Lets hear some detail on how tankadins are analyzing gear options or plan on doing so as gear options (presumably) become more critical with the next tier of raid dungeons. Please keep posts in this thread on the topic of gear evaluation methods (lets avoid a lot of posts like "I picked up Helm of Awesomesauce last night, but I already have Helm of AlsoAwesome, which one should I wear?"). Use gear as examples of how to evaluate gear choices or to rebut the methodologies others use.
To start off:
Here's how I am analyzing potential upgrades. Feedback would be appreciated. This is a general upgrade analysis, not catering to either extreme of a BV focused or Avoidance focused set.
First, I'm utilizing Rawr's Tankadin module to generate some of the numbers, and am assuming full 25 man raid buffs.
Second, I left the Boss Attack, Threat Scale, and Mitigation Scale options at their defaults (30000, 10, and 7000). I believe the 30000 Boss Attack is representative of a hard hitting boss like Patchwerk, so looking at how differently gear ranks out at lower attacks might be interesting later (should value BV higher). The Threat and Mitigation scales, I don't understand enough to mess with.
For an example, I'll look at helm comparisons. My current helm is [Tempered Titansteel Helm]. Before comparing, I edited the helm to add a meta-socket, blue socket, and +6 defense socket bonus, which reflects the 3.0.8 changes to the helm.
The two helms Rawr places above Tempered after the edit are [Obsidian Greathelm] and [Valorous Redemption Faceguard]. I decided to compare the stats I have (raid buffed) in Rawr before upgrade to what they are projected to be after.
I included Dmg Taken, though I'm not exactly sure what its meaning is. Perhaps someone can explain what the calculation is based on and represents.
In looking at these three sets of stats, I can see that I lose a lot of health moving away from the [Tempered Titansteel Helm], and lose the most moving to tier 7.5. However, looking at other stats, I take a good deal less damage per hit while wearing tier 7.5 due to higher mitigation (more armor and a lot more BV) and gain more avoidance to boot.
The greathelm offers less of a health loss, but gains me less in terms of avoidance, while offering similar mitigation when I am hit, and additionally loses enough defense that I'll have to pick up a second upgrade with higher defense somewhere or re-gem/enchant current gear, which leads me to conclude I'd like to pick up the [Valorous Redemption Faceguard] as soon as it drops, but wavering on whether I should pick up the [Obsidian Greathelm] when it drops at all, assuming it drops before the valorous (isn't that always how loot drops go?).
Does anyone else analyze their sets differently, potentially leading to different calls on pieces like these? I'd like to further refine my methods to make these things more clear-cut, knowing they'll never be 100% clear like most DPS upgrades tend to be.
Related Question - Is there a method by which one can infer useful Pawn values from Rawr (perhaps even multiple scales if you want separate avoidance and mitigation scales, and then an "overall" scale)?
Edit- Rawr Tip: Before evaluating gear in Rawr, go to the "Tools->Set Default Gems for Equipment" menu and select rare tanking gems for each of the colors and meta. This seems to keep Rawr from using gems that aren't available in game in the comparisons (30 stamina gems, etc), and it sticks to your presets instead (24 Stam, Stam/Dodge, Stam/Parry, 32 Stam/2% Armor meta, in my case).
Last edited by Mordekhuul : 12/19/08 at 4:24 PM.
Reason: Added Rawr Tip at End.
I doubt I use nearly the same in-depth level of analysis that you do, but speaking from a low-geared paladin's perspective I currently evaluate pieces based on total avoidance and total crit reduction (both of which I am very low on). So what I say is going to be more relevant to 5-man (pre-raid) situations, but perhaps you'll find it useful.
I don't know how to infer useful Pawn scales from Rawr, as I've never used Rawr. What one can do easily, however, is set up Pawn scales that change gear stats into useful values (much like tankpoints does, but a little more customizable). I do exactly that: I use five scales which I outline in this post in the Pawn thread. The end result is that you can glance at two pieces of gear and easily determine which offers more avoidance, which more health, which more crit reduction, etc.
Currently, I am mentally weighting crit reduction as my highest stat, as without sufficient rep with various factions (and the inability to get a meta socketed tanking helm to drop for me) to get the enchants I am finding it difficult to make and maintain 540 defense right now, or even 535 (for heroics). When I look at a piece of gear, the first thing I currently compare is my crit reduction scale; if the new piece of gear isn't equal or higher then I don't use it. I bank it until my overall defense can come up more. I'm sure others may have other priorities, but breaking down the stats into different scales really helps you to understand what the tradeoffs are between two pieces of gear.
One thing I can recommend about using Rawr is to set the threat scale to 0 and boost the mitigation scale. This helps when sorting by "overall" because threat is so highly valued with the default settings you'll see all the top gear as DPS plate. Since threat is such a non-issue, I don't have a problem with completely ignoring the threat component of any upgrade.
I don't do nearly as in-depth of an analysis as you, but I made a very rough priority list for each slot. When more than one piece could be in the top spot, I use wowhead's item comparison tool to make an evaluation. My preferences lately seem to be more focused around staying crit-capped more than anything, then a healthy mix of block value and stam.
I may try to go for this block cap thing all the kids are raving about, but I haven't put in much effort to planning out a set like that.
-=-=-=-=-=-
I wanted to add a little more about my gear upgrade methodology. This is from a perspective of gearing up while my guild is progressing than it is from the perspective of someone who has already cleared everything and is looking to min/max.
What I do is group the upgrades in to tiers - logically: Dungeon, Heroic, 10 Man, 25 Man. USUALLY an item from a higher tier will be either better in everyway or have the benefits out-weigh the cons of a similar item in a lesser tier. There's usually only 2-3 items per slot per tier, so for me I really just need to compare the pieces side by side to determine what I feel is better when I reach that tier. I also look out for anomolies - gear that's easy to obtain, but is comparable to higher tier of gear, like [Tempered Titansteel Helm] (post patch) and [Titanium Earthguard Ring] (as a JC).
And all during this process I never really analyze complicated numbers - it's more of a "I don't really like expertise, so this other thing is better". Of course, in reality it's going to be more like - "I have a Blue helm, the DK has a purple helm - I get the upgrade"
Last edited by SeanDamnit : 12/19/08 at 6:12 PM.
Card carrying member of the Inapropriately in Love with Hilary Duff Society.
"Yeah, well, if we could all get what we want I would be eating dinner out of Hilary Duff's skull right now" - Salabesh
So far, I haven't seen a lot of cases where an item isn't a solid upgrade that I don't look back from (even though I kept some high-defense items around), but I got the first piece like that two days ago. (Inexorable Sabatons and Plague-Impervious Boots) My plan is:
Keep any items with very high STR/SBV for a threat set. Generally, high SBV also has SBR on it, so this would probably end up being unhittable as well. Inexorable Sabatons are an example here -- with a "Champion's" gem (str/def), this his the highest STR of any tanking boots.
Right now I'm about 2% away from unhittable with the Libram of Obstruction, about 0.5% over with the BoJ libram, with about 50% avoidance. My plan is to push avoidance for another 5% or so (probably ending around 11% miss, 25% dodge, 19% parry based on gear available), then back off as DR "cost" starts to build up.
Where all else is equal, I'm stacking EH (stamina+armor). I should probably value stamina a little more highly than armor in the EH calculation, since Stamina has extra follow-on effects (AD range and spell power) and covers magic attacks as well. I'm currently valuing armor and stamina about even, as I don't foresee Blizzard actually putting a tanking Stamina check in future instances, and if so, my guild will probably just recruit a bear for that fight.
In short, I'd look to build up a main survival set balanced between avoidance and EH for tanking fights like Patchwerk (with avoidance chance maybe 8% lower than armor mitigation), and an AP/SBV set for adds pick-up and threat in fights like Gothik or Thaddius. Strength is going to be a great stat when you've got a lot of adds to manage, as it boosts Consecrate, SoV ticks, and HotR. For single-targets, I suspect that Strength will still be slightly stronger per-itemlevel than block value, but they're probably within 20-30% of each other.
I made the Tankadin module. It is mostly correct (though a couple bugs), but it definetly still could use more polish. I have just been busy with school, raiding, and Holy to have spent too much time on it. Like the default Threat/Mitigation scales are not really at good values. Rawr 2.2 should have a more polished version of it. If you have any other suggestions for it though, please let me know.
Although I don't go into as much depth as you, but I do factor in overall avoidance as well as effective health. When gearing up to 80 and determining upgrades paths with emblem purchases, I would compare the possible upgrades which would benefit me the most. Now so much seems to be min/maxing that I had created a spreadsheet to determine diminished values, and calculate overall mitigation and EH.
I tend to use a "two pass" approach to paladin tanking gear.
First pass is strength, stam, defense, with strength being tiebreaker if stam+defense(to cap) is similar. If these aren't the primary stats, it's likely the piece is intended for DPS rather than tanking.
If two pieces are similar in the above stats, I look at what I consider to be "secondary" stats, although really high values of these might tip a slightly subpar piece over the top, especially block value. These stats are the avoidance stats (block value, dodge, parry), expertise, hit, attack power, spell power.
block value falls somewhere between strength and the other secondary stats.
In the case of a weapon, I tend to look at the total DPS generated by weapon+other buffs it provides, with stam/defense more or less irrelevant. A weapon high in stam/def usually sits in my backpack in case my gear shuffles to something awkward that needs just a bit more, but in general I like the best dps weapon I can get my hands on.
There will come a point where I feel I have "enough" stam and defense and will focus more on pure avoidance for mitigation and strength (and AV, hit, expertise) for threat generation with block value counting for both. I'm not there yet though, so stam is still a big part of most upgrades, or I hold it constant while other stats improve.
some very rough targets I've seen tossed around that work ok in practice so far.
20k health 20k armor uncrittable - minimum for most heroics
25k health, uncrittable - plenty for heroics, minimum for raiding as maintaink
30k health, uncrittable - plenty for all current content.
The increases to 25k and 30k health are also accompanied by more armor, strength and avoidance just from how gear is itemized. You will also find some hit and expertise in there most likely just by accident. Finetune with enchantments and gems. Generally the first tier you can get right out of the box at level 80, the second tier has crafted purples+heroic+rep blues, the third tier generally needs mostly raid purples.
For me, I don't break it down as with my dps class to "this is worth XXX more dps than that other piece". It's a more wholistic approach, where you get several "tiers" of pieces and within a tier it's a matter of taste (or full suit finetuning) whether you want the one that gives 75 expertise rating over the one with 50 parry rating etc.
[*]Right now I'm about 2% away from unhittable with the Libram of Obstruction, about 0.5% over with the BoJ libram, with about 50% avoidance. My plan is to push avoidance for another 5% or so (probably ending around 11% miss, 25% dodge, 19% parry based on gear available), then back off as DR "cost" starts to build up.
Excuse my question; my paladin is not my main so my knowledge of tanking stats is not that strong, but why do you mention the [Libram of Obstruction] in the context of becoming unhittable? As the Libram only provides Block Value and not Block Rating, it is my understanding that it does nothing to push hits off the table.
He goes on to mention the level 70 BoJ libram. So when using Obstruction he is just shy of the mark but can boost himself over it using Repentance. Obviously Obstruction is still the better libram so he is aiming for additional avoidance.
I think my priorities when I look at all the multitudes of sidegrades that abound is mainly mitigation. I've found with most gear that the rest of the significant stats will come in time. I do find that I still shoot for that elusive 102.4% even now I go for higher EH on trash and drop in a shield block rating trinket come boss time. I wish there was better itemization for pally tanks. The fact that warrior's get a best in slot tanking weapon (armor plated combat shotgun) while we get no flexibility whatsoever for a tanking trinket is pretty ridiculous.
The fact that warrior's get a best in slot tanking weapon (armor plated combat shotgun) while we get no flexibility whatsoever for a tanking trinket is pretty ridiculous.
Let's not start this again.
Warriors get a best in slot gun, we get a best in slot libram. Lots of warriors want our libram, lots of paladins want the warriors gun. Neither is going to happen, so its rather pointless people constantly bringing it up.
Regarding gearing - towards the end of "Naxx 25 Loot Progression" its fairly easy to remain "block capped" and still manage gear around what your role is. Almost all (progressed/end game) tanks will have different gear sets - EH, BV/Threat, Avoidance, etc - and I tend to compare the potential "upgrade" to the item in the set it matches before making the decision.
IE: If the legs have high dodge/parry, I'll compare them to my avoidance legs. If they're better, I'll upgrade, if not I won't.
As for weighting specific stats over others - obviously I wouldn't take a 1% dodge upgrade over a -100 stamina downgrade, and tend to apply common sense to the decision. If you're after a more concise way of choosing an "upgrade" and don't feel comfortable comparing gear yourself, I suggest RAWR or some sort of Pawn value system.
In terms of a "main set" as opposed to a specific EH, BV, or Avoidance set, at the level my gear and my guild is at compared with the lack of difficulty of current content, I find myself more often than not wearing my BV set for threat generation and the extra damage that comes with it - healers don't have any trouble keeping me up and pesky fire mages and DPS warriors don't catch me. Obviously there are some bosses where it's going to be more useful to focus on different stats, so in general my advice in regards to selecting gear is - establish a set for each of the three: Effective Health, Block Value/Threat, and Avoidance - and use each set where appropriate.
I am not trying to start anything, I just find it sad that I went JC so that I could overcome some of the stam hurdles that are out there. Granted this last patch which gave us another 2% stam was nice, but you are honestly telling me that you wouldn't like the option of having say, socketed Librams? And yes I do use the libram, I've also equipped the BC one as well. My point being is there really isn't any flexibility when it comes to what we can put into our libram slot.
Great thread guys. I tend to follow the same general idea as solbergb; I look first at Defense (capped/uncapped), then stam. After that I consider str, dodge.block/parry to be secondary stats that generally breaks the deal. Crafted Tempered Titansteel, and the guild isn't doing 25m yet, so its not such a big deal at the moment. Hopefully will be soon! I haven't really looked at expertise as a viable tanking stat; as a tankadin I have yet to see an issue with my physicals being dodged/parried. Hope this helps someone!
I've been playing around with different gear sets for a while and I've been trying to form both an avoidance set and a BV set for when they're needed. I'm not really interested in rehashing the whole debate on which one is better, but I think it would be interesting to try to figure out what items and enchants to aim for when building a set.
First of all there's a few rules that all the sets need to follow:
HP>29000
All incoming hits have to be either blocks or avoided
A few remarks:
This set only blocks/avoids all incoming hits if you have kings & strenght of earth. If however you don't have access to those 2 buffs on content that warrants the use of a full avoidance set then you can switch in the kellthuzad shield and still be fine.
+ armour enchants. Rawr rates these a lot higher than pure stamina/defence enchants in EH. I'm not sure how accurate the model is, but napkin math suggests that armour is a very good stat. [Greaves of Turbulence]: These might not seem all that impressive at the start but they have 0 wasted item budget, what can't be said from the other ilvl 213 pants. They are also invaluable in removing the normal hits from the attack table.
I don't believe it is worth losing 111 stamina or 84 defence by swapping in items as [Valor Medal of the First War] unless you significantly over gear content (why not use a BV set then?) or when it's needed because of certain boss mechanics (old version of gluth, patchwork offtanking).
I don't feel that the lvl 70 BV rings from ZA or MH are worth it, nor are any of the blockvalue trinkets. It could be worth it to switch out one of the rings to a [Unsmashable Heavy Band] though. If you have the money then a [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] could be used.
Perhaps I am missing something entirely too simple here but wouldn't you want to have the +21 def +5% shield block meta for the BV set? Might just be an oversight (albeit a rather large one), might just be I'm retarded.
First of all there's a few rules that all the sets need to follow:
HP>29000
All incoming hits have to be either blocks or avoided
Uncrittable (obviously)
No profession perks
That and the two rings in both sets have +24 stamina on them, which is a Enchanting perk. Also, the shoulders in the BV set have the lesser Sons of Hodir enchant on them (+15 dodge and +10 defense rating) instead of the greater (+20 dodge and +15 defense rating) which I would imagine you would have access to by now.. especially with most of that gear being so high level. (And the other set does have it on them.)
I went ahead and made my own 'perfect' block-value set tonight that I'm going to try to get in game now just cause it looks so damn nice. I did not follow the rules he had established of no profession perks and above 29000HP unbuffed (although its only a hair below it.) At this point in the game, especially if you are min/maxing, you should have professions to maximize your potential in raids. Anyways here's the stats:
I like this set a little more. Perhaps you could switch out a few pieces to raise the dodge/parry, but then again whole point of the set is to maximize your block value without completely sacrificing your HP, or defense.
I went ahead and made my own 'perfect' block-value set tonight that I'm going to try to get in game now just cause it looks so damn nice. I did not follow the rules he had established of no profession perks and above 29000HP unbuffed (although its only a hair below it.) At this point in the game, especially if you are min/maxing, you should have professions to maximize your potential in raids. Anyways here's the stats:
I like this set a little more. Perhaps you could switch out a few pieces to raise the dodge/parry, but then again whole point of the set is to maximize your block value without completely sacrificing your HP, or defense.
Keep in mind that You'd need three primary professions for that set, which isn't possible. ( 52dodge+15def shoulder enchant -> inscription, 41 stamina prismatic gems -> JC, sockets on gloves and bracers -> BS)
Whoops, I meant to put the Hodir 20 dodge 15 defense enchant on shoulders, muh bad. Intended for it to be BC/JC since imo it is the best way for prot pallies to go.
I've developed a spreadsheet to simulate a Patchwek fight on 10-man for the purpose of comparing gear sets with fairly accurate combat data. This simulation is based on taking only a hateful strike averaged at 23,000 raw damage every second for six minutes. You must enter in your own data into the Gear set cells for dodge, parry and block percent, also block value, strength, stamina, and armor. If there are any errors or recommendations you have please let me know.
I went ahead and made my own 'perfect' block-value set tonight that I'm going to try to get in game now just cause it looks so damn nice. I did not follow the rules he had established of no profession perks and above 29000HP unbuffed (although its only a hair below it.) At this point in the game, especially if you are min/maxing, you should have professions to maximize your potential in raids. Anyways here's the stats:
I like this set a little more. Perhaps you could switch out a few pieces to raise the dodge/parry, but then again whole point of the set is to maximize your block value without completely sacrificing your HP, or defense.
I liked the idea of this, so i went ahead and tried to see roughly how far i could get without sacrificing so much hp it got ridiculous: chardev.org - a World of Warcraft Character Planner - x
Still 26.7k but with 1359str and a few gear changes, plus the possibility of a 300str increase on greatness proc resulting in even higher block value. I had to use some old school enchants to get the max benifit for everything (+4 stats on rings/+str on bracers for str rather than stam etc).
Naturally you could go much further switching out the stam trinket etc, and a few other gear/enchant changes. I'd also like to see what kind of dps you could stick out with this gear setup too :p
When using Tankpoints, if I want to compare a change, such as swapping from a 27 defense gem to a 41 stamina gem, should I enter a value of positive 41 in the stamina field?
This isn't quite as dumb a question as it seems, I promise. My real question is whether to enter the exact gear difference or to figure out what the gear difference is with talents and buffs, and then enter THAT.
i.e. 41 stamina from a gem doesn't end up being 41 stamina in a raid. It is 41 * kings (1.1) * combat expertise (1.06) * sacred duty (1.06), for an increase of around 50 (or more - that is off the top of my head as an example).
Another example would be a difference in strength between two gear pieces. A 10 strength difference isn't a raid buffed, talented difference of 10 strength, and that has ripple effects on block value, a mitigation stat, as an example.
I'm trying to get a bit detailed on how to justify (or come out ahead) swapping [Essence of Gossamer] out for [Repelling Charge], and tankpoints is a pretty decent platform for it (with Rawr to confirm things as a double check), but I need a more fine tuned education on how to use it.
Side-question: Does anyone have a link for a handy list of bosses, their pre-mitigation damage per hit, and their attack speed, or a rough guide they personally use when adjusting tankpoints and rawr for different styles of bosses?
Side-question: Does anyone have a link for a handy list of bosses, their pre-mitigation damage per hit, and their attack speed, or a rough guide they personally use when adjusting tankpoints and rawr for different styles of bosses?
Sacred duty is 8% (ever since 3.0.8) more stamina.
I though all non-DW bosses had the same weapon speed. Anyway, I haven't heard of a list of every bosses damage per hit.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
When using Tankpoints, if I want to compare a change, such as swapping from a 27 defense gem to a 41 stamina gem, should I enter a value of positive 41 in the stamina field?
This isn't quite as dumb a question as it seems, I promise. My real question is whether to enter the exact gear difference or to figure out what the gear difference is with talents and buffs, and then enter THAT.
I am fairly sure that TankPoints takes talents & buffs into account in it's weightings, such that if you want to see what the change would be you would subtract 27 from your Defense Rating line and add 41 to your Stamina line. TankPoints takes care of the relevant calculations from there.
I've been working on a full block set for quite some time. In the interest of reviving the discussion with some field testing, here's what I've come up with:
Some of the stats are a little off on that template, but all enchants/gems are correct. Here's what in-game character sheet says:
27,954 HP
24,977 armor (devotion aura up, 61.12% reduction)
543 defense
17.90% parry
17.22% dodge
28.53% block rating
2014 block value
103.02% avoidance according to the handy avoidance macro (just barely unhittable)
First an foremost, I realize that I could get a [Lavanthor's Talisman] instead of [Item not found!], but since I'm still at 103.02% avoidance, I felt that I really didn't need more Block Rating and preferred the passive block value. A +90 STR Greatness Card would probably trump the GA-B since it procs more than once every 2 min, but I haven't been able to bring myself to spend 10k for a deck, yet.
Secondly, I chose [Tattered Castle Drape] over [Shadow of the Ghoul] for two reasons. 1) It hasn't dropped for me and 2) TCD has more BV and more stam. The only benefit of SotG is higher block rating, which again, I feel I don't need.
The char developer doesn't include the 50 stam from mining that I have. I also know that I'm missing a 41 stam gem. I usually use my 226 Malygos quest neck with a 41 stam gem in it, but I may put it in my boots, instead. Not sure. Regardless, it'd be a bit more HP for this block set.
As far as practicality... I wore this set and MT'ed Loatheb in Naxx25 last night. I think I was around 2274 BV raid buffed and managed to take a whopping 7700ish physical damage the entire fight. What fun.
Edit: Anyway... not really going for a "look at me," here. Was just inspired by earlier posted block sets and figured I'd post my own along with some results. Take it how you will, I suppose.
12/19/08, 2:54 PM
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