Evolve or Die

This was a response in a thread that sounded like a decent blog entry.

There are still a lot of people who cling to Effective Health as the be all, end all answer to everything. Better watch out, because the meteor has already hit and the fallout is coming. Effective Health is and always has been a theory for bleeding edge content that bases itself on the assumption that as you progress, you find yourself undergeared for the new content and maxing out to make sure you meet the minimum EH requirements of these new fights gives you the best chance to survive and let your raid succeed. This is still true; the basic principle of EH stands as it always has. However, the rules of the game are changing in terms of gear availability. This means that the likelihood that you are in the zone where full-on EH makes sense for you is less likely.

As it stands, once you're in T6 gear and can make 20k raid buffed pretty much no matter what you wear, it doesn't matter really how you gem stuff because you're hitting the EH minimums for almost every fight to start with. Today, anyone can get badge gear that is T6 quality and epic gems for 15 badges a pop which means anyone can hit that same point with enough badges and some ZA gear, or at least with minimal gear from 25 man instances. Tanks can step from Karazhan into Gruul's lair effectively overgeared for it now. The game has changed and our analysis of what is "good" and "right" has to change with it or we become the guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn while listening to Elvis on the 8-track.

The simple fact is that the game evolves on and we have to evolve with it, and we're hitting the end of the cycle right now with WotLK on the horizon. Whether you see this all as a good thing or as a symptom of the general dumbing down of the game is opinion, but it still leaves room for great tanks who want to optimise to the last detail and those who just grab gear and go. Meeting EH minimums is easier than ever, and tanks that cling to the EH at all costs philosophy are not doing themselves any favours. (Well, they weren't to begin with but that's another discussion.)

We're seeing new articles and analysis showing the benefits of avoidance, which is good. Educating people with solid numbers and analysis is always preferable to I feel that.... None of this is new, though. And a lot of the tanks who are now singing the praises of avoidance are tanks who not so long ago had Solid Stars in every socket just like everybody else. Evolve or die.

Looking ahead, WotLK will bring level 80 and a new cycle of level up - gear up - plateau all over again. We'll have to see how they play out the availability of quality gear through badges and raiding vs. the requirements of encounters. I think Blizzard has learned a lot over the life of TBC, so we may see a very different philosophy in itemisation. Needless to say, we'll have to adjust our thinking as tanks to work with the new realities that present themselves then.