Fun to watch your team advance

[Hachoo]

Just felt like posting an update. Haven't been doing much with my team the last week or so but I have spent some time getting some new items, spent some emblems, etc, and tonight marked a nice occasion for me. I ran Gundrak, then Drak'Tharon, then Utgarde Keep (All Heroic) with no wipes (and only 1 death on 1 shaman because I was too lazy to heal him just before a boss went down), chain pulling everything. My DK tank now has 28.1k HP unbuffed, 18.7% dodge, 18.1% parry, 25.6k armor, and my shamans are somewhere between 2000 and 2100 spellpower buffed with totem of wrath. I was worried that I wouldn't take down Novos and I didn't want to do him a bunch of times so I told myself I'd try him once. He went down fast and hard, no one fell below 50% life, was a really good feeling. I'm now seriously considering dropping mining on my DK for Blacksmithing (already have JC) just for those 2 extra gem slots to hit 30k hp unbuffed :D

Anyway, I'm sure others here have progressed faster/further than me in the same amount of time since I don't play too terribly much - anyone else have any "good feeling" experiences to share?

[puppychow]

I haven't had much time to play either but I've cleared heroic VH every day this week with 0 deaths and slightly over 30 mins each run. I wiped non stop for days a few weeks ago in this instance, and really the only thing thats changed is my gear, so yeah gear makes a huge difference! Today I had the Prince ethereal guy and the water girl, my two least favorite ones, but I killed em both without any problems.

last sunday I did Drak as well (it was the daily) and I 1 shotted Novos, had skipped him for 2 weeks since I considered him "too hard". I was quite suprised, with my greater HP and my resto shamans gear it was easy keeping everyone up, didn't have to move at all.

So yeah, I think once you hit a certain threshold of gear all the heroics suddenly flip from "omg i hate this goddamn game and I am quitting" to "wow... that was easy". Either that, or Blizzard slipped in hidden nerfs to heroics :)

[Shaitan256]

I'm now seriously considering dropping mining on my DK for Blacksmithing (already have JC) just for those 2 extra gem slots to hit 30k hp unbuffed :D


Wouldn't the leatherworking thing be more advancement? I meanif the stats on thottbot are right, you get + 90 Stam on bracelets(? ok could be that you then mis n enchantment? don't know what amount your missing but I guess that arent 52stam?) instead of 2 extra 24 stam or something. ok maybe you have some other plans with Blacksmithing, but this would be more of a benefit if you just want to push your HP. Just btw. ^^
http://thottbot.com/s57690 Link to the 90 Stam thing


Nice to hear that your advancing a lot :) Hope I get my stuff soon so I can rock the house too^^

Greetings,
Shaitan

[Niley]

hit 30k hp unbuffed

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).
This reminds me of those people that always ask what is my spell damage.....empty stat unless You consider all the other stats that are involved in Your dps, and tank has more stats to worry about than any healer or dps(stam/dodge/parry/defense/expertise/hit/armor etc). Just like main tank in my guild told me, there is nothing in this game that requires more hp, other then maybe sarth with 3 drakes and we use druid tank there, she has almost all best in slot, and 27k hp unbuffed, my guild cleared everything including glory of the raider achievement.
Now on top of that You're running a team with no healer, so less healing on a tank = lots more dps on the boss.
Just few more pointers :P
Might want to use all 3 jc gems in Your gear, and as i pointed above 41 stam is not always the best choice. 15 expertise to bracers is much better then 6 stam, unless you're expertise capped.
Your meta is considered to be one of the worst around, it will make You take about 30-70 less damage per hit, stam+2% less spell damage taken one is much better.
Last thing is Your spec, fix it, 1/5 rage of rivendare? That's an amazing talents...desecration increases Your dps only by 3%, RoR will give You more, no Bcb? :( I would just copy my spec, its sort of a cookie cutter spec for unholy Dks, I managed to pull off over 10k tps on 10 man patchwerk with it.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Antonidas&n=Crisethe
And grats on making some nice progress!

and on that note...i kinda stopped boxing, no new challenges, grinding got a bit boring, no point in making gold, each of my toons have over 20k...my priest/mage combo got boring too..=(

[Hachoo]

hit 30k hp unbuffed

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).
This reminds me of those people that always ask what is my spell damage.....empty stat unless You consider all the other stats that are involved in Your dps, and tank has more stats to worry about than any healer or dps(stam/dodge/parry/defense/expertise/hit/armor etc). Just like main tank in my guild told me, there is nothing in this game that requires more hp, other then maybe sarth with 3 drakes and we use druid tank there, she has almost all best in slot, and 27k hp unbuffed, my guild cleared everything including glory of the raider achievement.
Now on top of that You're running a team with no healer, so less healing on a tank = lots more dps on the boss.
Just few more pointers :P
Might want to use all 3 jc gems in Your gear, and as i pointed above 41 stam is not always the best choice. 15 expertise to bracers is much better then 6 stam, unless you're expertise capped.
Your meta is considered to be one of the worst around, it will make You take about 30-70 less damage per hit, stam+2% less spell damage taken one is much better.
Last thing is Your spec, fix it, 1/5 rage of rivendare? That's an amazing talents...desecration increases Your dps only by 3%, RoR will give You more, no Bcb? :( I would just copy my spec, its sort of a cookie cutter spec for unholy Dks, I managed to pull off over 10k tps on 10 man patchwerk with it.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Antonidas&n=Crisethe
And grats on making some nice progress!

and on that note...i kinda stopped boxing, no new challenges, grinding got a bit boring, no point in making gold, each of my toons have over 20k...my priest/mage combo got boring too..=(My spec has been broken for awhile. I refuse to respec until 3.0.8 comes out. I need to respec all of my shamans as well. I've had this same spec since I left the DK starting area. Just don't want to rework it until 3.0.8 comes out and everything is final, as I'd hate to respec and then have to respec again a few days later.

I haven't used JC gems yet - I refuse to waste a 300g dragon's eye on a blue piece of gear. Also, I'm waiting on 3.0.8 to waste money on that because it will affect my defense and other stats greatly and I want to see exactly how things change before making any expensive decisions :). The point to taking blacksmithing for the extra gem slots and 30k hp unbuffed wasn't really about gemming for stamina. I have a couple epic pieces of gear that I can't wear because my defense drops below 535 if I put them on - with BS I could gem an extra defense gem or two and then move to some epic gear that would give me 30k hp unbuffed as well as a lot of extra dodge. I'm currently only using 1 dragon's eye gem and when I gem the other 2 I'm planning on doing one +27 dodge rating and one +41 stam. Then again, losing mining means -500+hp so it might not really end up being THAT much of a buff.

Aside from that, having extra staming isn't completely worthless. Thats really the only thing that has changed on my DK in the last 2 weeks (went from 24.4k hp to 28.1k) and it honestly has made things that were a bit tough before quite a lot easier now. I guess its the difference between 1 more LvB/LB volley or having to 4x LHW maybe. As you can see I also gem for dodge quite a bit and will probably be replacing the gem in my earthguard chain with a +27 dodge gem here shortly.

Still trying to decide on BS vs Mining though - the 500HP is nice for mining but getting BS gives me more options and those new tanking weapons coming out still say BoP - if they end up staying BoP then it would be really nice to be able to craft one that gives +90 parry or +90 defense rating.

[Klesh]

Still trying to decide on BS vs Mining though - the 500HP is nice for mining but getting BS gives me more options and those new tanking weapons coming out still say BoP - if they end up staying BoP then it would be really nice to be able to craft one that gives +90 parry or +90 defense rating.

No 2h BoP tanking weapons.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/13769837253-titansteel-defenderdeflector.html

The stamina enchant to weapons got removed too.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/14318707674-enchant-weapon--titanguard-removed.html

[Hachoo]

Bummer - would have rather had them be available in some way shape or form. Oh well, the new runeforge enchant should pretty much solve all my potential defense problems. I need to find the sigil they're talking about also and how to get it.

Edit: Bleh...found it - its only a chance on use to give +defense. Wtf? Based on the blue post they made it sound like the new sigil will solve the defense problem for DKs but a sigil that only has a chance to proc +defense is retarded - can't use that to reach the defense cap.

[Bigfish]

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).

I'd have to disagree here. You really have to weigh the increased survival time versus increased incoming DPS. Personally,I'll take the HP in a general situation that doesn't involve stacking the hypothetical odds in favor of avoidance. It has its trade-offs, such as increased load on the healer, however, as a boxer I find Stamina has a much higher benefit to not only my tanks, but all characters in general.

Edit: Upon further number crunching using an item point based model, the marginal benefit of Stamina has decreasing returns to scale, while the marginal benefit to avoidance has an increasing returns to scale, which means at some point, yeah, you will be indefenitely better off stacking avoidance. The Problem i see is that you don't reach that point until you hit about 52,000 HP. The obvious problem here is exactly as I put forth before: The healer has to spend more mana and put out a higher HPS to keep you up. More theorycrafting to come!

[Hachoo]

Forgot to add - I still have absolutely 0 issues holding aggro on everything. I'm not going to collect hit or expertise on purpose unless I have said issues. As of right now the only expertise/hit I have is what came on gear that were upgrades for me. I see no point in gemming or purposefully gearing for it unless I actually need it to hold aggro.

[Bigfish]

Upon further delving, the point where avoidance's utility surpasses Stamina's is about 64% total avoidance if you ar at 22000 HP, at which point you are always better off stacking more Avoidance than Stamina. However, this also assumes a 1:1 trade off. Given that tanking gear in WoW never focuses solely on Stamina or Avoidance, you rarely face an issue of which point you want to grab next, so much as which piece of gear offers an upgrade.

[Bigfish]

Forgot to add - I still have absolutely 0 issues holding aggro on everything. I'm not going to collect hit or expertise on purpose unless I have said issues. As of right now the only expertise/hit I have is what came on gear that were upgrades for me. I see no point in gemming or purposefully gearing for it unless I actually need it to hold aggro.

Not sure why tanks say to go for hit outside of aggro issues, but I know expertise is so that you can avoid getting Parry-whomped by something using a special-big hit-parry-big-hit. Of course, the chances of that occuring are fairly minimal anyway. I think half the tank theory-crafting comes out of people trying to add avoid the inevitable reality that they are walking meat shields or healers looking to make their own lives easier.

Then again, I haven't delved too deeply in to HPS and healer longevity either.

[Shaitan256]

I don't know if it's changed during the time Wow was released, and if it is/was true(never really looked for it, just read it somewhere) But Taunt for example can miss/be resisted(or whatever) and if a priest gets aggroed (what shouldn't happen) so he/she's going to be instagibbed unless the Tank taunts. If it resists, it's not good could cause a wipe. Ok I guess Mocking blow could help and all this other stuff, but if Taunt resists it's 1,5 sec GCD, 1,5 seconds you maybe not have to do other stuff .

[Hachoo]

Forgot to add - I still have absolutely 0 issues holding aggro on everything. I'm not going to collect hit or expertise on purpose unless I have said issues. As of right now the only expertise/hit I have is what came on gear that were upgrades for me. I see no point in gemming or purposefully gearing for it unless I actually need it to hold aggro.

Not sure why tanks say to go for hit outside of aggro issues, but I know expertise is so that you can avoid getting Parry-whomped by something using a special-big hit-parry-big-hit. Of course, the chances of that occuring are fairly minimal anyway. I think half the tank theory-crafting comes out of people trying to add avoid the inevitable reality that they are walking meat shields or healers looking to make their own lives easier.

Then again, I haven't delved too deeply in to HPS and healer longevity either.Supposedly in 3.0.8 they're removing parry haste completely so this will no longer even be a possible issue :) No sense working on expertise to avoid parry gibbing if it won't exist anymore.

[Bigfish]

Supposedly in 3.0.8 they're removing parry haste completely so this will no longer even be a possible issue No sense working on expertise to avoid parry gibbing if it won't exist anymore.

Ug, really? I guess that's a good thing, but damn I wish they would stop messing with game mechanics.

[Multibocks]

I don't know if it's changed during the time Wow was released, and if it is/was true(never really looked for it, just read it somewhere) But Taunt for example can miss/be resisted(or whatever) and if a priest gets aggroed (what shouldn't happen) so he/she's going to be instagibbed unless the Tank taunts. If it resists, it's not good could cause a wipe. Ok I guess Mocking blow could help and all this other stuff, but if Taunt resists it's 1,5 sec GCD, 1,5 seconds you maybe not have to do other stuff .

And this is why the taunt glyph is very important, makes taunt unable to be resisted/miss/whatever. So this really isnt an issue.

[Niley]

No point, You dont need it, Your other stats are really low, and You should work on them first, dodge/hit and expertise, I can have way over 30k stam on my dk, yet I choose not too, I can 100% guarantee You that a tank with 22k hp and 25% dodge/23-5% parry will be a lot easier to heal than a tank with 10k more hp but 10% less dodge and parry(this is just an example).

I'd have to disagree here. You really have to weigh the increased survival time versus increased incoming DPS. Personally,I'll take the HP in a general situation that doesn't involve stacking the hypothetical odds in favor of avoidance. It has its trade-offs, such as increased load on the healer, however, as a boxer I find Stamina has a much higher benefit to not only my tanks, but all characters in general.

Edit: Upon further number crunching using an item point based model, the marginal benefit of Stamina has decreasing returns to scale, while the marginal benefit to avoidance has an increasing returns to scale, which means at some point, yeah, you will be indefenitely better off stacking avoidance. The Problem i see is that you don't reach that point until you hit about 52,000 HP. The obvious problem here is exactly as I put forth before: The healer has to spend more mana and put out a higher HPS to keep you up. More theorycrafting to come!

What do You base Your theory crafting of? I use Ej numbers to gear my tank and whatnot(and their sheets too), also its different for every tank class. How did you figure where to distribute the points for which stat? I can easily tell You that having more avoidance and 28ish will make it A lot easier on You, good example would be this ss from a heroic:
http://www.hdimage.org/images/iyguyw1nmmfnbop79wuc_ocrnhot010109020036.jpg

This is where my pally tank( i have 2 tanks), gets hit very hard, requires constant healing, there is no way ever I would be able to pull 3 groups with him, like i do with other tank. My Dk on the other hand has set that's mostly geared for avoidance/threat, can pull 2-3 groups in heroics and not need a heal, or pull a boss and live easily with just earth shield and riptide.
My pally:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Antonidas&n=Phean
He has stats much closer to OPs DK.

[Shaitan256]

I don't know if it's changed during the time Wow was released, and if it is/was true(never really looked for it, just read it somewhere) But Taunt for example can miss/be resisted(or whatever) and if a priest gets aggroed (what shouldn't happen) so he/she's going to be instagibbed unless the Tank taunts. If it resists, it's not good could cause a wipe. Ok I guess Mocking blow could help and all this other stuff, but if Taunt resists it's 1,5 sec GCD, 1,5 seconds you maybe not have to do other stuff .

And this is why the taunt glyph is very important, makes taunt unable to be resisted/miss/whatever. So this really isnt an issue.

Oh there's a glyph for taunt? Didn't noticed sry, haven't even looked @ the Warrior Glyphs, but if there are no betterglyphs this is your choice, and you can stack more in other stats then in hit :)

[Bigfish]

What do You base Your theory crafting of? I use Ej numbers to gear my tank and whatnot(and their sheets too), also its different for every tank class. How did you figure where to distribute the points for which stat? I can easily tell You that having more avoidance and 28ish will make it A lot easier on You, good example would be this ss from a heroic:


This is where my pally tank( i have 2 tanks), gets hit very hard, requires constant healing, there is no way ever I would be able to pull 3 groups with him, like i do with other tank. My Dk on the other hand has set that's mostly geared for avoidance/threat, can pull 2-3 groups in heroics and not need a heal, or pull a boss and live easily with just earth shield and riptide.

I use a basic analysis of increased survival time against a variable representing incoming damage on an item point based marginal benefit of a point of stamina versus a point of avoidance. The conclusion I came to was that while stamina has decreasing returns to scale and avoidance has increasing returns to scale, the point at which stamina's marginal utility decreases past the marginal utility of a point of avoidance happens at around 52k HP.

THAT SAID, its based off 2 key assumptions: 1. That base avoidance is 15%, and 2. You can determine where item points go as you see fit.

Given that both are not inherently true in actual gameplay (due to talents affecting base avoidance and tanking gear rendering a balance of stats insted of one or the other), the model has to be adjusted to accomodate a case by case basis of where a player's actual HP and avoidance are plugged in to the model to determine the marginal benefit of 1 item point of stamina versus 1 item point of avoidance.

Regardless, the principle holds that due to diminishing returns on stamina and increasing returns on avoidance, prior to a certain point in either avoidance or HP, you are better off stacking stamina over avoidance, and after that stacking avoidance over stamina. Beyond that, the only real question is one of the external load you are willing to put on your healer.

Bottom line: Avoidance isn't unconditionally better for a tank in any and all circumstances. It is after a certain point, but given that point is determined by two factors and not one, you can't make accurate blanket statements based off just one of the two variables. Once you hit X HP focus on Avoidance, or once you hit X avoidance, focus on HP are both innacurate statements because neither factor the reciprocal nature of how the two affect each other in the final outcome. Give me a minute to re-whip up the model I came up with yesterday and I'll post it.

[Bigfish]

HP MbHP Avoidance MbAvoidance
20000 3 40 1.694915254
20600 2.912621359 41 1.724137931
21200 2.830188679 42 1.754385965
21800 2.752293578 43 1.785714286
22400 2.678571429 44 1.818181818
23000 2.608695652 45 1.851851852
23600 2.542372881 46 1.886792453
24200 2.479338843 47 1.923076923
24800 2.419354839 48 1.960784314
25400 2.362204724 49 2
26000 2.307692308 50 2.040816327
26600 2.255639098 51 2.083333333
27200 2.205882353 52 2.127659574
27800 2.158273381 53 2.173913043
28400 2.112676056 54 2.222222222
29000 2.068965517 55 2.272727273
29600 2.027027027 56 2.325581395
30200 1.986754967 57 2.380952381
30800 1.948051948 58 2.43902439
31400 1.910828025 59 2.5
32000 1.875 60 2.564102564
32600 1.840490798 61 2.631578947
33200 1.807228916 62 2.702702703
33800 1.775147929 63 2.777777778
34400 1.744186047 64 2.857142857
35000 1.714285714 65 2.941176471
35600 1.685393258 66 3.03030303
36200 1.657458564 67 3.125
36800 1.630434783 68 3.225806452
37400 1.604278075 69 3.333333333
38000 1.578947368 70 3.448275862
38600 1.554404145 71 3.571428571
39200 1.530612245 72 3.703703704


Ok, in this table, the final determinant of effectiveness is a tank's ability to soak up damage. A mob will deal X damage and kill a player after so long, but that factor is irrelevant as it factors out of the comparison. In other words, increasing soak potential or decreasing incoming damage both increase your time to live.
This table is based on a 40 item point interval, which amounts to 60 Stamina or 40 rating of dodge/defense.

The first colum of the table represents HP, the second colum is the marginal percentage increase in time to live of the next 40 points of stamina. The third column is avoidance, and the fourth is the marginal percentage increase in time to live per the next 40 points spent in avoidance.

Given the OP's stats and taking and cross referencing the marginal benefits on the table (and guessing his miss rate is 10% since he didn't provide it and I can't get to the armory atm), the marginal utility of getting 40 more points of stamina is 2.11 and the marginal utility of 40 more points in avoidance is 1.92.

He's better off stacking more HP until he either hits 32k buffed, or pulls 5% more avoidance from somewhere.

Now keep in mind these are rough numbers. I haven't figured in frost presence or lord knows how many other factors, but the principle of what I'm saying still holds: Until an analysis is run on the combination of HP and Avoidance to verify that any given player is indeed beyond the point the returns cross and reverse, a blanket statement cannot be meaningfully drawn.

[Multibocks]

Did you also factor in the diminishing returns of stacking avoidance? For example I believe on DKs that parry starts to diminish at 41% and dodge at 80something (which is why they suggest stacking dodge if you stack any avoidance.)

[puppychow]

defense doesn't diminish at all iirc, and I think parry/dodge diminish much earlier than that. Also for warr/pallies shield block rating doesn't diminish either. My pally tank is at 570 defense now after a late nite naxx25 run, sadly even if I wanted to replace some enchants with stam I couldn't -- for example chest +22 def is far superior to 275 health (WTF? 275???), +22 def on shield is far superior to +18 stam, etc, etc. Blizzard really dropped the ball on tank enchanting, I can kind of understand why they didn't put in +50/75 sta to weapon in 3.08 but I was so looking forward to that enchant. Back to +20 strength for now, gogo TBC enchants :(

[Multibocks]

No defense doesnt diminish however you wont be getting +40% parry or dodge from +defense. You can't stack that much defense.

edit: as for the diminishing returns I just read it this morning those are the numbers posted on elitistjerks that have been tested (I might be off by a few percent, but they are in the general ballpark.) Dodge it makes sense that it has a higher cap as it is the ONLY avoidance stat bear tanks have.

[Bigfish]

No I didn't factor in Diminishing returns on avoidance rating (I included Defense and dodge as the same at both providing 1% avoidance at 40 points) rating. If the amount of rating needed to up avoidance by 1% increases at some point, obviously that will throw off the model, but only at high avoidance numbers and only on the ratings that face such dimishing returns.

Regardless, the point wasn't to illustrate some magic target (although I can see where that target comes from) but to point out that the possibility of substituing Stamina for Avoidance in instances where Stamina is at or above the balance point but avoidance is below it. Eventually item levels do become so inflated you can't help but reach that point where avoidance beets out stamina and you want to leave your HP at that magic number, but until that number of item points spent in avoidance and stamina combined is calculated and defined, shooting for the magic number may not be the best option for a tank.