Executation

Let's face it, AEP already gives misleading results by overvaluing redundant stats like def rating after the cap (i know it gives a small bonus to avoidance).

I am making the same argument for stamina (and armor, which has a cap). How often have you seen PUG raids look at the tanks they have and judge them by their stamina or gear score? Tanks even do it to themselves. "You have more stamina so you should tank the boss" even though the MT only has about 2k more health.

I'm not here to QQ about pug behavior, what I am asking for is a slight paradigm shift in the way we think about stamina. We need a better way to model our need for it.

Also, I think the gear spreadsheet is most effectively used as a gear simulation tool based on the encounter. For example, I can plug in all of my best tanking gear and enchants and gems into the spreadsheet, and change the boss profile to anub'arak with parry haste, and it will tell me that these lower iLevel gloves give me a better gear score because they have expertise. In addition, it tells me that I have a better gear score if I enchant them with expertise over armsman, heavy borean, or reinforcements. Now, I also have some leggings with expertise on them in the bank, and I can move some gear around on the sheet to see if I can use higher iLevel gloves (without expertise on them but keep the expertise enchant). In this case, it tells me that I get a better gear score with the expertise gloves and the expertise enchant over any other combination.

The spreadsheet should not be used to determine what drops you should be rolling on from bosses. Item level (along with keeping an expertise set, hit set, parry set, dodge set, and block set in the bank) should make that decision for you. Then once you have a collection of items in the bank, you can use the spreadsheet to simulate the best gear setup for an encounter.

YES, I do think that a tank's goal needs to be setting up the best gear combination for each boss and bringing along all need pieces to swap for each fight (thanks to the squire pony you even have access to your bank once every 4 hours ).

 

ZorbaTHut

I think it's not entirely clear that this is a thing that actually happens, though. Boss attacks include a reasonably large random factor, the various "multiple attacks" hit at unpredictable intervals, and healing isn't always "up to full". A dude with 29k HP isn't going to survive two 15k hits any better than a guy with 16k HP, but he is going to survive getting hit, getting a single tick of Lifebloom, and then getting hit again.

Essentially, I think that while there may be some value in modeling this, you're essentially asking to model not only the tank, but the boss in greater detail than anyone even really understands, and every single healer that may touch the tank in any way. (In the 29k HP case, a druid is arguably more valuable than a paladin, since the chance of getting a single tick of anything is vastly higher than getting a paladin heal landing.)

As for adjusting weights based on the user's gear, I agree there's some stuff required there, but I'm mostly just leaning on the user's ability to adjust themselves. Those numbers vary dramatically based on the user's guild makeup and progression and there is just no way I can try to instrument it. That's why I moved the "custom boss" interface into the setup page

Defense is actually an avoidance stat which fights with dodge for being the best. It's not a small bonus, it's a very, very large bonus.

I used to use the spreadsheet to determine how much DKP to bid on certain slots That's actually why I added the delta-EP column - now I can just say things like "hmm I think I will bid one DKP per delta-EP at most."

 

Executation

*Deleted

 

Executation

Are you up for another round of wishful thinking?

Wouldn't it be nice if we could add a major piece of functionality to the spreadsheet in the way of calculating the best gear setup based on the pieces we tell it we have available?

First off, you would need to be able to use "check boxes" next to each gear piece on the gear list page. Then a user would select every gear piece that they currently have in stock. Then they choose which boss profile they are optimizing for. Click a button that engages a macro which uses all possible gear, gem, and enchant possibilities and then returns with the setup that has the highest gear AEP.

Think how easy it would be to tweak the boss profiles a little bit and see how differently that would effect your optimal gear setup. My mind drools at the thought.

 

janaka

You're essentially asking for Rawr here.

 

Bersi

Although it would be nice if Rawr had already 2-3 Bossprofiles included or another easy way to adjust gear ratings (like Icehowl HM or Anub HM Add tanking).

 

Executation

Think about how easy it would be to min/max a different setup for each raid boss, carry in all your gear with you, and swap out in between bosses. For instance, some bosses parry haste... others do not. But over here, this guy swings really fast but not that hard, so you want to stack BV.

Plus, depending on how bursty you feel a fight is, you can up the weighting a little and see how that changes your optimal setup.

I guess if what I'm suggesting has strong elements of Rawr, then maybe what we need is a way to combine the two tools, Rawr and this Tanking Spreadsheet.

On the issue of the number of boss profiles, I have been adding profiles for every boss, 10, 25 and hard mode versions. It's very simple to plug in new bosses, simply insert a new line. The setup page picks up the new entry, allowing you to essentially save new profiles.

 

BWarner

<aside> The eggheads over at Rawr are creating and beginning to implement a method to define fight variables, such as movement. This is still in the active development stage, so feel free to chime in over in the Discussions page of Rawr with more features that you wish to see in regards to this, especially once we get some more tanking-specific development in this feature. </aside>

Regardless, more on the subject of spreadsheets, optimizing a gearset isn't exactly macroable. Given the sheer exponential possible setups in regards to gear, enchants, gemmings, talent specs, etc., this really isn't a feasible avenue for a spreadsheet to pursue. I won't say that the concept isn't worth it (as evidenced by the Rawr implementation, it is totally doable, and very much "worth it"), but it's really just not something that lends itself to a spreadsheet.

In regards to having one tool support the other, I think it would be totally worth allowing imports/exports of CSV files that would store character setups, so as to provide more portable testing and comparisons between the two tools.

The Warrior Formerly Known as Aerowyn.

 

ZorbaTHut

I actually don't think it's anywhere near as bad as you think. Yes, technically the possibilities are exponential, but back in reality, there isn't a single case where the Saronite Defender is going to beat out the Crystal Plated Vanguard. There's going to be maaaaaybe five viable options for the most contested slots, and in most slots you're going to be looking at one or two viable options. And that's assuming you have every single drop in the game. On top of that, there are very few practical hard discontinuities in warrior tanking - in fact, the only two are the hard expertise cap, the hit cap, and the block set, and you're not really likely to be hitting those in anything besides a top-end gimmick set.

This is one of those cases where a few good heuristics would 99% solve the problem.

On the other hand I have no interest in actually coding it in OO's wonky programming language.