what to stack after def capped?Follow

i was looking thru the pally forums and saw a thread about what to stack after reaching the def cap (540), and for pallies it looked like mostly stam, but also some block value to help mitigate more damage. right now i am still stacking mostly just stamina, but that could be outdated. so i was wondering what stat to stack now that ive reached the def cap. armory link is below thanks :D

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Perenolde&n=Allstar

There is no defense cap. 540 is the amount of defense you need to be uncritable... Pound for pound, defense is still your best avoidance stat.

*edited for terminology

Edited, Dec 23rd 2008 2:48pm by montaghar

Hmm I was always under the impression that once you became uncritable, defense rating wasn't as good as getting pure block/dodge/parry stats. Because of how low the conversion rating is from defense rating to those avoidance stats.

Could be wrong, but that's how it was in BC, didn't read much change in the conversion rates except that they went up, so I assumed the same would hold true for Wrath.

As far as what stats to shoot for Fletus has it right. If you have enough stats to survive every encounter, you should work on your DPS. But don't neglect your Stamina and Avoidance, once the new content hits there is no telling how much more difficult those encounters will be, so you may want to start creating two end-game tanking sets, which most tanks do anyway.

AVOIDANCE IS NOT MITIGATION!!!

Anyways, my semantics on word usage that I get OCD about aside, defense is still an incredible stat past 540. Most people don't seem to be aware of how powerful it was pre-Wrath anyways, being almost as good as dodge point for point. Now that they've introduced diminishing returns, you'll actually get better avoidance returns by prioritizing defense before dodge. You will, eventually, end up with better avoidance by going this route than if you were stacking pure avoidance stats. Parry is, for the record, still terrible. Tanks should not stack it unless they want to risk looking like an idiot. If you're a tank stacking parry, STOP. You are costing yourself large portions of avoidance for the sake of extremely negligible threat gains.

You might want to push survival stats until around the time you get to clear Naxx10/see Maly10. Once you get to this point, your avoidance and health you need should be baked into all the gear you get, and you'll get all the added survivability you need just by picking up gear. At that point in time, I'd advise the route I suggested, and push out those numbers...at least until new content opens up that could potentially be more trying.

Edit: Like Devious said, with defense you also get the added benefit of mitigation via block rating to go with your avoidance. With the high amounts of block value able to be gained now, along with critical block...this is a very good way to add some regular mitigation on fights, and more mitigation does not hurt.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2008 2:22pm by FletusSanguine

I thought that Defense Rating also added Miss %, in which case it's better than you're giving it credit for. That is, you'd have 1% dodge, 1% parry, 1% miss (3% avoidance) and 1% block (mitigation).

That 5.28% number doesn't mean much. Saying "1.6% avoidance and 3.7% block" would be more accurate.

Its really not a matter of choise of what you want to stack...

There are spesific epic items that drop from bosses/hc's and not really too many different gear options one can equip while trying to become full epic. So its a matter of what the game allows you to equip at this point that you are.
If you look up in the armory you will see that progressing warrior tanks dont have too many differences in gear...
I dont think that you have 2 epics(80) that give different stats for every slot and need to choose from.


So the question is not :' What to stack after 540 def ?'

The question is : ' What is the next hc I m gonna farm so that I can replace that blue 78 gear I already have or to replace that Imba 70 item I had on me for sooo long with a new 80 epic' (As the jeneral rule is that 80 epics are better than 78 blues and much better than 70 epics)

But since you are already on an Imba path.... dont worry for stacking any stat at this point-exept maintaining def up.
Your stamina is high enough to support demanding heroics

(I have farmed for your Imba sword 10-15?? times and still no drop-so unlucky , hope today it will drop )

Let me just add;

Stamina and Armor do not have diminishing returns. Avoidance does.

Stamina and Armor by far (IMHO) the best stats you can stack for survival. Avoidance will come with the gear that comes with defense rating. Defense rating gives a wide variety of Avoidance stats, each of which are on separate diminishing returns.

Dodge rating is about as good as stacking Defense rating after you have 540 defense skill. Block rating and Parry rating are not exciting or worth it.

Now. Secondly, Stamina, Armor, and Avoidance do not generate threat.

Strength gives us Shield Block Value and AP, both of these are way more useful for threat now. Also Shield Block Value is very useful for mitigation as well now.


So after you get 540 Defense Skill (not rating). Generally it is discussed the most efficient way to stack is for Defense Rating : Dodge Rating (3:2 or 1:1). Or push a high Shield Block Value set.


If you read the whole EJ post provided above and here, you'll see what I mean. Also read, this post on EJ.

So people keep saying that once you have enough stamina, it becomes less and less useful, so how much hp should i aim to have before starting to focus on other things?

WoW Wiki Combat Rating System, if my numbers were off it's because WoW Wiki was wrong, so then what are the correct numbers if these are wrong?

I also didn't conveniently forget parry, I said that the pure stat conversion was too high (49.18 - 1%) to even bother going after pure parry stats.

I did say that 123 defense rating gives you 3% avoidance and mitigation(which would be 1% parry, dodge, and block). I did miss that Defense Skill increases a bosses chance to miss, which does increase it's value greatly.

Yeah usually when I do the numbers and look at things I tend to think in terms of fighting bosses, especially in raids. Trash has always been that, trash. Unimportant.

Although since running Heroic Strat a couple times in the past week, I have been rethinking that considering the trash in that heroic seems to be much more difficult than the actual bosses, I'm beginning to rethink that philosophy and might have to start looking at those trash encounters more.

Edited, Dec 26th 2008 1:34pm by SynnTastic

I'm not really sure where in your head you went wrong, but that chart is correct. You're interpreting it incorrectly. Defense gives dodge, miss, AND parry, all bundled into one package on the stat. It gives ALL THREE stats. So to reach the same end result of 1% avoidance, you only need 41 defense rating, not 123. That was what I was saying. Your first post was incorrect in stating that it would take 123 rating to reach the avoidance returns that 39.35 dodge rating would grant. This is, genuinely, NOT a flame. I just simply don't understand how you read that chart, which I think is fairly clear, and saw needing exactly x3 the defense rating you actually do to gain 1% avoidance, because that is dead on how much you were wrong by.

Edited, Dec 27th 2008 5:20am by FletusSanguine

I don't see it as a flame, if it's wrong, it's wrong. I think you were just reading what I wrote wrong. I said 123 defense rating gives 3% avoidance and mitigation(which should be 4% since it also adds chance to be missed). I never said it takes 123 defense rating to get the same 1% avoidance that 39.35 dodge gives you.



41 defense rating only gives you 1% combined miss/dodge/parry/block. In other words the amount of miss/dodge/parry/block totaled up equals 1%

Not that 41 defense rating gives you 1% of each.

It says in the paragraph above that:



And since 4.92 defense rating gives 1 defense skill

25*4.92=123

In other words 123 defense rating gives you 1% of each dodge, parry, block, and miss. (also the ability to avoid being crit, but the conversation revolves around after being crit capped) for a total of 4% avoidance and mitigation . Which is what I said in my second post. Which is why I went ahead and compared that 123 value to the pure stats using the same 123 value and showing the overall total percentages at the end.

Edit to clarify because it's starting to get all screwy:

41 defense rating = 1% avoidance
123 defense rating = 4% avoidance and mitigation. or 1% each of dodge/parry/miss/block
39.32 dodge rating = 1% avoidance
123 dodge rating = 3.1% avoidance
49.18 parry rating = 1% avoidance
123 parry rating = 2.5% avoidance
16.39 block rating = 1% mitigation
123 block rating = 7.5% mitigation
62 dodge rating and 62 block rating = 1.58% avoidance and 3.78% mitigation, or 5.36% avoidance and mitigation.


Edited, Dec 29th 2008 11:21am by SynnTastic