By role By Boss EH vs Avoidance

[Aggathon]

Some definitions of gimmicks in the above:
Any gear changes (this seems to be agreed upon)
Any non-tank doing a tanking role (this to me screams gimmick, but it doesn't affect the tanks)
Any tank doing non-tank things as a tank (so FL, Maly, and Putricide to a certain extent)
Anything that relies on a specific ability of a tank (Kael and CDs/being able to use a shield was certainly a gimmick that screwed over bears, as did Illidan's shear and RoS's spell reflect.) Council also fits in here with the reflect of the judgment being a crucial part of the fight.

So... any fight that has a somewhat interesting mechanic is a gimmick?

Also, the real tanks for KJ weren't feral druids in DPS gear, the real tanks were the add tanks in that fight. KJ himself hit like a little school girl which is why warlocks and feral druids could so easily tank him.

15 bosses in naxx
14 in ulduar
5 in ToC
7 so far in ICC
1 maly
1 sarth
3 in VoA

there's 46 bosses in WotLK, 2 are gimmick fights (Anub and the original Sarth 3D, which was fixed and blizzard said was a mistake). How are these fights everywhere and prevalent?

Edit:

If you'd like to narrow the scope to only fights that required specific tanking choices and gear (which I think is fair) you get Kael, Illidan, KJ, Sarth3D, Anub.

Notice a pattern in those bosses?

You might not like gimmick encounters - and that's fair. But like them or not, the chances that the hardest fights in the game will be gimmick encounters are fairly high. The chances that Arthas is in some way a gimmick encounter is quite high.

And the chance that tanking success will rely heavily on something other than EH is also quite high.

What you're saying is boils down to "hey, fights might have interesting mechanics and the tank living might not be the only aspect to the fight."

No crap arthas is going to be tough, but that's like saying using distracting shot for Yogg0 is hacking or something. In fact, I HOPE Arthas is a really hard (by your definition maybe even gimmicky) fight even in normal mode. He's the f***ing lich king and if the encounter calls for me to bust out an avoidance set then I will, but until then I'm sticking with my EHP set because its saved my butt on every encounter so far (in ICC) besides gunship where I'd just have to change my trinkets.

[Proletaria]

I think we can safely agree that 'Gimmicks' encompases a wide range of things. On the one hand, you can point to Anub and say "there are exactly two of four tanks who are expressedly forbidden the off-tanking role, this is a gimmick." On the other hand you might say "there is a lot of spell damage in this encounter, resistance gear makes this a gimmick encounter." Or you might even say "Icebound fortitude made this encounter a gimmick given the very strong burst mechanic on a 1min timer."

In each case you've got a strong argument that the encounter is indeed a "gimmick." But, for the purposes of wotlk in 3.3 and beyond we have to more or less stick with the first one. Resistance gear has been with us forever, and it crops up now and then, we can safely assume every tank will have such gear avalible to them. Over-tuned cooldowns are largely a thing of the past (even the 'cooldown' portion of AD isn't really that over-tuned, it's the passive mitigaiton part that is) so you can't really argue that anymore either.

To make a long story short: blizzard now has to avoid decidedly fewer things in order to keep an encounter from going to "gimmick" status. (Note: i'm going to avoid the vehicle argument because that effects all tanks equally) Until cataclysm they must avoid: Encounters that heavily favor block mechanics and possibly a few other niches that could easily make a minority of tanks heavily preferred.

To tie this into the general theme of the thread: So long as every tank is more concerned with their own personal execution of the encounter than the mitigation, utility, avoidance, or block their class can deliver, blizzard has done a good job.

[Roana]

I don't even really know how to respond to this. Not only did you make up a nice new acronym, but everything you've said has absolutely no qualifiers or warrants at all and if you want to talk about over simplifying things, this is it. Also "you can raise your EH or avoidance." Thank you John Madden.

MTTF is not an acronym I made up. Along with MTBF (mean time between failures), it's an established term in statistics. You find them in textbooks, even. The general difference between the two terms, by the way, is that MTBF describes situations where failure is recoverable (hence, "between" two failures), while MTTF ("to failure") describes situations where the failure is not recoverable.

Also, if you call that trying to be nice, I'm not sure what it sounds like when you're rude.

Actually this is completely wrong, the EHP model in fact assumes worst case scenario damage and worse case scenario healing with worse case scenario avoidance streaks. If all the shit hits the fan, what gives you the most survivability. Well to quote John Madden, "The number one cause of tank deaths is that they run out of hit points."

Worst case scenario healing is several seconds of zero healing because of server lag or all healers being incapacitated, at the very least.

I find this extremely offensive and could probably go find at least 10 other tanks in top 25 guilds that would find it equally offensive. We gear for it because it IS optimal.

Then you presumably can support that thesis of yours with statements other than accusations of ignorance?

[Roana]

I really hope your tanks are getting at least 10K worth of heals in between 2 melee hits. I'm not sure what you are trying to argue here? That Festergut is an RNG encounter? I've killed Festergut about 6 times in 10 and 25 man, on mains, on alts, on a healer. I've never had a problem with a tank dying unless they were geared poorly, or extraordinarily undergeared. You really don't seem to have a point at all.

My point is, simply enough, that maximizing EH at the cost of avoidance may not be optimal. It is (generally) good enough, but I am fairly certain it is not optimal.

And yes, I would hope that tanks are getting at least 10K worth of health between two melee hits, but it's not guaranteed. Which is pretty much evidenced by even some top 100 guilds suffering the occasional (though uncommon) wipe to tank death on this fight. I don't really have to drag out the great many reasons why that happens (some spells just having a longer cast time than Festergut's melee attack speed, server lag, latency, human imperfection).

Festergut-10, by the way, is not really an EH fight (not to mention that the whole EH model tends to break down when you do 10-player fights in 10-player gear), and especially not for you. I was referring solely to Festergut-25 in my example.

[Bashal]

Note to self:

Stop reading threads with EH/Avoidance in their titles.

This thread is getting more than a little caustic, and if the OP's question was answered, it was done earlier in the thread.

Perhaps it would best if this thread was closed.

[Proletaria]

Festergut-10, by the way, is not really an EH fight (not to mention that the whole EH model tends to break down when you do 10-player fights in 10-player gear), and especially not for you. I was referring solely to Festergut-25 in my example.

It is an EH encounter either way. You just out-gear it sufficiently to not categorize it as such if you are not adhering to a 10-man only raiding style.

You've yet to provide any evidence that practical levels of avoidance from gear are less effective than avoidance levels gained by specifically gearing and gemming for avoidance at the cost of EH.

I agree, this thread is going nowhere fast and should probably be closed.

[Edgewalker]

My point is, simply enough, that maximizing EH at the cost of avoidance may not be optimal. It is (generally) good enough, but I am fairly certain it is not optimal.

Do you have any real reasoning for anything, or do you just like to spout useless acronyms, anecdotal evidence, and baseless claims?
What IS optimal then? Never zoning in?
That's a 100% way to prevent tank death!

[Aggathon]

My point is, simply enough, that maximizing EH at the cost of avoidance may not be optimal. It is (generally) good enough, but I am fairly certain it is not optimal.

And yes, I would hope that tanks are getting at least 10K worth of health between two melee hits, but it's not guaranteed. Which is pretty much evidenced by even some top 100 guilds suffering the occasional (though uncommon) wipe to tank death on this fight. I don't really have to drag out the great many reasons why that happens (some spells just having a longer cast time than Festergut's melee attack speed, server lag, latency, human imperfection).

So avoiding an attack is guaranteed? For the record I am one of those tanks (US 8th putricide kill, world 27th) and I've spoken with a few more that agree with me completely. I've typed out my reasoning in thread after thread and really don't want to repeat it again here. You can disagree if you want, but from my (quite extensive if I do say so myself) experience, for most encounters EH IS optimal. Obviously there are some exceptions like anub and gunship if you're not doing on a boat, but I don't think you should change your main gear around to accommodate those 2 fights, but me and our MT for anub use completely different gearsets for them.

Also, I'm getting hit just as hard if not harder in ICC25 normal than in ToGC25, but because of CotT I have 20% less dodge, yet we are 1 or 2 shotting all the bosses people are saying are killing tanks, and the wipes aren't to tank deaths. On festergut I took 100k damage in 5 seconds on our first kill, but I was easily healed through it with no cooldowns because of the amount of stam and armor I stack (it was at 2 inhale stacks, not 3).


Is EHP the easy "I win button." No, you still actually have to tank and use your cooldowns properly and do the fight right, but person after person I've helped like this have sent me positive feedback back saying "this helped so much, thank you!! we're not killing these bosses easily and tanks aren't dying." I've never received feedback saying they got kicked from their guild for stacking EH, in fact I've helped people get into really good guilds doing it.

I get way too worked up over this.

Also: me being nice is giving constructive criticism. Me trying to be nice (and failing) is simply saying that I think you're wrong and probably pulling out the elitist card that everyone hates. Me being rude would include ad hominem insults and cursing, which I try to avoid as much as possible.

Edit: in fact, I agree this thread should probably be closed, and if forum mods want to delete my posts I wouldn't get butthurt about it.

[felhoof]

Except Kael didn't, Illidan didn't, KJ didn't. Blizzard has already admitted they were wrong on Sartharion, and I assume they won't repeat the shenanigans that encompassed heroic Anub.

Warrior tanks WERE Vanilla and TBC raiding tanks. You can't call it a gimmick for encounters that required them.

Illidan didn't require two tanks in FR gear?

Kael and Illidan didn't require a shield-using tank? (Illidan was perfectly fine with a prot paladin, btw, as was Kael).

Yes, I realize those were outmoded design choices. But also - it's very silly to think that their design choices are going to change so significantly. They've said that they made a mistake with Kael requiring a shield and Illidan requiring a shield, and they've said they made a mistake with Sarth3D needing such big emphasis on cooldowns and Anub requiring shield block (or favoring NR) - but at the same time, why would you believe that they're going to change so drastically?

I mean, by the time the feedback for heroic Anub was in, chances are Arthas was more than significantly close to completion.

So... any fight that has a somewhat interesting mechanic is a gimmick?

Also, the real tanks for KJ weren't feral druids in DPS gear, the real tanks were the add tanks in that fight. KJ himself hit like a little school girl which is why warlocks and feral druids could so easily tank him.

I don't know - talk to Edge about what he defines as a gimmick fight. He's the one that continues to harp on how Anub shouldn't be looked at as a counterexample to EH because it's a gimmick fight.

I'd say that any fight that so strongly favors a specific class of tank for whatever reason is a gimmick fight. I'd say that any fight that strongly favors a fairly odd gearing strategy is a gimmick fight. Or at least those fights have gimmicky components.

And in that vein - it's very, very likely that Arthas will favor some specific kind of tank and/or favor some kind of odd gearing strategy. That's all. If you think that Blizzard has finally learned and that Arthas will be a straight up EH win without any subterfuge, I think that's fairly delusional. Their EH checks are almost always earlier in the dungeon and don't show up again. They do tend to challenge tanking ability in the later fights - but that challenge isn't as simple as more HP.

[Aggathon]

I'm not saying arthas won't require interesting gearing choices, I'd argue that until I know what those gearing choices are, I'm not dropping thousands of gold and wasting more of my already cluttered gbank because of all of my freakin' different tanking gear sets until I know what to gear FOR. Once I know that, I'll adjust my gearing asap if it is required, but that doesn't mean I should be gemming for avoidance now and putting resist enchants on my gear.

I guess what I'm saying is, what's your point? What are you saying tanks should be doing now? Because as of now, it's like it's been for 95% of the game -> stack EHP.

[Badga]

My point is, simply enough, that maximizing EH at the cost of avoidance may not be optimal. It is (generally) good enough, but I am fairly certain it is not optimal.

And yes, I would hope that tanks are getting at least 10K worth of health between two melee hits, but it's not guaranteed. Which is pretty much evidenced by even some top 100 guilds suffering the occasional (though uncommon) wipe to tank death on this fight. I don't really have to drag out the great many reasons why that happens (some spells just having a longer cast time than Festergut's melee attack speed, server lag, latency, human imperfection).

Festergut-10, by the way, is not really an EH fight (not to mention that the whole EH model tends to break down when you do 10-player fights in 10-player gear), and especially not for you. I was referring solely to Festergut-25 in my example.

It is interesting to see that a tankspot "Author" states something without having the experience or data to back up a statement. If you could prove that the minor %'s in avoidance gain over the loss of a great loss of EH which increases your overall survivability then sure people might take what you say seriously... however this has gone way off topic from the OP's post.

[felhoof]

I guess what I'm saying is, what's your point? What are you saying tanks should be doing now? Because as of now, it's like it's been for 95% of the game -> stack EHP.

My point is that saying 'stack EHP' is silly for the most part, because for the most part the amount of fights that require tons of stamina are close to the amount of fights that don't.

Stamina is as good a default as any, but for the vast majority of fights out there tank survival is simply not an issue and is not the primary scary thing for a fight. 95% of the time it might be optimal, but does it matter that you're optimally geared for Deathwhisper or Saurfang? Does it matter for Jaraxxus or Twins? That's more to my point; EH is spoken of as this 'if you don't do this, you're a n00b', but in reality it's only needed for a couple of fights, and those can be taken care of with alternate sets of gear fairly readily.

I guess my point is that good tank gearing is not and hasn't been as simple as 'get the most health and armor always and relax'. Good tanks have multiple sets, including ones that seem suboptimal for situations. They don't get rid of block trinkets or avoid trinkets. They don't discount pieces just because they don't have the most EH.

And too often I see the attitude that EH will always be best and always give your raid the best chance of survival, and that anything else is going to definitely be bad. I think that's simply short sighted.

[Edgewalker]

It's a "If you are going to stack avoidance or EH, stack EH" argument. There are a lot of fights where you can stack whatever you want (I think we have said this 100000 times). For most of the fights in ICC and ToC I use almost half DPS gear and just keep enough tanking gear to keep my defense over 540.

I agreed on Illidan for OTs, though for the MT you used normal gear. It should be noted that OTs stacked resistance and stamina... in current WoW form they would be stacking the equivalent of EH for bosses that hit with solely fire damage.
Kil'Jaeden was the equivalent of Jaraxxus.... I really don't get what you are trying to say about him. I also really don't understand using old content, and using poor examples of old content as well. You might as well bring up Baron Geddon, Ragnaros, Flamegor, Ebonroc, Firemaw, Vaelestrasz, Nefarian, Huhuran, Twin Emperors, Trash packs to C'Thun, Four Horsemen (hello Nat Pagle's Reel), Sapphiron (at least one piece), Hydross... see the trend? Resistance bosses and gimmick gear sets were fading out by the end of TBC, I wouldn't be shocked if they became the extreme minority. It's clearly not Blizzard's intention for you to use specialized / non class gear... they give you 3 sets of available tanking gear for a reason.

Yes, I do believe they already HAVE changed it drastically. Avoidance was put on DR, Warriors became one of four viable MTs (calling an old school fight a gimmick because it required a warrior is ludicrous by the way), resistance fights are slowly dying out. They are trying to homogenize tanks and let any tank be a viable MT... I think Anub'arak was an exception, not a rule.

[Badga]

My point is that saying 'stack EHP' is silly for the most part, because for the most part the amount of fights that require tons of stamina are close to the amount of fights that don't.

Ok so you basically just said if I was a caster dps then after I do enough dps for a fight to beat it then I should just gem agi just incase if I pull agro then I might have a higher change to live if I dodge the attack!! woot! Increased survivability right....?!?!

Stamina is as good a default as any, but for the vast majority of fights out there tank survival is simply not an issue and is not the primary scary thing for a fight. 95% of the time it might be optimal, but does it matter that you're optimally geared for Deathwhisper or Saurfang? Does it matter for Jaraxxus or Twins? That's more to my point; EH is spoken of as this 'if you don't do this, you're a n00b', but in reality it's only needed for a couple of fights, and those can be taken care of with alternate sets of gear fairly readily.

Just because fights like NORMAL MODE Jaraxxus/Twins/Deathwhisper/Saurfang are easy is NO EXCUSE to not use proper itemization.

I guess my point is that good tank gearing is not and hasn't been as simple as 'get the most health and armor always and relax'. Good tanks have multiple sets, including ones that seem suboptimal for situations. They don't get rid of block trinkets or avoid trinkets. They don't discount pieces just because they don't have the most EH.

Yes that does aid toward a more experienced tank and knowing what to use and when however it is still no excuse for trying to gem a ring with a 6 stam socket bonus at the cost of a 9 stam loss for a ~.1% avoidance gain... The value of armor also increases with the amount of health you have thus making it EVEN MORE EFFECTIVE the better the gear gets.

And too often I see the attitude that EH will always be best and always give your raid the best chance of survival, and that anything else is going to definitely be bad. I think that's simply short sighted.

That isn't the attitude persay... it is just tanks gimping thier survivability by not doing research or getting wrong information from people like yourself. (no offense)

[mistersix]

Note to self:

Stop reading threads with EH/Avoidance in their titles.

This thread is getting more than a little caustic, and if the OP's question was answered, it was done earlier in the thread.

Perhaps it would best if this thread was closed.

I feel similarly for what it's worth. If nothing else I plan to pull it from my subscribed threads. I'm surprised to see such uncivil behavior. TS is usually above this sort of name calling.

[felhoof]

(calling an old school fight a gimmick because it required a warrior is ludicrous by the way)

it's a gimmick because it requires not a warrior, but a shield wearer. I thought I made that point clear.

But anyway.

Yes, I do believe they already HAVE changed it drastically. Avoidance was put on DR, Warriors became one of four viable MTs (calling an old school fight a gimmick because it required a warrior is ludicrous by the way), resistance fights are slowly dying out. They are trying to homogenize tanks and let any tank be a viable MT... I think Anub'arak was an exception, not a rule.

Okay. But the exceptions have largely been at the end of the progression chain.

Ok so you basically just said if I was a caster dps then after I do enough dps for a fight to beat it then I should just gem agi just incase if I pull agro then I might have a higher change to live if I dodge the attack!! woot! Increased survivability right....?!?!

Yes, that's precisely what I said. How astute of you.

Honestly, if you're doing enough DPS to down a boss on a given encounter there's absolutely nothing wrong with gearing for more survival. There are plenty of fights out there that do actually favor survival of DPS over pure damage, and while it's probably not ideal for your base set understanding that that cloth piece with tons of stam actually has potential value is a skill.

Just because fights like NORMAL MODE Jaraxxus/Twins/Deathwhisper/Saurfang are easy is NO EXCUSE to not use proper itemization.

I was talking hard mode Jaraxxus/Twins. The tanks could (and I have) worn DPS gear and tanked it just fine. There's nothing special there.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have an EH set or understand the concept. I'm saying that you should also understand the limitations of EH, know that it is very fight dependent (and even when it's EH, understand what actually makes up that TEH for that fight) and be able to evaluate gear on multiple vectors so that you can have options.

There are far too many people out there that look at EH as the sole principle behind tanking itemization and gearing and eschew all else. They look at EH (and in particular, health) the same way that DPS look at damage numbers. There are other factors to consider, and (this is the reason I keep bringing it up) those factors often have been a big deal on the hardest encounters and/or the end encounters of the game.

Yes that does aid toward a more experienced tank and knowing what to use and when however it is still no excuse for trying to gem a ring with a 6 stam socket bonus at the cost of a 9 stam loss for a ~.1% avoidance gain... The value of armor also increases with the amount of health you have thus making it EVEN MORE EFFECTIVE the better the gear gets.

There's no excuse for it? None? Ok. Then we're done talking.

Because I'd say there's one excuse for it we know of already that we've talked to death here.

That isn't the attitude persay... it is just tanks gimping thier survivability by not doing research or getting wrong information from people like yourself. (no offense)

That's fine.

Honestly? If you gem stamina only you'll be right more often than you'll be wrong. It's the safe choice. It's even the correct choice and the optimal choice on many fights. Avoidance - especially in WotLK - is much less often correct.

But don't kid yourself that it is such a significant difference that it will cause issues. It is going to be very rare that encounters hinge on whether or not the tank had a couple thousand more health. And (here's the really important thing) the point isn't to say 'what's better, EH or avoidance'. The thing to ask (like was originally asked in this thread) is what is better for each encounter you face. The answer isn't always going to be EH.

[Aggathon]

Honestly, if you're doing enough DPS to down a boss on a given encounter there's absolutely nothing wrong with gearing for more survival. There are plenty of fights out there that do actually favor survival of DPS over pure damage, and while it's probably not ideal for your base set understanding that that cloth piece with tons of stam actually has potential value is a skill.

... I really think you're arguing just to argue at this point. Like... REALLY?!

[Satrina]

I'll stick the fork in this one now.