Expertise is much better than hit until 24-26 expertise (6-6.5% reduction) because it reduces both dodge AND parry. The rating you need for 4 expertise (1% reduction) is the same as the rating needed for 1% hit chance, but it actually gets you 2% reduction until you eliminate dodges. After that hit becomes better until 8% hit, then it depends on your spec. Frost is going to want hit rating more, while unholy and blood will likely either value them equally or favor expertise slightly.
Alright, this is a bit confusing to me. Expertise does double duty? So does that mean we need less to hit in order to reach both caps? If expertise is pulling 6-6.5% then that means you should only need an extra 1.5-2% hit to make up the difference.
Otherwise it doesn't make any sense. Reason being if I'm at the soft cap for expertise (say, 6%) and gain 3% hit thru gems I've just wasted gem slots..... cause accordingly it doesn't do anything since my expertise is already higher then it. Are we stacking more hit then we should by being 24 expertise and 8% hit?
I hope I've explained this well enough.... its a bit confusing
Hit and expertise are two totally different things.
A raid boss has a 6.5% chance to dodge your attacks, 8% chance to miss and 18.something% chance to parry your attacks.
Expertise lowers both your chance to get parried and dodged.
Hitrating only lowers the chance your attacks miss.
Having 8% hit and 0 expertise means 0% of your attacks (melee) miss but 6.5% will still be dodged and 18.something% of your attacks will still be parried.
Idem dito for expertise, 0% hit and 26 total expertise means that 8% of your attack miss (melee) and 0 attacks will be dodged and 18.something - 6.5 % of your attacks will be parried.
Shadai you need to understand that there is a huge difference between being dodged, being parried and missing.
Expertise and Hit affect different things, and do not stack in the way you seem to think.
But now for something else: Why do all of you seem to go for 8 Percent Hit? We always have a shadow priest in our Raids. I think every decent raid should, really. It would be more effective to socket/gear towards 5 percent and spend what you can free up by this for stam or dodge, don't you think so too?
But now for something else: Why do all of you seem to go for 8 Percent Hit? We always have a shadow priest in our Raids. I think every decent raid should, really. It would be more effective to socket/gear towards 5 percent and spend what you can free up by this for stam or dodge, don't you think so too?
Regards
because of a couple of reasons.
1. not everybody has a shadow priest in their raid.
2. Shadow priests misery only gives 3% spellhit chance (of which the cap is 18%)
the 8% is the melee hit cap, not spell hit cap. The Spell hit cap isn't as important for blood specs, but for frost and unholy it does. If you have 8% hit unbuffed, it will only help you in the long run.
Im currently sitting at unbuffed ( frost aura ):
31700 hp ( mining + jc )
541 def
25,09% dodge
21,59% parry
27 expertise ( - 6,75% dodge and parry )
156 hit ( 4,76 % to hit )
All in all im pretty happy with my balanced stats atm.
I have pretty much every tanking trinket at my disposal but im forced to use [Repelling Charge] due to def cap. At 3.0.8 im switching over to rune of the stoneskin gargoyle so that it will free up another trinket slot and will free enchanting for more tps ( getting rid of expertise on gloves and taking armsman and ditching def on braces for expertise ). I was thinking of using [Defender's Code] next patch but the + bonus armor nerf will hurt it's uses. Would taking [Valor Medal of the First War] be a better choice?
Thanks for any help and keep up the good discussions.
Obliterate will do even more since it's glyph got buffed (iirc) and does more already. Annihilation adds 3% crit to HB as well, remember.
I dont know why everyone say that OB do more damage than HB, cause for me it doesnt.
A quick test on live:
OB: low hit: 1156; avg hit: 1232; max hit: 1284; low crit: 2853; avg crit: 3006; max crit: 3158
HB: low hit: 1374; avg hit: 1609; max hit: 1747; low crit: 3781; avg crit: 3837; max crit: 3893
That's with 2 disease for OB and IT for HB, on the level 83 dummies and without the OB glyph; but even with the modified glyph (+20%), my OB will still be inferior to my HB. For info I have 2751 PA and I use this weapon [Wraith Spear].
Now if you say that OB crit more than HB, on live, yes of course. OB got a +27% crit bonus via talent (at the price of 6 more talents points though; annihilation and subversion). But on PTR with the new KM, I am not sure that the crit rate of OB will be superior than the one for HB.
Just to clear up the mess that seems to have occurred in the last 10 posts or so:
- The 2h hit cap is 8%, both for autoattacks and specials. 8% melee hit is ~262 hit rating, which is approximately 10% spell hit (as the conversions are different).
- The spell hit cap is 17%. If you have Virulence and either Misery or Improved Faerie Fire, this is 11%. Considering that you should be aiming for 8% hit for melee, you'll end up with 1% spell miss with virulence and buffs, or 7% spell miss without virulence and buffs.
- Expertise removes 0.25% dodge and parry from a bosses avoidance per point. Each point takes ~8.2 expertise. The approximate values are 6.25% dodge and 15% parry that you need to overcome. This makes expertise approximately twice as valuable as hit up to the point at which you are capping dodge avoidance (26 expertise).
This makes hit very valuable up until 8% melee hit (262 hit rating), and expertise very valuable up until 6.25% reduction (26 expertise).
I dont know why everyone say that OB do more damage than HB, cause for me it doesnt.
A quick test on live:
OB: low hit: 1156; avg hit: 1232; max hit: 1284; low crit: 2853; avg crit: 3006; max crit: 3158
HB: low hit: 1374; avg hit: 1609; max hit: 1747; low crit: 3781; avg crit: 3837; max crit: 3893
That's with 2 disease for OB and IT for HB, on the level 83 dummies and without the OB glyph; but even with the modified glyph (+20%), my OB will still be inferior to my HB. For info I have 2751 PA and I use this weapon [Wraith Spear].
Now if you say that OB crit more than HB, on live, yes of course. OB got a +27% crit bonus via talent (at the price of 6 more talents points though; annihilation and subversion). But on PTR with the new KM, I am not sure that the crit rate of OB will be superior than the one for HB.
Are you testing on dummies? Keep in mind that in a raid, the mob will have sunders, CoR, etc. You touched on the big crit difference as well (18% for me with my tanking build). The end result will depend on raid composition and buffs to some extent, particularly in 10 mans, but it is a good rule of thumb to say OB > HB for single targets.
Just to clear up the mess that seems to have occurred in the last 10 posts or so:
- The 2h hit cap is 8%, both for autoattacks and specials. 8% melee hit is ~262 hit rating, which is approximately 10% spell hit (as the conversions are different).
- The spell hit cap is 17%. If you have Virulence and either Misery or Improved Faerie Fire, this is 11%. Considering that you should be aiming for 8% hit for melee, you'll end up with 1% spell miss with virulence and buffs, or 7% spell miss without virulence and buffs.
- Expertise removes 0.25% dodge and parry from a bosses avoidance per point. Each point takes ~8.2 expertise. The approximate values are 6.25% dodge and 15% parry that you need to overcome. This makes expertise approximately twice as valuable as hit up to the point at which you are capping dodge avoidance (26 expertise).
This makes hit very valuable up until 8% melee hit (262 hit rating), and expertise very valuable up until 6.25% reduction (26 expertise).
Thank you, Dukes. Somebody needed to provide clarity on that - things were getting out of hand there.
With respect to *which* is more important, it's sort of an irrelevant discussion since you *really* want to soft cap both. However, since this *is* EJ and we're all about trying to give the most relevant information for complete Theorycrafting optimization, we'll examine it anyway. First, let's look at which abilities are affected by which:
Hit Only:
Rune Strike
Frost Strike
Howling Blast
Icy Touch
Death Coil
Unholy Blight
Death & Decay
Pestilence
Blood Boil
Dark Command
(Please let me know if I missed anything... I very well may have)
Now, the relative value of each of those abilities to your threat generation is highly dependent upon your spec, and even partially on your raid makeup. For instance, having a pally with BoSc or an appropriately specced Resto druid will dramatically shift the proportional values of auto-attack and Rune Strike. However, it's probably best to take a look at a WWS of one of your recent raids get an idea of what you are most reliant on. I'd strongly suggest you do this analysis for yourself on a regular basis.
In the interest of giving some general advice, I think we can see some trends that may be relevant with respect to the *role* you serve as a tank:
1. For multi-target tanking, Hit is likely more important than Expertise.
2. For single-target tanking, unless you are using DND as a standard part of your rotation, Expertise is likely more important than Hit.
Again, you *really* want both, but if you have to choose, look at the role you are serving and choose accordingly.
Are you testing on dummies? Keep in mind that in a raid, the mob will have sunders, CoR, etc. You touched on the big crit difference as well (18% for me with my tanking build). The end result will depend on raid composition and buffs to some extent, particularly in 10 mans, but it is a good rule of thumb to say OB > HB for single targets.
if you count sunder, then you have to count Curse of elements too (or improved FF or Ebon plaguebringer). If you want to factor every buffs/debuffs there could be in a raid I think there is more spell buffs/debuff than melee's one overall.
But if you just count sunder and CoE, then I still think HB win over OB.
As for crit, as I said, yes it's true on live, but with the new KM on PTR I am really not sure.
(Please let me know if I missed anything... I very well may have)
Frost strike cant be dodged/paried/blocked so he is in hit only.
And as you said, it really depend on spec and rotation you are using; in a frost HB built, expertise is there only for BS and normal strike, while hit (and mostly spell hit) is good for all the rest of your rotation.
Thanks for helping clear that up... the way some people were describing both it sounded like expertise was "pulling double duty" and better then hit, ie, it seemed like they were saying expertise increased hit. I actually think hit is better then expertise and if your looking for something to hit the soft cap first, hit is the way to go.
And here is why:
Suppose you have a tank that's soft capped expertise (6% or 6.5%, whichever) but not hit capped (has 0 to hit). That means that he avoids all the dodges the mob can bring but he still misses 8% of the time. That soft cap expertise also helps avoid parries, but unless your rocking an obscene amount of expertise you'll never stop those entirely.
Now suppose its the other way around. Your hit capped tank (8%) has no expertise (work with me here, he spec'd very badly). This means that although he'll still be dodged, and parried at a greater rate, he's still hitting with all of his attacks (no miss). That 6.5% is alot lower then 8%. And remember, most tanks have at least 5 expertise, depending on spec, so this lowers that 6.5% to a smaller number (around 5% I think?)
Both are equally good for generating threat on target. However, I believe a tank's priority is to stack hit to cap before expertise as you'll get more mileage out of hit then you will expertise. Ideally you'll want both maxed. But as your gearing up, hit is by far the better choice as a missed attack generates no threat. A dodged attack generates no threat either, but they will dodge at a lower percentage then straight miss. You'll never rule out boss parries so trying to stack for it will gimp you too much.
Dodges and Parries are going to happen. To try to rule them out before you can avoid misses I feel is foolhardy at best. Like someone else said above, if you aren't expertise capped you can weave DnD into all of your rotations and still hold agg like a champ. Work on ruling out misses first, as it effects everything you do before worrying about the 4 or 5 attacks you have that can actually BE parried or dodged.
I'm hit capped but not expertise (i think i'm up to 11 exp) and I weave DnD in 15 secs or so. The only time I have ever had threat problems was if something wonky was going on that was beyond my control.
sounded like expertise was "pulling double duty"...
That 6.5% is alot lower then 8%...
Both are equally good for generating threat on target...
No, no, and no. Expertise is pulling double duty, because each of parry and dodge are separate. 4 expertise (~33 rating) provides 1% less dodge and 1% less parry, so 2% less total 'miss'. This means expertise is approximately twice as good as hit for generating threat, up to the point of having 26 expertise.
The only caveat on this is the list that Crax posted showing that hit and expertise each provide bonuses to slightly different subsets of spells/abilities. For example, as a frost tank if you have the majority of auto-attacks replaced with Rune Strike and if you're using Howling Blast over Obliterate, then Expertise will only be useful for Plague Strike, Blood Strike and those auto-attacks not replaced by rune strike. This devalues expertise significantly in this situation.
Yes but we have far more attacks which benefit from +hit than expertise
That depends *greatly* on spec and situation. Dukes pointed out one scenario where expertise is greatly devalued; here's one where hit is less valuable:
Blood tanking against two mobs with no BoSc or Resto Druid - primary attacks: auto-attack, Rune Strike, Heart Strike. Only using IT, PS, Oblit/DS once each per double rotation. Rune Strike takes most of the RP. No Sudden Doom (most blood tank specs I've seen can't fit it) so very few DCs.
This situation heavily favors Expertise. Both mobs are facing the tank so both can parry/dodge. Heart Strike and Auto-attack will be a very large chunk of your available threat.
Now, don't get me wrong, ideally you want hit as well, but expertise is strongly favored here.
What it boils down to for me is this: what situations am I having "threat issues" in? Currently, I have *many* more threat issues in single target scenarios than I do in AoE scenarios. Between DND and the occasional Deathchilled HB, I almost never have issues in AoE situations: things just don't live long enough to cause problems. However, in single target threat, particularly with trigger happy DPS that has been trained by the new threat mechanics not to "have" to wait for tanks to build any aggro, "missing" on early attacks (likely *before* the mob has swung much - i.e. low chance of Rune Strike) is entirely unacceptable. I *need* those first few things to hit and I can't *always* rely on dropping DND to begin with (no hunter/rogue in our raids at the moment) - think GWF trying for the achievement where I *don't* want to be tanking the adds.
So, I try to keep my hit as close to 8% as I can, but I gladly sacrifice a bit of hit for expertise. It's purely anecdotal, but since I prioritized that way, I've had *much* fewer threat issues. In fact, the warrior tanks I've seen that have started complaining about threat, almost all have ignored hit/expertise to this point.
Yes but we have far more attacks which benefit from +hit than expertise
This is exactly my point. And I get what your saying about parry and dodge, but if your not connecting with your attacks you don't have the opportunity to have them parried or blocked now are you?
Even at soft cap expertise your still gonna get parried, so if at 3.0 attack speed your swinging 20 times per minute. Not being hit capped costs you 1.6 of these attacks. Those are attacks your missing WITHOUT boss dodge or parry being applied. If you only have the 5 expertise from the talent tree that takes the 6.25% dodge down to 5%, which is 1 attack per minute. If you count both that's 1 dodge for sure, and MAYBE 1 parry, as you'll never get rid of parry completely. So at best we're up to 2 attacks per min. And you still haven't rule out misses or parries, which you'll get both without having any bonus to hit.
The difference is .4. Before you scream Ah-HA! Lets be sure we're seeing the forest from the trees eh?
Hit effects:
Rune Strike
Frost Strike
Howling Blast
Icy Touch
Death Coil
Unholy Blight
Death & Decay
Pestilence
Blood Boil
Dark Command
Blood Strike
Heart Strike
Scourge Strike
Plague Strike
Obliterate
Auto-attack
Auto attack is a bit of a misnomer. I get more Rune strikes (on average) then white attacks so that .4 is negligible at best. Besides, it and Frost Strike can't be parried/dodged/blocked so it really just comes down to hit. So really, as a frost tank I'm only worried about Obliterate and Blood Strike (though mostly I use Pest and BB for AOE tanking anyway). Do I want to gimp ALL those other attacks for my Obliterate to not be dodged anymore (cause it sure as hell still be parried)?
And the answer of course, is NO.
Now, if I was unholy or blood I would see MAYBE some benefit to the argument. But its so small and at the cost of those other attacks missing could be more disastrous in the end.
Ideally, the entire argument is stupid. No tank worth his threat producing salt is not going to be either hit capped or dodge soft capped. But to say that expertise is heads and shoulders better then hit is flat out wrong, unless your Unholy or Blood. And even then its about the same level.
This is exactly my point. And I get what your saying about parry and dodge, but if your not connecting with your attacks you don't have the opportunity to have them parried or blocked now are you?
Even at soft cap expertise your still gonna get parried, so if at 3.0 attack speed your swinging 20 times per minute. Not being hit capped costs you 1.6 of these attacks. Those are attacks your missing WITHOUT boss dodge or parry being applied. If you only have the 5 expertise from the talent tree that takes the 6.25% dodge down to 5%, which is 1 attack per minute. If you count both that's 1 dodge for sure, and MAYBE 1 parry, as you'll never get rid of parry completely. So at best we're up to 2 attacks per min. And you still haven't rule out misses or parries, which you'll get both without having any bonus to hit.
First things first: it is very well established that melee combat uses a single roll system. This means that the end result of the attack is determined from a single roll. This is why crushing blows were able to be pushed off the table in BC. Missing this point creates a fundamental flaw in your math.
Because of a single-roll system, it's relatively easy to calculate the effect of +hit and expertise. +1% hit is approximately +1% overall DPS (since it effects pretty much everything). That's approximately a 1% gain in threat. +1% dodge/parry reduction from expertise is a +2% DPS gain for the abilities it affects. This gain will be at least as large as the gain from +1% hit if you get at least 50% of your threat from abilities that expertise affects. The entire question becomes where your threat comes from, percentage wise. This is largely dependent on spec, but also dependent upon current gear and raid makeup. This is the fundamental reason there isn't a simple answer here.
Originally Posted by Shadai
Auto attack is a bit of a misnomer. I get more Rune strikes (on average) then white attacks so that .4 is negligible at best. Besides, it and Frost Strike can't be parried/dodged/blocked so it really just comes down to hit. So really, as a frost tank I'm only worried about Obliterate and Blood Strike (though mostly I use Pest and BB for AOE tanking anyway). Do I want to gimp ALL those other attacks for my Obliterate to not be dodged anymore (cause it sure as hell still be parried)?
And the answer of course, is NO.
The amount of Rune Strikes and Frost Strikes you get is strictly limited by your available RP. With an optimal Frost rotation (which is very hard to sustain), you'll generate 85 RP per rotation post-patch. That's a maximum of 2 FS or 4 RS during that time (assuming no RP usage on interrupts/IBF) - unless you have a Resto Druid or Blessing of Sanctuary (which will generate more RP to spend). Again, another reason this issue is complicated. If you've never tanked without a Resto Druid or Prot Pally along, it's an entirely different world.
Originally Posted by Shadai
Ideally, the entire argument is stupid. No tank worth his threat producing salt is not going to be either hit capped or dodge soft capped. But to say that expertise is heads and shoulders better then hit is flat out wrong, unless your Unholy or Blood. And even then its about the same level.
Here we completely agree. You need to have both. Now, I don't think anyone was saying expertise was head and shoulders above hit, but to say hit is head and shoulders above expertise is equally false. It depends entirely on your situation which is better, but we all agree you should target getting both to their respective soft caps (melee hit cap, and dodge expertise cap).
Can anyone point me to a good gear list for tanking? Or more specifically trinkets, cause those are the ones I have the most difficulty evaluating, when counting in procs and the like. Thanks.
The other factor for expertise vs hit is that all expertise-using attacks use runes - which means if your attack misses or is avoided, you're chewing up rune cooldown time. On the other hand, quite a few of the attacks that do NOT use expertise either are NOT rune-based (Rune Strike, Death Coil, Frost Strike) or can't completely miss (Death and Decay), which means you don't lose any time.
i think when you have your basic tank build, and lets say 10-15 points to spent, you want to spent it for talents that can help you generate threat, and 2% weapon damage per point is not really amazing comparing to for example: 3% Obli crit per point (subversion), or 1 ap for every 180 armor per point (bladed armor) ect.
i havent run any numbers on this, it's just a guess, but i'm also wandering if i'm righ with that
how come most tanking builds i see dont have 2h specialization?
is it just not that important for threat generation?
Sadly, we don't have enough points to get it in most endgame 2H Tank builds. It is nice but not as nice as other talents that will increase our TPS at a much larger amount.
im usually blood spec'd dps on my DK, and my dps is pretty solid, usually around 3.5-4k on 25 man bosses. but lately we've had issues with tanks, so they asked me to start working on a tank set.
so now im trying to figure out the perfect build for tanking, mostly frost with some in the other 2.
now morbidity, also in the same boat? just not enough points to be spread in order to use it?
i assume with a frost tank spec, you arent using DC's as much, so perhaps it isnt as useful? i still like the idea of having a shorter CD on DnD though.
01/11/09, 11:56 AM
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