[Satrina]

Wanderlei made this well thought out post on the forums, which is a nice distillation of the viewpoint he has consistently presented as a counterpoint to the heavy stamina/armour theory. Even if you don't agree 100% with him, this is definitely worth your while to read.

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Avoidance saves mana only if the healers are healing reactively.
I can't tell you how often I see this, but it's so wrong that I don't even know where to start. Any healer who heals in a 25-man environment should be used to casting constantly, and canceling unneeded heals. There is precisely NO benefit to healing someone who is already at full HP, so there is precisely NO reason not to cancel that heal before it goes off. This is neither hard nor uncommon - its been the standard way of healing in raids since the Molten freaking Core. A tank who avoids more attacks will allows his or her healers to cancel more heals, and therefore save mana. THAT SAID:

The point of avoidance tanking in 25-mans is not mana conservation!
That's our second piece of misinformation. Mana conservation is great, but generally unneeded in 25-mans. The true idea behind avoidance tanking is, due to the way avoidance scales, as opposed to the way that effective HP scales, your odds of avoiding potentially lethal damage are better than your odds of surviving it in the majority of situations but - and I stress this greatly - not in all situations.

Stamina provides a static amount of HP gain which becomes proportionately less relevant the greater the damage per hit taken. For example, 36 stamina or 360 hp is highly significant when you are being hit for an average hit of 500 damage, because it will usually allow you to survive and additional hit. When you are being hit for 5000 damage on average, then it is drastically less probable that 360 hp will mean the difference between living and dying. And I want to stress that this is entirely a matter of probability: neither avoidance, nor stamina is less based on luck than the other. In both cases, random or uncontrollable variables (mob damage variance, and avoidance rolls) produce an amount of damage which has a probability to kill the tank based on the frequency and amount of healing the tank recieves, and the outcome of those random events. If mob damage was constant: for example, if a raid boss always hit for exactly 6000 damage, then you would probably want to get 18001 buffed hp, and then stack avoidance. Since boss damage is not constant, the amount of HP you want for a particular encounter cannot be so easily determined. However, mob damage is not so varied that there is not a general area you will want to aim for beyond which the advantages of additional stamina are much less unless you can get so much as to survive an extra hit on average.

On the other hand avoidance scales faster the more you have. To illustrate this, we consider how often you are HIT, not how often you AVOID. With 30% avoidance, as one poster suggested, you have a 70% chance to be hit. With 50% avoidance, you have a 50% chance to be hit. 50 is roughly 71% of 70 - what this means is, you are being hit 29% less frequently with 50% avoidance than with 70% avoidance, not 20% less frequently as one might suppose. To illustrate how this scales in an accellerating manner, consider also the difference between 50% avoidance and 70% avoidance. 30 is exactly 60% of 50, so you are being hit 40% less frequently with 70% avoidance than with 50% avoidance. A much greater improvement than going from 30% to 50%.

Now I said that this keeps you alive by preventing potentially fatal damage spikes rather than (usually futile) attempts to survive them. Rarely as a tank are you facing potential death from a single hit, and it is usually more than two hits from a raid boss to kill the MT. So you have many chances to avoid a hit, such that consecutive hits either do not occur, or that a crushing blow is prevented, in order to prevent the death.

For example, the other night I was tanking Magtheridon, and his average hit on me was rougly 4500 with cleaves hitting as high as 7500. I had about 18k HP, so it would have taken 1 cleave plus three hits, or 1 cleave, 1 hit, and 1 crushing blow. Now Magtheridon does not actually hit fast enough to crush a tank who is spamming shield block, so we'll ignore that second option for this example. Now in order to survive the three hits plus 1 cleave, i'd need rougly 21,000 HP on average. Which means I would have to gain 3000 HP from what I was using. Now I have the gear to get about 20k when I want it, but 21k is out of reach for me currently. The point is however he has to hit me four times in a row for this to even be a potentially threatening scenario.

Now if I were Mr. StamStack and had my 20k HP gear on with maybe 45% avoidance, his chance of hitting me those four times in a row would be 0.55^4 or 9%. Well a 9% chance is not that bad, because if healing is remotely there I'll live anyway. But with my avoidance gear on I'm at about 65% avoidance, and the chance there is only 0.35^4 or 1.5%.

The point is that the situation which might kill me if healing fails to come through at that moment for whatever reason is SIX TIMES more probable in my stam gear than in my avoidance gear. SIX TIMES is a huge difference. In fact, with my avoidance gear, the chance of even being hit three times in a row is less than the chance of being hit four times in a row in my stamina gear.

So many people seem to fail to understand this HUGE benefit of avoidance in raid tanking. People stack stam in order to survive the "frequent" damage spikes they encounter tanking in raids: but it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because as an avoidance tank, I know from experience that the type of damage spikes I hear other tanks describe happen to me so rarely, and the funny thing is I still "somehow" manage to survive them more often than not. They survive them more often than not too and probably more often than I, but they also have six times as many to deal with, if not more, which means they die more often to it as well.

The benefits of stamina are also subject to random chance.
I really tire of people pretending that stamina is always a bonus but that avoidance is a random chance. That's simply not true. Stamina is only useful insofaras you would have otherwise died. I cannot begin to count the number of raid bosses I've fought where, even as an avoidance tank, my HP has never dipped below 1000. Well what that means, is that for all those attempts, I had 1000 HP that was providing precisely NO benefit whatsoever.

People are quick to blame not having enough stamina when they die, but how many review combat logs to see just how much HP they had when they took that 8k hit? Well I for one do, and let me tell you, of all the times I die resulting in a wipe - and let me tell you that it's not a frequent occurance, I usually die well after the wipe has been called or at the enrage timer, or when all my healers are dead - but as I was saying, in less than 20% of my deaths for which my death was the direct cause of the raid wipe would an additional 2000 HP have saved me. The exact figure is that an additional 2000 HP would have saved me in 7 out of 38 such wipes since the start of TBC raiding. Not only that, but all 7 occurred in Gruul's lair. There have been precisely zero against Magtheridon, in SSC, or The Eye. The last time I died to Magtheridon I was hit with a cleave for 7813 when I had 379 hp. I doubt I could have made up with that in stamina, but perhaps if I had 5% more avoidance, I never would have even been at 379 hp.

The fact is, that adding stamina gives you a probabilistic chance to survive based on the damage range and random damage roll of the boss you are tanking. As a consequence it is just as much subject to chance with regards to increasing your odds of survival as avoidance is.

While avoidance can adversely affect threat generation, most threat issues are due to poor play, and there is still a large threat margin to work with if everyone is performing properly.
The difficulty of holding aggro over "good" dps is greatly overstated. I'm not going to say that all of our DPSers are the best, in fact we might have one or two who have been seen out-dpsed by a hunter's pet. But that having been said, the fact is that it's a simple matter of mathematics. In my avoidance gear I usually put out in the area of 900 to 1000 threat per second - suppose 950 on average. Well for our friendly neighboorhood warlock to generate 950 threat per second, and assuming that he has salvation and is talented for 10% threat reduction, he would have to do 950/0.7/0.9 or over 1500 single target DPS. If he used Soulshatter intelligently, he could no doubt squeeze several extra 100s into that before he was generating 950 threat per second. Well we have a good warlock or two, but not that good lol. So it's simply not an issue. And until I start seeing lots of logs on wow metrics with guilds full of DPSers pushing 2k DPS, I'm not going to buy the threat argument.

This is not to suggest that you should give up lots of stamina for small amounts of avoidance
That is just as dumb as doing it the other way around, and can have even more serious consequences if your HP drops into two-shot range. Filling up your sockets with +8 dodge rating gems is not the way to go. For the most part, use +12 stamina and if you can get a socket bonus by using one +8 dodge rating gem in place of one +12 stamina and the socket bonus is either stam or defense or dodge rating then I'd suggest going for that. And if you have two interchangable pieces for the same slot, then you should strive to max the avoidance out on the one which is more avoidance-oriented, and max the stamina out on the one which is more stamina-oriented, which brings me to my next point:

No tank who is doing everything they can to help their guild succeed uses just one set of armor to tank everything.
When I tank Gruul, which I don't much anymore, but when I do, I max my stamina out just in case the DPS sucks for whatever reason. Because Gruul is a stam fight - the bigger hits you can survive, the better your chance of winning. For void reaver, it's max avoidance to dodge knockbacks and because he has no spike damage at all. For morogrim, well his damage is not threatening in single or double hits but only in large chains which are more easily broken than survived, so I go heavy avoidance, but not to the point of sacrificing 200 hp for something like 0.4% avoidance. The point is that you should be analyzing the fight and gearing appropriately. And if you die, you should be analyzing the combat logs to figure out why, and adjusting your gear appropriately. And you should be keeping old gear which gives you an advantage in one area in case that would come in handy at some point. I mean, anyone who's main tanking should already know this, but for all the armchair tanks out there, that's how it works when you're doing a good job as MT.

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At this point, you should be realising that this is really disagreeing only with respect to what constitutes an acceptable amount of effective health, which goes back to the words given here, in the section on The Great Debate. Having read both, you're now armed with the knowledge you need to make effective gear choices for whatever you face.

[Dreador]

People are quick to blame not having enough stamina when they die, but how many review combat logs to see just how much HP they had when they took that 8k hit? Well I for one do, and let me tell you, of all the times I die resulting in a wipe - and let me tell you that it's not a frequent occurance, I usually die well after the wipe has been called or at the enrage timer, or when all my healers are dead - but as I was saying, in less than 20% of my deaths for which my death was the direct cause of the raid wipe would an additional 2000 HP have saved me. The exact figure is that an additional 2000 HP would have saved me in 7 out of 38 such wipes since the start of TBC raiding. Not only that, but all 7 occurred in Gruul's lair. There have been precisely zero against Magtheridon, in SSC, or The Eye. The last time I died to Magtheridon I was hit with a cleave for 7813 when I had 379 hp. I doubt I could have made up with that in stamina, but perhaps if I had 5% more avoidance, I never would have even been at 379 hp.

His lack of threat killed the healers, resulting in the wipe, see BS statement below, exhibit A. Also look at the last 2 sentences above. He killed most of his healers with his poor threat gen, so they let him get down to less than 1% health, where that 7k cleave killed him. Facepunched. Now an effective health tank would have had substantially higher threat, the raid would be alive, and he'd be topped off to 21-24k buffed hp. Enter 7k cleave. Leaves effective health tank with....14k - 17k hp left! And SNAP! He's instantly healed to full because not only are his healers alive and healing, but they love him because they never die.

While avoidance can adversely affect threat generation, most threat issues are due to poor play, and there is still a large threat margin to work with if everyone is performing properly. The difficulty of holding aggro over "good" dps is greatly overstated. I'm not going to say that all of our DPSers are the best, in fact we might have one or two who have been seen out-dpsed by a hunter's pet. But that having been said, the fact is that it's a simple matter of mathematics. In my avoidance gear I usually put out in the area of 900 to 1000 threat per second - suppose 950 on average. Well for our friendly neighborhood warlock to generate 950 threat per second, and assuming that he has salvation and is talented for 10% threat reduction, he would have to do 950/0.7/0.9 or over 1500 single target DPS. If he used Soulshatter intelligently, he could no doubt squeeze several extra 100s into that before he was generating 950 threat per second. Well we have a good warlock or two, but not that good lol. So it's simply not an issue. And until I start seeing lots of logs on wow metrics with guilds full of DPSers pushing 2k DPS, I'm not going to buy the threat argument.

[Edgewalker]

Source: Dreador Wow, not a big fan. The math is there but the thoughts behind it seem skewed.

Care to elaborate?
I've been preaching this entire post for months and people always have that same general reaction. Stamina stacking requires no thought and can be effective so people use it, but it gets progressively worse the more you progress. This is not arguable.

[Jibou]

What would be the alternatives? As far as I've seen (from the 2.3 badge gear and SSC/TK gear) you don't really get to choose between avoidance loot and HP loot. The post says that in most sockets SSOEs are fine, so I guess boosting your avoidance can be done tweaking trinkets (see Moroes' watch or the scarab from SSC) since that's where you can change your stats the most.

Take the new 2.4 badge gear. I think the OP has a point, because look at those new T6 level items. Pants and Chest (and that ring too!!) have a big amount of dodge right there, replacing SBV with dodge+expertise, which seems like the best way to go when you progress at SSC/TK -> BT/MH level.

[Dreador]

While block value is a part of effective health gearing, it is not the bread and butter. You can almost count it separate as a threat upgrade (the mitigation provided is small but helpful anyway). Dropping BV for hit rating or expertise; yes you will see an increase in threat per second, but how is expertise going to help when you have no rage? The white damage gained by not missing does not make up for the rage lost by simply not getting hit.

I'm not saying avoidance is bad, it's great for farm status, that's why the gear drops in those places. When you're pushing new content (my guild currently is), wouldn't you want something static and predictable rather than a dice roll chance to be hit or not be hit? I have some avoidance, more than I have had in the past, and it provides benefit, I'm not going to lie. But do I stack avoidance in lieu of effective health? Hell no, I'd rather be able to know I can absorb a big hit and survive rather than leave it to a chance not-to-die.

[Satrina]

"Avoidance for farm status" is a nonsensical idea. I have always wondered how it got into the common wisdom.

As far as EH vs. avoidance goes - yes, for your point of progression stacking EH is generally a reasonable idea. It works in the same way that opening a walnut with a hammer does, effective but probably overkill. You will find as you go further along that it isn't the best idea, and you will have to learn to choose the correct gear for encounters.

People have done math showing the break point for avoidance is around 60-62% (dodge + miss + parry). If you have less, your problem is most likley rage management rather than lack of incoming rage. Mind, that point probably moves down some as you go further back in progression.

[Thetys]

Source: Satrina People have done math showing the break point for avoidance is around 60-62% (dodge + miss + parry).

Can you please link us where did you find those figures (60-62)?

[Ciderhelm]

Just to offer the counterpoint to this, you've got at least one Sunwell encounter which clearly favors stacking Avoidance, potentially even w/ gems (Brutallus). They've updated his abilities and I haven't kept up w/ that change, so I may be incorrect.

[Nicki]

Source: Ciderhelm Just to offer the counterpoint to this, you've got at least one Sunwell encounter which clearly favors stacking Avoidance, potentially even w/ gems (Brutallus). They've updated his abilities and I haven't kept up w/ that change, so I may be incorrect.

thought they changed it the opposite so you couldn't dodge/block/parry or be mised by his special..

Anyway this is why i dont wear moroes pocket watch:

20:23'12.734 Supremus's Melee hits Nicki for 6793 (280 blocked)
20:23'12.734 Nicki's Consecration dots Supremus for 121 Holy damage
20:23'13.406 Nicki's Holy Shield hits Supremus for 231 Holy damage
20:23'13.406 Nicki's Judgement of Righteousness resisted by Supremus
20:23'13.406 Nicki's Melee hits Supremus for 21 (54 blocked)
20:23'13.875 Nicki's Consecration dots Supremus for 121 Holy damage
20:23'14.218 Nicki gains Time's Favor
20:23'14.218 Nicki is afflicted by Molten Flame
20:23'14.234 Supremus's Melee hits Nicki for 4407 (280 blocked)
20:23'15.125 Molten Flame's Melee hits Nicki for 3398 Fire damage
20:23'15.125 Nicki's Melee hits Supremus for 90
20:23'15.140 Nicki's Consecration dots Supremus for 122 Holy damage
20:23'15.421 Nicki gains Holy Shield
20:23'15.734 Supremus's Melee hits Nicki for 3914 (280 blocked)
20:23'15.765 Slippen's Flash of Light heals Nicki for 1860
20:23'16.265 Nicki dies

I had 52% avoidance ~....I went down to 42% the next attempt which was a kill...meh

[Ratholorn]

Source: Satrina Any healer who heals in a 25-man environment should be used to casting constantly, and canceling unneeded heals. There is precisely NO benefit to healing someone who is already at full HP, so there is precisely NO reason not to cancel that heal before it goes off. This is neither hard nor uncommon - its been the standard way of healing in raids since the Molten freaking Core.

This is complete and utter crap. Any healer who constantly cancels heal that are about to land on a full HP tank gets screamed at by our heal team leader. It's not the way to heal T6 raids.
You cancel that heal with .25s left on the cast and Archimonde hits the MT for 9k just as you cancel and that's a long cast for you to get another heal in.
Shaman and Priests give an AC buff when the heals crit regardless of if they are overheal or not and there's no need to cancel out of that. If you have the Illidan mace, cancelling your heal removes the possibility of dropping a HoT on the tank.
The sheer volume of incoming damage at Illidari council means every healer is chain-potting and using a lot of mana pots anyway (or they will be dumped from the raid team) and that cancelled heal is potentially a raid member killer, especially on the MT.
I've gone 20s before with nothing but Earthshield and ImpLotP procs healing me at Archimonde and I criticised every single healer who had a HoT and didn't have one on me.
Skip-healing or cancel healing is fine if you're outgearing content, I'm sure we run like that at Kael now, but for mother/council/illidan/azgalor/archimonde I'd personally boot from the raid any healer doing that.

Back on the main topic of avoidance - I tell all my tanks that the threat ceiling should be of more concern to them than avoidance. There's some fights where it's less critical and you can wear more avoidance but if you really want to save healer mana, the best way to do it is to shorten the length of the fight, and that means thumping out the TPS and not threat capping your DPS.
I have an uncrushable set, I have not once worn it for a raid boss, I'd rather tank hit capped and trust my healers to know that mana is there to be spent and to pot when 3k mana in the hole and every 2mins thereafter.

To use Satrina's

Source: Satrina 1500 single target DPS.

Well every one of our hunters, warlocks, fury warriors and rogues and put out over 2000 DPS without breaking a sweat ... if I or my tanks wore avoidance gear all we'd do is threat cap them, lengthen the fight and raise the chances of someone making a mistake. Raise the chances of that damage spike hitting us because there's a larger sample size.
Edit - since you wanted a log Wow Web Stats

[Edgewalker]

Source: nicki thought they changed it the opposite so you couldn't dodge/block/parry or be mised by his special.. Anyway this is why i dont wear moroes pocket watch: 20:23'12.734 Supremus's Melee hits Nicki for 6793 (280 blocked) 20:23'12.734 Nicki's Consecration dots Supremus for 121 Holy damage 20:23'13.406 Nicki's Holy Shield hits Supremus for 231 Holy damage 20:23'13.406 Nicki's Judgement of Righteousness resisted by Supremus 20:23'13.406 Nicki's Melee hits Supremus for 21 (54 blocked) 20:23'13.875 Nicki's Consecration dots Supremus for 121 Holy damage 20:23'14.218 Nicki gains Time's Favor 20:23'14.218 Nicki is afflicted by Molten Flame 20:23'14.234 Supremus's Melee hits Nicki for 4407 (280 blocked) 20:23'15.125 Molten Flame's Melee hits Nicki for 3398 Fire damage 20:23'15.125 Nicki's Melee hits Supremus for 90 20:23'15.140 Nicki's Consecration dots Supremus for 122 Holy damage 20:23'15.421 Nicki gains Holy Shield 20:23'15.734 Supremus's Melee hits Nicki for 3914 (280 blocked) 20:23'15.765 Slippen's Flash of Light heals Nicki for 1860 20:23'16.265 Nicki dies I had 52% avoidance ~....I went down to 42% the next attempt which was a kill...meh

You don't wear moroes' pocket watch because you had bad luck while eating flame dots on a trivial encounter?
It's the best tanking trinket in the entire game currently for difficult content with any sort of spike damage.

Back on the main topic of avoidance - I tell all my tanks that the threat ceiling should be of more concern to them than avoidance. There's some fights where it's less critical and you can wear more avoidance but if you really want to save healer mana, the best way to do it is to shorten the length of the fight, and that means thumping out the TPS and not threat capping your DPS.

There are very few fights where you need avoidance and can also be rage starved. Especially with new Sunwell gear, there will be less and less pieces switched out between encounters. Avoidance is not about healer mana, it's about surviving gibs.
Also not cancelling heals *ever* as certain classes is a bit extreme. "Uncrushable" sets have never been "Avoidance" sets every since the addition of bosses that don't crush. Uncrushable sets are just that, largely use uncrushable sets. Don't confuse the two.

[Aelvain]

Source: Dreador I'm not saying avoidance is bad, it's great for farm status, that's why the gear drops in those places. When you're pushing new content (my guild currently is), wouldn't you want something static and predictable rather than a dice roll chance to be hit or not be hit? I have some avoidance, more than I have had in the past, and it provides benefit, I'm not going to lie. But do I stack avoidance in lieu of effective health? Hell no, I'd rather be able to know I can absorb a big hit and survive rather than leave it to a chance not-to-die.

Did you read the post? EH gearing is just as subject to the random roll...

And the point of avoidance on Brutallus doesn't have something to do with the special, it has to do with the fact that his swing timer is extremely fast. Avoidance has always been far more effective against fast hitters.

[Nicki]

Source: Aelvain Did you read the post? EH gearing is just as subject to the random roll... And the point of avoidance on Brutallus doesn't have something to do with the special, it has to do with the fact that his swing timer is extremely fast. Avoidance has always been far more effective against fast hitters.

He may have not read the article properly but I don't think you read effective health properly...And while I don't know this boss large damage = want to live as long as possible. Brutallus I hear hits harder than any boss currently ingame which instantly implies effective health (think patchwerk??). Whether he hits slow or fast really doesn't matter as we are dealing with DPS on a tank either way. I don't know as said maybe avoidance shines here maybe its just a omgthishitshardstackavoidance which ive seen many warriors do on gruul because he does hit hard at growth 16+...Anyone will tell you thats an effective health fight not an avoidance fight.

Again im not tanking it so I can't say what or whats what on who but I think implying that a fight is avoidance based on hard and fast is illogical..prince was as much an EH fight as an avoidance fight once you had over 16k buffed you had way less problems with him...just saying forevery dice you roll one someone else rolls two.

[Dots]

You don't understand the difference of those fights then. Gruul hits hard (later on) and slow = EH fight. Brutallus hits twice per second = avoidance fight. You don't just 'live as long as possible' on this fight. And anyone who has done it will tell you that.
Patchwerk would have been the same, but there weren't really so many gear options back then.

[Nicki]

Sunwell Radiance - Spells - World of Warcraft

raises many questions on the validity of stacking avoidance in sunwell... :x

[tamral]

I hate this damn argument. No offense to Ciderhelm, who I know is a moderator here, but his strategy does not scale the same way for 25 mans, and I have written numerous pieces stressing how it is invalid/garbage in TBC, and while it may still work, it is neither optimal nor sensical. I wrote up a post for EJ on the matter, and here’s the ACTUAL MATH.

As for 65% avoidance generating no threat, I can assure you with 141 hit and 27 expertise that it is NOT the case. On tank and spank fights with just my own battleshout, I can quite easily maintain 450-500 DPS and about 1200 TPS. Give me a windfury totem, a feral druid in group, and ret aura, and I can toss out close to 600 DPS /1400 TPS

The following are used to create the boundaries:
I’m not including the effects of incoming crits, simply because if you’re not stacking 490 defense already, you’re too stupid to understand any of this anyway. If you’re stacking INT or Spirit and want to see those in the calculations, please direct your concerns to barrens chat in your local realm.

Initial Assumptions

500 defense = Df0
15% dodge = Dg0
15% parry = Pa0
25% block = BL0
300 block value = BV0
6 expertise = EX0
0 hit rating = HT0
10% crit = CT0
200 Strength = ST0
150 AGI = AG0
550 AP = AP0
15000 Health = H0
17000 Armor = Armor0

Other values:
BP = boss parry rate
BD = boss dodge rate
BB = Boss Block rate
MI = Static Miss Rate of incoming attacks
MO = Miss rate of your attacks

Marginal Values:
Value of increasing each value by 1
dDFrating = +.016Dg0 + .016Pa0 + .016BL0 + .016MI
dDgrating = +.051Dg0
dParating = +.042Pa0
dBL0rating = .128BL0
dExrating = - int(Exrating/3.924)*BP - int(Exrating/3.924)*BD - int(Exrating/3.924)*BD
dST = +2 AP + (ST/20)BV
dAG = .033Dg + .033CT
DSta = + 10.5 Health
DST = + 1.1 ST

Using the basis of the following for comparison

1 Itemization point = 1.5 stam = 1 agi = 1 str = 1 crit rating = 1 dodge rating = 1 hit rating = 1 parry rating = 1 block rating = 3.7 block value = 1 expertise rating = 1 defense rating = 12 Armor

Without doing 46 pages of math, I concluded that the full complement of all BT epics (all level 141 items) provides a grand total of 3400 itemization points. Considering the very base of these numbers consumes roughly 2300 of the itemization points (a good 900 of them in stam alone, 300+ in defense rating, +150 or so across other stats)

Therefore:

+.67 DSta + DAg + DST + DCT + DDg + DHT + DPa + DBL + .28DBV + DEx + DDf + .08Armor = 1100
S.T
All >= 0
All <= 550 (Simply limiting you from stacking any one stat past this point (its impossible to do anyway, but it provides a force cap to give better relative values)

That’s the simple part.

Now it gets a bit more complex, so we’re going to summarize some of the data together (and yes, I realize I am combining dodge and parry together under the avoidance hat, and anyone with a brain realizes that parry is better in equal quantities, but it makes the math actually doable)

First, we need to provide proper caps where applicable;
Ex <= 43
HT <= 142

Avoidance = A0 = Pa + Dg – 1.2(.6 reduction in each for boss being 3 levels higher) + 10 + (DF-500)/25
Boss Damage = Boss Damage * .9 * ( 1 – (Armor/(11960+Armor))

Character hit chart:
{
A0 0
BL Boss Damage - BV
Max(0, 102.4 – A0 – BL - 15) Boss Damage
Max(0, 102.4 – A0 – BL) Boss Damage * 1.5
}

At first glance you may think it best to limit the expected damage, but that is not necessarily the case. We’ll get into that later:

First, we need to measure every stat relative to Avoidance, and Threat where applicable, because we are going to turn the entire equation into a second order exact equation, and second, we want to control the determinant (we want to be able to spit different ideal stats out by supplying the boss stats, not determine what boss our gear is ideal for (because the answer to that will always be an endpoint of 0 damage per swing, infinite time between swings, etc.)

The base values above, as per any normal threat spreadsheet, will be able to give a base of around 900 TPS based on 200 ms lag, using a SS, Rev, Dev, Dev cycle, with 2 heroic strikes per 4. So, using the same kind of calculator, we get marginal values of:

1 Agi = .033 A0 - .008 TPS (Agi leads to a relative decrease in threat because .05% crit provides less threat than .033 dodge removes)
1 Str = 0 A0 + .2TPS
1 Ex = 0A0 + 1.7 TPS
1 HT = 0A0 + .7 TPS
3.8 BV = 0A0 + .6 TPS
1 Dg = .051A0 - .31TPS
1 Pa = .042A0 - .12TPS
1 CT = 0A0 + .44TPS
1 Df = .047A0 - .24TPS
12 Armor = 0A0 - .00045TPS
1BL = 0A0 - .0000081*BV TPS (being it I don’t want to have to use Fourier to estimate this BS, I’m going to revolve this around a static number)
Therefore
1BL = 0A0 - .005 TPS (revolving around 600 Block Value, because this number is so damn small it means next to nothing anyway)

TPS0 = 800 (the value any tank who has l2played can maintain, and it is the base number around which a tank with 0 hit and 0 expertise will probably base around. This number is NOT used in any of the calculations below, however, and simply exists because I plugged it into the spreadsheet and the thing is linked)
A0 = 39.2 (15 dodge, 15 parry, 500 defense)

Now, going back to the damage formula.

First, we need to find the probability within a 30 second cycle that the tank will be subject to a crushing blow.
2 attacks per 5 are off the table

Now, we must determine how many free/extra swings the boss will have.

Using a simple estimation of 1.6 weapon speed, and the fact that parries can occur at any time within a boss swing cycle (~2.4 seconds with imp TC)
It is important to know that once every 60 seconds, regardless of the situation, you will be subject to a crush simply because one swing every 2.4 = 25 swings per minute, while your shield block covers only 24. One 5 second gap per minute is naturally uncovered.

12.8% no effect
25.6% chance swing time reduced by .4 seconds
61.6% chance swing time reduced by .7 seconds
Just multiplying that out, each parry results in the boss getting a swing time reduction of about .55 seconds.

30 seconds = approximately 38 swings.
38 * BP = number of parries.

At the base level, this number is around 3.4 parries per 30 seconds, which results in the boss getting one extra attack per 37 seconds (1.9 reduction in swing time) total over the course of 30 seconds. However, this is misleading. The reality is that the extra attacks are not evenly spread out, and it actually results, in on average, 1.41 swings per 30 seconds that are potentially a third in a 5 second gap.

On average, absent expertise rating beyond that provided by talents, the boss will get one extra swing at the player every 37 seconds. That extra swing is guaranteed to provide one extra attack over that 5 second period. The likelihood that this attack will crush is 15% of the chance that the other two attacks were successful hits, or

(1 – A0)^2 * .15 = .054 at the base level. About 1.41 times every 30 seconds, you’re running a 5% chance of potential catastrophe against a harder hitting boss by stacking nothing but stam (hit, hit, crush in a 5 second gap). Yes, this can be healed through and survived MOST of the time, and you may survive, but congratulations, everyone else’s life is harder because you’re stacking your gear poorly.

At 60% avoidance and 22 expertise, the one extra swing in time is every 72 seconds, and you’re only subject to .5 swings per 30 that fall outside your coverage gap.
(1 - .6)^2 * .15 = .024. So now, instead of a 5% chance of catastrophe 1.9 times per 30 seconds, it’s a 2.4% chance .5 times per 30 seconds. it may not look like much, but try asking the guy underwriting life insurance how different those two sets of numbers are. How it affects odds of success over a 7 minute fight is absolutely astronomical.

Assuming starting values:

20000 raid buffed health
Assuming HPS

State 1 Initial: 20000 health
State 1 post initial = return to state 1 health
State 2 = {A0 min (State 1 health +2.4 HPS, 20000)
1- A0 min (State 1 health +2.4 HPS, 20000) - Boss Damage + BV
}
State 3(A0) {A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000)
1- A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) - Boss Damage + BV
}
State 3(BL) {A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) – Boss Damage + BV
1- A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) – 2 * Boss Damage + 2 *BV
}
State 4 (no 3 swings)
{ 1 Return to State 1 + .2 HPS}
State 4 (chance of cycle having 3 swings)
Subset 1:
(A0 * A0) ) {A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000)
1- A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) – Boss Damage + BV
}
Subset 2:
2* (A0 * (1 –A0)
) {A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) – Boss Damage + BV
1- A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) * Boss Damage + 2 *BV
}
Subset 3
(1 – A0)^2
{A0 min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) - 2 * Boss Damage + 2 *BV)
BL min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) – 3 * Boss Damage + 3 * BV
Max(0, 102.4 – A0 – BL - 15) min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) - 3 * Boss Damage + 2 *BV
Max(0, 102.4 – A0 – BL) min (State 1 health +4.8 HPS, 20000) - 3.5 * Boss Damage + 2 * BV + 4.1 HPS
}
If health = 0 then, end
Else, return to state 1 + .2 HPS

Boss Damage in this state is the mitigated damage taken based on armor, I simply didn’t write it in because I didn’t feel like typing it out and clustering it with something that is already obvious if you’ve been following along so far anyway.

Your chance of the cycle of having 3 swings is simple. Divide the base number of 3 swing cycles per 30 by 6. That is the chance of any given cycle putting you into one of the subsets of State 4. Subset 3 is basically known as the catastrophic state, because that is the state at which you are in danger of taking more damage per that 5 seconds than you are normally getting healed for, meaning either
a) you just died, gg
or
b) you are going back into state 1 with significantly less than full health, so either catch up time/Loch/etc. is needed before you are relatively safe again.

Assuming you are receiving in the ballpark of 4500 HPS (2.5 direct healers)
Plug in the numbers. For a boss hitting for 8k per hit, 500 block value, and plug into the 4x4 matrix, and knock yourself out. 20,000 health with 22 expertise, 60% avoidance is SAFER (less likely to reach health = 0) than 25,000 health, 6 expertise, 45% avoidance. In fact, at 6 expertise and 45% avoidance, you would need almost 27,800 health to get to that same level of relative safety, due to the sheer number of times spent over 7 minutes in subset 3 of State 4.

To get an even better gauge, consider this (sorry Ciderhelm fans): even assuming both tanks had 22 expertise:
In the above case:
20k health with 65% avoidance = 26,188 health with 45% avoidance.

Take the above matrix and subject it to the following:

Min P(health = 0, (20000 + sta * 1.15, 39.2% + .033Agi + .051Dg + .042Pa + .047Df , 25% + .128BL)
Max: 800 - .008Agi + .2 Str + 1.7 Ex + .7 HT + .16BL - .31Dg - .12Pa +.44CT - .00003 Armor - .005 BL
Subject to:
+.67 DSta + DAg + DST + DCT + DDg + DHT + DPa + DBL + .28DBV + DEx + DDf + .08Armor = 1100
All >= 0
EX <= 43
Hit <= 142
All <= 550 (Simply limiting you from stacking any one stat past this point (its impossible to do anyway, but it provides a force cap to give better relative values)

Ok, looking over this, we get the following:
A 4 State matrix with not enough static equations to solve (it is a ridiculous partial that isn’t even worth looking at). BUT… well at first glance, we can eliminate several of our variables.

Under any circumstances, the following relative dominances can be made:
Expertise dominates hit and crit. Since 3.8BL is the same as 1 crit rating in itemization, BL dominates crit. Therefore, under all circumstances, crit = 0.
Strength is dominated by everything. It is quite possibly the most worthless stat out there for a protection warrior. It is dominated by everything. Therefore, STR = 0.
None of these stats provide any avoidance, the relative gains in these stats therefore can be measured in a linear fashion against one another.

Until we can plug in boss damage, we don’t know about the relative values of anything that provide both avoidance and threat results. Furthermore, itemization points spent in armor past the basic level of 17000 is such a waste it defies belief. If you get a +armor enchant or kit, go shoot yourself now, because it’s beyond idiotic. You’ll get 18k or so armor anyway just from the items themselves, but the relative value of armor in itemization is literally nothing compared to everything else.

Put relatively, the gains from 100 Stam vs 1200 Armor is the difference between 1050 health, vs, (at 17k armor), a 1.5% decrease in damage taken (60.2% vs 58.7%), or about 350 less per hit. Since the objective here is to limit any possibilities of 3 consecutive hits, a stat that does not pay back dividends until AFTER that happens is pointless. Oh, and the State matrix tells us something else. BL doesn’t even matter until you’re in the oh shit state anyway. It doesn’t otherwise do much of anything. Therefore, byebye.

So at this point, knowing only that armor, str, crit, and BL are equal to 0, we have to actually now solve this matrix. Still seems impossible… BUT, we can write relative formulas as well. Especially since we did that cool thing before writing out avoidance, right? Not to mention, a quick rewrite to make all this shit a bit easier on the eyes:

Min P(health = 0, (20000 + sta * 1.15, 39.2% + .033Agi + .051Dg + .042Pa + .047Df , 25%)
Max: 800 - .008Agi + 1.7 Ex + .7 HT + .16BL - .31Dg - .12Pa S
Subject to:
+.67 DSta + DAg + DDg + DHT + DPa + .28DBV + DEx + DDf = 1100
All >= 0
EX <= 43
Hit <= 142
All <= 550 (Simply limiting you from stacking any one stat past this point (its impossible to do anyway, but it provides a force cap to give better relative values)

Still we are a bit short on equations, and this is still a clusterfuck of a partial to even attempt. But, we’ve got some abbreviations here. First off, because the minimization equation dominates here, and because I know something else you don’t know…… No really, from before since we know that Expertise dominates hit and block value, and that hit dominates block value….
Rewrite it to be:

Min P(health = 0, (20000 + sta * 1.15, 39.2% + .033Agi + .051Dg + .042Pa + .047Df , 25%)
Max: 800 - .008Agi + 1.7 Ex - .31Dg - .12Pa S
Subject to:
+.67 DSta + DAg + DDg + DPa + DEx + DDf = 1100
All >= 0
EX <= 43
Hit <= 142
All <= 550 (Simply limiting you from stacking any one stat past this point (its impossible to do anyway, but it provides a force cap to give better relative values)

AHA! A 4 State matrix, 2 subject equations, and known endpoints! We can now solve this. To make a long long long long story short: Expertise caps first in every circumstance from Boss damage =0 to 99999 and any other parameter you set. It then allows us to rewrite the equation as follows:

Min P(health = 0, (20000 + sta * 1.15, 39.2% + .033Agi + .051Dg + .042Pa + .047Df , 25%)
Max: 800 - .008Agi + 1.7*43 + .7*HT + .16BL - .31Dg - .12Pa S
Subject to:
+.67 DSta + DAg + DHT + DDg + DPa + DDf = 1057
All >= 0

EX = 43

Hit <= 142
All <= 550 (Simply limiting you from stacking any one stat past this point (its impossible to do anyway, but it provides a force cap to give better relative values)

First, solve the relative partials from above with everything else constant to get your variance rates. The reason you are doing this is because you’re not creating the ideal gear set, you’re creating the a means to measure the relative values of increasing stats BY BOSS (I can’t stress the need for different sets for each boss enough here)
Ok, now, you’re supplied multiplier row in the end matrix (6 x 6) x (1 x 6) is (Boss Damage, 2.4, 10.6, 26.2, 0, (your weapon speed).

The lighter the boss hits, the higher the value for things like Block Value (and Block rating, even though I zeroed it out). Stam has an exponentially decreasing rate of return. For example, against a boss hitting for 10,000 a pop, stam has a very high rate of return until about 22,800 HP. For a boss hitting for 9000 a pop, the point at which it gets overtaken is closer to 20600. These are raidbuffed numbers by the way, so take that into account.

[tamral]

Source: nicki He may have not read the article properly but I don't think you read effective health properly...And while I don't know this boss large damage = want to live as long as possible. Brutallus I hear hits harder than any boss currently ingame which instantly implies effective health (think patchwerk??). Whether he hits slow or fast really doesn't matter as we are dealing with DPS on a tank either way. I don't know as said maybe avoidance shines here maybe its just a omgthishitshardstackavoidance which ive seen many warriors do on gruul because he does hit hard at growth 16+...Anyone will tell you thats an effective health fight not an avoidance fight. Again im not tanking it so I can't say what or whats what on who but I think implying that a fight is avoidance based on hard and fast is illogical..prince was as much an EH fight as an avoidance fight once you had over 16k buffed you had way less problems with him...just saying forevery dice you roll one someone else rolls two.

Prince is an avoidance fight. Main tanking gruul is an avoidance fight. Off tanking gruul is an EH fight. I've tanked gruul to grow 21 as avoidance and I had only 14.5k health unbuffed with my 62 (at the time)% avoidance, with moroes stopwatch to help me through silences. Granted that was the very last time I ever PUG'd the instance, but regardless, tank mechanics and math don't work the way people who don't understand the first damn thing about math think they do. Some people just plug in known formulas and make asinine and completely false assumptive statements about them without knowing simple freakin algebra, let alone the multiple order deterministic state matrix that is the incoming damage problem.

[Ciderhelm]

Source: tamral I hate this damn argument. No offense to Ciderhelm, who I know is a moderator here, but his strategy does not scale the same way for 25 mans, and I have written numerous pieces stressing how it is invalid/garbage in TBC, and while it may still work, it is neither optimal nor sensical.

No offense taken, but I'd at least like to know what you're disagreeing with me on.

[tamral]

Source: Edgewalker You don't wear moroes' pocket watch because you had bad luck while eating flame dots on a trivial encounter? It's the best tanking trinket in the entire game currently for difficult content with any sort of spike damage. There are very few fights where you need avoidance and can also be rage starved. Especially with new Sunwell gear, there will be less and less pieces switched out between encounters. Avoidance is not about healer mana, it's about surviving gibs. Also not cancelling heals *ever* as certain classes is a bit extreme. "Uncrushable" sets have never been "Avoidance" sets every since the addition of bosses that don't crush. Uncrushable sets are just that, largely use uncrushable sets. Don't confuse the two.

Exactly. I don't wear avoidance gear on VR, Najentus, Rage, or any other boss that hits like a fairy.


But I can easily sustain 1200 TPS (~500 DPS) with 29 dodge and 20 parry. For Mother Shahraz, where threat isn’t an issue at all, I run with 34.57 dodge, 21.9 parry, and almost 540 defense. Can still pump out 400 DPS and maintain over 1000 TPS. That’s why these stats called hit rating and expertise rating exist.

142 hit is almost 110 more TPS
27 expertise rating (80 expertise rating) is more than 130 TPS
Sure I may not HS as much as I would like to at times, but maintaining 2x dev, rev, SS can almost fully be maintained with white swings when I go into a dodge-fest. Just maintaining that simple cycle with white swings = 950 or so TPS with healing aggro and secondary aggro (auras, thorns). When I take the big hits, the HS rage dumping begins and I spike back up. Either way, you can easily normalize to a healthy 1.2k TPS number.

[tamral]

Source: Ciderhelm No offense taken, but I'd at least like to know what you're disagreeing with me on.

Your stickied post in the warrior forum on the official boards. I've petitioned like 15 times to get that thing taken down in favor of Quigon's BC guide on the EJ forums.