Parry vs. Dodge & Gem Choices?

I was hoping I could get some advice on whether I made the correct decision in going with +Parry gems over +Dodge gems as well as my choices of other gems and enchants. I figured that increasing my Parry over Dodge would yield the same result of avoidance but with the added bonus of generating more threat.

My The World of Warcraft Armory shows me using The Sun Eater - Item - World of Warcraft which I swap in when I am looking for a bit more Avoidance than King's Defender - Item - World of Warcraft provides. This is my Primary Set as I am trying to get more T4 to mix in for an Avoidance Set.

Do my gems and enchants look ok? I have been tanking ZA a lot lately and have had times where I drop very low on health or even die. This has made me a bit self-conscious even though I try to convince myself it's because of reactive rather than proactive healing.

Trying very hard to upgrade my Shoulders, Shield, Ring & Main Hand but the stuff ain't dropping!

Any comments will be greatly appreciated!

Edit: I also have the Commendation of Kael'thas - Item - World of Warcraft but don't usually use it in favor of the Shard of Contempt - Item - World of Warcraft.

I would honestly replace all those parry gems with 8 dodge gems asap before anyone else inspects you :) Parry Gems are a big no no in the warrior community. Its worth spending the gold do it.

an 8 dodge gem will offer a bit more avoidance then an 8 parry gem. The threat gain from parry is very very minimal and not worth the loss in avoidance.

On bosses that you are coming close to dieing on use the commendation of kaelthas It may be the best tanking trinket in the game. The 57 stam on it will make up for some the HP loss you suffer because you gem for avoidance.

You don't really need to listen to me though this blog will answer your question for you.

Avoidance outside the Math: Dodge, Parry, Defense... Block? - Warriors - TankingTips.com

ok ok a couple big enchant mistakes i just noticed.

15 block rating on shield may be the worst enchant in the game (unless you are going for passive uncrushable but even then meh) Go get 18 stamina ASAP.

+6 stats I would replace with 150 HP.

And last note threat is nice it makes us look good. But nothing looks worse then when you die going for that 2nd or 3rd timed chest. You need to gear yourself to ensure survival first and foremost.

Some examples If you are tanking bear phase on the 2nd boss you want Max HP which includes 2x stam trinkets. If you are tanking eagle boss you can go with a nice threat set to set the pace of the run. For Dragonhawk you want High Stam/Avoidance mix. You dont worry about threat stats because your dps is focused elsewhere for half the fight.

My initial reactions to your gear:
HP low
Avoidance moderate
Threat good

Helm- Go strait 15STA

Chest- 10Dodge, 15Def enchant, use as avoidance set. Get the chest off of Zul'Jin with +15STA's for HP/Threat and +150HP

Weapon- Use this for avoidance set, get Mallet of Tides, Cleaver of Unforgiving, King's Defender, Akil' zon's Talonblade, Quickening Blade of the Prince. Any one of those and enchant with executioner for threat

Hands-Replace 8parry with either 12STA or 4Dodge/6Stam

Waist- Pure threat piece, socket with Stam

Legs- Socket with Stam

Trinkets- Generally, you want to mix your trinkets in this way. Assuming 3 types of tanking trinkets: Stam, Avoidance, and Threat
Threat+Threat
Threat+Stam
Stam+Stam
Stam+Avoidance
Avoidance+Avoidance

Generally speaking, mixing threat+avoidance.. is your last choice if you can help it. Try to get [item]Commendation of Kael' thas[/item]-- keep it on 24/7 and mix it with either your threat or avoidance trinkets.

Thank you very much for the replies. I'll get right to work. xD

1. Change your boots to [item]Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed[/item]

2. Never put block value on your shield

Threat - [item]Enchant Shield - Tough Shield[/item] or [item]Felsteel Shield Spike[/item]
Effective Health - [item]Enchant Shield - Major Stamina[/item]

3. Change your chest enchant to [item]Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health[/item] and use +6 stats if you get [item]Chestguard of the Warlord[/item].

If you have [item]Warbringer Greathelm[/item] you can put in the [item]Eternal Earthstorm Diamond[/item] and it will give you more SBV overall which I use for my threat set.

I also use the [item]Red Belt of Battle[/item] for my threat set as I only have [item]Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable[/item] and [item]Girdle of the Fearless[/item].

When your MT you should always use [item]Commendation of Kael'thas[/item] unless your on trash. Its like a mini [item]Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch[/item] but with a ton of Effective Health.

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Originally Posted by rustyboy

I also use the [item]Red Belt of Battle[/item] for my threat set as I only have [item]Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable[/item] and [item]Girdle of the Fearless[/item].

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[item]Girdle of the Fearless[/item] is way better then [item]Red Belt of Battle[/item] for threat. More hit and expertise (you get dodges/parried less) so your getting more hits in. Not to mention all the prot stats on it.

Rusty, what he said Girdle of the Fearless is absolutely a threat piece with +1.5 hit and 22 expertise? Zowie!

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The threat gain from parry is very very minimal and not worth the loss in avoidance.

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Everyone always says (regurgitates) this, but nobody ever seems to have any real numbers to prove it. It strikes me as one of those things that for whatever reason is just accepted as truth without question 'cause somebody who sounds like they know what they're talking about said it one day.

Granted, I haven't run the numbers either, but logically speaking Parrying more often has the same long term effect as increasing your Haste rating, and when we're talking about the difference between Parrying 15% of attacks and 23%, I don't know how you can just blindly accept that this has a "very very minimal" effect on your threat output.

My threat stats (expertise, hit, sbv, crit, ap, etc.) have remained more or less static, but my Parry rating has been steadily climbing (Bonefist Gauntlets, Ancient Aqir Artifact, Defender's Tanzanites, etc.) and I have noticed a marked increase in my Threat.


As for it not being "worth" the loss in Avoidance, that assumes you want that extra Avoidance. Not everyone is in Sunwell or BT, and slightly less Avoidance means more Rage which means more Threat.

In this way, for me, Parry increases threat in two ways - by allowing slightly more damage than Dodge through thus increasing my Rage generation and by increasing the speed of a large percentage of my attacks.


Bottom line, I would hesitate to accept the "parry is useless" mantra that gets thrown around so often - go try it for yourself and see what you think.

First off, people aren't saying that parry is useless. What they are saying, however, is that from a pure avoidance and item-budget point of view, it is inferior to dodge, which is plain to see from the ratings.

As for the threat from parry, someone did go over the numbers not too long ago, but I can't remember where on the forum it was. Basically, though, it amounts to this: Let's say that you're using King's Defender, at 1.6 speed. As I recall, parry hast is 40% (someone correct me if I'm wrong here), and so if you parry an attack immediately after you swing, your next swing would come 0.96 seconds later. However, the chances of you parrying at attack at 1% through the swing timer rather than somewhere between 30% and 70% through are very slim, and if you parry between those two ranges (or even farther through the swing timer), the gain of the haste is diminished by quite a bit.

Add to that that the rage generation from your white hits compared to actually being hit by the boss, and you'll see that it's not that great of a threat increase. Chances are, the reason that your threat has gone up noticeably is because the bosses are just physically hitting you harder, allowing you to have more rage and use heroic strike more often, and that you've probably bettered your rotation a bit due to practice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Garbid

[item]Girdle of the Fearless[/item] is way better then [item]Red Belt of Battle[/item] for threat. More hit and expertise (you get dodges/parried less) so your getting more hits in. Not to mention all the prot stats on it.

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Yes I know but if I'm on trash my expertise is stupidy high already, If I tank a boss I always use the Fearless belt.

I've started using a slower weapon for trash and 5 mans as the mobs go down very quick so I very rarely get to use HS and therefore extra strength helps with my devastates as well.

The main 2 issues I find with Parry is..

1. For avoidance dodge gives more bang for your buck.

2. You can't stack it without losing out on a lot of other important stats. There just isn't enough pieces of gear with it tacked on.