[Kazeyonoma]

Source: Kahmal With all do respect if stacking stam has been working with undergeared healers, why waste resources to change it just because they are now geared? Does it really increase your life span THAT much?

It does increase your life span, and when you're progressing, every second matters, that last second shieldwall, or 1% wipe, is what makes or breaks progression fights. When you're healers become more geared, they need less and less buffer for themselves, that's not saying you should stop obtaining EH, you should but naturally through gear, and instead add avoidance to your setup by swapping in and out pieces of gear based on your situation. You aren't WASTING resources, you shouldn't REGEM things, or RE-ENCHANT things that often, you find a good EH piece, you make it a stronger EH piece by stacking stam/armor on it however way you can. You find a good avoidance piece, you help its avoidance by gemming it accordingly. Then when the time arises you swap out the gear for the encounter. This way you don't "waste resources".

And Koasfayt: If you're in game, just highlight over your Block% in your character Pane, it tells you your sbv. If you're not available to getting in game and want it right now, here's the most accurate way I've figured it out (it might be off by 1-3 sbv): Go to Armory
1) Take your strength / 20 and add 1 = total from str
2) Add up all your SBV bonuses from gear = total from gear
3) Add up all the Block Value indicated on your shield = shield
4) Now if you have the 10% sbv meta gem you go to b, if you don't refer to a
4a) Add up total from 1) 2) and 3) and multiply that total by 1.3 = total sbv
4b) Add up total from 1) 2) and 3) and multiply that total by 1.4 = total sbv

There you go!

[KAOSFAYT]

Woot WOot always there 4 ya boy thanks Kaze

K here i am Sadly no where near greatness but workin on it.

Unbuffed:

Health :11504
Armor : 12472
SBV: 220
Miss: 6.48%
Dodge:14.48%
Parry: 16.82%
Base Miss Rate: 5.00%
Avoidance: 42.78
EH: 26906.63
TDR 75.07

Seems i need Stamina in a Bad way. time to re gem i think.

[Dubbleutyeff]

Kahmal and Bodasofa, I am a similar situation to the two of you where my guild is in early T5 content and I find myself with a huge amount of EH. I was hitting the T6 minimum for EH, but only the T5 minimum for avoidance. The reason was because I was always favoring EH and threat over avoidance, basically just making sure I had enough defense skill to remain uncrittable. I had way more EH than any other tank in my guild, but also probably the lowest avoidance.

I'm pretty much always the OT for fights, and I realized that no matter how much I stack EH, that isn't going to make me the MT if the raid leaders don't understand the concept. I decided this week to put more avoidance into my set because I'm usually not taking insane amounts of damage and the more I can avoid attacks, the more healers can focus on the MT.

I swapped out my Gnomish Poultrizier for my Adamantite Figurine, replaced a couple Solid Star of Elunes for some hybrid Def/Stam and Dodge/Stam gems (cost me probably <100g total, hybrid gems are cheap on my realm), and got an enchanter to swap +150 health for +15 defense rating on my chest (probably the better choice since +health doesn't stack with Kings anyways). Also, instead of eating Spicy Crawdad I'm going to eat Grilled Mudfish for +20 agility. I'm still sitting above the T5.5 EH minimum, but now I'm also at the T5.5 avoidance minimum of 50%. All-in-all, it was a quick and easy way to trade some EH for avoidance.

[Bogota]

Can I use this macro to determine my avoidence for this purpose:

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combined avoidance. Currently at:",0.8,0.8,1) /script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME: AddMessage(GetDodgeChance()+ GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance() + 5 + (GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)*150/355 + 20)*0.04,1,0.5,0)

This is what I use to check for uncrushability. Just wondering since in takes into account my defense skill and talents.

[kawika]

Is the info applicable to all tank classes or just warrior tanks? I'd assume prot paladins would possibly be similar in stats (EH and avoidance)? Given druid gear and class mechanics....would the EH minimums possibly to be higher, but avoidance to be lower?

[Kahmal]

So basically once my healers are geared enough for the content that we had already cleared, I should then edit the set thats gotten me this far in the first place? I mean its not like healing that buffer will get harder if they gear up more.

This still is a bit mind boggling. Sounds kinda like a contradiction.

I personally just keep around avoidance pieces that are enchanted/geared with stamina, I normal hit a desired amount of avoidance for avoidance battles that way.

[klor]

Source: Kahmal So basically once my healers are geared enough for the content that we had already cleared, I should then edit the set thats gotten me this far in the first place? I mean its not like healing that buffer will get harder if they gear up more. This still is a bit mind boggling. Sounds kinda like a contradiction. I personally just keep around avoidance pieces that are enchanted/geared with stamina, I normal hit a desired amount of avoidance for avoidance battles that way.

How is it contradicting when you just agreed with Kazey?

He said the exact same thing you just said.

[Kahmal]

I just dont see the sense in regearing to fight bosses I have already killed just because my healers are now better geared. I mean not saying Avoidance is bad, but...if we killed the boss when they were undergeared using EH, then I dont think it would be any harder to continue using EH if there even better geared.

[klor]

Its not that it is 'harder' to kill the bosses you killed when you were undergeared in EH. Its that avoidance makes it 'easier' to kill them if you can maintain the EH limit for doing so.

No where does it say to 'regear' but almost any tank will keep a few pieces of avoidance for when they need it on some fights. I'll admit, EH works on almost every fight in the game. Heck you could go as far as saying it DOES work for every fight in the game (atleast until tier6 where its just not as practical), but there are plenty of times where avoidance makes that fight all that much easier than just taking a ton of damage where it could have been reduced even the slightest.

My guild has just started MH/BT and I still find myself using a piece or two from karazhan simply because Karazhan gear was full of avoidance. There are a few pieces that just simply are not replaceable for avoidance for the longest time. Tier4 gloves and the maiden necklace are two of those items. I still use them from time to time.

I think you're just missing that small point they are trying to say where they are not saying to regear/regem/what have you. They are saying it doesnt do you any good to stack even higher EH once you reach the comfort level. It doesnt make it any easier, where as stacking avoidance once you can gear for the comfort EH level, does make the encounter in fact easier.

[Kazeyonoma]

What klor said.

[ebs2002]

Edit: Bah...this is what happens when I get sidetracked while writing a post because of work. Well, I'll keep the post here anyway, but it's essentially what Klor said

Because healing a tank that's geared for EH can be harder than healing a tank geared for avoidance. The chance for success is greater, but it's more work for the healers.

You don't just gem for EH to make it easier for you to live. You're giving a large enough buffer for when someone messes up and needs a heal from that pally who otherwise would be watching you.

As they get better gear and the rest of your raid starts dealing with the encounter like it's second nature, the healers don't have to stress out as much, and I'm sure they would appreciate you making the fight easier for them. After all, it's not like you're going to wipe because you're wearing avoidance gear...the fight's on farm status.

[Kahmal]

Well after I get the bracers off VR I'll be at 50% avoidance and still at BT level Effective Health....so should I stack more Avoidance still? My threat stats seem pretty solid in my tanking set.

[Kazeyonoma]

pretty much that would help your healers more, and increase your overall survivability, but be careful, sometimes stacking too much avoidance does gimp your threat due to rage starvation, other than that, yeh. The general idea is reach a safe EH level for your content, then start up on avoidance/threat to help your raid out, avoidance for your healers, threat for your dps. How you balance that is entirely up to your raid setup and playstyle.

[klor]

Source: Kazeyonoma pretty much that would help your healers more, and increase your overall survivability, but be careful, sometimes stacking too much avoidance does gimp your threat due to rage starvation, other than that, yeh. The general idea is reach a safe EH level for your content, then start up on avoidance/threat to help your raid out, avoidance for your healers, threat for your dps. How you balance that is entirely up to your raid setup and playstyle.

I personally ran all threat for the longest time :-x

[Rak]

Increasing your avoidance for farm content also means your raid can use less consumables. I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay for full consumables for every boss on farm nights.

[Krynis]

Somehow I never went to this post, but wow is it ever useful.

[Kothoga]

How accurate are the EH and avoidance for the various raids?

[Kazeyonoma]

They are estimates Kothoga/kimmie.

They are baselines that you should be around.

if you're at 44% avoidance, sure you could probably still do it, I wouldn't hold it against you, it's just something to strive for to ensure you are fully capable of tanking the instance.

And there's always leeway, I tanked all of ZA and kara with only 40% avoidance but with immense amounts of EH. I know crimsonstorm has tanked t5 with the same mentality and it works. Sometimes its about your raid makeup and how your healers feel about your survivability. Move sets around, and keep multiple pieces to each gearslot so you are better suited for each and every encounter.

[Elyvern]

I find this a little preposterous. Fully raid buffed in my avoidance gear I'm sitting on:

EH: 64221
Avoidance: 60.86

70 Tauren Warrior

According to the raid minimums, I can tank up to Illidan and the beginning of SWP. This is from someone who has 1 single 25man gear loot, mostly badge gear and several pieces of Kara loot.

I know, I know, it just means I could possibly tank Illidan, but it may not be wise to do so. I'm happy for ways to upgrade without raiding too intensively, but this seems like glaring proof that badge gear has gone way overboard.

[Ciderhelm]

Source: Elyvern I'm happy for ways to upgrade without raiding too intensively, but this seems like glaring proof that badge gear has gone way overboard.

Badge gear is exactly where Blizzard intends it to be. They've been very careful in both reducing the difficulty of some content and increasing the available gear for content. This is most obvious in PVP with prior Arena gear.

This gives you a chance to go through the later content, if that's your desire, either by pushing content very hard with your current guild, or applying to a guild at or near that level of content. Maybe not your goals, but they've given you the potential to do it.