Random Cataclysm discussion

[BadKarma]

Hasnt steered me wrong so far

[Cri]

Eh, it's not that you cant equip gears with expertise, but the dps gain you get from it is insignificant compared to the mitigation. I don't know which pieces you're talking about, but odd is that you're still far from cap with them equiped.

I still have dps gears for encounter where dps check was an issue, but you rarely get them to equip them since the mitigation is generally better.

You must be running BoT/BWD only and still in 359 gear. In current iLVs dodge/parry DR hard, shield tanks are "mastery" capping and 6/7H FL tank damage is laughable. At that point as a shield tank you can stack stamina, DR parry/dodge harder or do more DPS...

Edit: bottom line is you can gear/forge for more expertise if you don't like the "20% miss" rate and get away with it easy...

[Boyiee]

Is askmrrobot any good? Every time I used it before, it gave me stupid gem/reforge priority.

If you don't use the proper values, all of those automated sites are wrong and will steer you in the wrong direction.

Shadowcraft for rogue for example, the most accurate of rogue equip/gem/reforging spreadsheets, has told me to reforge 1 or 2 things differently every week even with no change in gear lol.

Just be careful, they are fairly accurate if you input the numbers.

[Kaylia]

You must be running BoT/BWD only and still in 359 gear. In current iLVs dodge/parry DR hard, shield tanks are "mastery" capping and 6/7H FL tank damage is laughable. At that point as a shield tank you can stack stamina, DR parry/dodge harder or do more DPS...

Edit: bottom line is you can gear/forge for more expertise if you don't like the "20% miss" rate and get away with it easy...

Your argument is ridiculous. In normal fireland gears, your mastery is barely going to be capped, but even past that point, dodge and parry still offer a considerable amount of mitigation. You're looking at around 600 hit ratings, 600 expertise for parry and another 1200 for dodge. In you convert this into mitigation, it's not going to be a small amount, even if you consider that most of these hit would receive a 30% dmg reduction.

I have no issue using dps gears in situation where I know I can't die, but saying wipe are not possible on heroic fireland is a bit of an overstatement. Yes, tanks might not be the one dying first, but the less pressure on your healer, the better it is all around.

Lastly, I don't see many tank doing heroic mode in hit and expertise. Just becase it's doable doesnt mean it should be done.

If you don't use the proper values, all of those automated sites are wrong and will steer you in the wrong direction.

Shadowcraft for rogue for example, the most accurate of rogue equip/gem/reforging spreadsheets, has told me to reforge 1 or 2 things differently every week even with no change in gear lol.

Just be careful, they are fairly accurate if you input the numbers.

I didn't know you could input stats weight on that website, I just went with the default value. I will check it up next time I gears a dps class.


I loved how mrrobot would tell you what is the optimal way to reforge for hit rating..but yeah, when it doesnt reforge the right stats, it was kinda useless.

[FailureMidgard]

Wipe due to tank dmg is not really possible in first 6 of heroic FL...if you're wiping, it's to stupidity in your raid (aka mechanics). This is post-nerf I'm talking about, but even pre-nerf tank damage was pretty irrelevant. Does a dodge here or there theoretically allow healers to heal elsewhere? Sure. Is this at all relevant? No, we're talking about a 3% chance of a 3% chance (for your dodge to line up with the amount of time your healers are that stressed on the raid), or roughly a .09% chance that it even "helps". However, in virtually every situation where this matters you have either raid or tank cooldowns being used (not to mention at max hits of like 30k per hit, your healer has plenty of time to see something bad coming).

Hitting CTC/mastery cap is important for a tank (maybe even now), after that, it's virtually unnoticeable to the raid what you have. A little more dodge/parry really doesn't matter at all (I'm saying this also as someone who has healed 6/7H pre-nerf). A little more DPS doesn't really matter either post-nerf, but if you're complaining about missing as a tank, as long as you keep CTC cap you can -easily- go hit/expsoftcap.

[Kaylia]

No, we're talking about a 3% chance of a 3% chance (for your dodge to line up with the amount of time your healers are that stressed on the raid), or roughly a .09% chance that it even "helps".

I'm not sure where you get these number, but 2400 dodge is a lot more than 3% avoidance if your mastery is capped.

Anyway, the mentality that it's okay to gimp yourself because you like it better the other way is retarded.

[aurik]

As much as I hate to do this, I have to agree with Failure. Tank incoming damage is pretty much irrelevant at this point unless your raid is doing things in a really retarded way. Most important factor this tier is raid dps, so tanks squeezing out some extra dps is welcome.

[Kaylia]

Enrage timer arent the problem either since the nerf...


And you speak as if "stupid player" was never an issue in WoW. If I can be left alone for a long duration, the odd of being in a situation where the healer has to choose between a tank and a dps is lowered. There is less chance of wasting ability because one side panicked either.

Obviously, if dps is ever an issue (like it was on Baleroc, or on the hatchling), then yeah, dps gears win. There is no argument.

[aurik]

Have yet to meet someone who doesn't mind 15 minutes killing Alysrazor rather than 10.

The faster the adds/fight goes on the less time for stuff to go wrong. Almost every fight at this point hinges on dps. The only one that tank gib is a problem on (alysrazor) the healers have practically infinite mana and can cast while moving anyway.

Edit: this is also why the traditional gearing wisdom of "tank->healer->dps" is dead wrong since cata hit. I pass everything that is a legitimate upgrade for dps.

[Kaylia]

I agree when you say that gears doesn't matters as much for tank in Cataclysm, but that doesnt mean there is no benefit at all or that it should be overlooked.


Your tank isn't going to shave 5min off Alysrazor fight by equipping hit or expertise. You should equip enough to beat voracious hatchling reliably, but having more won't really make a huge difference on the timer. .

[aurik]

Tank using dps gear -> add dies in time -> people aren't trying to kill enraged add during tornados -> people don't die to random shit during tornados -> fight takes 5 minutes less because you shave off a cycle.

Tank mitigation, past a certain threshold, is pretty meaningless this tier.

Can't think of a single current fight where I'd rather my tanks add a bit more mitigation rather than a bit more dps. Which fights did you have in mind?

[Kaylia]

Tank using dps gear -> add dies in time -> people aren't trying to kill enraged add during tornados -> people don't die to random shit during tornados -> fight takes 5 minutes less because you shave off a cycle

Are you trying to convince me that tanks should increase their dps when certain dps check are not met? Because if you are, we aren't talking about the same thing. There is a reason why I carry dps gears and use it on Alysrazor, Baleroc (when we couldn't meet the enrage), or Rhyolith (when we had trouble downing the adds). However, these situations are exceptional and your dps won't matter past a certain threshold (once you meet the actual dps check).

After that, it's all about shaving a few seconds off the fight (not 5 minutes like you said) or preventing an occasional fluke death by letting the healer focus on people's mistake even more. In my experience, survivability is going to make a difference way more often than that 1% wipe.

Tank mitigation past a certain threshold, is pretty meaningless this tier.

Mitigation stats still scale pretty well once you reach block cap, and even if you say that tank damage doesn't matter, they still require some attention. If your guild is perfect all the time, than w/e, it probably doesn't matter since you won't wipe either way, but I have yet to find such guild or pug.



And even if you go for hit/expertise right now, it doesn't change the fact that in a few weeks, you will be forced back into mitigation, and you won't have much of a choice.

[FailureMidgard]

HRag, P3 burn, tank dps is hugely important. Add this to Baleroc/Alys....also, original Rhyolith was more of a DPS check than anything (healing was -only- bad when stacks got out of control, and even then just having a beacon on the tank healed basically all tank dmg, and even when the tank did take a lot of dmg, it was entirely magic).

Regardless of you nitpicking my 3% of 3% (was really just me picking #s, ya 2400 rating is like 12% before DR), I'm overstating the other number. If you want to be exact, it's probably closer to 10% of 0%, which is actually 0% (and the fact you seem to be missing). On top of this, nobody is saying to drop everything you have for 2400, just that you can avoid a 20% miss chance easily. Expertise to dodge soft cap (parry cap is really just not worth it) and hit cap (since this affects your non-physical attacks also) and you're going to be a lot closer to 3-5% lost avoidance.
Regardless of all of this, tank damage honestly doesn't matter at all. You're entirely right that DPS on most fights doesn't matter either (it does on HRag, which is really the only fight worth talking about), but DPS did matter at one point in time, and honestly dodge and parry haven't mattered since cata hit (okay, they helped on like Chimaeron, that's about it). "Hard tank healing" doesn't exist anymore (unless you're using a DK tank, who decidedly doesn't have the issue of capping CTC), as you already stated earlier, the best case scenario is it lets healers focus on the raid more, but even that is a moot point because raid dmg occurs at very expected times, and the fact remains you can -always- pop a CD during these times. I'm sorry, but you're not talking about dodging a 70% hit, it's a 50% hit at highest (your shield block should be up at the very least), and quite likely even lower than that (Alysrazor for example, you have Shield Wall up the entire time that raid dmg is high, so you're actually looking at a 35% hit).
Mana is irrelevant, tanks rarely if ever die, and when they do it's to magic damage or something, in which case you're really hoping for that 1 parry during that 1 time per raid lockout that you actually dropped that low. It's just meaningless.

By all means, keep doing what you want with your gear because otherwise you'll probably lose interest and stop caring, which is all around bad (and the best reason for a tank to care about their gear), but you're deluding yourself if you think that dodge/parry matters in the least.

[Edit: It's not about your guild being perfect, it's about your guild being able to play to a bare minimum competency level. I spam flash heals into people on priest because I can. Overhealing is irrelevant, mana is irrelevant, and nothing does enough dmg for HPS to even remotely be an issue unless people are really herp-derping it up, and really, if someone goes and runs through a tornado, or Rhyolith healing fails, or people can't properly do a shard on baleroc, it doesn't matter what you are wearing, it's a wipe.]

[Kaylia]

By all means, keep doing what you want with your gear because otherwise you'll probably lose interest and stop caring, which is all around bad (and the best reason for a tank to care about their gear), but you're deluding yourself if you think that dodge/parry matters in the least.

And you're deluding yourself if you think avoidance never make any difference, because it does make one... The perfect situation you're describing isn't going to happen every fucking time, and close call do happen.

[Edit: It's not about your guild being perfect, it's about your guild being able to play to a bare minimum competency level. I spam flash heals into people on priest because I can. Overhealing is irrelevant, mana is irrelevant, and nothing does enough dmg for HPS to even remotely be an issue unless people are really herp-derping it up, and really, if someone goes and runs through a tornado, or Rhyolith healing fails, or people can't properly do a shard on baleroc, it doesn't matter what you are wearing, it's a wipe.]

Your definition of "bare minimum" is retarded. Farming heroic fireland for 2 months probably got your head, because that's not 1% of the server who did that. Hell, even if you take a new groups of players who know the fight, there is probably going to be a bunch of close call just because everyone do shit differently.

[fantasticdan]

Does it really matter? With reforge, it's rather painless, and it's not like melee are behind because of this.

Not really, but it punishes (only) melee dps slightly (and in a RNG based way) when they can't be behind the boss 100% of the time(since no one caps it to parry), which is kind of silly, especially considering it's a completely extra stat/calculation that hunters/casters don't have to deal with, and it's fundamentally the same thing as hit anyway. Plus, if they go through with making tank avoidance scale with dps stats, it would be easier to parity them without it, unless it scales to dodge/parry the same as another stat already does, which is exactly as redundant as the stat is with hit in the first place.

[FailureMidgard]

And you're deluding yourself if you think avoidance never make any difference, because it does make one... The perfect situation you're describing isn't going to happen every fucking time, and close call do happen.

Close calls happen when your warrior changes specs and forgets to hit Dstance (or when your tank stands in WiF, Fiery Tornado, Worm Spew, etc).
They flat out do not happen when your tank isn't getting hit by avoidable damage, and if your tank is dropping low, your healers are probably tabbing out to talk on AIM (I actually can easily do this now without even running into problems on a lot of fights...on Alysrazor I actually run through brushfires to boost my healing meters for fun - did this pre-nerf too, post nerf I 1-healed the fight...I really have no idea how you think tank damage is an issue).

I fully agree the fights can still result in wipes, but it is not in the least because of tank damage. It's 100% due to a fail in mechanics, and your tank having X% more dodge wouldn't matter. In fact, most the time, if our tank had 100% dodge it still wouldn't matter (as long as enrage still 1shots tank, I guess if he could go indefinitely ignoring enrage, it'd matter a little).

On some 150-200+ pulls on HRag now, we've had something like 10 tank deaths while being meleed, virtually every one coinciding with either seed explosion or a trap being triggered in P1 along with Hand of Rag (or Wrath? whichever the melee one is), where some small amount of dodge wouldn't matter. Then we've had 2 tank deaths ever in P4 I think, both of which had to deal with the tank having to run out of range of the frost patch to taunt Rag into a trap during Sulfuras (which btw, if Rag swings the raid wipes, the tank deaths are entirely due to superheated + Dreadflame + DoT). There's rarely any, if ever player deaths that aren't to avoidable shit (like WiF double hits, meteor screw ups, etc). One of our healers actually nukes in P3 because DPS is far more important and relevant than healing, and this was pretty noticeable as far as getting 1meteor and a kill.

I'm sorry, but this isn't some perfect situation. Tank damage being high is 100% predictable (Decimation Blade, Trap Explosion + Hand, Seed Explosion, high bleed stack on Shannox, high stacks P2 on Bethtilac, Tantrum on Alys, etc) and raid damage being high is predictable as well (6-8 stack on Domo Scorp, Alysrazor ground, Rhyolith P2, Rhyolith if volcanos are missed 2-3 times in a row, Bethtilac P2 high stacks, Trap explosion, Seed Explosion, Superheated before first frost patch, etc).

A decent tank will have a cooldown up every time there is any danger. Maybe druids can't since they are a little more lacking in the CD department? I'm not even sure how true that is, but there's really little to no risk of tank deaths in Firelands unless mechanics are failed.

Your definition of "bare minimum" is retarded. Farming heroic fireland for 2 months probably got your head, because that's not 1% of the server who did that. Hell, even if you take a new groups of players who know the fight, there is probably going to be a bunch of close call just because everyone do shit differently.

And none of these close calls are related to tank damage or healable raid damage. When someone stands on an Immo trap while being melee'd by Rageface, they die. Your dodge isn't going to save them, an amazing geared healers probably won't save them either. On H-Shannox, if Rageface hits 50 stacks, any cloth he targets is dead, again, this has nothing to do with healers focusing them, he hits for some 80k on cloth at that point every 1 second, and healers just can't heal through that whether you dodge every hit or not. When a healer gets ice trapped, maybe your dodge will help a little, but that's just utter fail. I fully realize that people can wipe on these fights - but it's not due to tank damage.

[Kaylia]

Once again, the only situation you're considering is the one where everyone play by the book and do thing properly (Tank takes little dmg, everyone is in range and alive, mechanics are executed properly). You never consider the aftermatch of a fuck up (or when one is in the making).

You're basically saying that it is impossible to fail an encounter unless someone insta-wipe the group or something. However, there is a fucking huge gray zone in-between the "sure win" and "insta-wipe". Not every mistakes is going to end the fight right now, and sometime, your mitigation will make the difference.

Furthermore, the less risk I am exposed to, the more easily I can use utility skills on people needing it (HoP, HoS, WoG). Now, you're going to say that no one should ever dies because healer can easily heal a players taking 10 billion dmg per second while jerking off on youporn, but I'm pretty sure it's not always the case.

[FailureMidgard]

Once again, the only situation you're considering is the one where everyone play by the book and do thing properly (Tank takes little dmg, everyone is in range and alive, mechanics are executed properly). You never consider the aftermatch of a fuck up (or when one is in the making).

You're basically saying that it is impossible to fail an encounter unless someone insta-wipe the group or something. However, there is a fucking huge gray zone in-between the "sure win" and "insta-wipe". Not every mistakes is going to end the fight right now, and sometime, your mitigation will make the difference.

Furthermore, the less risk I am exposed to, the more easily I can use utility skills on people needing it (HoP, HoS, WoG). Now, you're going to say that no one should ever dies because healer can easily heal a players taking 10 billion dmg per second while jerking off on youporn, but I'm pretty sure it's not always the case.

No, I'm not. If 1-3 DPS die on Alysrazor, how is your mitigation going to matter? If anything, your DPS matters more. If DPS die on Rhyolith, how is your mitigation going to matter? In fact, healing gets -easier- when they die, not harder. Your DPS becomes more important. Yes, you can fail an encounter because 4 people died to single player killing mechanics. That's still generally not due to healing (medium stacks on Rhyolith, then a player takes stomp+fireline for 95% of their total HP pool), and it's definitely not due to healing on the tank.

The only time you even have an argument is if a healer dies to something and crez is down, but the chances of that happening, and you winning the fight anyway are slim to none in 10m, regardless of 5-10% extra dodge. This is possible in 25m just because you aren't losing 50% of your healing power or whatever (losing 1 healer when 5healing is quite possible, losing 1healer when 2 healing is much more harsh). Outside of that, fuckup deaths make healing easier as I stated, not harder, and DPS becomes more important. Your own logic does not even support the conclusion you arrived at.

I will agree that taking less damage maybe lets you use WoG or HoS more freely elsewhere (how does your damage intake have anything to do with HoP? That's crap and you know it), but I'm going to actually have some serious issues with you thinking HoS even helps on any fight besides Baleroc, and you can use it on Baleroc freely anyway. When there's a ton of AoE raid damage, using sac on someone random really doesn't help the healer much at all, as it's still the same HPS required to heal it all. The only real times for it is if you know a specific person is taking more dmg than everyone else, or on the 2nd tank while you're fine and he isn't. The first only really occurs on Baleroc, and due to hp + heal inflation on you, the dmg you take is meaningless, while the dmg you prevent is really helpful, so it's all around good and your dodge/parry don't affect this. The 2nd occurs on plenty of 2tankish fights, but you're generally just timing it (see how this timing thing keeps coming up) with when your dmg is low and other tank's dmg is high. Rag trap explosion, if you're not tanking, Sac the other tank, tada. Dodge is honestly irrelevant to this if you're using it properly since you -aren't tanking- when it's up.
WoG I'll grant a little, but you're overstating how much this is helping the raid still. Should you do it? Of course. My 4pc does something like 3x what your WoG does on a standard fight, and it's a smart heal proc that happens and I ignore.

I still say in the aftermath of a fuckup, DPS gear is very likely more important than avoidance (in 10man anyway). If a healer dies and it's not right about to die, I don't think you're going to pull through because of 5-10% dodge (If you do, you run too many healers...). If a DPS dies, you can easily pull through and again, healing gets easier and DPS falls behind, not vice versa.

[Kaylia]

I still say in the aftermath of a fuckup, DPS gear is very likely more important than avoidance (in 10man anyway). If a healer dies and it's not right about to die, I don't think you're going to pull through because of 5-10% dodge (If you do, you run too many healers...). If a DPS dies, you can easily pull through and again, healing gets easier and DPS falls behind, not vice versa.

Again, I'm going to disagree based on the experience I had. 1% wipes are way less common than a fluke death (much more frustrating though), and even then, surviving 2-3 seconds longer is probably going to make up for the loss of dps. It's something to consider too.

Also, 10% avoidance is going to make a difference during the whole fight, unlike your dps that only make a difference in the last few seconds. I understand that you deny its usefulness based on your experience, but I have the feeling that if tanks were able to mitigate every non-raid damage, it would be for the best (even on roll-face content). I don't understand why you wouldn't strive for this when you have a choice.

And lastly, this 10% avoidance is added on top of the ~35%. Yes, it's 10% more than the raw mitigation, but it's much more than that when you compare it to what you would be taking when you're deciding between 2 sets. Dodging 15% more Decimation blade, Rag's debuff, Shannox's debuff...it definitively help.

The only real times for it is if you know a specific person is taking more dmg than everyone else, or on the 2nd tank while you're fine and he isn't

Idk, it's not uncommon to see that someone is about to get killed. when you know the encounter and when people are likely to fail/dies.

using sac on someone random really doesn't help the healer much at all, as it's still the same HPS required to heal it all.

If you can alt tab in the middle of a fight, odd is that tank don't need healing right away, no? The whole idea is to reduce the multitasking and average out the dps where you can.

Balerog's Shard and Rageface's facerage are the situations I had in mind. Both are predictable and happen where I'm not particularly in danger. HoS is going to see more use when you're not tanking , but this situation is irrelevant to the argument

[Cri]

Dodging 15% more Decimation blade, Rag's debuff, Shannox's debuff...it definitively help.

wut