Illustrating Chill of the Throne

[Nephelai]

Chill of the Thrown

lol... I really like that typo. Maybe it should be added as a boss special in Icecrown. Jiggowatt the Inventor Blasts TANK with his Chill of the Thrown Ice Ray Cannon (Followed by TANK flying up against the wall and being frozen to it Han Solo style for 5 seconds??).

[Reev]

Good post. however, anyone who hasn't figured out this simply logic already is a moron. A bunch of the people complaining are idiots who can only see the "20% LESS AVOIDANCE OMG SCREW YOU BLIZZARD" part of it, and blindly ignoring the part where the bosses do less damage per hit.

Philly, please tone back your rhetoric. If you want to call people morons, go to the official blizzard forums. We're trying to help people understand things here, not make them feel stupid for not understanding them before they were told.

[Edgewalker]

All that said, avoidance is a VERY important stat as the fight progresses, since it directly effects DPS taken by the tank. If the DPS taken is too close to the healer's HPS the tank dies.

I'd still like to see this mythical encounter where steady DPS kills the tank and not single large spikes of damage. There are a lot of mathematical references too it, but sadly I think it's a figment of the theoretician's imagination.

[Libicocco]

I doubt you'd see tank deaths as a result from Edge's mythical steady yet large incoming DPS boss anyway. I think in this scenario, since you can't go from 100 -> 0 without many intervening steps, groups would have success throwing more healers at it until the problem was fixed. Bliz would have to have a strict enrage timer to enforce bringing a minimum amount of DPS.

What you'd actually see are complaints along the lines of "ZOMG how can we POSSIBLY beat Boss X before he enrages while we have to bring 10 healers to heal through his Ultra X-Smite?"

It'd be nifty, but I think that sort of thing would be more interpreted as a DPS challenge - and those have a way of disappearing as gear increases.

[Satorri]

Steady consistent damage on the low end won't happen because it is too easy and to uninteresting to heal.

That said, they can and do find different ways to make it interesting with encounter mechanics and boss moves. They've also suggested that they don't want tank healing to be an all-on-all-the-time thing, where the tank has dedicate spammed heals constantly to keep them alive.

The idea is to resurrect some of the mana considerations of BC without the burst damage potential of crushing blows to mess up conscientious healing. They said point blank, they would like the tanks to be able to survive a while so healers can tend to other concerns and come back to the tank as needed. I take this to mean lower avoidance, more consistent unpredictable damage (i.e. no crushing blows, crits, and 40k per hit bosses are not the norm), and more raid damage and interesting encounter design. They've definitely stepped up their game over the years on the last part.

[Karasu]

Your reasoning is fine, and easy to understand.

And yes, i agree, it seems a way to bring back wow tanking / healing to what it was pre-bc when the concept of spamming overheals was actually something wrong.

Yes.. they have tried different ways of reduce the impact of high avoidance rates, related to healing. Vezax is a good example, you have to watch your mana bar.

And they have also tried to mix different kinds of damage (frost, fire, shadow,etc) to the basic boss spanking the tank.

Thats fine. Nevertheless, and i would like you to think wow is not an in developement product, its not an optimal solution. Its just throwing a patch on broken stuff.

I think most of veteran players already when the BC came tought wtf is wrong with blizzard and the new items stats. There was a real big gap. And they made the mistake of making this gap wider. So yes, this need to be fixed. Ok, bravo, they fixed it this way. But reccon that this is cutre (from spanish, roughly meaning shabby).

Game mechanics are the base of our game. You can add nice desings and cool effects.. light or sound, whatever. But a game thats being out there 4+ years should not be loosing balance at this point.

Next thing you can expect is .. dps is too high.. lets add a -20% hit aura. Now that would be cutre.

[Synapse]

Too high dps can be solved by more hp.

The long-term solution to too much avoidance doesn't look like it can be much different than "let's give bosses expertise", even with cat's drop. It's a fine one as long as it's done on a seamless manner instead of "oops, 20% less dodge".

[Adrael]

I'd still like to see this mythical encounter where steady DPS kills the tank and not single large spikes of damage. There are a lot of mathematical references too it, but sadly I think it's a figment of the theoretician's imagination.

You're absolutely right. Tanks with proper gear (av>40%?) don't just get burn down by steady damage.

And that's why we don't usually aim to get more avoidance. But like I said, avoidance is important since without it tanks would die. Just stating the obvious, which is kinda silly - I know.

GC often say the same regarding avoidance, and it always sounds as if he misunderstands the community's pov, or maybe the community misses his.

Having ~50-60% avoidance IS important over having 0% avoidance (ye, I know. I feel like just writing this sentence lowers my IQ by quite a bit).

Ridiculously high avoidance levels in relation with DPS intake is plain redundancy. The latter reflects current avoidance mechanics better, and that's why they change it.

[Bovinity]

Having ~50-60% avoidance IS important over having 0% avoidance (ye, I know. I feel like just writing this sentence lowers my IQ by quite a bit).

The funny thing is though, if avoidance were removed tomorrow and boss damage tweaked to compensate, tanking and healing would become enormously trivial.

The very existance of avoidance is a detriment! =D

[Satorri]

All elements exist in a balance.

Usually criticisms of the system come from misunderstanding the elements and how they are used and counter-pointed.

Consider for a second that Blizz has been 7 years in developing this game, and 5 of them with millions of people play testing it.


I'd amend one common statement:
"Damage spikes kill tanks, not consistent damage intake."

I would say, 'surprise' damage kills tanks. If damage is constant, predictable, and consistent, like Bovinity said, tanking and tank healing become trivial. You could just have NPC's do it so players can do something more interesting. Spikes of damage won't necessarily kill the tank unless the tank doesn't have enough health for the encounter, or the balance is off (rare if it is live). If a tank dies to expected damage, the system is broken or the healers/tanks are somehow insufficient. Surprise stacks of damage taken (i.e. Gormok aligning melee with Impale) will kill a tank, and it's a failing in the system *if* it cannot be prevented or countered through strategy and healer skill.

Avoidance allows tanks to take less damage and keep things interesting for tank healing in the process. Avoidance itself does not make spikes bigger, it never increases damage taken, only reduces. But, this whole thread was aimed at illustrating how avoidance going too high can mess up other elements in the balance and make it less fun to play because the tank can be killed without the healers being able to stop it.

[Edgewalker]

The problem is still game design. For virtually every boss fight, if you could trade every ounce of avoidance into armor, resist, and stamina, you would, and healers would thank you.

I also fail to see how avoidance makes tank healing any different. Healers spam, nonstop. There is no reactive healing, no heal cancellation. Bosses need to hit for about 1/3rd their current amount and mana needs to become an issue before that changes.

[Airowird]

The problem is still game design. For virtually every boss fight, if you could trade every ounce of avoidance into armor, resist, and stamina, you would, and healers would thank you.

I also fail to see how avoidance makes tank healing any different. Healers spam, nonstop. There is no reactive healing, no heal cancellation. Bosses need to hit for about 1/3rd their current amount and mana needs to become an issue before that changes.

It makes a difference because not every heal is a crit. Although Paladins are well on their way getting there tbh >_>

[MudNova]

Do you guys think that if they do that bosses hitting more often, less harder, and more avoidable attacks... Block could be really useful again?? like "avoidance tanks" usable

[Adrael]

It got longer than I had expected, but what the hell. This is what happens when you're sitting in a hospital bed and miss WoW.

MudNova:I would say block will have a greater influence, but I don't know what you mean by ""avoidance tanks" usable". If you take a 3.2 pie chart that describes your mitigation, and compare it with a future 3.3 chart, I believe you'll see a greater chunk of block related mitigation on the latter.

In my opinion there are two reasons for this, one of which you mentioned, so I'll start with the other. The role of avoidance in mitigating damage will decrease, while block keeps on scalling relative to content. Furthermore, since boss damage on hit would be decreased (again - relative to content), and shield block chances&values are to go up with ICC gear. So basically, we're looking on two effects that are likely to increase the usefulness of blocks. However, the effect can very well be so minor that gear and enchants related stats decisions will remain as they currently are.

Edgewalker: In a plain mathematical theory, avoidance shouldn't make any difference if you reach a certain cap which varries for encoutners, tanks and healers [this is not the avoidance cap I mentioned earlier - it's a 'softer' cap]. Healers constantly spam heal the tanks, and from a certain level of avoidance it will look as if every extra % in dodge/parry becomes extra overheal, and thus being ineffective.


Avoidance works on probability, and so do people.

The arguments written in the paragraph above don't take into account those psychological factors in situations of uncertainty, which greatly effect us all in our daily lives, and here in WoW. A tank will be low on HP when the conditions are right even in relatively easier content. Those situations in which there's an unforeseen damage spike or a healing deficiency, is where that extra dodge/parry might come in handy and keep your HP on a non-critical level. Bare in mind that if we take that extra dodge and turn it for 5k HP, the same tank in the same situation would get to a critical HP level, a scenario that could have been prevented by that extra dodge. Off course minor damage spikes and minor healing deficiencies happen all the time and you cannot rely on avoidance to eliminate those situations, but the probability of these situations and their level of threat on the tank varies for encounters, healers and tanks. When a tank gets critical it's in a danger of dying, no matter how good the healers/tank are. If this happens, cooldowns are used, and every bit of luck could matter (Avoidance anyone?).

Probability Matters
If your HP gets too low and too many times, psychology kicks in. Healers (and tanks) who feel that their tank (themselves?) gets too low, too many times, will have a more liberal criteria on when to throw in CDs, which increases their chance of effectively blowing those CDs away so by the next time they need it, it won't be there to keep the tank alive. Furthermore, healers with not trust in their tank will tend to get frustrated and thus underperform. Those critical situations happen all the time, but it's a matter of probability. The more it happens, the more likely it is to have a negative effect on the tank and healers.

It's not that avoidance is more or less important than EH. It's just that it's different. Don't talk ill of avoidance, though you'll rarely find me gemming/enchanting for it.

One more word about uncertainty: this is what makes us all hooked on WoW (not only avoidance, but also those constant content and game mechanics tweaks).

[Xianth]

Do you guys think that if they do that bosses hitting more often, less harder, and more avoidable attacks... Block could be really useful again?? like "avoidance tanks" usable

As much as i'd like it to, from what i gathered the icecrown bosses would hit for similar amount but obviously they'd be hitting you more often to increase the avergae incoming damage on a tank. So in 25 man/10 man hard I doubt it would be realistic to reach a high enough level of SBR/SBV to make it truly viable. And well, if you're avoiding less then you have a bigger "gap" to fill up with SBR which makes it even less do-able. It may be possible to have a decent blocky set (not gung ho all out block, just a nice baalnce) in 10 man normals but that's not going to be a major concern of 99% of people who think deeply enough into their gear to balance such a set. why balance a nice block set when you can go in there with 60k HP and just brute force it without any difficulty anyway?

[Satorri]

The problem is still game design. For virtually every boss fight, if you could trade every ounce of avoidance into armor, resist, and stamina, you would, and healers would thank you.

I also fail to see how avoidance makes tank healing any different. Healers spam, nonstop. There is no reactive healing, no heal cancellation. Bosses need to hit for about 1/3rd their current amount and mana needs to become an issue before that changes.

That has not been my experience as a healer, and my healers like that I don't take constant damage. We've had this discussion.

Right now your healers may spam heal you, but that you don't take a hit on every swing allows them room for when they can't spam on you, like when they're moving out of the fire.


I know you think it's a good idea, and I *wish* you could see what it's like if you got your wish so you could understand why it is not a good direction for the game, at all.

[MAXDUCK]

I created a Tankspot account because Chill of the Throne has been bothering me so much lately and I can't seem to find anything on this subject anywhere else. I tanked all of Sunwell and I dealt with the radiance by stacking the best avoidance pieces with dodge gems. I did this because of some formula (that I can't find) that showed avoidance vs. EH and which was was more important at what avoidance/EH levels.

Once ToGC becomes obsolete and we're into hardmodes I'm probably going to go back to this system of gemming, but possibly a little less extremely.

What I was wondering though, was how does Chill of the Throne interact with Dodge DRs? I don't want to look like an idiot to my many grasshoppers on my server and I certainly don't want to let down my guild by being massacred in ICC for having lower HP than I did in TOGC.

[KnThrak]

It doesn't interact. If you had 32% dodge for DR before Chill of the Throne, then you'll still have 32% dodge DR after CotT (and effectively only 12% dodge).

And I agree with Satorri, if tanks couldn't avoid we healers could never ever move from a fire. Yes it's praying while running, so that the tank won't take 3 unavoided hits in a row. Part of the reason why the high bossdamage we have now is so bleh from a healerperspective.

[MAXDUCK]

It doesn't interact. If you had 32% dodge for DR before Chill of the Throne, then you'll still have 32% dodge DR after CotT (and effectively only 12% dodge).

Well if thats the case anyone gemming dodge would be stacking dodge for less and less potency and not even seeing the returns they'd get if they had less than ~10% dodge from gear when the DRs start to kick in.

What I'm reading is that gemming dodge in order to compensate for Chill of the Throne wouldn't put you effectively at 12% dodge if you had 32% on your character sheet to begin with. It would be adjusted for the DRs and leave you with less, which is kind of silly.

[KnThrak]

Well it's as simple as taking your entire dodge (without Chill of the Throne) and taking 20% off it.

However as Satorri said in the OP, you do not actually end up being more squishy. Yes, the tank will take ~15%-20% more damage due to there being a new raid-tier. But he won't take more damage as a direct result of CotT, because it will be figured into the damage-per-hit. In other words if you were to apply Chill of the Crusader (^_^) to ToC, the tanks would not have higher incoming DPST.