Devalueing of Dodge in ICC / Tanking with DPS Sigils

[Blasterion]

In the on coming patch ICC has an aura that reduce all dodge by 20% (I personally then would be around 5% dodge) there for i feel it would render the Current Tanking Sigils Much less useful. Meanwhile, Rune Strike Procs are greatly reduced due to lack of dodge and our Threat may be in jeopardy. My theory is to use a dps sigil for Threat. I.E Awareness but i do like the change honestly Chill of the Throne = no more 2 shotted deaths

[Mert]

First off, it's a 20% reduction and, more importantly, it has no effect on Dodge over and above 20% (which realistically every tank who is geared for ICC should have) as it is reduced after diminishing returns.

For example, if your Sigil gives you an extra 5% Dodge with your current gear then it will still give you 5% Dodge in Icecrown Citadel. Dodge is really no better or worse than it ever has been as a result of the Aura and if you have a Sigil, Libram, Idol or Gun that gives you more Dodge then it's still just as viable. After all, your purpose as a tank is still to hold aggro whilst not dying - if the Sigil helps you not die then so be it.

The only things that become slightly worse off are things that proc based on a successful Dodge - obviously you'll Dodge less often in Icecrown so it'll proc less often. If it gives you a flat increase or a proc based on anything other than a Dodge then it's the same now as it always has been.

[Esch]

The only things that become slightly worse off are things that proc based on a successful Dodge - obviously you'll Dodge less often in Icecrown so it'll proc less often. If it gives you a flat increase or a proc based on anything other than a Dodge then it's the same now as it always has been.

Slightly? Having adequate avoidance on a DK Tank is a serious threat concern. I've seen shield slams, SotR and Mauls at the start of a pull yank aggro. Apologies are nice, but it has gotten to the point that if there is no Rune Strike proc, someone will pull threat.

Napkin Math - Figuring I'm ~ 50% parry/dodge raid buffed, I've got about an one in four chance of not getting my next melee hit converted to RS, against a two second swing timer. The 20% hit to dodge increases the odds of not getting an RS proc roughly from 25% to 49%. Given that RS is effectively a DKs only spammable, high threat ability... that's frightening.

[Blasterion]

First off, it's a 20% reduction and, more importantly, it has no effect on Dodge over and above 20% (which realistically every tank who is geared for ICC should have) as it is reduced after diminishing returns.

For example, if your Sigil gives you an extra 5% Dodge with your current gear then it will still give you 5% Dodge in Icecrown Citadel. Dodge is really no better or worse than it ever has been as a result of the Aura and if you have a Sigil, Libram, Idol or Gun that gives you more Dodge then it's still just as viable. After all, your purpose as a tank is still to hold aggro whilst not dying - if the Sigil helps you not die then so be it.

The only things that become slightly worse off are things that proc based on a successful Dodge - obviously you'll Dodge less often in Icecrown so it'll proc less often. If it gives you a flat increase or a proc based on anything other than a Dodge then it's the same now as it always has been.

While survival remains true That is lesser of my concern more of my concern actually lies within the less proc of Rune strikes

[Satorri]

To be clear, Chill of the Throne does *not* devalue dodge, it simply reduces it.


That said, it will be a definite issue to keep an eye on for DK tanks, and we'll see if Blizz throws us a bone to help balance that out a bit for RS threat lost. It would be a hard sell though, as changing something to shift our threat elsewhere or improve RS to counter the loss from loss of procs from dodge in IC would overpower it in all the other content. Let's see what comes of it, because you know this will not go unseen at Blizz, and they're not about to let our threat get hammered.

[Maelstrom]

That death and decay set bonus looks pretty good now. I tend to open with D&D, IT, PS, Heart Strike, ERW, DS, DS, HS, HS if burst threat really matters on the pull. This is for bosses, trash, well, frankly who gives a crap who tanks it. We had our ret paladin tank half the trash the other week when we went back to Ulduar25 for luls.

[Nephelai]

To be clear, Chill of the Throne does *not* devalue dodge, it simply reduces it.


That said, it will be a definite issue to keep an eye on for DK tanks, and we'll see if Blizz throws us a bone to help balance that out a bit for RS threat lost. It would be a hard sell though, as changing something to shift our threat elsewhere or improve RS to counter the loss from loss of procs from dodge in IC would overpower it in all the other content. Let's see what comes of it, because you know this will not go unseen at Blizz, and they're not about to let our threat get hammered.

I have posted the following point in two other threads in the last few minutes, but having lurked Satorri's posts for months I am surprised given your math skills that you didn't note that the "bone" might already be thrown. It would be consistent with their stated goals for them to speed up the auto attack timer on bosses with the new reduced avoidance mechanic. More auto-attacks (softer hitting) over time equals more chances over time to dodge/parry. This should not only smooth out damage (as is the goal), but should also result in RS procs at similar numbers with lower avoidance.

Scenario 1: On a two second timer I have 30 chances in a minute to dodge/parry and proc an RS.

Scenario 2: On a 1 second timer I have 60 chances in a minute to dodge/parry and proc an RS.

If my net avoidance from dodge and parry is 50 percent and 10 percent of attacks are misses then I dodge/parry 50 percent of 27 attacks in scenario 1 for a total of 13.5 dodge/parry per minute on a 2 second timer.

If my net avoidance from dodge and parry is 30 percent and 10 percent of attacks are misses, then I dodge/parry 30 percent of 54 attacks in scenario 2 for a total of 16.2 dodge/parry per minute on a 1 second timer.

As you can see then, the auto attacks can still be considerably slower then 1 second before I end up with less dodge/parry and thus less threat then I currently get over time on a 2 second auto-attack timer. The happy medium seems to be a boss swing timer somewhere between 1 and 1.5 seconds.

[Jeges]

It still devalues dodge. In fact, it devalues avoidance across the board. 10% avoidance might take me from 60% to 70% avoidance now, reducing damage intake by 25%. Post-aura, I'm going from 40% to 50% avoidance, reducing damage intake by only 1/6.

[lyd]

It still devalues dodge. In fact, it devalues avoidance across the board. 10% avoidance might take me from 60% to 70% avoidance now, reducing damage intake by 25%. Post-aura, I'm going from 40% to 50% avoidance, reducing damage intake by only 1/6.

that's not why it devalues avoidance. the devaluation comes from applying the 20% tax after DR instead of before it.

it is important to note that the net effect on overall survivability will be ZERO if blizzard runs the tables correctly on boss damage and swing speed. but it does have the effect of setting avoidance gains back on the regression curve by 20%. it devalues avoidance, but it does not impact your survivability. in fact, it increases it by reducing incidences of spike damage.

[KnThrak]

You could always blow ERW on the pull. I tend to do that because all my tries to use it reactively to produce some meaningful effect midfight have yielded... well... a second Blood Tap for when I want to AMZ right after I used Blood Tap on BS.

And that effect is comparatively small. It usually ends in that I actually forget about ERW.
Using it on the pull has helped a bit there. At least I used it, and I use it in a way where the gain from using it is fully reliable and perceivable, it gives me some added lead-threat. ^_^

[Masterkiller]

Scenario 1: On a two second timer I have 30 chances in a minute to dodge/parry and proc an RS.

Scenario 2: On a 1 second timer I have 60 chances in a minute to dodge/parry and proc an RS.

If my net avoidance from dodge and parry is 50 percent and 10 percent of attacks are misses then I dodge/parry 50 percent of 27 attacks in scenario 1 for a total of 13.5 dodge/parry per minute on a 2 second timer.

If my net avoidance from dodge and parry is 30 percent and 10 percent of attacks are misses, then I dodge/parry 30 percent of 54 attacks in scenario 2 for a total of 16.2 dodge/parry per minute on a 1 second timer.

As you can see then, the auto attacks can still be considerably slower then 1 second before I end up with less dodge/parry and thus less threat then I currently get over time on a 2 second auto-attack timer. The happy medium seems to be a boss swing timer somewhere between 1 and 1.5 seconds.

I think we were both thinking of the same thing, but this is all based on a faster swing timer on the majority of the bosses in ICC. I have asked around for any evidence of this based on the PTR so if you find any let's get the info out there.

However I think your dodge/parry numbers might be a bit to high for the average population. Here is what I posted over at deathknight.info

Current content:
Boss with 2 second swing timer swings 30 times per minute. With 44% dodge/parry from paper doll we are looking at 13 dodge/parry per minute or roughly one every 4.6 seconds.

ICC with Chill of the Throne 1.5 sec boss swing timer:
Boss with 1.5 second swing timer swings 40 times per minute. With 24% dodge/parry we are lookat at 9.6 dodge/parry per minute or roughly one every 6.25 seconds.

[Blasterion]

while we know that rune strike amounts will be reduced and our avoidance (dodge) will be devalued some still question lie in whether it will be better to shelf the dodge sigils for damage modifier sigils to accomodate the threat loss as well as since dodge is some what devalued

[Death Golem]

if this is just in Icecrown Citadel is it really important? barely anyone will be able to get in and actually kill any of the bosses...

[Nephelai]

I think we were both thinking of the same thing, but this is all based on a faster swing timer on the majority of the bosses in ICC. I have asked around for any evidence of this based on the PTR so if you find any let's get the info out there.

However I think your dodge/parry numbers might be a bit to high for the average population. Here is what I posted over at deathknight.info

Current content:
Boss with 2 second swing timer swings 30 times per minute. With 44% dodge/parry from paper doll we are looking at 13 dodge/parry per minute or roughly one every 4.6 seconds.

ICC with Chill of the Throne 1.5 sec boss swing timer:
Boss with 1.5 second swing timer swings 40 times per minute. With 24% dodge/parry we are lookat at 9.6 dodge/parry per minute or roughly one every 6.25 seconds.

I am getting 40.66 percent combined avoidance from dodge and parry unbuffed with 25.31 percent dodge and 20.42 percent parry (taking percents of percents to get total like a good little poker player) WoW Heroes - World of Warcraft PvE character info & ratings in gear that is probably good enough for entry level non-heroic Icecrown raiding... so your estimate of 44 percent is a little more accurate for average end game raid buffed numbers, I just used 50 percent because I was doing the math in my head, and 50 percent was easy and illustrated the principal, of course you can get crazy with the estimates, using dodge trinkets/sigils while raid buffed I usually get hit about 40 to 42 percent of the time after about a 10 percent or so miss rate derived from default boss hit rate of 95 percent adjusted by frigid dead plate and defense.

Unfortunately, I don't have any hard and fast information on what attack speed Icecrown bosses will actually have. I was just optamistically reading between the lines of the blue posts on Chill of the Throne and applying a little wishful thinking to what the words seemed to be saying. We will know more when we know more. I actually when preparing the post originally calculated the hypo Icecrown Boss at a 1.5 second swing like you did, and then changed my calculations to 1 second to make them more rosy... because this is still all hypothetical and unverifiable so I wen't with pie in the sky that looked more appetizing (imagine... decreased dodge INCREASING threat...lol).

I guess the nut shell is... faster swing time with smaller hits equals good for dk threat, but we shall see when we see.

[Zyffyr]

if this is just in Icecrown Citadel is it really important? barely anyone will be able to get in and actually kill any of the bosses...

You can expect that anyone currently capable of killing bosses in ToGC will be able to kill bosses in Icecrown Citadel.

In other words, many people will be able to.

[Edgewalker]

1. No, it doesn't devalue dodge. It doesn't make dodge gear less useful. In fact, it likely won't change or shouldn't change how anyone gears in the slightest. I expect to see this same garbage posted about 100 more times though (anyone else remember Sunwell Radiance posts? Good lord...)

2. RS Threat will, in all likelihood, be fine. Before we see boss swing speeds I would be hard pressed to find panic, especially as one of the highest easily achievable threat classes.

[Satorri]

I did some research over the weekend, and did some contemplation as well, and here's where I'm standing at the moment.

GC made a post specifically to answer this concern. Their stance is that it is not quite as big a deal as people are afraid. It will result in a loss of threat (and for everyone not just us, BoSanc, Rage from Dodge, Revenge, etc), but they're ok with that.

On the matter of how much it will actually amount to. The thought occured to me. So, we have Dodge+Parry is our chance to proc RS. Currently, pretty typical numbers to see from ToC geared tanks (somewhere between ToC10 and ToGC25) would be about 30% dodge and 20% parry without much effort or undue attention. Let's consider a 2h for the moment, as they will RS less but for bigger effect. After raid buffs you'll be swinging ~2.4 sec intervals, so 25 swings per minute. Incoming swings typically about 2.0 sec intervals (30 swings per minute). If you're currently avoiding 50% of those in a way to trigger RS, that's 15 procs per minute, and it's probably safe to guess 1 or 2 of those *may* get wasted for sequential avoids. Currently, again, roughly average RS represents 20-30% of a DK tank's threat depending on spec, talents, and glyphs. If you now drop 20% of that chance to proc you'll go down to 30% of those incoming swings or 9 procs, if we still lose 1 to bad luck on timing, we've lost ~5 procs per minute, a 30% reduction in RS's fired, and a 30% reduction to 30% of your threat (to use the most extreme case) is still only a 9% total threat loss. Personally I only average about 22-24% of my total threat through RS (and I've been cradling the t8 2 pc set bonus until I get my 4th trophy, though I don't have RS glyphed), so for me that'd only be a 6.5% total threat loss.

Are any DK's here running so close that 9% less threat will have their dps pulling off them? I think that's where the lack of concern comes in with Blizz. That is also about as severe as I think we'll see. It may also just serve to make the RS glyph less mandatory in many people's eyes and open the doors to a bit more diversity in glyph choices.

Call me silly, but I'm a sucker for their being multiple and equally valuable choices, it allows the WoW tanking world to be interesting, not just an on-off light switch, you made the "right" choices or the "wrong" ones.

[Satorri]

Oh, and to revise my previous statement, it will only devalue dodge if you are under 20% dodge chance. Since no one, NO ONE, going into Icecrown could be sporting under 20% dodge given the abundance found on the gear that would mean you are prepared for it, no one should have any lost value on dodge.

[jere]

but it does have the effect of setting avoidance gains back on the regression curve by 20%.

The -20% has absolute zero effect on the DR curve. DR gains do not change with Icecrown Radiance. Subtracting the 20% after DR ensures that (I.E. the DR has already occured before the reduction.

If you are getting .6% dodge for every 1% you add now, you will still get 0.6% dodge for every 1% after Icecrown Radiance. None of that changes.

[Satorri]

If the -20% put you back to the floor on the DR curve, I suspect fewer people would be complaining since their dodge value would be much bigger. Instead, it's just as good as it was the day before.