Tanking - Dodge/Parry soft caps?

[Thegreatiam]

I've come to realize that my dodge rating is hitting a fairly heavy DR (my trinket should give about 7% dodge on use, and I'm getting about 4.6%).

Would somebody mind posting the soft cap for both dodge and parry ratings?

[jere]

There isn't really a soft cap for those that is practically achievable with current gear, and even then it wouldn't technically be a cap, but more of a value where the returns small enough to where you don't have much difference (which is totally subjective).

You can balance your intake of dodge with parry to get some more bang for your buck sometimes.

Basically if you take the character sheet %'s for both and run this equation:

(char_sheet_dodge-10)/(char_sheet_dodge-10)

If the value of that is more than 1.875, then you can start using parry gems, etc. If it is less than 1.875, you still stick with dodge. However, remember that parry is hit with DR much more quickly than dodge is, so even if you are over 1.875 now, adding some parry might push your result back in favor of stacking dodge. You have to keep tabs on it.

Lets look at your armory for example:
27.64% dodge
18.77% parry

(27.64 - 10)/(18.77 - 10) = 2.011

2.011 > 1.875, so even without raid buffs, you are already in a situation where you should gem some parry rather than dodge to get more overall avoidance.

That brings up one more key point: try to do that calculation fully raid buff for the most accurate result for raiding.

[Thegreatiam]

Well, my only dodge gem is the one in my helm (regal dreadstone), rest are stam...so I will most likely start looking at gearing options and the like.

I was under the impression that the term "soft cap" was when DR started, and "hard cap" was when adding a stat gave no returned value. Am I wrong? If so, where?

Also, just realized WowHead is using the old rating per percent for dodge...grr >.>

[jere]

I was under the impression that the term "soft cap" was when DR started, and "hard cap" was when adding a stat gave no returned value. Am I wrong? If so, where?

I have never heard of that in terms of avoidance. The only reference to a dodge cap that you will hear deals when adding expertise no longer reduces the enemy's chance to dodge your attackes (26 expertise), which is the expertise soft cap or expertise dodge cap.

DR kicks in the moment you start adding defense, dodge rating, or agility to your gear. DR doesn't apply to base dodge or talented values of dodge% (which is why there are those -10's in the equation). But there is no soft cap. DR kicks in from the moment you say GO.

[Thegreatiam]

Ok...makes sense as to why I found nothing via searches lol.

I'm not new to number crunching and general theorycrafting, but I'm not 100% comfortable with all of it yet either. Thanks for correcting my mistake =)

with the formula [d = (bc) / (b + kc)] from the wowwiki DR page (which is copied from whitetooth's EJ post on combat ratings), would i use b=17.64 for the calculation of dodge, or is it actually 27.64% minus the 5% + 3.2685% talent + base? (roughly 19.37%)

[jere]

It's minus the 5%, the 3.2685, and the dodge you get from naked agility. None of those are affected to DR. The sum of those is roughly around 10% (slightly varies between races), so you should roughly be around 17.64% after subtracting them out.

[Thegreatiam]

TYVM for the help - if I wasn't sleep deprived I probably would have noticed the rest of the page on dodge and been able to figure that out, but meh. Graphing it out now so I can play around =)