[chun]

Hi everyone, long time reader, first time poster.
Thanks for the great site and info!

My question relates to melee damage mitigation by armor
on druids and warriors. I've read that the high armor of
druids makes them ideal for handling crushing blows. No
worries, that makes total sense.

What I am wondering is this. If a warrior gets to about 22k armor
(raid buffed and with ironshield pots), doesn't this get us to the
melee mitigation cap of 75%? (or at least really close to it, when you
add the defensive stance multiplier).

Is there some additional effect of druids have 30k+ armor that
helps with crushings, that I am not aware of? (of have simply
misread/forgotten?)


Thanks, and props to my furry tanking buddies.

[Nayre]

It's not that it's an additional effect, but rather that the mitigation from armour is 75%, which is somewhere in the range of 32-34k armour (can't remember exactly, might be a bit higher or lower). If a warrior were to get to the armour cap, he would not only have the physical mitigation of the armour, but he would also have the reduced damage from defencive stance on top of that.

[Archfiend]

A key difference has been wholly disregarded in this conversation: warriors are able to avoid crushing blows entirely due to shield block except on very fast hitting mobs. Whether or not druids can soak damage from crushing blows better or not is a moot point as warriors will suffer far fewer crushes by comparison. Along these same lines, the warrior will be avoiding more damage overall thanks to his ability to parry (and to a lesser degree, to block) incoming attacks, and a typically higher defense rating overall.

To refer back to your original question - yes, a warrior near the damage reduction cap of 75% soaks damage as well, or better, than a druid with even significantly more armor. This is not to fault druids - they simply cap armor more quickly, so warriors are said to scale 'better'. Better is a subjective term however - it would be more precise to say that warriors scale more consistently, whereas druids reach the mitigation cap on armor and then have to look for other ways to improve their survivability which are potentially more difficult to come across, or have a less dramatic impact.

[Alent]

The armor cap is 35880 vs a level 73 monster.

[OnourisofRavencrest]

Source: Archfiend warriors are able to avoid crushing blows entirely due to shield block except on very fast hitting mobs. .

The mob would have to be swinging pretty slow for this to be true (Like ~3 seconds plus).

[Pouncez]

1st time poster as well.


Just as the above post stated the armor cap is indeed 35.8ish k for lvl 73 raid mobs. The druid and warrior are tough to comapre overall but easier to compare no a fight by fight basis becuase most druids in SWP and that stage of endgame are armor capped and then only have dodge as avoidance to rely on while warriors with lower armor mitigation have innate dmg reduction bonus, dodge and parry for avoidance along with block.

Druids can never be uncrushable while Warriors and Paladin can reach active uncruchable (Uncrush with shield block and Holy Shield active respectively) without too much trouble.

[chun]

Thanks for the responses.

I wasn't as clear in my question as I had intended.

Druids typically will have substantially more armor than warriors, and
that's what gets druids to the melee mitigation cap. Warriors, while
having less armor, still have the multiplicative 10% reduction from
defensive stance. Hence I was trying to see if 22k + the 10% reduction
gets the warrior close enough to the druid to where it doesn't matter
as much.

It's always been a bit hazy in my head, so please correct me if I'm wrong here.

For specifics, I'm really looking at fights like Tidewalker, who hits fast and
hard. I'm trying to make sure there is some factor in the extra armor that
I am not discounting.

Thanks again!
cheers.

[geros]

Fights with mobs that hit fast are the fights you want to use neither a druid nor warrior. The pally reigns supreme. Fights where the mob hits slow but like a train are where you'd want to compare a warrior vs druid mitigation.

I'm not sure what 65% mitigation is against a lvl 73, but I suppose that would be the armor cap you are looking for. At ~22k buffed armor I still think I notice a difference when ancestral fort pops though. Completely anecdotal evidence though.

[Honorshammer]

Source: geros Fights with mobs that hit fast are the fights you want to use neither a druid nor warrior. The pally reigns supreme. Fights where the mob hits slow but like a train are where you'd want to compare a warrior vs druid mitigation. I'm not sure what 65% mitigation is against a lvl 73, but I suppose that would be the armor cap you are looking for. At ~22k buffed armor I still think I notice a difference when ancestral fort pops though. Completely anecdotal evidence though.

Paladins are good on Tidewalker, it's just we are ZOMG Fantastic on the Adds. Druids make excellent tanks for Tidewalker himself. Fathom Lord's Shaman is another excellent place for a Druid.

[Kazeyonoma]

keep in mind that Defensive stance is multiplicative mitigation.

That means the closer you get to 75% reduction as a warrior, the less and less defensive stance does.

Note: 1-(1-a)(1-b) = total mitigation. where a is from armor and b is from defensive stance.

1-(1-.65)(1-.1) = .685 total mitigation. that means defensive stance only gained you .035 more mitigation. Or 10% of what Isn't mitigated through armor.

At lower levels of armor defensive stance is closer to 10% and at higher levels of armor defensive stance approaches 2.5%

ex:
1-(1-.25)(1-.1) = .325 (.075 gain from defensive stance over pure armor)
1-(1-.75)(1-.1) = .775 (.025 gain from defensive stance, aka armor capped)

[Porkins]

I think you're looking into it too deeply. Defensive stance is always 10% less damage. Also keep in mind that going from 74% to 75% is about the same as going from 50% to 52%, warriors(and defensive stance) scale fairly linearly.

[Kazeyonoma]

I'm not saying it's not always 10% less damage, one way or another it's additional reduction, but lots of the times warriors think that by reaching 65% mitigation, they suddenly have the same amount of mitigation as a druid, and they don't.

[jere]

If you want to know how to match Druid mitigation, simply back calculate it.

75% reduction ==> 1-.75 = 0.25

To reach that with defensive stance:

(1-DR_AC)*0.9 = 0.25 ==> (1-DR_AC) = 0.27777~

So you need a DR_AC of 0.72222~

This translates into 31096 AC in order to have your AC reduction and Defensive Stance be the same as the armor cap (The armor cap is 35880 for a level 73 mob).

So you need 31096 armor to match the damage mitigation of a bear while you are in defensive stance.

However, this does not account for block value. IF you could guarantee that you could block every incoming attack, then that will help reduce the needed armor to mimic the armor cap. However, the effects of block on that are dictated by how much the enemy hits you for and how much your AC and defensive stance already reduce damage by, so it changes with boss dmg and with gear.

That is a fun problem all unto itself.