[Synapse]

Parry is a jerk, he would molest you again.

[Kavtor]

20% probably isn't enough. Especially once we start putting Icecown gear on. Here's hoping they redesign rage, avoidance, et al for Cataclysm. Wearing more DPS gear than tank gear for anything that isn't progression content still feels silly.

[Reev]

Anyone else think they're going to need to adjust healing to go with this? If they're reducing avoidance, the bosses don't have to hit as hard. Maybe you can take 3 or even 4 hits in a row before dying. If that's the case, and healers can still spam like they do now, a tank should never die. If they do change healing, will it be through throughput or mana?

[Synapse]

Source: Kavtor 20% probably isn't enough. Especially once we start putting Icecown gear on. Here's hoping they redesign rage, avoidance, et al for Cataclysm. Wearing more DPS gear than tank gear for anything that isn't progression content still feels silly.

how much of that is still a problem for warriors? I thought they got a talent to embed a rage gain from avoidance already?

Source: Reev Anyone else think they're going to need to adjust healing to go with this? If they're reducing avoidance, the bosses don't have to hit as hard. Maybe you can take 3 or even 4 hits in a row before dying. If that's the case, and healers can still spam like they do now, a tank should never die. If they do change healing, will it be through throughput or mana?

Probably not. If you've been in Sunwell, healing there was quite intensive regardless of avoidance. Most attacks would still make the tanks cry for their mommies(Hi Brutallus!)

[Unfurth]

Healers can't spam heals if they're required to stop-casting / move during encounters. Based on some of the abilities previewed on the PTR for the bosses, it looks like there will be some considerable dancing necessary.

[Reev]

I missed the Sunwell train, since I was working in African jungle at the time where the internet connection isn't so reliable. I will certainly be in on ICC this time though.

I know Brutallus was, well, Brutal, and that even the best geared tanks would get gibbed by him before healers could react, if their avoidance failed them. Not all the bosses will be like that I suppose, though. If they're still doing bosses hitting for 25k damage on a 2 second swing timer with intant attacks interspersed, tanks with lower avoidance will be screwed. How do they do the lower avoidance without lowering the damage?

[Reev]

Source: Unfurth Healers can't spam heals if they're required to stop-casting / move during encounters. Based on some of the abilities previewed on the PTR for the bosses, it looks like there will be some considerable dancing necessary.

Ah, that makes sense.

[Astemus]

Guess that reads "Druids, time to start gearing your other tanking alts, because welcome to BC raiding"

[Honorshammer]

Source: Astemus Guess that reads "Druids, time to start gearing your other tanking alts, because welcome to BC raiding"

Druids were FANTASTIC for Brutallus.

[Synapse]

Source: Honorshammer Druids were FANTASTIC for Brutallus.

In fact, the world-first was a druid-druid combo.

[Thedom]

Synapse rage is quite a bit better now if prot warriors take the talent but it is in no way fixed yet just manageable. Rage is basically fundamentally flawed for both dps and tanking as it currently is. I don't expect any change as huge as changing the way rage works until cataclysm tho.

[Reev]

Why is this worse for druids than other tanks?

[Synapse]

It is? the weight of the "blow" is heavier based on how much total avoidance you have. The more you had, the bigger is the loss of those 20%.

Also, an interesting question popped on MT... What's gonna happen with DK threat and rune strikes?

[Omok]

I think people are taking the changes the wrong way. The entire point of this debuff is to get tanks out of the habit of relying on avoidance, and focusing more on effective health. Once the reliance on avoidance is gone, then they can safely balance the encounters in Icecrown around the concept of larger health pools, predictable damage, and smart heals. Your spikes in damage will come from boss abilities, and not avoidance failing you. I personally love the change, as I feel boss encounters will become more strategic, and not a spam heal fest as they are now. Blizzard stated that bosses will be hitting for less damage to take the avoidance nerf into account, combine that with tighter mana constraints on your healers and now you have a little bit of a challenge. I see avoidance in Cataclysm dropping down to 15%, if not lower, as what is considered top end. The avoidance levels we see now are ridiculous, and take any sense of strategy out of the encounter.

[Synapse]

Source: Omok I think people are taking the changes the wrong way. The entire point of this debuff is to get tanks out of the habit of relying on avoidance, and focusing more on effective health. Once the reliance on avoidance is gone, then they can safely balance the encounters in Icecrown around the concept of larger health pools, predictable damage, and smart heals. Your spikes in damage will come from boss abilities, and not avoidance failing you. I personally love the change, as I feel boss encounters will become more strategic, and not a spam heal fest as they are now. Blizzard stated that bosses will be hitting for less damage to take the avoidance nerf into account, combine that with tighter mana constraints on your healers and now you have a little bit of a challenge. I see avoidance in Cataclysm dropping down to 15%, if not lower, as what is considered top end. The avoidance levels we see now are ridiculous, and take any sense of strategy out of the encounter.

They did exactly the same thing in Sunwell for the exactly same reasons, and it didn't work. The Avoidance they want to take our habit of of is the avoidance they *shoved* in our gear since it's in ALL decent gear. Plus, unless they go the Anub/Gormok way, tank killers will still be best avoided with the sum of minimum EH + lots of avoidance. Most of our grief is not with the drop itself..but with the fact they let themselves fall for that trap again after fervently saying they're being careful about it since Sunwell.

[Dozer]

So where does this put block now?

[Synapse]

Source: Dozer So where does this put block now?

The same place as it was before. Today we "Scornfully try to ignore block value" and "Feel disgusted at block rating". Tomorrow we will "Try to ignore block value" and "feel rather disgusted at block rating". The drop in avoidable damage size will make shield block and holy shield more noticeable.. but i doubt it'd turn gearing towards block a good thing. It's not a good thing since heroics and, specifically, Anub adds.

[Khue]

Does this effectively make block more attractive especially in context of t9 bonus for warriors? I would imagine it does. My gut reaction is that I want to start stacking stam and str, but then again thats just a gut reaction.

[Meeks]

Source: Omok I think people are taking the changes the wrong way. The entire point of this debuff is to get tanks out of the habit of relying on avoidance, and focusing more on effective health.

I did not realize there were any tanks left that had not ditched avoidance for stam a long long time ago. Only avoidance most tanks have is what just happens to be on their stam gear. It is kind of funny that it still got out of control.

[Astemus]

Druids' only avoidance stat is dodge, besides the 5% base miss chance. Sporting 50-60% avoidance as a plate wearer typically means you've got 30-40% dodge and 20-30% parry. A druid with that much avoidance has only dodge.

Pretty clearly a bigger nerf to druids than any other class. I'll be dropping to very scary levels of avoidance.

Not that I don't think this change is needed, but could have easily been avoided (lol) by simply not increasing the avoidance available on armor for hard mode tiers of gear, and found a way to penalize druids until the formulas for agi to dodge can be reworked along with everything else in the expansion, if it was even needed.