Prot Warrior - is mastery worth reforging?

[Sakkura]

Actually ...

99% > 75% because of the damage reduction and the severly reduced chance to get such a spike.
And Mastery is about as valuable as avoidance (depending on your gear level), so you can easily stack it up to more and hit passive Unhittable without gimping yourself.

It's only unequivocally better if you assume all other stats are equal. And in a real gear/gemming choice situation, they won't be. You'd be giving up stamina somewhere, in gemming if nothing else. And you'd still have a random risk of just dying. Much better to increase your EH so you can actually survive those unlucky streaks, even if they do happen a lot more often.

Really, do we even need to have this discussion? It's just a variation on the same old EH vs. avoidance song.

[Katzazi]

I don't want to enter into the discussion itself. But to say that the EH vs. avoidance-question was answerd in Wrath so it can be dismissed in Cata is much more ignorant than to ask the question again in Cata. That's because things have chaged in Cata and they have changed dramatically in many regards. One of the core assumptions of the wrath EH-favoritism was that healer mana just does not matter. And that's definitly not the case in Cata. In Wrath there was no danger of healers going oom so focussing on EH to prevent 3 shotting tanks instead of avoiding dmg was a no brainer. (Well not a no brainer, because if that would have been the case there would not even been such a discussion.)

Now healer mana matters much more and spike dmg is much more predictable than in Wrath. So it's a valid question to ask if that changes anything. EH is about beeing able to deal with worst cases of rdm numbers. If we have to deal with final mana, it's also a good thing to ask about the probability of the worst case happening. If this probability is quite low it may be better to wipe once because of this worst case instead of not being able to beat the boss at all with healers going oom.

So as long as there is a good chance that healers go oom the more important question is how to prevent healers going oom. You cannot answer that question without knowing what our healers do and how incoming dmg patterns are. I don't know enough to answer this (my healer is only 83 and I have only been inside a new raid with my tank at one evening).

Another thing to consider is the input we can make to our EH. Our base health is quite high at the moment. We cannot change armor and have only few options to boost our stamina. EH is about being able to survive another hit. If you cannot change much in this regard it's not much of a discussion anyway.

Something that has changed is that most tanks don't gem for stam only. If you don't take set bonuses you throw away some of the stats you could have on your gear that may help your healer.

[Booi]

You'd be giving up stamina somewhere, in gemming if nothing else. And you'd still have a random risk of just dying. Much better to increase your EH so you can actually survive those unlucky streaks, even if they do happen a lot more often.

The difference now is that even in hard modes I have yet to die and think "I wish I had more health." I firmly believe that the required health pool to tank these fights is inherent in the gear.

[Airowird]

It's only unequivocally better if you assume all other stats are equal. And in a real gear/gemming choice situation, they won't be. You'd be giving up stamina somewhere, in gemming if nothing else. And you'd still have a random risk of just dying. Much better to increase your EH so you can actually survive those unlucky streaks, even if they do happen a lot more often.

You can also reforge Dodge/Parry into Mastery. Same EHP, roughly same overall damage reduction, just more spread out damage.

Really, do we even need to have this discussion? It's just a variation on the same old EH vs. avoidance song.

We do, because as said above, Cataclysm is not Wrath. Healers OOM regularly in raids and tanks die more often to OOM healers and continuous heavy damage rather than a roll of the dice burst-spike.

[praetoria]

from what ive seen, aiming for a health pool larger then that which inherit of the gear we have is detrimental to survivability. healers can and will go oom trying to top you off.

what im confused on, is why we arent stacking purly mastery and parry. I understand the dr relationship between dodge/parry, but wouldnt we want to prot hold the line for the 10% crit block as often as possible? or maybe the more appropriate way of asking the question would be: what is the ideal parry rating/percent to maximize the proc uptime?

[MellvarTank]

There are no DR's on mastery as far as I recall, so point for point it is just more optimal to stack than dodge/parry.

[praetoria]

There are no DR's on mastery as far as I recall, so point for point it is just more optimal to stack than dodge/parry.

i understand that, but what im saying is why is dodge even on the table.

[MellvarTank]

....because it is more optimal than parry at lower levels? (ie. low DR's)


Think about it this way: If 1 point of parry gives you .002% avoid, and one point of dodge gives you .02% avoid, you take the dodge. It is literally 10 times the avoid. (This is purely for an example)

So, if your parry is around 20% and your dodge is at 10%, you would be better off swapping to dodge, as the returns on it will be better than the returns on parry.

[ironsides]

So is the end conclusion that mastery is the best avoidance stat?

I personally feel stam is still very important, especially due to magic damage and things in encounters such as the roars on halfus which stun everyone. Healers in raid environments still don't have too much mana trouble, I am sure EH is still the way to go, at least for the most part. I can admit that i am definitely taking some more good socket bonuses now, instead of pure stam, but I am not far off. If healer mana is an issue I don't think it will be by next tier.

Anyways I suppose it's mastery, keep dodge/parry remotely close with slightly more parry, and make sure you have a decent health pool. Basically nothing has changed?

[Airowird]

Especially once you get epics, I'ld suggest:
1) Gear for Mastery > Parry/Dodge > Expertise/Hit
2) Get the best trinkets for taning you can get.
3) Enchant the highest level enchants you can get.
4) Gem for socket bonuses. Personally I'ld go for Mastery trinkets and gem blue/green/purple gems.

Also, I'll update my spreadsheet this weekend, should help you a bit better in gearing.

[Kojiyama]

After doing another pass at updating Rawr, I actually have been a bit surprised at how long it takes before Mastery overtakes Dodge and Parry in terms of mitigation. I would say that it's not really on the table to start focusing gung-ho on Mastery until you have almost full epic gear--and perhaps not even until the next tier since it's quite on the 'edge' with the best known items.

[Andenthal]

what im confused on, is why we arent stacking purly mastery and parry. I understand the dr relationship between dodge/parry, but wouldnt we want to prot hold the line for the 10% crit block as often as possible? or maybe the more appropriate way of asking the question would be: what is the ideal parry rating/percent to maximize the proc uptime?

The amount of Hold the Line uptime gained from 1 or 2% Parry is pretty minimal, while the increase in damage taken can be pretty big if you avoidance levels are too far outta whack.

Regarding what others are saying about avoidance vs mastery...

Mastery is not about taking the least damage - it's about taking consistent damage to make yourself easier to heal.

[Bigbad]

1% extra parry gives about 2-3% extra uptime on Hold the line depending on swingspeed of the boss and the current amount of parry. Average between 50-60% block including shieldblock, hold the line will turn 5-6% blocks into crit blocks for another 30% damage reduction. You could say 1% parry will have an extra value cause of HtL equal to about 0,036%(2%*6%*30%) avoidance. Just have to figure out at which point the difference in diminishing returns between dodge and parry gets bigger in value then 0,036%.
Think that's about 200-300 ratings depending on your current level of dodge/parry.

[Airowird]

As Bigbad said, the uptime is minimal. Because of how refreshing etc works, you'll see that HtL increases the value of Parry Rating with about 2% at heroic/raid entry levels (that is; 102% of the pure avoidance it gives).
Considering DR, the 'keep Parry Rating just above Dodge Rating' advice is the easiest to follow, HtL is just a pure bonus.
In fact, the gain is so low, I did not even bother to add the gain in HtL uptime into my spreadsheet. If you consider that you get 10 times more crit chance than parry out of it, you will know that HtL is a threat talent with a slight avoidance bonus, not the other way around.

[praetoria]

As Bigbad said, the uptime is minimal. Because of how refreshing etc works, you'll see that HtL increases the value of Parry Rating with about 2% at heroic/raid entry levels (that is; 102% of the pure avoidance it gives).
Considering DR, the 'keep Parry Rating just above Dodge Rating' advice is the easiest to follow, HtL is just a pure bonus.
In fact, the gain is so low, I did not even bother to add the gain in HtL uptime into my spreadsheet. If you consider that you get 10 times more crit chance than parry out of it, you will know that HtL is a threat talent with a slight avoidance bonus, not the other way around.

awsome.. thanks man. same to bigbad

[Naka]

After doing another pass at updating Rawr, I actually have been a bit surprised at how long it takes before Mastery overtakes Dodge and Parry in terms of mitigation. I would say that it's not really on the table to start focusing gung-ho on Mastery until you have almost full epic gear--and perhaps not even until the next tier since it's quite on the 'edge' with the best known items.

I've noticed the same thing while playing around with Rawr. However, as others have said, the strength of mastery is to smooth out the damage, even if you take a little more overall. Rawr doesn't factor that in.

Speaking of Rawr, I also noticed that Dodge and Parry have positive threat values, mastery does not. I guess that's from factoring in Bastion of Defense (and HtL for Parry), but not Shield Specialization. And does it account for the slower Vengeance stacking with avoidance?

[Maèl]

While I'm not yet seeing heavy penalties on Parry/Dodge I still reforge mastery to avoid whenever I can. ATM it's amazing how long healers will let you sit at 75% health just to conserve mana. Point for point I have the feeling that I get more out of parry and dodge than out of mastery. But then again, I'm still below 30% parry and dodge combined. Things will propably change in a tier or two. But I have to say, even at my sub-333 item level reaching passive unhittable seems to be quite attainable within the next tiers.

I like how we don't have to choose between EHP and avoid anymore. Now it's just a question of gemming and enchanting vs. picking the stuff with the highest armor and HP. I also like how you reduced incoming damage by actively using your skills and that you are forced to do so. Who would have thunk that Shockwave will be used for damage avoidance? I like our mastery, but given the choice between mastery and avoic, I'll pick avoid. Avoid increases the value of our mastery while mastery doesn't increase the value of our avoid.

This is of course low item level gut feeling speaking.

[Kojiyama]

I've noticed the same thing while playing around with Rawr. However, as others have said, the strength of mastery is to smooth out the damage, even if you take a little more overall. Rawr doesn't factor that in.

Speaking of Rawr, I also noticed that Dodge and Parry have positive threat values, mastery does not. I guess that's from factoring in Bastion of Defense (and HtL for Parry), but not Shield Specialization. And does it account for the slower Vengeance stacking with avoidance?

Well, if one is reforging just for that purpose then it is something a bit subjective. That's a fair enough point of view, but from a pure 'over time' perspective, it does indeed take a long time for Mastery to beat Dodge/Parry per point.

In fact, if they adjust the ratings targets in the future (e.g. you need more Dodge/Parry/Mastery for each tier of 'leveled' bosses) it's quite possible that Mastery will never really reach the clear-cut winning stage due to Dodge and Parry being kept out of the heavy DR curve zones.

Time will tell. I do think Mastery is pretty useful for smoothing out damage, as you say, but I'm not sure I would go out of my way to reforge Dodge or Parry to Mastery anytime too soon.

Vengeance hasn't totally been modeled in Rawr yet--in terms of dynamic modeling for avoidance, that is--although it's something I'm working on. When this is working it will give a negative value of threat for avoidance in some cases. This will have to be weighted against HtL and Enrage uptime, though.

Rage gains from Shield Spec are marginal as Rage on average is quite limitless in most cases. (Again, blocks smooth this out and do allow for Cleave spam in AoE scenarios, but on a single-target fight we have plenty of Rage anyway. Adding more Mastery isn't going to make much difference there.)

As mentioned above, HtL is primarily a threat talent moreso than a mitigation talent. You get a bit of mitigation from it, but the threat gains are the main component. And, yes, Bastion of Defense is a major factor for that as well.

[targetman]

I was using the item comparison tool on wowhead the other day and some of the results surprised me. I looked more closely at their default stat priority set up for prot warriors and mastery was at the top of the list. I looked into other specs just to make sure that wasn't just some universal default to have mastery as the most desired stat for all specs, and it is clearly not. At least according to wowhead.

So I am not saying, "oh look, wowhead says mastery is best, so it must be true."

I am just curious if anyone knows how they get the info to set up their stat priorities? and how much they can be trusted/relied upon when making gearing decisions?

[Pagezero]

wowhead's numbers are pretty far off for Prot warriors, dodge is 90 and parry is 67, in the general parry should be higher than dodge. Agility is also 67 which is way off being that it's combat rating is more than double that of parry.

My guess is their numbers have not been updated since LK and they just added in mastery. If possible I would use one of the other tools out there to pick better numbers.