◊ Penguin

The EU armory is down for me right now but just looking at your gear in that screenshot, I don't know how you're at 13.75%. Listing the gear you have on doesn't add up to the displayed expertise on your character sheet. I'll do it here, please correct me if there's a mistake:
Tankatronic Goggles: 0 exp
Brooch of Deftness: 21 exp
Destroyer Shouldergaurds: 0 exp
Chestguard of the Warlord: 0 exp
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx: 15 exp
Gauntlets of Enforcement: 21 exp
Girdle of the Fearless: 22 exp
Sunguard Legplates: 23 exp
Jungle Stompers: 0 exp
Shapeshifter's Signet: 20 exp
Band of the Eternal Defender: 0 exp
Shard of Contempt: 44 exp
Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600: 0 exp
The Brutalizer: 21 exp
Aldori Legacy Defender: 0 exp
Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer: 0 exp
TOTAL: 187 exp

Your character sheet in that screenshot shows an equipped bonus of 194, meaning there is 7 expertise rating difference between your equipped items as seen and the displayed value on your character sheet. That's outside of the bonus that Defiance gives. With what I can see, you had equipped: 187 exp rating / 3.9 (@ level 70) = 47.43 expertise. Add in the bonus from Defiance, 47 + 6 = 53. 53 expertise is 13.25% reduction to dodge and parry, well within the realm of getting the odd parry every 1000 or so swings.

There's not some hidden "but he tries really hard" variable built into the game. -Slake

I always love the "it doesn't fit my style of play" line. There are only two styles of play; Correct, and Incorrect. The only people that ever use this line are people with the incorrect style of play. -Sebudai

 

Warrok

@Penguin:
Sry to disappoint you, but I'd like to note that the Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx used to give 22 expertise rating before the 3.0 patch, explaining the difference of 7 rating. Also note that Delicatesse is a character on an European realm where patch 3.0 was not available at the time of posting (14/10/2008).

So the point remains, the subject needs further testing

 

Asherett

Do you mean all serious tanks were overcapped 48 defense rating (20 defense)? Or do you mean "regem, and suck up the stamina loss, or you're not serious"?

 

◊ Penguin

Thank you for pointing out where that discrepancy was coming from, I forgot about the EU realms being a day behind (although the talent tree should have clued me). As for why the parry happened, you're right more testing is needed. As it stands 13.75 is certainly a safe number to aim for in terms of expertise, but it may or may not be the cap. I would have thought that 10k swings with no parry certainly argued for a cap, but perhaps someone with a different methodology can do some work on it too.

There's not some hidden "but he tries really hard" variable built into the game. -Slake

I always love the "it doesn't fit my style of play" line. There are only two styles of play; Correct, and Incorrect. The only people that ever use this line are people with the incorrect style of play. -Sebudai

 

Chardonnay

Yes it was pre patch, that's why I included the talent tree
I would definetly test 14% and higher expertise values if I could maintain 490+ defense in expertise gear, post patch.

 

Reliknom

With serious tanks I meant those doing serious content (pre-patch of course), so basically tanks in sunwell, preferably with some boss kills and loots. And yes, if you have that gear, it is pretty hard to get below 490 defense, even in threat gear.
Also it has been pointed out many times, that even though the main purpose of defense is to get uncrittable, even after reaching 490 (or whatever the actual cap is) defense, you will gain more avoidance from more defense, although slightly less than from dodge.
On second thought, with avoidance getting diminishing returns, defense might come out as the best stat to stack, because it suffers less from this. I might do some math on this, if no one gets there first.

"Morituri Nolumus Mori!"

 

Nethris

Yeah, in my standard BT tanking gear setup, no Sunwell stuff, my warrior is still well over the defense anti-crit cap after the change, and I have very little of it socketed, though defense/stam was still the best thing to put in yellow sockets if you were going for a socket bonus. Wasn't something to avoid on gear either, as it was about on par with dodge rating for avoidance even ignoring the block chance bonus, and better than agility or parry rating.

As for the math on defense now, I'd guess it's probably better than dodge rating if you don't have unusually low dodge rating, and better than agility or parry unless you have almost none of those, but the exact breakpoints will depend on how exactly defense avoidance interacts with the diminishing returns on each individual type of avoidance it affects.

 

Liar

Can't log on at the moment so it's hard to check, but I really don't think tanks with SW/T6 gear had to regem at all to stay crit immune. In my avoidance set I have a 12 Defense enchant on my bracers, 12 Defense on my Meta gem, the 17 Defense head enchant and a 12 Defense gem in my T6 chest and a 10 Defense gem in my shoulders plus 15 Defense from the enchant. Correct me if I am wrong, but that's at the maximum 12 (Bracers)+ 12 (T6 Chest) + 10 (T6 Shoulders) + 5 (Shoulder enchant in case you are Aldor) = 39 Defense rating = 16 Defense I might have more than anyone that completely stacks the crap out of Stamina. Even with 16 Defense extra I am well over 500 Defense (IIRC around 550 pre 3.0) so it's not such a big problem. The problem is that the gear lost an effective 12%ish avoidance when 3.0 went live. But even that doesn't matter because raids are such a joke now.

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

 

Reliknom

I know that the achievement tab shows 555 as highest defense for me, and that was after the patch in some hap-hazard gear.

"Morituri Nolumus Mori!"

 

Kreen

Hey all,

Let me first say that I'm a long time reader but this will be my first time posting on these forums.

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking about what type of gear to wear when leveling my Warrior from 70-80 in WotLK.

DPS gear's benefits are obvious, but downtime should be higher given less mitigation / avoidance.

SBV gear on the other hand would probably have less downtime, but I'm not sure if the added damage from Damage Shield + Shield Slam when fighting many mobs would make up for the loss in damage from not wearing DPS gear.

Either way I intend to be prot and level with a shield. Anyone done some thinking / tests on this stuff?

I acutally posted this on the WoW Warrior forums as well and received some pretty lackluster responses...guess I should have known better. Apologies as well if a discussion has been posted elsewhere on this stuff, but I haven't been able to track it down.

 

zork

@Kreen
I think it depends on your playstyle.

If you like the sword'n'board playstyle stick with with. Leveling as prot has definitely become fun. You don't need ages anymore to kill something. Don't expect prot leveling with a shield to be the fastest though, but on the other side you'll probably never have any downtimes. Its up to you.

BLOG [ZIB] _ GUILD [TDMOG] _ INTERFACE [ROTHUI] _ CHAR [ROTHAR]

 

Qwik

For what it's worth, I've been leveling 63-66 as prot (I spec'd prot when the patch came out) and I'm really liking it. I can kill things just as fast if not faster than when I was fury (pre patch). I was grouped with a fury warrior 1 level higher than me and I was killing things faster than he was, we were about equally geared. Also, I've been #2-3 dmg in most instances that I've run.

Overall, I think prot is pretty nice for leveling, hardly any downtime, I normally have 90-95% hp after killing something so I can just go forever. [Essence Infused Mushroom] and [Fetish of the Fallen] have helped me out quite a bit with downtime as well.

 

Liar

There are only two problems I have with Protection Warriors at the moment:

1) Instant Rage decay sucks. The only reason I can get off an Intercept while being OOC is because of Focused Rage. Otherwise, forget it. Stance dancing doesn't give you 10 rage, more like 9 or 8 depending on your latency. Also, Bloodrage gives you 19 rage unimproved (you could for example, use a shout and pre-Shield Block before 3.0, now it's impossible).

2) AttT does not scale with your Shield's Armor. Is this a bug, an oversight or intended? It really leaves me puzzled.

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

 

Gregger

This is also my first time posting on these forums. I have a question about Enchants. I've decided to dust my warrior off and do some Heroics and 10-mans. Main reason is that my friends finally hit level 70 and now we'll all be able to level up to 80 together when the expansion hits. I just got the Axe from Prince in Kara, upgraded from the sword out of normal Black Moras (Millenum Blade (sp)). The first page said that Executioner or Mongoose is the best tanking enchant, but, with the new patch, I was wondering if that still holds true. I was thinking that +20 str might be better for the 5 mans and 10 mans. My logic is that more STR is more AP and SBV, and thus, more threat. What is the new consensious. Again I appologize if this has already been answered.

 

• Jamor

+20 Str is much better than it used to be, and is a fine enchant for tanking heroics and ten mans. Mongoose is certainly not as good any more with DR on avoidance -- although you probably get a higher benefit from it at your gear level than I do -- I would recommend 20 str based on the cost alone.

 

Mamasboy

I'm currently wearing some T4 and badge gear, with Mongoose on the King's Defender, and doing SSC and TK content (VR, Al'ar, etc.). In light of the patch and the last 2 posts, should I be changing from Mongoose to +20 str?

 

• Jamor

Well, I guess you need to run the numbers on your character, but for me mongoose is only giving a little over 2% dodge, plus the crit and haste. It's still pretty good, but executioner is a better DPS enchant, where as mongoose was really an avoidance enchant (with some chance at extra threat and a bit of passive threat) built in. But the big draw of mongoose was the dodge. That is much less than it used to be.

Str gives about 42AP and 10 SBV passive. It's a pretty good, and really cheap enchant. Without doing any math, I would say that Execution is still a better enchant.

 

• Ren

It does scale with your shield's armor. AP from armor is only calculated and refreshed every 30 seconds.

 

Fellwraith

In my opinion? No way. It's ~15 block value and ~46 ap, that's next to nothing compared to a mongoose proc.

The proc adds to crit, armor, dodge, and haste. The only effect from Mongoose that's diminished is dodge, it still adds to mitigation and threat far more than str does (do we know for sure that procs suffer from DR on avoidance too?) Even without the avoidance, 240 armor, 2% haste, 4% crit and some avoidance isn't bad. You can make a case for executioner not being worth it anymore, but mongoose is still the best tanking enchant.

I think people are getting a little too excited about str as an enchant and a gem choice. Yes, it's good. No, it's not a huge increase to mitigation. 1 str = 0.76 block value with kings, vitality, and shieldmastery. It's better than it was, but it's still no substitute for armor, stamina, and avoidance. Str is better viewed as a threat stat, not a mitigation stat.

 

Qwik

I haven't had a problem with not having enough rage, I've had a problem of having too much rage. I just started tanking instances and I always find myself with a full rage bar, this is an issue with me being new at tanking, no doubt. With Warbringer I'm able to charge in defensive stance so I never get out of it.

Also, wasn't shield block changed so it no longer costs any rage?

 

• Jamor

Yeah those stats are nice, when it's up. But what's the uptime on Mongoose? 25% or 30%?

So let's compare the AP and block value static -- and call mongoose uptime 30%. At that point it equates to ~.7% haste and ~1.33% crit. Now from DPS standpoint (I am really starting to look at things less from a threat standpoint, and more from a "tanking DPS" standpoint), that makes things a lot closer. And if you factor in the price, and based on what the guys were saying about where they were in content (and probably replacing weapons quickly), then to me, potency is the better choice.

Also, I can't understand how you could say that executioner not being worth it any more when it's the exact same thing as it was before, and is considered the warrior DPS enchant of choice.

 

Kannojo

I've been away from the game for a while (Honestly making amends until the expansion). Last night was the first time that I've tanked in about 4 months since my guild killed Illidan. What is the general consensus towards talent conservation? More specifically is Cruelty worth picking up in the event that you have obtained Sword and Board and Incite ? There are way too many nifty talents to pick up with the investment of a few more talent points in each of the trees.

I'm just looking for opinions I don't require a "WatIdo?!" guide I'm curious as to what others are doing. I do realize this close to the expansion many people are overwhelmed with the realization that any PVE they do now has become a rhetorical collection of antique equipment or assistance in the upcoming 10 levels that await us. So if ideas are sparse I understand.


PS: I forgot Critical block. I won't link because wowhead is working as intended....

 

Twid

Was this a bandaid fix for something? It seems like a DPS warrior could abuse this, equipping a shield before a pull, letting AttT update, then swapping back to their DPS weapons and having a 30 second window of increased AP. I'd imagine someone could even code a mod that tracked the 30 second intervals, allowing a player to equip a shield for the 30 second check, then swapping back afterward to sustain the AP.

 

Fellwraith

There was an earlier beta build where it was giving armor penetration rating on a proc.

 

• Jamor

Yeah, I made sure to check it right away when I was considering weapon enchants. Ultimately, my point is that potency is a heck of a lot better than it used to be. Especially for someone on a budget.