Everything tanks need to know about caps.

[Meanmug]

"I consider armor to be one of the most important stats a tank has, as it increases your effective health and makes your easier to heal, and it makes shield blocks more potent."


Would you make gear choices based on armor value? What do you think of me wanting to get
Cataclysmic Chestguard - Item - World of Warcraft
and Pillars of Might - Item - World of Warcraft .
Doing so would give me about 2k armor over T10 pieces. But getting both would also keep me from a sweet sounding 4 set bonus(as a warrior). I'm not getting any support in guild about this =(. Any suggestions on how i can apply math to this?

[Hammerfists]

First off chest sucks theres no dodge or parry on it. you're gaining about 1.5% more to physical reduction with those choices at the expense of avoidence. Dont get me wrong armor is good but we naturally grow with it. get these items if icc radiance leaves you with no dodge other than that dont change anything you have been doing.

[Satorri]

First off chest sucks theres no dodge or parry on it. you're gaining about 1.5% more to physical reduction with those choices at the expense of avoidence.

You seem to be missing something here.

You trade ~1.5% dodge for ~1.5% damage reduction on physical attacks. Many people would take that trade in a heartbeat, since it is guaranteed on every swing (and popular preference is predictable damage). In the grand average it's the same thing though.

Often times this is the trade we make. Itemization is used to regulate the total value of the stats on a piece. Sometimes your current gear will dictate the relative value of certain stats for you (say, hit capped, expertise starved, etc).

Dont get me wrong armor is good but we naturally grow with it. get these items if icc radiance leaves you with no dodge other than that dont change anything you have been doing.

1.) No one in ICC will have no dodge unless they carefully picked a lot of gear (particularly lower level stuff) that didn't have dodge rating on it.

2.) See above. Dodge or armor, you're not *actually* losing net value, you're shifting it.

[Martie]

"I consider armor to be one of the most important stats a tank has, as it increases your effective health and makes your easier to heal, and it makes shield blocks more potent."


Would you make gear choices based on armor value? What do you think of me wanting to get
Cataclysmic Chestguard - Item - World of Warcraft
and Pillars of Might - Item - World of Warcraft .
Doing so would give me about 2k armor over T10 pieces. But getting both would also keep me from a sweet sounding 4 set bonus(as a warrior). I'm not getting any support in guild about this =(. Any suggestions on how i can apply math to this?

Oh, definatly yes. I get +armor pieces as my first priority, then I build some additional sets. I want both the armor pieces you linked, and I'll get them once I've saved up for them.

For math to support it, there are several arguments I use to convince people that I am correct. There's the "dodge may prevent damage, armor WILL prevent damage" argument, there's the "armor makes you easier to heal, dodge makes you harder to heal" argument and there's the "effective damage reduction" argument.

[DrunkTank]

So to clear up an armor question:

We can mitigate up to 75% of physical damage from armor, is this before other damage reducers? Things like D Stance, Ancestral Fortitude and the like?

Or does damage reduction cap at 75% regardless?

[Inaara]

75% is the cap on armor reduction.

[Meanmug]

First off chest sucks theres no dodge or parry on it. you're gaining about 1.5% more to physical reduction with those choices at the expense of avoidence. Dont get me wrong armor is good but we naturally grow with it. get these items if icc radiance leaves you with no dodge other than that dont change anything you have been doing.

The big chunk of Defense adds dodge AND parry, and the big numbers on expertise will allow me to itemize other pieces that with exp out for dodge or parry. The big chunk of defense on it also allows the possibility or the crafted boots which have no defense on them.

[Martie]

First off chest sucks theres no dodge or parry on it. you're gaining about 1.5% more to physical reduction with those choices at the expense of avoidence. Dont get me wrong armor is good but we naturally grow with it. get these items if icc radiance leaves you with no dodge other than that dont change anything you have been doing.

This post actually quite perfectly allows me to illustrate my "effective damage reduction" principle.

The badge chest has 1176 bonus armor. I'll be checking my armor reduction with and without my rings, which give me 1092 armor, close enough for the comparison.

Without the rings, I have 33456 armor, netting me 68.71% physical damage reduction. With the rings, I have 34548 armor, netting me 69.40% physical damage reduction. At first looks, that seems to be only 0.69%, not a lot. But here's where it gets interesting. Now, you calculate how much damage you take, instead of the reduction. That's simple enough, it's 31.29% and 30.60%. Now, if you want to know how much the armor protects you, you should consider your damage taken without the armor as 100% damage, and then calculate what percentage damage you take with the new armor. (Which is simply 100 x 30.60/31.29.)
So you end up with the number 97.79. To then turn it into the effective damage reduction, you simply substract that number from 100, and you end up with 2.21%, which is quite respectable for a measly 1100 armor.

[Airowird]

Also, 1092 armor = 78 rating worth as stats.
Taking Martie's Armory and chucking in 78 Parry Rating, I get an increase in parry with 1,03%
Min amount of hits taken to make that equal dmg reduction to armor = 1,03/2,21 = 46,6%
That means that he needs 53,4% avoidance total to make that parry equal to the armor in damage reduction.
I count his total avoidance as 54,56% against boss level mobs .... that aren't in ICC. For any ICC boss he would need 19% more avoidance to get to that level, which will severely cut into the parry rating DR as well.
So in this case tha armor gives about 50% more damage reduction than parry rating for the same stat value.
Not to mention that Armor helps increase your EH, while avoidance does not. And finally, healing somebody that takes 5k damage every second is far easier to heal than someone taking 40k once every 10s, even if he takes less DPS overall.

Any more arguments you need to take the armor pieces?

[Martie]

Also, 1092 armor = 78 rating worth as stats.
Taking Martie's Armory and chucking in 78 Parry Rating, I get an increase in parry with 1,03%
Min amount of hits taken to make that equal dmg reduction to armor = 1,03/2,21 = 46,6%
That means that he needs 53,4% avoidance total to make that parry equal to the armor in damage reduction.
I count his total avoidance as 54,56% against boss level mobs .... that aren't in ICC. For any ICC boss he would need 19% more avoidance to get to that level, which will severely cut into the parry rating DR as well.
So in this case tha armor gives about 50% more damage reduction than parry rating for the same stat value.
Not to mention that Armor helps increase your EH, while avoidance does not. And finally, healing somebody that takes 5k damage every second is far easier to heal than someone taking 40k once every 10s, even if he takes less DPS overall.

Any more arguments you need to take the armor pieces?

Did you see my nifty cloth 226 hat?

[Blue]

Armor Cap
Armor reduces the amount of physical damage taken by a percentage, and there is a maximum percentage of armor damage reduction, namely 75%. At 49.905 armor, bosses will have 75% of their physical damage mitigated.
Currently, it's not possible to reach the armor cap passively. With the right gear set, some cooldowns, procs and/or consumables, you can reach it. I consider armor to be one of the most important stats a tank has, as it increases your effective health and makes your easier to heal, and it makes shield blocks more potent. There is, however, considerable discussion on the value of armor, as it only works against physical damage, and not against all physical damage. The consensus is "more is better, but not at any cost."
Under normal circumstances you should not hit this cap, and you shouldn't worry about it too much. When you get too close, you could consider changing some trinkets.

That's all the caps that affect a tank at.

ps. If I missed something or made an error, feel free to point it out and I'll amend my post.

Martie, great post, and very helpful. I just have a question, concerning the underlined part, above. Did you mean "only works against physical damage, and not against magical damage, or what you wrote?

If it's what you wrote, then what physical damage is armor not working to prevent?

Just need a bit of clarification...thanks!

[jere]

There actually isn't exactly a distinction between physical and magic damage. There is a "school" of magic called "physical" if you look at how the game encodes the combat log entries.

For things that armor does not work on that are physical..think Gormok's Impale.

[Proletaria]

For things that armor does not work on that are physical..think Gormok's Impale.

Are there other 'physical school' spells that ignore armor besides what would usually be termed "bleed effects," in that case?

[Martie]

Are there other 'physical school' spells that ignore armor besides what would usually be termed "bleed effects," in that case?

When I was writing it, Gormoks impale dot and Auriayas kittens dots were the first in my mind, but I think Algalons Big Bang ignores armor as well.

[Airowird]

Did you see my nifty cloth 226 hat?

DO YOU LIKE MY HAT???

You started an anecdotal situation, I just extrapolated it :P

[Blue]

There actually isn't exactly a distinction between physical and magic damage. There is a "school" of magic called "physical" if you look at how the game encodes the combat log entries.

For things that armor does not work on that are physical..think Gormok's Impale.

Ah, ok, I did not know there was another "school" of magic. Always thought of it as just "special" attacks, or immunities.

I was rather hoping it was a typo, though...

Thanks!

[Martie]

Ah, ok, I did not know there was another "school" of magic. Always thought of it as just "special" attacks, or immunities.

I was rather hoping it was a typo, though...

Thanks!

Seeing 'physical' as one of the schools of magic (others are shadow, holy, nature, fire, frost and arcane) is a reasonable thing to do, just remember that it is a very specific school of magic then - there is no physical resistance (other then armor, which is a different mechanic), and the level-based resistance bosses have is different.

Treating it like a school of magic is debatable - people will disagree with you, so be prepared for that.
Hrm, this reminds me of something I need to add to the original post.

[Aggathon]

I have a question about the armor cap. I was doing gunship, and was using *cringe* eitrigg's oath. I used the on use while tanking and I had about 37k armor unbuffed. Eitrigg's actually proc'd a lot, but the armor on my tooltip capped out at 41,700 armor and even when I got another stack of Eitrigg's, it didn't go up any more. Is 41,700 the real cap? I got all 5 stacks so I should have been around 44k armor. What gives? I'll try to replicate it again and post SS's or a log or something.

[Martie]

I have a question about the armor cap. I was doing gunship, and was using *cringe* eitrigg's oath. I used the on use while tanking and I had about 37k armor unbuffed. Eitrigg's actually proc'd a lot, but the armor on my tooltip capped out at 41,700 armor and even when I got another stack of Eitrigg's, it didn't go up any more. Is 41,700 the real cap? I got all 5 stacks so I should have been around 44k armor. What gives? I'll try to replicate it again and post SS's or a log or something.

Interesting.

I didn't know this effect existed, I need to do some testing to see what the effects are. I see two possibilities for this, either there's a hard cap on armor at 75% equal-level reduction, or there's some form of hidden modifier from raid bosses. Now, all I need is an easy raid boss where this is testable on.

Just did some testing, it took my armor to 45.5k as it should have. (Which put me at 74.92% reduction.)
Did another test, this time it took me to over 47k. Sadly, I wasn't fast enough to check the tooltip for it, maybe another time.
Is it possible that something else caused the armor mishap (like losing a devotion aura), or that you saw something wrong?

[Aggathon]

Interesting.

I didn't know this effect existed, I need to do some testing to see what the effects are. I see two possibilities for this, either there's a hard cap on armor at 75% equal-level reduction, or there's some form of hidden modifier from raid bosses. Now, all I need is an easy raid boss where this is testable on.

Just did some testing, it took my armor to 45.5k as it should have. (Which put me at 74.92% reduction.)
Did another test, this time it took me to over 47k. Sadly, I wasn't fast enough to check the tooltip for it, maybe another time.
Is it possible that something else caused the armor mishap (like losing a devotion aura), or that you saw something wrong?

idk, maybe... I was jumping to the other ship so if the other tank was moving around it might have dropped for a brief moment...