Expertise ever over Parry?

[Skinzenbonz]

** Sigh Title should read: Expertise ever over Hit **

I was previously a warrior in BC so I still have some warrior tendencies. I still read TankingTips.com daily.

Veneretio had an article a fewposts back talking how Expertise Rating was always superior to Hit Rating. At the time it made sense even for DKs and I took it to heart and focused on prioritizing Expertise over Hit.

We had been working on Malygos and threat was an issue at times. Survivability didn't seem to be a concern so I shied away from stam and avoidance in most cases in favor of threat.

I noticed my threat boosted almost immediately as I switched from +def gems to +expertise gems. All seemed well.

Here is my armory if anyone is interested (yes I know damn boots still ellude me, 25 man Naxx and I will have a replacement for sure):

The World of Warcraft Armory

Today I came to the realization that I have been ignoring the effect of hit on attacks using spell hit instead of melee hit. The effects of expertise on the DK are actually less than the warrior and so hit IS more important. I can easily pick up some points with some re-gemming (and I plan to) but I would like to try and understand if there is some trade off where expertise starts becoming more important than hit.

I see numbers set out for the hit caps and maybe it is that simple but I was hoping to understand a little more of the theory behind it. Just how much of our threat is made up of abilities affected by spell hit?

Thanks in advance.

[Armstrong]

For DK tanks, when threat is the main concern, Expertise is superior to Hit until you are at 26 Expertise skill. From there +Hit is superior until you are Hit capped. After you've achieved 26 Expertise AND are Hit capped, Expertise up to 55 becomes valuable again, although depending on your spec and your AP, Crit and Strength may be equally good or even better than Expertise.

[sylense]

The other thing to keep in mind, besides Armstrong's excellent advice, is the following generalization:

Blood = Mostly Physical Damage
Frost = Physical/Magic Damage
Unholy = Mostly Magic Damage

As such, keep in mind that you'll also have the spell hit cap of 17% to worry about. So, I would go for expertise until you hit 26 skill, then go for hit until you get 17% spell hit.

[Aethelas]

*pokes*

Spell hit and hit are the same stat now as far as I know? While the caps are different for a caster, versus a physical dps, so I really do not know how that adds up for a deathknight (mine is still stuck in the blasted lands and such skinning and mining)

Aethelas

[Satorri]

The caps are different for spell and melee hit (17% and 8% respectively), and the same rating applies to each at a different rate (26.23 rating = 1% reduced spell miss chance, 32.78 rating = 1% reduced melee miss chance).

For DK's we have some abilities that are melee hit based and some that are spell hit based. The easy way to decypher is that if it uses your weapon damage (or logically is done with your weapon) it is on the melee hit chances (and subject to parry/dodge unless otherwise stated in the tooltip). The others use the spell miss chance (IT, HB, Pest, BB, DnD, UB, CE, etc). Dark Command uses the melee hit chance (the glyph actually supports the common finding that the hit cap is 8% not the 9% it used to be, in case anyone was still uncertain).

[Feanorr]

Blood = Mostly Physical Damage
Frost = Physical/Magic Damage
Unholy = Mostly Magic Damage

That's true that unholy damage are mostly magic damage; but it's not true concerning hit. Because even if scourge strike deal magic damage, it's a physical skill and it use physical hit and expertise.
So as unholy with a standard rotation (IT/PS/BS/BS/SS//SS/SS/SS or something like that) there is only IT who is a spell. If you use DnD, that make 2 spells (but DnD missing one tick is less important than others misses cause it doesnt break the rotation). Compared to 7 (or 6 with DnD) physicals moves, unholy is mostly melee concerning hits.
Hum I forget Death Coil, so make it 2 (or 3) spells, if you got enough RP for it (i.e. more than RS use); physicals moves it still ahead.

For Frost, if you use OB as your main move (over HB), then again, physical moves are the majority. In a standard rotation (IT/PS/BS/BS/OB//OB/OB/OB or IT/OB/OB/BS//IT/OB/OB/BS), there is only one or 2 spells (IT) against 7 or 6 physical moves. If you use DND, it's one more spell. FS is physical (even if it can only miss, no dodge/parry/block) also. So here again, physical is the majority.
The only spec where spell hit is more important is an "HB" spec; I know some are using it even with the 5sec CD, and in this case, over 8 skills, 6 will use spell hit (2 IT and 2 HB). The RP dump will still be physical (but only for hit, not expertise).

[coe]

Feanorr, Unholly tanks like this:

DnD, IT, PS, Pest, and then what's available: RS, BB, SS, etc.

Now, if you miss with IT, you're one CD behind your dpsers If you miss with Pest, your mobs won't have any diseases. I think that Spell Hit is quite important. Unholly rotation doesn't rely on Melee hit solely.

[Feanorr]

Feanorr, Unholly tanks like this:

DnD, IT, PS, Pest, and then what's available: RS, BB, SS, etc.

Now, if you miss with IT, you're one CD behind your dpsers If you miss with Pest, your mobs won't have any diseases. I think that Spell Hit is quite important. Unholly rotation doesn't rely on Melee hit solely.

It's an AOE rotation right? Mine(s) was for single fight. And AOE mean trash or add, so a lot less spell hit needed (and a lot less important too imo).

Anyway I didnt said spell hit wasnt important, I just dont agree that unholy use mostly spell. I dont think that in a single target fight, whatever is your rotation for single, you use more spell than melee move.

[Satorri]

Incidentally, Frost and Unholy tanks have a lot of spell damage in high % amounts of their damage output (Frost: IT, HB, FS, and diseases against melee, RS, OB, and BS; Unholy: UB, DnD, ScS, Diseases, and BB, PS/IT against melee, RS, and BS) but there's still a mix of both melee hit and spell hit in there (FS and ScS use melee hit caps.

Suffice to say, no matter what your spec, auto-attacks will be in the top 3 damage dealers every time and usually worth about 25-30% of your total damage, and RS will be another one up there (if you're MTing and have strong tank gear it may be #1 or 2), both of which saying melee hit is important, and expertise is a double whammy up to 26 (sheet value) on white swings.

Expertise is not just about not missing your abilities, it is parry haste liability reduction which is important for 2-handers and even more so for dual wielders.

Hit and Expertise are equally valuable, and honestly, I do just fine not being spell hit capped, I'm currently missing about 6-7% on my IT's but that's really not the end of the world. And I don't run with a spriest or boomkin who would cut those misses in half.