Commendation of Kael'thas....tanking you say??

[Slobash]

Well said

[commacozzee]

i like this thread. there are a lot of points made from many different perspectives, and a lot is to be learned.

As with every piece of equipment, the commendation has its places and times where it is useful. I'd tend to use it in place of a darkmoon card in an EH set. Is the commendation the best trinket evar? No. It's another tool in your toolbox, to be used when it makes sense to use it. Your basic problem really seems to be frustration that the majority of tanks use one set of gear to fit all encounters.


Nor will you. Looking for a theoretical analysis of a single piece of gear is silly. Trinket X is just one piece of the whole that dictates how well you chose. In choosing the gear you are going to wear for a fight, you need to consider:

- Your tanking abilities (helping yourself stay alive, wearing the right gear for the fight, generating optimal threat with variable amounts of threat stats)
- Your healers' abilities (helping you stay alive through the mentioned silence/fear, not sucking when you streak avoidance); and
- Your DPSers' abilities (dictating how much threat stats you need to juggle in to not threat cap them)

Before you can evaluate how effective that gear set was, the fight needs to end. At that point, an after-combat analysis involving your DPS (were you threat capped? Any low points to note?) and healers (how hard was I to heal? any scary points to watch for?) commences. Now you can iterate to make the gear set better for the next attempt or kill. What works for me may not be good for someone else because they have a different raid with different people of differenct capability. (As we progress, I find myself dropping specific gear sets for older fights in favour of my normalised "balanced" set that evolves as my gear gets better. A lot of tanks try to skip to this point the moment they see a boss for the first time, yes.)

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: Your most important skill as a tank in T6 is being able to correctly choose what to wear for a given fight. That goes right back to the first sentence I wrote here.

that reply sums up just about everything there is to tanking. love it love it LOVE IT. allow me to put in my 2 cents if you will:

i've been using hypatia's guide as a reference since i've read it, and i believe his perspective and the math he applies is very useful in this argument.

i'm going to show how often CoK is up when you are 1 hit away from dying, and how often it saves you from dying when it is up. this depends on how hard the boss hits you, so that variable will be H.

first off, CoK activates at 35% health, which changes based on your hp pool: 0.35(HP)

next, we need to find out if the boss hits hard enough to put you in danger of being killed by the next attack without CoK being activated, as we will use a different equation for each situation (unless we used an 'if' statement, which i will not for simplicity's sake): H >? 0.35(HP), H <? 0.35(HP). let's assume H > 0.35(HP), since we're dealing with t6 bosses here

ok, we just need to know how often CoK will be up when we're 1 hit away from dead:

0.35(HP)/H

sweet, we now know how often CoK is up when we're REALLY in the danger zone. (unfortunately i'm on a different computer and can't pull out an excel spreadsheet, and i'm lazy so you can input different values for HP and H on your own and see how this turns out.) now what we need to know is when we're in the danger zone, how much does CoK help? well that depends on your avoidance! let's check this out: what is my total avoidance? (miss + dodge + parry) = a. ok, now we need to include the CoK dodge buff (just going with a static 8% for simplicity's sake), compare our avoidance w/ and w/o the buff, and see how often the avoidance buff saves us:

w/o CoK: death = (1-a)% chance on next boss attack
w/ CoK: death = [1-(a+0.08)]% = (0.92-a)% chance on the next boss attack

ok, let's find out how much more often equipping CoK will save you compared to how often not equipping CoK will save you:

(1-a)/(0.92-a)

that is to say, if given passive avoidance a and in a situation where H<0.35(HP), you will survive the next hit (1-a)/(0.92-a) more often with CoK than w/o CoK. put them together, and you get:

0.35(HP)(1-a)/[H(0.92-a)]

note that with high values of avoidance, the CoK dodge rating becomes substantially more effective, and with the CoK and popping Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch, a properly geared tank can effectively shut off damage completely in such a situation.

now, to find out how often you're 1 hit away from dying, i refer you to http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tanks...y-results.html as hypatia describes burst time and how often to expect it very eloquently (you should be reading this thread regardless).

perfect, now we have some formulas to standardize the CoK buff. these formulas are rough and i assume the same HP and avoidance with or without CoK equipped (which can be changed easily by your own math), but they are nonetheless effective formulas to find out how good CoK really is for you. let me know if you see any flaws in my argument or necessary simplifications. again, it's all a balancing act and like anything worth its weight in gold, CoK can be a godsend in some situations and negligible in others.

[Kazeyonoma]

speaking of this, yesterday this trinket saved my ass at least 3 times, doing heroic BF (srsbsns i know) i accidentally pulled 2 groups sometimes with the healer nearly oom, i'd aoe taunt, tclap, and start tab devastating, and the thing went off twice during 1 fight, and it fired off a few other times throughout the run. Bad healer maybe but it proved its usefulness last night =P

[ebs2002]

since we're assuming high end raiding, we should also assume BoK, so we have:

57*1.1=62.7 stamina = 4.18 blue sockets

since dodge doesn't gain from BoK, the passive benefit of CoK wins.

No, because those 3.8 blue slots also have the benefit of BoK :-p

As for the rest of your math, it's a little too deep for me to get in while I'm at work, but it's a good start to analysis of the effectiveness of the CoK

[commacozzee]

No, because those 3.8 blue slots also have the benefit of BoK :-p

As for the rest of your math, it's a little too deep for me to get in while I'm at work, but it's a good start to analysis of the effectiveness of the CoK

yes yes i see what you mean, in that case those blue slots would be 16.5 stam/blue slot. 62.7stam/(16.5stam/blue socket) = 3.8 blue sockets! ty for that clarification. so as far as itemization goes, their passive benefits are equal. post edited

[Slobash]

speaking of this, yesterday this trinket saved my ass at least 3 times, doing heroic BF (srsbsns i know) i accidentally pulled 2 groups sometimes with the healer nearly oom, i'd aoe taunt, tclap, and start tab devastating, and the thing went off twice during 1 fight, and it fired off a few other times throughout the run. Bad healer maybe but it proved its usefulness last night =P

Not trying to add more fuel to the fire but are you saying that when you pulled extra mobs and aoe tanked them that they all conveniently stood in front of you allowing you to dodge?

[Tatt]

No but a good tank knows how to walk backwards so that they are all in front of him.

[Kazeyonoma]

Basically what tatt said, after I aoe tanked, i backpedaled/strafed to get them in my front cone so i could dodge, i never ever let a mob hit me from behind, that's suicide.

[Slobash]

I'll just shut up and avoid more confrontations

[clavarnway]

Yeah, letting a mob hit you in the back is asking for it!!

[Daimon]

When I tank I use commendation and pocketwatch, so I get both = win.

that combination is win-win.

You can say all you want about the commendation but is one of the best trinkets out there, I can say that it has saved my ass tonz of times. A tank shouldn't drop below 50% but shit happens and thats the best guarantee you have to survive hectic moments.
thats a lazy/noob/dead healer trinket.

[Indora]

My opinion is, that you earn the buff when it's too late - you already have been hit to near death.

However, as commacozzee already pointed out, it isn't wasted.
It provides a ((1-a) / (0.92-a) -1)*100 percent higher chance to avoid the decisive hit. (IE, at 50% avoidance, 20% higher chance to survive!)
In addition, it helps your healers to top you up again.

I don't think it decreases your tps, definitivly less than the 2% passive dodge from moroe's.
When you're under 35% health, your rage will be near 100, so it's no problem to avoid even 2-3 hits in a row.

After all, I think it's a good trinket and the most important reason why you don't like it, Slobash, is that it's a procc.
I wouldn't wear it hoping it will get me through a silence phase.

While your pocket watch will (most likely ) prevent your death, the procc can prevent it. Which is still a good thing!

No one said you shoud totally rely on it. But reducing the chance to die by another 20% is really nice.

[Slobash]

that combination is win-win.

You can say all you want about the commendation but is one of the best trinkets out there, I can say that it has saved my ass tonz of times.

........because you were wearing it. Have you considered that perhaps you weren't actually in danger when it procced? How do you know it saved your arse, have you gone into the same situations without it on and not survived? The proc doesn't know that your healers are all miliseconds from healing you to full health, it doesn't know that the large hit that just took you below 35% health is something he's not going to do again straight away, it doesn't know that soon your healers are going to be silenced and you're going to need its help more then.

I'm not arguing about the value of it anymore, i'm not un-intelligent and i've taken on board the comments and theory that others have provided. Across a given period of time it provides a nice amount of avoidance and of course a big chunk of stam. I'm now arguing against those who consider it an emergency situation trinket, sometimes it will be but if you're counting on it to save your arse for the reasons you posted then you should be more inclined to bitch-slap your healers into doing their jobs better than wearing a trinket to account for that.

Just to clarify my standpoint I am talking purely from an endgame 25 man boss fight perspective, not a 5/10 man situation

[ebs2002]

How do you know it saved your arse, have you gone into the same situations without it on and not survived? The proc doesn't know that your healers are all miliseconds from healing you to full health, it doesn't know that the large hit that just took you below 35% health is something he's not going to do again straight away, it doesn't know that soon your healers are going to be silenced and you're going to need its help more then.

The same case can be made when using Oh-Shit buttons. You don't necessarily know that a heal is just a millisecond from landing. And even if you use your Oh-Shit button and you dodge an attack, you don't KNOW that you wouldn't have dodged that attack before you clicked your Moroes trinket. You don't know that any given piece of gear has "saved your ass", that's clear.

Your trinket doesn't make or break anything happening while you're tanking. Neither does your breastplate, your shield, your cloak, or your tabard. It's all a part of the whole.

And yes, I'm certain that there are times that my Commendation has caused me to survive something I otherwise would have died against, but I can't (nor do I endeavor to) point to any specific instance. The laws of mathematics just imply that it's had to have happened at some point, across countless procs in countless encounters.

Obviously if you want an emergency trinket and can spare 57sta, then a lucky stopwatch is better. And if you want two emergency trinkets, the commendation gets removed for Hydross' trinket, or whatever you have. Or if you need an emergency trinket and more expertise because of parry gibs, and you can spare the stamina, the commendation comes off.

Consider this: you have two trinkets, one is the commendation, and one has 57sta and 15defense rating. You need stamina, and the fight has high burst damage, and there's only one trinket slot available. The commendation's effect would make me choose it over the one with passive defense rating in this situation. The effect is at least somewhat significant.

Of course, we don't have this choice, the other item doesn't exist. I just used it to illustrate that you shouldn't dismiss it's proc as worthless.

tl;dr: It's obviously not the best trinket when you need to blow multiple oh-shit cooldowns. It has a proc that can help you in oh-shit situations, but shouldn't be relied upon. Don't ignore the proc, but don't treat it as a savior.

Whew...I need a snack

[Slobash]

You sort of agreed with me so i'm going to pretend you totally did

Like I said i'm battling against those who are considering it an emergency trinket so i'm gonna quote "Obviously if you want an emergency trinket and can spare 57sta, then a lucky stopwatch is better" and point out the word "obviously" and pretend you're on my side

<3

[Thaliodin]

My perspective is significantly different since I now play a pally tank in TBC, especially as an AOE tank/sometimes MT in Hyjal and BT. Ardent Defender is always waiting back there if I hit 35%, so the Commendation serves as a useful supplement to it by adding an 8% chance to not take the hit in the first place. For that matter, the 57 STA (with 16% more for talents, call it 65) adds a nice supplement for when both kick in. When AOE tanking, it's not too unusual to take initial burst damage on a MH trash wave that may push me down below 35% health, even at 21.5K fully buffed, so AD's damage reduction stacks nicely with Commendation's dodge addition.

However, some basic truths apply to all tanks. Your main job is to take a beating so that your raid doesn't. More STA, mitigation, etc is generally the best way to do that as long as you are able to generate enough threat to let the DPS do their job. If you are at 35% or less health, then your main job is 1)survive until the healers can get you back up and 2)keep aggro so the DPS can continue to do their job. If you die, it doesn't matter if you kept aggro. If you live but lose aggro, there's a solid chance it won't matter if you lived.

Figuring .62K health (with BoK):
Additionally, Commendation is useful in some areas where the Pocketwatch has no effect or a sporadic effect. Namely, big burst damage and spells. Moroes' is great if you have time to trigger it. However, if a boss is wailing on you for 6-8K damage, that extra .62K health comes in very useful, giving you a bigger chance to absorb the damage and let the healers get you back out of the danger area. The 8% dodge may help you dodge that "big one" but not enough to cause a repeated chance of avoiding getting hit. The 18% dodge from Moroes' leaves you with a decent chance of becoming rage-starved and causing that aggro loss.

Even with Spell reflect, you will at times get hit by spells. Spells ignore all of that beautiful armor and avoidance that we tanks stack, leaving you requiring a means to soak the damage to lessen its overall impact. The Pocketwatch does not give you health to soak that damage, but the Commendation does.

If the talents currently being developed for WotLK remain the same, this trinket or one similar to it will be very nice, since you'll generate rage when you dodge anyway.

[Daimon]

........because you were wearing it. Have you considered that perhaps you weren't actually in danger when it procced? How do you know it saved your arse, have you gone into the same situations without it on and not survived? The proc doesn't know that your healers are all miliseconds from healing you to full health, it doesn't know that the large hit that just took you below 35% health is something he's not going to do again straight away, it doesn't know that soon your healers are going to be silenced and you're going to need its help more then.

Just to clarify my standpoint I am talking purely from an endgame 25 man boss fight perspective, not a 5/10 man situation

How i know it? because I look up and to see that green little buff in my bar, then watch my portrait and see the "dodge, dodge, miss, dodge" and that makes me smile (while I drink a pot or HS, just because).

You miss the fact that all is ruled by statistics, a regular T5 tank as myself buffed reach 20-21k hp which makes the trinket active at 7k, at that health in a fight like tidewalker for instance, you are in the "Oh shit" moment, is the +dodge passive from the pocket alone proccing to help my ass? do you know that for sure? No. Are you fully confident he won't parry next time with +40% attack speed, making the next swing a wipe? You can't.
You are on the "I need to click that damn watch fast" moment. I hope you don't miss because you are risking a raid thinking your healers are miliseconds away from topping you, when they could be on a watery grave. Having that "tanking?" trinket makes easier to hit another "oh shit" bottom if the situation requires. If your healers topped you the next milisecond, great! you still have 10secs (if i remember well) to wait for another torturing proc, and not 2min of the pocket.
As some1 said before your job is not only to be alive this second of this fight, but until the boss is dead. Random thing happens, if you have anything that will help to prevent the unthinkable then you are a boyscout tank. This was an example, there are several other fights that have similar situations. And i'm not even talking about the 57stam bonus, which is what makes it great. There are better trinkets, sure, but that depends on the rest of your gear and how you balance it.
The commendation is very close to the wellfare epics, ez to get and hard to replace.

[Slobash]

Again it comes back to having faith in your healers which you obviously don't. If watery graves cause a healing issue on you (as the MT) then you should be considering plans to avoid this issue. In the mean time if you've been smacked low from an unlucky combination and your trinket has become active then you've received heals and continued tanking (as the above scenario implies) what happens when he quakes? Depending on what strategy you're using but most involve healers not aggroing the murlocs when they spawn (unless you're using a holy pally to draw them to one spot) which means your healers are trying their best to NOT heal you for as long as they can. Would this not be the time you REALLY want some avoidance to give them the breathing room they require?

What you are saying is "I am at low health and I don't believe my healers will get me back up and I need more avoidance at this point". What i'm saying in the same situation is "I am at low health but my latent avoidance and the faith I have in my healers will keep me alive and i'd prefer to save my burst avoidance for the times when my healers need me to be avoiding more hits".

I'm a control freak and I like to be able to tank consistently and finish fights in the same way. If I spike low and a trinket procs more avoidance and I live (because of that avoidance) it means my healers will assume that next time I drop that low i'll live again, unaware that the trinket is unable to proc again. I'd rather instil a sense of urgency in my healers that getting me back to a safe level of health is a priority.

@Thaliodin
"The 18% dodge from Moroes' leaves you with a decent chance of becoming rage-starved and causing that aggro loss. "

It's already been shown that across a given period of time the commendation provides more avoidance than the pocketwatch (on equip and on use abilities combined) hence the commendation rage starves you even moreso. As you say though this becomes less of an issue in the expansion with the new "rage for avoiding" talent.

I think your understanding of spell reflect is a bit off, any spells that are a serious problem in endgame raids are generally not reflectable anyway. While this is just for clarification it really just adds fuel to your argument as it means that it's even more important to have more stamina in fights where you're taking a lot of spell damage. I don't think anyone would disagree that in a spell-intensive fight avoidance is less important than stamina.

[OnourisofRavencrest]

I think your understanding of spell reflect is a bit off, any spells that are a serious problem in endgame raids are generally not reflectable anyway.

Hmm, we're currently working on Council and shield reflect is by far my number one threat ability .

This argument as a whole though is flawed. Whatever a tank wears is perfect, as long as it gets the job done. We could easily be arguing over whether or not Str+Stam gems should be used to tank or why Boar's Speed is far better an enchant than 12 Stam along with a host of other ways to pick each other apart but as long as the boss dies, who cares?

[Slobash]

Delete this entire forum I say!!

That'd end up kinda boring though.....