A blog about the game behind the game™.
Many articles or features were originally posts from Wowhead.
About the author: Arideni, a veteran of World of Warcraft, now contributes often through freelance writing at the Wowhead database. Usually found pondering the meaning of life, Arideni's unique perspective allows for insightful conversation.
His current projects include a weekly forum discussion, "Topic of the Week," which can be found reposted here as well as his own opinions & theories, and two guides maintained for the Wowhead Warrior Forums.
Many articles or features were originally posts from Wowhead.
About the author: Arideni, a veteran of World of Warcraft, now contributes often through freelance writing at the Wowhead database. Usually found pondering the meaning of life, Arideni's unique perspective allows for insightful conversation.
His current projects include a weekly forum discussion, "Topic of the Week," which can be found reposted here as well as his own opinions & theories, and two guides maintained for the Wowhead Warrior Forums.
Post-Patch Defense & Uncrittable Status
Posted 10-15-2008 at 07:08 PM by Arideni
Updated 10-15-2008 at 08:36 PM by Arideni (Minor fix & addition)
Updated 10-15-2008 at 08:36 PM by Arideni (Minor fix & addition)
A lot of tanks are wondering what they can do to bridge the gap with the new Anticipation changes. This post is aimed at those players. This thread is adapted from my blog entry of the same title. Check it out for the full story!
My defense dropped to . . . What can I do to bridge the gap?
First of all, try hard to replace some of your gear. Hope you didn't throw away all those trinkets! Beyond trinkets (a list at the bottom) there are other ways such as enchants (also listed below). The first enchant to use if going that route is Enchant Chest - Defense. This is better than the others because pure health won't scale with most raid buffs or talents (such as Vitality or Blessing of Kings).
Is there any other way?
Resilience. Point for point, resilience rating increases your critical hit reduction by a greater amount than defense rating. The problem with resilience is that it does nothing else whereas the defense rating we lose equates to about a 2.44% loss in avoidance (dodge & parry combined) & chance to block.
How much resilience does it take to make up the lost defense?
The defense skill we lost was 20. That's about 48 defense rating which reduces chance to be critically hit by 0.8%. It would take about 32 resilience rating to achieve 0.8% critical hit reduction (with a little extra).
Is there any quick fix for us?
Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall (for warriors) & Merciless Gladiator's Barrier/Redoubt (for paladins). These three shields are a great "quick fix" & for many players offer a humongous upgrade from Heroic/Karazhan gear.
The Shield Wall gives 31 resilience rating (0.79% critical hit reduction) & the twin shields for paladins give 27 resilience rating (0.69% critical hit reduction). Paladins will need at least 473 defense using the two Spell Power shields.
Trinkets & Enchants Mentioned
My defense dropped to . . . What can I do to bridge the gap?
First of all, try hard to replace some of your gear. Hope you didn't throw away all those trinkets! Beyond trinkets (a list at the bottom) there are other ways such as enchants (also listed below). The first enchant to use if going that route is Enchant Chest - Defense. This is better than the others because pure health won't scale with most raid buffs or talents (such as Vitality or Blessing of Kings).
Is there any other way?
Resilience. Point for point, resilience rating increases your critical hit reduction by a greater amount than defense rating. The problem with resilience is that it does nothing else whereas the defense rating we lose equates to about a 2.44% loss in avoidance (dodge & parry combined) & chance to block.
How much resilience does it take to make up the lost defense?
The defense skill we lost was 20. That's about 48 defense rating which reduces chance to be critically hit by 0.8%. It would take about 32 resilience rating to achieve 0.8% critical hit reduction (with a little extra).
Is there any quick fix for us?
Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall (for warriors) & Merciless Gladiator's Barrier/Redoubt (for paladins). These three shields are a great "quick fix" & for many players offer a humongous upgrade from Heroic/Karazhan gear.
The Shield Wall gives 31 resilience rating (0.79% critical hit reduction) & the twin shields for paladins give 27 resilience rating (0.69% critical hit reduction). Paladins will need at least 473 defense using the two Spell Power shields.
Trinkets & Enchants Mentioned
Total Comments 7
Comments
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I dropped ~700 HP and 23 Defense. So far my resilience holds against that but I will most likely re-enchant some stuff.
Good guide.Posted 10-16-2008 at 05:53 AM by Edgar 
- Good guide. I picked up http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29386 to replace the SSO neck I was wearing, equipped http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28606 over the SSO shield, and enchanted def to chest and that put my at 485 which is enough for heroics at least. I just need to find someone to do +def to bracers and I'll be in the clear. Still sucks to lose a good chunk of HPs
Posted 10-16-2008 at 09:29 AM by ratman - What are you using on your cloak?
The 120 armor or 12 agility on your cloak probably isn't providing as much help to you as the health would to your healer. Food for thought.Posted 10-16-2008 at 09:50 AM by Arideni - Alchemy is not terrible for tanks all of a sudden, with http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35748 and http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55502 (Herbalism).
Posted 10-16-2008 at 02:14 PM by Machus - I'm not sure where that came from, but I agree those are two nice benefits from those professions (though I suspect the Stones will probably suffer returns on the path to 80, or similar).
However, mining produces a good health increase from all of that sturdy, hard work. That, combined with the changes, have left me 600 health ahead of where I was pre-patch.Posted 10-16-2008 at 04:58 PM by Arideni - Actually, barring a huge change of mind by Blizzard, the Lvl 75 Alchemy Stone is godlike.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44323
My warrior will be keeping alchemy for this very reason.Posted 10-16-2008 at 10:46 PM by Vistigoth - The Jewelcrafting one made me get off my butt, dump Eng and level JC.
Posted 10-18-2008 at 12:16 AM by Finelle
