Hello, my characters name is Boedker I play on the Chromaggus realm. I can't say I'm a great tank, but I hold my own in 10-25 naxx. The reason I am posting is because I don't really understand all the tanking attributes and what's better than what and such. Here is my armory if you would like to take a look. The World of Warcraft Armory .
The main reason I decided to post here is because lately I've been seeing a lot of different things. The main question from me is about defense vs other stats such as stam / parry or dodge rating. I am currently sitting at 545 in combat (my relic thing's chance to trigger the +53 def is 100% for some reason and lasts 30 seconds so I keep it up easily). I gemmed and enchanted mostly everything into stamina after I reached this plateau because I didn't know what was good.
My health sits at just a little bit over 31k unbuffed right now which is more than pretty much all good tanks I see so I was wondering what would benefit me more for gems/enchants. (I also carry the trinket from reg HoL that increases def by 63 or something which I could equip).
I armoried Ciderhelm in search of answers and saw that he had 585 defense and was enchanted/socketed with all agility/defense. I'm lost and any help would be greatly appreciated.
Another thing I am wondering about is dual wielding. I currently have in my bag Red Sword of Courage and also Infantry Assault Blade. Would it benefit me to go frost and dual wield?
Also a little question on the side is that a buddy of mine told me yesterday that he sees a lot of DK tanks using the +4% parry rune rather than the +25 def(not rating, pure def) +2% stam rune. Any input on that would help me a lot as well.
Thank you everyone.
Boedker
Well I'm no DK so don't put too much weight into my opinion, but I think DKs benefit the least from +def after becoming crit immune at 540. Reason being -- no block.
So after going crit-immune you should probably worry about parry/dodge/stam. I'm also not familiar with DK's hit/exp capping so that might not be a bad option.
Bottom line though I think, is avoid +def over 540.
>>>Hallelujah<<< Lightning's Blade Maintankadin
Unbuffed: 30934 HP, 105.66 Avoidance, Crit-immune
Well technically Druids get the least from Defense, since they can't block or parry. But I digress (since Druids don't need Defense Rating at all due to talents).
Death Knights should focus on Stamina and dps stats after becoming crit immune. I would consider it perfectly acceptable for a DK tank to sacrifice a little Stamina to gain more Attack Power, considering they already have more then Warriors and Paladins and tend to have higher avoidance and armour as well.
Personal perference of course, and other players tend to only look at a tank's HP.
Please read the forum posting rules located at the top of every forum or easily found in my signature.
Armory threads belong in the Armory forum.
Moved.
well they are doing a good thing going with the parry rating instead of the defence cause once you get to 540 defence defence is useless to you then and getting attack power really does nothing more except threat and if your any good you wont need any more..... so if i were you id go with the 4% parry rating....
I'm noticing 2 gems (one in your Monarch Crab the other in your helm) that have +AP and +Stam/Hit. I also know that you have 2 +Parry Gems, and, if you want a boost to AP, take the +8 Strength/+12 Stam gems - that way, you get the same AP but a little bit of parry to go with them. Replace the Parry gems with +Dodge gems of the same version (Regal Twilight).
Farm for the Essence of Gorssmair, which is a better trinket for HP then the Monarch Crab.
Get some new boots. You need to remove the Stoneskin rune ASAP - if you need the Sigil and the Rune, to me, it means you need to upgrade your +Def gear. Buy the bracers from the Valor merchant off of someone (Dalaran Paraperts), which are BoE.
Farm rep with Argent Dawn for their head enchant, to help with +Def.
actually the monarch crab is better if you put 2 41 stam gems in them.. equaling 154stam on that one trink then you could get the essence or get the rabit figurine and put 1 41 and a 24 sam gem in there equalling 127 stam
I won't presume to give you too much class-specific advice, because I don't play a DK. That said, there's a misconception in this thread regarding general tank stats that need to be cleared up.
Defense is not 'useless to you' once you hit 540. This is because defense does five completely different things.
Once you reach 540 defense, you are immune to critical hits, so the first of the five things defense does is 'capped'. It still increases your avoidance in three different ways.
- Reduces your chance to be critically hit.
- Reduces your chance to be hit.
- Increases your chance to dodge.
- Increases your chance to parry.
- Increases your chance to block. (This doesn't apply to DKs because they don't block.)
For example, you asked about a +4% Parry runeforge versus a +25 Defense / +2% increase in Stamina runeforge. Each point of Defense (actual Defense, not Defense Rating) adds 0.04% chance to each of the five stats I listed above. So, the +25 Defense would reduce your chance to be hit by bosses by 1%, increase your chance to dodge bosses by 1% and increase your chance to parry bosses by 1%. That's 3% avoidance right there, so assuming you're already immune to critical strikes, your decision really is between a 4% avoidance runeforge and a 3% avoidance / 2% increase in Stamina runeforge. Unless you're significantly above the effective health minimum for all encounters you'll be tanking, I'd go with the +25 Defense / 2% increase in Stamina runeforge.
Hallelujah's analysis above seems fairly spot-on regarding what stats to gem and enchant for, though my gut tells me that because of the higher diminishing returns, defense would provide more avoidance than parry in most cases. I'd have to check the math to be sure, though.
On the subject of Ciderhelm's armory--I can imagine he does a lot of testing with different gearing strategies so he can stay on the cutting edge of tanking. "Do as I say, not as I do" would apply to this situation, methinks.
"The best way out is always through." —Robert Frost
okay thank you ossix this makes a lot more sense to me. so what your saying is i should look at the different ways i could gem my gear with def vs parry vs dodge and see which way i could get the most avoidance out of it. so then what is your take on the stam gems vs def/parry/dodge, and also the couple AP/str gems i have atm?
I keep hearing this, and it's simply not true.Originally Posted by Steewe
Yes, it will generate more HP for that one item, but placing one or two Prisamtic gems in that trinket, means less prisamtic gems in other sockets.
Putting two Solid Dragons Eye in Monarch, means two less in other sockets that can be filled. Comparing Monarch Crab should be compared with 2 +24 Stam gems, and not the Primsatic gems that can be placed in any socket possible, unless the person in running in gear with very few sockets in them.
Yes. You should never gem for parry because it suffers from significantly higher diminishing returns than defense and dodge, so it becomes a question of whether defense or dodge gives you more avoidance at any given time. The optimal balance of defense:dodge is somewhere between 3:2 and 2:1.
Satrina's article on diminishing returns is a great read if you're looking to understand the math behind it.
On the AP/Strength gems:If you choose to gem for threat, you'll want to gem for hit to the cap for yellow strikes (5%) and expertise to push parry off the boss's hit table. Hit to the cap for yellow strikes is important because eliminating misses from Shield Slam/Revenge/Devastate will do more for your threat than some extra AP or Strength. With raid buffs and debuffs on the boss, this should be very easy, and you might already be at 5% without having to gem for it.As for the issue of whether to gem and enchant for Effective Health (Stamina and Armor) or Avoidance (Defense/Dodge/Parry), that's a debate that's been going on for quite some time. Personally, I fall into the Avoidance camp, and will almost always gem for Defense and Dodge. There are other intelligent tanks out there who will drop Stamina gems into every slot they get.
I'm having trouble finding the exact number for getting expertise to the parry cap, but the basic idea is that when a boss parries your attack, its next attack on you comes more quickly. So gemming expertise to the parry cap makes more of your attacks hit, and eliminates the possibility of you taking burst damage from the boss because he parries you.
Beyond this, Strength is more effective than AP for warriors and paladins (I think) because it increases block value. I'm not sure which is better for druids and DKs. That said, you will never see me with a Strength gem in a taking set. Why? Because when I want to increase my threat at the cost of survivability, I can respec and pick up a few DPS talents to reach the same goal.
If you want to understand the debate, I'd encourage you to read two articles. First, read Ciderhelm's first post in Ciderhelm - Effective Health Theory. Second, read Wanderlei - On Avoidance. Both of these articles are over a year old and contain references to dated mechanics such as crushing blows and spammable Shield Block, but the main arguments in each are still strong. Personally, I find Wanderlei's arguments to be more persuasive.
To be clear, Effective Health is still very important for an Avoidance tank, and vice-versa. Even though I find stacking Avoidance to be more effective, I would still use the 3% Avoidance / +2% increase in Stamina runeforge above the 4% Avoidance runeforge.
"The best way out is always through." —Robert Frost
Alright I've read quite a bit on the matter and I think I'm going to gem out of stam a little and gem more into dodge. The one question I have on this is what dodge gem would be best for me, and whether I should keep my +41 stam prismatics or get a dodge (dono if they have it, if not then the +27def) prismatic w/ my JC?
There is a +27 to dodge gem you can cut. I've look at it myself, to see if I want more dodge or health.
The thing to bear in mind that hasn't been brought up here is the interests of each tanking tree. Each tree has tanking strengths that you can play to smartly. Currently there isn't much that will test you even if you play it differently, but playing to the theme of a tree can yield great results.
Blood = the talents all really benefit a massive health pool. Several heals and effects are based on your total health, so playing up your stam here is golden.
Frost = this tree is pretty solid for mitigation, but armor gets the most benefit here. There aren't a lot of great choices for armor heavy gear, but it's something to consider.
Unholy = this tree relies very heavily on Bone Shield for dmg reduction. The best way to maximize this effect is focus heavily on avoidance to improve the uptime a lot.
All 3 trees benefit from good health, armor, and avoidance, and you should never focus too much on one value at the expense of another (note, I do mean expense, not just not buffing it). Always keep an eye on what the best net gain would be for you and play to that.
On gear. you will get a very nice net gain from buffing the def on your gear and switching to rune of SS. The net gain is considerably better as you trade a bit of health for a nice measure of avoidance, but more for the avoidance that will be most useful to you (one third of SSG's value is miss which does not proc RS or Scent of Blood post 3.1). I've played it out several times and the SS rune always seems to net better results. Also, your hit rating is strong and should suit you fine but your expertise is virtually non-existant. I'd highly recommend ways to play that up, as it will do very nice things for your threat and a bit for your survival as well up to 26 on the sheet.
As a side note, on your talents, there are a couple items that really aren't helping you as a tank:
Summon Gargoyle = has it's own threat, gives you none, and will only increase the raid dps. If that's good enough for you, then use it as you like, but the same is true of the perma-ghoul (you have 3 pts tied up in making it perma- and giving it Night of the Dead). I usually recommend moving these pts to something that will actually buff your tanking, but if you like it, go for it.
Wandering Plague = you have a delicious 8% chance to crit. As a tank it makes it so that this procs so infrequently the value per point is really underwhelming. There are talents that can get you much better value for your points.
If you're interested in moving points, I have recommendations, but I'll leave that to you to decide. =)
The (Old) Book on Death Knight Tanking
The New Testament on Death Knight Tanking
-----------------------------------------
Yeah my talent tree is garbage haha i knew that, was just too lazy to change before the patch came out, but that will definately help me when patch time comes. So just to make sure I understand what you're saying, I should be gemming def rating to get my def high enough so that I can use the rune of sword shattering? And i should also be looking for expertise?
So with all this said, which prismatic JC gem would suit me best? I could get the +27 def so that I can get my def up quicker to switch runes then gem a little more in expertise and other things. I don't really feel like testing things out myself when socketing gems is permanent and useless once resocketed. Another easy way for me to increase my def would be to equip Seal of Pantheon Although I'm not sure if this would be suggested over my other two trinkets?
Is there a site I can play around with gem socketings and see my stats move around to find the best combinations?
And if anybody is wondering my health isn't that important to me, I'm sitting at 31k, but I would rather have a lot more avoidance and be down around 28-29. TY
(Also I picked up a new belt/ring/cloak in 25 naxx last night and am now sitting at 549 def when the sigil procs i think.)
Last edited by holland11; 04-12-2009 at 12:00 PM.
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