No matter what else, you will always have a 100-8-6.5-14=71.5% chance to hit. That's the worst it can be. And given that savage defense is somewhere between 4 and 8% of total mitigation, removing a small percentage of that via losing your hit really isn't that big a deal.

I've actually found that my SD absorbs between 10 (Emalon) and 25 (Freya adds)% of the incoming physical damage. However, I do agree that hit/exp does very little for SD uptime.
For example on the Emalon fight I checked, I applied SD 110 times, but only got hit 31 times. If you want a better SD, go for AGI.

Are yellow attacks still on that funky two-roll system? Otherwise, hit isn't going to do anything for your SD uptime.

Actually, hit increases SD procs precisely because yellow attacks are on the 2-roll system. On a 1-roll system like auto-attacks, increasing crit chance reduces normal hit chance by the same amount, making hit useless for increasing crit chance (unless your crit chance is so high that it's pushed all normal hits off the table). A 2-roll system forces your attack to land before it determines if the attack was a crit or not, so increasing your hit chance also increases your crit chance.

Right, but if you compare it to armor it's much, much worse. It'll be better as you face smaller attacks, clearly - so if you know you'll be doing add tanking like Emalon, stacking hit/expertise/crit rate is a good strategy for minimizing damage. But for harder hitting mobs it simply is not a big enough factor in overall mitigation to consider gearing for relative to stamina or avoidance.

While I don't know enough Data to either agree/argue against the SD question. I can state this, for any of those that are having Agro/Threat problems. If you have under hit cap it will make a HUGE difference. Just closing in around the Hit cap (270ish) brought me from about 3-4k TPS to about 5-6K TPS, which is just enough to hold back the DPS in my guild for the most part.

That's a bad representation of the 2-roll system, you can just as easily say that if you hit, get dodged, or parried, you don't crit. You could also argue that Haste increases your crits per second.

Ch = C * (100 - (8-H) - (6.5-Ed) - (14-Ep))

Using my current tanking gear:
C = 47.6%
H = 5.09%
Ed = 6.5%
Ep = 6.75%
Ch = 42.764%

+1 Crit rating = 42.784%
+1 Hit rating = 42.778%
+1 Exp rating = 42.778%

At H = 0%
Ch = 40.341%
+1 Crit rating = 40.359%
+1 Hit rating = 40.355%

At C = 60%, H = 0%, and E = 0%
Ch = 42.9%
+1 Crit rating = 42.916%
+1 Hit rating = 42.918%
+1 Exp rating = 42.936%

If you are not Dodge capped on Expertise, Expertise will increase SD the most. However, with reasonable levels of gear, crit is always going to increase SD by the most. While I'm not saying "ignore hit and stack other stuff" the only arguments that can be made in favor of hit over any other stat (except probably haste) is going to be for taunts, and even that's debatable considering it's need on all of 1 fight.

The macro I use for ez-mode threat is:

/cast Maul
/castsequence Mangle(Bear)(), Feral Faerie Fire(), Lacerate, Mangle(Bear)(), Swipe(Bear)(), Feral Faerie Fire(), Mangle(Bear)(), Lacerate, Swipe(Bear)()

Of course using a priority system is best threat: Mangle -> FFF -> Keep Lacerate @ 5 stacks -> Swipe filler

My macro uses Lacerate more often than you would need with max hit/expertise but I dont have cap of either so it keep lacerate up ~98% of the fight. I also do use Imp mangle - with 5/5 feral agression (I give up ferocity, with enuf agi, primal fury, and how hard uldaur mobs hit rage is a non-issue).

Without Imp mangle the cast sequence is simplified to Mangle, FFF, Lacerate, Swipe which i would put on a 5 second reset (middle of GCD on last swipe).

When I pull a boss I Powershift for 10 rage (sometimes extra attempts due to 3/5 Furor now), Enrage, and then FFF with enrage having 1 or 2 seconds left (Extra threat, I run 2/3 King of the Jungle). When he gets in melee range I Mangle, Demo, and Lacerate (or double demo if a miss occurs), then begin the macro for the rest of the fight. Just fill in demo 3 seconds before it drops to keep it @ 99% up time.

Using this macro and strategy does several things for me. For starters my TPS is huge, its rare someone pulls from me and if does happen it is within the first 20 seconds of the fight. It also allows me to concentrate on raid progress. I am generally the "voice" on vent - corridinating innervates, Brezes, movement, pre-warnings on Boss abilities, etc. With it im quicker with snap taunts and survival CD's rather than tunnel visioned on my threat "rotation".

Of course if you are a quicker player than me the absolute best method is to use the priority system. But Im not close to perfect, and I cut corners like this to help circumvent my short-comings. Its an invaluable crutch in my tanking with (imho) minimal loss giving me the edge in most fights


EDIT: Simplified and edited macro for efficiency

The reset=13 is not going to help you there. All that means is that 13 secs after the last time you press the button, the sequence will reset. So if you are up to the last lacerate in the sequence(10+ secs into the sequence), then hit the button again 12 secs later it will still fire off the last swipe in the sequence, even though it is 22sec since you started the sequence.

Your correct - just did some digging into the cast sequence and reset=n does reset after "n" seconds of inactivity. Removing or adjusting the macro to a shorter time will make it more efficient (which I will work on in raid tonight). Regardless, the macro has worked amazingly for me for the last Month of Ulduar. Using it as is should help many people with threat issues (or making their lives easier) - and I will get back with something a little more efficient.


Here is my current macro Copied/pasted directly from my Macro window in WoW:
/cast Maul
/castsequence reset=13 Mangle (Bear)(), Faerie Fire (Feral)(), Lacerate, Mangle (Bear)(), Swipe(Bear)(), Faerie Fire (Feral)(), Mangle (Bear)(), Lacerate, Swipe(Bear)()

Loryli,

You're wrong and it's pretty easy to do some testing.

Make a castsequence like so.
/castsequence reset=1 Rejuvenation,Lifebloom, Lifebloom, Lifebloom

Now spam the button. You will always cast RJ - LB -LB - LB
Now press the button twice wait two seconds then press it again.
Rejuv - LB - 1 second - Rejuv - LB etc.

Castsequence resets x seconds after the last successful action.

It's possible we're balanced to AOE tank in DPS gear overall. Think about it:

- low chance of insta-gib
- balanced at less threat than tank gear
- SD becomes more effective the closer it comes to absorbing full hits, which AOE situations provide; it should also absorb more as you're close to guaranteed a block every swipe, essentially

I stopped using my castsequence macro, it was far too annoying when I pop berserk and don't have an easily accessable key for mangle. Looks like it's back to priority tanking, I don't tank a lot of encounters anyway, I'm mostly dps.

A question for Loryli, you say you use your macro after the first few attacks for the entire fight, what about Berserk?

I recently obtained [Tortured Earth] from General Vezax's 10-Hard. Since the updated 226 -> 232 stats isn't up yet on MMO-Champion, I went to PTR and got the screenshot of it for the curious: here

Compared to [Twisted Visage], you get:

+44 AP
+2 FAP
+10 stam
+2 gem slots (yellow)

-32 Agil
-13 crit rating
-14 hit rating


So this is a nice alternative to Twisted Visage. Since I don't need hit and gemmed them with 2 x 16 Agil, it will be a choice between 44 AP/10 Stam vs. 13 crit rating.

However I am still a little bit bummed out that [Origin of Nightmares] will probably be the last and best mitigation tanking weapon.

[Origin of Nightmares] will be a "freak" weapon I think. Something to twink your stats when you need a lot of stamina. Good to have for stamina fights, and depending on your role you use it more often then not. I found myself using it only a few times since I got the Twisted Visage.

Item bloat is a really weak excuse(from Ghost Crawler) when they still have melee staffs and spell power plate in game. Make them polearms or maces and DKs can use them too. Problem solved.

EDIT: I can understand GC's OTHER reasons. Saying you designed the class around using a DPS weapon is fine. But don't bring up item bloat.

Considering that those stats are 'needed' for PVP, I guess I can see why they'd be stacked on Arena gear. The failing comes when there's no PVE alternative (And no, having resilience on a stick for 'gimp threat' and 'less SD effectiveness' doesn't invalidate its use on pure survival fights, like Thorim or Steelbreaker on roids)

I can understand and agree why having bonus armor on staves should become an obsolete mechanic (in which case readjust Origin of Nightmares already so that it can get banked!) but I honestly don't see why there can't be at least 1-2 high stam/agility staves/polearms out of the dozen that drop in Ulduar. As it is they're more or less carbon copies of each other except you get to choose if you want hit or not on your weapon.

Even stuff like spellpower leather have variants in some slots with an absurdly high amount of stamina for certain fights. I know there's a spellpower shield, of all things, with 89 stam on it. Spellpower staves have varying amounts of stam. Why not physical dps staves/polearms?

Blizzard is at a crossroads right now with bear design. They've taken the incremental approach at revising our mechanics and removing things that become "overpowered". The sad thing is, for whatever reason, they decided that stacking stamina and agility is OK, so long as items don't have too much of it.

The problem is, solving the problem with itemization is the wrong path. They can't not itemize the PvP gear the way they have been, and it would be hard to eliminate resist gear as it is designed from the game (otherwise, they're simply disposing of a functioning mechanic because of our quarter of a class). They need to revise mechanics (again) and stop the absurd scaling with stamina and agility, and make non-PvP stats (like, say, haste rating) mean something for PvE.

Speaking of itemization, anyone think they're not putting enough of our primary stat(agi) on our gear compared to the other tanks? Agi->dodge scales comparatively to dodge, and if you consider iMoTW, SoTF, BoK, it scales better than defense too.

Playing around in Rawr, the avoidance on our BIS gear is around 65%, while paladin and death knight BIS is around 71-73%(depends on frost or blood obviously) if you gem for avoidance. The warrior module was wigging out on me, so I wasn't able to analyze that. I tend to gem for agility(after reaching X max boss hits), so my BIS suit has almost no miss and only 2.35% parry. I notice the other tanks have much higher miss/dodge/parry on their attacks, especially the DK. Is this supposed to even out the difference in avoidance? Even if that difference stays the same, as we continue into the next tier, that difference will account for a much bigger damage intake and will far offset any advantage we have now(pawblock, AC, and/or hp).

Apologies for the "jump in". The question of which enchant (Mongoose vs Blood Draining) was asked in the FBN thread, but since I'm not really using FBN for the simulation I think the answer belongs here (also the FBN thread is a lot more dps-oriented).

I've added the code for BD in my simulator, but (as usual ) the results are very hard to interpret. I can't offer a single one-word suggestion. Both can be "better" depending on (I fear) more parameters than a simulation can take into account.

The full story (brace for impact!): tanking simulations have a major problem which pops up every time: how do you model healing.

One solution is the TTL approach, i.e. extract the boss' average DPS and use to against stamina to see how long you can survive without heals. The problem of a TTL simulation is that it only gives the average value, but no information of the TTL distribution which is usually complex, due to the fact that incoming damage is discrete and non-negligible compared to the HP pool. With a hard-hitting boss the distribution is so wide that talking of an "average TTL" is basically a joke (see for example this one)

Enter healing: how do you model healing? Right now I'm using a "perfect reactive healing" approach. Note that while this may be realistic for some healing classes, who rely on sp/haste and heal when they see the tank taking damage, it's totally unappropriate for HoT-based healing which (by definition) must be proactive. In math terms this means that if at t=t0 the tank takes D damage, then at t=t0+dt the tank will receive exactly D healing. I've set dt at 5 seconds, which may sound a lot, but in fights where the healers need to move around or focus on raid healing I find this reasonable.
The problem of this approach is that it introduces an interesting effect in the HP/time distribution. I think it's easier if I include an image:



The graph is the result of one of my simulations and shows the "cumulative dwell time" for each HP value. Since this is probably unclear, the curve is obtained doing the following: for every value of your HP (h), store how much time is spent at that value, let's call it a function T(h). The graph shows the integral from -infinity to x of T(h). The vertical scale is normalized to the simulation time, which means that at HP=maxHP its value is 1 (you always spend time at less then your maxHP, the sim is not using SI or other gimmicks).

The "staircase" appearance is the alias resulting from the perfect healing which is modeled. Basically due to the large hits from the boss (here around 17k average) compared to the HP pool (here 45k). Since the healing is delayed by 5 seconds the flat areas of the curve represent Hp values which are never reached (where T(h)=0 -> integral is constant). Non-perfect reactive healing and proactive healing will alter the curve, but I don't know exactly how the shape is changed: the harder the boss hits the more the curve will look like this, the less it hits or the more its hits are predictable, the more it will deviate from this. I'm working on a log analyzer to see what kind of data I can extract from the my tanking logs. Still, for the moment this is what I can model, so bear with me.

The "staircase" appearance has a nasty consequence on the interpretation of the results, which are used to extract the values of the stat coefficients or, in the case of special enchants, how good an enchant is compared to the other. Since what we care about here is "does the tank die or live", the answer depends critically on if the HP=0 line crosses the curve at the middle of a flat step or in the steep sloped area which separates them.

The 1st scenario corresponds to the case where your HP are so low that one more hit WILL kill you. In this case stamina and blood draining are irrelevant: unless you can stack up enough life to shift the curve to the right to the point where the HP=0 line leaves the flat area the effect will be the same: the next hit will kill you. In this case avoidance is king (expertise together with avoidance, since it prevents the next hit from arriving earlier).
The 2nd scenario is when the next hit may or may not kill you. In this case stamina/BD will rule compared to avoidance: the slope of the curve is so high that stacking some more HP vastly overshadows avoidance. If you want, when you look at the TTL coefficients for stamina, imagine that the coefficient is averaged on all hp values, but there are many HP values when it's actually 0, which means that the coefficient is huge when it's not zero (coefficient is 3-5x times depending on how random the incoming damage is).

So you see how answering BD vs Mongoose is hard.... a lot of assumptions must be made.
It's also hard to see "hands-on". While the effect of BD will be visible (you see your health bar at 1k and you know BD saved your ass), the effect of mongoose is more subtle since it could have made you avoid one hit who would have killed you, but you can't see this.....

One more final data: I was surprised at how little BD stacks up. I'm using the data from wowhead and the internal 10 second CD + 50% proc only from normal attacks (= none, assuming 100% maul) + bleed (only lacerate) means that it can take more than 1 minute to build up a full stack. With a hard-hitting boss and 5 second heal delay it's easy to end up at less than 35%, so the numbers look like this (SD added for comparison):

546 HP healed per application means a little more than one stack on average.

I'm pretty sure maul attacks, like heroic strikes for warriors, still allow the autoattack-only procs to go off.

That's a great graph, Helistar-- if only WWS or WOL or WMO produced pretty graphs like that after the fact!

I'd be willing to bet he's better geared than you, and specced for threat. Currently your spec is missing several key talents (Ferocity and Primal Precision) while grabbing statistically weak talents (Feral Aggression, Intensity) If you want to generate more threat but keep the core survivability, I suggest something more along the lines of:
The World of Warcraft Armory