We managed to down Sarth3D 25 for the first time last night. I was using the FR strategy and trying to minimize cooldowns. With the information from these posts, I removed some FR (I wasn't going to be at 415) and equipped more stamina gear. My resist was listed at 310, and I had 50.5k HP.

The important fact is this: barkskin, mighty fire pots and Survival Instincts were all enough to deal with the breaths with this fire resist level. The highest breath I received was 38k, which with the updated resist numbers was clearly a 30% attack.

This seems like a far more easily manageable solution to dealing with the breaths compared to rotation of cooldowns and stacking more stamina. I did have a holy priest and paladin on standby if I needed it, but even when I was going to take a 4th breath Barkskin would have been up, and on our kill we only had two big breaths. I can't compare to doing it with a cooldown rotation, but using FR gear essentially gives druids the same advantage that DKs have (self-managed cooldowns) while having a bit higher HP pool.

Really interesting - your math is a little off in a couple places but your conclusion stands.

Based on the resisted amount of 6095, 30% resist indeed looks like the only possibility, for a base breath of 13544.

This yields a damage taken of 13544*2*1.5*1.75*(1-0.3)*.88*.97 = 42488. This should have been a 624 overkill, not a 279, however. I can't really find any buffs/numbers to tweak to get it to quite match. If damage taken modifiers don't affect overkill damage, this makes the overkill 209, but oh well. Either way 30% resist still seems like the only possibility.

Thing is, if it was really a rounding error with the charsheet, according the speculated math, your chance of seeing a 30% resist at 414 FR would be around 0.15% (a fraction of a percent, not 15%, to be clear). Pretty large coincidence that one of the people following this math and trying out high FR would immediately see such a rare case. If you did indeed have all buffs active, and were at 415 FR on charsheet when you died, I'd be quite inclined to doubt the assumption that the level difference simply changes the factor to 415. There may be some harsher penalty.

Either way, I'm pretty confident in the level 80 math, and other than the odd, but in the end unimportant, behavior at 100 FR, there isn't too much more to find out there. It's really time for high sample-size tests on a boss level mob, because we've jumped to a lot of conclusions about the effect of the level difference that may simply not be the case. I think I've been dragging my feet because I'm not sure how long I can keep myself alive testing things vs. MC bosses, and I'm absolutely dreading doing the worst GY run in the game 9000 times to get a good sample pool....

Still, in the meantime, it's clear that high FR can be pretty reliable, and seems to be working out for a lot of druids.

If your biggest hit was under 38K, it lines up with a 40% resist on a big breath. If it was over 38K it would have been a 30% resist but on a smaller breath. You got lucky the big breath and 30% resist did not line up. However, as mentioned, either of our cooldowns would have been enough to survive this. A fire pot would not be (though it could save you from a mid-size one).

415 FR: 14062 * (0.88 * 0.97 * 1.5 * 2 * 1.75 * (1-0.4)) = 37810
280 FR: 14062 * (0.88 * 0.97 * 1.5 * 2 * 1.75 * (1-0.3)) = 44112

It wasn't under 38k. It was 38.5k. That's why I was saying that it was a 30% hit. Though it appears I got a bit lucky.

ETA: also, I was using a nightmare seed, which should allow survival assuming I have 50.5k health. And that's if I got the maximum breath and the worst absorbsion; in practice this doesn't happen.

I'd like to see it as well. Actually, I'd like to see your 50k set too, as I seem to be failing at figuring it out myself...

I logged out in my Sarth set, but it's not 415. I have no idea how I'd get to 415 with 50k health unless I was a JC as well.

Enchants are gladiator on the shoulders, flame's soul on the head, fire resist on the wrists, borean patches elsewhere. I didn't have anyone who had the superior FR enchant for the back; if I did, I'd ditch the ring or the neck for [Keystone Great-Ring] or [Titanium Earthguard Chain]. I used a [Recipe: Flask of Chromatic Wonder] Otherwise normal raid buffs. Solid sapphires everywhere except in the head, where it was a Guardian opal. Effulgent skyflare diamond for the meta. The ring and neck are both 46 stam/30 FR greens.

I have the same 39k after debuff, but Survival Instincts bring me to 47.7k only. I guess, 30% from SI are also decreased by 25%
39 + 39*0.3*0.75 = 47.7

Just as a note to non-LW alchemists out there,[Lesser Flask of Resistance] ends up giving 82 resistance with mixology, while [Flask of Chromatic Resistance] only gives 42. This really helps for hitting that 277 mark without the FR bracer lining.

We tried Sarth3D for the first time last night and I have observed the stacking of BoSanc and either Grace or Vigilance (we had both last night).

I will give an example below

12:03'09.703 Sartharion Flame Breath hits Torosso for 22100 Fire. (5720 Resisted)

At this point in the fight Shardon's twilight add was up so we have to divide the resisted value by 1.5 to get the pre-buff resist value.

5720/1.5 = 3813.33

This is in the range of a 30% resist

So the value of the flame breath pre-buff is 12710

Using this value in the normal calc gives

12710*(1-0.3)*2*1.5*0.88*0.97 = 22783.43 which is higher than the observed

Adding in the stacking of either Grace or Vigilance (I'm not sure which 1 as we had both on me) the calc gives

12710*(1-0.3)*2*1.5*0.88*0.97*0.97 = 22099.93 = 22100 (rounded up). Which is spot on.

I can also therefore confirm that the effulgent meta does nothing atm.

Edit: Grammar

Finally got some boss-level numbers for resistance (from Sapphiron), details can be found in this post in the Resistance thread.

The important conclusion is that while it was suspected already, I'm now pretty positive that 415 is not the appropriate constant to use for bosses in the resistance formula. A constant of 500 matches the data obtained so far.

As always, this is still very subject to further testing, and I plan to get some data at two more resist values on Tuesday. What is most relevant to this thread is that while we'd anecdotally mentioned it already, 415 Fire Resist will not eliminate the chance of 30% resists.

If the constant of 500 holds, the new thresholds to obtain each minimum possible resist are:

125 (10%)
215 (20%)
334 (30%)
500 (40%)
750 (50%)

Here are the updated tables for average/max breath damage taken:

10 Man

FR	Avg Resist	Max Breath	Min HP
125	20%	45374	60499
215	30%	40333	53777
334	40%	35291	47055
500	50%	30249	40333

25 Man

FR	Avg Resist	Max Breath	Min HP
125	20%	56716	75621
215	30%	50414	67219
334	40%	44112	58816
500	50%	37810	50414

I think it's clear that 334 resistance is pretty worth it, given the relative ease of obtaining it without too many sacrifices. Going beyond 334 resistance is definitely a judgment call. In the 10-man, it's definitely not worth going below 47055 pre-pull HP, if you have more than that at 334. However, it's worth keeping in mind that at 334 FR, those big 30% hits have a 25% probability, which decreases the higher you go. At 415 FR, for instance, the likelihood is down to ~12%. Lowering the probability of these big hits can help lower the probability of getting gibbed after a big breath, or increase your chance of surviving if your healer couldn't quite get you to full in time.

I guess recalculating my FR set is in order then.

Fire Resistance Aura, Lesser Flask of Resistance, Arcanum of Fire Resist, Enchant Cloak - Superior Fire Resistance, Fur Lining - Fire Resist. Results in 285, 49 more is needed from other gear. For me this will come from Shoulders with 41 FR and a Flame Kit.

This is actually comforting for me, the sacrifices I was making to get 415 AND 50k hp were uncomfortable, and I still died to 30% resists, not being topped off, and ending up taking too much physical damage from having lower armor/avoidance.

As an aside, the [Effulgent Skyflare Diamond] still isn't working in the manner listed by others for my FR.

It's all still very tentative, I just need a lot more data to be "sure" about the constant - the discrete nature of the distribution makes confidence intervals on the constant pretty large. 500 was simply a nice rounded value that was very close for the case with the largest sample size. The 835-sample data I got from Melthu actually indicated a constant of 518. It could be something in between, or there could be another factor (penetration, or some unknown term for the level difference) involved.

That said, if a resistance can be found where only 3 partial resists are possible instead of 4, that would pretty much seal it. If the constant is 500, 125 is such a resistance. Conveniently, this is GOTW + Lesser flask of resistance. I plan to have several people wear this amount next Sapphiron unless I get a log from someone with it first.

We finally got 10-man 3D sarth last night, my observation was that with the gear set and enchants listed below, I could survive any breath as long as my disc priest had a bubble on me. Taking up JC last week made it much easier to meet the stamina goals. We did make use of Pain Suppresion, Barksin, and SI, any one of those alone was enough to let me survive a breath.

Special Gears and Enchants:
Fire Resist on Helm
Fire Resist on Bracers
Fire Resist on Cloak
JC trinket w/ prismatic stam gem w/ a 24 stam for the +9 stam bonus
2x prismatic stam gems in Polar Vest for the +12 stam bonus
Gladiator shoulder enchant (+30 stam)
Chromatic Wonder Flask

and I had a Fire Resist totem.
and BoK/Stam, but no imp/command shout

If the Disc Priest was unable to hit a PW:S for a breath during the "bad" time, then he and I had to juggle cooldowns (BS/LS/PS).

WWS parse of the flame breaths if folks are wondering:
Wow Web Stats

Last Night was my first kill in 10 man as well, using the 334 FR gear I listed previously, ended up going with 3 tanks (Warrior on Drakes, DK on Whelps/Blazes). Holy Paladin on me, Resto Shaman on the other tanks, Resto Druid for raid. I ended up taking 5 breaths during the gib phase (we don't go into portals until all Drakes are dead, though we likely could, SI carried me through 2 Breaths (with Frenzied Regen to make sure I was topped off), Barkskin was used on first and fifth, and a fire pot for the 3rd. I actually carry a stack of Frozen Runes from old Naxx in case of a 6th bad breath. Honestly I see no reason to not to use the cooldowns available to you ever time, FR pots are cheap and cooldowns are free.

Neone, one thing to remember is that you're well within the range for getting 20% Breaths, so the max breath going to be 51973, which is actually above your full health even with Survival Instincts (with grace take off another 1.5k, which is still very close) I don't know why as a JC/LW you aren't going for the minimum to guarantee a 30% resist.

Nightcrowler, considering blizzard doesn't use a multiple of 3 for Spell Miss %, I'm willing to accept an arbitrary 25% difference for Bosses Spell Resists. Another possibility is that we're still looking at Piecewise Linear functions, except with 10 of them, this would explain Minimum Resists and the "curve" in resists people see.

Boevis,

My resists from gear is (bracers/helm/cloak) 105, and with Fire Res totem (130) I'm at 235. Unless I'm missing something, isn't that putting me well into the 30% range according to Shamgarr's chart?

I guess I'm not seeing where you suggest I change..

At 235 resist you're in the range of averaging 30% resists, but your worst case scenario is still a 20% resist. Since you can be 1-shot by a maximally charged breath you have to consider the worst case scenario rather than the average. In order to completely remove 20% breaths as a possibility you need 334 resistance, assuming that Shamgarr's most recent findings are correct.

Ya that chart might be a little confusing, listing average resist when we've been talking about minimum possible resist.

I'd like to mention I feel quite guilty when people mention these numbers I quote as resistances they shoot for... I just hope you're all keeping in mind this is still very tentative data, and a work in progress, so don't be too too mad if you still get one-shot ^^. Keeping logs while you wear various amounts of FR can be very helpful in nailing these numbers down for good soon, so we don't have to keep saying "tentatively...."

Shamgarr, don't feel too bad. I've now done Sarth3D twice successfully with FR gear, and in both cases I've not been one-shot and the breaths have been well within the predicted values. The thing is that even if you were wrong about the 277/344 chances are it wouldn't matter statistically. 277 was enough to average a 40% resist, and would occasionally get a 20 in theory - but you'd have to get that 20% resist and take a max breath to die, potentially.

It would be interesting to figure out how a mob's damage is determined and what the statistical likelihood of survival is. For instance, at 277 there's about a 4.3% chance of having a 20% resist. That will only kill you if you take a max or close to max breath and don't have a shield up; what are the chances that this happens?

I can provide Sarth logs if that would help. They all have a consistent amount of FR, though the sample size is very small. This is the link to the WWS of our recent night of attempts. The one death I had was due to user error; I didn't bother using barkskin. The total FR used was 345.

Without going into too much detail, I think I've got an upper limit on the constant of 520, and lower limit of 505. So practically speaking the 30% threshold should be no higher than 347, and no lower than 338. So wearing 347 FR should be sufficient to eliminate 20% resists, though a few less points may be required.

I'm scouring the AH for FR items now.... I assume people are still using some of the Polar set to maintain the HP required?

48k+ and 334 resist doesnt seem that hard to achieve.... and a lot more elegant than just stacking stamina.

I was tanking sartharion 3D both 25 and 10 few days ago and would like to share my experience.

285 resistance (flask,aura + enchants on cloak head and wrists), full polar set (+ring), JC trinkets. I had ~39.5k hp post Vesperon aura and ~41k+ with warlock pet banished near my tanking position (we had only 1 warrior for shouts and he was busy with dragons tanking).

Apparently I did have some 20% resistances, but it never caused a problem. on 25man the max fire breath damage during the "hard phase" was around 46k, which is easily countered by barkskin, SI, HoS from pala (need to call upon), second barkskin. potion + nightmare seed would make another one, but at this time Shadron is normally dead already.
At this point you might need a bit more healing, cause Sartharion is getting his melee damage boosted, just make sure to warn the raid about it.
After killing Shadron, we are going to Twilight realm and kill both acolytes. If you are still alive at this point - the fight is more or less done.

for 10man we used 3 tanks/3 healers setup.
dps was ench. shaman, hunter, ret paladin, shadow priest.
The target was set to kill Tenebron fast, then clear the area from all adds. After that the focus was on survivalability rather than on making damage, Dpsers were told to stop attacking if they are at 50% HP.
I'd say at this point (Shadron+Vesperon alive), the dragon tank survivalability was more problematic than mine one. We used a warrior on that, so he was saving his shield wall and last stand for this phase, still it's not enough for the full duration. We had quite a few cases when he was gibbed by double breath+some melee and Twilight debuff proc.
As for me (Sarth tank), maximum breath I've taken was sub 38k, with my max HP 39.5k. I was trying to save my cooldowns for "dangerous" cases. For example if there is no lava wall incoming, if I'm topped, healers are standing still and just healing, I didnt use anything. Otherwise, barkskin, potion, SI or frenzied regeneration.
With such rotation, I could tank him infinitely long. Next time I'll bring lvl70 fire res gloves, hopefully that will remove 20% resistances and tanking will be even more safe.
I had holy pal on me 100% time and resto druid hots during shadron+vesperon phase.

The general impression of feral fire res tanking: it's easy and reliable. We had a DK tank on it before, and he was dying quite a lot (not sure, maybe he was not doing right things thou). 75% of gear you will need for it is obtainable by crafts or from pvp - I used pvp hateful pvp gloves for badges and hateful wrists (normally I play resto). Plus a few offspec rolled pieces and the full set is ready.

So I'm at a bit of a dilemma and I thought I'd post here to ask some advice.

We've recently had a few adjustments to our normal 10 man that has made it more important for me to rely only on my cool downs to get through the dangerous breaths.

I'm currently not a leather worker and while I'm strongly tempted to level it, I'd hate for its only use to be sarth 3D 10 man and then no more. I still have a full lvl 70 FR set that I'm looking at robbing for some pieces as the AH hasn't been kind with Fire Prot greens.

Currently I'm down to the following decision.

[Blastguard Pants] vs [Leggings of the Honored]
OR
[Phoenix-fire Band] vs [Gatekeeper]

It would be my task to tank Sarth until completion of the fight as the drake tank is gearing specifically to live through the double shadow breaths which seem to have been a problem. My concern is that by switching these level 70 pieces in I'm loosing too many "other" stats like agility, dodge, armor, hit that will make tanking the fight more difficult.

The rest of the set I'm using is as follows.
Valorous Head - FR Enchant - Effulgent + 7agi/11stam
Boundless Ambition
Valorous Shoulders - Greater Pinnacle - 16 agi (Unfortunately I only have one pair of 7.5 shoulders)
Cloak of the Shadowed Sun - FR Enchant
Polar Vest - 10 stats - 3x 24 stam gems
Bindings of the Tunneler - 40 stam
Inferno Hardened Gloves - 18 stam
Polar Cord - 3x 24 stam gems
Legs - In question see above
Titanium Frostguard Ring - 24 Stam
Ring 2 is in question see above
Trinket 1 - Essence of Gossamer
Trinket 2 - Indestructible Alchemist's Stone
Origin of Nightmares - Mongoose

EDIT: I forgot to add that I'm using a flask of lesser resistance which gives 82 resist with mixology