The tank questions thread

[Satrina]

In this thread, Gajanana made a good observation:

I am pretty confident I can answer all those questions correctly. But maybe I'm wrong. Like most everyone else here, we are here to learn.

Excellent point. The answer to all of these is found here in these forums. So, I'll turn them over to the community to answer and discuss. I expect that will be a much better learning experience than just parroting the answers out.

The questions in question(!):
1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary.
2) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to use Shield Block?
3) 490 defense makes you immune to crushing blows?
4) 25% block chance is required?
5) How can you become immune to crushing blows?
6) Is it useful to build Defense past 490?
7) Devastate and Sunder Armour: Compare and contrast
8) Is it a good idea to stack a lot of avoidance in your gear? Why or why not?

Hint: 6 and 8 are not simple yes/no questions.

I have two tasks for those interested:
a) Answer the questions
b) Come up with more questions. The idea is that the question should not be unduly hard to answer, but be a good indicator of someone's knowledge of tanking theory or mechanics.

[Rak]

1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary.

Effective Health is a measure of how much raw, unmitigated damage you can take before dying.

2) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to use Shield Block?

Shield block every 5 seconds while using: Shield Slam every 6 seconds, Revenge when possible, and Devastate in between those. Throw in Heroic Strikes to dump rage when over 50.

3) 490 defense makes you immune to crushing blows?

Nope, just critical strikes.

4) 25% block chance is required?

Nope.

5) How can you become immune to crushing blows?

Achieve 102.4% combined dodge/parry/block/miss.

6) Is it useful to build Defense past 490?

It can be. It adds 0.04% dodge/parry/block/miss, so it will improve your avoidance by 0.12% per point, as well as increasing your block by 0.04%.

7) Devastate and Sunder Armour: Compare and contrast

Sunder Armor costs 3 less rage assuming you have a maximum efficiency talent build. However, Devastate will cause more threat after you reach a certain amount of weapon damage. I believe its 301 threat from Sunder, and 101 innate threat from Devastate. Assuming those are correct, if your Devastate does 200 damage, you are doing the same threat from each, while adding damage/chance to crit/weapon procs. Of course you could factor in the rage difference, but if you have King's Defender or equal, you should be doing about 250-300 Devastate damage, so then Devastate is more rage efficient anyway.

8) Is it a good idea to stack a lot of avoidance in your gear? Why or why not?

It's a good idea to have a set of gear with lots of avoidance. It's very useful on bosses that attack so fast that you will need to avoid attacks to reduce the odds of getting hit without Shield Block up.

However, in normal gear, I advise against stacking avoidance. You will get less rage, and have less health and armor. If you are working on new bosses where you need to survive their reliable burst damage, if you have bad luck you could obviously die. You threat generation will suffer if your avoidance is too high as well due to not getting enough rage from incoming hits.

It's also arguable that it makes little difference in most situations due to constant heal spamming making it pretty moot if you avoid normal attacks or not. It's also considerably easier to judge what rank heals and what interval to use while healing if the tank is taking constant damage, rather than having streaky damage.


As for questions, the best I can think of at the moment would be asking things such as what upgrades they currently want. Perhaps explain why they would value the upgrades over their current gear. Have them include upgrades for all tanking sets, so you could see if they value an avoidance set and a threat set and what their itemization in those would be as well.

[Mesh]

I won't answer the questions but add another few to the mix:

1) How would you build up a threat gear set, provided you cannot allow to resort to dps items?

2) Using Heroic Strike, what are your conditions on using the style in your rotation?

3) Compare parry rating to dodge rating - what do you value more and why?

4) Explain why it is in general a bad idea to turn a boss towards the raid.

[Vakfaroosh]

I will bite, because I am curious.

1. Effective health is a modifier using your armor and hit points to come up with a reasonable amount of damage you can absorb as a tank.

Effective health is also a theory in tanking, that difference from avoidence tanking. You take less damage per hit but more hits the avoidence which levels off damage coming in so that healers can anticipate several smaller hits vs 1 or 2 big hits.

2. Generating threat is the single most important thing as a tank (okay mitigation damage)
I always pop blood rage and shield block, off the bat, then I go into my rotation of shield slam, revenge, and then 2 sunders, shield slam, revenge and 2 sunders, shield slam, revenge and 1 sunder followed by devestate, then rinse and repeat shield slam, revenge 2 devestates.

Also because I am spec'd for improved heroic and one hand spec when I go above 25 rage, I spam heroic strike inbetween non autostrike timers.

The only time this changes is if I have to keep Thunder clap and demo shout up.

If I do I remove one sunder from each of the first two rotations and replace with TC and Shout to keep debuffs up.

3. 490 defense makes you immune to Critical Hits, crushing blows are base upon avoidence

4. No, 25% block has nothing to do with removing crushing blows. when shield block is up and avoidence is over 102 you are all set.

5. By increasing your avoidence to 102%, this includes miss, dodge, parry and block

6. Yes, every point of defense even past 490 increase block, parry and dodge by a %

7. Devastate generates a set amount of threat + damage.
Sunder generates a set amount of threat period (351 I believe)

Devastate is a better way to gen threat if you do more then 251 damage per hit. Since I currently do not unless I crit I stack 5 sunders which then increase my devastates where it does gen more threat then Sunder.

8. This is a great debate, some tanks are avoidence, some are EH. I believe in EH, I use to be avoidence, but the hits that came in were bigger and if something went wrong I could be two or three shotted by a boss. Since I have switched to EH the healers and I have noticed a huge improvement.

Maximize health through stamina and armor then get avoidence.

Edit adding new questions

1) How would you build up a threat gear set, provided you cannot allow to resort to dps items?

I would build a threat gen set (as I do have) by adding block value and hit rating. Block value increase threat off of shield slam, and hit rating increase all damage. A threat gen set for short fights sacrifice mitigation/avoidence for damage/block value.

2) Using Heroic Strike, what are your conditions on using the style in your rotation?

Since I am spec'd improve strike I use it whenever I hit 25 or more rage, backing off it I drop below 15.

3) Compare parry rating to dodge rating - what do you value more and why?

Parry rating is always better then dodge, parry allows your next attack to have an increase attack speed. Which means more threat.

Although dodge and Parry rating add to % differently. I believe (without looking) it takes 17 parry rating for 1% and 32 dodge rating for 1%

4) Explain why it is in general a bad idea to turn a boss towards the raid.

Many bosses have frontal AoE
Also, melee attacks can be parried, if a boss parries his attach his next attack will be faster, this means that it is always beneficial to have all attacks coming from behind.

[juggernauth]

"What are the consumables you bring to raids, and why?"

[Klimpen]

I'm curious Sat.

How would you change this questionaire for non-warrior tanks?

[Rak]

"Why are you trying to steal mah lootz?" =P

[Silentslayer]

"What are the consumables you bring to raids, and why?"

Hehe I am still researching that myself, has it been covered in a guide here and I just over looked it?

[Fubar]

I'd like to try, since I am still learning all of this (thus the reason I am here). I am not super confident in my answers, because it seems the longer I read all of your posts, the more I understand or have to re-think.



The questions in question(!):
1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary.

Mathematical relationship between stamina and armor (the mitigation it provides) equating to how much raw damage intake a tank can survive (EH).

2) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to use Shield Block?

Bloodrage --> Sheild Slam --> Sheild Block --> Revenge --> Sunder/Devestate after 5--> SB

3) 490 defense makes you immune to crushing blows?

490 defense makes you immune to critical strikes from skull level mob/bosses and below. Crushing blows remain on the combat table until pushed off by sheild block or passive immunity.

4) 25% block chance is required? Dont think so?

5) How can you become immune to crushing blows? Sheild Block pushing CBs off combat table or reach 102.x% dodge, block, parry, chance on miss

6) Is it useful to build Defense past 490? Anything over 490 should be a by-product of itemization. To sacrifice a stam gem in place of a +defense gem slot when already at 490 is wasted.


7) Devastate and Sunder Armour: Compare and contrast Devestates often costs more rage then Sunder Armor, SA is more rage effiecient to apply or to use when you have to spare some rage for an intervene etc. If rage conservation is not an issue, Devestate provides more TPS then a normal sunder since devastate threat is additive with weapon damage. Devestate is also normalized toward weapons such as swords or maces, thus making dagger usage for Devestate ineffiencent.

8) Is it a good idea to stack a lot of avoidance in your gear? Why or why not? No, first it makes damage intake very hard to predict for healers. Also, there is an opportunity cost to a lot of avoidance built into gear via gemming, you are giving up +stam, thus lowering your EH.


I really like the questions on consumables. Often times people do not know what to bring. Consumables could also be broken down to two seperate questions. One for threat generation and one for EH. Threat could be gift of Arthas, Agility and strength potions, sharpening stones etc. EH could be iron/stone sheild pots, crawdads/fishermans feasts, runes of warding and shielding. Also, lets not forget those wonderful scrolls that are dirt cheap and stack on most everything else.

Thanks for this Satrina.

Fubs

[Satrina]

"Why are you trying to steal mah lootz?" =P

Winner!

I'm curious Sat.

How would you change this questionaire for non-warrior tanks?

Hm, I'll post that in a later bit.

has it been covered in a guide here and I just over looked it?

Don't think so. Sounds like an excellent topic for a guide someone could write, though!

[Satrina]

For Klimpen:

A small pool of questions to draw from (I'd choose 2 if asking a talent question, 3 if not)
1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary. (no change)
2a) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to keep Holy Shield up and the target is humanoid? (same but different)
2b) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to keep Holy Shield up and the target is undead?
3) What consumables do you bring to a raid, and why? (original question not relevant, so I'll steal one of the excellent ones given)
4) You need to tank something that can spell reflect - what do you do? (original question not relevant)
5) How can you become immune to crushing blows?
6) The sheep are wandering beside you while tanking trash - what do you do? (original question not relevant)
7) How much +spell damage do you feel is a good amount?
8) How would you compare dodge, parry, and block as stats to stack when building your 102.4%? (not asked at the same time as 5)

Plus:
- The usual questions about spec. Ask why they chose X if it is an unusual choice. Ask why they chose X instead of Y - no matter if X is the standard choice and Y is somewhat unusual, or vice-versa.

- What are your two next ideal upgrades? (Anything from Gruul to SSC.)

This could merit its own thread.

[Meia]

Why do tanks put cruelty into their tanking build?

or

How does cruelty effect threat?

----------------------------------

What type of ability cycle would you use to generate threat in a high rage situation?

What type of ability cycle would you use to generate threat in a low rage situation?

[Mayhoon]

1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary.

Effective health is an estimation of the ammount of raw damage you can take. This can only reliably cover physical damage or damage that can be mitigated by armour.

2) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to use Shield Block?

In order of importance, working around GCD as well as individual CD's:

Shield Slam
Shield Block
Revenge
Sunder Armor (Replace with Devistate at 5 sunders), Thunderclap/Demoralizing Shout if needed
Heroic Strike to dump rage over 50

3) 490 defense makes you immune to crushing blows?

Negative. 490 Defense make you reliably crit immune from anything, up to and including level 73 mobs (bosses).

4) 25% block chance is required?

Negative. A combined dodge/parry/block/miss chance of 25% (27.4%?) is required to push crushing blows off the combat table when Shield Block is active.

5) How can you become immune to crushing blows?

You can become 'immune' to crushing blows if you can have an avoidance+block >= 102.4% at all times.

6) Is it useful to build Defense past 490?

Useful? Yes, defense past 490 still gives additional avoidance and block rating (+0.04% each), however it is more efficient to gear towards other stats once passive crit immunity is obtained.

7) Devastate and Sunder Armour: Compare and contrast

Until 2.3 is released: Stack 5 Sunder Armour then use Devistate. Devistate is very inefficient until 5 sunders are applied, even then threat:rage efficiency is only comparable when damage produced by Devistate is > 200. However, Devistate will also increase DPS and is more effective with a slower weapon.

8) Is it a good idea to stack a lot of avoidance in your gear? Why or why not?

Avoidance gearing is a matter of preference. Majority suggest to stack effective health since it is a more 'reliable' method. However, some fights favor avoidance such as Prince. General rule of thumb is to have avoidance gear available so when the comfortable level of EH is reached, avoidance can be safely stacked for such encounters.

1) How would you build up a threat gear set, provided you cannot allow to resort to dps items?

+Hit/Str gems and socket bonus' on a few limited pieces of tank gear. +Shield block value for increased SS damage.

2) Using Heroic Strike, what are your conditions on using the style in your rotation?

Use HS as a rage dump when rage > 50. Spam with Devistate during regular rotation on 'infinite rage' encounters.

3) Compare parry rating to dodge rating - what do you value more and why?

A parry is better than a dodge since it increased your attack speed for one swing, increasing your threat while also providing complete avoidance. However, dodge rating will convert into dodge % at a better rate, so it is more efficient to stack dodge rating rather than parry rating.

4) Explain why it is in general a bad idea to turn a boss towards the raid.

Bosses often have frontal AoE attacks such as breath weapons and cleave attacks, so turning to boss to face the raid will often subject other raid members to damage. Bosses can also parry and raid members who's attacks are parried will cause an increase in spike damage to you (as the tank). Mobs/Bosses cannot parry attacks coming from behind.

"What are the consumables you bring to raids, and why?"

Spicy Crawdads, Fort Flasks, Stoneshield pots - Increase Effective health
Roasted Clefthoof, Str Scroll, Str pots/elixirs - Increase Str for threat
Agility scrolls/pots - Increased avoidance/threat

Why do tanks put cruelty into their tanking build?

Many tanks include Cruelty into their build for the additional threat (crit SS ftw!). Most tanks (Prot Warrs anyway) agree that there are no other places that those 5 points could be better spent for the return it gives.

What type of ability cycle would you use to generate threat in a high rage situation?

What type of ability cycle would you use to generate threat in a low rage situation?

Use the standard rotation with a few modifications:

Low rage:

Leave out shield block, you'll gain more rage from incoming damage.
Stick to the essentials: SS, Rev, SA.
Avoid using Thunderclap and Demo Shout so you actually get hit more/harder.

You should be able to do these safely since if you're in a low rage situation, you're more than likely not taking much damage.

High rage:

Use Thunderclap and Demo shout.
Include Heroic Strike more frequently.

More rage than you know what to do with:

Spam HS and Devistate whenever you can.

New question:

What are the differences in fast vs. slow weapons.

[Klimpen]

1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary. (no change)

It's a number which describes the amount of unmitigated damage you can take before dying [And the amount of time it would take]. In it's most talked of form, it's a coefficent of Health and Armor. Against specific bosses, BV matters too.

2a) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to keep Holy Shield up and the target is humanoid? (same but different)

Holy Shield every 10s, as a priority.
Consecration straight after HS has finished. Usually I try to start a fight off Consecration->HS. [HS just before the boss gets to me]. This lets me have a slightly higher threat rotation in the beginning stages of a boss fight.
Judgement doesn't affect the GCD, so you can 'weave' it into your rotation. I usually leave resealing until after the HS-Consecration rotation if needed.

One thing I'm testing atm on the PTR, with the way spells get sent to the server I can [if I'm fast/laggy enough] get a seal off without activiating GCD, while this more than likely increases the risk of a CB between HS cooldown/refresh, it's a fairly large increase in threat. I would play it by ear, and if I'm not taking much damage [I usually have my damage meter set to DTPS], I might risk it.

2b) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to keep Holy Shield up and the target is undead?

Usually I try to use the same rotation as above, but with Exorcism jammed right against Consecration [pushing back SoR further sometimes], so it comes up just before HS after the 15s cd.

3) What consumables do you bring to a raid, and why? (original question not relevant, so I'll steal one of the excellent ones given)

Quite a bit, usually a bag and a half full.
Exilirs I like to go with Major Agi and the 500ish Armor one. Gruuls I like the Sta/Int/+damage one. Havn't really looked into SSC/TK specific ones, as I've never had the chance to go there.
Superior Wizard Oil
+20Sta Drink from the brewfest [because it's lolcheap and I've got 200ish in the bank]
~15 Mana Pots
At least 200 Symbol of Kings [Greater Blessings]
~5 Symbol of Divinity [or whatever, DI reagent]

4) You need to tank something that can spell reflect - what do you do? (original question not relevant)

a) Let a Prot Warrior tank it [because they can spell reflect]
b) Let a Bear tank it [because they've got more HP to absorb the magic]
c) Tank it like usual and hope like heck. If you're organised you might have resistance pots. I personally wouldn't go out of my way on the chance that I might have to tank these. First time, I'd be caught out and have to deal with it.

5) How can you become immune to crushing blows?

102.4% Avoidance. Miss+Dodge+Parry+Block. With active abilties of course. [Silly passive uncrush doesn't happen till later.

Hmmm... Cider would be annoyed with me saying Avoidance there.

102.4% Damage Removal.

6) The sheep are wandering beside you while tanking trash - what do you do? (original question not relevant)

Pull the mobs I'm tanking away from the cc'd mobs. Unless it's totally nessecary, I'd prefer to forgo Consecration. Sheep pop->Run into Consecration->Wipe. Rather frustrating imo.

7) How much +spell damage do you feel is a good amount?

As much as I can fit in. As long as I'm meeting EH minimums [and Uncrush/Uncrit], of course. Personally, Uncrit->Uncrush->EH->Threat->Avoidance

8) How would you compare dodge, parry, and block as stats to stack when building your 102.4%? (not asked at the same time as 5)

Gearing yourself it totally subjective to the fight. Progression fights, I'd reccomend high BR, low Dodge/Parry, so you can stack a bit more EH. Otherwise as I said before, you have to gear yourself for the encounter. [I feel you need to be in quite close contact with the more skilled healers] Personally I decide on a goal for each piece of gear [EH, Threat, Avoidance] and min/max it towards that. Then I mix/match my gear dependant on the fight.

What are your two next ideal upgrades? (Anything from Gruul to SSC.)

A new Chest/Legs'd be nice. I havn't seen all of the ZA loot yet, but most of it looks plenty sexy.

[Meia]

Who's fault is it that your raid just wiped?

edit: What is your number one resource for warrior information? (now that evilempire has moved in )

[Kazeyonoma]

I'll Bite just to make sure i'm not crazy lol

In this thread,

The questions in question(!):
1) Do you know what effective health is? If yes, give a short summary.

Raw amount of damage you can take through mitigation and stamina, factored by your Health/Armor and Shield Block value. Basically tells you how much Raw damage it would take if you sat there and did nothing to get killed.

2) What sort of cycle would you use to generate threat, assuming you need to use Shield Block?

Shield block -> Shield Slam -> Revenge -> Sunder -> Sunder -> Shield Block and repeat, but replace sunder's with devastates after 5 applications, and queue up heroic strikes whenever you have over 50 rage.

I personally use macros that sunder/shieldblock/heroic strike, revenge/shield block/heroic strike, and shield slam/devastate ;P

3) 490 defense makes you immune to crushing blows?

No and yes, it makes you uncrittable for sure, but any 70 warrior with 490 defense, with the use of shield block is immune to crushing blows for 2 hits, regardless of gear/gem choices.

4) 25% block chance is required?

No, old myth, has nothing to do with anything in terms of crushing blows or crits.

5) How can you become immune to crushing blows?

Effectively push your total avoidance and block% to 102.4%. This can be done by warriors by hitting shield block and thus protect you from crushing blows for 2 strikes, or by paladins by hitting holy shield and being protected for 8 strikes.

6) Is it useful to build Defense past 490?

Although no longer helping in the crit department, it is still the second best avoidance stat to acquire behind dodge, because it provides .04% dodge/parry/miss/block per point, and only loses out to dodge by a small margin. It is also a decent stat to push for passive uncrushability although shield block rating is the most effective stat for that.

7) Devastate and Sunder Armour: Compare and contrast

If you deal more than 200 damage with devastate it generates more threat than sunder, sunder armor currently costs less rage when spec'd for it than devastate and thus is a more effective TPR skill but devastate past 200 damage is a better TPS skill but with the new changes coming in 2.3 devastate will win out in both except during the first 2 sunders.

8) Is it a good idea to stack a lot of avoidance in your gear? Why or why not?

Balance in gear is key, some fights call for avoidance (fast hitting mobs that eat up shield block charges), others call for max EH (Gruul). When progression tanking and fighting bosses that you are not outgearing, EH is best to ensure maximum reliability in terms of survivability.


My questions:
1) Is resilience a tank stat?
2) what are non-instance ways to obtain great (sometimes better than instance) gear.
3) If I have both resilience and defense gear, do both their crit reductions add up?

[Kazeyonoma]

As requested by my Guild Leader, can we get some Feral questions going?

And to a more extreme note, warlock tanks? 19k hp warlock tanks seem to be a new thing according to my GL. lol so that'd be cool too.

First of q's I can think of for a feral druid is:

1) How much defense for uncrittable?
2) What is Effective Health
3) What is a crushing blow?

[Fubar]

Ha Ha Kazey,

My guild leader asked the same thing... can we have questions for bears?

I'd love to see some here.

Fubs

[Argeoff87]

As requested by my Guild Leader, can we get some Feral questions going?

And to a more extreme note, warlock tanks? 19k hp warlock tanks seem to be a new thing according to my GL. lol so that'd be cool too.

First of q's I can think of for a feral druid is:

1) How much defense for uncrittable?
2) What is Effective Health
3) What is a crushing blow?

For feral druids, I can think of a few,

1) Would you choose an item with Dodge rating or an item with Agility and why?

2) What is the armor cap against level 73 mobs? (bosses)

3) 400 defense and 95 resilience with 3/3 SotF. Am I crit immune?

4) What is your threat rotation?

5) What is the best pre-raid tank trinket?

6) Is too much dodge a bad thing for bears mitigation-wise?

[Taelas]

For feral druids, I can think of a few,

1) Would you choose an item with Dodge rating or an item with Agility and why?

Assuming equal amounts, always Agility. Agility provides more dodge% than Dodge rating (14.7 agility per dodge% versus 18.9 Dodge rating). Even disregarding this, Agility also adds armor and crit%, making it the single-most important stat for druids once EH-requirements for an encounter has been reached.

2) What is the armor cap against level 73 mobs? (bosses)

Roughly 35,000.

3) 400 defense and 95 resilience with 3/3 SotF. Am I crit immune?

Yes. You're only 8 Resilience short of reaching crit-immunity from Resilience alone, and you're getting 2% from Defense. Dropping Defense for Agility would be a much better return on the item budget for you, assuming you can get upgrades that provide this benefit.

4) What is your threat rotation?

Mangle every cooldown, Lacerate every GCD except when Mangling, FFF/Demoralizing Roar instead of Lacerate when necessary, Maul when having excess rage. Switch Lacerate for Swipe if it hits for more than ~225 on single targets, or if you're tanking multiple targets.

5) What is the best pre-raid tank trinket?

The best pre-raid tank trinket (and the best tank trinket period) is [item]Badge of Tenacity[/item]. The second-best trinket is [item]Mark of Tyranny[/item], unless you're hitting the armor cap without it, in which case it's [item]Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch[/item].

6) Is too much dodge a bad thing for bears mitigation-wise?

There is no such thing as "too much dodge" mitigation-wise. (Threat-wise it's a different matter, but it's nowhere near as much of a problem for druids as it is for warriors.)

1) How much defense for uncrittable?

415 with Survival of the Fittest; 490 without -- assuming zero Resilience. Resilience gives a better rate of crit-immunity per item point for druids, as druids do not parry or block.

Resilience is a tank stat for druids, barely. It is not for anyone else.