I lost some hp over the weekend (dropped from 28.2k down to 27.2k) but I became block-capped (103.0% avoidance with holy shield up). We have another Prot Paladin in guild that is at about 28.9k health, but only 97% avoidance with holy shield up.
Is there any practical way to measure the difference in our respective "effective health"? I have told him that I feel for many raid boss fights we are probably better off with me as the MT because I am block-capped, and yet there are some fights where I have him MT because of his larger health pool (Sartharion for example).
I also kept some of my other gear, and can drop down to about 100% avoidance with HS up but boost my hp up to over 28k again which is what I generally do if I am only running heroics.
I am not entirely sure that my guildie is convinced that I will live longer than he will on many fights even though I have 27.2k health and he has 28.9k health, but I think on a lot of raid boss fights I would indeed live longer.
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Objective way of measuring effective health?Follow
We're missing some vital info.
(1) How much Armor do both of you have?
(2) What is your Avoidance (Dodge/Miss/Parry) compared with his? Block doesn't count.
(3) How much of your "avoidance" you listed is Block Rating and what are your respective SBV's?
This is the best calculator I know of, though there may be better out there.
This link has some interesting analysis on Armor and Time to Live.
Finally, this is a (somewhat outdated) writeup on effective health.
(1) How much Armor do both of you have?
(2) What is your Avoidance (Dodge/Miss/Parry) compared with his? Block doesn't count.
(3) How much of your "avoidance" you listed is Block Rating and what are your respective SBV's?
This is the best calculator I know of, though there may be better out there.
This link has some interesting analysis on Armor and Time to Live.
Finally, this is a (somewhat outdated) writeup on effective health.
The difficulty I've found with calculating effective health is that it has so many metrics that it can get extremely complicated (and convoluted) in an awful hurry.
You've got player stats (armor, health, pure avoidance %, block %) and mob stats (swing rate, base physical damage) further complicated by how many mobs are attacking you.
Obviously, out of two prot paladins whoever has the highest HP has the most "effective" health vs. magic attacks (assuming same buffs and same number of talent points in the magic mitigating talents). It's when you get into the nitty gritty of the physical damage that things go all wonky.
If you consider a baseline scenario where the mobs are hitting you for only physical damage and a successful block is enough to mitigate all of that incoming damage, assuming proper position 100% of the time, a block capped prot pally will have an edge in effective health. It may not be a huge edge, but the main thing is that a block capped prot pally is removing RNG from the equation for as long as they can keep Holy Shield up and not get hit from behind.
After that, the larger the hits, the more you get into the grey areas where DR from armor, block values, pure avoidance vs. block, etc. all start to come into play. I have two addons (TankPoints and one other...the name eludes me). One of them shows me my effective health vs. 2k hits as well as 10k hits, but it's far from objective. It makes a great many assumptions and again, once you get beyond a certain point such that RNG becomes a factor, effective health is only a general guide.
You've got player stats (armor, health, pure avoidance %, block %) and mob stats (swing rate, base physical damage) further complicated by how many mobs are attacking you.
Obviously, out of two prot paladins whoever has the highest HP has the most "effective" health vs. magic attacks (assuming same buffs and same number of talent points in the magic mitigating talents). It's when you get into the nitty gritty of the physical damage that things go all wonky.
If you consider a baseline scenario where the mobs are hitting you for only physical damage and a successful block is enough to mitigate all of that incoming damage, assuming proper position 100% of the time, a block capped prot pally will have an edge in effective health. It may not be a huge edge, but the main thing is that a block capped prot pally is removing RNG from the equation for as long as they can keep Holy Shield up and not get hit from behind.
After that, the larger the hits, the more you get into the grey areas where DR from armor, block values, pure avoidance vs. block, etc. all start to come into play. I have two addons (TankPoints and one other...the name eludes me). One of them shows me my effective health vs. 2k hits as well as 10k hits, but it's far from objective. It makes a great many assumptions and again, once you get beyond a certain point such that RNG becomes a factor, effective health is only a general guide.
Not a direct answer to your questions, but I read somewhere that they made a Patchwerk with infinite HP. They tested all 4 tanks against him. He had some kind of stacking buff that made him hit harder. I think the point was to test the Effective health of each tank...
The Paly tank finished last (Died after fewest stacks of damage)
Then came the warrior
Then the Druid
But DK outlasted them all by such a massive margin...
Can anyone find that? It's not a direct answer to Jerome's Q, But it was interesting and unfortunate for Palys.
The Paly tank finished last (Died after fewest stacks of damage)
Then came the warrior
Then the Druid
But DK outlasted them all by such a massive margin...
Can anyone find that? It's not a direct answer to Jerome's Q, But it was interesting and unfortunate for Palys.
Borsuk wrote:
Not a direct answer to your questions, but I read somewhere that they made a Patchwerk with infinite HP. They tested all 4 tanks against him. He had some kind of stacking buff that made him hit harder. I think the point was to test the Effective health of each tank...
27 Million HP IIRC - gains a stacking +10% dmg buff every 10 seconds.
Official Forums: Patchwerk DPS and Tank Testing
Official Forums: Patchwerk Tank Testing 2nd Trial
What the tests really show well is the effectiveness of chaining CDs coupled with high avoidance - the DK, who has high avoidance and more CDs to chain, is able to last the longest. They also illustrate the ineffectiveness of Block against hard-hitting bosses (i.e. Block is super strong against weak/trash mobs and becomes decreasingly effective the harder a mob hits). These tests were done before the DK and Feral tanking nerfs on the PTR, so I'm not sure what current tests would show.
Right now a TON of my avoidance comes from block (probably 53.3% when I have HS up), so obviously now the trick is to upgrade my gear to start replacing all of that block with dodge and parry while still remaining block-capped.
I am still using a blue cape, but after OS-25 tonight I will have more than enough EoVs for the http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=40722;source=live which has defense, dodge, and hit rating on it, whereas my current cloak only has defense and hit.
I am also currently using http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=39298;source=live which has block rating on it, but I think once I replace my cloak and enchant it with titanweave, I will be able to go back to the EoH belt which has dodge and parry instead of block and I will still remain block-capped.
I am also doing Naxx-25 this week for the first time (guild finally got big enough to handle it) so hopefully I will get some more upgrades. Right now the only 25-man gear I have are the 7.5 gloves from a drop in OS-25.
In the near future, I see my dodge and parry going up quite a bit while still remaining block-capped, so that should help a lot.
I am still using a blue cape, but after OS-25 tonight I will have more than enough EoVs for the http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=40722;source=live which has defense, dodge, and hit rating on it, whereas my current cloak only has defense and hit.
I am also currently using http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=39298;source=live which has block rating on it, but I think once I replace my cloak and enchant it with titanweave, I will be able to go back to the EoH belt which has dodge and parry instead of block and I will still remain block-capped.
I am also doing Naxx-25 this week for the first time (guild finally got big enough to handle it) so hopefully I will get some more upgrades. Right now the only 25-man gear I have are the 7.5 gloves from a drop in OS-25.
In the near future, I see my dodge and parry going up quite a bit while still remaining block-capped, so that should help a lot.
jeromesimina wrote:
Right now a TON of my avoidance comes from block (probably 53.3% when I have HS up), so obviously now the trick is to upgrade my gear to start replacing all of that block with dodge and parry while still remaining block-capped.
So you've got ~50% dodge/miss/parry? That's not bad at all.
Yes, that is about right:
Miss 10.84%
Dodge 20.91%
Parry 17.97%
Block 23.28%
HS 30.00%
And, as I said, after tonight I should be able to replace some of that block with dodge and parry, so it will be even better.
I see a lot of Prot Paladins on my server now that really aren't all that close to block-capped. I know that crushing blow was essentially removed from the attack table, but everyone playing a Prot Paladin should realize that 102.4% total avoidance knocks regular hit off of the attack table still, so it is still a good number to shoot for.
A lot of Prot Paladins I talk to on my server say things like, "I have 29k health unbuffed and am a bit over 540 defense, so I am good!"
Ok, yeah, but if you were block-capped you would be even better!
Also, my mitigation from armor is 60.03%
Here is an armory link, though I expect a few pieces of my gear to change tonight:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Emerald+Dream&n=Arthang
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 11:52am by jeromesimina
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 11:53am by jeromesimina
Miss 10.84%
Dodge 20.91%
Parry 17.97%
Block 23.28%
HS 30.00%
And, as I said, after tonight I should be able to replace some of that block with dodge and parry, so it will be even better.
I see a lot of Prot Paladins on my server now that really aren't all that close to block-capped. I know that crushing blow was essentially removed from the attack table, but everyone playing a Prot Paladin should realize that 102.4% total avoidance knocks regular hit off of the attack table still, so it is still a good number to shoot for.
A lot of Prot Paladins I talk to on my server say things like, "I have 29k health unbuffed and am a bit over 540 defense, so I am good!"
Ok, yeah, but if you were block-capped you would be even better!
Also, my mitigation from armor is 60.03%
Here is an armory link, though I expect a few pieces of my gear to change tonight:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Emerald+Dream&n=Arthang
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 11:52am by jeromesimina
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 11:53am by jeromesimina
Errr yeh, effective health.
First off you can't know effective health at all, the most accurate would be expected survivability per encounter.
Which is a pain because you'd need totalized data of expected damage of each time per encounter, this may not be so hard but you still need the data of EACH encounter.
Shield block is NOT avoidance, it's mitigation. Unless your block value is so high...
Just calculate your total expected mitigations from each source through the entire encounter and add them together. Ideally you should totalize them "per minute", but either way will work.
Mitigations: Armor, Shield Block, Resistance, Other mitigations.
Avoidances: Dodge, Parry, Miss, Other avoidances.
Grab your encounter total unmitigated raw damage data, wich probably looks something like:
8500K Physical damage.
3500K Nature damage. - Maybe get an acclimation tank eh?
2500K Shadow damage. - 2 resistances, acclimation would pwn here.
900 Melee swings for 9000 avg damage per swing.
Then calculate the amount of avoidance done by armor shield and stuff.
Example with 60% reduction from armor and 20/20/25/5 dodge/parry/block/miss and 300 blockvalue.
Armor = 8500K damage * 0.55 not avoided * 0.6 mitigated = XXXXK from armor.
Shield = 0.25 chance *900 swings *300 block = XXXXK from shield.
Avoidances = 20+20+5 = 45%
900 swings * .45 avoided * 9000 damage = XXXX from avoidance.
If 2 given tanks have the same total of mitigated + avoided the mitigating tank is generally better UNLESS the mechanics of the encounter allow you to dodge/parry melee swings that apply some massive debuff. Note: only Resil will mitigate physical DoT damage.
As for the effectiveness of the HP pool, unless you're doing PvP, the HP pool ONLY affects the amount of time that healers have for reacting and healing. Nothing else. The larger the HP pool the easier it is to heal the tank and the less overhealing required. This is a TIME measure not a HP measure or a damage measure. Measuring this is a bit more complicated because what you have to measure is the amount of time that it would take to get your HP from top to zero in the moment of the strongest burst of dps.
I don't understand the point of block capping since crushing blows are not part of the game anymore.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 12:14pm by xorq
First off you can't know effective health at all, the most accurate would be expected survivability per encounter.
Which is a pain because you'd need totalized data of expected damage of each time per encounter, this may not be so hard but you still need the data of EACH encounter.
Shield block is NOT avoidance, it's mitigation. Unless your block value is so high...
Just calculate your total expected mitigations from each source through the entire encounter and add them together. Ideally you should totalize them "per minute", but either way will work.
Mitigations: Armor, Shield Block, Resistance, Other mitigations.
Avoidances: Dodge, Parry, Miss, Other avoidances.
Grab your encounter total unmitigated raw damage data, wich probably looks something like:
8500K Physical damage.
3500K Nature damage. - Maybe get an acclimation tank eh?
2500K Shadow damage. - 2 resistances, acclimation would pwn here.
900 Melee swings for 9000 avg damage per swing.
Then calculate the amount of avoidance done by armor shield and stuff.
Example with 60% reduction from armor and 20/20/25/5 dodge/parry/block/miss and 300 blockvalue.
Armor = 8500K damage * 0.55 not avoided * 0.6 mitigated = XXXXK from armor.
Shield = 0.25 chance *900 swings *300 block = XXXXK from shield.
Avoidances = 20+20+5 = 45%
900 swings * .45 avoided * 9000 damage = XXXX from avoidance.
If 2 given tanks have the same total of mitigated + avoided the mitigating tank is generally better UNLESS the mechanics of the encounter allow you to dodge/parry melee swings that apply some massive debuff. Note: only Resil will mitigate physical DoT damage.
As for the effectiveness of the HP pool, unless you're doing PvP, the HP pool ONLY affects the amount of time that healers have for reacting and healing. Nothing else. The larger the HP pool the easier it is to heal the tank and the less overhealing required. This is a TIME measure not a HP measure or a damage measure. Measuring this is a bit more complicated because what you have to measure is the amount of time that it would take to get your HP from top to zero in the moment of the strongest burst of dps.
I don't understand the point of block capping since crushing blows are not part of the game anymore.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 12:14pm by xorq
The point of block capping is that you can no longer take a regular hit, only a block, parry, dodge or miss.
This is pretty straight-forward. A blocked hit is going to do less damage to you than a hit, so by taking hit off of the table, you are reducing the amount of damage you are going to take. You are not ever going to get to the point as a Prot Paladin where you knock block completely off of the table and can only take a dodge/parry/miss (would be nice to be invincible, wouldn't it?), but you can VERY easily knock crit off of the table through 540 defense rating, and you can fairly easily knock hit off of the table by getting to 102.4% total block/parry/dodge/miss.
Also, Blessing of Sanctuary gives you mana back on blocks, parries or dodges, so by ensuring that the ONLY kinds of attacks that you will be fielding are block, parry, dodge, and miss, the only thing you are not going to be getting mana back from is "miss". My chance to be missed is 10.84%, so over 89% of the time (on average) I am getting mana back on every attack if I have blessing of sanctuary and holy shield is up.
So, if you are block-capped, you take less damage, giving you more effective health (making it take more time for your hp to go from max to 0) and you increase the percentage of time that you are getting mana back, giving you more longevity for the longer boss fights before you have to pop divine plea, pop a mana pot, or risk going OOM.
With 3.1 we will have 100% uptime on divine plea, but that is basically a cop-out for Paladin Tanks that don't understand the benefits of block-capping. Blizzard is making it easier for sort-of-ok tanks to last through longer fights... what a surpise!
I could go farm H AN for the essence of gossamer, wear my frost-resist belt with defensive gems in it, and go back to my tempered titansteel helm, and probably still have 540 defense, go up about 200 Stamina (2000hp) and be ok, but I would take regular hits, and have less mana regen from BoSanc, so to me, I would rather have 27.2k hp and be block-capped rather than 29.2k hp and be at 96 or 97% with HS up. Some Paladins would prefer the larger hp pool, but my gut feeling is they aren't going to last as long on a drawn-out fight with a hard-hitting boss. For a boss throwing out a ton of magic damage, I would obviously not care about block-capping and would prefer the extra hp.
I am waiting to see if Losie weighs in on this. I know that the math to actually figure out the difference would be a total bear and would also be encounter-specific, but I can say for sure that in encounters where a boss is doing strictly physical damage, I make healers REALLY BORED.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 2:06pm by jeromesimina
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 2:12pm by jeromesimina
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 2:16pm by jeromesimina
This is pretty straight-forward. A blocked hit is going to do less damage to you than a hit, so by taking hit off of the table, you are reducing the amount of damage you are going to take. You are not ever going to get to the point as a Prot Paladin where you knock block completely off of the table and can only take a dodge/parry/miss (would be nice to be invincible, wouldn't it?), but you can VERY easily knock crit off of the table through 540 defense rating, and you can fairly easily knock hit off of the table by getting to 102.4% total block/parry/dodge/miss.
Also, Blessing of Sanctuary gives you mana back on blocks, parries or dodges, so by ensuring that the ONLY kinds of attacks that you will be fielding are block, parry, dodge, and miss, the only thing you are not going to be getting mana back from is "miss". My chance to be missed is 10.84%, so over 89% of the time (on average) I am getting mana back on every attack if I have blessing of sanctuary and holy shield is up.
So, if you are block-capped, you take less damage, giving you more effective health (making it take more time for your hp to go from max to 0) and you increase the percentage of time that you are getting mana back, giving you more longevity for the longer boss fights before you have to pop divine plea, pop a mana pot, or risk going OOM.
With 3.1 we will have 100% uptime on divine plea, but that is basically a cop-out for Paladin Tanks that don't understand the benefits of block-capping. Blizzard is making it easier for sort-of-ok tanks to last through longer fights... what a surpise!
I could go farm H AN for the essence of gossamer, wear my frost-resist belt with defensive gems in it, and go back to my tempered titansteel helm, and probably still have 540 defense, go up about 200 Stamina (2000hp) and be ok, but I would take regular hits, and have less mana regen from BoSanc, so to me, I would rather have 27.2k hp and be block-capped rather than 29.2k hp and be at 96 or 97% with HS up. Some Paladins would prefer the larger hp pool, but my gut feeling is they aren't going to last as long on a drawn-out fight with a hard-hitting boss. For a boss throwing out a ton of magic damage, I would obviously not care about block-capping and would prefer the extra hp.
I am waiting to see if Losie weighs in on this. I know that the math to actually figure out the difference would be a total bear and would also be encounter-specific, but I can say for sure that in encounters where a boss is doing strictly physical damage, I make healers REALLY BORED.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 2:06pm by jeromesimina
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 2:12pm by jeromesimina
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 2:16pm by jeromesimina
Thanks for finding that -
Jer - Have you also considered damage spikes in fights like Gluth. While I agree that Block Cap is a good goal - I think all Palys need a soak set. Meaning a set that's at 540 + as much stamina as you can lie, cheat, or steal...
I MT most of Nax for our group because Palys make better main tanks than OT. But on fights where that tank is simply a damage sponge, just there to soak up huge hits - Just simply having a big HP set is important. I am the OT for Gluth - because my Buffed 32k isn't as good as our Druids Buffed 36+...
Also - Fights like Patchwork. That hateful strike is such a monster hit - Blocking a small part of it is nice, but our healers prefer someone who can just eat it.
*Perhaps this is realated to the issues with healing/mana at the moment, but currently - Our guild likes having a pure Damage sponge and a tankadin. (We have no warrior tanks, Just Paly, DK, and Bears.)
Jer - Have you also considered damage spikes in fights like Gluth. While I agree that Block Cap is a good goal - I think all Palys need a soak set. Meaning a set that's at 540 + as much stamina as you can lie, cheat, or steal...
I MT most of Nax for our group because Palys make better main tanks than OT. But on fights where that tank is simply a damage sponge, just there to soak up huge hits - Just simply having a big HP set is important. I am the OT for Gluth - because my Buffed 32k isn't as good as our Druids Buffed 36+...
Also - Fights like Patchwork. That hateful strike is such a monster hit - Blocking a small part of it is nice, but our healers prefer someone who can just eat it.
*Perhaps this is realated to the issues with healing/mana at the moment, but currently - Our guild likes having a pure Damage sponge and a tankadin. (We have no warrior tanks, Just Paly, DK, and Bears.)
Borsuk,
Yes, for certain, on fights where purely physical mitigation/avoidance is not really all that useful, I aim for exactly 540 defense and cram as much stam as I can, and to heck with the block/parry/dodge.
There are some fights where having the huge hp pool is going to be of far more benefit, so I always carry my "high-stam" gear around in my bags with me on raids.
Yes, for certain, on fights where purely physical mitigation/avoidance is not really all that useful, I aim for exactly 540 defense and cram as much stam as I can, and to heck with the block/parry/dodge.
There are some fights where having the huge hp pool is going to be of far more benefit, so I always carry my "high-stam" gear around in my bags with me on raids.
jeromesimina wrote:
Also, Blessing of Sanctuary gives you mana back on blocks, parries or dodges, so by ensuring that the ONLY kinds of attacks that you will be fielding are block, parry, dodge, and miss, the only thing you are not going to be getting mana back from is "miss". My chance to be missed is 10.84%, so over 89% of the time (on average) I am getting mana back on every attack if I have blessing of sanctuary and holy shield is up.
You could run the numbers and you can equate this to an MP5 formula.
Say if you're going from 96% to 100% you gain 4% extra chance to proc 140? approx? mana...
If today's boss has a weapon speed of 1.0 that's 4 procs over 100 seconds.
4/100 * 5 * 140 = 28 MP5 = 336 mana per minute.
With a weapon speed of 2.0 it's half of that.
Quote:
So, if you are block-capped, you take less damage, giving you more effective health (making it take more time for your hp to go from max to 0) and you increase the percentage of time that you are getting mana back, giving you more longevity for the longer boss fights before you have to pop divine plea, pop a mana pot, or risk going OOM.
You're reducing damage per hit by your blockvalue.
If todays boss has a 1.0 weapon speed this 4% extra block rating reduces your damage taken on average by 2.4 times your blockvalue per minute.
If it has a weapon speed of 2.0 then half, if it's 4.0 a quarter...
You can see how the slower and harder the boss hits the less useful shield block is.
Quote:
With 3.1 we will have 100% uptime on divine plea, but that is basically a cop-out for Paladin Tanks that don't understand the benefits of block-capping. Blizzard is making it easier for sort-of-ok tanks to last through longer fights... what a surpise!
Divine Plea is independent of damage received. They wanted to change mechanics to avoid paladins going mana-starved at some moments and swamped in others. What I question about this is that the SA mana mechanic is a near equivalent of the warrior rage mechanic, but for warriors they never did anything to buff it, which has been very needed for ages by now. This is like perma-bloodrage.
Quote:
Yes, for certain, on fights where purely physical mitigation/avoidance is not really all that useful, I aim for exactly 540 defense and cram as much stam as I can, and to heck with the block/parry/dodge.
There are some fights where having the huge hp pool is going to be of far more benefit, so I always carry my "high-stam" gear around in my bags with me on raids.
There are some fights where having the huge hp pool is going to be of far more benefit, so I always carry my "high-stam" gear around in my bags with me on raids.
If you're really foregoing avoidance for stamina that much you can actually go lower than 540 def and be uncritable if you match it with resil. That is *IF* you actually have resil gear that DOES have more stam than your def gear.
The effectiveness of your HP can be measured by overheals. If overheals on you are fine you don't need more HP, if overheals are too much you'd probably benefit a lot from a larger HP pool.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 4:24pm by xorq
And really there's no reason to not stack stam after you have 540 def. Nothing increases your EH more than more hp and armor(against physical dam of course) and since there are relatively few armor chants there's no reason to not enchant/gem for stam on every piece of gear you can(except shields, since there was no Wrath stam to shield chant). Also remember stam=threat, it's win-win.
But as always, tanking gear is situational: blockset on sapphiron/malygos/KT is less than optimal, but a stam set on loathabe/MT Patch isn't great either. Of course the lack of true difficulty in wrath make such specialization unwarranted. If you're MT'ing quite a bit, you want a good balance of pure avoidance, stam and +hit. If you aren't MT'ing(25man raids), really almost anything works once you're at 540 def and 33k buffed(basically full 10man/epic BoE gear).
I think you mean once you have enough HP to survive the boss mechanics on a particular encounter then your hp pool serves only as a buffer versus time that allows your healers to more easily keep you alive. And its really not that hard to measure, if you ever get 2shot outside of OT'ing on Patch you don't have enough HP.
Consider a 2shot scenario on a 30k hp tank, 2 hits for 16k each and RNG totally fails and he gets hit by both and dies. Now consider a block capped tank with 29k and 1600 block value, RNG fails again but this tank blocks both attacks taking 28.8k and lives. Once you get away from this scenario block capping becomes less valuable and because there are very few encounters that are capable of that amount of burst dam, block capping is nice, but not necessary.
By taking less dam you actually limit your mana regen. Each block nets 140 mana from BoSanc if you have a 7k mana pool buffed. So anytime your block value is higher than 1400 you actually receive more mana from being healed than blocking the damage.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 4:16pm by mahlerite
But as always, tanking gear is situational: blockset on sapphiron/malygos/KT is less than optimal, but a stam set on loathabe/MT Patch isn't great either. Of course the lack of true difficulty in wrath make such specialization unwarranted. If you're MT'ing quite a bit, you want a good balance of pure avoidance, stam and +hit. If you aren't MT'ing(25man raids), really almost anything works once you're at 540 def and 33k buffed(basically full 10man/epic BoE gear).
Quote:
As for the effectiveness of the HP pool, unless you're doing PvP, the HP pool ONLY affects the amount of time that healers have for reacting and healing. Nothing else. The larger the HP pool the easier it is to heal the tank and the less overhealing required. This is a TIME measure not a HP measure or a damage measure. Measuring this is a bit more complicated because what you have to measure is the amount of time that it would take to get your HP from top to zero in the moment of the strongest burst of dps.
I think you mean once you have enough HP to survive the boss mechanics on a particular encounter then your hp pool serves only as a buffer versus time that allows your healers to more easily keep you alive. And its really not that hard to measure, if you ever get 2shot outside of OT'ing on Patch you don't have enough HP.
Quote:
I don't understand the point of block capping since crushing blows are not part of the game anymore.
Consider a 2shot scenario on a 30k hp tank, 2 hits for 16k each and RNG totally fails and he gets hit by both and dies. Now consider a block capped tank with 29k and 1600 block value, RNG fails again but this tank blocks both attacks taking 28.8k and lives. Once you get away from this scenario block capping becomes less valuable and because there are very few encounters that are capable of that amount of burst dam, block capping is nice, but not necessary.
Quote:
So, if you are block-capped, you take less damage, giving you more effective health (making it take more time for your hp to go from max to 0) and you increase the percentage of time that you are getting mana back, giving you more longevity for the longer boss fights before you have to pop divine plea, pop a mana pot, or risk going OOM.
By taking less dam you actually limit your mana regen. Each block nets 140 mana from BoSanc if you have a 7k mana pool buffed. So anytime your block value is higher than 1400 you actually receive more mana from being healed than blocking the damage.
Edited, Mar 31st 2009 4:16pm by mahlerite
xorq wrote:
I don't understand the point of block capping since crushing blows are not part of the game anymore.
Block capping is about consistency, and it's about prot pallies giving themselves a means of determining when to shift their focus from avoidance to stamina. It's about transferring their block value from a chance-on-hit DR (albeit a very good chance on any pally who can keep Holy Shield up) to pretty much static physical mitigation. In a sense, you're basically converting block value to scaling armor. A block capped prot pally wtih 60% DR from armor and 1500 unbuffed block value is basically functioning as an armor capped tank for any unmitigated hit of 10k. Anything less than 10k unmitigated and you're essentially functioning above the armor cap. Above 10k is where the scaling starts to come into play.
More than any of that, pallies are the only class capable of forcing regular hits off the attack table 100% of the time, so my answer to "why focus on reaching block capped?" would be, "because we can."
Hey on my computer at least, we are all Admins today! Grats to all of us! I wonder how much Alla is paying us for the day! Oh wait... it is April 1st... crap.
As I predicted I got a few pieces of new equipement yesterday, was able to raise my hit rating, and lower my block rating a bit while bringing up my dodge, parry, armor and stam and I am still block-capped.
In my block-capped set I have 27.7k health, and in my stam-cramming set I have 29.2k health while still maintaining 540 defense. While it isn't "mandatory" in WotLK to have 2 sets like this, the block-capped set makes my incoming damage very low and very predictable on many boss fights and makes it easy for the healers to keep me alive, so on fights where the mechanics favor block-capping, that is the set I will be using. On fights where block-capping is pretty useless, I can sport 29.2k unbuffed. With maximum buffs this goes up to a really impressive number until I look at our druid tank...
As I predicted I got a few pieces of new equipement yesterday, was able to raise my hit rating, and lower my block rating a bit while bringing up my dodge, parry, armor and stam and I am still block-capped.
In my block-capped set I have 27.7k health, and in my stam-cramming set I have 29.2k health while still maintaining 540 defense. While it isn't "mandatory" in WotLK to have 2 sets like this, the block-capped set makes my incoming damage very low and very predictable on many boss fights and makes it easy for the healers to keep me alive, so on fights where the mechanics favor block-capping, that is the set I will be using. On fights where block-capping is pretty useless, I can sport 29.2k unbuffed. With maximum buffs this goes up to a really impressive number until I look at our druid tank...
Also remember that block capping comes in very handy on multiple mobs (not just trash - noone cares about trash). In Sarth with 3 drakes up, I see a huge difference in the stress on the healers when I tank adds (block capped and high block value) and when we have a DK or druid pick up adds. Those whelps put on a stacking armor debuff -- once stacked high enough, all tanks take a beating from fire elementals, but the shield mitigation stays and keeps the damage a little less spiky.
JamisonP wrote:
Also remember that block capping comes in very handy on multiple mobs (not just trash - noone cares about trash). In Sarth with 3 drakes up, I see a huge difference in the stress on the healers when I tank adds (block capped and high block value) and when we have a DK or druid pick up adds. Those whelps put on a stacking armor debuff -- once stacked high enough, all tanks take a beating from fire elementals, but the shield mitigation stays and keeps the damage a little less spiky.
Ok... I'm not familiar to Sarth since I'm not much of a raider, but...
I thought elementals that did non-physical damage (fire, nature, shadow...) weren't mitigated by armor and couldn't be blocked with a shield, just dodge/parry/miss/resistance/etc.
But after what you say I'm not so sure about it... anyone know for sure?
And don't DK tanks get crazy parry and acclimation to fire?
Quote:
Also remember that block capping comes in very handy on multiple mobs (not just trash - noone cares about trash). In Sarth with 3 drakes up, I see a huge difference in the stress on the healers when I tank adds (block capped and high block value) and when we have a DK or druid pick up adds. Those whelps put on a stacking armor debuff -- once stacked high enough, all tanks take a beating from fire elementals, but the shield mitigation stays and keeps the damage a little less spiky.
Block capping doesn't really help that much in Sarth add tanking as you take so many hits your HS charges will be gone very quickly when the whelps spawn or really anytime you have 6+ adds on you. A very high passive block rate on the other hand is great. Although if you have a high passive block rate you will be block capped while HS/redoubt are up anyway...
Quote:
thought elementals that did non-physical damage (fire, nature, shadow...) weren't mitigated by armor and couldn't be blocked with a shield, just dodge/parry/miss/resistance/etc.
Yes you can block non-physical melee damage, ie elementals. The dam reduction is = to your block value, I don't think the elemental damage is mitigated by armor, but i don't remember for sure, but i don't recall the elementals hitting any harder after the whelps spawn. The blocking elemental damage was a change about a month before Wrath release. Made it extremely easy to OT the Flames during the Illidan fight.
Edited, Apr 1st 2009 7:14pm by mahlerite
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