Shield Enchant: The Battle Continues

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

Dodge does nothing to help me survive an impale, or freezing slash, or ferocious butt, or enraged bile spray, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. /broken record.

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Except, assuming appropriate gear level for the encounter, I find most of these hard to agree with. Because when I see that my tanks died to Impale/FB, it was never JUST the unavoidable attack that killed them/me, it was the combination of a the large physical blow and the ordinary melee attack within a span of half a second or less. As long as special attacks are on a timer that's independent of boss melee attacks, it isn't the literal one shot that's a problem, its the quick double tap that's lethal. And the ordinary melee aspect of the double tap is most certainly affected by avoidance. Dodge the melee strike that at some point closely follows the impale, and you'll live. Ferocious Butt is the same way.

Maybe I've been lucky, but I can't remember Enraged Molten Spew ever being a problem of tank base durability. At that point in the fight all tanks are free to taunt around, split the spew, rotate cooldowns. There isn't another significant source of damage at that point, so the tank should have the full attention of all the healers. The special attack's payload isn't delivered instantly, but over 2.5s, so a large heal in this period will result in survival. Even given these, your odds of survival are lowest if Dreadmaw goes into his EMS a split-second after landing a melee attack - which avoidance will stand a chance of helping.

Freezing Strike is a little more complicated due to the stun effect. The base hit can be closely preceded by a melee hit as any other boss ability can, but the stun negates dodge/parry chance on the back end. The enchant in question is defense rating, not dodge, and AFAIK a mob can still MISS a stunned PC. So, roughly speaking, defense is about 2/3 as effective as it normally would be - but that is still not valueless as you state.

Now, will the 22 defense present a LARGE percentage increase in your survival chances? No. But then the 18 STA doesn't either, really, being as it would only have helped if the actual killing strike - whether the special attack or the avoidable melee - would have overkill less than what, 250 or so? Possible, but not very likely either given the sheer size and inherent randomness of the strike.

So you are comparing two small numbers here. Which means that the relative scale DOES, in fact matter. As scale matters, I take the one that's more valuable in terms of itemization. 22 DEF under most circumstances for me.

The number of times that one says something bears no correlation to its accuracy.

If EH is king and you can neglect avoidance completely, we should all ditch our tanks for Sarth-specced Warlocks to have their VW tank & have a raid full of rogues & Hunters MD threat on it. But the fact you're still being invited to raids (other than to pick up the tanking loot drops) is because avoidance DOES matter.

I'ld even state what has been stated back in tBC:
If you have 1 more HP than the worst possible combo of damage a boss can do to you before getting healed back to full, you've maxed out your EH, as all the rest is wasted due to not being used.

Oh, and (speaking as a healer) you're wrong in assuming that avoidance doesn't affect healing received. Absorbs (done by both disc priests as well as a little from holydins) are usually consumed faster than they can be applied. By neglecting avoidance, you increase the chance that the swing previous to a worst-case spike burst scenario will have consumed said absorb. The same goes for Earth shield. Therefor, avoidance more hits will have absorbs/ES up more when they're needed, namely the big OMGHERIPPEDMYARMOFFHEALPL0X!!1 moments. You're not the Black Knight after all :P

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Originally Posted by Libicocco

Except, assuming appropriate gear level for the encounter, I find most of these hard to agree with. Because when I see that my tanks died to Impale/FB, it was never JUST the unavoidable attack that killed them/me, it was the combination of a the large physical blow and the ordinary melee attack within a span of half a second or less. As long as special attacks are on a timer that's independent of boss melee attacks, it isn't the literal one shot that's a problem, its the quick double tap that's lethal. And the ordinary melee aspect of the double tap is most certainly affected by avoidance. Dodge the melee strike that at some point closely follows the impale, and you'll live. Ferocious Butt is the same way.

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This translates to me as: "Pray the RNG Gods allow the tank to dodge/parry/miss every time there's also an impale."

If you outgear content, then it probably doesn't matter if you stack stam/defense, whatever, my entire argument is that 600 EHP is a LOT of EHP and I think it IS more valuable than 20 defense.

Maybe I should just stop trying, people don't seem to understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying avoidance is bad, I'm saying tanks have enough and the most likely times right now that tanks are going to die are to unavoidable damage that you just have to take to the face. As a warrior I have a naturally lower EHP pool, I died a lot when I balanced; I went for raw EHP and now I live and can tank anything these so called "over powered paladins" can. The more damage you can take to the face, the bigger gap you give your healers.

As far as "minimum EHP pool goes" That's LARGELY dependent upon fight mechanics, if healers have to move, etc. And at this point in time, a lot of fights are just plain easier if you have a tank with ridiculous hps/armor. Idk what else to say...

*in Chris Tucker voice*
Do you understand the words that are comin' out of my mouth?

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

This translates to me as: "Pray the RNG Gods allow the tank to dodge/parry/miss every time there's also an impale."

If you outgear content, then it probably doesn't matter if you stack stam/defense, whatever, my entire argument is that 600 EHP is a LOT of EHP and I think it IS more valuable than 20 defense.

Maybe I should just stop trying, people don't seem to understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying avoidance is bad, I'm saying tanks have enough and the most likely times right now that tanks are going to die are to unavoidable damage that you just have to take to the face. As a warrior I have a naturally lower EHP pool, I died a lot when I balanced; I went for raw EHP and now I live and can tank anything these so called "over powered paladins" can. The more damage you can take to the face, the bigger gap you give your healers.

As far as "minimum EHP pool goes" That's LARGELY dependent upon fight mechanics, if healers have to move, etc. And at this point in time, a lot of fights are just plain easier if you have a tank with ridiculous hps/armor. Idk what else to say...

*in Chris Tucker voice*
Do you understand the words that are comin' out of my mouth?

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No, because what avoidance does is reduce the frequency with which you end up in a dangerous situation. EH helps you survive dangerous situations. Thus, having "enough" EH is vital, but after that having avoidance is helpful too.

And the point here is that you can easily get "enough" EH for TOTC and TOTGC without using eg. the 18 stamina enchant on shield. Once you have "enough" EH, the choice between EH and avoidance becomes a lot tougher. More of either will always help, obviously.

I actually talked with our main pally healer today and asked him if I was delusional or not, and he said that he'd rather me stack more EHP because it gives them larger room for error, /shrug. I trust this guy a lot, he's both my GM and one of the two best healers I have ever played with, and I've played for 5 years on every single level of the game.

But then again, playstyle, cohesion with your healers, etc. is what it adds up to, do what works for you imo, for me, 18 stam works.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

...my entire argument is that 600 EHP is a LOT of EHP and I think it IS more valuable than 20 defense.

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My argument is that it's like a 0.5% difference for me.
(600 EHP is not a lot - you can convert 18 stam to EHP to make the number seem bigger, but it's still a relatively small percentage of the total.)

Personally, I got sick of trying to decide between the two and just slapped on some titanium plating.

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Originally Posted by Martie

My argument is that it's less then a 0.4% difference for me.

Personally, I got sick of trying to decide between the two and just slapped on some titanium plating.

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lulz

I think all of these posts are saying the same thing...If you need the def enchant the shield that way...I would assume that if you enchant Def that you have no Def gems however. If you can socket a +30 stam gem and replace a +20 Def gem because you enchanted your shield +20 Def then its a no brainer. 30-18=12 more stam

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Originally Posted by Kojiyama

I've never really bought the 'spike damage' argument when it comes to avoidance. If you just stack health you take the same spikes constantly.

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I think you just answered your own question. 'Spikey' means non-consistant incoming damage. If the damage is consistant, then it's not 'spikey'.

In this case, I choose 18 stam. If it was 8 stam, sure I'd go with def, but 18 stam turns into 19.8 with kings. It helps me absorb more 'damage I didn't consider' as well like an extra tick from some random raid damage or whatever. I don't want to go to 5% every time I get hit. Making that 30%, while it doesn't affect the fight on paper, it sure as hell affects it when you're progressing on a new boss.

I have yet to use the armsman enchant. I use hit, expertise, or 18 stam (hit or exp unless I don't need them, then stam).

I learned long ago (pre-wow lol) that spikey sucks ass.

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Originally Posted by nethervoid

I have yet to use the armsman enchant. I use hit, expertise, or 18 stam (hit or exp unless I don't need them, then stam).

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If you're stacking EH, armor is a better option. Especially since you'll have a ton of stamina to make that armor worth more.

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Originally Posted by Sakkura

If you're stacking EH, armor is a better option. Especially since you'll have a ton of stamina to make that armor worth more.

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It kinda depends on the fight b/c the stam and armor EHP calcs come out pretty close depending on your stats, with armor usually ahead, but if there's any damage not mitigatible by armor (magic), then stam becomes better.

But that's just kinda nit picking, in general YES go with armor. 'Course I'm an engineer so I go with the OP 885 armor =D

That enchant gets so much hate and derision compared to the 60sta from JC or BS or whatever. But I love it. Since as HP totals go up, armor grants more EH, my theory is that we'll see Engineering take its rightful place among its 60sta brethren in ICC.

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Originally Posted by Athenodorus

That enchant gets so much hate and derision compared to the 60sta from JC or BS or whatever. But I love it. Since as HP totals go up, armor grants more EH, my theory is that we'll see Engineering take its rightful place among its 60sta brethren in ICC.

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Actually in my gear it calculates to more EHP than JC! /Dance, I knew I hung on desperately to engineering for a reason!!!

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Originally Posted by nethervoid

I think you just answered your own question. 'Spikey' means non-consistant incoming damage. If the damage is consistant, then it's not 'spikey'.

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I learned long ago (pre-wow lol) that spikey sucks ass.

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The whole "spike" argument just doesn't have a ton of validity for me--as either a longtime tank or healer.

Historically you were comparing Tank A who avoided a lot and had crushing blows vs. Tank B that didn't but had a lot of armor. That was a very different scenario than what we're describing nowadays.

Now you're saying Tank A just has a lot of health and Tank B avoids more and has slightly less health. The damage they potentially take per swing is identical.

Healers know that every 2 seconds a boss has the capability to inflict X damage. If the tank avoids, great. The tank stays out of danger for potential instants before/after, the tank maintains his PW:S/Divine Aegis/Blessing of Ancient kings absorbs, the tank may not need to use a reactive cooldown, etc. If they tank doesn't, that's fine, let the heal go through. There is no more difficulty in healing Tank B due to his avoids. He isn't sacrificing mitigation for avoidance like the old "spike damage" discussions where the "spike" was actually larger than the comparison hits.

If healers want to keep on spamming through because they don't know how to cancel-cast or track boss swing timers that's fine too. They would be doing that anyway, right? But you still increase your survival by reducing multiple back-to-back hits, maintaining absorb uptime, and giving more buffer time for people to do other things if they are comfortable with managing the damage timing.

If you're just stacking Stamina beyond what is needed to survive the worst-case burst at the expense of avoidance, more or less all you are doing is increasing the damage you take. That's it. There is very little practical value beyond that. (Armor, of course, is quite different as it functions as both and thus is very powerful.)

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Originally Posted by Kojiyama

If healers want to keep on spamming through because they don't know how to cancel-cast or track boss swing timers that's fine too. They would be doing that anyway, right? But you still increase your survival by reducing multiple back-to-back hits, maintaining absorb uptime, and giving more buffer time for people to do other things if they are comfortable with managing the damage timing.

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This right here is your problem. Healers don't cancel cast not because they don't know how, but that they don't have to, mana regen is so insane that healers can just spam, and should incase the tank does take a hit in that split second inbetween when they would cancel cast and when the heal would go off. No offense but healing is TBC has been pretty different from WotLK. I healed some of the tougher flights like Vashj and Council, and yes you absolutely needed to be able to avoid and classes had to cancel cast in order to have mana left at the end of the fight. But for the most part healers don't warrior about mana and you're gonna get healed through normal damage easily.

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If you're just stacking Stamina beyond what is needed to survive the worst-case burst at the expense of avoidance, more or less all you are doing is increasing the damage you take. That's it. There is very little practical value beyond that. (Armor, of course, is quite different as it functions as both and thus is very powerful.)

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But it's not, as someone else explained it, stacking EHP is giving healers a bigger margin of error for if they do need to have an "oh s**t" situation, and avoidance is decreasing the likelihood that an "oh s**t" situation occours, the problem is that if you sack avoidance for stam, when that "oh s**t" situation can and inevitably WILL happen, ya gotta be able to heal it, if you sack EHP for Avoidance, you become more spikey, period. That's when if you do get hit and you do lose all those nice shields etc/ that they next few hits become real problems.

If you can keep your level of EHP and grab avoidance without sacking it, awesome, but I (and after talking to my very accomplished/experienced healers) choose to give my healers a bigger margin for error, especially since and again I will repeat: the situations that will kill a tank are UNAVOIDABLE... due to the NATURAL AVOIDANCE ALREADY ON GEAR... normal damage is EASY to heal through and it is negliable whether you stack stam or avoidance, the stam is for the specials that WILL KILL YOU, and giving your healers a bigger margin of error for when those DO HAPPEN is the best choice in my opinion.

Edit: also, historically speaking, tanks always stacked stam recklessly for progression. It's why a lot of guilds choose to gear tanks first, so that they have that increased EHP pool.

Edit2: Armor is nice, yes, however b/c it can be healed, whether it's armor or hit points is neglibile at high armor levels, what matters is you have the EHP.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

But it's not, as someone else explained it, stacking EHP is giving healers a bigger margin of error for if they do need to have an "oh s**t" situation, and avoidance is decreasing the likelihood that an "oh s**t" situation occours, the problem is that if you sack avoidance for stam, when that "oh s**t" situation can and inevitably WILL happen, ya gotta be able to heal it, if you sack EHP for Avoidance, you become more spikey, period. That's when if you do get hit and you do lose all those nice shields etc/ that they next few hits become real problems.

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But here's the core issue of this thread. You have an enchant choice which decreases the likelihood of situations far more than the alternative enchant increases the margin of error.

When you already have more than enough health to survive the worst-case scenarios, adding another 0.3-0.4% to your EH pool is significantly less valuable than decreasing your chance of a bad situation happening by over 1%.

The "spike" argument is terrible, sorry. If, as you say, you have a healer spamming no matter what, it makes no difference at all that you "spike" in a non-uniform fashion. If they can heal it with you taking 80% of the hits while spamming they can heal it with you taking 20% of the hits while spamming. And, realistically, it WILL be easier since you and them will have more cooldowns spared and more shields available.

Using the terminology for "spike" damage in these scenarios is really misleading. Historically, as I said, it has been used to describe an increase in damage taken, not the same damage taken--just less often.

Your own argument that healers spam through it anyway completely removes any negative from that type of "spike" since they are already capable of providing the HPS to cover said swing damage on-demand.

And, again, I will simply point out that your view on having "enough avoidance" is significantly ignoring every possibly mathematical backing for how avoidance works. If X amount of avoidance is good then X*2 will be more than twice as good in terms of preventing damage and lowering your chance of death. Avoidance, in raw terms (not rating or whatever), only has increasing returns. (Which is the entire reason they put in a DR system in the first place.)

So, at the end of the day, with this shield enchant you're trading off a much smaller increase in EH--which probably isn't needed anyway--for a notable (1%+ damage reduction is not small in tank terms) increase in the chance to reduce the chance of burst events happening. I personally wouldn't do that, and don't particularly see any reason to do so unless your EH is low enough that the 18 Stamina provided is a significant increase.

Tanks stack Stamina "recklessly" (although I would argue in that case it is with purpose) at the start of progression to reach the EH threshold needed for that content. When their gear is upgraded to exceed that, the majority go back to a more survival-oriented approach to reduce their damage taken additionally and make content easier. This is a trend that has been repeated for a very, very long time.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

It kinda depends on the fight b/c the stam and armor EHP calcs come out pretty close depending on your stats, with armor usually ahead, but if there's any damage not mitigatible by armor (magic), then stam becomes better.

But that's just kinda nit picking, in general YES go with armor. 'Course I'm an engineer so I go with the OP 885 armor =D

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If X armor and Y stamina give roughly equal amounts of EH, the armor is vastly preferable as long as a large majority of damage taken is physical (which is the case on most bosses). Stamina doesn't prevent any damage. Armor does. Armor is like stamina and avoidance rolled into one.

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Originally Posted by Sakkura

If X armor and Y stamina give roughly equal amounts of EH, the armor is vastly preferable as long as a large majority of damage taken is physical (which is the case on most bosses). Stamina doesn't prevent any damage. Armor does. Armor is like stamina and avoidance rolled into one.

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But it's not avoidance, it's mitigation, and even then it is healable, especially at high armor values when more armor doesn't equal as high an increase in damage decreased. I'll grant at equivalent EH values armor's better because it is mitigated damage, but if stam is slightly ahead I'd still take it because it's still more EHP and adaptable to any form of damage intake.

I guess I just completely fundamentally disagree with you Kojiyama. Agree to disagree I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Aggathon

But it's not avoidance, it's mitigation, and even then it is healable, especially at high armor values when more armor doesn't equal as high an increase in damage decreased. I'll grant at equivalent EH values armor's better because it is mitigated damage, but if stam is slightly ahead I'd still take it because it's still more EHP and adaptable to any form of damage intake.

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There are no diminishing returns on armor, just so you know it. This has been explained over and over and over.
And like I said, I was talking about bosses where the large majority of damage taken is physical. Any decent tank would (want to) swap gear when doing a magic-based boss. Avoiding damage is always better than simply soaking it.