Essence of Gossamer vs Valor Medal

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Originally Posted by Kazeyonoma

Well, there's some math to be done here, cuz keep in mind that 29430 and 28200 health neither suffer from diminishing returns where as your dodge.. will.

Using Satrina's formula for dodge for a warrior:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f63/4...avoidance.html

http://evilempireguild.org/guides/im...e.diminish.jpg

we can plug in your two values of character sheet (before DR) dodge and figure out how much real dodge you have (post DR).

21.56% scenario:
1) Calculate your overall avoidance: given: 21.56%
2) Calculate k/A: 0.956/(21.56) = .04434
3) Calculate 1/c + k/A: 0.01135 + .04434 = .05569
4) The result from step 3 is 1/Ad, so now invert it: 1/0.05569 = 17.96% Dodge. This is Ad, the diminished amount of dodge actually gained

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Took me the liberty to remove some text, hope you don't mind to much. As far as I could understand in that formula, A is the part of avoidance subject to diminishing returns, so base dodge and dodge from talents can't be included. And it seems that formula is only working if you start with ratings, because the character sheet seems to take diminishing returns into account already, unless I'm totaly mistaken.

So given that (if I'm right), you actually gain: 23.21 - 21.56 = 1.65% dodge, making the trinket a bit better.

So that puts it to 1.65% dodge vs 1235 hp. What you choose depends a bit on what you're doing in the game at the moment. Your hp is enough to survive everything except maybe Sartharion with 3 drakes.

And about the pocketwatch, there is no new one. Diminishing returns killed that.

Whitetooth's (With all due respect to Satrina, it isn't his formula and his post even credits Whitetooth for it) formula for dodge DR does in fact only affect dodge that comes from gear. As such base dodge, base agility and base talents are not affected by diminishing returns. Tharr is right. The trinket is far more valuable than Kazeyonoma indicated.

If it were me, I would look at the on use of the medal vs the static bonus of the essence. I don't have the medal yet but I look at it as an avoidance version of a last stand. In a sense it does make it "the new pocketwatch" but only in the role it serves not in its power. Kara had some poorly designed items that remained viable far longer than they should have for some classes. Not just the pocket watch, but the lightning cap, the totem of healing rains, and thoriumweave cloak to name a few.

heh it is the new pocket watch..

And didnt the original pocket watch suffer from dimishing returns post 3.0 gimping its incredible on use? granted post 3.0 doesnt really count for anything.

So, I'm assuming the reason you don't "just equip both" is you have one of the +def trinkets locked in which makes sense. Even if you can get to 540 without one, they provide a crapton of flexability.

I've kicked around this idea myself. I need a new trinket and I'm sitting on 71 badges atm after buying the Chained Military Gorget. Ostensibly, I'm saving up for the T7 chest but it would replace the Wyrnrest chest while a new trinket would knock off a BC trinket (using the Darkmoon: Vengeance most often there now)

111 stamina is eye popping and I'm old school, clinging a little more tightly to the EH theory than most. I'm sitting at 27.1K hp unbuffed. 600+ hp net gain over the Darkmoon card is flat out sexy.

Note: I am using Seal of the Pantheon in the other slot and sitting at 550 def.

Also, due to the creative gearing I've had to use to thwart the RNG, I'm already sitting at 21.3% dodge. If you're clearing Naxx, that's meh. If you haven't killed a single Naxx boss yet, that number is hot if not bloated already. Adding the Valor Medal would put me at 23% dodge and drop my hp to 26.5K.

Also, also considering swapping in the Arcane Shielded Helm over Tempered Titansteel. With the gem slots, the blue beats the purp and gains dodge while losing a little stam. From the Austere ESD, I gain ~440 armor so its a pretty good swap on EH, and, gain 52 dodge rating, which is the key.

All of this serves to jack my dodge up through the roof and I can reach ~25% unbuffed in about 5 minutes of running around Dalaran and waiting for my JC friend to log on. but all at the cost of Stamina.

Last factor to consider, I am the MT for a 10 man Naxx and the OT for 25 man Naxx.

the obvious answer, using the Pokemon Method is to acquire all of it and interchange it when necassary which leads me back to the "which should I purchase first" dilema....T7 chest or Valor Medal?

whoops, totally forgot to subtract out the base avoidance from agility and talents. my humblist mistake, yes, the trinket is better than I indicated, which was already found to be the better choice than Gossamers in this case anyways =P whoops!

I've been doing some more thinking and consulting with my tank buddies and I can't justify dropping 1200hp for 2% dodge. Just can't. You can grind the math to show how much of a reduction in damage taken 2% dodge amounts to but it comes down to the very basics of the EH theory. Dodge isn't bad but its not worth 1200 hps for me. With 1200 more hp, you can take alot more damage.

Thats just me, though. Others might think differently and might be right but I'm going to go all out for the Essence and save up to the T7 chest.

If the dodge burst from the on use pushes normal attacks off the table you would probably be singing a different tune. A block value of over 1200 isn't that hard to get and would make up for the extra hp fairly easily on a physical boss. I'm not at that point yet but being unhittable via on use trinkets is going to happen before being unhittable constantly.

I am jealous of pallies and their super high block value :(

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Originally Posted by Horacio

I've been doing some more thinking and consulting with my tank buddies and I can't justify dropping 1200hp for 2% dodge. Just can't. You can grind the math to show how much of a reduction in damage taken 2% dodge amounts to but it comes down to the very basics of the EH theory. Dodge isn't bad but its not worth 1200 hps for me. With 1200 more hp, you can take alot more damage.

Thats just me, though. Others might think differently and might be right but I'm going to go all out for the Essence and save up to the T7 chest.

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I have 27k unbuffed life with my current trinket set up of valor/jc trinket with defense gems. I have a gossamer in my bags and could regem JC trinket and drop to 540 defense now. I have not tanked anything in the game other then patchwerk that I felt I was even close to having and EH problem. Only bosses I have not tanked 25man are malygos and sarth so not sure about those two. I keep the gossamer for patch and that is the only time I feel it is doing me any good. I love having two dodge effects I can activate to get through rough times.

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Originally Posted by Meeks

Only bosses I have not tanked 25man are malygos and sarth so not sure about those two.

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These are exactly the two where you want more EH because they do high bursts of mostly magical damage, especially if you do Sarth with drakes up.

For Patchwerk HS tanks it's usually better to make some trade-offs towards avoidance once you have a decent amount of EH, but then again he is no real challenge anymore.

Honestly I'm not sure how you can compare a health item vs an avoidance item in terms of a numerical value. In my opinion you can't spreadsheet tanking, its truely a game of trading back and forth for what you need. with a health pool like yours i would say it would be easy to drop the EoG (111 stam) for the dodge trinket.

the way I gear depends on what I am tanking, say heroics i would probably use the EoG as avoidance probably isn't what your going for. However on fights like patchwork the dodge trinket would probably be better if you can maintain a sizable health pool

Use Gossamer where it makes sense to, use the Valor Medal where it makes sense to. Simple as that, not much has changed. Maybe you'll prioritise the Medal later in your badge purchases, but you'll eventually have nothing better to do with them.

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Originally Posted by Satrina

Use Gossamer where it makes sense to, use the Valor Medal where it makes sense to. Simple as that, not much has changed. Maybe you'll prioritise the Medal later in your badge purchases, but you'll eventually have nothing better to do with them.

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I agree with this. I have 4 different gear set ups in my item rack for tanking but I have one general set i use 90% of the time and valor trinket is definitely part of it.

http://www.forumammo.com/cpg/albums/...2/trinkets.jpg

The World of Warcraft Armory

Above is my armory. I've tanked all of Heroic Naxx, Malygos, and 2-Drake 10 man Sarth in the gear I'm wearing. (If it's updated, I was using essence of gossamer instead of the lavanthor's talisman) I was using all 24 stam gems, but upon reading this thread decided to try out gearing more towards avoidance. What do you all think? As far as I understand, around 20% parry/dodge both hit diminishing returns, making Shield Block the optimal choice from then on. I've been tanking things with around 30k unbuffed, and it has for the most part been no problem. What do you all think? After 28-29k, would gearing towards avoidance be the better choice?

Don't forget about threat and DPS, life isn't just EH and avoidance =)

The World of Warcraft Armory

Once I broke 30k unbuffed I decided I could afford to swap out the gossamer trinket for a good threat/dps trinket. I was lucky enough to get Mark of Norgannon - Item - World of Warcraft off 25-Malygos which has boosted my threat substantially. I still use the 2nd stamina trinket for patchwerk and sartharion.

I have a similar question, however.

I currently use both the Essence and the Valor medal. My other trinkets include the violet hold block trinket, and the Seal of the Pantheon.

So far i haven't seen any need, for raids, to deviate from the Eh trinket and the Avoidance trinket, for heroics and trash, I swap out the valor medal for the block trinket.

Am I doing this right? I believe I am, but more opinions never hurt.

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Originally Posted by Meeks

I have 27k unbuffed life with my current trinket set up of valor/jc trinket with defense gems. I have a gossamer in my bags and could regem JC trinket and drop to 540 defense now. I have not tanked anything in the game other then patchwerk that I felt I was even close to having and EH problem. Only bosses I have not tanked 25man are malygos and sarth so not sure about those two. I keep the gossamer for patch and that is the only time I feel it is doing me any good. I love having two dodge effects I can activate to get through rough times.

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So you use Gossamer on one of the only fights where Gossamer isn't the better choice?
Tank damage in the current 25 man raids is negligible in the physical department. There are no crushing blows, there are no hard hitting mobs with stun, there are no stacking debuffs, there are no Saber Lash / MH / OH combinations. Tank damage and tank death occurs primarily from heavy magical damage.
Gossamer is the better trinket 95% of the time.

Also I don't understand why you guys are giving him a hard time... they made Valor Medal to be comparable to Moroes, it's in the same level and time frame of progression and it has a similar passive and on use. The MAJOR difference is that Valor Medal, COMPARED TO MOROES @ 70, is garbage.
Most of the tanking trinkets currently in the game are garbage though, so people confuse bad trinkets for good choices.

I picked up the Valor Medal last night specifically to soak hatefuls on Patches in 25 man. 10 man Patchwerk's HS's tickle so meh. Puts me at 25% dodge unbuffed with 27K hp and 23K armor.

But I'm still grinding heroic AN every chance I get.

I use both Gossamer and Valor Medal for my regular set up. I'm sitting at 28.7k hp unbuffed at the moment. Tanking Sarth + 1 drake is definitely not an issue, especially when I can avoid the flame walls. My healers had more problems keeping the rest of the raid alive from flame adds. Tanking Malygos still makes me jittery though, especially when dps misses a spark, and I'm expected to take some major hits for 10 seconds, or the first few moments when he lands. I'm sitting on 25% dodge, 18% parry, 24% block, but all that does squat when he cleaves or breaths. Tempted to stack stamina gems on all my sockets to hit 30k unbuffed at least. It's terrible but I do feel that a druid would be a better tank for that fight.

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Originally Posted by Edgewalker

So you use Gossamer on one of the only fights where Gossamer isn't the better choice?
Tank damage in the current 25 man raids is negligible in the physical department. There are no crushing blows, there are no hard hitting mobs with stun, there are no stacking debuffs, there are no Saber Lash / MH / OH combinations. Tank damage and tank death occurs primarily from heavy magical damage.
Gossamer is the better trinket 95% of the time.

Also I don't understand why you guys are giving him a hard time... they made Valor Medal to be comparable to Moroes, it's in the same level and time frame of progression and it has a similar passive and on use. The MAJOR difference is that Valor Medal, COMPARED TO MOROES @ 70, is garbage.
Most of the tanking trinkets currently in the game are garbage though, so people confuse bad trinkets for good choices.

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Trinkets that dropped in instances far above Moroes' were garbage in comparison to it. That doesn't mean there was a problem designing those later trinkets...