Cataclysm Tanking/Protection Field Manual :: Updated Feb 9, 2011 (4.0.6) - Page 9

• malthrin · 01/06/11, 2:21 PM

Total on the character sheet with healing/tanking sets.

Theck · 01/06/11, 2:45 PM

What's your SP in the tanking gear set, since I'm assuming some of that 6k AP came from STR?

Here are the average values from your spreadsheet:

  AP      SP   WoG Size
 753     254   6970 
 753*   6236   10726
6001     ???   11170

*Assumed

Your spreadsheet seems to assume that WoG scaling is based on max(AP,SP), because it's calculating (heal-6400)/ap and (heal-6400)/sp to get its coefficients. This gives average coefficients of 0.79 for AP and 0.69 for SP from the last two gear sets. However, the data in the spreadsheet conflicts with this assumption in three ways:
1) The naked gear sets doesn't give the same scaling coefficients (0.75 for AP and 2.24 for SP) . This means that either the base heal value (6400) is incorrect, or that WoG scales with both AP and SP, not max(AP,SP).
2) Under the max(AP,SP) asumption, gear set 2 should be giving a higher average WoG size than gear set 3.
3) Under the max(AP,SP) assumption, comparing gear sets 3 and 1 gives you a significantly different coefficient (0.685) than gear sets 2 and 1 (0.800).

I was under the assumption that WoG scaled with both, but I'll admit I haven't ever looked that carefully at it. I think your data set is enough to suggest that it's not max(AP,SP). (As always, small sample sizes can be deceiving).

Under the assumption that WoG does scale with both AP and SP independently, your data is enough to give us the SP coefficient. The first two gear sets give an average SP coefficient of (10726-6970)/(6236-254)=0.628. Without knowing the SP in gear set #3, it's not possible to calculate the AP scaling coefficient.

James71 · 01/06/11, 3:02 PM

Originally Posted by Charybdis

The additional runspeed is notable because it apparently stacks with PoJ.

Originally Posted by Theck

The run speed stacking is welcome news to me, that would negate my biggest gripe about the enchant (which is that I didn't expect it to stack with PoJ).

Has anyone confirmed this as accurate? Does Windwalk stack with PoJ?
Various other sources say that PoJ does not stack with other effects.

Has there been any further recommendation yet on Windwalk vs Mending as the better Weapon Enchant for Paladin Tanks?

I put Mending on my weapon and it does seem minor in terms of total effect.
10% proc rate, so it will heal you about once every 26 seconds for about 800 health.
With most fights lasting about 60-90 seconds, that adds 1,600 to 2,400 health to you.
It appears to be helpful, but with 140,000 health total and hard hitting Cata mobs, it ain't gonna save you from anything.

It would seem to me that if Windwalk just creates one exta successful dodge during a fight, it would more than outweigh the healing effects of Mending over the entire fight.

• malthrin · 01/06/11, 3:36 PM

You're absolutely right, I assumed the calculation would be a max function rather than incorporating both. No wonder raid buffs make such a difference. Anyway, my tank set's spellpower is 1828.

Saltycracker · 01/06/11, 4:10 PM

Re: Trinkets

Right now I am using Leaden Despair and Symbiotic Worm. If in the future Blizzard continues to make tanking trinkets where something really good happens when you dip below 35%, this might revert tanks back to stacking stamina, as that 35% threshold gets higher and higher. Tanks might be able to dip below that 35% threshold and still have a couple boss hits left in them in addition to getting a metric ton of armor/mastery/avoidance. This would then help healers get you back in the green without using a ton of panic heals.

Cooldown strategy would then become being proactive about using them rather than panicing when your health dips very low, reducing the incoming damage taken BEFORE things get dicey; Using GOAK when you need to take some focus off the tank and more on the raid, and DP for periodic broadcasted attacks. I haven't really found AD to be much use in terms of an extra life and more in terms of just a damage reduction cooldown. AD seems most useful for dragon bosses where you are at low health and you know a magic breath is coming.

James71 · 01/06/11, 4:53 PM

(Patch notes 4.0.6)
Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.

Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.

There was some dispute before as to whether CS or HotR were better for single targets, not sure if that was clearly established.

There seems to be no doubt now after this patch. CS is it.

Theck · 01/06/11, 5:48 PM

Originally Posted by malthrin

You're absolutely right, I assumed the calculation would be a max function rather than incorporating both. No wonder raid buffs make such a difference. Anyway, my tank set's spellpower is 1828.

  AP      SP   WoG Size
 753     254    6970 
 753    6236   10726
6001    1828   11170

(11170-6970-1828*0.628)/(6001-753) = 0.509

So the SP coefficient is ~0.628, and the AP coefficient is ~0.509. There are still a few questions to be answered, because we've made some assumptions, but that gives us something to start on.

Example: There's good reason to believe that the WoG glyph and GbtL are additive instead of multiplicative, simply because many other effects of that type (CS/HotR glyphs, WotL, Crusade) are additive. That would skew our coefficients a bit (~1-2% error). That's not of great concern for the quick and dirty calculations, though.

Ventris · 01/08/11, 9:33 AM

just a quick question, I may have missed this or be retarded. but if we're pushing mastery wouldn't the str/mastery head enchant be superior to the stam/dodge one? a loss of 90 stam while gaining while gaining 35 mastery and some str. would this be considered a viable option?

Talishar · 01/08/11, 2:00 PM

Originally Posted by Ventris

just a quick question, I may have missed this or be retarded. but if we're pushing mastery wouldn't the str/mastery head enchant be superior to the stam/dodge one? a loss of 90 stam while gaining while gaining 35 mastery and some str. would this be considered a viable option?

Edit: I did the numbers

Str/Mastery: 0.13% Damage reduce + 180 AP
Stam/Dodge: ~1250 HP + 125 AP + 0.20% dodge (before DR)

Because we get 10% AP from total health, it's better at this point to get the stam/dodge enchant. AP is close enough to the str/mastery enchant and atm threat is a non-issue. If you're worried about losing the dodge due to DR, reforge dodge off of your helm or another item into mastery.

The net benefit atm is higher with the stam/dodge enchant than the str/mastery.

Wrathblood · 01/08/11, 4:44 PM

I just did a little math on the engy helmets, and I'm trying to get a better grip on how good Engy is for tanks. On the plus side, there's still plenty of flexibility to be had. Bolt gun for interrupts, grenades, bombs, explosives, all of which can be valuable, but from a nuts and bolts "How does this compare to getting a big chunk of STAM from another profession?" standpoint the answer is minimal to zero.

The centerpiece is the Engy helmets. When I did the math on them originally they looked pretty good, especially as a relatively easily accessible pre-raid purple. However, now that a full list of drops is available, its clear that they (including cogwheels) have the exact same itemization budget as any other ilevel 359 helm (look up the dps helm of Cho-gall and its obvious).

While they have some advantage in flexibility (+208 Mastery and +208 Parry is pretty nice), every other helm in that category has a regular gem slot which the engy helm lacks (the budgets are still even, this just means that the other helms have their own measure of flexibility), and the regular 359 helm wearers could slot a primary stat gem if they so desired which an engy helm wearer could not do. So, the engy helm's flexibility advantage is in fact less than it appears, and throw in that the socket bonus (though extremely easily obtained) is for a non-tanking stat, and I think the BEST you could do would be call them even.

So, if there's no value to be had in the helm (on the bright side, this means that if there's no up-graded engy helm available in the next tier, it won't be a value loss), the value of Engy is in the deflector plates (1500 armor with 20% uptime, so 300 armor which is 75 itemization points, in the neighborhood of the 80 points awarded by other professions) and the belt which saves an average of 18k damage every 5 minutes (60 damage/second, though the belt has the potential to aoe taunt, the consequences of which could range from wipe-inducing to irrelevant).

However, every other "good" tanking profession provides STAM. While the debate between EH and mitigation/avoidance is far from settled, I'd argue that most paladin tanks consider STAM and Mastery at least reasonably close in terms of value per itemization point. Some may value one over the other, but I don't think anyone considers it a landslide. and If one was clearly superior people would be starting discuss it and I haven't seen anything compelling either way yet. Armor, as we've learned, is about 0.56 as valuable as Mastery per itemization point.

If Mastery and STAM are close, and armor is only a little better than half as good as Mastery, then the deflector plates are worth around 40 points. Thus, the belt tinker has to be worth roughly 40 itemization points for Engy to not fall behind. Measuring STAM vs the belt absorb is a little tricky, but lets say we could take those points in Mastery instead. 40 itemization points of Mastery in ilevel 359 gear is worth roughly 0.45% reduction in melee damage taken.

So, if belt was perfectly reliable, melee damage would have to be around 4M over the course of the fight for damage reduction from the 40 itemization points to even out. That's a lot. Maybe Engy's a stronger tanking profession than we've been giving it credit.

Hmm. Anyone know how frequently the belt malfunctions?

Zigizi · 01/08/11, 5:26 PM

Originally Posted by Wrathblood

Hmm. Anyone know how frequently the belt malfunctions?

There are 3 potential malfunctions of the belt.

The first is Painful Shock, and is actually kind of interesting because it's an aoe taunt effect. It's actually usually pretty good for tanks (but can cause problems if you're off tanking or if you're not supposed to tank adds).

The second, Magnetized, stuns you, making you unable to move or cast anything, but it is not actually that bad for a tank. From what I could tell, it does not prevent you from blocking or parrying, like other stuns. Of course, the snare could be fatal in certain situations so you always have to be aware that that is a potential backfire.

The last is Reversed Shield, which increases your chance to be crit. I really am unclear on how this acts in PvE if you have pushed crits off the attack table.

From my experience, the backfires are fairly rare, but I haven't been able to find any hard documentation on the percentages.

Theras · 01/08/11, 5:36 PM

I've actually had great results using "Cardboard Tom Cruise" on my belt: The Cardboard Assassin - Spell - World of Warcraft.

The Cardboard Assassin will spawn with 75k health, and will taunt anything standing next to it. I haven't done any serious testing on what its armor looks like (though if I had to guess a number I'd say it's "zero"), but even if it ends up getting one-shot, that's a full hit that it takes for you. In many cases that could conceivably be far more valuable than the 20k absorb shield tinker. Better yet, it doesn't ever malfunction.

There's also a lot of snazzy tricks you can do with it in Heroics. For example, I use it pretty regularly to take a few seconds of hits from the snake pit on the Temple Guardian Anhurr encounter, giving me a head start getting back upstairs to interrupt the boss. It's also pretty dandy if you bugger up your kite on Forgemaster Throngus in Grim Batol, or need to create some space on Setesh's adds when Holy Wrath is on cooldown.

If you're an engineer, I'd highly encourage you to give it a whirl.

Feebs · 01/08/11, 10:11 PM

Originally Posted by Wrathblood

Mastery/Avoidance vs Stamina

You indicate that the battle between Sta and Mastery is close whereas I would have to disagree with you. I don't have a WoL comparison at this time, however I can say that in the field, there is a definite difference in stacking sta vs stacking mastery. The short of it in my experience is that while stacking STA I have more HP to heal and burn mana on that ping pongs up and down vs having 10-15kish less hp that remains steady and drops predictably. I regularly take less damage than any tank that I tank against that may or may not be gemming/gearing for avoidance.

Although common sense may not be an acceptable form of evidence, I'm fairly certain that once we have the ability to block cap through whatever sacrifice to HP, this will become more apparent. Although we can't "avoid" any large magical damage that can only be soaked by HP, I'm finding that Divine Protection is off cooldown for almost anything that can kill me. If for some reason there is a large unavoidable magic attack in heroic modes that for whatever reason I wont have the HP for, then I'll simply reglyph Divine Protection for 40% magical damage reduction given that melee hits will not be an issue post block cap.

Nyxiana · 01/08/11, 11:00 PM

I read in the manual that it is important to balance dodge/parry when 102.4% total avoidance is reached. How is this done? Should they be balanced at 10% ? Or just try to be as low as possible?

Talishar · 01/08/11, 11:21 PM

Originally Posted by Nyxiana

I read in the manual that it is important to balance dodge/parry when 102.4% total avoidance is reached. How is this done? Should they be balanced at 10% ? Or just try to be as low as possible?

You want them to be as high as possible. Block is only 30% DR, whereas dodge/parry are 100% DR. Ideally you'd want 102.4% dodge/parry so you'd never get hit, but it'd be impossible to reach because of DR. Right now, you're better to assign your stats to mastery because you can't reach the cap without some crazy gemming to get as much mitigation as possible.

Before 102.4% avoidance mastery > dodge = parry.
After 102.4% avoidance dodge = parry > mastery.