Ask Small Questions that Don't Deserve a Thread

[Ariedan]

A tank I play with has really odd itemization choices.. always has, really. He has all Karazhan and most of the TK/SSC drops, but his stats are a little different than mine and most other tanks with equivalent gear. He values dodge and block rating more than most other stats and sees block value as useless except when "dpsing" (he puts on all block value tanking gear when farming or prot dpsing). When I asked why he was using that really bad block rating trinket (he has all the good trinkets available, so it wasn't a no-drop issue), and told him that block rating was sort of a useless stat to stack (he prioritizes it, along with dodge and parry, as THE tanking stats), he responded with: "Hardly useless. I stack so much block so I can be passively immune to crushing blows without shield block up."

Here's what confuses me. With all of the gear obtainable in BT/Hyjal, you should eventually be able to achieve being passively immune, but what's the point in actually trying for it, especially this early on WITHOUT BT/Hyjal gear? This guy has no hit rating and block value so his TPS is a little lower for the content we're doing, his HP is low considering he's the other MT, and instead of prioritizing those stats, he's sacrificing them.. in an attempt to be passively immune? Is it really worth it? Shield block isn't difficult to keep up, and you can switch out gear for fast-hitting mobs.

I just don't really see the logic in this. Maybe I'm wrong, but considering this guy MTs with me, I'd like for us to be on the same page here. Help?

[Finelle]

Is he actually Crush Immune without blowing cooldowns? I know paladins can do it, but they use Holy Shield, their version of Shield Block that gives a huge 30% extra chance.

Assuming a very generous 45% avoidance without BT/Hyjal gear, he needs 57.6% more mitigation stats to push Crushings off. Which amounts to... a whopping 453 block rating...

Being 15% away from Crush immune is just as useless as being 50% away. Even if he manages to push all but 5% of Crushing Blows off, when they do come, it'll result in a huge spike of his health bar, likely killing him.

Maybe he's counting on all the different debuffs that the raid can put up to reduce that 450 required rating, but that's a huge risk to take. Furthermore, he'd be useless against magic damage, which isn't that uncommon.

[Kazeyonoma]

not just that, but sacrificing mitigation stats like armor/hp/sbv is silly because some bosses will outright hit hard, crushing or not. Sure you can be passively crush immune against prince, but if he hits 2 shots hard, then thrashes you, with low armor/hp/sbv he can easily dish out non-crushing blows totalling over 13k hp. You'll eat dust at that rate. And don't even get started with gruul's

[Cielwyn]

Yeah sometimes that works for pulling... my bigger problem with it was that he was doing it before the group was ready, i.e. priest was still drinking and hunter was afk. That and he really really liked his Arcane Explosion as it was about the only spell he cast the entire run.

*chuckles* having recently started tanking on my warrior alt (and DAMN if it isn't fun -- thanks, guys, for the excellent advice!), I've had similar experiences. You can tell the alts-of-raiders by the people that have a threat meter.

I'd say that for people that pull before you, or nuke before you can build adequate threat, the escalation for me seems togo like this:
- ask them to let me pull (or wait 5 seconds before nuking)
- Ask again, saying that i'm having trouble getting enough threat to keep the group safe.
- Ask the healer if they're bothered by this. If not, /shrug and play it by ear (lol).
- If the healer's annoyed, ask if it's OK to let PlayerX die, or at least get worried. As long as it doesn't jeapardize the group, you're fine.
- If they're another tank class, let them tank. They obviously want to. I had some trouble learning not to stress out about that when I grouped with 2 other warriors, any of whom would take aggro or whatnot. We eventually ended up having a very fluid multitanking rotation. While this isn't a good idea for later stuff, it isn't worth getting stressed about at lower level instances, unless the group success is at risk.

I tend to look at it as the same perspective as PUGs on my hunter: we may succeed, we may fail, and I'll do my best to help it. If it fails, though ... well, at least I got practice at something I enjoy. Group leaders and healers can always ask the problem children to leave.

[Ariedan]

Is he actually Crush Immune without blowing cooldowns? I know paladins can do it, but they use Holy Shield, their version of Shield Block that gives a huge 30% extra chance.

Assuming a very generous 45% avoidance without BT/Hyjal gear, he needs 57.6% more mitigation stats to push Crushings off. Which amounts to... a whopping 453 block rating...

Being 15% away from Crush immune is just as useless as being 50% away. Even if he manages to push all but 5% of Crushing Blows off, when they do come, it'll result in a huge spike of his health bar, likely killing him.

Maybe he's counting on all the different debuffs that the raid can put up to reduce that 450 required rating, but that's a huge risk to take. Furthermore, he'd be useless against magic damage, which isn't that uncommon.

No, he isn't. He says he's close as he sort of stacks avoidance, but like you just said, being close is just as bad as not being close. Not only is it a silly idea, but the fact that he's sacrificing a lot to achieve something he hasn't yet is even sillier.
I don't really know how to approach him about this all, really. Every time I try, he gets defensive and immediately changes the subject or he backs it up with "facts." He's a close friend of mine so I don't want to be pushy, but it's already starting to hinder his ability as a tank, and will only continue to get worse as we progress into more difficult content. The dps are already complaining his tps is wimpy and the healers saying I'm much easier to heal than he.

[Nicki]

and told him that block rating was sort of a useless stat to stack (he prioritizes it, along with dodge and parry, as THE tanking stats), he responded with: "Hardly useless. I stack so much block so I can be passively immune to crushing blows without shield block up."

This is what worried me about all the passive crush immunity threads :s That people would just inferior gear to get a goal of not having to use shield block rather than gear well and perform better...sadly its happening and these tanks are the 'avoidance tanks' except gung ho for block rating which is by far a paladin tanking stat...atleast early on..

[Vdaan]

I was one of the tanks on VR last night on my druid. I was having an issue w/ generating enough TPS after taking 2 knockbacks in a row. I started adding swipe in my lacerate/maul/mangle rotation and managed to climb back up to pick him up for the last 5% after he took out the MT. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can build rage faster as a bear to get my TPS up?

[Finelle]

VR is immune to Bleeds, IIRC?

[Wartorn]

VR is immune to bleeds and poisons.

Al'ar can go counter-clockwise on the platforms. T or F?

[gotpho]

I read somewhere a while back that spells cast by PvE mobs/bosses can't crit. I can't remember ever receiving a spell that crit, but I have just recently restarted playing wow so my memory is very hit or miss. Is it true or not?

[Arrivan]

Spells cast by mobs/bosses cannot crit.

[Brucimus]

did anyone notice suddenly you can mine dead earth elementals? was this announced in the patch?

[Atomsk]

yea, this wasn't announced. i learned it just a few dys ago. hello motes of earth.

[Xazeri]

I know you have been able to mine those elite elementals in Hellfire for as long as I've been in Outlands,maybe February of this year?

[Narshe]

Yeh, but they are talking about the regular earth elementals. Like the ones in nagrand.

[Bodasafa]

Ok for bosses like shade whats the best set up tons of HP for the tank and if the boss fight really calls for it sacrafice a little HP for res gear on the specific res needed?

Spam shield bash and spell reflect and call it a day?

[Mayhoon]

Eh... standard tanking theory kinda goes out the window on Aran since he's not tankable. Slap on whatever DPS/Grinding gear you've got and a few pieces of resist gear probably wouldnt hurt. Shield bash everything except the Arcane Missles. Key to the fight is trying to keep his mana as high as possible and since Arcane Missles is a channeled effect it spends the mana immediately, so you're further off to let it run it's course and heal through the damage. Fire/Frost however, the mana doesnt get spent unless it's actually cast, so those are the ones you want to interrupt.

The only thing you can and will need to tank are the elementals he summons, so pretend your Arms/Fury for the fight. :P

[Vakfaroosh]

Ok for bosses like shade whats the best set up tons of HP for the tank and if the boss fight really calls for it sacrafice a little HP for res gear on the specific res needed?

Spam shield bash and spell reflect and call it a day?

Actually spell reflect is useless.

Also, we don't tank the elementals, just our strategy, we banish and fear them. But that is a personal preference, we don't want to take any dps off shade

[Mayhoon]

If you have the CC available then yeah, thats always the best course of action. But if you dont have the luxury of enough CC, then you're gonna have to tank em'.

[Skips]

In berzerker when wielding only a [item]Toxic Revenger[/item] I get a crit chance of 14.03%, whilst wielding a [item]Whirlwind Axe[/item] I only get a crit of 12.19% the gap is the same for any stance Im in...why does using a dagger give me almost 2% more crit chance? None of my talents give a bonus to weapon crit, to clarify.