defence support thresholds

[Loganisis]

this was beyond me.. thanks for pointing it out.. im still trying to rap my head around it, but tis starting to make sence as i go threw both this forums and the linked forums line by line

It is a weird case. In most cases DR means you need more of something for the same effect, but for armor it's on a different curve. The raw DR is diminishing but not the effect.

You have 50% damage reduction, going to 75% damage reduction is a 200% increase. Going from 75% to 87.5% is another 200% increase.

In both cases the amount needed to double your return in terms of damage reduction is less than the previous chunk. This is exponetial growth that is increasing at an increasing rate.

(50.0% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.5) = 20,000 EH
(62.5% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.625) = 26,666.667 EH
(75.0% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.75) = 40,000 EH
(87.5% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.875) = 80,000 EH

87.5% damage reduction is unachievable, it's there to show the continuation of the effect.

The curve for the *effect* of damage reduction is exponential at an increasing rate. So even though you're not moving as far to the right, you're moving up further on the graph.

This is an example of a positive exponential graph. Insahnity posted a negative exponetial graph, which is the one that dodge, parry, defense, etc are subjected to (and raw damage reduction from armor, though the effect of damage reduction is positive). This might help understand it a bit more, ignore the X and Y values, I just found the first graph I could find.

[praetoria]

This thread is perhaps one of the most insane things I've ever read.

Just thought I'd mention that...

It's starting to make perfect sense to me, which might mean I'm going insane, or maybe we're getting to the bottom of all of this.

Either way, I love it!

actually, this is probily the best forum ive ever been in. i think its awsome

[Kazeyonoma]

forum = place to talk about stuff

thread = specific line of discussion.

This FORUM IS the best place you will ever be in for tanking.

This THREAD is perhaps one of the most insane things we've ever read.

[Insahnity]

i hope no one from my realm is reading this, or the guilds ive applied to, but ive been doing a lot of puggin latly to get experience under my belt. and i can say the the pug healers are not nearly as tallented as my guildies. reguasrdless of gear, or how much they raid.

the otehr part is, its a real blame game in said pugs.. tanks are so easy to blame because we are so outnumbered in the raid. we have a paladin that used a dam dps trinket to hold aggro. the dps are that reckless. my silent goal is to become less raid relient. so when ppl start nerdraging i can just say nothing in vent and be ignored.the catch 22 is when i apply to a guild, the see my armory with strentgh jems, differnt glyphs, or ANYTHING not conventional. they are very crutial of it, its a major turn off. ive applied to 10 guilds. 4 accepted, 3 said no. and 3 im still wating on. Any tank officer of a guild is going to take the oppertunity to nerd rage me at the sight of any unconventional placment without giving me a chance to explain. that is the insporation of this post.. i was very pissed at some of the rude remards made on my application, and i had zero oppertunity to explain myself. granted the guilds were far beyond my progression and probily have to deal with a lot of bad applicants. But i ahd zero oppertunity to explain what was actually going on.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of everyone here. I guess the cause behind this stroke of insanity was I must have thought late that night at 3 am that if i can inspire tankspot, i could inspire a movment in the entire wow mentality. this is what happens when you regulary charge into a fight outnumberd screaming ur head off in a flame of rage.. and never die

Welcome to the world of PuGing.

It's very easy to combat this. Log out in full stamina gear with high ilvl gear, and when you ask to be invited, be sure you are in this set. Just before the pull, switch to your real gear which includes DPS and armor items. For example. I swap my Satrina's Impeding Scarab with Glyph of Indominability for fights like Marrowgar, a move that would earn nods from TankSpotters, but would make Idiot Pug Leader who have never tanked think I'm a N00b. Carry the stam set, they won't look at your AP or hit rating or expertise, and then swap in DPS gear. Do not gem for strength, stick to cookie cutter glyphs and spec, all you can change is gear, first and foremost trinkets.

In general, once you PuG often enough, you develop a rep, and nobody questions you or your gear, your good reputation precedes you. On my server, I need not mention gear score, I get automatic invites. (Of course, my gearscore on all my 6 80s has risen to the point where I could past muster for most content). Establish a rep with tactics like this, and then stop worrying about it.

As for tanks being outnumbered, that isn't the issued. It's lack tanking experience on the part of officers and RLs. The general rule to the average idiot pugger, if the tank dies, either the tank is undergeared or the healers failed (if the Healers are incompetent but friends of the RL, it's the former). If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault (even if they fail to move). If the DPS dies, it's the healers fault, even if they stand in the fire. The only way to counteract this, again, is to develop a rep as a competent person. Then YOU will be always right, sometimes even when you are not, but I hope you have the humility to admit guilt when you cause a wipe.

[Petninja]

this was beyond me.. thanks for pointing it out.. im still trying to rap my head around it, but tis starting to make sence as i go threw both this forums and the linked forums line by line

Basically every time you add a certain amount of armor to your character you reduce an attack by a certain percentage. Adding the same amount of armor will always yield the same % reduction over the previous swing.

I'll use Damage Reduction rating, which doesn't exist as a stat to make my point (since the same theory applies to diminishing returns on avoidance). Say you had 98% Damage Reduction, increasing it to 99% would actually cut current incoming damage in half. In order to cut further damage in half you'd only need another .5%, so to keep the damage reduction from becoming increasingly more powerful as you climb up in ratings you need to make the 99% --> 99.5% cost as much rating as the 98%-->99%. You still get the same value from the rating, even though on your character sheet it seems like 98-99 gave twice as much as 99-99.5, it really didn't.

[praetoria]

It is a weird case. In most cases DR means you need more of something for the same effect, but for armor it's on a different curve. The raw DR is diminishing but not the effect.

You have 50% damage reduction, going to 75% damage reduction is a 200% increase. Going from 75% to 87.5% is another 200% increase.

In both cases the amount needed to double your return in terms of damage reduction is less than the previous chunk. This is exponetial growth that is increasing at an increasing rate.

(50.0% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.5) = 20,000 EH
(62.5% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.625) = 26,666.667 EH
(75.0% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.75) = 40,000 EH
(87.5% damage reduction) 10,000 * 1/(1-.875) = 80,000 EH

87.5% damage reduction is unachievable, it's there to show the continuation of the effect.

The curve for the *effect* of damage reduction is exponential at an increasing rate. So even though you're not moving as far to the right, you're moving up further on the graph.

This is an example of a positive exponential graph. Insahnity posted a negative exponetial graph, which is the one that dodge, parry, defense, etc are subjected to (and raw damage reduction from armor, though the effect of damage reduction is positive). This might help understand it a bit more, ignore the X and Y values, I just found the first graph I could find.

so wait a minute, the returns are deminishing at all? if the return is not deminishing, why did blizz build armor on a curve? why not just plot a course on a stright line. and why on earth put 5k armor on a dodge trinket? ( corpse tonge coin). why not add the armor to the unidentified organ and throw scaling stam on the dodge trinket? its far less ballanced, but i like less ballanced..

i just assumed the return on armor scaled with the raw dr.. I never would have thought the oppisite. ive never seen any other stat scale this way before.. its a safe assumption most of the time.. I probily just looked up the graphs, identified the points where the slope changed, and crafted on this premis...had NO idea this was what was going on

[MellvarTank]

I like the fact that this is smoothing out now.

There are a couple points that could be brushed up on (clarified), but are definitely explained in much more detail (and much better than I could here) in the threads linked in various posts.

I don't think anyone here is 'anti-avoidance' or 'anti-threat' or 'anti-anything'.... we're all just dealing with the mechanics of the game in its current state the best way we possibly can.

[praetoria]

forum = place to talk about stuff

thread = specific line of discussion.

This FORUM IS the best place you will ever be in for tanking.

This THREAD is perhaps one of the most insane things we've ever read.

W.I.N buttons for everyone in this thread.

insane = i made a good first impression?

[MellvarTank]

i just assumed the return on armor scaled with the raw dr

Nope, nothing does... it's all explained in Aggathon's thread. I know that thread is absolutely huge and a lot of reading, but as you can see.... you've just hit the tip of one massive iceberg.

[Insahnity]

W.I.N buttons for everyone in this thread.

insane = i made a good first impression?

No, but we're slowly gaining acceptance. You've just reached something below Dr. Frankenstein's Hunchback assistant status, working your way up to red-headed step child standing.

@ Kaze, trust me to take an insane post, concoct a very stupid scenario and twist the thread so far into the realm of weird to make it wrap right around to sanity back again.

[praetoria]

Nope, nothing does... it's all explained in Aggathon's thread. I know that thread is absolutely huge and a lot of reading, but as you can see.... you've just hit the tip of one massive iceberg.

dammit.. i wanted to work on my interface today ( see thread: my first UI). guess that isnt happening

scale of 1-10 , 1 being borderline pro, 10 being a faceroll... how noobish is the fact i didnt realize this?

[Loganisis]

so wait a minute, the returns are deminishing at all? if the return is not deminishing, why did blizz build armor on a curve? why not just plot a course on a stright line. and why on earth put 5k armor on a dodge trinket? ( corpse tonge coin). why not add the armor to the unidentified organ and throw scaling stam on the dodge trinket? its far less ballanced, but i like less ballanced..

i just assumed the return on armor scaled with the raw dr

This is where it gets complicated. The raw Damage Reduction is diminishing. each 500 points of armor in the example further above gives you less raw damage reduction.

But because the effect is dividing a whole number by 1 minus a decimal, as the decimal grows larger the denominator gets smaller..

E.g. 1/(1-0.50) = 1/0.50
E.g. 1/(1-0.75) = 1/0.25

And as the final decimal get smaller it effectively multiples by a larger and larger number.

1/0.50 is functionally equivalent to 1*2
1/0.25 is functionally equivalent to 1*4
1/0.125 is functionally equivalent to 1*8
1/0.0625 is functionally equivalent to 1*16

So you gain less raw reduction, but even that smaller raw reduction has a larger impact because it makes the resulting decimal deonomiater smaller making the impact larger.

I wish one of the math PhDs would explain this. I understand it and can give the cliff note version, but I don't think I'm doing a very good job of explaining the underlying concept, which I understand but don't fully know, if that makes any sense (the underlying concept being the math behind exponetial growth, both increasing and decreasing).


As for why it's not linear, well I think it was through vanilla. I think gear to 60 is vanilla. But then they made the decision to make values expontential. I think so early green TBC gear would be sought after over end-game purples, and the rest is history.

As for Blizz' itemization - its had a lot of people scratching their head for a long time now....

[praetoria]

No, but we're slowly gaining acceptance. You've just reached something below Dr. Frankenstein's Hunchback assistant status, working your way up to red-headed step child standing.

@ Kaze, trust me to take an insane post, concoct a very stupid scenario and twist the thread so far into the realm of weird to make it wrap right around to sanity back again.

well, the concoction wasnt stupid. it was a fair anaylisis of why a tank might enter a thread willing to give up stam to become less raid dependent. granted, its like paying uptown prices for downtown hookers, but aparently the amount of liquor ( or misunderstanding behind armor and perhaps an outdated addon) might have had somthing to do with it.. that and that fact im still unemployed in a bad economy (guildless and the end of an expansion) and getting denied left and right.. you get the picture.. i should ahve known that bar was a bad idea

[Petninja]

The most important thing to remember when dealing with numbers in WoW is that none of them matter on their own, just in relation to each other.

5000 armor gives less than the previous 5000 armor, but because each 5000 armor affects your ratio between incoming damage and your health in the same way every time there is no reduced value to armor until it caps.

[praetoria]

This is where it gets complicated. The raw Damage Reduction is diminishing. each 500 points of armor in the example further above gives you less raw damage reduction.

But because the effect is dividing a whole number by 1 minus a decimal, as the decimal grows larger the denominator gets smaller..

E.g. 1/(1-0.50) = 1/0.50
E.g. 1/(1-0.75) = 1/0.25

And as the final decimal get smaller it effectively multiples by a larger and larger number.

1/0.50 is functionally equivalent to 1*2
1/0.25 is functionally equivalent to 1*4
1/0.125 is functionally equivalent to 1*8
1/0.0625 is functionally equivalent to 1*16

So you gain less raw reduction, but even that smaller raw reduction has a larger impact because it makes the resulting decimal deonomiater smaller making the impact larger.

I wish one of the math PhDs would explain this. I understand it and can give the cliff note version, but I don't think I'm doing a very good job of explaining the underlying concept, which I understand but don't fully know, if that makes any sense (the underlying concept being the math behind exponetial growth, both increasing and decreasing).


As for why it's not linear, well I think it was through vanilla. I think gear to 60 is vanilla. But then they made the decision to make values expontential. I think so early green TBC gear would be sought after over end-game purples, and the rest is history.

As for Blizz' itemization - its had a lot of people scratching their head for a long time now....

i am working on a phd in phyisics and statistics. exponential growth is somthing i can explain for you perhaps if you think it will improve your understanding of the machanic, but this has to be the lest expected approach to a base line stat i could ever immagine

[praetoria]

I can see now why EHP scales so well with the retarded about or dam reduction from a simple upgrade with 1080 armor and 24 stam can offer, but until i research this more, its going to be hard to compare the value of teh ehp loss if im switching somthing out for threat gain.. kinda seems crazy to give up shield wall and last stand glyph.

[Loganisis]

i am working on a phd in phyisics and statistics. exponential growth is somthing i can explain for you perhaps if you think it will improve your understanding of the machanic, but this has to be the lest expected approach to a base line stat i could ever immagine

No thanks. I understand stats well enough (took the stats course and college and later an econometric/multi regression course and used it in my econ thesis). But not a big fan of stats/math theory.

The key here is the effect is very simple.

Armor gives returns at a decreasing rate. That's straight forward, each equal chunk of armor will give less damage reduction in return. Very straight forward increasing at a decreasing rate (no inflection point, the very first point of armor gives the most DR I think).

It's the functional effect, this concept we term Effective Health (listen to me say we, minds better than me termed EH and I use).

EH is how much unhealed damage you can take.

Which is a quite simply, how much damage * your damage reduction you can take.

10k HP at 75% DR, you can take 39,999 damage * .25 getting through before you die. So you have 40,000 effective health, the 40,000th point of damage kills you.

The mathematical forumla is HP * 1/(1-DR) And as you plug number into the forumla you see that the effect is remarkably linear and always in favor of more armor to the cap because, as Petninja pointed out, the pool of remaining damage is smaller and smaller and so even though the amount you're taking out is less in raw terms, it's coming from a smaller pool and thus equally effective.

It's a web of simple concepts woven together in a way that seems conveluted until you really understand all the basic premsises, then is quite straight forward. It just takes some time to work through it and let it all sink in.

[MellvarTank]

kinda seems crazy to give up shield wall and last stand glyph.

Shield wall is a staple glyph for me, so I can't ever see giving that up. Currently I prefer devastate glyph for threat. Last Stand seems to me to be a swap glyph (or devastate as well) for Taunt or blocking, or whatever could be useful situationally. Usually Last Stand is a "oh sh!!!" button, so I tend to only use it once per fight as is. Now if I had a different spec for say... LK 25 HM... Then my glyphs would be different based on spec/talents. You'd be surprised how little you use the last stand glyph with a solid healer team, but I use Shield Wall all the time.

[Loganisis]

If there was an amory link before I missed it, are you a warrior, pally, or DK?

[MellvarTank]

Warrior. No armory link posted, but I found him. >.> <.<