots: Nimble-foot Treads - 32 agil 25 dodge
Ring 1: Ring of Sundered Souls - 25 dodge, 18 defense
Ring 2: Elementium Band of the Sentry - 19 dodge, 20 def
Trinket 1: Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch - 38 dodge
Trinket 2: Shadowmoon Insignia - 32 dodge 36 defense
Weapon: Wildfury Greatstaff - 50 dodge
Totals:
(Dont think meta effects turn on, but lets see what happens)
Agil: 275
Dodge: 369 (19.42% dodge)
Defense: 145 (2.44 dodge, miss, parry)

Enchants: same as war except 1h agil becomes 2h agil
Totals from enchants
Agil: 75
Dodge: 56
Defense: 46

159 base agility

Total stats overall:
Agil: 509
Dodge: 425
Defense: 191 (3.2 all)

Unbuffed avoidance
Miss: 15.2 (5+5+2+3.2)
Dodge: 57.11 (-5.45+14+3+1+425/19+ (509*1.09)/25)
Parry: 13.2 (5+5+3.2)
85.51%

Buffed:
agil becomes:
(509+19 (MotW) + 20 (warp burger) + 20 (scroll of agility v) + 35 (Major Agility Elixir) + 88 (imp GoA))*1.09(talented)*1.1(kings) = 828
throw that in there:
total avoidance becomes 96.4

bah, was hoping it would work because of high base dodge, but the 25 -> 1 conversion kills it by the end

Okay, update re: Druid. There's some glitches in lootzor so some of the above selections are invalid/incorrect. The corrected gear gives 676 agi, 96 defense rating, and 169 dodge rating.

Throw in MotW (18), Grace of Air totem (88), Elixir of Major Agility (35), a Warp Burger (20), and a Scroll of Agility V (20), and we gain another 181 agility, bringing the total to 857. Toss in the druid's base 75 agility, and we're at 932. Then, we gain 13% of that from Kings and Survival of the Fittest, putting us at 1053 total agility. Unfortunately, the druid's base dodge seems to be slightly negative, so from agility alone we're only at 69.69% dodge (or so; rounding might be off by a couple of hundredths of a percent).

96 defense rating works out to 40 defense, 15 of which is negated by the enemy being level 73; hence, this works out to 25 net defense, or 1% to miss and dodge.

Hence, total miss chance is 5% + 1% + 5% (scorpid) + 2% (insect swarm) = 13%.

169 dodge rating works out to 8.93% dodge, so the total amount of dodge is 69.69 (agi) + 8.93 (dodge) + 1% (defense) + 1% (NE) + 4% (Feral Swiftness) = 84.62% dodge, putting our total mitigation at 97.62%, making the overall table:

84.62% dodge
13.00% miss
1.00% crit
1.38% crushing

...which doesn't quite work. One would need to squeeze another 31 agi or so out of gear + buffs to reach 100%, which I suspect will be hard.

However, lets consider a rogue for a moment; our hypothetical rogue is specced 5/5 Lightning Reflexes, 5/5 Deflection, and 5/5 Sinister Calling.

Deathblow X11 Goggles, +5 agi/+7 sta, Relentless Earthstorm Diamond, Glyph of the Defender.
Necklace of the Deep, 2x10agi
Slayer's Shoulderpads 2x10agi, Greater Inscription of Warding
Phoenix-Wing Cloak, 12 agi
Slayer's Chestpiece, 3x10agi, +6 stats
Insidious Bands, +10 def, +12 def
Gloves of Dextrous Manipulation, 2x10agi, +15 agi
Belt of Deep Shadow, 2x10agi
Skulker's Greaves, 2x10agi, 1x5agi/7sta, Nethercleft Leg Enchant
Shadowmaster's Boots, 10agi, 10 def, +12 agi
Delicate Eternium Ring, +4 stats
Ring of Sundered Soulds, +4 stats
Shadowmoon Insignia
Scarab of Displacement
Blade of Infamy, +15 agi
Sun Eater, +15 agi
Barrel-Blade Longrifle, 2x10agi

(in case you were wondering about the inclusion of the blue and yellow gems: they're needed to activate the metagem, something that a number of the other builds here posted has overlooked)

So, that's a total of 663 agility, 189 defense, and 155 dodge from gear. Rogue base agility is 163, which takes us to 826. The usual 181 agi from buffs takes this to 1007. Add 25% to this from Kings and Sinister Calling, and we're at 1258.

189 defense rating works out to 79 defense, reduced by 15 against the level 73 enemy is 64, or +2.56% to dodge/parry/block.

Miss rate is thus 5% + 2% + 5% + 2.56% = 14.56%, and parry rate is 5% + 5% (talent) + 2.56% = 12.56%.

155 dodge rating is 8.19% dodge. Dodge from agility is (1258-11.5)/20 = 63.32%, plus 5% from talents, 1% from being NE, 2.56% from defense, and the aformentioned 8.19% works out to 80.07% dodge.

Hence, our total avoidance is 80.07 + 12.56 + 14.56 = 107.19%. So, we're over 100% avoidance - in fact, we could dump some more in the name of offensive stats. Although, sicne we're already at about 1700 AP and 22% crit rate unbuffed, with a 100 dps, slow, MH, this will already generate decent aggro - maybe not quite as much as a prot tank, but not too bad either, I suspect.