• frmorrison

On a single boss encounter, HS should have 100% uptime. However using my tank stats as unhittable (not the best gear), in ICC I would have 10% dodge, 22% parry, 50% block. So when a melee hit is coming, I have a 20% chance for HS to do nothing. It will still do something for me 80% of the time, but it cannot be counted on to block that Big Melee Hit.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Redcape

I don't think this is true. Consider that if you have 67% avoid going into ICC a 1% increase in dodge rate reduces incoming damage by ~3%. After you zone in and have 47% avoid a 1% increase in dodge rate reduces incoming damage by ~2%. Stamina and armor keep their value however, so avoidance actually suffers a net nerf looking at survivability from a tankpoints perspective, and the nerf isn't small at all. From a pure EH perspective avoidance of course stays at zero.

Also an important consideration is that expertise becomes drastically better. As per Theck on Maintankadin Expertise at the moment is only slightly behind dodge as a way to mitigate overall damage and is drastically superior for reducing spike damage potential. Given that we will be dodging less the value of expertise actually rises while the value of dodge drops. After running some numbers myself I fully expect expertise to be double the value of dodge in terms of pure survivability in ICC.

As far as weighting block value and rating I honestly don't see them rising particularly higher than now. Block value is going to drop because it is no longer something we can completely count on. Barring Blizzard doing a complete aboutface and stacking block rating on all kinds of tank gear we will simply not be able to get unhittable in ICC and so BV becomes a avoidance stat, useful but no longer reliable. Block rating is good if your block value is going to really take a huge chunk of the incoming hit, but since bosses are going to be hitting for 30k our 3k block values just aren't going to be a huge source of mitigation. I don't expect to actually see block rating on gear any more, but if they do surprise us I can't see why block rating would be particularly useful to have.

 

Cardano

While essentially true, this is very imprecise from a numbers standpoint.
Taking all your proc chances into account, you would also need to allow for redoubt , mongoose procs, dodge libram uptime, even Quelsarar. But any way you slice it, it will no longer be trivial or potentially even possible to have unblocked hits completely removed from the table at all times.

It's also worth noting that it's not "20% chance for HS to do nothing" since the full effect of holy shield is present on the combat hit table at all times. Or said differently, you are getting full value from HS at all times. Plus bonus mana regen we dont need when getting hit for north of 20k.
We had been rapidly approaching a time when Holy Shield could be dropped from a rotation if there was anything else you wanted to cast since the entire hit table was already covered without it.

Similarly redoubt talent points were only used on account of block value increase alone and the effect of redoubt block chance procs never made their presence known while boss tanking. greatly undermining the value of the talent points spent there.
Radiance changes all that, now the redoubt proc will have actually have the effect of removing hit.

What you were alluding to, I believe, is the fact that with your gear+buff[HS included] you CANNOT remove all unblocked hits from the hit table without seriously gimping other stats and going for a pure block set, maybe not even then. From that standpoint, you CANNOT 100% rely on Block Value as increased EH. However, I believe we and the warriors will find that every little bit of block will help even more under Radiance.
and even if we havent removed unblocked hits from the table completely, the effective mitigation increase from maintaining HS at all times will be fairly important.

 

Varuk

I am only going to be about 215 SBR off of unhittable in ICC with my current gear. I wouldn't say that is unreachable at all. It wouldn't be easy, and it would require about 4 pieces of SBR gear to do it, but I'm not so certain it'd be gimping myself to get that, assuming SBR is put on any ICC gear. If they continue the current itemization paradigm of avoidance, avoidance, more avoidance, and nothing else, (which is part of the problem, to be honest) then no it absolutely wouldn't be worth it to wear outdated gear to hit that number, but if the new ICC gear has SBR on it, I would highly consider picking it up simply for the EHP value of guaranteed blocks.

If Icecrown Radiance enforces the max EHP concept as much as we expect it to, then I'd say that is a fair trade and something I will gladly pick up.

 

• Mex

That wasn't what he was alluding to, it was what he said. Block value will no longer be relevant as effective health.

As Redcape pointed out, the change alters the relative value of expertise, but block rating isn't going to suddenly jump in its utility due to this change. Its value is inversely proportional to hit size, and nothing else; dropping 20% avoidance won't suddenly make it a fantastic stat. The exception is going from already being unhittable (102.4%) to below that, which shifts block rating from worthless to its current value of nearly worthless.

There may very well be encounters where block becomes a incredibly powerful source of mitigation, however as always this will be determined by nothing more than how hard the mobs hit, not relative avoidance values.

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. ... this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.

 

The_Marsh

Don't remember this being discussed so just bringing it up.

Source : Patch 3.3 Guide: Tier 10 Armor Sets - Wowhead

With the introduction of Radiance to ICC, it looks like our 4 set bonus is another cooldown. Since we'll be down quite a bit of avoidance, 12% dodge is quite a bit, I'm wondering whether it comes into effect before or after DR.


Also note:
To be honest, I prefer the current method of gearing as it works quite well for me; my main spec is holy, however I tank for our 10-man group, and so get plenty of opportunities for trophies. However with this new system it looks like I'll be forced to just stay with T10, as I'll be using my tokens for my holy set (as they appear to be only obtainable in 25 player, meaning they're in much higher demand). Any other opinions on this?

 

Dulkal

As a 10-man raider, this is a huge step up from a system that requires you to first buy T9 in order to be able to fight your way through to the trophies that allow you to pay once more for the same gear with slightly better stats. Not to mention raiding with people who'd rather hold back on upgrading to T9 in the hopes that they get a trophy.

So, I can only welcome the change.

 

Varuk

DR only *ever* affects the contribution of combat rating. Every single percent modifier is outside DR.


As for the new tier distribution setup, I am a huge fan. As somebody who gears up two sets at a time (prot & holy), when the patch first came out I added up the total cost of the emblem of triumph gear I wanted and found that I needed over 500 emblems before I would have all that I wanted. With that in mind it was simply out of the question to ever spend emblems on 232 tier gear when I knew that in a week or two I'd have the opportunity to get a better 245 piece and the emblems spent on the 232 piece were pure waste. So I ran around in 226's for a couple weeks when I could've easily upgraded to 232s just because emblems were in such a demand for myself. With the new setup, though, I can buy the lower tier version the moment I've got enough emblems for them and know that I'm not wasting anything, and I really like that.

 

The_Marsh

Thanks for the confirmation, I'm not to sure when it comes to math based theorycrafting. So the next question my brain leads me toward is whether the 4pc is actually worthwhile, compared to say our current T9 4pc. Would 12% mitigate enough damage to be considered an actual tank cooldown such as Divine Protection, or should it be classed more similar toward a trinket cooldown?

 

Liar

More like a trinket cooldown. It's not guaranteeing your survival alone but it ties in nicely with Ardent Defender. On another note, ICC radiance actually makes this cooldown worse, not better (as you seemed to imply, maybe I misunderstood) because of how avoidance works. The more you have of it, the better it gets because of it's exponential scaling. But who knows, maybe Paladins can pick up another 8% avoidance/block from gear and on use trinkets so you could atleast force unhittable for 10 seconds which can add some guaranteed EH.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Neraya

I agree witht he upgrade thing. If would have been nice that you buy the 232 item, and then upon winning a trophy can upgrade it to 245, and then upgrade to 258 with a regalia.

That would have made the purchase of 232 items worthwhile. I see a lot of people sitting on their emblems hoping for a trophy but reluctant to buy a 232 item with emblems as that would mean they no longer have the emblems to buy the 245 piece.

I'm not happy however with the return to grouped class tokens. The T9 trophies make gearing up the raid easy in that every class has an effective equal drop chance... With class tokens, it'll be just your luck to get your class (group) end up with a low drop rate. In ulduar we ended up with several classes desperately hoping for their tokens and bidding massive DKP on them where other class tokens ended up being unused or ending up with "that guy" to make his 10th complete set.

 

aarent

What would be a better tank weapon over all: Shiver or the Burnished Quel'serrar? I'm thinking that Shiver would be with the passive avoidance, more hp and str. Just wondering if the 50% uptime 3% avoidance proc would be worth it.

 

Garudina

Does it mean:
- A tanking class (Except Paladin) can receive Lay on Hand, and use their tanking CD just after
- A Paladin (prot) can receive Lay on Hand, but will be unable to use tanking CD (Divine protection) during 2 minutes...

- A tanking classe (except Paladin) can use a CD and then receive Lay on Hand
- A paladin (prot) can use his CD, but then it is not possible to use Lay on Hand on him during 2 minutes

I do not like this kinf of fix... Each time I will tank something I will have to ask my Pal Heal to not use Lay on Hand on me because it breaks my CD... But they still can do it on all the other tank...

 

Imbar

GC just addressed this in the following threads: this one and this one.

They're "likely" to change it so that if you cast LoH on yourself, you get Forbearance, but any other usage of the spell is fine.

 

jere

It's definitely better than their first proposed solution, but I still don't care for it much. DP is a pretty important cooldown. Even casting LoH on yourself will lock you out of using it for tanking for the duration of its cooldown. 95% of the time I would choose DP over LoH, so this kind of seals the deal on my end at least. I probably won't keep my self LoH macro anymore and just operate it manually so I don't lock myself out of DP.

 

JimTheEternal

I still don't understand this. Speaking in the abstract, I can get that increasing expertise reduces chance to be parried, and thus results in less parry hasting, so you take less spike damage from boss melee. However, aren't most bosses flagged so that they're unaffected by parry-haste? Is there a list somewhere that shows which bosses are and are not affected by parry-haste? Do we even know?

 

Varuk

Some bosses are, some aren't. The presence or absence of the no-parry-haste flag on serious bosses is most likely going to significantly affect our gearing choices through ICC.

I made this thread in the hopes of getting blue interest in just sharing the presence // absence of that flag with the public, but of course it's a long shot to say the least.

 

eXa

But is that really relevant? If the boss dont hit hard enough to parrygibb you, you gear for more threath... aka expertise. And if the bosses do hit so hard that parrygibb is a problem (like gormok pre nerf) they will likely turn of parry haste anyways, making expertise worth 0 avoidance.
My point is, anywhere you would benefit from the expertise gear(avoidance), you would already be wearing that gear(for threath).

 

• frmorrison

LoH is dead for a smart Prot Pally in 3.3 (there is a Holy talent to remove the debuff when cast on others), but you can still heal non-Pallies with it (I wouldn't heal another Pally since it lock out bubble for them too).

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

VorrenusKJ

The only bosses that have parry haste disabled are:
TOC: Gormok, Lord J
Ulduar: Ignis, Kologarn
Naxx: Patchwerk

 

◊ Sarutobi

It appears to be incomplete, but there's a list of mobs with parry haste disabled in this thread.

 

Varuk

In the end, you should gear to reduce your chance to die by as much as possible while also having enough threat to keep aggro. Beyond that, if you have enough threat, and you have almost no chance to die in an encounter, you gear to reduce your incoming damage as much as possible.

Expertise, against a boss that can parry haste, does all of those things at once.

- It is our best stat at preventing random spikes of damage by far. An argument could be made that expertise increases your survivability even more than stamina does against a boss with little to no unavoidable damage, I.E. the Patchwerk tank test dummy from 3.1 PTR or possibly Rotface with his 90% damage buff up.
- It is a threat stat, although not a terribly good one.
- It actually mitigates damage by quite a large amount. Post Icecrown Radiance it will mitigate more damage per point than dodge will. (Theckhd's numbers put it at very roughly 73% of the value of dodge in 3.2. In 3.3, dodge will be at roughly 60% of the value of 3.2 dodge with regards to mitigating damage. 73% of 3.2 dodge > 60% of 3.2 dodge.)

In the end, if there is a boss in ICC worth gearing for (Like Gormok or Anub'arak in ToGC, or Algalon, Steelbreaker, and Thorim in Ulduar) that CAN parry haste, you should have a suit for them with as much expertise as you can feasibly get because it is just that damn good. If it turns out that the only bosses that can parry haste are inconsequential (from a tank PoV) and hit like sissy girls, we can continue to dismiss it as a mediocre threat stat with significantly diminished value after the soft cap.

The question is, which will it be? Most likely, we won't know until the instance is out and even then it might take weeks for the parse work to be done. Hopefully, by the time most of our guilds start looking at easy hard modes to pick off, we should have a decent understanding of which bosses can and can't parry haste and will be able to make educated gearing decisions with that information.

 

Tritea

I have a question that maybe belongs in the simple Q/simple A thread, but I was wondering about the defense meta vs the stam meta as well as how armor/block interact.

First of all, when you get hit and successfully block, is the total incoming damage already being mitigated by your armor, and then a portion blocked, or does block remove some of the unmitigated attack and then armor takes care of the unblocked portion.

For instance with simple numbers, say 50% damage reduction from armor, and 2000 damage removal from block. So if a mob hits you for 5k, would armor make the incoming hit 2.5k and then block drop the actual damage sustained to 500, or would block take 2000 off the raw hit and then armor cut the 3000 unblocked damage in half to 1.5k?

I ask cause Im trying to see how I would go about figuring out whether I get more mitigation from the block value or armor gems, assuming I have enough avoidance to push unblocked hits completely off the table.

edit: never mind I completely missed the line about block value being applied last. That makes sense based on how much damage i usually take.

 

Mikerk

I don't understand how you came up with those numbers(sorry to take it out of context). I was under the impression the value of dodge will not change in IC. If it takes you 70 dodge rating to get 1%, that will stay the same inside or outside IC. You just get 20% knocked off after its all calculated. Unless I'm missing the big picture here, the values shouldn't change.

 

Proudmoore

The concept is thus:

Avoidance is not a linearly scaling stat. 1% dodge when you're on 99% is a 100% reduction in damage (gain / 1-(current avoidance)), while at 50% it's a 2% reduction in damage - this we all know.

Since Chill of the Throne does not affect Diminishing Returns, if you have, for example, 600 dodge rating, 1 dodge rating in Ulduar or TOC is the same increase to dodge chance as it is in Icecrown. It'll take the same rating to get another 1%, likewise.

0.01/(1-0.5) {the damage reduction effect of 1% dodge in ToC} > 0.01/(1-0.3) {and in ICC}

As a matter of fact, this is 0.02 > 0.01428 - in this case of ~50% raid buffed avoidance in ToC -> 30% in ICC, a reduction in the value of avoidance of ~30%, where value can be considered to be the statistical damage reduction granted by your total avoidance.

However, this is a simplistic model, assuming that all damage you take is avoidable physical attacks.

A point worth making - it doesn't reduce the value of dodge alone, so much as it reduces the value of avoidance as a whole. Unless you have less than 20% dodge chance unbuffed - which would be an impressive feat of gearing - , the value of dodge relative to parry or defence remains the same, as far as I can tell.