Crucial Warrior Tanking Stats After Defense Cap

[Tooth]

I've capped Defense and am trying to figure out what other stats to focus on. I'm thinking primarily stamina and threat generation but I was hoping someone could take a look at my stats and see if there are any glaring issues or inconsistencies:

The World of Warcraft Armory

Thanks!
Tooth

[Kerchunk]

I've capped Defense

No, you haven't.

and am trying to figure out what other stats to focus on.

A healthy balance of avoidance, health and threat generating stats to suit the content you're clearing.

All of your stats need work right now, and "avoiding" Defense just because you have 540 would be a mistake in your case.

Considering all the upgrades available to you, you're going to be grabbing whatever drops with little regard to the way it rebalances your stats (provided you don't become crittable again).

Just keep upgrading for now and stop thinking in terms of a Defense cap and you will be fine.

[Rhyseh]

Read the articles here on Tankspot. They will answer your questions.

[kelvin]

Tooth this is what you are aiming for as a protection warrior

Defense Cap 540
Expertise Cap 26
Hit Cap 262
Health 28K (Unbuffed, not even your own commanding shout)

The previous post were right defense, expertise and hit are not hard caps. You can still benefit from raising them higher but, the return on investment isn't worthwhile. Once you get your stats to this point you will be ready to tank anything. Honestly, the best practice is just to run Heroics and Raids until you get better gear. The crafted tank Helm could help you a lot though.

A couple of other points, I think your talents could use some work. The Deep Wounds Protection Spec will do more damage and threat for you. Also, I think any tank should consider Jewelcrafting as a profession. The trinkets you can make are some of the best in the game. You could also craft your own tank ring and necklace.

Good Luck!

[Kerchunk]

The previous post were right defense, expertise and hit are not hard caps. You can still benefit from raising them higher but, the return on investment isn't worthwhile.

How so? Please explain what you mean. The "return on investment" for Defense is just as much after 540 as it was before. The benefits of Defense do not magically lessen after 540. It is not even a "soft cap" in the strict sense. It's a minimum requirement and there's no reason whatsoever to stop at (or near) 540.

[smackers]

How so? Please explain what you mean. The "return on investment" for Defense is just as much after 540 as it was before. The benefits of Defense do not magically lessen after 540. It is not even a "soft cap" in the strict sense. It's a minimum requirement and there's no reason whatsoever to stop at (or near) 540.

I think he means that since tooth has a Def of 546 but a hit rating of 176, an Exp of 12 and health of 23K that his efforts would be better spent getting his exp/hit/health up then going after more def points. But then you pointed that out earlier.

[kelvin]

The return on investment is not just as much before 540 as afterwords. If you are below 540 you can be hit by a critical strike from a raid boss, if you are above it you can't. Can you tank a raid boss with less than 540 defense? Yes but, he could 1 shot you with a critical hit which would probably mean a wipe for your raid. Can you be hit with a critical strike if you have more than 540 defense? No. You will still gain damage reduction, dodge, parry and block after 540 but, you don't need to stack defense any higher than 540. You are better off getting your expertise up to 26 to push dodge off the table for attacks against you and by you. You are better of stacking hit so your attacks don't miss the boss. You are better off generating more threat because dps will pull aggro if you can't put out enough threat. There is nothing wrong with having defense higher than 540 but, if you haven't hit the other soft caps too your are gearing, gemming and enchanting the wrong way.

[kelvin]

A healthy balance of avoidance, health and threat generating stats to suit the content you're clearing.

And what is this? Why waste the time writing a post only to use generalizations. Every tank knows you need avoidance, health and threat generating stats. That's like saying make sure you have a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other and the mobs are attacking you and not the healer.

[Kerchunk]

The return on investment is not just as much before 540 as afterwords.

Yes, it is. Defense continues to provide exactly the same avoidance budget after 540 as before. There is no change. "Uncrittability" is not a stat that gets budgeted for in items. It is a side-effect of having 540 Defense but otherwise is completely unrelated to that stat of Defense itself which, for shield tanks, remains the best avoidance stat point-for-point well beyond 540.

If you are below 540 you can be hit by a critical strike from a raid boss, if you are above it you can't. Can you tank a raid boss with less than 540 defense? Yes but, he could 1 shot you with a critical hit which would probably mean a wipe for your raid. Can you be hit with a critical strike if you have more than 540 defense? No.

Thanks! I would be surprised if anyone here was unfamiliar with this concept, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to clarify it just in case.

You will still gain damage reduction, dodge, parry and block after 540 but, you don't need to stack defense any higher than 540.

This is where your post takes a sharp turn into completely wrongsville. You don't "need" to stack Defense after 540? That's like saying you don't "need" to stack health past 26k unbuffed. It's completely silly. Sure, you can stop there, but why would you? Avoidance, like health, doesn't stop being good just because you've reached the minimum requirement. Just like you should shoot for 28k, 30k, maybe 32k unbuffed health you should likewise shoot for higher avoidance which can come from stacking Defense to 550, 560 or 580.

Nobody would advise a tank to avoid Stamina just because they "already" have 26k health, and likewise no reasonable tank should be advising people to stop at 540 Defense. It's downright unwise.

You are better off getting your expertise up to 26 to push dodge off the table for attacks against you and by you. You are better of stacking hit so your attacks don't miss the boss. You are better off generating more threat because dps will pull aggro if you can't put out enough threat.

These are all completely subjective comments. Whether or not you are "better off" going for more threat stats depends entirely on how much difficulty you are having gaining and holding a threat lead on the content you're tanking.

The difference between Threat and Avoidance is once you have a healthy lead on Threat, more of it is completely wasted - whereas Avoidance is never wasted. It's always useful for survivability and you can never have "too much" on boss encounters.

There is nothing wrong with having defense higher than 540 but, if you haven't hit the other soft caps too your are gearing, gemming and enchanting the wrong way.

Once again a completely subjective generalization. You're focusing way too much on hitting "magic numbers" if you think your priority immediately shifts to threat just because you have 540 Defense.

Again, unless threat is very specifically and often a problem for you, there's no compelling reason to prioritize Expertise and Hit over Health (Stamina) and Avoidance (Defense). If you are constantly losing aggro, fine - focus on your Hit and Expertise. If that's not the case, however, then there's no reason to switch your stat focus away from Defense just because you hit 540. None at all.

And what is this? Why waste the time writing a post only to use generalizations.

Ironic you would critique me for using generalizations since your entire post is basically a generalization about how tanks should prioritize their stats. That's exactly my point in making this statement - stat prioritization depends on your guild. It depends on the DPS you regularly run with. It depends on the content you're running (10 Naxx requires far different stat balancing than Sarthraion 3 Drake, for instance).

By making this general statement, I was pointing out to the original poster that he's got to think for himself about HIS situation and not listen to people like you who think there are hard-and-fast rules for prioritizing stats that absolutely everyone should follow or they're "doing it wrong."

I was encouraging him to evaluate his own situation and determine what stats HE needs based on that instead of trying to follow arbitrary guidelines.

So, yah. Does that explain it more clearly?

[Eisen]

Yes, it is. Defense continues to provide exactly the same avoidance budget after 540 as before. There is no change. "Uncrittability" is not a stat that gets budgeted for in items. It is a side-effect of having 540 Defense but otherwise is completely unrelated to that stat of Defense itself which, for shield tanks, remains the best avoidance stat point-for-point well beyond 540.

Yes. Technically you are right. The 541st point of defense provides the same exact amount of avoidance as the 540th did. HOWEVER. Once you get to 540, you are uncrittable. And rather than put in, say, a +16 def gem, why not put in more dodge (which will scale better into your dodge% than defense will), or maybe more expertise (to push parries off the table?). Heck, point for point, even parry is worth more avoidance than DR. The only reason you're getting DR is to be uncrittable.

That's not to say it's a cardinal sin to be at 541+. It IS saying, however, that there's something more useful you could probably be doing with your gems/enchants/gear before getting more DR.

This is where your post takes a sharp turn into completely wrongsville. You don't "need" to stack Defense after 540? That's like saying you don't "need" to stack health past 26k unbuffed. It's completely silly. Sure, you can stop there, but why would you?

No, but gearing is about balance, and achieving goals.
Goal 1- Uncrittable
Goal 2- Make it so your attacks can no longer be blocked/dodged/parried.
Goal 3- Have enough health to survive xyz encounter.

Beyond that you can think about things like being unhittable and such.

No one's saying it will hurt you to go over 540. It just means that after 540 you can spend points elsewhere and get more benefit. For threat OR avoidance.

[Kerchunk]

Yes. Technically you are right. The 541st point of defense provides the same exact amount of avoidance as the 540th did. HOWEVER. Once you get to 540, you are uncrittable. And rather than put in, say, a +16 def gem, why not put in more dodge

That's easy, because Dodge provides less avoidance than Defense! Shield tanks should never gem for Dodge when they could gem for Defense. This is true before 540, at 540 and after 540.

Heck, point for point, even parry is worth more avoidance than DR. The only reason you're getting DR is to be uncrittable.

Wrong. Defense provides more avoidance than Dodge and Parry both EVEN AFTER 540. See how widespread misinformation is on this topic? Even you, who at first glance seem to be reasonably well informed, are clearly actually clueless.

That's not to say it's a cardinal sin to be at 541+. It IS saying, however, that there's something more useful you could probably be doing with your gems/enchants/gear before getting more DR.

"More useful" is another one of those subjective comments that has no real meaning unless you talk about what your goals are. If you are having threat problems, yes, it may be "more useful" to focus on threat stats. If you're not, though, and you're regularly dying to bosses, then it's probably still "more useful" to focus on Defense - the best avoidance stat in the game (don't forget!).

No, but gearing is about balance, and achieving goals.
Goal 1- Uncrittable
Goal 2- Make it so your attacks can no longer be blocked/dodged/parried.
Goal 3- Have enough health to survive xyz encounter.

Goal 1 - Survive long enoug while holding aggro for your dps to kill the boss.

Period. End of story. That's your goal as a tank. That means you do whatever it takes to down the current boss and if you're not having problems on threat, then Health and Avoidance are your main priorities regardless of whether or not you are Expertise capped or Hit capped or whatever other caps you want to worry about.

No one's saying it will hurt you to go over 540. It just means that after 540 you can spend points elsewhere and get more benefit. For threat OR avoidance.

By now you know this is wrong, right? There's no stat you can spend points on for more avoidance than Defense. None. Not one.


EDIT: Actually, I suppose I should clarify to be absolutely accurate with my terminology, as you do get slightly more "avoidance" from Dodge than Defense, but since Defense provides Block as well, it surpasses Dodge as a combined Avoidance/Mitigation stat for Warrior tanks and takes priority over raw Dodge (and most definitely over Parry).

[Eisen]

From the thread in the Guides section re: Avoidance.

Here comes the math
The basic conversions for defense, dodge and parry rating at level 80 are:

Code:
4.91850 defense rating = 1 defense skill
39.34799 dodge rating = 1% dodge chance
49.18499 parry rating = 1% parry chance
122.9625 defense rating = 1% dodge/parry/miss chance

So, 122.9625 DR=1 D/P/M chance, for a total of 3% avoidance.
The same amount of Dodge rating=3.125% avoidance.[/quote]

Also from the same thread:

How much rating to get then, and in what balance? Check out Roana's post about balancing avoidance ratings (Balancing avoidance ratings). In summary:

- Get uncrittable via defense first (540 defense skill at 80)
- Optimal balance of defense:dodge is somewhere between 3:2 and 2:1

Now forgive me on the parry comment. That was incorrect, DR DOES scale better than parry. But dodge will still outscale DR. Although it's not a massive difference, if we're gonna nitpick down to the finest details, it's still better.

[Kerchunk]

Here are the numbers, in case you're curious:

41 Parry Rating = ~0.85% Avoidance
41 Defense Rating = 1% Avoidance, 0.33% Block Chance
41 Dodge Rating = 1.04% Avoidance

This is true at 530 Defense Rating, 540, 550, 570, etc. and unless you are crazy enough to think 0.04% Avoidance is better than 0.33% increased block chance (you're not that crazy, are you?) you have to accept that Defense Rating is king of Warrior tanking stats.

King I tell you.

So, 122.9625 DR=1 D/P/M chance, for a total of 3% avoidance.
The same amount of Dodge rating=3.125% avoidance.

Yes, and as I clarified above I was referring to combined Avoidance and mitigation. Your "math" ignores the Block Chance you get from Defense Rating which FAR surpasses the miniscule difference in avoidance between the two stats.

Defense. Is. King.

[Kerchunk]

By the way, if I seem incensed about this topic, it's because I've had this argument with 30 different people this month alone.

I actually had L80 warrior tanks telling me there was "no benefit" to Defense after 540 and swearing at me up and down in trade chat for suggesting it might be a good idea to get more than that (no lie).

So, yah. It's a hot topic for me.

One reason I hate, hate, hate the term "cap" used anywhere near, around or in close proximity to the word "Defense."

(This is my way of saying sorry if I sound like a douchebag in this thread, but I'm growing weary of having to come to the defense of Defense!)

[Roana]

Now forgive me on the parry comment. That was incorrect, DR DOES scale better than parry. But dodge will still outscale DR. Although it's not a massive difference, if we're gonna nitpick down to the finest details, it's still better.

Because of diminishing returns, that isn't true, either. Whether additional dodge or defense rating is more valuable depends on your current stats. It may be either dodge or defense rating. Most likely, though, it won't matter in any noticeable amount.

And Kerchunk is right: Defense rating is valuable as an avoidance stat in its own right and the term "defense cap" is as misleading as can be; it is a minimum, not a cap.

[kelvin]

By the way, if I seem incensed about this topic, it's because I've had this argument with 30 different people this month alone.

I actually had L80 warrior tanks telling me there was "no benefit" to Defense after 540 and swearing at me up and down in trade chat for suggesting it might be a good idea to get more than that (no lie).

So, yah. It's a hot topic for me.

One reason I hate, hate, hate the term "cap" used anywhere near, around or in close proximity to the word "Defense."

(This is my way of saying sorry if I sound like a douchebag in this thread, but I'm growing weary of having to come to the defense of Defense!)

I'm sorry you have issues with the term "Defense Cap" but, the reality is you are trolling here. Your whole purpose is to tell everyone else they are wrong and argue ridiculous points. I hope you feel a nice little ego boost over all your manic ranting. Maybe that will make you feel more important. This guy is asking for help and your initial response was to tell him his thinking was wrong, his gear was garbage and he should just worry about upgrading it, and that he needed to focus on stats without giving him any numbers to look at. Wow is a game of numbers and stats, for a tank just getting started with heroics or raids having goals to shoot for helps you to make gear, gem and enchantment decisions. Why don't you add your characters in so we can see what the God of warrior tanks has for stats. I have a feeling you have a fair amount of hit and expertise. I am sure you aren't rocking 900 defense. The high end gear is itemized for more expertise and hit so as much as you would like to avoid them you can't.

The bottom line is my post was a lot more helpful than yours. I am trying to help this guy while you are looking for people to bask in your glory. Why don't you take your argument back to trade chat were people can ignore you easily.

[Eisen]

Now now kids, fight later.

Whatever his intent, the math Kerchunk provided is correct. However as others have pointed out itemization makes it useless. You can't stack defense as well as block/dodge/parry, simply because gear won't let you. That doesn't mean he's wrong, just that the information isn't always helpful from a gearing standpoint.

[Hengist]

How so? Please explain what you mean. The "return on investment" for Defense is just as much after 540 as it was before. The benefits of Defense do not magically lessen after 540. It is not even a "soft cap" in the strict sense. It's a minimum requirement and there's no reason whatsoever to stop at (or near) 540.

What is the point of correcting one misleading statement to replace it with another one? :/ 540 isn't defense cap by any means BUT defense up to 540 for raid tanking is more important than defense past 540.

[Kerchunk]

Sorry to necro-post, but I haven't been on in a couple days and I feel the compulsion to respond to this.

I'm sorry you have issues with the term "Defense Cap" but, the reality is you are trolling here. Your whole purpose is to tell everyone else they are wrong and argue ridiculous points.

First, I'm not telling "everyone" they are wrong - just those people who don't understand the value of Defense Rating as an avoidance and mitigation stat, and who argue that points in DR after 540 are wasted for a Tank.

As for my arguing "ridiculous" points, which of the points that I've made in this thread qualify as "ridiculous," exactly? My sole argument is that Defense Rating up to and beyond 540 is the best Avoidance/Mitigation stat in the game for shield-using tanks. Period. Since this is a fact and a very useful one for new tanks, I fail to see how my argument would be called ridiculous. Just because people disagree with me?

I hope you feel a nice little ego boost over all your manic ranting. Maybe that will make you feel more important. This guy is asking for help and your initial response was to tell him his thinking was wrong, his gear was garbage and he should just worry about upgrading it, and that he needed to focus on stats without giving him any numbers to look at.

Yah. Uhh, except I didn't say any of that at all. His gear is garbage? Huh? I said he needs upgrades. Which he does. If he didn't, why would he be here asking for help? Is it somehow insulting to mention that he has gear upgrades available in a thread discussing gear upgrades? If you don't want to read critiques about people's gear, why are you even in this part of the forums? That's what this forum is for, genius.

Why don't you add your characters in so we can see what the God of warrior tanks has for stats.

Well a) because right now I'm fury spec'd and b) because this thread isn't about me?

I have a feeling you have a fair amount of hit and expertise. I am sure you aren't rocking 900 defense. The high end gear is itemized for more expertise and hit so as much as you would like to avoid them you can't.

I do have fair Hit and Expertise, you're right. I also have 560 Defense and I'm not looking to "drop" those 20 points any time soon because I love the added avoidance and mitigation they give me beyond 540.

The bottom line is my post was a lot more helpful than yours.

Probably something for the person asking the question to determine on his own, but okay.

I am trying to help this guy while you are looking for people to bask in your glory.

Wow. Just... wow. Is this guy for real?

You can't stack defense as well as block/dodge/parry, simply because gear won't let you.

True, but I'm not talking about "stacking" Defense. Moreso, I'm talking about the propensity for tanks to want to "unstack" Defense which is a very common practice and so I think the information I'm offering is incredibly relevant and applicable.

What I hear most often is something like "Oh, I have 550 Defense so I can drop some and go for other stats!" which is true only if you are need those other stats more than avoidance and mitigation. Like I keep saying, just because you've reached 540 does not immediately mean that other stats take priority. Apart from health, avoidance and mitigation are your strongest allies as a Tank, so getting rid of DR just because you've gone past the minimum is not necessarily wise - yet SO many tanks seem to think it's the way to go.

Take me for example. I sit at ~560 Defense in my standard "hard boss" set. Yes, I could shuffle gear around and probably bump my Expertise closer to the parry cap or boost my Hit nearer that cap, but since I always have a healthy lead on threat, I have no reason to prioritize those stats over DR. I would rather keep my 560 rating and the increased avoidance/mitigation it offers than shave off those points just "because I can."

[Eisen]

Actually I'd say you have a good reason to raise exp even not concerned with threat. Pushing boss parries off the table pushes parry gibs off as well.

I think the clear asnwer to give to the original question is this:

1) Get uncrittable
2) Get a decent level of health for the encounter level you're in.
3) Get a comfortable level of avoidance/mitigation by whatever means you can (including stacking "extra' defense above the uncrittable level)
4) Get a comfortable hit/expertise level.