Tier 5 Gloves and Gear Optimization
New Loots!
I now have the privilege of choosing when to equip my shiny new [item]Destroyer Handguards[/item] and when to equip my trusty old [item]Bonefist Gauntlets[/item]. As much as I absolutely love the big 44 block value on the Handguards, there are going to be times where I must give in to my insane addiction to the 21 hit rating on the Gauntlets.
Tanking generally goes pretty well for me, especially since 2.3 came out. ZA is farm and so is SSC excluding Vashj. I've taken a look around and tried to figure out what are the failure scenarios for my tanking--where do things go wrong and how can that be prevented? The most recent place where my tanking could improve (and has) was Morogrim Tidewalker, and it did through the collection of a couple choice pieces of gear and the creation of a new outfit for situations where treat isn't an issue.
Dying to Damage Spikes
I very rarely die before my healers do. The one boss that has pushed my ability to stay alive to the limit is Morogrim Tidewalker. For instance, last week we were at around 70% on tidewalker, with one or two healers already dead or otherwise busy being watery graved. I took a string of bad hits/crushes and I went down. These are the sort of tank deaths that are normally prevented by lots of effective health stacking, making it so that those nasty strings don't kill you because you're a tougher nut to crack than that. My default tanking set certainly prioritizes effective health, grabbing all the stamina, armor, and shield block value I can instead of taking things like dodge or defense. Tidewalker is different, however, because he hits too fast for shield block (the ability) to keep up with (so does Prince Malchezzar). When a mob hits this quickly, you can no longer rely on shield block's 2 charges in 5 seconds to eliminate the chance of crushing on all attacks--sometimes the boss is going to hit you three or even four times in the course of 5 seconds. If you avoid none of these attacks, the first two will strip you of your shield block charges, and the second two will have their chances to crush for 50% extra damage.
As a result, the gearing strategy for these fights is instead to stack avoidance (dodge, parry, or defense rating) to help preserve shield block charges. If you don't get hit at all you don't expend a shield block charge, and the more often you only get hit twice in 5 seconds the more often you won't have any chance of getting crushed at all.
Using Outfitter, I created a new mix-and-match set called "Avoidance" for use on this fight.
So here are the specific substitutions I made:
[item]Signet of the Last Defender[/item] -> [item]Violet Signet of the Great Protector[/item]
[item]Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600[/item] -> [item]Scarab of Displacement[/item]
[item]Darkmoon Card: Vengeance[/item] -> [item]Dabiri's Enigma[/item]
When I first tanked him, I was getting crushed as often as 5% of all attacks according to CombatMonitor 2. With those substitutions, my crush rate against dropped to 1.5%, which I feel is a much more manageable number for my healers. Due to the drop of the Darkmoon card I lose a small chunk of effective health, but I feel the added defense is well worth it, and my performance has showed. I have since downed him twice with myself in the MT spot.
Seeing how well this worked, I actually have started wearing [item]Violet Signet of the Great Protector[/item] and [item]Scarab of Displacement[/item] on Fathom Lord Karathress as well, since its a fight where threat generation isn't an issue (at least for the Fathom Lord tank) and block value doesn't do a lot to mitigate his slow, large hits either.
This is a fight that is ultimately better suited to a Druid or Paladin if you have one available, but as fate would have it our druid has been absent recently and our paladin is otherwise occupied tanking murlocs. I've been pleased with my performance since adopting this approach.
How is all this relevant to the choice between [item]Destroyer Handguards[/item] and [item]Bonefist Gauntlets[/item]? Well, I'm going to start wearing the handguards instead of the gauntlets with my avoidance set, and at the same time move back to the [item]Darkmoon Card: Vengeance[/item] instead of relatively underpowered [item]Dabiri's Enigma[/item]. But more importantly, it was an extremely educational experience in how changing up my gear on a boss-to-boss basis can effect my performance. On the holding on to threat side of the equation, sometimes I lose aggro early on, and sometimes I don't lose it at all, and this is where the key difference in choosing between these two sets of gloves is most apparent.
Losing Aggro
If my first shield slam misses or is parried at the start of a fight or following an aggro wipe, it almost always results in our best warlock or shadow priest pulling aggro and dying. I don't mention dodged because since no long after 2.3 I have had around 25 expertise. Not expertise rating, but a full 25 expertise, which reduces my chance to get dodged or parried by 6.25%. Bosses only have 5.6% chance to dodge, so they just don't anymore. Their chances to parry range from 5.6% and up, so that still happens. I usually run around with 86 hit rating (out of a cap of 142) so I don't miss very often either. The result of this is that I have very consistent aggro generation, since when I press that shield slam or revenge key, it pretty much just works.
Still, there are going to be those situations where it doesn't. I almost feel like my dps has gotten more accustomed to consistent threat generation so they almost don't bother to check or really hold back when I get that first parry and say, over Vent, "watch your aggro!".
An early dps death usually has lots of bad effects aside from the loss of a battle rez. It can quickly snowball into a second or third dps dying as they have threat following the first death, leading to multiple deaths and a wipe. Even if that doesn't happen it usually causes the start of a vent conversation as someone tries to explain the death in more detail than is important at the start of a boss fight. The resulting lack of focus often leads to more mistakes.
Aside from better comunication of when parries and misses occur the best way to counteract this is to just make it happen less often. (Though, if anyone knows of a mod that makes the dps know when parries occur following fight start or an aggro wipe that would be great too!) This is where the 21 hit rating on [item]Bonefist Gauntlets[/item] are really important. Now that I also have [item]Destroyer Handguards[/item], I plan to create another mix-and-match set with Outfitter, for use on those particular fights where the hit rating is most useful. Those fights include Leotheras himself, as well as Naloraak and Zul'Jin. These are fights where you absoultely need to land that shield slam or taunt on multiple occasions.
Talkback!
If you think I made a mistake or went wrong in my thinking above, I'd love to hear about it. Comment below and share your experiences!
I now have the privilege of choosing when to equip my shiny new [item]Destroyer Handguards[/item] and when to equip my trusty old [item]Bonefist Gauntlets[/item]. As much as I absolutely love the big 44 block value on the Handguards, there are going to be times where I must give in to my insane addiction to the 21 hit rating on the Gauntlets.
Tanking generally goes pretty well for me, especially since 2.3 came out. ZA is farm and so is SSC excluding Vashj. I've taken a look around and tried to figure out what are the failure scenarios for my tanking--where do things go wrong and how can that be prevented? The most recent place where my tanking could improve (and has) was Morogrim Tidewalker, and it did through the collection of a couple choice pieces of gear and the creation of a new outfit for situations where treat isn't an issue.
Dying to Damage Spikes
I very rarely die before my healers do. The one boss that has pushed my ability to stay alive to the limit is Morogrim Tidewalker. For instance, last week we were at around 70% on tidewalker, with one or two healers already dead or otherwise busy being watery graved. I took a string of bad hits/crushes and I went down. These are the sort of tank deaths that are normally prevented by lots of effective health stacking, making it so that those nasty strings don't kill you because you're a tougher nut to crack than that. My default tanking set certainly prioritizes effective health, grabbing all the stamina, armor, and shield block value I can instead of taking things like dodge or defense. Tidewalker is different, however, because he hits too fast for shield block (the ability) to keep up with (so does Prince Malchezzar). When a mob hits this quickly, you can no longer rely on shield block's 2 charges in 5 seconds to eliminate the chance of crushing on all attacks--sometimes the boss is going to hit you three or even four times in the course of 5 seconds. If you avoid none of these attacks, the first two will strip you of your shield block charges, and the second two will have their chances to crush for 50% extra damage.
As a result, the gearing strategy for these fights is instead to stack avoidance (dodge, parry, or defense rating) to help preserve shield block charges. If you don't get hit at all you don't expend a shield block charge, and the more often you only get hit twice in 5 seconds the more often you won't have any chance of getting crushed at all.
Using Outfitter, I created a new mix-and-match set called "Avoidance" for use on this fight.
So here are the specific substitutions I made:
[item]Signet of the Last Defender[/item] -> [item]Violet Signet of the Great Protector[/item]
[item]Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600[/item] -> [item]Scarab of Displacement[/item]
[item]Darkmoon Card: Vengeance[/item] -> [item]Dabiri's Enigma[/item]
When I first tanked him, I was getting crushed as often as 5% of all attacks according to CombatMonitor 2. With those substitutions, my crush rate against dropped to 1.5%, which I feel is a much more manageable number for my healers. Due to the drop of the Darkmoon card I lose a small chunk of effective health, but I feel the added defense is well worth it, and my performance has showed. I have since downed him twice with myself in the MT spot.
Seeing how well this worked, I actually have started wearing [item]Violet Signet of the Great Protector[/item] and [item]Scarab of Displacement[/item] on Fathom Lord Karathress as well, since its a fight where threat generation isn't an issue (at least for the Fathom Lord tank) and block value doesn't do a lot to mitigate his slow, large hits either.
This is a fight that is ultimately better suited to a Druid or Paladin if you have one available, but as fate would have it our druid has been absent recently and our paladin is otherwise occupied tanking murlocs. I've been pleased with my performance since adopting this approach.
How is all this relevant to the choice between [item]Destroyer Handguards[/item] and [item]Bonefist Gauntlets[/item]? Well, I'm going to start wearing the handguards instead of the gauntlets with my avoidance set, and at the same time move back to the [item]Darkmoon Card: Vengeance[/item] instead of relatively underpowered [item]Dabiri's Enigma[/item]. But more importantly, it was an extremely educational experience in how changing up my gear on a boss-to-boss basis can effect my performance. On the holding on to threat side of the equation, sometimes I lose aggro early on, and sometimes I don't lose it at all, and this is where the key difference in choosing between these two sets of gloves is most apparent.
Losing Aggro
If my first shield slam misses or is parried at the start of a fight or following an aggro wipe, it almost always results in our best warlock or shadow priest pulling aggro and dying. I don't mention dodged because since no long after 2.3 I have had around 25 expertise. Not expertise rating, but a full 25 expertise, which reduces my chance to get dodged or parried by 6.25%. Bosses only have 5.6% chance to dodge, so they just don't anymore. Their chances to parry range from 5.6% and up, so that still happens. I usually run around with 86 hit rating (out of a cap of 142) so I don't miss very often either. The result of this is that I have very consistent aggro generation, since when I press that shield slam or revenge key, it pretty much just works.
Still, there are going to be those situations where it doesn't. I almost feel like my dps has gotten more accustomed to consistent threat generation so they almost don't bother to check or really hold back when I get that first parry and say, over Vent, "watch your aggro!".
An early dps death usually has lots of bad effects aside from the loss of a battle rez. It can quickly snowball into a second or third dps dying as they have threat following the first death, leading to multiple deaths and a wipe. Even if that doesn't happen it usually causes the start of a vent conversation as someone tries to explain the death in more detail than is important at the start of a boss fight. The resulting lack of focus often leads to more mistakes.
Aside from better comunication of when parries and misses occur the best way to counteract this is to just make it happen less often. (Though, if anyone knows of a mod that makes the dps know when parries occur following fight start or an aggro wipe that would be great too!) This is where the 21 hit rating on [item]Bonefist Gauntlets[/item] are really important. Now that I also have [item]Destroyer Handguards[/item], I plan to create another mix-and-match set with Outfitter, for use on those particular fights where the hit rating is most useful. Those fights include Leotheras himself, as well as Naloraak and Zul'Jin. These are fights where you absoultely need to land that shield slam or taunt on multiple occasions.
Talkback!
If you think I made a mistake or went wrong in my thinking above, I'd love to hear about it. Comment below and share your experiences!
Total Comments 6
Comments
-
I would more than likely use Destroyers over Bonefist in nearly all situations, I have always been a proponent of threat stacking in this order. Expertise>SBV>Hit, since SBV dbls as mitigation I feel it is much mroe useful.
On another note, Ring of the Sundered soul is the top avoidance ring in game currently, why would not wearing it even be an option?Posted 03-21-2008 at 03:22 PM by Ceravantes
- My mistake, I checked my gear and I do always wear the [item]Ring of Sundered Souls[/item]. Its the [item]Violet Signet of the Great Protector[/item] that I swap in. I have edited my entry accordingly.Posted 03-21-2008 at 04:54 PM by Voltaik
- But Centix, while I agree that SBV is great mitigation, one of my points is that while SBV provides excellent threat, it does not improve the consistency of your threat gen. I will wear +hit and +expertise gear to make my threat abilities produce threat more consistently, and SBV to make shield slam produce more threat in general.
Whether I have 500 or 600 SBV when I shield slam Leo following a whirlwind is irrelevant. If it lands I will have aggro over my dps with either value. The critical issue is increasing the chance that it lands, so I will gear for expertise and hit.Posted 03-21-2008 at 04:58 PM by Voltaik - If I understand your post, you are trying to gear as close to passive uncrushability as you can. If this is in fact the case, then wouldn't the [item]Signet of the Last Defender[/item] be a better choice than [item]Violet Signet of the Great Protector[/item] for that set? It dosen't grant any of the avoidance that you get from the protector, but it provides a bigger gain towards crushing blow elimination.Posted 03-21-2008 at 07:37 PM by Treenaa
- Treenaa,
You misunderstand me. I'm trying to avoid crushes by preserving shield block charges through avoidance.
Every time you are attacked with one or more charges of shield block, you cannot be crushed. The attack can only result in a miss, dodge, parry, or block, and this is why you cannot be crushed. If you are missed, dodge, or parry, you do NOT lose a charge of shield block. If you block, you do. By increasing my chance for miss, dodge, or parry I increase the chance that my two charges of shield block last all the way through 5 seconds.
This is very different from gearing for passive uncrushability. While its true that passive uncrusability would be an alternate solution, I and many tanks in a similar situation cannot acquire the gear for it. Even if we could we might not want to because it would lower our effective health and increase the damage we're taking. It is important to note that going for passive uncrushability is an all-or-nothing approach--you only see benefits as your passive chance to be missed, block, dodge, or parry covers the last 15% of the combat table. Passive uncrushable requires a massive overhaul of your gear toward block rating, a stat that warriors normally find completely worthless, so I also don't exactly have the best selection there. (I let our paladins take the block rating drops.) Upping your avoidance by just a little works to create measurable improvement with just a few changes to gear.Posted 03-22-2008 at 11:10 AM by Voltaik -
I would use Moroes' Trinket over Dabri'sPosted 04-23-2008 at 02:09 PM by MasterWolf
