Armor vs Stam: Effective Health

[Edgewalker]

Think Anub'arak. When you are frozen, you can mitigate damage via armor, but cannot dodge, parry, be missed. Same for bosses that do knock downs (Icehowl) or stuns (Maexna).

And it should be noted that tanks almost always die SOLELY from those instances. The first few bosses in ICC seem to be a welcome change away from this thus far though.

[Aradril]

All that is a question of terminology. The classic terminology is mitigation opposed to avoidance. Mitigation being fixed and resulting mainly from armor and stance, and avoidance being statistical and resulting mainly from dodge, parry and misses. I know.

But while I'm not that familiar with english, I have a clear conception, though not original at all, where I distinguishes :
1) what is usually called "mitigation", that I like to call "fixed mitigation" (and part of EH because you can rely on it)
2) what is usually called "avoidance", that I prefer include in a wider and IMO more relevant concept called "statistical mitigation" including as well block and other variables that tend to stastically provide a sort of mitigation (but not reliable, unless huge iterations).
3) the combination of the two types of mitigations, fixed and statistical, called "global mitigation"

I had that conception before knowing about Rawr, but I see that Rawr has a quite similar conception, and calls "total mitigation" what I just called "global mitigation", what is the same to me. As far as I remember, Whithetooth calls it "total damage reduction" or something like it in Tantpoints. So I think it's a relevant conception, maybe more relevant than the three classical concept alone : "EH", "mitigation", "avoidance".

Why ? Because IMO there is two major relevant concepts when thinking about survivability, being "EH" and "global mitigation" (or "total"), that deserve two different goals or logics : surviving some huge bursts for "EH" and being economic to heal for "global mitigation". And one step under, when thinking about "global mitigation", there is again two major logics : what is fixed, constant and you can rely on, and what is only statistical, variable, and you can expect but not rely on. Avoidance is just part of the second logic, but not all. Unless you're unhittable, and even if you're, because of critical blocks and block mastery, glyphs etc, block is variable and necesseraly a "statistical mitigation". If you go further, you can also put the effect of expertise against bosses that have still parry-haste in that category, along with a lot of proc "including Aegis of Black Heart, that is no real "fixed mitigation" and "EH" as it's not truely relyable). This division between what is relyable and what is not is usefull, as it open to a clear conception of EH : "HP" increased by "fixed mitigation".

Well, I hope you see what I meant, it's not just easy trolling. But I agree that my terms are or could be confusing, and it was the very reason why I tried to sum up the idea briefly in parenthesis hehe. Anyway, if you have suggestions about terms more relevant in good english, I would be elated.

[Bashal]

I think part of this discussion has gone awry, in that we're talking about general principles and then applying them to one trinket slot choice.

You can use the same argument for and against a specific trinket ("It's useless because...") as you can for any specific choice in any armor slot. This is because the difference in health/EH/armor/whatever is minor. In isolation, all upgrades or gear choices are minor improvements at best ("woohoo! .25% more expertise! wow!). It is the aggregate benefits from all pieces in your tanking set, how you gemmed/chanted them, etc., that matters.

[Satorri]

And it should be noted that tanks almost always die SOLELY from those instances. The first few bosses in ICC seem to be a welcome change away from this thus far though.

I don't know. I would say that usually the only reason a tank will die is interruption of heals.

Heroic Gormok is capable of overcoming healing by just bursting more damage in a short span, more than healing can counter if it times out just right.

Otherwise in order for the tank to die, there needs to be some reason he/she's not getting the fullest heals needed. That could be because,

1.) Line of sight with the healers
2.) A healer died
3.) A healer is healing the wrong target
4.) Too many of the assigned healers were stunned, feared, moving out of fire

That all assumes that the tank isn't doing anything distinctly wrong, like standing with his back to the target, or taking a massive hit without a cooldown ready, or out of the appropriate mitigating presence, stance, etc.

Really I don't think you can blame those instances for anything more than causing slightly more than usual damage.


I agree with you on ICC, though. So far there seems to be very little potential for "ut oh, massive spike of damage, couldn't have saved you unless I lucked out and my giant heal landed at just the right moment."

[jere]

But while I'm not that familiar with english, I have a clear conception, though not original at all, where I distinguishes :
1) what is usually called "mitigation", that I like to call "fixed mitigation" (and part of EH because you can rely on it)
2) what is usually called "avoidance", that I prefer include in a wider and IMO more relevant concept called "statistical mitigation" including as well block and other variables that tend to stastically provide a sort of mitigation (but not reliable, unless huge iterations).
3) the combination of the two types of mitigations, fixed and statistical, called "global mitigation"

Oh I agree it comes down to how you define it. We need to keep definitions consistent though. At tankspot, I believe it is referred to as Total Damage Reduction (TDR) as well. Check the website calculator. While I don't necessarily agree with that name, it is what is used on the site, so we should try to be consistent. Here we typically distinguish between mitigation and avoidance as separate entities.

It gets confusing if people start using all their own definitions for the same things, especially if those definitions end up using similar words to describe different things. We need to stick to some kind of standard, otherwise readers get confused.

In general, we tend to define mitigation as anything that mitigates the damage (I.E. lowers its value.). Avoidance doesn't do it. Avoidance totally negates the damage rather than lowering it. Total Damage Reduction takes into account both sources. Neither is really defined by the statistical nature though (unless you are trying to distinguish EH sources).

[Darksend]

Time-to-Live is the term you are looking for instead of global mitigation.

[Vlad]

#


This is not logically correct.

Let's use the same scenario of damage and you have the choice between a trinket that gives you 2000 HP or an armor trinket that reduces physical damage by a further 5% (roughly equiv to the glyph).

Now, lets say you try the stamina trinket first, unless you find yourself below 2000 HP then the stamina trinket has not helped you one single bit (apart from say, minor things like if you use a %HP based self heal or something). Whereas if you had the armor trinket you would have reduced the damage you take in that fight by 2.5% every time.

So, an armor trinket will help you 100% of the time for a varying, but significant amount, whereas it's RNG whether that extra stamina is of much use at all. If course, i'm not saying stamina is shit, it's just that it's usefulness lies in it's overall level and not the choice between two items.

Yeah I agree balance is important, but weighting on stam is as undervalued as the weighting generally given to armour is over valued.

I guess the key is looking at it from a healers POV, I currenty also heal hard mode fights on toon I have and have tanked a fair few.
Healing pallies and warriors is significantly easier than healing a DK for instance, the reason is block.. which sorta works like armour in the sense it (often) reduces the total value of a strike, so healing is less pressured.
But when it's time to heal a tank who is in for a really savage beating, I'll prefer to have the headroom a health stacked tank provides.
Now this of course assumes he's gone to some effort to have avoidance/mit gear, but at the end of the day I can always heal harder to cover greater dmg. If the health pool of the tank means he can't take two or three shots without dying then it's time to stack some stam.

I'm not saying armour is crap, I'll be using some of the badge gear over T10 because armour is great.. it's just not as good as health when it matters in the big fights.

[Gehn]

Do the numbers in the first post relate to raid buffed numbers or unbuffed numbers?

[Satorri]

The numbers in the first post are designed to be close to raid buffed values. The point is, whatever buffs you have, if you have X health and Y armor, what would be the value if you added a set amount of Stamina versus a set amount of Armor (a la adding one trinket or the other).

So, raid buffed or not doesn't actually matter, only your total health and armor.

[Reev]

Yeah I agree balance is important, but weighting on stam is as undervalued as the weighting generally given to armour is over valued.

I guess the key is looking at it from a healers POV, I currenty also heal hard mode fights on toon I have and have tanked a fair few.
Healing pallies and warriors is significantly easier than healing a DK for instance, the reason is block.. which sorta works like armour in the sense it (often) reduces the total value of a strike, so healing is less pressured.
But when it's time to heal a tank who is in for a really savage beating, I'll prefer to have the headroom a health stacked tank provides.
Now this of course assumes he's gone to some effort to have avoidance/mit gear, but at the end of the day I can always heal harder to cover greater dmg. If the health pool of the tank means he can't take two or three shots without dying then it's time to stack some stam.

I'm not saying armour is crap, I'll be using some of the badge gear over T10 because armour is great.. it's just not as good as health when it matters in the big fights.

Armor and Stamina both serve the same purpose on physical bosses. Stamina increases the amount of damage you can take before dying. Armor does the same thing, and also reduces damage intake. It ends up being a question of which increases the total unitigated damage you can take, your Effective Health, more.

[Satorri]

On that topic, I'm wondering how all the un-flinching pure health junkies are doing in ICC?

Healer mana is still not an issue, but it's no longer as crucial to have MASSIVE health pools to survive successive hits, suddenly there's more value in just taking less damage.

Anyone actually stopped filling every socket with pure stamina and nothing else?

[Satrina]

Healer mana is still not an issue ... suddenly there's more value in just taking less damage.

Those thoughts don't really follow logically.

If there's a ton of raidwide damage making it such that healer time should be devoted to over the tank(s) or a desire to stock one less healer (or have one switch to dps), then that's one thing. Everything else being equal, I don't see why you'd bother to change up your gemming except out of some sort of OMG CHILL OF THE THRONE NERFED MAH AVOIDZ nonsense.

(Edit: Saurfang being an exception since avoidance plays a useful but non-tanking role there as below. You are, of course, back to the old adage wearing the correct gear for the encounter)

[Meloree]

On that topic, I'm wondering how all the un-flinching pure health junkies are doing in ICC?

Healer mana is still not an issue, but it's no longer as crucial to have MASSIVE health pools to survive successive hits, suddenly there's more value in just taking less damage.

Anyone actually stopped filling every socket with pure stamina and nothing else?

Did just fine. But there isn't more value in taking less damage on any of those fights, per se. There's value in not being hit that's not related to tank survival, due to other mechanics.

However, breaking down the 4 normal-mode fights so far:
Marrowgar is a physical EH fight. You might take an unsplit lash, after Bone Storm, depending on how quickly all the tanks can get assembled. I popped a cooldown at the end of every Bone Storm on both 25s and both 10s I tanked, but EH is definitely the way to go.

Deathwhisper is a magical EH fight. The only thing that will kill you is bad interrupts, stacking up health is definitely the way to go.

Gunship Battle is a tough call so far, but I'm leaning EH. Going from 45% to 55% avoidance for ~10k health reduces the expected stack size at a given time by ~15%, but it also reduces your ability to survive at any given stack size. It significantly lowers the "2hit" threshold. I was perfectly safe in 25man at 35-40 stacks, and we had to retreat exactly once. I'll try full avoidance next week, to get a feel for it, but I'm betting that I end up back in EH.

So Deathbringer Saurfang is the only fight that's left. He definitely rewards avoidance, but it's not for survival. He rewards avoidance because avoidance reduces the buildup rate of marks, it stabilizes the fight in a way that's somewhat external to tank survival. If he hits like a truck in heroic mode, then we'll be wearing high EH, because survival is the first job, and we'll fit in what avoidance we can. I (somewhat foolishly) solotanked him on my EH stacked paladin - ~45% raidbuffed post-chill avoidance, and the 3.5 minute kill had 5 total marks. I expect that next week, even though we'll be running mixed alt/main groups, we'll get the achievement with 2 avoidance-stacked tanks, with a ~4minute kill.

So, to answer the question at the end, I haven't stopped filling every socket in my main progression gear with stamina and nothing else, and I don't think there's any reason to expect that I should change that just yet. I do have avoidance-gemmed/enchanted pieces, although for now they're more ilvl245 than 258, and I'll be mixing those in for some of these fights, next time around. Blizzard hasn't given us a fight in ICC, yet, where tank survival depends on avoidance. They have given us fights where avoidance is rewarded, but I can get away with the older gear there, so far, because those fights don't threaten tanks.

[idsuej]

I guess the key is looking at it from a healers POV, I currenty also heal hard mode fights on toon I have and have tanked a fair few.
Healing pallies and warriors is significantly easier than healing a DK for instance, the reason is block.. which sorta works like armour in the sense it (often) reduces the total value of a strike, so healing is less pressured.

[Satorri]

If there's a ton of raidwide damage making it such that healer time should be devoted to over the tank(s) or a desire to stock one less healer (or have one switch to dps), then that's one thing.

And that's all I mean. If you're taking less damage it compounds the non-time intensive state where the tank won't die if you miss a heal cast on him, so the healers can take more time still to keep others alive or come back to you slowly/less often.

*Maybe* it makes your team a little safer.


I find it funny how many people zealously defend the use of Stamina at the expense of other potential bonus values like socket bonuses. Like it's a personal insult to question that.

[Satrina]

I find it funny how many people zealously defend the use of Stamina at the expense of other potential bonus values like socket bonuses.

That's simple, and not necessarily limited to those who stick stamina in the sockets or not. Too many socket bonuses aren't worth getting, no matter what you socket in there to get them. A lot of socket-bonus-seekers end up throwing away itemisation points by wanting those letters in green instead of gray. The argument of stamina vs. avoidance is old, and the arguments both ways are years old, and it's not really worth rehashing yet again.

[Satorri]

Indeed. I've never seen a wasted socket bonus for a tank though.

Stam, Dodge, Defense, most of the time, usually in that order.

Personal choice, of course, but when you can trade 15 stamina to get 8/9/12 stamina and say 10 Str/Exp/Agi/Dodge/Hit/Def? I'd take the bonus.

[Insahnity]

Indeed. I've never seen a wasted socket bonus for a tank though.

Stam, Dodge, Defense, most of the time, usually in that order.

Personal choice, of course, but when you can trade 15 stamina to get 8/9/12 stamina and say 10 Str/Exp/Agi/Dodge/Hit/Def? I'd take the bonus.

I LOVE going for socket bonuses, but I have had to go with pure stamina until I get better gear. Before ICC gear, you had to min/max for stamina for ToGC.
My biggest problem is what to do with yellow slots. For some reason, I always seem to be able to squeeze in more expertise for red slots instead of falling for dodge, but it's sometimes easy to be hit capped, and adding defense is not as useful for paladins or warriors unless making a block set. And let's not get into druids, who don't use defense, but found T9 full yellow sockets while being over hit cap (because it was so heavily favouring kitty).

[Satorri]

Personally, I've had a long long history of flirting with the hit cap or falling a ways short and relying on food. I didn't see any yellow slots until my 4th piece of t9 though (not since JC gems ceased to be prismatic letting me cover non-blue sockets AND stack stamina with socket bonuses), so I never had to make that choice.

Now I've been using hit/stam, but I'd probably use Def/Stam otherwise (though I was tempted to do Crit/Stam because I'm silly). Even over the crit-cap point Defense is still nice for avoidance if you're OCD like me about squeezing out the bonuses.

I'm also a little sad that my prot warrior doesn't need hit rating to feel as solid as my DK does (quirk of runes), or that my bear can be wearing gear roughly 20 ilvls lower and have as much health even without the same degree of stam stacking (Black Heart/Armor trinket too). But only a little sad, I love my toons, and I love that they even play differently for gearing.

[Chamenas]

I don't know where to ask this... but where do you come up with ideal armor/health value? Is it based on X amount of hits in X amount of seconds before you die?