Speaking of mana efficiency and maximizing threat, is there any consideration to using a SoV/SoR rotation while offtanking? (Obviously, Alliance-only option here.) IE, SoV... Judge, SoR... Judge, rinse, repeat. The idea would be to stack the 15 second DoT from SoV AND also get a significant benefit from the higher per-swing damage of SoR, allowing some freedom to down-rank consecration and have the same threat output.
SoR obviously scales much better with spell damage, but SoV has a really nice judgment and a very high base DoT. It seems like if you could get a 100% SoV DoT + 50% SoR damage you would be giving yourself quite a threat boost. Or is it simply too risky to get a refresh on the SoV DoT in the 7 seconds you have left after going through 8 second of SoR, between resists, dodges/parries, and the proc chance?
My paladin just got SoV now, and he obviously hasn't had a chance to tank any raid bosses with it, being level 64. I will see if I can pull this rotation on some 5-man bosses, though, and see how it works out.
I personally find that it's too risky. SoV just falls off of boss mobs way too fast. Whether or not it refreshes the stack is luck based and there's not much that we can do about it other than inefficiently spacking spell hit if you are using a 1.6 or 1.8 speed weapon. I sometimes have a 5-stack fall off even when it's the only seal I'm using. However, it is well known that using a slower weapon greatly helps SoV uptime. One thing that you could do is build the 5-stack using your spelldamage weapon then after the 5-stack is up, you can switch to the Lower City Exalted mace. This 2.4 speed weapon is supposedly extremely good at keeping SoV up.
Either way, if you're alliance you have a huge OT advantage over horde paladins because of SoV. I would go crazy if I were horde and this is something that I think they really need to give to BE pallies. The advantage comes from the fact that you can pop trinkets, get PI, get spelldamage procs etc. then proceed to build up a stack with what would effectively be more than 1,000 spelldamage.
I gotta say, I sorta hate when people say this as a tank. In fact, I think it's the exact opposite, and minimizing damage intake while safely minimizing mana throughput is far and away the most important thing. If people wanted someone to solely come in and hold aggro, they'd find their nearest friendly lock.
I don't think it's reasonable to minimize damage too much; if you minimize damage too much, you minimize your threat too much and can't down anything in a reasonable amount of time. That's why I said 'safely' maximize damage taken. Safe isn't taxing your healers too much. Safe isn't being able to be killed in a flurry or a series of lucky blows.
Really, you should take enough damage to maintain your threat cycle. You don't want to take much more than that, and you don't want to take much less. Sorry if I wasn't clearer with that statement.
As to keeping SoV up with slower vs. faster weapons, someone did some theorycrafting on this at maintankadin, and it turns out that the difference is fairly minor. Slower weapons win out, but it's only like a 2% difference. Some others have given some really astonishing numbers on SoV/SoR rotation TPS success though, where it's upped their TPS by a few hundred given the same spelldamage.
For very specific fights, yes. But for the vast majority at T5+, SA easily exceeds mana expenditure such that 30 int isn't even worth 1 SD, it's just plain worthless. That's the problem with it. It would be just fine if it gave a secondary benefit such as, oh, about 1% dodge per 25 Intellect.
I agree. Sorry; I should've said 'is 8 SD worth 30 Int?' When you're maintanking I don't think it's an issue ever; no amount of int is worth any SD. For offtanking it becomes a more reasonable question, but even then I believe it comes out in favor pretty much any time the fight lasts longer than a few minutes.
Well #1 if it misses you're busy chasing birds around the board.
We have a holy paladin healing with Improved RF and no salv up, so 85% of the time I know where the birds are going anyway. Since I specced for Precision in 2.3 I don't think I've ever had a problem getting aggro on both birds between RD and AS. If one does get missed, the healadin can easily stun/self-heal until RD cools down or until I pick up aggro on it through consecration.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
We have a holy paladin healing with Improved RF and no salv up, so 85% of the time I know where the birds are going anyway. Since I specced for Precision in 2.3 I don't think I've ever had a problem getting aggro on both birds between RD and AS. If one does get missed, the healadin can easily stun/self-heal until RD cools down or until I pick up aggro on it through consecration.
In our alt-group TK run, which my paladin helps tank for, this is exactly what I do as well. The holy pally in question can even holy shock the bird in question if it decided to go after someone else, and drag it over.
I'm working on adjusting my set for that particular fight. Something like [Ashyen's Gift] is much better than a 2nd tank ring, for example. The Embers are level 70 IIRC, so you really only need 475 def as well.
As to keeping SoV up with slower vs. faster weapons, someone did some theorycrafting on this at maintankadin, and it turns out that the difference is fairly minor. Slower weapons win out, but it's only like a 2% difference. Some others have given some really astonishing numbers on SoV/SoR rotation TPS success though, where it's upped their TPS by a few hundred given the same spelldamage.
That is correct that the difference is minor, given that faster weapons get more chances to refresh the stack despite the lower proc rate. And while you can theoretically bounce between SoV and SoR for crazy threat gains, it's almost never worthwhile because your chance to lose the SoV stack skyrockets. I used to try things like this and had very poor returns on it, so I switched to just using SoV/JoV for sustained threat. But even then I was losing the stack from time to time, even on fights like Prince where you're basically standing in one place the entire fight (barring crappy infernal placement). A quick look at some math shows why...
Assume a 2.0s weapon with 3/3 Precision and 5/5 Combat Expertise and no +hit gear for sake of analysis, attacking a level 73 target. I'll be using "best guess" numbers for dodge/parry since countless WWS parses haven't determined exact numbers yet.
* Chance to miss boss on any given swing = 9.00% - 3.00% from Precision = 6.00%
* Chance for boss to dodge any given swing = 5.60% - 1.25% from Expertise = 4.35%
* Chance for boss to parry any given swing = 11.20% - 1.25% from Expertise = 9.95%
* Chance to proc SoV on weapon hit = 2.0s / 3.0s = 66.67%
* Chance for said proc to not be resisted = 83.00% + 3.00% from Precision = 86.00%
In order for SoV to even have a chance at proccing, you need to hit or crit your target. Given these numbers, the chance of this happening is 100.00% - 6.00% (miss) - 4.35% (dodge) - 9.95% (parry) = 79.70%. If you actually land, the chance of the SoV stack incrementing/refreshing is 66.67% * 86.00% = 57.33%. So, every 2.0 seconds, the chance of SoV landing is your chance to hit/crit (79.70%) times the effective proc rate after resists (57.33%), or 45.69%. With a 2.0s weapon, you will average 7.5 attacks in the 15 second window you have to reapply SoV. So, at any point in the fight, the chance of a given swing starting a string of failed procs is (1-45.69%)^7.5, or 1.03%. In layman's terms, the odds of losing the stack at least once in a 5 minute fight consisting of 150 swings is about 2 in 3.
With only a 7 second window to refresh SoV after a SoR/JoR sequence, the chance to start a string of failed procs jumps to (1-45.69%)^3.5, or 11.81%. In a 5 minute fight you're virtually guaranteed to lose the stack multiple times in the fight, causing your overall threat generation to actually go down rather than up.
Now, this is a pure theorycraft scenario that ignores other factors that will make the odds much worse for you. Things like boss repositioning, stuns, fears, silences, etc. will all drastically reduce your chances of keeping the stack active. Long term, if you want to use SoV for sustained TPS, you'll need a fair amount of melee hit and spell hit gear to avoid plateaus that typically result in a DPSer pulling aggro and probably wiping the raid.
Given that it's already this risky just to keep SoV active, there's no way I can recommend trying to bounce between SoV and SoR for long-term threat generation.
As to comparing pally gear with/without, here's a good one: [Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian] vs [Justicar Chestguard] vs [Crystalforge Chestguard]. The stoic guardian has the most damage/healing, better stamina and better avoidance; what it doesn't have is int. Is 30 int worth 8 SD? For longer fights, yep. That doesn't mean you should get rid of the set bonus for T4, but it might be worth it for T5, especially given how good the chestpiece is in general (and how bad the 2-piece set bonus is for T5)
Anyway - long story short, paladins don't need intellect.
What bothers me is you don't explain yourself. You say "Look, this has less int, but more stamina and spell damage, and since intellect is useless, I therefor conclude that intellect is useless"
Each of those items were designed for different purposes. T5 was designed with Hyjal tanking in mind. Thus it is stacked with block value, block rating, and very little avoidance.
The heroic chest was designed with 10 man main tanking in mind. Thus it was loaded up with avoidance, spell damage, and not intellect, because you're going to be constantly taking damage in a MT role.
Int has a role to play. Because you don't see it in your day-to-day play doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There is limited situations where I use it to it's full extent, but I do need it from time to time.
Those times are:
Trash healing in tank gear in case mobs get loose.
Offtanking or building secondary threat on certain trash or target swapping bosses.
Offhealing on fights where I'm in tank gear, such as Kael Thas during gravity lapse. Mother Sharaz as a Saber Lash tank. Maybe supremus when I'm hateful tank.
Note that being a MT on any fight, or directly tanking a mob does not show up on that list.
This topic has gone around a bit -- honestly it would behoove everyone to keep in mind that you should *always* have different tanking suits for different situations. If I'm heroic tanking, INT does have some value, because it lets me go a few more pulls without having to stop to drink, because I like to chain pull. On the other hand, INT has basically 0 value if you are the MT, because you should be overflowing with mana from SA. For a hard hitting boss like Lynx in ZA, I want a pure tanking set, high in HP, good avoidance. I don't really care about spell damage quite as much, threat is secondary there to some degree. However, for Void Reaver, I don't need that kind of tank set. I can swap in some pieces with spell damage, and in fact I want to gear my set toward threat (and any secondary concern would be avoidance over HP, to try to avoid the knockaway) since I'm going to get plenty of heals and VR isn't exactly a place where you should gib.
Notice how all of those I gave different reasons? There is no tanking set that covers all possible situations. You mix and match depending on the particular fight and your role in it.
What bothers me is you don't explain yourself. You say "Look, this has less int, but more stamina and spell damage, and since intellect is useless, I therefor conclude that intellect is useless"
Did I?
Look at that chart again. For 100 int, you only need the equivalent of about 25-30 SD depending on how long the fight lasts for SD to be as good as int in overall threat generation for an offtank. That's using your numbers. Based on that, the chest of the stoic guardian is better than T4 or T5 for offtanking - at least by itself. If you factor in the T4 bonus that's better for offtanking, but the stoic guardian is better overall. The stoic guardian provides more pure avoidance, more stamina, and more spelldamage; it is better in general cases for MTing and it allows you to put out more threat in OT situations. Where it is not as good is in tanking adds, but that's mostly because of block value/rating; it has nothing to do with the int.
I also understood that the stoic guardian was actually designed for tanking in Hyjal/BT and was the bridge between T5 and T6 as you need more avoidance going forward. T5 is certainly good for tanking the waves of undead, but it's not particularly good for any of the boss encounters. Of course if you're not actually tanking those, it doesn't matter.
My point about the comparison in items is that pound for pound intellect is not nearly as useful a stat as spelldamage is, even in specific situations like you described. Is it completely useless? No; in some small cases it can be convenient or even decent. Then again, so is strength, but no one would ever say that strength was a stat that tankadins need.
I guess I'm alone in honestly having mana issues fairly often. I could make it easier on myself by using a lower threat rotation, but to be honest the idea of lower threat rotation makes my skin crawl- I'll take the hit and chain pot as fights require it. I also don't MT all that much so that's doubtless part of it, but it's fairly rare that I ever feel I have 'enough' aggro, and there's almost always something I can do to dump into more threat (you'd be shocked how often you can sneak in AS tosses). I have my threat suit (which is my VR suit really) and use that off and on on trash (once I know it), but mostly I just lump it and chug mana pots like they're going out of style. If it's an aoe pull I can usually sneak on a JoW, which helps.
I'd also like to...well, 5th or so, the comment about AS being used on the birds on Alar. I have my Conc aura up for phase 1, and that usually lets me get a shield off fairly reliably (we tank all the adds through till phase 2). I also wear a ranged hitcapped set and have not (yet) seen any misses or taunt resists- obviously that's a pretty big deal, and suprisingly easy to get (badge gloves, def/hit ring from H Tombs, neck from SV, trinket from Romeo/H BF, it's easier than it sounds). I wear a variation on the suit for Vashj and I've got to say the assurance that my stuff will hit is worth tons in peace of mind. Failing that, makr up the bird as it's coming down the stairs and have your melee watching, ready with a stun so you can pick it back up.
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
This comes back as a topic on every single class with mana. The time you can last until oom is almost a meaningless number for comparing to see what is actually better. Since after you're oom your mana regen is far from 0, the guy who lasted 10% longer than you actually did FAR LESS than 10% more threat than you. If a big enough portion of the mana comes from regen, and the guy that lasted longer did so purely because of his bigger starting mana pool, the difference in actual threat generated over the fight will be very small. If you do the theorycraft for "paladin A did 10k threat during the fight with the mana he had, while paladin B did 12k threat" you'll get a lot more useful numbers than if you say "paladin A lasted 10% longer than paladin B". Lasting longer hardly means anything, since you also need to calculate how much threat the short-lasting paladin was generating while oom, might as well just figure out how much each was able to do with his mana and not even bother claculating the meaningless value of "who lasted longer".
Calculating how much threat each could generate will give you far more useful numbers for comparing what's actually better.
On a side note, on 5-mans unless you're consistently going oom in the midst of the pull, int is the most useless stat ever. While higher mana pool allows more pulls without drinking, you also drink longer. If you add up the total time drinking you will spend less time drinking with more spell dmg than with more int, however you may obviously spend more actual drinks. Doing more threat/mana reduces time spent drinking back that mana. Having a bigger pool just means it takes both longer to drain it and longer to refill it, totalling in zero downtime reduction. Many forget that the number of drinks you spend has little to do with your actual downtime.
Look at that chart again. For 100 int, you only need the equivalent of about 25-30 SD depending on how long the fight lasts for SD to be as good as int in overall threat generation for an offtank. That's using your numbers. Based on that, the chest of the stoic guardian is better than T4 or T5 for offtanking - at least by itself.
Better than T4 perhaps, but certainly not better than T5. There's no way you can claim that 3 spelldamage is better than 27 intellect. Even compared to T4 it's 8 spelldamage vs 30 intellect, which is right about on par with the equivalency you're citing.
If you factor in the T4 bonus that's better for offtanking, but the stoic guardian is better overall. The stoic guardian provides more pure avoidance, more stamina, and more spelldamage; it is better in general cases for MTing and it allows you to put out more threat in OT situations. Where it is not as good is in tanking adds, but that's mostly because of block value/rating; it has nothing to do with the int.
T5 is better than Stoic Guardian for MTing as well. It loses roughly 60hp when bonuses are considered, but that's more than made up for by the extra armor and the block value applied to just one incoming attack (~66 with Shield Spec). The only advantage of Stoic Guardian is the extra dodge, but that's not a big deal if you're already crush-immune.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
It might be useful for people leveling prot pallies to have a link to this post from the old Paladin MT Viability thread, because it gives a pre-Kara gear set which can be used to get uncrushable. I had to do a bit of searching to find it again, and other people might not know it exists.
On a side note, on 5-mans unless you're consistently going oom in the midst of the pull, int is the most useless stat ever. While higher mana pool allows more pulls without drinking, you also drink longer. If you add up the total time drinking you will spend less time drinking with more spell dmg than with more int, however you may obviously spend more actual drinks. Doing more threat/mana reduces time spent drinking back that mana. Having a bigger pool just means it takes both longer to drain it and longer to refill it, totalling in zero downtime reduction. Many forget that the number of drinks you spend has little to do with your actual downtime.
I respectfully disagree, because I'd rather stop the group less to drink. When we do have to stop, then nobody cares if it takes 30 seconds to get to full, and other classes probably need to drink some by then. But if I have to stop every 3 pulls, it will vaugely annoy people. Having 1-2k extra mana means I might go several more pulls, since it's not "Oh that's just a few extra consecrates" -- it's an extra buffer of mana that is slowly drained depending on how much I cast and how much SA returns. To give a better example -- I'd rather do all the groups up to Nethekurse in Heroic SH in a row without having to stop to drink until we get to the door, rather than stop twice for drinking. Swapping in gear like [Figurine - Living Ruby Serpent], [Boots of the Righteous Path] and so on.
Additionally, if anyone has to drink it's the DPS casters for a few ticks, and meanwhile I've already started on the next pull with the healer/melee. This does two things -- the pull is already locked down, and I've gotten a fair bit of mana back either via JoW or SA, since I'll actually have some time to take damage. My healer is the least taxed out of everyone. A slightly bigger mana pool helps me here, because there's more to fill and I won't start a next pull if I'm below 1.5k mana.
This is just my experience from the heroics I like to run. Psychologically it just feels better for most people if you only have to stop a few times to drink, rather than repeatedly, even if it's shorter drinks. With approrpiate spell selection, I might have to stop once from Blood Guard Porung to Warbringer Om'rogg, stop before engaging him, stop after engaging him, and then stop before Kargath. On a side note, I view my healers mana bar as a mana potion for myself. If I'm finding myself mana starved, I'll make sure I position myself that I have my back to a few mobs in a pull once everything has been locked down, allowing myself to get hit a few more times to get mana back. Typically my healer is never really that stressed to begin with.
This is just my experience from the heroics I like to run. Psychologically it just feels better for most people if you only have to stop a few times to drink, rather than repeatedly, even if it's shorter drinks. With approrpiate spell selection, I might have to stop once from Blood Guard Porung to Warbringer Om'rogg, stop before engaging him, stop after engaging him, and then stop before Kargath. On a side note, I view my healers mana bar as a mana potion for myself. If I'm finding myself mana starved, I'll make sure I position myself that I have my back to a few mobs in a pull once everything has been locked down, allowing myself to get hit a few more times to get mana back. Typically my healer is never really that stressed to begin with.
I agree here, to a point. I've never found it a problem to drink for a few ticks while marking the next pull (Although with AoE threat it doesn't matter much, I do mark at least 2 targets in any pull 3+). Assuming you have mage biscuits, you end up with 1k regen in the 5 sec it take to mark and pull.
But, I've never really had anyone complain about my drinking. They are usually happy that aggro is generally locked down.
Although last night I did have a warrior in a rush to Attumen (we were trying to beat our record time), and a hunter that MD pulled the rest of the ballroom to me while I was looting Moroes (he thought I was taking too long). Fun times.
Assume a 2.0s weapon with 3/3 Precision and 5/5 Combat Expertise and no +hit gear for sake of analysis, attacking a level 73 target. I'll be using "best guess" numbers for dodge/parry since countless WWS parses haven't determined exact numbers yet.
* Chance to miss boss on any given swing = 9.00% - 3.00% from Precision = 6.00%
* Chance for boss to dodge any given swing = 5.60% - 1.25% from Expertise = 4.35%
* Chance for boss to parry any given swing = 11.20% - 1.25% from Expertise = 9.95%
* Chance to proc SoV on weapon hit = 2.0s / 3.0s = 66.67%
* Chance for said proc to not be resisted = 83.00% + 3.00% from Precision = 86.00%
In order for SoV to even have a chance at proccing, you need to hit or crit your target. Given these numbers, the chance of this happening is 100.00% - 6.00% (miss) - 4.35% (dodge) - 9.95% (parry) = 79.70%. If you actually land, the chance of the SoV stack incrementing/refreshing is 66.67% * 86.00% = 57.33%. So, every 2.0 seconds, the chance of SoV landing is your chance to hit/crit (79.70%) times the effective proc rate after resists (57.33%), or 45.69%. With a 2.0s weapon, you will average 7.5 attacks in the 15 second window you have to reapply SoV. So, at any point in the fight, the chance of a given swing starting a string of failed procs is (1-45.69%)^7.5, or 1.03%. In layman's terms, the odds of losing the stack at least once in a 5 minute fight consisting of 150 swings is about 2 in 3.
With only a 7 second window to refresh SoV after a SoR/JoR sequence, the chance to start a string of failed procs jumps to (1-45.69%)^3.5, or 11.81%. In a 5 minute fight you're virtually guaranteed to lose the stack multiple times in the fight, causing your overall threat generation to actually go down rather than up.
Could SoV/SoR juggling be a viable offtanking strategy on certain mobs (stationary, no silence, etc)?
Using those numbers, if you're standing behind the boss and only have to worry about misses taking away from your hits then your chance to have a stack drop off will be significantly decreased. Hitting 94% of the time, the chance of SoV being applied per swing goes up to 53.89%. Carrying that through, the chance of a given swing starting a string of failed procs in general is 0.30% (down from 1.03%) and the chance given you're trying to keep SoR up half the time falls to 6.66% (from 11.81%). And that's only going to get better as you include other +hit gear you may have gotten for other abilities.
I haven't worked the numbers yet, but I'd guess you need to look at how much of a hit your threat gen takes while you're building your 5-stack back up again (since it is likely going to fall off at least once), and whether the extra threat throughout makes up for it. Also will need to take into account that if your 5-stack is falling off, if you used tricks to stack your spell damage to inflate it, you may have less threat after it falls off if things are on cooldown. Is it worth the extra threat from working SoR into the mix, or would you be better off just sticking to one or the other? Any anecdotal experience?
I have to admit, a part of me cringes a bit at the unreliable aspect of it. Being solid and predictable seems huge, especially as a tank since so often dps gets a "feel" for how hard they can go on a given fight.
I agree here, to a point. I've never found it a problem to drink for a few ticks while marking the next pull (Although with AoE threat it doesn't matter much, I do mark at least 2 targets in any pull 3+). Assuming you have mage biscuits, you end up with 1k regen in the 5 sec it take to mark and pull.
I guess this depends on how you run stuff then, because I almost never mark anything -- outside of a skull for first target. CC is mostly taboo in any instance I run. No, seriously, I have to tell people "please don't CC, CC is for wimps." For SH I don't even mark anything since I assume the groups I run with know to kill the Legionnaire first, and even if they don't so what. :P
I guess I'm alone in honestly having mana issues fairly often.
Not at all, Bosses that like to look constantly at other classes to cast something or channel, I will run out of mana on if i refuse to pot. Rage is an example, not only does my threat get hurt becuase he doesn't really like to eat Holy shield up, but unless I diliberately take a few ticks of death and decay my output simply outstrips my intake in terms of mana. This is the same when tanking adds on Azgalor (especially if I'm killed by the summoning and have to go at it again starting at 50% mana with minimal buffs). I've all but run dry on Teron and Najentus also after extended avoidance streaks, but this is the same with warriors too, although I don't have to sacrifice my un-crushability for 'rage' to gen threat as Holy shield in and of itself is a beutiful thing.
\T5 is better than Stoic Guardian for MTing as well. It loses roughly 60hp when bonuses are considered, but that's more than made up for by the extra armor and the block value applied to just one incoming attack (~66 with Shield Spec). The only advantage of Stoic Guardian is the extra dodge, but that's not a big deal if you're already crush-immune.
Let's just say that the value of dodge is a bit argued about then. It certainly isn't 'not a big deal' against higher-end content.
I do agree - T5 is probably slightly better than Stoic Guardian for OTing. Slightly. T4 loses in both cases though unless you need it for the set bonus. Add that T5 has a higher ilvl, and it makes you really want that int spent elsewhere.
And are we really talking about how good heroic badge rewards and T5 are for doing 5-mans? Yeah, int is more convenient for doing that content repeatedly; it makes the runs go more smoothly. But I don't think that gearing for 5-mans should be the reason to itemize the raid tier gear in a certain way, nor is it a good justification for spending ilvl points on int. If you're wearing T4/T5 gear to do heroics, chances are you've maximized other things anyway and aren't wanting as much defense, avoidance, or even stamina in favor of spelldamage, block rating and block value. Would you really want that to be the itemization pattern? Int can be useful in that situation, but I'd rather go grab a couple trinkets or random rings than want it on the raid gear.
I also drink as I mark and set up the next pull; seems like a good time to do it in general. And marking is somewhat essential as I tend to have to run pugs.
Let's just say that the value of dodge is a bit argued about then. It certainly isn't 'not a big deal' against higher-end content.
It isn't a big deal. What matters more than anything in high-end MTing is being able to survive the worst-case scenario, and T5 is better than Stoic Guardian for that. The dodge may slightly reduce your chance of encountering that worst-case scenario, but it'll still happen, and when it does Crystalforge gives you a better chance to survive than Stoic Guardian.
I do agree - T5 is probably slightly better than Stoic Guardian for OTing. Slightly.
No, it's not slightly better. 450-odd mana (when you factor in BoK) is much better than 3 spelldamage for offtanking. There's nothing slight about that.
T4 loses in both cases though unless you need it for the set bonus.
Why does it lose for OTing? As I stated above, the difference between T4 and Stoic Guardian in intellect and spelldamage falls right in line with the equivalency you yourself stated above.
This is what Zedrich was talking about, incidentally -- you don't explain yourself.
Add that T5 has a higher ilvl, and it makes you really want that int spent elsewhere.
Speak for yourself. I'm damn glad to have a decent mana pool when I'm doing anything other than MTing a boss.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
Why does it lose for OTing? As I stated above, the difference between T4 and Stoic Guardian in intellect and spelldamage falls right in line with the equivalency you yourself stated above.
This is what Zedrich was talking about, incidentally -- you don't explain yourself.
I did explain myself, but I'll do it again. 8 SD is better than 30 int because you do more overall threat for longer fights (and if they're that short it likely doesn't matter), it's better in the MT case, and it does more burst damage combined with AW. I didn't put that directly into the calculations shown but I mentioned it; basically, each spelldamage point is worth .65 TPS for the first 20 seconds, then .5 TPS afterwards. That wasn't what was used in the base calculations, (.5 was it) but you can see that it will improve at a higher rate. Not hugely, true, but it does mean the chart looks like this:
seconds SD required to be equivalent to 100 int
60 213.6363636
120 111.9047619
180 75.80645161
240 57.31707317
300 46.07843137
360 38.52459016
420 33.09859155
480 29.01234568
540 25.82417582
600 23.26732673
A fight needs to be 7-8 minutes long for stoic guardian to outperform T4. Alternately, if the fight is less than 100 seconds, Stoic will always outperform T4.
It isn't a big deal. What matters more than anything in high-end MTing is being able to survive the worst-case scenario, and T5 is better than Stoic Guardian for that. The dodge may slightly reduce your chance of encountering that worst-case scenario, but it'll still happen, and when it does Crystalforge gives you a better chance to survive than Stoic Guardian.
I still don't see that as entirely true, especially since the stoic guardian gives you more HP. Is more HP worth more than block value? Is it worth more when you factor in dodge as well? There are quite a few high-end tanks liking the avoidance as well. Too much avoidance is a bad thing, but you can't go with 40% avoidance into Hyjal/BT content and expect to do well as MT. I know of very few paladin MTs that go in with a very high block value set into T6 content.
No, it's not slightly better. 450-odd mana (when you factor in BoK) is much better than 3 spelldamage for offtanking. There's nothing slight about that.
No, it's slightly better. T4 is slightly worse than the stoic guardian, which is slightly worse than T5. We are not talking about a significant difference here; 450 mana allows an extra 3 seconds of the threat cycle listed above at 800 TPS, or 2400 threat. 3 SD allows an extra 1.5-1.6 TPS for the lifetime of the fight, or about 800-900 total threat depending on the length of the fight (in that example I used an 8 minute fight) 1500 threat over the life of a battle is not a lot; you'd gain more threat by unequipping and re-equipping your sword and shield and getting SA. For an 8 minute fight we're talking a difference of 3 TPS. We are at best talking marginal differences. If you want bigger differences, you have to maximize your mana-starved damage. To do that, I would imagine you'd have to equip a warrior tanking weapon, use seal of blood if it's available, and rely more heavily on melee damage. Or as I said above, downrank more aggressively, but I've still not seen a source on the downranking coefficients on SoR/JoR.
Finally, I'm sorry for the derail on this; this is way too trivial of a point to be making about something in this thread, and is not particularly useful for protection builds to know one way or another. I apologize and will refrain from making further comments on this subject in the future.
A fight needs to be 7-8 minutes long for stoic guardian to outperform T4. Alternately, if the fight is less than 100 seconds, Stoic will always outperform T4.
It's not the length of the fight that matters, it's how long you're offtanking. When you lose threat on Voidreaver, it's almost always more than 100 seconds but less than 7 minutes before you pick it up again (and thus get a free mana refill.)
I still don't see that as entirely true, especially since the stoic guardian gives you more HP. Is more HP worth more than block value?
Stoic Guardian is roughly 60 extra hp factoring in bonuses. Crystalforge is 66 extra block value with Shield Spec. Ergo, even if you're getting one-shot, Crystalforge lets you survive a larger burst. Much more likely if you're getting bursted to death is that you're getting 3 or 4-shot, in which case Crystalforge is worth effectively another 140-200 hp. The only exception is when you're taking exclusively magic damage.
Too much avoidance is a bad thing, but you can't go with 40% avoidance into Hyjal/BT content and expect to do well as MT. I know of very few paladin MTs that go in with a very high block value set into T6 content.
Block value contributes to burst survivability. Dodge contributes to healer mana endurance. The first is the bigger concern on 80%+ of raid encounters. Improved Holy Shield will never run out of charges in a single-tanking situation, so the chief reason for a prot warrior to stack avoidance -- conservation of block charges -- doesn't apply to us.
And even the healer-endurance argument isn't terribly strong. A tank that stacks avoidance may take less damage overall, but it'll be more spiky and result in a lot more overheals and generally more aggressive casting by the healers. A tank that stacks block value will take smoother and more predictable damage, resulting in less mana wasted on overhealing.
No, it's slightly better. T4 is slightly worse than the stoic guardian, which is slightly worse than T5. We are not talking about a significant difference here; 450 mana allows an extra 3 seconds of the threat cycle listed above at 800 TPS, or 2400 threat.
This is silly, because it assumes there's no mana coming in, which is never the case regardless of the fight. If it were true, no paladin could ever OT for longer than a minute.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
I still don't see that as entirely true, especially since the stoic guardian gives you more HP. Is more HP worth more than block value? Is it worth more when you factor in dodge as well? There are quite a few high-end tanks liking the avoidance as well. Too much avoidance is a bad thing, but you can't go with 40% avoidance into Hyjal/BT content and expect to do well as MT. I know of very few paladin MTs that go in with a very high block value set into T6 content.
No, it's slightly better. T4 is slightly worse than the stoic guardian, which is slightly worse than T5. We are not talking about a significant difference here; 450 mana allows an extra 3 seconds of the threat cycle listed above at 800 TPS, or 2400 threat. 3 SD allows an extra 1.5-1.6 TPS for the lifetime of the fight, or about 800-900 total threat depending on the length of the fight (in that example I used an 8 minute fight) 1500 threat over the life of a battle is not a lot; you'd gain more threat by unequipping and re-equipping your sword and shield and getting SA. For an 8 minute fight we're talking a difference of 3 TPS. We are at best talking marginal differences. If you want bigger differences, you have to maximize your mana-starved damage. To do that, I would imagine you'd have to equip a warrior tanking weapon, use seal of blood if it's available, and rely more heavily on melee damage. Or as I said above, downrank more aggressively, but I've still not seen a source on the downranking coefficients on SoR/JoR.
I don't agree with you, but I honestly think we're mostly at the personal play preference level here. You are entirely neglecting the case where you fill up your mana pool completely (and then at some point empty it), which I find to be a pretty common case actually, even if the fight itself isn't normally high enough incoming dps where I can maintain full-bore for any length of time. OTing Gruul is a great example of this because of the size of the hits.
I'm not a big fan of Int on gear as a rule, and I'm pretty happy with my ~7k raid buffed (with no desire for any more). However, I've got to agree that the T5 BP is superior to the Badge one by more than a passing amount (sidebar: what the hell? those set bonuses?). HP is good, but loses out to block value and AC in most cases (like this one specificly) since you can pretty much always assume every hit will be blocked. You can certainly count me as a T6 tank who stacks block value for quite a few fights, and I run around with a healthy 517 even in my standard suit (my block value suit has me at 840ish), hankering for more. Because of block adding post mitigation it's highly significant, and since an unblocked hit can crush you should be working pretty damn hard to always be blocking.
In addition, I'm starting to dislike dodge. More and more often, it's avoidance streaks which make healers zone out and fail to bounce back when I start taking regular hits. I try to keep defense as close to 490 as I can, while keeping dodge +parry to sub 38%. Healers don't run oom healing me and find me easy to heal specifically because I tend towards steady high AC/high block/high hp- all dodge and parry do past a point is save healer mana, and our healers tend not to run OOM anymore.
Gotta say, your idea of swapping out the weapon and back in is absolutely fantastic. I can do that back and forth for when the boss isn't hitting me for anything noticable (Sup prince?), and that'll make me a little less neurotic.
On a personal note, I hit my current max hp last night of 22627 hp pre Seed, so I'm pretty happy. Hopefully I'll be able to snag something other than -Kara gear- in my helm/shoulders slots, but I'm not holding my breath.
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
I don't agree with you, but I honestly think we're mostly at the personal play preference level here.
Very true. Ultimately one needs to find what works for them and their group and go with it, and it's not really a matter of which works best at that point, only what works.
You are entirely neglecting the case where you fill up your mana pool completely (and then at some point empty it), which I find to be a pretty common case actually, even if the fight itself isn't normally high enough incoming dps where I can maintain full-bore for any length of time. OTing Gruul is a great example of this because of the size of the hits.
You're right, I am. If you can continually refresh your mana to full and then empty it again and do this in a quick cycle, int is going to outperform spelldamage in threat output. In the above case, if you can do this every 2 minutes or so you'll gain a large amount of threat since you'll essentially never be in the OOM state. But then we're talking about a per-fight case, and that becomes...murkier.
If we're having to find specific fights where int is valuable, I think the point is made: it isn't necessary as a rule on paladin tanking gear, at least not in the general case. This is especially true if you're stacking mitigation and stamina over avoidance. The original point was simply that int is not a needed stat on paladin tanking gear, and I still believe this to be true; paladin raid tanking gear should not be made to work well in a few fights where you'll be OTing. I've still not seen a particularly good example of where int actually excels or is at all useful when MTing.
HP is good, but loses out to block value and AC in most cases (like this one specificly) since you can pretty much always assume every hit will be blocked.
I don't think that's a reasonable assumption against most bosses. Most normal hits will be blocked, but most bosses do not do the majority of their damage via normal hits that BV will actually reduce. But the point is reasonable. Against some bosses it'll excel, against others it'll not be that big a deal. That points more to the necessity of having the right gear for the right boss more than anything else.
I don't like the idea of stacking too much block value while gimping avoidance entirely. I think there's a reasonable balance to be had. I still believe that the important thing is to safely maximize damage received so that you don't go OOM on fights but get no more damage than that, and pure avoidance is one factor in this. Avoidance is good to a point. Too much is bad, but too little is also bad. Avoidance doesn't just help with healer mana; it can help avoid some of the worst case scenarios. Mitigation helps keep things run smoothly; avoidance can help when things go to hell. Is that important to gear for? Not always, no. But saying that it's useless after being uncrushable I think is overstating things dramatically, especially given examples of people playing at higher content.
One last thing to consider in terms of avoidance vs. block value: avoidance also works better when holy shield is not up for whatever reason. This is one of those 'bad cases' that I was talking about earlier. It's not as often as the warrior's case of getting gibbed by an unlucky parry, but random silences or lag can do basically the same thing. And in that case, it is good to be able to more likely avoid damage altogether than it is to rely on blocking the swing.
Very true. Ultimately one needs to find what works for them and their group and go with it, and it's not really a matter of which works best at that point, only what works.
You're right, I am. If you can continually refresh your mana to full and then empty it again and do this in a quick cycle, int is going to outperform spelldamage in threat output. In the above case, if you can do this every 2 minutes or so you'll gain a large amount of threat since you'll essentially never be in the OOM state. But then we're talking about a per-fight case, and that becomes...murkier.
If we're having to find specific fights where int is valuable, I think the point is made: it isn't necessary as a rule on paladin tanking gear, at least not in the general case. This is especially true if you're stacking mitigation and stamina over avoidance. The original point was simply that int is not a needed stat on paladin tanking gear, and I still believe this to be true; paladin raid tanking gear should not be made to work well in a few fights where you'll be OTing. I've still not seen a particularly good example of where int actually excels or is at all useful when MTing.
I don't think that's a reasonable assumption against most bosses. Most normal hits will be blocked, but most bosses do not do the majority of their damage via normal hits that BV will actually reduce. But the point is reasonable. Against some bosses it'll excel, against others it'll not be that big a deal. That points more to the necessity of having the right gear for the right boss more than anything else.
I don't like the idea of stacking too much block value while gimping avoidance entirely. I think there's a reasonable balance to be had. I still believe that the important thing is to safely maximize damage received so that you don't go OOM on fights but get no more damage than that, and pure avoidance is one factor in this. Avoidance is good to a point. Too much is bad, but too little is also bad. Avoidance doesn't just help with healer mana; it can help avoid some of the worst case scenarios. Mitigation helps keep things run smoothly; avoidance can help when things go to hell. Is that important to gear for? Not always, no. But saying that it's useless after being uncrushable I think is overstating things dramatically, especially given examples of people playing at higher content.
Actually my point was that there are quite a few fights where you refill, even on cases where it doesn't seem like you would (not continiously, but here and there). VR, Kael, and frankly most fights I'll get a full refill at -some- point. I still don't like int on any of my gear, but never will use it as a detractor, it's just a stat I happen to pick up.
I am not sure where you're getting the idea that most hits are unblockable. The vast, vast majority of a boss's damage is in normal, physical blockable attacks, or physical specials which are likewise blockable (though the specials may indeed be big enough that a block doesn't 'seem' like more mitigation. In fact, short of Kael's pyros, hydross's hits, and Leo I can't really think of any boss where this isn't the case. I'm sure I'm missing a few, but I think it really is the exception that 'more' damage is of the unblockable variety- I'm unable to find any boss on WWS parses for the last 2 weeks where this is the case.
I also wasn't advocating 'gimping' dodge/parry, I generally keep dodge + parry + miss at above 45% and below 50%. Any more and my avoidance strings can screw with healers, and less and healers might have mana issues. THat is most definately personal perference (though I think anything under 45% total and you're playing with fire), but it works for me.
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
I consider this a myth. Healers don't stop healing you whether or not you actually took a hit, so pure avoidance (miss/dodge/parry) contributes to overhealing.
Rather, mitigation (armor/block value) ALSO contribute to healer mana endurance. While they can't assume when you'll dodge (and hence when to stop healing), they CAN assume that you'll take a certain minimum amount of damage per hit, which is probably something like (boss damage - (mitigation + lifebloom/HOT ticks)). Given this assumption, they can tailor their heals to match. If you can manage to get enough mitigation such that your healers can use rank 1 Greater Heal spam as opposed to rank 7, then you just saved healer mana.
I don't think that's a reasonable assumption against most bosses. Most normal hits will be blocked, but most bosses do not do the majority of their damage via normal hits that BV will actually reduce.
Untrue. The entire concept of being uncrushable is that every single hit comes out as one of the four avoidance events.
I'm a firm believer that the purpose of our tank gear is to "normalize" damage intake.
We want to become uncrittable so that we don't take 2x hits that make Shaman/Druids scramble for their Nature's Swiftness buttons
We want to become uncrushable so that we don't take 1.5x hits that make Paladins scramble for their max rank Holy Lights.
Once we're past that, we want to stack up on mitigation so that our healers can downrank as much as possible.
Mob spells don't crit, so damage is "normalized" as far as that is concerned.
Elemental attacks CAN crit, although we can also nullify that, then resistances act as our mitigation.
That leaves what ... physical attacks that can't be blocked? (I don't know if Gruul's Hateful Strike is one, but it came to mind) Those still go through armor mitigation, and their ability to crit (if at all) can also be nullified.
I'd like to see an example of a boss attack that is spiky and/or can't be affected by mitigation.
12/12/07, 12:50 PM
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