Satorri's Sandbox: Dual Frost *Don't hit me!*

[Satorri]

So, I've been thinking about this since I did a little experimenting on the PTR but I haven't had the desire to put the cost or the compromise into my live gear.

That said, Triumph emblems are easy to come by and it should be pretty easy to get some ToC25 runs in for trophies, so maybe I can build a second t9.5 set and set it up to try this out.

Here's the concept. Radical avoidance, but only mitigated by not missing socket bonuses. I saw some pretty silly numbers on the PTR and I'm wondering what this setup could do for survival and threat.

Here is the build I'm considering:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The ridiculous avoidance to come makes RS a MASSIVELY used item, so squeezing out excessive RP is very valuable, but I'm not keen on dropping any of the other standard Frost buff elements to get the last point in SoB. I favored a split 2/3 in SoB and 2/2 in CotG for CotG's reliability aspect, though I suspect in some situations particularly AoE situations SoB may outstrip it in magnitude.

So, for gear, I'm going to make a set and see what numbers I can pull out of it. I'm going to build it in Rawr with the following rules:
1.) Has to be constructed from gear I can get from ToC10/25 and ICC10 (and heroics/Ulduar/etc). Other gear I get live will be fueling my non-experimental primary set o' tried-and-trueness.
2.) Rampant abuse of avoidance tools is the goal, but I will still make socket bonuses. This means pure dodge in red sockets, but dodge/stam in blue sockets and def/stam in yellow sockets.
3.) I'm not going to pick *the* best gear, but rather pieces I feel I can readily get without too much special circumstance or assistance.

My roughly informed expectations based on my previous experiments would suggest a *very* high RS usage. With 60.76% chance (see below) on every incoming swing to proc RS, if the incoming swings come every ~2 seconds and you assume you can use every proc immediately while dual wielding, you could expect roughly 18.2 procs per minute, which would require ~365 RP per minute which could be met with the SoB/CotG generation above, though there may be some surges depending on Rime procs and Rune management.

Based on that gear set, and a full set of raid buffs, here is what Rawr is telling me to expect:
Health: 39,743
Armor: 33,084 (68.63% rdx)
Miss: 15.40%
Dodge: 36.08%
Parry: 24.68%
(Total Avoidance: 76.17%)

A quick breakdown from my survival tree:
Experimental Dual Wield Frost (avg ilvl = 246.4)

                   Factor      iDPS      % rdx
 Unmitigated      60k/2.0s     30,000     0.0%
 Atk Spd Rdx      60k/2.4s     25,000    16.7%
 Avoidance         76.17%       5,958    63.5%
 Armor Rdx         68.63%       1,869    13.6%
 Misc Dmg Rdx      17.07%       1,550    1.06%
 ===============================================
 Total Inc      15.6k/2.4s      1,550    94.83%
 Hit String     23.83%(1)    5.68%(2)   1.35%(3)
 Health            39,743

So, for those not familiar with my chart, from 60k unmitigated dmg hits, you could expect 15.6k dmg on every hit that lands, but a very small chance of taking 2 hits in a row, and virtually non-existent chance to be hit three times in row.



Just for fun, I did some back calculating, and this is the same breakdown from Festergut with 3 inhales on 10-man, without cooldowns:

                   Factor      iDPS      % rdx
 Unmitigated      84k/1.0s     84,000     0.0%
 Atk Spd Rdx      84k/1.2s     70,000    16.7%
 Avoidance         56.17%      30,681    46.8%
 Armor Rdx         68.63%       9,625    25.1%
 Misc Dmg Rdx      17.07%       7,982    1.96%
 ===============================================
 Total Inc      21.8k/1.2s      7,982    90.50%
 Hit String     43.83%(1)   19.21%(2)   8.42%(3)
 Health            39,743

The same situation with unglyphed Unbreakable Armor (20 sec duration, 50 sec CD) applied:

                    Factor      iDPS      % rdx
  Unmitigated      84k/1.0s     84,000     0.0%
  Atk Spd Rdx      84k/1.2s     70,000    16.7%
  Avoidance         56.73%      30,289    63.9%
  Armor Rdx         71.31%       8,690    13.8%
  Misc Dmg Rdx      17.07%       7,207    0.95%
  ===============================================
  Total Inc      19.9k/1.2s      7,207    91.42%
  Hit String     43.27%(1)   18.72%(2)   8.10%(3)
  Health            39,743

And again with IBF (18 sec duration, 2 min CD) instead of UA:

                   Factor      iDPS      % rdx
 Unmitigated      84k/1.0s     84,000     0.0%
 Atk Spd Rdx      84k/1.2s     70,000    16.7%
 Avoidance         56.17%      30,681    46.8%
 Armor Rdx         68.63%       9,625    25.1%
 Misc Dmg Rdx      41.70%       5,611    4.78%
 ===============================================
 Total Inc      15.4k/1.2s      5,611    93.32%
 Hit String     43.83%(1)   19.21%(2)   8.42%(3)
 Health            39,743

Not going to editorialize, but for those not familiar with how to read this, under "Total Inc" the left column is the damage expected per swing along with the time between swings (has no account for avoidance only guaranteed reduction), the middle column is that translated into dps but factoring missed swings, and the percentage is the total incoming damage reduction.

The hit strings represent the chance to get hit once, twice, and three times in a row.

And for comparison, here is the rig I used successfully as Blood this week (other end of the spectrum). IBF and Armor pots were used for mitigation coverage, but are not included here:

                   Factor      iDPS      % rdx
 Unmitigated      84k/1.0s     84,000     0.0%
 Atk Spd Rdx      84k/1.2s     70,000    16.7%
 Avoidance         46.79%      37,247    39.0%
 Armor Rdx         66.31%      12,549    29.4%
 Misc Dmg Rdx      17.07%      10,406    2.55%
 ===============================================
 Total Inc      23.5k/1.2s     10,406    87.61%
 Hit String     53.21%(1)   28.31%(2)  15.07%(3)
 Health            51,968

To compare the EH values (without armor pots or special abilities):
The experimental Frost Prototype would have 152,769 EHP w/ 76.17% total avoidance
The tried and true Blood set would have 188,693 EHP w/ 66.73% total avoidance

[Goros]

I love you Satorri, thank you for this.

[Libicocco]

For clarification, are the blood numbers the numbers of your actual primary tanking set, or the numbers that you would get had you gemmed/enchanted your experimental gearset in the "tried and true" style.

Or in other words, is there a tier or so worth of gear difference in between the two calculations presented?

[Satorri]

The Blood numbers are pulled directly from my main character. =) The effective ilvl difference should be relatively slim though, my main gear set is averaging a little higher than 246, off the top of my head.

[Proletaria]

Are those avoidance numbers taking diminishing returns into account?

[Synapse]

They have to be. The numbers in the Defenses sheet are final, except for the Miss%, which can be calculated with good accuracy.

[Airowird]

If you want to test in a raid environment, I would suggest Saurfang. Before you get out the pitchforks;
* Saurfang hits very fast, but relatively low (never seen him break 10k in a 10man), which means less chance that a string of hits that will kill you can occur.
* Healers are spamming near the end of the fight, so the theory of EH starts to falter and pure damage reduction becomes better.
* If you do die, you can get away with blaming your healers :P
* A lot of people will take a test on Saurfang more seriously than on e.g. Lady D.

[Satorri]

The numbers are effective values against a raid boss.

They assume lvl 80 tank vs lvl 83 target, and factor diminishing returns.

[Felycitas]

How are you coming up with a miss % of 15?

[Proletaria]

How are you coming up with a miss % of 15?

This confused me aswell. In my highest def gear i'm at nearly 590 defense and that (iirc) gave me something like 8% miss.

[Edgewalker]

If you want to test in a raid environment, I would suggest Saurfang. Before you get out the pitchforks;
* Saurfang hits very fast, but relatively low (never seen him break 10k in a 10man), which means less chance that a string of hits that will kill you can occur.
* Healers are spamming near the end of the fight, so the theory of EH starts to falter and pure damage reduction becomes better.
* If you do die, you can get away with blaming your healers :P
* A lot of people will take a test on Saurfang more seriously than on e.g. Lady D.

Only problem with Saurfang is his ramping abilities and constant taunting.
Rotface is actually a pretty good parse boss if you are tanking him.

[Airowird]

Only problem with Saurfang is his ramping abilities and constant taunting.
Rotface is actually a pretty good parse boss if you are tanking him.

I had this entire post about how hard you would make your healers job, untill I realised I was thinking of Festergut, not Rotface :P
I don't think Saurfang is that much of a problem, or atleast I never perceived it like that, but I always have been a promoter of damage reduction instead of eing a mana spounge.

[Vanthus]

I guess I do not really see why a frost build is so important in all this. If you are mainly concerned about Rune Striking, I would think it would be better to first see if you could make every 2 hand strike a Rune Strike before worrying about Dual Wielding.

What you are doing for an avoidance set is equally as useful in a blood build, since the 3% miss and 2% damage reduction don't make a difference as far as rune strike.

Now if the goal is simply to see how little total damage you can take, I can see where you are heading. Even so I still think a crazy avoidance blood build would be better than a crazy avoidance frost build, but that's more personal opinion.

[GravityDK]

Vanthus, Frost DW is so he can convert more RS oppty into actual strikes. 2H cannot take advantage of the high incoming attack speed.

Satorri, for a net reduction of 21.8k vs 23.5k incoming every 1.2 seconds (with no cooldowns) that's a pretty compelling question. I wonder how much of that is due to improved armour in the Frost model, rather than improved avoidance? ie. what's the sensitivity to avoidance as opposed to stamina?

Then, given blood has 30k more EH, it might be better suited to taking the 2-hit string than Frost. If I read it right, your frost's HP (when buffed, say about 47k?) could not survive two hits in a row without healing, whereas the Blood build with its +23% higher EH could handle it.

[Pwnanapuddin]

So far I am pleased with my gear choices for DW sato. More than welcome to check out my setup. And they call me the Pwnstar =D

[Satorri]

15% miss comes from the combination of 3% from Frigid Dreadplate, 3% from IS/Scorp Sting, and the very high defense level (around 580) from socketing yellow slots with def/stam and using the Onyxian Blood Talisman. Final value is calculated by Rawr, not me. =)

And, Pwn, I'm not looking for someone to model myself after, thanks.

This is a side activity of mine for fun and curiosity.

[Theotherone]

Scorp Sting? Wouldn't count on that, I don't know a hunter that puts that in his/her rotation - at least not without being asked, and I've never been asked.

That said, I like this,thanks. I'm a big fan of avoidance and think the popular fad of stam stacking (which I attribute,at least in part,to a surge in unskilled healers) turned tanks' attention away from this very useful skill.

[Lilithium]

IS (insect swarm) will most likely be present in a 25 man setting.

[Theotherone]

Un-Glyphed hopefully.

[Satorri]

Since I am part of running a consistent raid team, we make sure that the debuff is covered. We had a stint in Ulduar where we didn't have a Boomkin and one of our very gracious hunters sacrificed some dps on certain fights to make sure our tanks had their best survival going for them.

Thankfully we've had Boomkin since who've kindly not glyphed IS to be sure we're covered.