HP vs Avoidance. A different perspective.

[cptwafflez]

So, I have been browsing around the tankspot/maintankadin forums for quite awhile now. It is generally accepted that nobody should to stacking stam anymore, and I have taken quite the opposite approach. But is there a point where sacrificing so much hp for avoidance comes to a disadvantage?

Here's my armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lolipwn/simple

I have rougly 138k upbuffed hp, around 11.66 on both dodge and parry, and 57.89% mastery. I have 60% mastery with kings only, and 11.70ish with dodge/parry. So my question to everyone is, should I be dropping some avoidance stats for stam instead? Or am I at a pretty even balance now?

Also, I have noticed a pretty severe drop off in threat due to the non HP addition in the new patch(Not receiving a holy power point for misses/dodges/parries) Should I be concerned about perhaps reforging into some hit/expertise? I am not sure I am willing to switch around some glyphs and stop using seal of insight while tanking unless absolutely necessary.

[Vigilant]

The "point where sacrificing so much hp for avoidance comes to a disadvantage" is when, and imho only when, you are pushing progression on raid content that is at or near the upper limit of what your gear will allow. In these cases, you will sooner or later find yourself getting shotted before your healers can heal you back up, and it becomes more beneficial to start gemming / enchanting for stam in place of what was previously avoidance / mitigation, to give your healers more of a buffer.

If, however, your bread and butter is not progression raiding, but is by and large Heroic 5-man dungeons, then I would say that, again imho, your gemming / enchanting is quite nearly optimal. You have plenty of hp for any encounter in the content, and you are doing your healers, and thereby your whole party, a great favor by both reducing the amount of damage you take overall, and smoothing out the damage remaining damage you do take.

Your gemming is consistent, and your enchants are spot on, and the only bone I could really pick at all is that on your helm and shoulders you opted to reforge avoidance into mastery instead of threat into mastery, but that very well may have been a conscious decision, as it likely cost you a little avoidance in order to gain more total mastery, and thereby greater combat table coverage. But, that's the only even questionable thing I see on the whole.

When it comes to the changes to HoPow generation, I would simply say that (1) As far as I have seen, Theck hasn't completed any math to determine whether it is better to reforge into hit / expertise or not, (2) many players are reporting that threat is still fine, and the changes are more of a nuisance and frustration than anything else, and (3) Theck among many others seem to be amazed that this change even made it through, as it puts paladin tanks in a position that no other tank is in, namely that when our only resource generating move misses, we have to sit there for 3 full seconds to wait for it to come up again, at which time it may very well miss again, putting us in a ridiculous resource bind. Who knows if these changes will last. I don't plan to go shifting my whole itemization strategy around because of them just yet.

[cptwafflez]

The guild I am currently in is 6/12, and I am sometimes main tank, sometimes off tank when raiding. It just depends on the fight. So if I am understanding correctly what you are saying, is that I should only be concerned with my HP if the healers are having a hard time keeping me up after 1-2 first hits?

[Vigilant]

Three threads that I could point you towards that would be a quick read, and would be much more edifying than I could be if I attempted to sum up their content.

Normal raid stam vs. mastery http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...rb_v=viewtopic

Heroic raid stam vs. mastery http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...rb_v=viewtopic

Discussion of relative values of stam, avoidance, and mastery given specific content. Link should take you to to p. 7, where the pertinent part of the discussion begins about halfway down the page http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...topic&start=90

[cptwafflez]

Wonderful, deeply appreciated sir!

[Theotherone]

The more I heal on my Disc priest with the buffed shields; about 25k absorb, the more I want tanks with a big a health pool - mana's just not the issue it was early on; and the more I tank the more EH I want. Stam, Armor and Mastery are my preference; the avoidance will come, but I really think the whole avoidance/balance thing is just the flavor of the month.

I re-read Aggs nice post on "Why we do what we do" and I think the arguments for EH remain as relevant today as they were then.

[cptwafflez]

Decided to switch out Porcelain Crab and Mirror of Broken images for the JC stam trinket with on use dodge proc and the stam trink drop from Stonecore. 153k unbuffed, sitting around 50% mastery 11.32 dodge 12.27 parry. Looking better now? Suggestions on where to go from here?

[Loganisis]

For shield wearers EH = Mastery (almost). Not quite passively yet, but maxing out mastery so you can hit 102.4% passively will be essentially like adding armor.

At 57.4% damage reduction from armor, a 100k hit becomes 42,600. A 30% block further reduces this to 29,820. That's effectively the same damage reducation as 71.18% armor. So a 30% block = ~13.2% damage reduction from armor in addition to your current armor.

Now this is only guaranteed when you can hit 102.4 passively, but this is why mastery is better under analysis than stamina as you get closer to 97.4 (since the last 5% is from base boss miss chance) (and I know this is a Pally thread, but for warriors why 72.4 + shield block is considered a magic number).

But it's pretty simply, mastery gets you very close at current gear levels, and well into with procs, 100% guarantee of some mitigation, making block act effectively as armor during these periods.

Avoidance isn't the flavor of the month. 102.4% is the gearing target because it also increases EH and, like armor, reduces healing burden. Damage never taken is damage that doesn't need to be healed.

And lets face it, by now, if we're not in heroic raids, then it's kinda like ICC with the 15% buff, gearing correctly isn't as important as it was when there was no buff. But maximizing your survaiblity will maximize your contribution to the raid.

I like guaranteed damage reduction. I like Mastery. I just wish I could get more of it (I'm sitting at about 76% dodge/parry/block in mostly 346s).

[Theotherone]

Avoidance isn't the flavor of the month. 102.4% is the gearing target because it also increases EH and, like armor, reduces healing burden. Damage never taken is damage that doesn't need to be healed.

While I agree on the mastery, and I said that, I just think the whole avoidance craze is just that - people who didn't like the WoLK paradigm, seem to have decided that new expansion means that they can now claim balance with avoidance is the way to go. I just don't believe it and in practice it just isn't panning out in my experience. Given a choice between a tank with 160k unbuffed health and avoidance only on his/her gear or a tank with 140k unbuffed who's gemming and enchanting for avoidance or "balance" I'll take the 160k unbuffed tank.

All the avoidance in the world does nothing against damage other then physical. I'm moving toward getting my avoidance off gear and gemming/enchanting for EH. I started making the change yesterday.

Again, I really don't see where Agg's conclusions have been disproven.

Also, this whole "help the healers" argument really doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you really look at it. I strongly doubt you'll find a healer worth his/her salt who'll say "Oh man, thank God for that extra 1% avoidance the tank gemmed for, it really kept him up and kept me from going OOM." But I know from experience that that extra few thousand health the tank got from gemming/enchanting stam made the difference between getting the heal off and keeping the tank up and the raid wiping.

[cptwafflez]

So, in your opinion you would say gem for stam primarily? Or would hybrids work best? Like the ones I am using now. I switch between 2 stam trinkets and 2 avoidance trinkets and healers seem to like the avoidance ones a little more. Although, it usually depends on the fight I am sure.

[Bovinity]

Yeah, the problem with lots of mastery - even though it really is a nice stat - is that once you hit heroic raid bosses it seems like there's lots of HP-Checks in the form of massive non-physical damage on the tanks. And by that time your healers shouldn't be having issues keeping you up through normal damage, so the whole "Save healer mana" argument starts to go out the window.

[praetoria]

While I agree on the mastery, and I said that, I just think the whole avoidance craze is just that - people who didn't like the WoLK paradigm, seem to have decided that new expansion means that they can now claim balance with avoidance is the way to go. I just don't believe it and in practice it just isn't panning out in my experience. Given a choice between a tank with 160k unbuffed health and avoidance only on his/her gear or a tank with 140k unbuffed who's gemming and enchanting for avoidance or "balance" I'll take the 160k unbuffed tank.

All the avoidance in the world does nothing against damage other then physical. I'm moving toward getting my avoidance off gear and gemming/enchanting for EH. I started making the change yesterday.

Again, I really don't see where Agg's conclusions have been disproven.

Also, this whole "help the healers" argument really doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you really look at it. I strongly doubt you'll find a healer worth his/her salt who'll say "Oh man, thank God for that extra 1% avoidance the tank gemmed for, it really kept him up and kept me from going OOM." But I know from experience that that extra few thousand health the tank got from gemming/enchanting stam made the difference between getting the heal off and keeping the tank up and the raid wiping.

i felt like koji and war did a great job on breaking down avoid/mastery EH.. for warriors atleast, i dont read much about the other classes. as for which means provides the most EHP, as of today.. i think its been covered. as for stam stacking, many people just feel like its boring. I for one am glad blizzard gave a viable option to tanks that dont want to pile on 1 stat and call it a day.

I could argue that that extra 1% parry, or dodge, or trinket usage, or proc resulted in avioded damage that allowed the healer to get that cast off. its all about how you play your class. in wrath, stam stacking paladins had to do almost nothing to survive for the most part thanks to the AD proc. Today, if that same tank dosnt react to the situation, they are dead. I like that fact. i think the impression that a "good" tank = most stam was a poor misconseption spread by the lack of effort required to live while stam stacking. sure, i stacked stam in wrath beause it provided the most ehp.. but i could not ahve been more bored at the time. If theres 1 thing i like about cata.. its that im not bored tanking anymore.

in respects to magic damage.... id like to see resistances take the place of avoidance for high magic damage fights. that would be fun.

[Theotherone]

Here's a caveat, don't listen to me; I'm the voice in the wilderness right now. The current thinking is that avoidance is something to gem/enchant for. I disagree; I still say Effective Health is the king - and Stam/Mastery are the gem/encant/reforge stats you want. But, I'm kind of sort of alone out there; except I think there might be one other poster on here who shares my thinking.

If you move in the direction I'm moving, you're going to hear a lot of crap about not knowing how to gem enchant from the downies in PuG's.

I do have one parry/stam gem left on my gear and my gloves do have a dodge enchant - those will be changed. Perhaps my toughest choice is boot enchant right now I have stam/run speed but may change to Lava Walker. Not quite sure how much a point of mastery is worth v. a point of stam.

[praetoria]

Here's a caveat, don't listen to me; I'm the voice in the wilderness right now. The current thinking is that avoidance is something to gem/enchant for. I disagree; I still say Effective Health is the king -

EHP is and has always been king..... the question is.... dose stam = more EHP.... if it dosnt, its a waste of time

[Loganisis]

While I agree on the mastery, and I said that, I just think the whole avoidance craze is just that - people who didn't like the WoLK paradigm, seem to have decided that new expansion means that they can now claim balance with avoidance is the way to go. I just don't believe it and in practice it just isn't panning out in my experience. Given a choice between a tank with 160k unbuffed health and avoidance only on his/her gear or a tank with 140k unbuffed who's gemming and enchanting for avoidance or "balance" I'll take the 160k unbuffed tank.

All the avoidance in the world does nothing against damage other then physical. I'm moving toward getting my avoidance off gear and gemming/enchanting for EH. I started making the change yesterday.

Again, I really don't see where Agg's conclusions have been disproven.

Also, this whole "help the healers" argument really doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you really look at it. I strongly doubt you'll find a healer worth his/her salt who'll say "Oh man, thank God for that extra 1% avoidance the tank gemmed for, it really kept him up and kept me from going OOM." But I know from experience that that extra few thousand health the tank got from gemming/enchanting stam made the difference between getting the heal off and keeping the tank up and the raid wiping.

Who is exactly arguing for avoidance besides bears? At least among pallys and warriors it's dodge + parry + mastery with dodge/parry getting reforged into mastery when it's not on gear (unless there is a less valuable rating). I'm not sure who is promoting an avoidance build?

EH has always been guaranteed damage reduction * stamina. Used to be just armor and stamina, now is soon armor/102.4 + stamina.

Magic fights have always been resistance/stam sets.

One set will never cover the whole gamut, but most fights are more phsyical than magical and even most magical the burst is survivabile, it's the following melee that kills you.

[Vigilant]

Yeah, the problem with lots of mastery - even though it really is a nice stat - is that once you hit heroic raid bosses it seems like there's lots of HP-Checks in the form of massive non-physical damage on the tanks. And by that time your healers shouldn't be having issues keeping you up through normal damage, so the whole "Save healer mana" argument starts to go out the window.

The problem is that you can't tell someone who's primarily running heroic 5-mans to gear similarly to someone who's primarily running raids, or someone who's primarily running raids, for that matter to gear similarly to someone who's primarily running heroic raids. Each level of content will require that a person gears differently in order to optimal for the particular content their running. Optimal for heroic 5-mans tends to involve stacking mastery for shield wearers, which is what the OP is, balancing stam and mastery for raids, and stacking stam for heroic raids, if one were to generalize the situation to a ridiculous extent.

So, to someone saying they prefer to heal someone who stacks stam, my question would be "in what level of content?" If you mean that you prefer to heal someone who is wearing average ilvl 333 gear just starting heroics, my reply would be that I think you're nuts, as he is going to get hit for more than you can heal faster than you can heal it, if you are in equivalent gear. If you are talking about someone wearing average ilvl 346 beginning raids, then yeah you might prefer that they start balancing stam and mastery, so they don't get 2 or 3-shot before you can heal them up. And if you are talking about healing someone in average ilvl 359 gear, beginning heroic raids, then I absolutely agree that you would most likely prefer them to stack stam. The point is you can't generalize, which is why I think its important for tanks to understand this for themselves, so they can gear appropriately and adaptively as their content level changes.

To those who mention stacking avoidance, to my knowledge no shield wearing tanks are stacking avoidance, unless (1) they don't know what they are doing, or (2) they ridiculously overgear content, are farming it, and prefer to minimize total damage taken. I suppose druids would be the exception, obviously.

[Bovinity]

The problem is that you can't tell someone who's primarily running heroic 5-mans to gear similarly to someone who's primarily running raids, or someone who's primarily running raids, for that matter to gear similarly to someone who's primarily running heroic raids.

Well, I think the point that people are making in regards to things like 5-man heroics is that it hardly matters how you gear at all for them. EH, Avoidance, Mastery, etc will all do the job just fine in 5-mans, generally with very little noticeable difference at all. I just wear my cat PvP gear and agi trinkets to tank 5-mans now.

It's like someone said a while back, when we talk about things like EH vs. Avoidance and whatnot, we're usually discussing progression content or at the very least particular fights that challenge the tank in terms of survival.

[praetoria]

ive been stacking mastery>parry and have enjoyed it. but i also have enough gold to change what ever i want for any fight ( which is a practice i proform frequently).

[Theotherone]

Who is exactly arguing for avoidance besides bears? At least among pallys and warriors it's dodge + parry + mastery with dodge/parry getting reforged into mastery when it's not on gear (unless there is a less valuable rating). I'm not sure who is promoting an avoidance build?

There's a lot of chatter around, even on here, that avoidance is something to be sought by tanks besides just bears. And it's not really avoidance builds it's this whole idea of a "balance build." There are a number of threads on it; none with any math. Also, stories are out there of tanks being kicked for not knowing how to gem/enchant for not having avoidance.

[praetoria]

for warriors there is a "hold the line math" thread..