[Cataclysm] Protection Warrior - Page 56

Muspel · 05/26/12, 2:40 PM

Originally Posted by Cevs

That's because your pally tank isn't ctc capped.

If he's using the set he has equipped on his armory, the paladin tank is actually quite a bit over the block cap (~105% CTC, depending on which food buff he's using).

It's also worth noting that the combat log will rarely bug out and register a partially absorbed attack as a full hit, regardless of whether the attack was blocked or not.

Oddly, though, the average unblocked hit in those logs are larger than the average blocked hit, which makes me think that there's something else going on, since the opposite would be true if hits were being partially absorbed by something like PW:S. Is it possible that he's turning his back to the boss or sitting down when a wipe is called?

Eyegore · 05/27/12, 8:43 AM

During progression both myself and our pally tank used partial dps gear sets to tank Ultraxion, and he (the original poster) mentioned he was doing the same. I don't know if the pally was also, but he probably didn't log out in that gear if he was I gather.

This never seemed to be an issue for me as a warrior due to 100% shield block up time, let alone the odd stacking behavior observed on this fight. We did have at least one wipe that I recall due to bad rng leading to our pally taking 3 straight unblocked hits. So, while I don't know the specific mechanics of paladin tanking, my experience with this fight leads me to believe that they might want to take a somewhat more conservative approach to gearing than an equivalent warrior.

Muspel · 05/27/12, 6:44 PM

Originally Posted by Eyegore

During progression both myself and our pally tank used partial dps gear sets to tank Ultraxion, and he (the original poster) mentioned he was doing the same. I don't know if the pally was also, but he probably didn't log out in that gear if he was I gather.

I saw the proc effects from both of his tank trinkets (Fire of the Deep/Soulshifter Vortex) in the logs that were linked, so I'd assume he was in full tank gear.

smn · 05/28/12, 6:01 AM

Does rend scale dynamically with weapon damage it's enough to swap weapons when applying it?

Muspel · 05/28/12, 9:45 AM

Originally Posted by smn

Does rend scale dynamically with weapon damage it's enough to swap weapons when applying it?

The damage will recalculate every time it's applied or refreshed. It's not worth resetting your swing timer.

Ragnar9000 · 09/07/12, 1:43 PM

Some questions, now that the Mist patch has dropped:
How are we valuing Hit and Expertise? Is one better than the other for Rage generation? The ability to use Shield Block and Shield Barrier more often is said by some to be important.
I picked up the Eye of Unmaking Trinket. I am tempted to use it. I am at about 24.5% Parry without it according to my tool tip. It adds about 3%.
Has anyone swapped to the strength/mastery head enchant?
What are we using for our Meta now? With the uncertainty of the new patch, I switched to the plus 2% armor one.

Glurak · 09/08/12, 8:20 PM

Hit and expertise isnt need

More Block = More Crit Block = More Rage

Crit Blocks gives Rage so Stack Mastery and you should be fine.

Ragnar9000 · 10/03/12, 1:10 PM

Souldrinker. The question is, does its proc damage and healing scale up to level 90? I looked at my own Recount a bit lately. It seems that the healing does scale. Around 2000 hps at level level 90 with the 403 version. It's giving me around 4% of my total damage done, but that's in a dungeon environment with lost of AoEs. And it's a single target proc. Some have suggested a weapon swap to the Souldrinker after establishing threat. When mitigation stats are less important, such as magic heavy fights, that too may have us thinking about using it at level 90.

What have you found out about Souldrinker at level 90?

Ragnar9000 · 10/03/12, 1:15 PM

Originally Posted by Glurak

Hit and expertise isnt need

More Block = More Crit Block = More Rage

Crit Blocks gives Rage so Stack Mastery and you should be fine.

Rossi at WoW Insider agrees I think. He is saying that we have enough rage (I find myself mostly swimming in rage) to use our active mitigation without hit or expertise. Thus making hit and expertise not matter again. That's how I interpreted what he wrote.

Glurak · 10/05/12, 9:36 AM

my question is how strong ist Parry and doge now. I see many Tanks are stacking Parry and dodge but no mastery.

Ragnar9000 · 10/10/12, 7:10 PM

Originally Posted by Glurak

my question is how strong is Parry and dodge now. I see many Tanks are stacking Parry and dodge but no mastery.

Warrior Tanks? We are as far as I know: Mastery > Parry > Dodge. Theck has a macro you can use to check your parry/dodge ratio.

A1win · 10/10/12, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by Ragnar9000

Warrior Tanks? We are as far as I know: Mastery > Parry > Dodge. Theck has a macro you can use to check your parry/dodge ratio.

Based on my experience, on the discussion in the MoP thread, and reading around sites, here's a rough idea for the stat weights:

If there's lots of blockable damage (roughly 60%-80%): Mastery=Hit=Exp > Parry > Dodge
If there's lots of unblockable damage: Hit=Exp > Parry > Dodge > Mastery

Also, don't forget that Strength gives you Parry. I don't have the exact ratio at my fingertips but its weight should be quite close below dodge. This comes in handy when socketing gems with Strength as a bonus.

Hit and Expertise are apparently very good based on some simulations, while others place them a bit below Mastery. For now until things are better cleared out, I'm keeping my Hit and Expertise capped because they not only are good for overall damage reduction, but they also smooth it out as you get rage more reliably and can therefore use Shield Barrier/Block more reliably.

Ragnar9000 · 10/12/12, 1:38 PM

"Hit and Expertise are apparently very good based on some simulations, while others place them a bit below Mastery."

Hit and Expertise lead to more rage, leading to more shield blocks and barriers. Leading to less damage taken. I was wondering how this was going to be modeled? I try to classify fights as magic or non-magic fights. In magic fights, mastery, parry and dodge are going to lose value, and hit and expertise are going to gain it by allowing more shield barriers.

With non-magical fights, where we can block, parry and dodge I suppose the question is, do we have enough rage to block on CD? If we do, then we can reforge away from hit and expertise. If our rotation is less than it can be, say with high movement fights, we may not make every possible shield slam and revenge. Thus adding more value to hit and expertise.

I see it as trying to model, when you have enough rage?

A1win · 10/12/12, 5:59 PM

So, what about Stamina? At first I thought it's useless because it "only" gives healers more time to heal you before you die. But then I started thinking a bit deeper... And here's what I've realized so far:

Percentual heals from Second Wind or Enraged Regeneration become stronger.
Last Stand grants you more health.
Commanding Shout is now a percentual buff (10% health) instead of a flat amount like before.
The more avoidance you have, the less attack power you gain from Vengeance. This means that the amount that avoidance saves healer mana on the long run is in reality slightly less, because more dps makes fights shorter, and more attack power makes Shield Barrier stronger. (Actually, avoidance also grants Vengeance as of October 8 so ignroe this).
More health on the tank gives healers more time to not only heal the tank, but also allows them to move more, or heal the raid more often.
More health on the tank reduces the amount of overhealing because healers are able to let your health percent drop lower before healing.
Avoidance makes damage income spiky, making it more difficult for healers to predict when you will take damage, and also results in more overhealing.
The health you gain from Stamina in comparison to the avoidance you gain from Dodge and Parry seems incredibly high. My unbuffed health increased from around 400k to 500k by increasing my chance of not avoiding (1-(Dodge+Parry)) from 31.7% to 26.4%. That's about 8% higher chance of not avoiding, and 20% more health.

The question is, how do we measure these things? My best bet is by experience. Feel free to theorycraft/simulate, I'd be interested in seeing the results. For now, I'm going with as high stamina as I can get and see how it feels in comparison to having as high avoidance as possible.

It also appears that all Protection warriors in Method have gone for full stamina, but I don't know their reasons for it. It might just be that heroic bosses hit too hard. Or maybe the sum of all the things I listed is actually a very good thing.

Dots · 10/13/12, 10:09 AM

Stamina gearing doesn't have to be all or nothing. You should also look at the budget on items. For example, on trinkets you usually get 50% more stamina than secondary stats if both items have the same ilvl. Gems on the other hand have 33% more secondary stats than stamina.
If you are using stamina trinkets, then the difference between gemming for stamina or secondary stats is not that big, certainly not 100k health.