[Sukadupa]

Quick question: Is avoidance better overall than parry for a DK. Should it be a half and half sort of thing? Im new to the DK tanking scene as my guild's core just xfered servers and Im picking up a tanking roll now since only one of our tanks Xfered and I just have a bunch of random tanking gear that I picked up from 10 and 25 mans that no one wanted. I currently have alot of my gem slots gemmed for 16 parry rating but to be honest I have no idea what to be gemming or what stats to be looking for. Any help would be appreciated. Great guide Timetheos, helped out with what to look for for gear.

[Thetazero]

Avoidance = Parry + dodge + miss and all that other stuff, and no, parry is the worst "avoidance" stat u can stack. If you're going for avoidance tanking, get +16 dodge scarlet rubys, they are much better.

[Sukadupa]

Nice! Most righteous. Now I have to go re-gem because I was stacking parry. Lol. Good game! Thanks for the input bro. It's Highly appreciated.

[Aradril]

This post was a precious referential to create my wishlit. It is sad it doesn't seem to be upgraded for the 3.1.

[Kazeyonoma]

give it a bit, Timetheos might jump back in and update it.

[Timetheos]

I will, probably during maintenance tomorrow. I've been bogged down by assignments recently, and waiting for loot tables to fill out.

[Thetazero]

Source: Timetheos I will, probably during maintenance tomorrow. I've been bogged down by assignments recently, and waiting for loot tables to fill out.

But timetheos, like i mentioned before, DKs benefit from dodge more than parry. When you update the tables, can u change your +8 defense, +12 stam green gems to +8 dodge, +12 stam gems for the new table?

[Timetheos]

By "benefit more from dodge than parry", do you mean anything other than that dodge scales better than parry, as it does for warriors and pallies too?

In hindsight it seems odd that I'd use def/sta gems for both AvB and Av. Av and AvDK should both have dodge/sta gems in blue slots. This means that a lot of my avoidance numbers might be out.

(post-crunching) The difference between 100 def rating and 100 dodge rating, not counting dim. returns, is about 0.1% avoidance. While this is a difference to be sure, it isn't worth recalculating every piece of gear to correct. I'll fix it before I start work on the 3.1 gear, and probably take another look at any remaining pre-3.0 pieces that are still BiS.

Thanks for picking this up Thetazero

[Thetazero]

Source: Timetheos By "benefit more from dodge than parry", do you mean anything other than that dodge scales better than parry, as it does for warriors and pallies too?

Woops, I totally meant "benefit more from dodge than defense rating." For some reason I still had Sukadupa's post in my head when I was posting. But yes, since the DR sucks for parry, dodge > parry for pure avoidance

Source: Timetheos (post-crunching) The difference between 100 def rating and 100 dodge rating, not counting dim. returns, is about 0.1% avoidance. While this is a difference to be sure, it isn't worth recalculating every piece of gear to correct. I'll fix it before I start work on the 3.1 gear, and probably take another look at any remaining pre-3.0 pieces that are still BiS.

Well, while the difference may only be 0.1% before DR, the change after DR might be much more. I have no idea the DR stats in defense rating, but I do know that parry has horrible DR in comparison to dodge. That's why dodge is so much stronger a stat than parry in terms of pure avoidance. I've always been taught that dodge>def rating>parry, so I imagine that the DR for def rating is going to be more than dodge. I don't expect you to throw out the whole explanation of DR, and that I should stop being lazy and look up the DR for defense rating myself, but regemming might change actual avoidance a little more than .1%.

and btw, thnx for your post, it's been super helpful, keep up the awesome work

[Jayson]

Def Rating has no Diminishing Returns per se. The issue that you run into is that each point of Defense applies to the DRs on Parry and Dodge. With just a bit of Parry rating, the benefit of Defense falls greatly due to the crappy Parry DR scaling.

So Dodge stays ahead of Def for AV due simply to the fact that Def has to carry Parry around. Parry DRs manage to lay the smackdown on yet another stat in the game.

[Kazeyonoma]

defense miss is on a heavier DR than even Parry unfortunately but I still value the SBR and overall balance of Defense over pure avoidance gemming.

[Thetazero]

Yea... I was thinking shield users would choose def rating over dodge the majority of the time. However, for DKs we have 0 block, so dodge is number 1 in our book

[Lichborne]

No Ulduar items on the list?

[Timetheos]

Howdy.

3.1 Gear added.

I'm very sorry this took so long; I've been much busier with university this semester than I had anticipated, and have been slowly building up this list over teh last few weeks. It isn't recolored yet; I'll wait a few days, to see if anyone picks up a wrong number somewhere.

It's nice to see some big blocking numbers start to appear (>7% in a few slots), and of particular note is the Argent Tournament weapons, which, while being ilvl 200, are 3rd best for block, after two hard-mode Ulduar drops.

Again, I'm sorry for the delay in getting this out.

[Kazeyonoma]

Always glad to see an update, late or not. Thanks Timetheos... now if we can get demog to update... lol

[Fearlezz]

Having the avoidance, EH and other numbers is quite nice, but since tanking is more about threat than ever, is there any chance that you add "+% hit" and "+% exp" columns?

If I get some free time I'll post all the sources + add more 2h tank weapons.

[Fearlezz]

Here's an example of what I had in mind:

Src Item  ...................................  EH BV AvDK% Av% AvB% Hit% Exp% (Extra)

Head

Uld Conqueror's Siegebreaker Greathelm  .  9593  49       4.25% 7.33%              (War T8b) Thorim/Badge
Uld Conqueror's Aegis Faceguard  ........  9593  49       4.27% 7.28%              (Pal T8b) Thorim/Badge
Uld Conqueror's Darkruned Faceguard  ....  9593     4.51%             1.25%        (DK T8b)  Thorim/Badge
Uld Helm of the Faceless  ...............  9593  57 4.86% 4.28% 4.93%  		  	     Vezax
--------
Uld Valorous Siegebreaker Greathelm  ....  9230  45       3.90% 7.32% 		   (War T8)  Mimiron
Uld Valorous Aegis Faceguard  ...........  9230  45       4.07% 6.86% 		   (Pal T8)  Mimiron
Uld Valorous Darkruned Faceguard  .......  8230     4.26%             1.13%        (DK T8)   Mimiron
Uld Ironbark Faceguard  .................  9230  33 4.53% 4.19% 4.59%  			     Freya
Nax Valorous Scourgeborne Faceguard  ....  8979     3.78%                   1.07%  (DK T7b)
Nax Valorous Redemption Faceguard  ......  8979 117       2.53% 3.35% 		   (Pal T7b)
Nax Valorous Dreadnaught Greathelm  .....  8979 117       2.33% 3.50% 		   (War T7b)
Nax Platehelm of the Great Wyrm  ........  7530  50 2.65% 2.14% 6.61%
Nax Helm of Vital Protection  ...........  8953  34 4.23% 3.89% 4.26%       1.10%
PvP Deadly Gladiator's Helm  ............  9589  43 1.35% 0.92% 1.61%

Two-Handed Weapon

Uld Worldcarver  ................  3414  0.70%        2.65%   Ignis
Uld Earthshaper  ................  3439  0.70%  2.13%         Yogg-Saron
PvP Furious Gladiator 2H  .......  6024
--------
Ul+ Aesir's Edge ................  4743  0.58%?               XT
Uld Abaddon  ....................  3991  0.54%? 1.89%         Yogg-Saron
Uld Stormedge  ..................  3137  0.54%? 2.93%         Hodir
Nax The Jawbone  ................  2711  0.51%        1.8%
Nax Inevitable Defeat  ..........  3329               2.38%

What do you think, would it be worth adding?

[Timetheos]

No, simply because that's not the purpose of this list. There are other, better, dedicated resources on Tankspot for threat stats/gear/mechanics. This list is for maximizing EH or avoidance or unhittability, based on the fight at hand.

Additionally, the inclusion of threat stats would mean AP, and crit, and AR as well, which means recalculating everything again, plus adding in sockets for optimal threat gems.

I'll add those other 2H weapons; thanks for bringing them to my attention.

[Fearlezz]

Yeah, I see the implications of adding threat stats, would end up too complicated for no good reason.

These are the weapons that got hit/exp/lots of stam that I found are suitable for tanking, didn't add 25man hard mode sword or polearm because I somehow doubt they'd be awarded to a tank over dps. Any other weapons you guys think that should be on the list?

[daxhtai]

Why does the tempered titanstell helm rank lower in EH (7727) vs. the T7 helm (8462)? They have the same armor, but the tempered one has more stamina? (sorry if I'm missing something, it's totally possible )