[Lore]

Source: Huwragg Great podcast & great site, I seem to be spending more time on Tankspot than I do on WoW Anyway one question about the Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health (150 health), on wowhead comments section, (Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health - Spells - World of Warcraft) it clearly say's "Note that this enchant does not contribute to your stamina pool, and is therefore not buffed by Blessing of Kings or Vitality." Is this correct & if so, would another enchant be of better use then ? Huw

Even with kings and stamina scaling bonuses, you get less than 150 HP out of the +10 stamina armor kit (which is the highest HP-focused enchant after 150 HP)

Paladin: 10 x 1.1 (Kings) x 1.1 (Combat Expertise) x 1.06 (Sacred Duty) = 12.8 = ~ 130 HP
Warrior: 10 x 1.1 (Kings) x 1.05 (Vitality) = 11.55 = ~120 HP
Druid: 10 x 1.1 (Kings) x 1.25 (Dire Bear) = 13.75 = ~140 HP

(Note that I'm not innately familiar with Druids so I might be forgetting something)

EDIT: I was forgetting something for Druids (the Heart of the Wild talent).

Druid: 10 x 1.1 (Kings) x 1.25 (Dire Bear) x 1.2 (HotW) = 16.5 = 160 or 170 HP, depending on which way it rounds off. So the 10 stamina armor kit is better than 150 HP for Druids.

[kittikat]

Source: Ciderhelm Clarification: Expertise has a ~3.9% to 1 Expertise conversion. 1 Expertise provides a Dodge and Parry reduction of 0.25%, essentially becoming 0.5% chance to Hit.

Expertise has a ~3.9[Not Percentile] to 1 Expertise conversion. 1 Expertise provides a Dodge and Parry reduction of 0.25%, essentially becoming 0.5% chance to Hit.

Note that Expertise is better for tanking than Hit because of the reduction in Parry Gibs.

[Ciderhelm]

Source: kittikat Expertise has a ~3.9[Not Percentile] to 1 Expertise conversion. 1 Expertise provides a Dodge and Parry reduction of 0.25%, essentially becoming 0.5% chance to Hit.

Thanks for catching that.

Source: kittikat Note that Expertise is better for tanking than Hit because of the reduction in Parry Gibs.

Redundant kat didn't listen to podcast!

[kittikat]

I was just recapping

Don't be so mean, buddy!!!

[*Siona*]

Source: Skeletaur Great listen guys. Question.. you seem very solid on the fact that you should be 490 def minimum. Is this mostly due to the "uncrittable" aspect? (IE are you taking minor amounts of resilience into account) I ask because I am looking to grab the S4 Chest, for a massive massive Sta + Armor gain (I have the Aldor chest), but I will lose 46 def rating. Couple this with my Executioner enchanted Quickening Blade of the Prince, also looking up upgrade my Felsteel Gloves with the Bonefist badge ones, and S1 shield and shoulders, I will remain uncritable with my 80+ resilience, but I will be down near 450 defence. Would you recommend enchanting + def? Or something else? Thanks tons, and again great listen.

My opinion on this, and I could be wrong:

You NEED 490 Defense at a minimum because it makes you uncrittable. Beyond uncrittable, defense is still a great stat, and as Cider said in the podcast, is really the best avoidance stat you can get.

I'm finding it hard to illustrate what I'm trying to say without a specific example, so I'll just bring the example in immediately.

If you've been running level 70 five person dungeons, you should be able to get Aegis of the Sunbird or Platinum Shield of the Valorous relatively quickly. Your next options for shield upgrades from PvE are Crest of the Sha'tar from exalted with the Sha'tar, Azure Shield of Coldarra from badges, and Shield of Impenetrable Darkness from Karazhan. However, there is also Gladiator's Shield Wall available for easy to obtain honor points. The PvP shield is a massive upgrade to either of the blue dungeon shields. The armor, stamina, and block are so far above the blue shields that there is really no comparison. Here, the resilience also means you are not losing uncrittability by dropping the blue shield with defense. The PvP is also better than Crest of the Sha'tar. It has 2 more block, 2 more stamina, and 732 armor, while sacrificing 13 Defense rating and 3 Dodge rating. The PvP shield represents a much bigger increase to effective health, big enough to offset the decrease in avoidance in my opinion, and the resilience from the shield, while not adding to your avoidance, allows you to remain uncrittable even though your defense may have dropped below 490. How does the PvP shield compare to the badge shield or the Kara shield? It's about the same. Better for effective health still, but the avoidance gap is closed a lot.

I picked up the PvP shield as my first honor item for a couple of reasons. One, I was using Aegis of the Sunbird and the upgrade to an epic shield of any kind is one of the biggest single upgrades you can make when going from blues to epics. Two, I knew there were a ton of badge items that I wanted and the shield was among the less impressive since it had an upgrade in Kara where others didn't have upgrades until SSC/TK or beyond (such as Brooch of Deftness or Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx). By getting the PvP shield, I was saving myself from having to buy a badge item that I thought would be replaced soon.

Note that in 2.4 Dawnforged Defender can be reliably (ie no random number generator) obtained from exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive if you are willing to put in the time to get it. It is an overall better shield than Gladiator's Shield Wall or Shield of Impenetrable Darkness, though it doesn't have defense so you are going to have to make up that defense elsewhere.

With a shield with resilience, you have a bit of flexibility when upgrading from blues to epics as well. For instance, I have rotten luck with tanking chest drops. I was still using Jade-Skull Breastplate when Bloodstained Elven Battlevest dropped for me in Zul'Aman. Even though it's a DPS chest piece, the increase in stamina and armor was too big for me to pass up, even though I was losing defense and shield block rating. As Cider said in the podcast, sometimes an item is just way better even if you have to sacrifice a little bit in one area. Since I still had the PvP shield (as it turns out, I have rotten luck with shields too, and shoulders for that matter, but that's another story...), I was able to swap in the epic DPS chest piece with no fuss about losing the defense from Jade-Skull since the resilience from the shield meant I was still uncrittable.

What I'm trying to say is this: look at it on an item to item basis. In general, you want to get uncrittable through defense if you can. Sometimes the item with resilience is just better though. This is most often the case with the shield. Getting that epic shield ASAP is one of the best things you can do. I don't think I would replace any PvE epic item with a PvP epic item even if it was from season 3 or 4, except the shield. The shield is almost itemized optimally for tanking. The other items aren't.

In your specific case, I would recommend getting the new badge chest instead of holding your breath for S4 chest since season 4 is still a ways out and, you never know, in season 4, all items may have rating requirements. I wouldn't get the season 3 chest for tanking either with the new badge one available. I would pick up the Bonefist Gauntlets, yes. Quickening Blade of the Prince with executioner works well as an aggro weapon. I wouldn't really bother with the S1 shoulders if you can help it. They really are a minor upgrade to Shoulderguards of the Bold and are a downgrade from Fanblade Pauldrons and Spaulders of Dementia as far as I'm concerned. All three are easily obtainable through level 70 dungeons and heroics, unless the random number generator hates you like it hates me. I've had the Bold shoulders since early December. My guess is that the PvP Shield will keep you uncrittable since resilience provides reduction in chance to be crit faster than def, but it you're still not at the point where you're uncrittable, then yes, you should absolutely socket for defense.

Sorry for the wall of text. lol.

[fustigator]

Strength is slightly better for a protection warrior than block value for pure threat output when you are able to maintain a perfect threat cycle(SS, Rev, Dev, Dev).
Both Block Value(BV) and Strength(str) are base values, equally affected by the multipliers hit, crit, expertise, and armor ignore. All attacks made with either weapon or shield are equally affected by one-handed weapon specialization, so I leave that out here.
Assumptions: I assume you don't have the +10% BV meta gem and opted for the stamina one instead. I assume if you're this concerned with threat you have other people to apply your debuffs.

Block Value threat: You use SS once per 6 seconds, and one BV gets you 1.3 damage per 6 seconds talented. 1.3/6 dps or 0.217dps.

Strength threat has 3 components: autoattack, 2 devastates per 6 seconds, and a small increase(1/20) to block value.
2 AP = 1 str, and 14 AP = 1 dps, so 1 str = 1/7 dps in autoattack swings. I'd like to point out that this also benefits from parry haste, perhaps 15% of your swings will be hasted and thus scale slightly better than this model.
Devastate: As far as scaling goes, you get two swings in 6 seconds that are half normalized weapon swing damage, so we can treat it as one full normalized weapon swing per 6 seconds. Yellow attacks are 2.4(str)/7 damage per strike, and 2.4(str)/42 dps in our rotation.
20 str = 1BV, so you get 1/20 benefit from the block value model from strength, or 1.3/120 dps.
Add these together, and you get .211 dps per strength, slightly lower than block value. But, increase your strength by 10% from Vitality and it increases to .232 dps/str
With only a one devastate rotation, you're looking at about .200 dps/str, so you'd have to have 21 BV to be better than 20 str in that rotation. Adjust for the fact that your hasted attacks from parries benefit more from attack power and that the harder autoattacks will generate more rage, and you having a compelling reason to put strength/stamina in your red sockets.

Note: Adjusting for the BV meta gem, it's almost exactly equal: .2333dps/BV vs a perfect cycle .2328dps/str before larger blocks cut down your rage verses larger autoattacks increasing it.

EDIT: Assuming you have a paladin with Kings in your raid, strength pulls out another 10% ahead.

[ebs2002]

Regarding the "dodge an attack from behind" issue: what people don't realize is that if you are too close to a mob, you can be dodged/parried/blocked as if you were attacking from the front. I believe that is because there is a certain distance from the mob where it always acts like you're in front of him (and this is why you can pull some tricks one-tanking Moroes)

[atlantusSC]

First love the site and love the podcasts! I am really happy you started putting them out makes for a good day at work and I have turned my guild onto them as well. However, I am having issues downloading or even getting this stream to play. I only get the first 5 secs of the cast. I have not had this problem with the rest. Just wondering if it is me or if it has an error in the stream?

Thanks

atlantusSC

[cagneyed]

Regarding the question posed to Lore early in the podcast about what he does for the mana draining mobs in the SSO dailies:
I focus on the Fiends and steer clear of the Devourers. When the Fiends do their mana drain, it's a cleansable debuff. When I see that up, I'll either stun them or cleanse myself. If I accidentally pull a Devourer, I'll stun them up front and also spam all of my damage dealing abilities (consecrate, judgement) as soon as they are available. If they are draining your mana, you might as well drain it first.

[zaul]

Yes, I'm replying to an old podcast, but I'm new to his site, and thought I'd catch up during the late our of endless farming.

Ciderhelm, you stress that it's not possible to dodge when hit from behind, but it is indeed possible. Having played a rogue as my main from MC and up through Naxx back at 60, before I rolled warrior, and having PvPed a-bloody-lot, I'll go and prove you wrong. Or well, I can hardly prove you wrong without screenshots or anything, but what the hell. I've - and actually quite a few times - had my backstabs dodged. Yes, indeed. Dodged. And I know of several other rogues having seen this "bug"/glitch. I've even taken part of several official forum discussions on the wow-europe boards about this. And keeping in mind that you need to be behind the target to be able to even execute a backstab, having a backstab dodged means dodging from behind is indeed possible.

This is a server-client latency issue though, and it's true that it's a basic mechanic in WoW that you're not ment to/cannot dodge an attack coming from behind'ya. But it does happen! We can also open a discussion on advanced evolving maths in a equation with latency and it's effect on your client and it's communication with the server. There will always be situations where the general maths/rules of wow fail. Like being crit immune, but still being crit. That has happened before, and will happen again. You cannot avoid this 100% when playing a game over the internet, with the way numbers evolve when time and latency goes into the equation. But that's another discussion.

Just wanted to through that out there, for everyone stating; "Amagad, i R ze l335zor, and I dodge allz fr0nn b3hinD!! lal"

-Zaul

[Ashyn]

Source: zaul Yes, I'm replying to an old podcast, but I'm new to his site, and thought I'd catch up during the late our of endless farming. Ciderhelm, you stress that it's not possible to dodge when hit from behind, but it is indeed possible. Having played a rogue as my main from MC and up through Naxx back at 60, before I rolled warrior, and having PvPed a-bloody-lot, I'll go and prove you wrong. Or well, I can hardly prove you wrong without screenshots or anything, but what the hell. I've - and actually quite a few times - had my backstabs dodged. Yes, indeed. Dodged. And I know of several other rogues having seen this "bug"/glitch. I've even taken part of several official forum discussions on the wow-europe boards about this. And keeping in mind that you need to be behind the target to be able to even execute a backstab, having a backstab dodged means dodging from behind is indeed possible. This is a server-client latency issue though, and it's true that it's a basic mechanic in WoW that you're not ment to/cannot dodge an attack coming from behind'ya. But it does happen! We can also open a discussion on advanced evolving maths in a equation with latency and it's effect on your client and it's communication with the server. There will always be situations where the general maths/rules of wow fail. Like being crit immune, but still being crit. That has happened before, and will happen again. You cannot avoid this 100% when playing a game over the internet, with the way numbers evolve when time and latency goes into the equation. But that's another discussion. Just wanted to through that out there, for everyone stating; "Amagad, i R ze l335zor, and I dodge allz fr0nn b3hinD!! lal" -Zaul

I don't doubt your experience at all. However I think the key issue here is "PVP", where yea, you are faced with other human controlled toons and latency issues both server and client side.

I honestly can't recall ever dodging an attacker (when they are behind me) in a PVE setting, be it world mob, 5-man or raid. This is not to say it has "never" happened and it just slipped my attention, but I honestly don't recall it.

[zaul]

Absolutely true - and btw, nice how I managed to spell 'trow', 'through' . It's just the phrasing "Dodging from behind isn't possible whatsoever blabla..." should have been something along the lines of; "It's a general mechanic in WoW that you cannot dodge from behind, thought certain situations may bend that rule due to latency issues and stuff like that, though, as you say youself, this is by far mostly a PvP 'issue'". That way you'll avoid annoying fellas like me posting stupid posts like this one

The curse of being a podcaster. Or well, the curse of podcasting to rhetorically minded completists. I remember the early Octale and Hordac podcasts, and how the ammount of "corrections" through e-mails, has changed how wellthought their phrasing has become.

But once more I'll stop rambling randomly

[Darksend]

there is a "tip" on the login screen

"NPCs have a chance to dodge from behind, players do not"


also, blizzard removed parry from the hit table on any attack that requires the person to be behind to use (at least they were planning to not sure if that went in once mutilate got changed)

[Kazeyonoma]

so yeh, latency doesn't = change in podcast. It's how the game is coded, you do not dodge attacks from behind in pvp, the fact that the person was strafing does not = exception to the rule, he just beat you in pvp.

[Horacio]

When people listen to old Podcasts, Lore gets royalty checks like Epstien from reruns of 'Welcome Back Kotter"

[Ashyn]

Source: Horacio When people listen to old Podcasts, Lore gets royalty checks like Epstien from reruns of 'Welcome Back Kotter"

orly?