[Talldar]

I wouldn't worry all too much, everything's easily fixable. You'll have to turn in some stats, but what the heck, it's not the end of the world to loose some little dodge in favor defense.

And if you find yourself with lesst han 490 defense and don't know what to do take a look at my current post for a fast & easy fix: Pre WotLK patch defense rating gear guide - how to get uncrittable again

[FranzVonKrau]

First of thank you all so much for posting so much amazing info about our passion. This forum has been a wealth of infomation for me over the past few months.
My question is once you hit the 490 threshold, are you better off equipmenting or socketing for other things like crit strike, hit, exp, and str? Does it do you any good at this point to be say 510 as opposed to 490?
I know it's a newbie question but I'd really like to know how to proceed. Thanks again for for your time.

[Edgwin]

Source: Bostung No, that racial doesn't affect crit chance, just miss chance. Your defense requirement will be the same as anybody else's, I'm afraid. That'd be 540 at 80, I believe.

Well it's my understanding that the reason def pushes crits off the table is because of their respective places on the hit table. i.e. more misses means less crits inherently and therefore an additional 2.00% to be missed also means 2% less chance to be crit, crushed, parried, etc...

If that's the case then wouldn't that 2% translate into roughly a 50 def bonus (less the obvious additional avoidance from def) for nightelves? Thereby making the current NE def target 440 and the lvl 80 target again 490?

If that's not the case, the 2% avoidance has to come into play somewhere, so where then does it become applicable? crushes? (I know a mob has to be 4 levels higher than you to crush, but 2% should more than make up for that)

Just curious.

-Edg

[Squeancey]

Source: Edgwin If that's the case then wouldn't that 2% translate into roughly a 50 def bonus (less the obvious additional avoidance from def) for nightelves? Thereby making the current NE def target 440 and the lvl 80 target again 490?

If this is true, why wouldn't all tanks simply forgo def and stack Dodge instead? I don't know the answer, but I don't think just adding more avoidance can make you uncrittable. Or maybe there's something I'm missing.

[Tenraiel]

You've got the basic understanding of the combat table down, however, crit is special. Only def and resilience affect it. Adding dodge would push down crush and hit, however, it will just bypass crit. You need some mix of def and resilience to reach uncrittable, then after that, yes, all your avoidance is doing is making you less squishy and helping push off crushings.

[Tenraiel]

Also, Franz, def is never a bad stat to have more of. Sometimes other stats may be more effective for your given situation. How to gem/enchant after 490 really depends on your state in the game, however, with WLK being tomorrow, I personally would suggest some dps stats: str/crit/expertise/hit until ~80.