Carnathagia

Apparently, the Sunwell Radiance lesson went unlearned, and we have Chill of the Throne to deal with for Icecrown.
What impact will this have on the value of parry rating compared to dodge rating? Is dodge rating effectively capped, along with the corresponding diminishing returns, 20% lower with this change? What would happen if you have less than 20% dodge rating from gear? Does the itemization exist to assemble a decent parry and/or block set, and would that be ideal?

 

JamesVZ

What impact will this have on the value of parry rating compared to dodge rating? None, you will still gear towards dodge or parry as you do now.

Is dodge rating effectively capped, along with the corresponding diminishing returns, 20% lower with this change? Yes.

What would happen if you have less than 20% dodge rating from gear? You lose whatever dodge you have left. You can't dodge into the fist of the boss, if that's where the question is aimed.

Does the itemization exist to assemble a decent parry and/or block set, and would that be ideal? No, and no.

Basically, bonus armor items are still king, you will avoid 20% less attacks, and boss damage is going to be adjusted accordingly. It's really not a big deal at all.

Official Slackie Fanclub. The dude gets ALL the ladies.

In regards to Icecrown Radiance:

 

Liar

This pretty much. Socketing for EH will be the way to go once again, or rather, the nerf to dodge makes it even more important because our avoidance loses alot of the exponential scaling it had. Obviously, everyone who is going to tank in ICC should have more than 20% dodge from gear alone so how you gear for avoidance (if you chose to) doesn't matter at all.


Also, this makes Shield Block a slightly better CD and prevents Holy Shield from being counted as EH. Yay? <_<

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

 

Woyzeck

Just to understand it better, we are now "at naxx levels of avoidance but with higher DR" ?

 

Liar

Pretty much, yes. We still have our normal avoidance, but the mobs have an (invisible?) buff on them that makes them ignore 20% of their target's dodge chance.

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

 

janaka

Actually, not Chill of the Throne, but the fact that bosses will hit weaker and faster does raise the value of avoidance a little. Most likely not enough to trump EH, though, I agree.

 

Fellwraith

The way we look at certain items may change however. The on-use dodge trinkets aren't nearly as good in ICC since the % change in expected damage intake is lower (moving from 45% to 51% avoidance is far less valuable than moving from 64% to 70%). The onyxia or heroic twin valk's rings are much better than [Band of the Traitor King] because the percentage reduction in expected damage intake is less on the traitor king ring now.

When we talked about radiance in Sunwell, it was without any kind of DR curve on avoidance. Back then, you still stacked avoidance and once you surpassed a certain amount, it was still the best stat to stack. Now you have a huge step function and then your incremental avoidance gains are lower thanks to the DR system in place. That changes a lot of the math as to whether or not you want certain avoidance pieces or effects vs the alternatives. So stuff like your 4pc T10 bonus, +armor modifiers, and block value do become a lot more valuable than they would have been without icewell radiance.

 

muramid

Quote from GC, Bosses won't hit faster.

 

Gellor

These are all valid points. Even with the avoidance nerf, I'm doubtful as to whether BR/BV gear will be a viable alternative(if there even is any), I guess we will have to wait and see adjusted ICC boss damage for this nerf.

One thing this does do is put the EH differences of tanks front and centre , and of even more importance than it was previously. Even though the 20% reduction affects all tanks avoidance equally, the effect on each tank is not equal. The 20% reduction now means Paladin's join Warrior's in the BANG totally unmitigated hit club, a club no one wants to be a member of. Not fully cognisant of the implications to DK tanking, but it probably makes Blood Tank DK's even more the de facto spec of choice for them, and makes the bear undisputed king of the hill as things currently stand.

My main concern though is that such a huge avoidance hit may have unintended or unforeseen consequences to tanking capabilities.

 

Arghoslent

I put on whatever BV gear I have for 25 man Algalon yesterday. I don't remember how much BV I had exactly, but when I popped Shield Block, I blocked over 8000 damage per hit. Assuming 4 pieces of lvl 245 Tier 9.5 which I have, every 12 out of 30 seconds I can block quite a lot of incoming damage (with 3/3 in Critical Block of course, but I can't imagine a prot warrior without this talent). Overall, I wouldn't completely dismiss BV as a mitigation stat, at least not for fast hitting bosses.

 

Gruntle

At the risk of sounding a bit dense, why is 6% dodge worth more at baseline dodge of 64% than 44%? Liar also wrote about it (exponential scaling of dodge), but I can't really see why it scales exponentially?

 

◊ vorpalblade

Relatively speaking, moving from 64% avoidance to 70% avoidance means your chance of taking an unavoided hit is decreasing from 36% to 30%, a 16.7% improvement. In contrast, moving from 44% avoidance to 50% avoidance means your chance of taking an unavoided hit is decreasing from 56% to 50%, which is a 10.7% improvement. If the goal of popping a dodge trinket is to minimize the number of unavoided hits, the outcome is more effective at higher levels of avoidance if you assume that the trinket gives you the same +dodge% at both levels of avoidance, which in this case it does.

And it does this because the other issue at work here is that Icewell radiance is NOT going to lower the DR you have on your dodge rating, so popping that dodge trinket will give you the exact same dodge percent at pre-radiance avoidance levels as it will at your post-radiance (-20%) avoidance level. (Ordinarily, diminishing returns would somewhat mitigate the greater contribution the trinket would give you at higher levels of avoidance, by simply giving you less dodge than it would give you if you'd had lower overall avoidance. With radiance, this isn't the case.)

e: It's worth noting that this effect (the relative value of adding 1% avoidance increasing as you gain more avoidance) was one of the big reasons they put avoidance ratings on diminishing returns to begin with, such that if you have lots of dodge already, it takes substantially more dodge rating to get that next 1%. Radiance has the effect of flatly reducing your dodge % without dropping you back to a more forgiving range of diminishing returns.

 

Executation

Vorpalblade,

What is the formula you use to determine the % of improvement?

 

Backgoode

Change in chance to be hit over initial chance to be hit. So for his examples:

(36 - 30)/36 * 100 = 16.67%

(56 - 50)/56 * 100 = 10.71%

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...le&n=Backgoode

 

◊ vorpalblade

^^e;fb

It's not so much a formula as it is simple division. If your chance of taking an unavoided hit goes from 36% to 30%, the improvement is (6 / 36) = 16.7%. If your chance of taking an unavoided hit goes from 56% to 50%, the improvement is (6 / 56) = 10.7%.

 

Executation

*DELETED*

 

Casstor

Just to comment on this, assuming you have the 30% additional SBV talent and glyph of blocking, SBV is calculated the following way:

For normal blocks w/ Shield Block active: SBV * 2.4
For crit blocks w/ Sheild Block active: SBV * 4.8
For normal blocks: SBV * 1.4

Therefore, in order to block 8000 damage normally during shield block, you would be blocking 8000 * 1.4 / 2.4 = 4666.67 damage normally outside of shield block. If you were just getting a long string of crit blocks (which seems more likely), you would be blocking 2333.33 damaage normally outside of shield block.

This is not to say that SBV is completely off the table for fast swinging bosses (as it is most probably a quite strong stat against these bosses), I'm simply pointing out that its likely your quote of 8000 per hit is referring to a long string of critical blocks.

 

Arghoslent

This is actually exactly what I meant, but I guess I didn't make myself clear. Blocks for over 8000 happen when Shield Block is up and Critical Block procs.

 

backcracker

Personally I don't believe that tank damage is relevant assuming that the tank can hold the aggro. The only suggestion i would have to that is just make sure ur expertise is capped, and a decent amount of hit rating. Other than that u would have to start gemmin/chanting for dps and that is unacceptable.

I can see other tanks pulling higher dps numbers but i know that as a prot warrior no boss will be pulled off of me and will allow the dps classes to really open up, more than once i have a non warrior tank be worried about his personal dps and lose aggro to the warlock with a 60% crit chance.

I know that i won't lose agg to that warlock so that warlock can open up and really let loose that is the warrior dps contribution the lack of fear from other classes to dps like they can.

 

Liar

You got it completely backwards. A tank has to survive first, then hold aggro (all in the frame of current tank capabilities so please noone mention a hypothetical tank that does 100 TPS but has 90% armor reduction or whatever). If you have any Rogues or Hunters in your raid then threat should be pretty much trivial and the only thing you need to care about is staying alive.

For what it's worth, I consider Survivability more important than Threat because it's just no issue right now. Utility would come as third but we already know that Blizzard does not balance tanks around this (and for good reason) so Paladins and Druids that are smart enough to know when to CR lucked out big time.

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

 

DimetrisDoA

Alright, I am new to Elitist so pardon if this does not correspond directly to the topic at hand. This is the only live thread that I have found that regards to my general question. For Main Tanking, I have browsed through many spec ideas, yet I have not found one that peaks my interest. The common 15 / 3 / 53 doesn't really jump out at me because I am a fan of the Imp Demo Shout. The enchant on my Main Hand is Blade Ward, and with 15 points in Arms I'm contemplating whether or not to switch enchants to Blood Draining or stick with Blade Ward. Another thing that bothers me is the Imp Thunderclap, if you are single target Main Tanking, why would you need thunderclap? Why not take 2 points out of that and spend it in another tree? or put 2 of the 3 in Imp Bloodrage? Im seeing alot of tanks keep all 3 points in the Imp Thunderclap, care to elaborate?

 

Fellwraith

What does CR stand for in your post? Is that short-hand for re-roll?


The whole purpose of "icecrown radiance" was to stretch out the number of hits it takes to kill you. That means you'll probably see the average damage per hit go down to a lower level (ie probably in the range of 3 hits to kill instead of 2 like we have today). A well-geared bear has a maximum of 60K(?) hp after ToC 25 heroic is done? I think I'll be at around 54.5k hp when my wishlist is completed from ToC25 heroic. It seems unlikely that they'd tune a 3-hit-kill boss to the bear level of HP without having most of the wow tanking forums full of people screaming that warrior and DK EH are too low. That means you're probably looking at somewhere between 25-30k per hit for most bosses (maybe north of 30k if they're assuming you're upgrading to normal mode drops before you start doing the heroic encounters, you can only count on shields every 15 seconds and HoTs ticking every 3. Even with a paladin bombing holy lights on you, that's a lot of HP to replace).

Without even really trying to stack block value, I'll be at about 2.4k block value to start ICC. For 1/3 of the fight, I will block every hit. 60% of those blocks will be critical blocks for 8.2k, the other 40% will be regular blocks for 4.1k. For the other 2/3 of the fight I have a 43% chance to avoid an incoming attack and a 10% chance to block 4.8k and a 6% chance to block for 2.4k. There's a 6% chance 3 hits in a row will be unavoided or unblocked. That's higher than I'd like, but it's not quite as bad as the paladin's situation. They'll never double or quadruple their block value and they're counting on redoubt or stacking block rating on lower ilvl pieces to cover the hit table. Ardent defender is still really good, but paladins are going to have weaknesses elsewhere that they didn't have in ToC25.

Shaving that much damage off lower damage value attacks dramatically increases the value of the shieldblock ability, critical block, and our 4pcT9 bonus. There could be good reasons to be using the 258 version of T9 for the harder physical fights in that zone.

I actually think warriors will stack up pretty well. Druids will probably be the strongest for a harder hitting physical boss, but I don't think the marginal differences between us will be that bad.

 

Liar

Combat Rez (Rebirth). :P

And yeah, Paladins are getting hit quite a bit with the radiance since it eliminates Holy Shield as EH but that's pretty much it. They still have a lower chance to take multiple unblocked hits than Warriors and in the end critical block is never guaranteed so it cannot be counted as EH either. That said, Shield Block turned out alot more awesome in ToC than I would have given it credit for, partly because of the critical block buff and because it's always ready when you need it (tank switches at Gormok, Twins starting to dual wield, etc). I think 40 seconds is a good place to be as far as CD goes but it might even be better if it tripled block value instead of just doubling it (prevent crit blocks to happen during Shield Block to balance it out). But that's just something I'd say is nice to have - if it doesn't happen, no worries, Shield Block is still great.

Druids are still going to rule ICC and I am quite surprised they haven't been nerfed yet. It's not that they have alot more health than Warriors but what most people forget is that they have alot more armor as well so on some bosses they should be able to get into 3 shot range where other tanks hover in the 2 shot range which is quite significant no matter what.

In conclusion, Druids and Paladins will still have more EH than us, especially when they start getting more and more upgrades and it puzzles me why Blizz hasn't even started yet to reign them in. Shield Block is great and all, but not that great that it makes up for the EH differences unless bosses are tailor made for it like Twins (Shield Block absolutely rocks when they dual wield for obvious reasons). And keep in mind, you will probably replace most of your BV gear if the crafted pants are any indication of what's to come.

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

 

suicuique

I still wonder why the concept of EH can keep its prevalent position in the minds of a majority of posts on this forum or tankspot.

Yes, it is important if not the single most important aspect.
No, it should not be that dominant that all reasoning is reduced to EH every time tank classes or gear is discussed.

In my opinion, there are as much tank deaths in raid setting which are caused by healer strain as they are caused by unavoidable/worst-case burst. While the latter has everything to do with EH, the former does not.

 

Liar

What exactly do you mean with healer strain? I assume you are talking about a tank not avoiding a few hits in a row? If so, avoidance generally is close enough for the plate tanks for it to not matter anyway and as long as mana remains an afterthought for healers, EH will always trump it. Maybe this is too vague so let me explain: A tank with naturally higher EH can convert excess EH past the critical treshhold into nearly anything he wants to with gems. Only need 55k health for this boss but you have 57k in the same set a Warrior would have 55k with? No problem, replace 6 stamina gems for 6 dodge gems.


Anyways, I took a quick glance at the new datamined items and it looks like they are continuing to add more items with Block Value but without Block Rating and the usual spread of defensive stats like dodge, parry, defense etc.

I was actually expecting our BV to go down in ICC and not up but maybe I am wrong. We'll have to see what other gear alternatives there are and even if the datamined items are accurate/final (some stats look copy and pasted on a few slots like the gloves and belts from the badge vendor) but it would definitely be worth to see how a high BV set would stand up against the traditional sets. As long as the BV replaces something insignificant (in terms of EH) like parry or dodge it might work out well. But - and this is important - it mostly depends on how the boss fights are designed.

EDIT: Anyone seen our Quel'dalar? <_<

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