+800 HP or .82% Reduced Damage???

[Thumbdriver]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Norgannon&cn=Thumbdriver

Ok, after doing some calculations with the damage reduction via Armor, I've come to a fork in the road as to which path I should take next.

In my current gear, gems/enchants referenced above in my armory, I have 6.5%(26 expertise) exactly, slightly over 7% hit, and mediocre avoidance stats. My hp is shy of 38k unbuffed and my defense rating is 576.

Now to the meat and potatoes, Im coming up on enough frost emblems for another item. My two selections are the T10 Legplates and the T10 Breastplate. Either of the two will grant me the 2-piece set bonus.

My breakdown of thinking.
Legplates- The key thing on the legs I was looking at was the +73(8.91%) Expertise. Going with this item, that will put my expertise well above dodge cap. So If I went this route, I could regem my Expertise gems to either +30 stamina, or +10defense/+15stamina gems. Regeming stamina will net appx. 800 more hp, plus keeping me above expertise cap.

Breastplate- What I was looking at with the T10 Breastplate was the armor. My current Damage Reduction is 64.5% against a level 83 raid boss. Assuming I get the breastplate, I would increase my armor by 1,117. This would bring my Damage Reduction up to 65.326%, an increase of .826% damage taken. My HP would go up by 30 if I used the same gems(minus the def/stam gem). My expertise would remain at 6.5%; hit would remain the same; hp might as well remain the same, but I will take .826% less damage. Basically ballpark figuring about 17,337 damage taken versus 17,750 damage taken(Using a raid boss attack of 50,000 before Damage Reduction from Armor). And of course it would scale higher or lower depending on the boss.


So, conclusion- Do I go for an additional 800ish hp or .826% reduced damage. Thanks for reading and/or replying with suggestions, criticism, or feedback.

Side note- Fully Raid Buffed my hp is about 47kish +/-

[Satorri]

This thread belongs here: http://www.tankspot.com/forumdisplay.php?175-HALP%21-I-need-advice

The short theory answer is that there is no single correct answer. A lot of this is personal preference and different encounters will value different elements differently.

If you want to read the annals of this discussion search the phrase "Effective Health."

[jere]

Just a question, since I don't know warrior tier gear as well, but why either the breastplate or the legs? I know on the paladin ones, you end up losing a socket by going the tier route and I assume the warrior ones are the same. Have you looked at the option of either the helm or the shoulders? Or are those pretty crap on the warrior tier set? If one of those two pieces aren't very bad, I would suggest taking a look at those as the crafted legs are ginormously awesome. Just something to think about. Even if going tier legs/chest is a huge upgrade now, it might not be as helpful later. It could be, I am just tossing that out there for you to check up on.

[Kazeyonoma]

The problem with the helm/shoulders is the same thing I think most warriors are facing: loss of expertise. Most of us are using t9 and triumph emblem helm which both have copious amounts of expertise. By going the helm/shoulder route (best survivability route actually because you still pick up the chest/gloves and can craft the legs) you end up plummeting your expertise to something terribly low like... 12-14, and our hit still isn't gonna be capped in these gear sets either, so our threat begins to suffer a lot. I went from having 42 expertise to only 26 recently and all of my dps'ers have noticed my steep drop in TPS. It's a weird balancing act right now, if you look at either from a vacuum it's an easy decision, but as a whole, it goes back to the same problem as beginning of TOTC and the lack of hit fiasco, except now it's expertise which can't simply be "glyphed" to fix it.

Moved to HALP! forum.

[Thumbdriver]

My apologies for posting in the wrong section.

I have considered the non-set breastplate as well, because not only does it have expertise, but large armor amounts and stamina. From what I have heared though the additional +20% damage from devastate and shield slam is a decent boost of threat, despite the lack of exp/hit from those T10 set items. I have no problem mixing and molding my equipment together for end-game raiding, but like one person said, eventually Im going to have to sacrifice one vs another.

[Evassara]

My apologies for posting in the wrong section.

I have considered the non-set breastplate as well, because not only does it have expertise, but large armor amounts and stamina. From what I have heared though the additional +20% damage from devastate and shield slam is a decent boost of threat, despite the lack of exp/hit from those T10 set items. I have no problem mixing and molding my equipment together for end-game raiding, but like one person said, eventually Im going to have to sacrifice one vs another.

If your talking about the Cataclysmic Chestguard thats what I'm looking at next instead of Tier Peices. The lack of expertise on most ICC gear is becoming an issue where I find myself gemming expertise more and more to overcome.

On your original question I think it's a personal decision. In the scheme of things 800 health isn't that much of a difference but if your base hp are at 37 it's definitely something to consider.

I recently had to make the decision of Nerbuian runeforge for my two weapons or swordbreaking (parry). I decide since my defense was at 560-570 that I would be better off losing 600-1k hp and gaining 3% parry.

Since the change I have been taking less damage on boss fights compared to my co-tank but in the long run it's really hard to measure how much these small difference makes for the healers.