Reply With Quoteid go with the new shield block enchant, since your over the def cap you should be fine. if you run into problems you could always get back some def rating elsewhere. i myself am going with the shield block.
For a Warrior tank, assuming that I am over the Defense Soft cap, which shield enchant is better, the Defence or the new shield block one from BS?
Thanks
The World of Warcraft Armory
Strat: See that guy with the skull? Once he gets hit in the face with a shield, blow him up.
id go with the new shield block enchant, since your over the def cap you should be fine. if you run into problems you could always get back some def rating elsewhere. i myself am going with the shield block.
Defense is better for Survivability, Shield block is beter for single target threat, Shield spike is better for aoe threat, and +int is better for pissing off your off tank that is still wearing his crafted one while you run around with a flaming skull of doom...
18 Stamina. As a rule of thumb, if you are over the defense cap and have a choice of enchants that includes stamina, choose stamina.
As a rule of thumb, pure stam stacking died the first day of lich king. Takeing 18 stam ( a green level gems worth of stam ) over the mitigation/avoidance of +def even if your "over the defense cap" ( keep in mind this is more than a blue gems worth of defense). For a pure itemization stand point stacking stam in this case would be a waste of an enchant. You would be better to remove defense from some other area and go with stam in its place than to go with stam to shield.Originally Posted by Heisenberg
Also on a side note the defense cap is 2147483647, anything below that and your not "capped" per say. 540 is the minimum to be uncrittable by a raid level boss
Semantics. "Defence cap" is what is used and it is here to stay. You know what it means
I'd much rather have 18 stamina over defence, mainly as the stamina will help in every situation (think fire breaths here, or any other magical attack) and doesn't relying on praying for a friendly RNG.
I still am leaning towards stacking Stamina then defense since i am over 540def by far. But am looking at the new enchant pretty hard.
im crit immune (i have 555 i think) and i chose 18 stam over def or block on shield purely down to final bosses in naxx doing magical attacks rather than melee. The extra boost to your hp helps in this situation imo.
Belgariad: EU : Lightnings Blade. Once a Tank. Always a Tank.
I will have to agree that per item point, the defence enchant beats the stamina enchant, and therefore defence should be removed some other place first, in order to stack stamina. However, if you are def capped, and there are no other places to negate defence in favor of stamina, we are looking at:
18 stam = 180 HP, scales with buffs
20 defence rating = 20/4,92 = ~4 defence = 0,16% dodge, parry and block
So its basicly 180 HP, which scales, vs 0,32% pure avoidance! So whats best? My gut tells me to go for stam in this scenario. Anyone?
/A
Even if you are at or over the defense SOFT cap, I would say go for defense. Defense is the superior avoidance stat, thus the EH benefit makes it well worth it.
I was under the impression dodge rating would yield best avoidance for the buck.
Now this sentence I didn't get:
> Defense is the superior avoidance stat, thus the EH benefit makes it well worth it. <
Care to explain what you mean here?Enchanting something with defense doesn't give effective health benefits as far as I know...
For me the enchant is situational - I tend to enchant whatever I need. Currently I'm trying to find extra hitpoints everywhere. But that is mostly because I am currently progressing through ulduar and want to get to the point where I can survive at least 2 blows in a row without healing. As soon as I feel I am in the safe zone I'll go back towards more threat/avoidance oriented enchants. In either case I guess I'd more often use a shield spike than I would use the extra blockvalue one. Though I guess for a pure single target threat set it might be the enchant to roll with... (hope that helps a little)
My lack of proper signature actually is a proud minimalistic stand
Stamina equivalent to Defense enchant on shield should be 30sta, however it's not in game, let's hope it will be.
Look it this way: If you enchant defense on shield you can put in other slots some gear that lacks defense and have much superior stamina itemization.
Mookey | GM of <RISE> Xavius [EU]
To reiterate what Mookey's saying. You have to look at enchants in terms of opportunity cost as well. A quick and dirty example would be slapping 20 defense on the shield. (instead of +18 stamina) Then swapping a +16 defense gem to +24 stamina.
So instead of 18 stamina/16 defense you end up with 24 stamina/20 defense. Win all around.
Anyways, rather than be repeatative I'm really replying to post this link: There's a pretty detailed post here: Should I Gear, Gem or Enchant for Defense? - Warriors - TankingTips.com
which goes into much greater detail on this topic.
Ok, here is the million dollar question.
I do not have a single defense enchant or gem on my gear with the exception of my helm and shoulder enchants. I have stam to bracers, health to chest, armor to back etc. All of my gems are either 24 stam, or a 41 stam prismatic. No defense trinkets.
What should i have? 20 defense? even though i dont need it to stay capped? or 18 stam?
20 def... unless you dont ever plan to get upgrades...
all of my upgrades right now have more defense on it, or not enough of a subtraction in defense to get me under cap. As it stands right now, even without any def enchants I can still lose 12 defense rating and still be capped. Also I don't really care about spending the gold to go for defense to shield on down the line when/if I ever need it
Last edited by Jaymo83; 06-04-2009 at 02:05 PM.
You want to put the stam on your shield so go ahead and do it, The defense is higher in itemization than the stam is, provides a decent avoidance boost and a mitigation boost, but go ahead and put a stam enchant on it if you want, its your toon, but i try not to put something clearly worse in point value on.
You can put 20 defense on shield and enchant shoulders with 30 sta and get more hp...
You owe me milion dollars :P
Mookey | GM of <RISE> Xavius [EU]
Dodge scales slightly better, but dodge rating is subject to diminishing returns (the more you get, the more you need for 1% dodge) while defense rating is not. Defense also increases chance to be missed and parry. Dodge rating is still a good avoidance stat, but defense rating is slightly better.I was under the impression dodge rating would yield best avoidance for the buck.
Now this sentence I didn't get:
> Defense is the superior avoidance stat, thus the EH benefit makes it well worth it. <
Care to explain what you mean here?
For me the enchant is situational - I tend to enchant whatever I need. Currently I'm trying to find extra hitpoints everywhere. But that is mostly because I am currently progressing through ulduar and want to get to the point where I can survive at least 2 blows in a row without healing. As soon as I feel I am in the safe zone I'll go back towards more threat/avoidance oriented enchants. In either case I guess I'd more often use a shield spike than I would use the extra blockvalue one. Though I guess for a pure single target threat set it might be the enchant to roll with... (hope that helps a little)
The only part of defense rating that isn't subject to DR is uncrittability and block rating.
The dodge, parry, and miss contribution from defense rating is still subject to diminishing returns. Defense just allows you to balance out your avoidances a little better. Pre-DR's dodge rating gives more overall avoidance coupled with parry/miss being on a sharper DR curve actually make dodge better initially.
There's a breakeven point where defense will start giving better avoidance, but since every tank worth his salt is starting with +689 defense... you'd need to stack a lot and a lot of dodge to get there.
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