3.3.2

This patch dropped into our laps a few days ago, bringing with it some forms of agony, least of which are the protection tanking changes.

No... The major source of pain is due to the changes to the T10 chest and glove pieces. Having lost their defense and dodge respectively for better armour, this presents a huge problem for progression tank gearing. If you, like me, have already bought one or two pieces of the tier, and are disappointed with the changes, don't worry, you're not alone.

Having already bought the helm and gloves for the 2pc bonus, I went to take a closer look at the T10.264 vs 264 Frost items; my gearing plans already thrown out of whack. My conclusion? The 264 offset pieces are superior in EH due to that extra socket, while the T10.264 chest and glove pieces are slightly more avoidance oriented.

Now, I don't know about you, but finishing the 264 offset pieces are now my highest priority, with the chestpiece and gloves left for me, while I will wear the T10.251 helm and shoulders. The offset chest and gloves will only finally be replaced by the T10.277 pieces, with the crafted pants, the Pillars of Might, staying in the leggings slot.

Icecrown Citadel: Avoidance vs EH

First of all, happy new year and happy birthdays to... well... you know who you are.

I know that I really should be discussing the new 3.3 changes since I haven't already done that, but lets do something a little more in-depth this time: Avoidance or EH in ICC?

As you all may or may not know, avoidance tanks suffered heavily in Sunwell back in TBC, mainly because any major gear change from EH to avoidance caused a tank to fall below the EH requirements of the fights. Bosses in Sunwell Plateau didn't hit often, but they did hit very hard.

Now, in ICC, as part of their "new boss design" strategy, Blizzard has come up with bosses that hit less hard, but hit more often. In lieu of this, the EH requirements of ICC-10 are vastly lower than those of ToGC-10. What this simply means is that if this expected trend continues, I would assume that avoidance tanks would be king in ICC. Of course, this is all speculation, without even seeing what ICC hard mode looks like yet. But this shift away from hard hitting bosses has left me very happy, in the sense that I hated tanking those fights where "if you don't press it, you die." It didn't feel dynamic or fun to tank them.

As an example, Lord Marrowgar melee's for significantly less than Anub'arak in ToGC, but has a nasty spike damage that needs to be reacted to. It won't kill a tank instantly, but the next two attacks will be fatal. Here's the crutch: Instead of having the next 18k swing by the boss be fatal, they instead allowed the boss to hit twice for 9k each. Yes, the DPS done by the boss will probably be the same in the two scenarios, but there is always more room to react to two hits instead of one. There's also a higher probability that either of those two hits will be mitigated or avoided, thus, again, giving healers more room to react, rather than a one-hit do-or-die situation. Even on Saurfang at Frenzy phase (sub-30%), my HP barely spiked below half while in my avoidance set.

It looks like we will have to see what the second wing of ICC turns out to be like (which is next week). I am looking forward to it.

M.I.A.

Yes I know I was MIA for quite a while, but... just to share a little surprise with you, this is what my guild and I have been doing these past weeks:

Edit: Instead of a link to the video, I have uploaded the whole video here. Enjoy :)

Edit on the edit: I've posted back the link here in case you people want a larger view.

I have 80% avoidance

Just an hour or so ago, I heard someone LF main tank for VoA10, so I brought S, since she was the only warrior still not saved yet, in the quest for that elusive 4T8 Protection set. Surprisingly, offtank was a warrior with some pieces of gear that were of higher ilvl than mine, but with questionable gem choices, and in some instances, not enchanted. Should be easy enough, I thought.

A couple of attempts into Koralon, (and even on the trash before that), I realised that the only warrior debuffs on the boss were mine, save Sunder. We had 3 healers, but two of them were averaging 1.5k to 2k HPS - rather weak. On the 2nd attempt, this offtank moved too quickly out of the fire on the ground, only to kill me, because Koralon happened to be casting Meteor Fists at the exact same moment. After we all run back, he asks to main tank, and here's what he says:

And here's what I say:

Wow. Are you actually as stupid as you look? Block was not, is not, and never will be, avoidance. Where did you learn your English?

Avoidance: -noun. the act of avoiding or keeping away from.

In short, it is the ability to TOTALLY avoid an attack. As I have already mentioned, block is a MITIGATION stat. Score one in the win column for me.

But surprisingly, we manage to clear, because all the healers are putting out a combined of 10k HPS this time. On a closer look at recount, however...

Nicely done! Top skill is Devastate, Heroic Strike is 3rd, and only one Thunder Clap. Nice tanking! -endsarcasm-

Compare to my parse on Emalon himself:

I think the screenshots speak for themselves.

Now look at his parse while tanking Emalon's adds:

Top damage ability... is Melee!? Full of win.

People, if you have no idea what the fock you are talking about, and no idea how your class mechanics work, please dont freaking embarass yourself in public. The warrior community is better off without you, seriously.

More tidbits

Since I've been asked, I thought I'd put these two up.

This is a link to the site on how fast both dodge and parry diminish, you can draw your own conclusions here: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f63/40003-diminishing-returns-avoidance.html.

This is the link to the site on which bosses currently have parry haste enabled:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?rb_v=viewtopic&p=490560

A common enchant

Everytime I see a tank sporting Armsman, which is like 99% of the people on my server, I always end up shaking my head in disbelief. Let's look at the enchant more carefully, shall we?

Enchant Gloves - Armsman 5 sec cast
Permanently enchant gloves to increase threat caused by 2% and increase parry rating by 10. Requires a level 60 or higher item.

Now, 10 parry rating is roughly 0.22% parry, but when you factor in diminishing returns, its true value would be something closer to 0.1% parry. But I'm sure that's not why most tanks pick it up. They are enthralled by the 2% threat increase. Now, think about it carefully. On a 7 minute boss fight, an average tank can put out 2 million threat. 2% of that is 40,000 threat. That's barely more than 2 Shield Slams + autoattacks + 3 or 4 Heroic Strikes. Not convinced? Let's analyse what happens in a heroic. On average, mobs in heroic instances die before the tank has 50k threat. 2% of 50k, therefore, would be 1000 threat. That's even less than one Devastate!

Comparing to other alternatives - Heavy Borean Armor Kit for Effective Health and Precise Strikes and Expertise for threat; 18 Stam equates to roughly 210 HP with Vitality and Blessing of Kings, and you already know how good hit and expertise are for threat, and in expertise's case, survivability.

Need I say anymore?

More aggro, part 2

As an update on the previous post, I now present to you the fact that it is also fully possible to hold the DPS of the same T9.25 arcane mage, doing 6.4k DPS and only 20% threat reduction, while only putting out ~1.8k DPS and with no vigilance, tested and proven by yours truly on Wednesday.

As a side update, I bought a new PC about a month ago, and the 25-man experience is amazing, for want of a better word. Haven't been doing too much of them due to a busy schedule, but being able to maintain 20 FPS during the Faction Champions in T0C25 while running at a 12x9 resolution with maxed settings is incredible, and so is having 40 FPS in 25man Onyxia with 40 whelps being AoE'd at the same time.

As an addendum to the side update, I quite possibly had my finest moment last night in ToC25 (not a PuG). Situation: Anub'arak, people were buffing and the raid was in the process of swapping a member. Some hunter managed to aggro the boss with his pet, killing the pet and a priest in the process. While everyone was still sleeping, yours truly charged in, picked up the boss, and tanked it. We wiped in the end though, because the first 2 adds that spawned managed to kill 3 or 4 healers, and subsequently killed the 2 ilvl245 tanks who were still sleeping. In the end, we managed to get the boss to burrow, but because of the lack of healers, the 3rd add I picked up killed me and we wiped. One of my finest moments, I must say~