[Tankette]

No not another post asking avoidance vs stam.

Assuming you DO want to gem for avoidance, are you better off gemming for defense or straight up dodge / parry? Seems like I remember defense gave you more avoidance but that may have been a couple patches back.

[Aggathon]

I'm gonna go ahead and hope that you're gemming for avoidance for Anub'arak.

And yes, I'm fairly certain that defense is more overall avoidance point for point than dodge and definitely parry iirc. Pretty much every person gemming their anub sets is going straight def minus some meta/socket bonuses, I know that's what I do.

[jaydee]

Dodge and Parry are still cheaper to push up when you gem for them directly through dodge rating and parry rating. Pushing them up through defense is a bit more expensive, though every point of defense rating pushes up both at the same time, as well as your chance to be missed, i think.

For death knights, getting more defense also increases the amount of damage mitigated by Ice Bound Fortitude.

[Aggathon]

Source: jaydee Dodge and Parry are still cheaper to push up when you gem for them directly through dodge rating and parry rating. Pushing them up through defense is a bit more expensive, though every point of defense rating pushes up both at the same time, as well as your chance to be missed, i think. For death knights, getting more defense also increases the amount of damage mitigated by Ice Bound Fortitude.

Ya, the Dodge+Parry+Miss ends up being more than the raw dodge or parry gained. At least I'm pretty sure that's accurate, if not someone with real numbers feel free to correct me but last time I saw calculations it was true.

[JokerFMJ]

Woah... Not to hijack a thread or anything, but are you telling me all of my dodge gems should be defense gems? =O

[Aggathon]

Source: JokerFMJ Woah... Not to hijack a thread or anything, but are you telling me all of my dodge gems should be defense gems? =O

If it's for an Anub set yes.

If it's for anything else, your dodge gems should be stam gems =P

Armory is down right now, so I can't see what you're rocking atm.

[kpxneophyte]

All right, here's the (napkin) math for all you folks who are too lazy to do it yourselves.

Thick King's Amber = 20 def rating = 4.066 Defense =(approx.) 0.16% dodge + 0.16% parry + 0.16% to miss (all subject to diminishing returns) + 0.16% block = 0.48% avoidance (subject to diminishing returns) + 0.16% block

Subtle Cardinal Ruby = 20 dodge rating = 0.508% dodge (subject to diminishing returns)

Flashing Cardinal Ruby = 20 parry rating = 0.407% parry (subject to diminishing returns)

And just because...

Delicate Cardinal Ruby = 20 agility = 0.334% dodge + 40 armor + 0.384% crit

Due to diminishing returns, it's all situational on what you gem for. If you have an absurd amount of dodge rating and only a little to parry rating, then you would gain more avoidance by gemming for parry rather than dodge. All things being equal, however, defense is the way to gem for (if you're gemming for anub adds and you need the block rating and such).

[Firstprime]

Unless I'm mistaken you used the old values for that math, last patch/ a few patches ago parry was buffed and dodge nerfed, the percent avoidance for both before diminishing returns should be equal now. I believe its 45.25 rating for 1% dodge and parry making the epic gems 0.442% before diminishing returns.

Also 20 agility gives 0.272% dodge for warriors. I believe the number you posted is for paladins only.

[Xianth]

Miss has very harsh diminishing returns so for pure hit avoidance dodge rating is the best (there's a thread on this forum somewhere about it) and with block values being fairly low compared to the hit size (particularly 25 mans) then dodge rating gives you the highest overall average damage reduction. Parry is slightly worse because it has a harsher diminishing returns curve than dodge even though each holds the same unmodified value per rating point. Again, there is a thread on this forum (in the theorycraftin section?) which goes over the details.

The reason people (ie. warriors) gem defense on anub adds is that you get a decent amount of avoidance (although less than pure dodge/parry) but also a load of block chance which means that defense gives you more avoidance against pure, unmodified hits than socketing pure dodge/parry. Blocking a hit means a lot more and the damage blocked is calculated before the anub adds hit is modified by the damage increase debuff on the OT, so you can block whole hits with ~2.5k block even though when a hit gets through it hits for like 12k. So yeh, socketing defense would only be benficial if you are taking block into account for whatever reason.

[Mert]

Defense is, indeed, the only way to gem for Block Rating so is useful for Warriors in a Block set to approach the block cap. It can also be useful for other classes due to the fact that it spreads its benefit evenly across the various forms of avoidance, meaning it hits less harsh diminishing returns on any given stat, though that's entirely reliant on your current stats and gear.