The Protection Paladin Field Manual (WoW-3.0/WotLK) - Page 53

Jebraltar · 06/15/09, 2:47 AM

Originally Posted by Cathela

Yeah, the guide suffers a bit from what the military calls "mission creep". I kept flip-flopping back and forth between wanting to write a complete guide to everything and just including advanced material for people who already know the basics.

Perhaps split the basics off into a think-tank article and leave the topic for advanced discussion? (Particularly since the basics tend to remain mostly constant, but advanced play changes with almost every hotfix.)

• Mex · 06/15/09, 3:05 AM

Originally Posted by Cathela

TLDR: If you're ever in a situation where your parry rate is 15% and your dodge rate is over 35%, that's when it's time to start considering gemming for parry. In other words, there will never be a practical situation where parry rating beats dodge rating.

Certainly not on a consistent basis, but with two or even possibly just one activatable dodge trinkets (I know that Monarch Crab and Valor Medal don't have any shared CDs, not sure about others), and a particularly dodge heavy / parry light gear setup, it would be theoretically possible. Of course, for this to have any practical influence it would need to be a situation where it's worth gimping your avoidance for most of the fight in order to gain a fractional advantage during a very short window. No examples come to mind where I'd actually consider it being worth it, although hypothetically I suppose it might be useful when trying to get a Kologarn-style debuff to fall off, allowing you to single tank the encounter. Even then all it would do would allow you to reduce the RNG slightly, rather than counter it. Perhaps a Brutallus style fight, where you're rotating CDs to deal with an ability that has a 1-avoidance^4 chance to effectively insta-gib you, or something. I'd agree that there currently isn't a practical situation where parry > dodge, but who knows what we'll see in the future.

Meloree · 06/15/09, 3:12 AM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

If you don't have 689 defense rating or more, than you are doing something wrong. There is a Naxx-10 defense trinket if you really need Defense. There are Chest, Shield and Cloak Defense enchants, and using Defense gems isn't a bad thing to do while you are upgrading items.

I respectfully beg to disagree. I would instead phrase the point as "if you are not crit immune, then you are doing something wrong." The resilience/stam is a perfectly viable shoulder enchant for progression tanking in Ulduar. In my experience EH is king in Ulduar, and there have been situations where the extra little bit of crit immune from resilience let me equp a significantly more optimal gearset. I'm currently at 678 defence rating in my EH set. I'm actually only at 680 rating in my avoidance set. And to achieve that, I am actually using all three defense enchants mentioned.

Camilia · 06/15/09, 6:02 AM

I have a question about weapon enchants. I'm sorry if I've missed a previous post about this. I'll be just as happy if someone can direct me to another location to answer my question.

I'm the main pally tank for my guild and I'm currently using Blade Ward. Now my parry rating is around 18% (give or take) I don't see this enchant procing much and when it does, I don't seem to parry in the allotted time frame for the enchant to seem truly worthwhile. I have no trouble with threat.

So my question is... with this information I've provided is Blade Ward a worthwhile enchant or should I look into something else like Blood Draining for example, or say Accuracy?

jarelie · 06/15/09, 8:29 AM

I would say Blood Draining kills you sometimes instead of saving your life; but there has been a huge discussion about it in previous pages. According to rawr's latest version; Blade ward is on par with Mongoose by means of threat and avoidance; and alot more expensive.

Theck's matlab TPS analysis shows ( Maintankadin • View topic - Theck's MATLAB TPS analysis (A Jonesy derivative work) ) accuracy is the best enchant in terms of tps. Considering you have 177 hit only; it would be a huge boost to your tps; keep in mind it doesnt benefit you for avoidance and mitigation though.

Jackinthegreen · 06/15/09, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by jarelie

I would say Blood Draining kills you sometimes instead of saving your life; but there has been a huge discussion about it in previous pages. According to rawr's latest version; Blade ward is on par with Mongoose by means of threat and avoidance; and alot more expensive.

Theck's matlab TPS analysis shows ( Maintankadin • View topic - Theck's MATLAB TPS analysis (A Jonesy derivative work) ) accuracy is the best enchant in terms of tps. Considering you have 177 hit only; it would be a huge boost to your tps; keep in mind it doesnt benefit you for avoidance and mitigation though.

Accuracy is also fairly expensive though. One of the best "enchants" for your money is the Titanium Weapon Chain. 28 hit outshines the accuracy, but the tradeoff is 50% less chance to be disarmed. It doesn't stack with Pursuit of Justice, but is nevertheless useful.

If you want avoidance and a bit of mitigation, then the 26 agility enchant is the way to go.

qixxin · 06/15/09, 2:01 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

If my math is correct, at 15% parry (i.e., 5% base + 5% talent + 5% from defense), the reduction factor for additional parry is 84.71%.

Isn't base parry and talents off the DM?

Anyway, after my post the other day, I decided to try and calculate exactly when it best to start stacking parry and to what degree. I decided to write a small program to do the maths for me and used the following C# function to calculate avoidance:

private double calcAvoidance(double dodgerate, double parryrate, double defrate, double magility)
{
     double Ad = 1 / (0.011347 + (0.956 / ((dodgerate / 39.35) + (defrate / 122.9625) + (magility * 0.0192))));
     double Ap = 1 / (0.021275 + (0.956 / ((parryrate / 49.18499) + (defrate / 122.9625))));
     double Am = 1 / (0.0625 + (0.956 / (defrate / 122.9625)));
     return Ad + Ap + Am + 25;
}

Using this program I made it draw some graphs for me. The following best summarises my findings:

[Side note: the 62.7 agility is considered 'base' +agility in a raid environment as it is a +22 leg enchant, MotW and kings, with 90 base agility]
[Edit: I just wanted to point out the insane scale used in the graph, practically speaking, most players will find themselves where dodge is always better than parry, especially when you consider that you will probably pick up some parry on gear that was an upgrade for you

]
The graph plots parry rating against dodge rating, and shows when parry rating is better than dodge rating. As you can see, there is a point at which parry becomes viable (henceforth referred to as the critical point), after which dodge and parry should be stacked at a fixed ratio. From my other data, I observed that defence rating shifted the critical point to the right (making dodge stacking more effective) and agility shifted it to the left, and then after a few data sets I was able to determine that the formula for the critical point is:

$\text{Critical Point}=391.56+0.3508\times\text{Defence rating}-0.7555\times\text{Agility}$

I was then able to determine that the best ratio to stack dodge and parry is 1.677 dodge rating per 1 parry rating (roughly your dodge should be 2/3 more than parry).

As always, these results should be taken with a pinch of salt, as a change in buffs or defence rating will make you 'sub-optimal' again.
Also, if anyone would like to check my maths I would appreciate it, a fresh set of eyes always makes it easier

As a final thought, I would like to point out that this comparison is stacking dodge and parry only, I think it would be interesting to see if stacking dodge and defence provides better mitigation that dodge and parry (as defence shifts the critical point so dodge is better than parry). I will try this another day and post if I find out anything interesting.

Wrathblood · 06/15/09, 2:20 PM

Originally Posted by Jackinthegreen

Accuracy is also fairly expensive though. One of the best "enchants" for your money is the Titanium Weapon Chain. 28 hit outshines the accuracy, but the tradeoff is 50% less chance to be disarmed. It doesn't stack with Pursuit of Justice, but is nevertheless useful.

If you want avoidance and a bit of mitigation, then the 26 agility enchant is the way to go.

While I agree that +AGIL is an overall fine enchant, providing a nice mix of avoidance, threat and even a little mitigation (especially since I still feel most pally tanks underestimate the overall benefit of AGIL), I am surprised that no one mentions the still amazing Mongoose and its not listed as an option in the OP. Sure, its a BC enchant, but IMO its clearly superior to +AGIL.

Assuming 1 ppm, in theory that's worth +30 AGIL. Obviously since it comes in big spikes at a time, it has the drawbacks of being both harder hit by DR than +26 AGIL and being slightly erratic which is the bane of most tanks. Still, by my math even with the harder DR hit it still provides slightly more avoidance than +AGIL while getting the appropriate boost to armor. The Mongoose proc also provides very slightly more threat, averaged over time, than +AGIL plus it kicks in the +2% attack speed bonus. The attack speed haste is of minimal value for a paladin tank since it only affects autoattacks and your extra SoV procs (yippee) but its still better than absolutely nothing and extends the gap very slightly.

According to RAWR (2.2.5, I need to update), with my gear against an Ulduar boss swinging for 80k (unmitigated) and with my standard raid buffs, Mongoose drops my incoming dps by 12 and also produces 16 more tps over a +26 AGIL enchant. Obviously YMMV, but that's a pretty decent upgrade.

Raistlin212 · 06/15/09, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by Jebraltar

Perhaps split the basics off into a think-tank article and leave the topic for advanced discussion? (Particularly since the basics tend to remain mostly constant, but advanced play changes with almost every hotfix.)

For what it's worth - I love the guide in its current form. Perhaps some create use of a spoiler tag would help, or external linking to a few non-essential items could shrink it down. But, I love having a comprehensive guide, and this thread is on my daily news links just because it's so informative and up to date. If you decide to do a complete reformat and clean up then I understand, but please don't reduce this guide's size just for the sake of making it smaller. Its thoroughness is its best attribute.

Dulkal · 06/15/09, 6:38 PM

Originally Posted by Raistlin212

For what it's worth - I love the guide in its current form. Perhaps some create use of a spoiler tag would help, or external linking to a few non-essential items could shrink it down. But, I love having a comprehensive guide, and this thread is on my daily news links just because it's so informative and up to date. If you decide to do a complete reformat and clean up then I understand, but please don't reduce this guide's size just for the sake of making it smaller. Its thoroughness is its best attribute.

Seconded.

An index would be awesome though

An it's definitely think-tank worthy IMO. No one says you have to stop working on it just because its in the TT

◊ Cathela · 06/15/09, 6:51 PM

Originally Posted by qixxin

Isn't base parry and talents off the DM?

Right. Just the 5% parry you get from crit-immunity already pushes your marginal return on additional parry down to ~85% (assuming I'm doing the math correctly, which I may not be.)

Your chart disagrees with my results, but I'm not super-confident in my stuff. Even so, I don't see any realistic way you're going to find gear that gives you 586 dodge rating without any parry rating at all, except for temporary conditions with trinkets and such (per Mex's post above) or as part of a set designed simply to prove a point.

But if we want to really nail down numbers, Whitetooth is certainly the closest thing we have to an authoritative source on diminishing returns, and he's coded up all his results in the TankPoints mod. So the easiest way to check these results would be to simply get naked with TankPoints installed, give yourself 689 defense rating, and then start playing with dodge and parry ratings.

Originally Posted by Raistlin212

For what it's worth - I love the guide in its current form. Perhaps some create use of a spoiler tag would help, or external linking to a few non-essential items could shrink it down. But, I love having a comprehensive guide, and this thread is on my daily news links just because it's so informative and up to date. If you decide to do a complete reformat and clean up then I understand, but please don't reduce this guide's size just for the sake of making it smaller. Its thoroughness is its best attribute.

Yeah, but from that point of view it would be better to just focus the guide on advanced topics. In any event, I doubt I'll remove anything that's already there because that would just mean more work to make sure the rest of it fit together well. So, it'll basically stay the way it is.

EDIT re Dukal: Index comes after it's all in place, and I want to get an index in before I TTT it. Still, you're right, and if I was less anal I'm sure this would be TTT'd already.

And of course, thank you to everyone for the kind words.

Jackinthegreen · 06/15/09, 8:53 PM

I love the OP, it covers most everything quite well.. It's just that it doesn't have links to some typical talent setups. I'd like to be able to point some of my friends here and tell them "See, that's the spec I roll with for such-and-such reasons."

Slightly off-topic, but works into the thread.. Are you feeling better from having your wisdom teeth removed? Good enough to update some things in the OP, such as more 3.1 changes and tweaks?

@Qixxin: Excellent job on the graph and numbers. Do you think it'd be possible to create an interactive thing though where you can add or remove buffs and gear to see how it affects the gear? Even an excel spreadsheet would work.

• frmorrison · 06/16/09, 1:52 AM

Just because something is popular doesn't make it right. However, at least linking to this site: Protection Paladin Best Talents for Patch 3.1 of World of Warcraft - WoW Popular - Filter by Talents, Paladin class, Protection spec will show people what is most popular.

Personally I would use the second build listed there.

Malarkey · 06/16/09, 5:28 AM

Except out of all of those, only one of them only puts one point into Imp Judgements and the rest put 2 points. I wouldn't go with any of those builds :P

TheBacon · 06/16/09, 6:47 AM

I'm seriously confused by the majority of WoW's choices on talents. the only thing close to my 0/53/18 is build 2 but that doesnt have PoJ, which i would consider pretty much mandatory if you are going down ret. Hell barely any of the builds there have it.

vorda · 06/16/09, 12:53 PM

@Qixxin: Excellent job on the graph and numbers. Do you think it'd be possible to create an interactive thing though where you can add or remove buffs and gear to see how it affects the gear? Even an excel spreadsheet would work.

Like Rawr?

edit: @wowpopular: I'd go as far to say that a site that summarizes the specs of the entire wow population means you DONT pick the most popular ones.
The fact that almost all the prot specs have 2/2 imp judgements, half of them have SoTP but no crusade/conviction, etc proves this.

A talent I can highly recommend in Ulduar btw is imp HoJ. A large amount of trash is stunnable/interruptable and when played correctly, you don't need the ret TPS talents anyway. (and yes, we raid with at least 3 trigger happy destro locks)

SeanDamnit · 06/16/09, 3:20 PM

Originally Posted by vorda

Like Rawr?

edit: @wowpopular: I'd go as far to say that a site that summarizes the specs of the entire wow population means you DONT pick the most popular ones.
The fact that almost all the prot specs have 2/2 imp judgements, half of them have SoTP but no crusade/conviction, etc proves this.

A talent I can highly recommend in Ulduar btw is imp HoJ. A large amount of trash is stunnable/interruptable and when played correctly, you don't need the ret TPS talents anyway. (and yes, we raid with at least 3 trigger happy destro locks)

I wouldn't be too harsh on those that take 2/2 judgements. If you want to go deeper in to the ret tree, you're probably taking 3/3 Crusader and 1/2 Judgement already, so your choice for the last point is either 1/2 Imp BoM which is...useless, 1/5 Benediction which is almost 0 benefit as well, or 2/2 Judgements which while it's shown that having an 8 second CD on judgement gives no benefits in a normal rotation, it is helpful when you're not using your normal rotation - picking up trash, soloing, etc.

So it's not that 2/2 judgement is great, but if you're going deeper in to ret, honestly what's better?

TheBacon · 06/16/09, 5:03 PM

Originally Posted by SeanDamnit

I wouldn't be too harsh on those that take 2/2 judgements. If you want to go deeper in to the ret tree, you're probably taking 3/3 Crusader and 1/2 Judgement already, so your choice for the last point is either 1/2 Imp BoM which is...useless, 1/5 Benediction which is almost 0 benefit as well, or 2/2 Judgements which while it's shown that having an 8 second CD on judgement gives no benefits in a normal rotation, it is helpful when you're not using your normal rotation - picking up trash, soloing, etc.

So it's not that 2/2 judgement is great, but if you're going deeper in to ret, honestly what's better?

While if you strictly run 25 man raids then 1/2 imp might would be pretty useless. It is pretty nice though if you run 10 mans and can't have a full array of buffs.

Malarkey · 06/16/09, 5:47 PM

If you run in 10 or 25 mans with a reliable Ret Pally (like I am fortunate enough to) that would have 3/3 Heart of the Crusader I'd say getting 2/3 HotC and getting 2/2 Imp BoM is preferrable. It allows them to bless Kings, and me to bless BoM (and consequently bless Sanctuary on myself) meaning a warrior could do Commanding Shout. Perhaps I'm just lucky enough to run with a great group set-up, but it seems to make more sense to me.

jere · 06/16/09, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by qixxin

DR stuff

I actually had a similar wild hair, but I approached it differently. I took the derivatives of the dodge and parry DR equations, which gives you the instantaneous slope values of each based on your current dodge/parry levels, respectively. What that basically tells you is how "efficient" the next bit of dodge or parry is at your current levels (from an instantaneous point of view). Then I looked for the point where the next parry rating gave a better "efficiency" than the next dodge rating, and came up with a linear equation (very similar to yours, though I haven't checked to see if the results matched).

I did it 4 different ways, basically doing the calculation to see where either parry % (pre DR) is more efficient than equal values of dodge % (pre DR) or where parry rating was more efficient than equal values of dodge rating. Both of those were done using pre DR and post DR avoidance levels as the input to the equation:

This is an excerpt from my findings:

Comparing Dodge % to Parry % pre DR (when to stack parry % over dodge %):

d > 1.875*p

Comparing Dodge Rating to Parry rating pre DR (when to stack parry rating over dodge rating):

d > 2.096252*p + 9.944522

Comparing Dodge % to Parry % post DR (when to stack parry % over dodge %):

d_dr > 1.875*p_dr

Comparing Dodge Rating to Parry Rating post DR (when to stack parry rating over dodge rating):

d_dr > 1.677002*p_dr + 9.304028

I'll post the math for this later once I get equation editor working again.

Remember that all those are percentages:
d ==> dodge percent before DR minus talents and naked stats
p ==> parry percent before DR minus talents and naked stats
d_dr ==> dodge percent after DR minus talents and naked stats
p_dr ==> parry percent after DR minus talents and naked stats

Also, this is a slippery slope because parry has such a steep DR curve. Even if parry ever becomes better to stack (I don't think it can practically), the moment you add more parry, things can change drastically and dodge may be better again.

EXAMPLE:
On my character sheet, I have:
25.1% dodge
19.6% parry

Subtracting out my talents and naked stats:
15.1% dodge
9.6% parry

Using the rating to rating comparison (post DR):
d_dr > 1.677002*9.6 + 9.304028

I get that it is better to start stacking parry rating when my dodge is 25.4% after DR and before talents/naked stats (or 35.4% including talents/naked stats and after DR).

You can kind of see the thread here.
Maintankadin • View topic - Diminishing Returns. Do some maths for me.

If you are interested in the math, I can dig out my MSOffice disk and install equation editor to whip it up now that I have finally moved.

◊ Cathela · 06/17/09, 5:34 PM

Some "empirical" data from TankPoints. All miss/dodge/parry chances are given for level 80 mobs (so they'll match what shows up on the character sheet "defenses" tab) and assume full points in deflection and anticipation (i.e., 10% base dodge and parry). The percent chances in the tables are the "real" dodge and parry chances according to TankPoints (i.e., with diminishing returns). I found the "effective Cd" and "effective Cp" by taking a derivative numerically using +50 and -50 to the ratings.

Starting with 689 defense rating (i.e., 540 defense skill):

Dodge chance	Dodge rating	Effective Cd
15.48%	0	38.0
20.00%	179	41.8
24.99%	401	46.7
29.99%	653	54.1
35.00%	943	62.1
39.99%	1277	71.9

Parry chance	Parry rating	Effective Cp
15.20%	0	47.2
20.00%	251	58.1
25.00%	582	74.6

Eyeballing this, it looks like the crossover point is roughly:

dodge% = 1.5 x (parry%) + 2.5%

So for example, if you have 20% parry, then your dodge chance needs to be about 32.5% in order for parry rating and dodge rating to be competitive. (I think this is pretty close to what qixxin got.)

Russta · 06/18/09, 2:37 PM

Upcoming Paladin changes;

Currently, we think paladin tanks are almost there and that they just need slightly better cooldowns to handle some of the tougher boss fights. Rather than add a new ability that felt like a clone of another class’s ability, we decided to buff an existing talent that was no longer cutting it. Ardent Defender has two important changes. The first is that the damage can no longer “skip over” the 35% health level – it will always be reduced. Secondly, it has a new effect that if a blow would kill you, it instead sets you to 30% health. This portion of the ability cannot occur more than once every 2 minutes. Think of it as a Last Stand that you don’t have to push.

A second change to Protection is we want to make sure Blessing of Sanctuary is always the tanking blessing of choice. A likely change here is to have it boost stamina as well.

We also recognize that block does not provide the mitigation it once did. While we have long-term plans to change the way block works entirely, in the short term we are doubling the effect of bonus block value on items (so jewelry, but not shields).

Not directly Protection changes but have potential to affect us are;

Fourth, we are removing Seal of Blood and Seal of the Martyr. The damage recoil increasingly felt like a liability in PvE, and wasn’t serving to offset the massive burst damage capable in PvP. We are buffing Seal of Vengeance / Corruption and redesigning Seal of Command with the expectation that these are now the seals of choice for PvP and PvE. Righteousness can remain a tanking seal.

Finally, we are replacing the current effect of Vindication with an attack power debuff that works like Demoralizing Shout. In PvP, Ret paladins can still debuff melee targets, while in PvE they can provide another necessary debuff in the case that the tank is not a warrior or druid. In addition, the talent may be more attractive to Protection paladins.

Marcos · 06/18/09, 2:44 PM

Something crossed my mind about that proposed Ardent Defender change.. I wonder if their intent is that if a blow would kill you, your health would be set to 30% even if your health was higher than that prior to the incoming hit. Either way you look at it though, regardless of which way they implement it, it'd be a buff. If they set your health to 30% regardless of where it was prior to the hit, you still have more health (30%) than you would have had (0%). I like it!

Also, I'm a little uneasy about the proposed Seal changes... Right now, Vengeance outshines Righteousness without a doubt. If they make Vengeance more desirable in a PVP (assuming the association made in Eyonix's post is respective), I wonder if they'll make up for the deficiency in Righteousness.

Russta · 06/18/09, 3:02 PM

I think the Ardent Defender change is excellent. Obviously having it no longer be leapfrogged is a buff in itself but the cheat death aspect is far better than a second clicky. It's essentially Last Stand that will always, always be used at an optimal moment where the player has no decision to make. I'm curious how it would stack with Guardian Spirit though, think you'd "come back to life" with 80% HP?

I'm very anxious to see where they go with the seals. I understand why they want to do away with Blood but everything has it's place right now. While it may look like we could be lumbered with using Righteousness again, it could also turn out that Vengeance and Command (which is pretty easy to reach) could turn out to not only be a boost in TPS/DPS for us, but somewhat exciting to use.

I had a feeling that Vindication would simply become a passive Demoralizing Shout when GC mentioned it becoming useful in PvE last week. With the hell Warriors have of putting it on, it will probably become mandatory and require a talent shift around. I'd be surprised if it remained at two points though, unless they have no intention of giving us the equivalent of 5/5 Demo and just the base, which would lower it's stock.

Block Value change is incredibly underwhelming, short term or not.

Overall, pretty damn happy with the changes, especially the Ardent Defender one. Here's hoping it doesn't get butchered too much on the PTR.

qixxin · 06/18/09, 3:11 PM

I'm really looking forward to the Ardent Defender change, however I was a little disappointed with the Exorcism change:

Exorcism has a cast time of 1.5 seconds but can be used on players again

Looks like it will become a less useful pulling tool (although I see HoR was buffed to compensate), and will be dropped from an actively tanking cycle altogether. It'll also make keeping threat up while kiting harder.