Def and Res, Working Together for Your Non-Critabl

Hello all. I have been seeing a lot of talk on the Warrior forums on the official site and since they are down atm I have brought this question to you which is probably a better idea anyway.

What I have been seeing is that 490 is now not necessarily the only thinking in terms of what you need to be uncritable. Apparently Resilience now plays a decent factor. Instead of the 490 rule, I have been seeing people say that what you should be thinking about is 5.6% which would be the combined chance of not being crit from both Def and Res. Do you agree?

There is no doubt that you definitely lose some avoidance by bringing Res into the mix instead of going straight for Def, but the bigger question at the moment is is it worth mixing the two to reach that goal?

This has been an issue with me because prior to reading this and only going with Def, I was forced to keep a green Champion chest piece and a lesser quality shield due to the Def they both provided (+50) and walking around with just under 12k unbuffed health. After mixing in a S2 Chest and Ring, I end up with more damage and health (now 13k) and I can now also equip a mych better shield while still meeting the 5.6% rule.

I would also like to know this. I am a good tank but the theory behind it is a little foriegn to me as I've only just started tanking again.

My helmet for example. I originally wore a blue craftable one for the extra defence. But I have been wearing my S3 helm lately, the stats are much better, and hopefully the RES bonus on it makes up for loosing the DEF off my blue one.

Resil has always stacked with defense for becoming crit immune at the 5.6% number. However most items with resilience on them have almost no avoidance which makes other options better.

Just mouseover your defense rating and it will list a % chance reduction to be crit, then mouseover your resilience rating and it also lists % chance reduction to be crit. Add the 2 #s, if it's 5.6% or more you are uncrittable.

With a good healer I can roll with about 370 defense rating in full season 4 gear :) I actually have more armor than in my tank set (19.2k vs 18.3k) - I just have less avoidance, SLIGHTLY less shield block, 2500 less health, but I do a ton more threat. Without battleshout or any buffs my shockwaves tooltip says it does over 1500dmg, with full buffs the tooltip will report 2k dmg (which means I see crits over 4k). That is some serious AoE threat. Although rage starvation isn't really an issue anymore it's even less so with lower avoidance. I do around 1000dps in that setup on single targets. My "real" tanking gear I believe I have around 474 defense and 31 resil.

But surely now the added offensive stats can balance it out a bit?

It's simple, for becoming crit immune, 5.6% crit reduction, resilience and defense work hand in hand.

When you are crit immune, suddenly resilience is a wasted stat for a tank where defense is a very strong stat, which gives chance to be not hit, dodge, parry and shieldblock rating.

Using s4 pieces for tanking can be very nice, especially if high-end tanking gear is not available. But that's because the itemlevel is very high compared to karazhan pieces, so they got high armor and stamina, (and now also for tanking strength) not really because of the resilience.

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Originally Posted by orcstar

It's simple, for becoming crit immune, 5.6% crit reduction, resilience and defense work hand in hand.

When you are crit immune, suddenly resilience is a wasted stat for a tank where defense is a very strong stat, which gives chance to be not hit, dodge, parry and shieldblock rating.

Using s4 pieces for tanking can be very nice, especially if high-end tanking gear is not available. But that's because the itemlevel is very high compared to karazhan pieces, so they got high armor and stamina, (and now also for tanking strength) not really because of the resilience.

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So many tanks have carried that mindset and I've found it to be a bit flawed. Resilience was a fanstastic stat to combat out gearing instances. Especially pre-expertise. You kept the cushion of being crit immune while making sure that you were getting hit enough to keep rage up, and adding AP/hit/Crit that tank gear just doesn't have Its not the best choice for progression level tanking but has a nice place in many a threat set.

This looks to be a bit moot with the 3.0 changes but was relevant for much of TBC, I'm supprised WOW forums warriors just caught on.

It isn't a mindset it's a fact.

What you're proposing is something different: deliberately lowering your defense, replacing it with resilience for critimmuntiy but all in all making sure you get hit a lot more (by lowering your avoidance) to get more rage. And taking advantage of the stats on the pvp-gear. Then what I said gets even stronger: adding more resilience will only help your mindset if you do it at the expense of defense.

This is/was a perfectly viable choice.

Couple of things.

Def scales everything.

From what i'm hearing/seeing Shield Block rating is not in the new DR's for avoidance because it's not true avoidance. For this reason alone I would continue to go with def over Resilience by a mile.

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Originally Posted by orcstar

It isn't a mindset it's a fact.

What you're proposing is something different: deliberately lowering your defense, replacing it with resilience for critimmuntiy but all in all making sure you get hit a lot more (by lowering your avoidance) to get more rage. And taking advantage of the stats on the pvp-gear. Then what I said gets even stronger: adding more resilience will only help your mindset if you do it at the expense of defense.

This is/was a perfectly viable choice.

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Ahh sorry "once crit immune" I should've taken the sentence as a whole.

The point I was getting at is that there are a lot of tanks who tend to scoff at resilience as a PVP only type stat. When quite often it is a better way to go. Through out TBC there was many a time when having large avoidance numbers hurt your ability to tank. As early as off tanking Moroes even.

It's about keeping yourself open for options..

I tank under 490 defense but it's cuz I have the season 3 shield, but my avoidance is still over 50%... figure that out lol.

Before I got my current chestpiece off Zul'Jin, I was using the season 3 chest. Also, since the Isle was first introduced I've been using the 18 stam 20 resilience head glyph from SSO rep. My defense right now is 478, and the 20 resil makes up .5% crit reduction. If I still used the s3 chest, I would have more room, like 450 defense if needed. You just need to find your happy medium, you might for instance gem your PvP chest with dodge/def gems due to the already high stamina. Again I reiterate it is all up to preference.

I sit right now at 474 def on live. I use resilience to make up for it. Does that lower my avoidance, you betcha, but you know what, i also didnt pick up the 5% parry in the arms tree, but yet i was able to do a pug BT up to shade before people had other time constraints. With the HUGE nerfs in all the current raids, there just isnt a reason for me to have that much avoidance now.

I didn't take the 5% parry either. I'm sitting at 9.5% parry and 21% dodge in my threat gear, which was more than comfortable tanking Archimonde.

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Originally Posted by Dreador

I didn't take the 5% parry either. I'm sitting at 9.5% parry and 21% dodge in my threat gear, which was more than comfortable tanking Archimonde.

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Yeah, now after 3.0.

Go tank Bruty with that and see what happens heh.

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Originally Posted by Corian

Couple of things.

Def scales everything.

From what i'm hearing/seeing Shield Block rating is not in the new DR's for avoidance because it's not true avoidance. For this reason alone I would continue to go with def over Resilience by a mile.

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Yeah, because Block Rating isn't a junk stat anymore for warrior tanks, with high BV's, and not spamming shield block all the time, and with Dodge/Parry/to be missed subject to DR.

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Originally Posted by Corian

Yeah, now after 3.0.

Go tank Bruty with that and see what happens heh.

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I did, with a pug.... Wasnt that bad... had him down to 12% first try....

I would like to know how valuable PvP Gear now is with crushings of the table. Tanks got a pretty good push on generation more Threat and Rage on the other side.

I'm fury and haven't had any problems with Aggro in Sunwell/BT Raids so far but heard from befriended DPS Warriors of other more progressed Raids on that they still manage to steal Aggro.

Lets forget tanking end raid content Bosses in PvP Gear but look at the Trash instead. Most of the instance time is wasted with clearing Trash. Shouldn't PvP gear be the better option for tanking the trash? You should get even more DPS and Threat from this Gear shouldn't you? Doing more DPS kills Trash faster. Having more threat increases Raid DPS concluding in faster Trash kills.

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Originally Posted by Corian

Yeah, now after 3.0.

Go tank Bruty with that and see what happens heh.

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That was the point.

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Originally Posted by Dreador

I didn't take the 5% parry either. I'm sitting at 9.5% parry and 21% dodge in my threat gear, which was more than comfortable tanking Archimonde.

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2 Points in Anticipation would be far better in 2 Points in Deflection. 2% Parry offers the same avoidance as 2% Dodge with some added threat. Also, due to diminishing returns on avoidance, you're better off improving Parry over Dodge since you have more Dodge.