~ Introduction
~ Useful Links
~ Introduction to the Attack Table
~ Immunity to Critical Hits
~ Immunity to White Hits / Block Capping
~ Mitigation
~ Maximizing Threat, Stats & Rotations
~ Damage Modifiers
~ DPS, What the #$(*?
~ Talents
~ Pre-Raid Gear & Enchants
(Because it's what you REALLY want)
Introduction
The Burning Crusade opened up the floodgates, unleashing a torrent of Paladin tanks on the unsuspecting World of Warcraft. Many earned their keep through hard work, often having to show others that not only could they handle it, they could excel. Wrath of the Lich King brings with it many changes, and to continue to stand tall as a tanking class we must adapt to these changes. I hope this humble guide will provide some helpful information for Paladins that are trying to get raid-viable again in the new expansion, or even trying to get their foot in the tanking door for the first time. Not only is there new gear to aquire, the mechanics of tanking have changed. Where I had hoped people would seek other resources to learn about the mechanics of tanking for my TBC gear guide, I'll include some of the basic information in this one.
Throughout this guide I make two primary assumptions. I assume that you are not yet geared to enter heroics, though you may be able to handle them with great care. I also assume that you're attempting to gear up to enter heroics or Naxx10, though much of the information provided applies to other raids as well.
Also, please remember that this is a THREAD. Everyone is encouraged to discuss everything here. As we learned in TBC, the wealth of information that community discussion leads to can be just as valuable, if not more valuable than, the initial posts.
Useful Links
Maintankadin Forums
The best source online for information about Paladin tanking, especially theorycrafting and more comlicated information. Also the home of the Asylum, where CBH is just everyday and the hypnotoad will force Lightbeard into epic fail.
Elitist Jerks
Also fairly useful for tanking mechanics in general. There is at least as much false information on Elitist Jerks as there is useful information though. Don't assume anything you read there to be fact.
WoWWiki Instances By Continent
Because most people want to have an idea of what they're up against before getting their face pounded in by it.
Introduction to the Attack Table
Every time a physical attack is attempted by a player or an NPC, the outcome is determined by a single roll that is matched against the attack table, a list of all possible outcomes:
Miss Dodge Parry Glancing Blow Block Critical Hit Crushing Blow White Hit
Now, a mob will never land a Glancing Blow on you, they are strictly for attacks made by you against mobs. Also, only mobs that are at least four levels higher than you can land a Crushing Blow. Since a raid boss is only treated as three levels higher than you, you should never receive a Crushing Blow either. The new table looks like this:
Miss Dodge Parry Block Critical Hit White Hit
Each of those possible outcomes has some percentage of a chance of occuring on every attack. The percentages will always total up to 100%, and if you increase the chance of one of the higher outcomes you will decrease the chance of the lowest outcome by the same amount. Meaning, if you increased your Dodge % by 5%, you would reduce the chance of taking a White Hit by 5% so that the total of all outcomes remains 100%. This effect is called being "pushed off the table". We'll touch more on this in the next section.
Miss, Dodge, and Parry are considered "pure avoidence" because either of these outcomes will result in you taking no damage. A Block will reduce the damage you take by your Block Value. Critical Hits are hits for 200% normal damage (when dealt by a mob, not by another player) and are extremely threatening. White Hits are normal hits for standard damage.
Since the outcome is determined by a single roll, it is impossible for two of these outcomes to exist at the same time. For example, it is impossible to Block a Critical Hit. It can be one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Immunity to Critical Hits
We've seen that Critical Hits can be decimating, hitting for 200% of normal damage. Thankfully, we can do something to eliminate them. Defense Skill increases the chance that you'll be Missed, to Dodge, Parry, and Block by 0.04% each. In addition, it reduces the chance that you'll take a Critical Hit by 0.04% for each point. A mob that is the same level as you has a base chance to land a Critical Hit of 5.0%. Since you're gearing up to deal with raid bosses (which are considered three levels higher than you) you actually need to reduce your chance of taking a Critical Hit by 5.6%. It takes an additional 140 Defense Skill to do this.
In other words, to reduce your chance of taking a Critical Hit from a raid boss to 0%, you need a Defense Skill of 540. If you do this, your attack table for incoming hits will look like this:
Miss Dodge Parry Block White Hit
You can also reduce your chance of eating a Critical Hit through the use of resilience. This is not an effective method for a PvE tank to become uncritable. It was acceptable to a certain extent in TBC largely because of the difficulty that gearing up a Warrior or Paladin tank entailed. While it still works, with the ease of obtaining gear in Wrath, one has to ask -- what's the rush? And a tank using resilience to reach crit immunity is rushing. If you're close enough to being immune to Crits to consider using resilience, you're close enough that within 24 hours you can obtain the Defense neccessary to get you there.
Immunity to White Hits / Block Capping
We're tanks. We want to reduce the amount of damage we receive by as much as possible. It's possible to gear so that every damaging hit you take is a Blocked hit, this is called Block Capping. Remember how the entire attack table adds up to 100%? If we were to make the chances of being Missed, Dodging, Parrying, and Blocking equal or surpass 100%, we'd push White Hits right off of the table! Again, since raid bosses are considered three levels higher, 100% isn't quite enough. For them, the magic number is 102.4% combined Block and Avoidence. Since Paladins are the only tank in the game that can reliably be Blocked Capped nearly 100% of the time thanks to Holy Shield -- reaching the block cap means we have the highest effective health of any tank in the game.
In order to achieve this, we stack stats that will raise the chance of an avoidence or block outcome. Where it was once easy to pick-and-choose which stat to take, there's very little choice now. Block Rating is hard to come by (primarily on Tier gear), Parry Rating is highly ineffective. We primarily stack Defense and Dodge Rating. Defense adds to all four of Miss, Dodge, Parry, and Block remember. Dodge Rating only adds to Dodge. Both are comparable in effect, and thanks to the diminishing returns mechanic in place for avoidence, they should ideally be stacked in equal proportions. Also remember that you always have a base chance of being missed of 5% against bossses.
So 540 Defense is vital for getting into raids, and 102.4% combined Block & Avoidence is useful (but not vital). These are good benchmarks to aim for. Don't get flustered trying to get Block Capped before hitting heroics and raids. It won't happen. By the time you're clearing Naxx10 or Naxx25 you should seriously be looking for it. Until we know what Ulduar has to offer, you should treat this as a requirement to start that raid.
How to Calculate Avoidence
Go into your character screen and change the read-out to Defense. The percentages shown for Block, Dodge, and Parry are accurate. Mouse-over your Defense Skill and it will tell you how much it reduces your chance of being hit (At 540 Defense it is 5.6%). This is mostly accurate, but the mouseover ignores diminishing returns. Record all of these numbers, and add -- don't forget your 5% chance to be missed and 30% from Holy Shield.
Example:
Base Miss: 5.0% Defense Miss: 6.0% Parry: 14.0% Dodge: 20.0% Block: 24.0% Holy Shield: 30.0%
This person has 99.0% Block & Avoidence and is nearly Block Capped.
Edited, Jan 26th 2009 4:11pm by Losie