Tamber

I guess my argument is that pre SSC, there isn't a fight that's long enough to make dodge an important aspect of reducing healer mana usage - armor does it just as well and more importantly is predictable giving a smoother healing pattern. 25% dodge sounds like someone with no tier armor, and mostly statless armor pieces (heavy clefthoof) that has socketed stamina. I wouldn't consider it average, but with appropriate armor I would consider it adequate.

If it were the choice between 2900 armor (starting from 33K armor) and 6% dodge, I'd take the armor when my sole role in the fight is to tank. 6% dodge is something like 88 agility and if I understand item points properly costs 88 item points.. 2900 bearform armor is something like 725 caster form armor, and costs 72.5 item points. There's a slight inaccuracy in there with the agility, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the experienced theory crafter to work out the precise comparison

I'm all for getting your mitigation and avoidance stats the best place you can find them, but I don't buy that you have to drop so much to get strong armor.

Now, for specialized encounters, where mitigation isn't as important and you can't reliably keep threat generation strong with your best tank gear, by all means have a stronger threat, lower mitigation set. I haven't yet found a fight up to all bosses in SSC and TK where I couldn't keep excess threat with my strongest tanking gear. And most of those where I offtank in a very slight tank role I can wear dps + tier gear and it suffices just fine.

I've tanked Gruul the last 15% without an offtank. Just because you can and have done it doesn't make it a good idea to do all the time or to recommend to those just starting out

So yeah, it all depends on your situation, but for someone starting off, you really can't go too wrong choosing high armor pieces if you're mainly tanking.

 

dukes

6% dodge counts as a lot more mitigation than 6% damage reduction. See here for an explanation. 88 agility is also ~3.5% crit, which is not insignificant by a long way.

For bears, agility is worth so much point-for-point compared to other stats that I would go as far as saying it's the best overall stat. This doesn't mean "stack agility", it means stack agility within reason.

 

Karmen

Thanks for pointing out that swipe is consistently better Dukes. I do spam swipe now but at lower gear levels I did not. Good to know in going forward anyway.

As far as more Armor vs. Dodge, the gentlemen that pointed out Tidalvass's burst is a bit off base. Tidalvass's burst comes from 4-5 attacks happening in a 2 second period adding up to that 17-18k total burst, not just one big attack. As Duke's is already pointing out you'd have a better chance of surviving having a better dodge chance against that then having 3% more mitigation. Nobody is saying Armor is worthless, just at a certain point it's value is neglible versus other stats.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

Nytkin

To the poster who asked what they should do about guild raids that put them in weird parties and don't feel they're contributing to dps.

Shouldn't they put you in a party that would benefit from Leader of the Pack? That is, with the fury war, the rogue, etc, instead of healers and mages and oomkins...

I'd suggest to them that 5% to ranged and melee crit chance of all party members w/in 45 yards is a considerable contribution to the overall raid dps.

 

Raistlyn

Good job first of all, but do these macros still work or do they need to be reworded? I used them before this latest patch and now I just go animal>castor instead of animal>animal

 

Tinweasele

@ nytkin

At lower gear levels yes putting you in a dps group is the better way to go, as rogues and warriors pull WAYYY out in front you end up with an equation like this:

your dps + 5% crit bonus damage from 4 other players in group < another rogues dps.

Simply put its better for the raid if the other rogue gets battle shout and windfury than if you give them lotp. Admitadly in melee aoe heavy fights then LOTP helps out with healing but that isnt a pure dps consideration.

 

Karmen

I used macro's for quite a while but I actually found just binding Dire Bear to mouse wheel up and Cat form to mouse wheel down performs the same function, sans bear potion using, as any powershift macro. Even while in cat form it's just as simple as rolling the mouse wheel down twice in a quick manner to powershift.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

Raistlyn

Thank you karmen, I'll give that a go tonight, maybe even go a step further and use mouse-wheel click for cheetah

 

Duilliath

Try one of the various travel form macros around that switch you to flight form when available, travel if not and when in the water switch ya to Sea Lion form.

 

Septus

Quick armor question: My understanding for a long time was that despite every additional point of armor granting less and less % damage reduction, that the overall mitigation you receive is the same. So that to reduce end damage done to you by 18, you need 100 more armor, and then another 100 to reduce it another 18 etc. Am I wrong? If not, why would each additional point of armor penetration be more valuable than the last?

 

Allev

Every analysis tool I've seen places a high premium on high armor items as best stat for any slot. I.e., Emmerald's lists, Rawr when you're not building that 100% dodge set, and so on. Badge is ALWAYS the best trinket, Violet/A'dal's are ALWAYS the best rings, Swift Paw are always the best bracers, Den Mothers are always best boots, Belt of Natural Power is best belt, T6 is always best armor... The only slot where the highest-armor piece isn't at the top is Cloak, and even then the best item is only 50 or so armor behind the highest. And then you're over armor cap.

Also, in a worst-case sense, armor mitigates crushing blows while dodge only pushes hits off the table (and not crushes). This makes armor mitigation "less spiky" and dodge mitigation "more spiky". Anecdotally, healers overheal less with less spiky damage and are more ready to heal you as a tank as opposed to others with more armor.

Finally, with the exception of multi-mob and undergeared scenarios, I've never heard of a druid having threat problems. At that point, the extra crit only lets a druid stop spamming specials, which reduces parries somewhat. But that's hard to measure and relatively minor to the overall picture.

Essentially, my argument is that armor doesn't stop being the best stat at 30k.

The limited number of arguments I'd think acceptable for not being close to armor capped in standard tank gear when you could be:
- You have stacked avoidance to a ridiculous point already (and eat Agi food, use Agi elixir, and Agi scroll even for farming pulls)
- You frequently have a shaman/priest as an assigned healer on you (rare for a tank, since resto shammies and CoH priests tend to be raid healers)
- You don't need to get better tank gear at all, for instance because you aren't asked to tank frequently at the T6 level

 

Duilliath

You are right. The basic life expectancy increase from gaining 1k armour from 1k->2k is the same as 20k->21k.
The 100 per 18 damage does not add up though, it's a scaling reduction on the %reduction for Armour. (Hence why the life expectancy increases at the same rate).

-----

Figured I'd give the macro I use for travelform, now that I'm in game.

#showtooltip [swimming] Aquatic Form
#showtooltip [nocombat, outdoors, flyable] Swift Flight Form
#showtooltip Travel Form
/cast [swimming,noform]Aquatic Form; [flyable,nocombat,noform]Swift Flight Form;[outdoors,nomounted,noform]Travel Form
/cancelform

 

Septus

That's how I remember the explanation from a long time ago, but I was mostly interested in confirming that armor does in fact not have diminishing returns. But why the benefit from stacking armor penetration?

 

dukes

And essentially my argument is that tanking isn't entirely about mitigation, and being a druid in a fight is more than just about tanking, from my experience.

 

stayclean

QFT. In our guild, our ferals (me included) are used for the threat generation more than anything. People really like being able to dps hard against Teron, or the Illidan flames etc

 

Duilliath

Because it works the other way round.

If you take a Boss from, say, 5k armour to 4k armour... you'll do more damage. It's a 20% reduction in his total armour. If you take him from 4k to 3k, it's a 25% total reduction. Take him from 5k to 3k and... well, you get the idea. Until you hit 0, it'll increase the damage done exponentionally.

Unfortunately, rogues appear to have more gear tailored for this, and a large portion of our damage ignores armour anyway. Doesn't make it a useless stat, just not as good as it is for Rogues (or other classes for that matter... I only need to look at the Executioner enchant for that).

 

Karmen

I'd also like to say that most "best of lists" just consider each item slot by itself and not how they fit toghether. I've never really used RAWR but just from in game experience I would rate the Vindicator wrist/belt as better than both the Swift Paw and the BoNP because of the other options they allow you to consider. Same goes for the rings. If you're wearing full T6 then the only real reason you'd need to wear both tank rings is if you needed the +DEF they give, not the armor.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

raffy

The armor vs. avoidance vs. stamina argument is very subjective. It depends greatly on the fight, buffs, your party setup, and the classes healing you (as well as other things). I've always been a fan of avoidance since I usually am in the OT roll, providing DPS after my tank target is dead while still stuck in combat.

However recently, I changed my philosophy about tanking completely, and don't plan on turning back. I was already becoming skeptical about an end-game avoidance set after having difficulty tanking Teron (with Illidan on farm) even with my gear littered with 10 agility gems.

With access to excess T6, I created a full stamina set (a few posts were made a few pages ago mentioning this setup). With this configuration, I tank much better than I did with avoidance gear. I have more rage so my threat is better and more stam so my overall burst survivability is better. My overall damage mitigation is less dependent on avoidance so I'm more suitable for a wide variety of fights instead of just physical damage.

Ignoring possible itemization improvements in Sunwell, I would recommend everyone to gem their primary tier gear and high armor items for full stamina.

---

If you think about it, the hybrid argument is silly under current itemization and game content: our base stamina is just too low. Almost all fights have limited roll switching. However, if you're tanking something which requires you to be uncritable and sit around 30K+ armor to be effective, you're most likely wearing armor rings, trinkets, and other high armor items -- so your overall DPS is junk anyway. So why not trade better tanking and survival for a few DPS?

As I said above, if your an avoidance hog, I salute you, however I'd urge you to try a high-armor stamina build and compare it with your current setup.

 

raffy

In reference to my post above, I'm still unsure on how far to take the "full stamina" argument.

While I recommend gemming everything for 15 stamina, I'm still unsure about a few things and I'm wondering if anyone has any insight:

1. Which trinkets?
Shadowmoon Insignia, Badge of Tenacity, Moroes Pocketwatch, or 51 stamina's

2. Which neck?
Brooch of Deftness or Pendant of Titans

3. Which flask/elixirs?
Elixir of Fortitude, Elixir of Mastery, Flask of Fortitude, Elixir of Ironskin

I'm now leaning towards:
1. Trinkets: 51 stam trinket instead of the Badge or Pocketwatch, paired with the Shadowmoon Insignia.
2. Neck and Elixir: Brooch of Deftness + Elixir of Ironskin + Elixir of Mastery

 

Inaiwae

No, i am off base. It does not matter really whether it is 1 attack or 5 attacks over 1-2 minute fight (in case of tidalvess). From time to time it will happen that you wont dodge any of these, and you must be able to survive it smoothly. If you have 5% more dodge, does it reliably prevent spikes? I dont think so. Yes you will be "spiked" less, but for more.

 

Inaiwae

You can always adjust your gear by mixing it with damage set to tailor it to certain boss, but such situations are imo not the subject of tank gear discussion.

 

spartakos

What dukes said.
We are OT the only boss lvl mob i get to tank in BT/MH is bloodboil and the rogue at Illidari council.
Also at BT/MH, where you are able to drop armor for other stats in some slots, the warrior has already closed the gap you had at T4, stamina-armor cap.
Raffy the badge's neck is great since it gives AGI, which is an all around stat, without falling too much behind at tanking and threat. About the trinket use what suit best each case. (If you tank Azgalor stam trinket shines, but if you tank bloodboil for 30 sec every 2min Pocketwatch or badge is your friend)

 

◊ Farstrider

I don't think you understand how those lists are really built then. The way that they are built is that someone puts in some sort of statistical weight for each stat, and then runs an analysis on all the available gear for each slot, and lists them in order of highest ranking. They DO NOT take into account of a) the armour cap, b) the defense/resil cap c) your overall gear set.

If you want to do this sort of analysis it is really much better to analyse a variety of sets and consider the overall deltas in terms of what you gain and give up going from one set to another. i.e. I lose 1% dodge but gain 500 hp - is that a decision that is worth making, given the characteristics of the encounter that I am involved in.

My max armour gear has around 34k armour on it, and although I usually gem for max stamina in my raid tanking set, I would never contemplate using all 34k armour. To look at the comparison that one earlier poster mentioned - the Hyjal rep ring is a nice thing to switch in when you get past a certain armour point, since it provides both a small stamina uplift as well as a 1.5% dodge improvement. It is really not that valuable to look at each slot seperately but rather to look at your gear in its entirety. Remember that for most bear tanking roles you actually don't even need to be crit immune, for example. I have at least 4-5 tank sets set up in Itemrack for different situations - from 5 man tanking, to trash tanking through to off tanking at Gruul, VR, or Supremus (i.e. consider threat vs mitigation & stamina vs mitigation).