Soaking Annihilates on Garrosh 10N

[Saybel]

Hello Everyone!

I have a quick (but possibly extensive) question.

Basically I solotank Garrosh on my tanks every week for looms - And I'm trying to squeeze the maximum amount of DPS possible out of them (to make the runs as easy as possible! solotanking, even with 7 mediocre DPS, makes the fight trivial), the class I do this best on so far is Monk for various reasons, which have alot to do with Monks doing extremely good damage for little effort and the ease of soaking Annihilate.

I play 3 tank classes; Warrior, DK and Monk.

On my monk, soaking all these is easy. I basically go Zen Meditation (soaks 3), External or Fort Brew (soaks 1-3), Diffuse Magic (soaks 2) and a 1 million+ glyphed Guard takes the rest for me.

On the other two tanks... not so much, when solotanking on a friend's DK who has a stamina trinket, I noticed I could stand in every annihilate (except 1, which I stood in and died from full HP, without my tank cloak proccing. if someone could explain why, I would be greatful) without a single CD, my tanks cannot do this, because I take offensively orientated trinkets (aka Thok's Tail Tip, Skeer's Talisman).

My question is: What % of damage reduction or # of absorption do I need on the following 2 tanks

882,000 HP Blood DK
735,00 HP Warrior (Though, should increase when I get the cloak)

My guess is I need 1.375M EHP to soak them before tanking damage reductions, but I'm not sure how to calculate damage reductions stacking ontop of eachother (my maths is rusty). My guess is I need about ~25% DR on the Warrior after Def Stance, or around 300k~ absorption, and quite a bit less on the DK, but a helpful hand would be greatly appreciated.

I don't need to really save my cooldowns for P2 DoT - I usually have 3/4 usable externals or just don't need them at all because active mitigation negates a huge portion of damage I take at those damage levels, so I can use them as I see fit in the heart to get 600k+ veng which improves my damage by insane amounts.

edit: what seemed to have caused my death on my friends tank is lack of bone shield, overkilling me by 16k HP (I have it macroed into death strike luls), still, tank cloak didn't proc, odd.

[meroko]

Why are you soaking Annihilate? Vengeance?

[Zxzas]

I don't get the point, isn't vengeance terrible now?

[Sonnillon]

Soaking Annihilate keeps your vengeance up on a decent level during the realm. But all the times I've stood in it to keep mine up, I never got above 170-190k, up from 80-100k which I usually have in the transition realm. Don't seem it being worth it actually, not me at least. Solo tanking you run keeps your DPS high enough.

I tank with my guardian and when I decide to soak, I have the realm's buff + 40% reduction from SI. And at 1.2 mil I'm walking away with roughly 30-40% of my HP.

[Nnug]

Soaking all of the annihilates give like 400k veng on NM, on heroic it's basically a necessity for tanks (the 600k+ veng really helps pushing the dps). Rook's active works on annihilate too if you are struggling with the damage.

[Anzen]

A couple of things on the matter:

1. The DPS you get from this is so negligible to kill normal it's fairly ridiculous to risk killing yourself and probably wiping the raid for. You'll do what a couple thousand extra DPS across the whole fight?
2. I watch friends/guild tanks/PuG's die to this relentlessly, and it gets old really quickly. Again, it's a really silly idea to try to take over 1 million hits to do fractionally more DPS.
3. DK's can soak it without cooldowns as long as you have Bone Shield and the Protectors trinket up. It's kinda sketchy though since you'll have to be at 100% hp when you do it.

My advice: don't soak!

EDIT: The tanking cloak has a limit on the damage it will absorb from what I've seen (I don't know what it is).

I've heard before it won't proc off Annihilate nor the 15M hit from Mandokir. I'd imagine it's limit is the users Maximum HP, but this is just speculation.

[Frozendekay]

As long as you have the Faith buff you should be fine. On a warrior start off with Shield wall and then when vengeance is higher for big Sbarr's you go into last stand/demo. Sbarr every annihilate, it's easy.

[Jellospally]

First all everyone saying this gives less veng on normal is wrong. This hits for the EXACT same amount on normal and heroic.

Its 3,500,000 before any DR.

1,750,000 before any DR except the phase debuff that makes you take 50% less dmg.

As a DK Army first 2 hits, Vamp Blood + Bone Shield + a random external next 3, IBF next 4.

Warrior is the easiest imo Demo Shout + Last Stand + random external for 3 hits(use rage on barriers on these), Shield Wall next 4(dont use shield barriers save for after), Next 3 hits shield barrier is enough(600k+ veng 60 rage barrier 2 in a row, 3rd one is like a 40-60 rage barrier depending on procs) either way high veng barrier is enough.

Tank Cloak Absorbs your max HP as a cap. So even if you used no CD and no mitigation you will live a hit long as you have 850k hp but who doesnt have at least some dmg reduce or absorb.

Either way doing this right on every tank you shouldn't have to warrior about cloak saving you.

No tank should use Protectors trinket it is worthless when you can use Skeer + Thoks those give WAY more dps throughout the whole fight.


As for DR for anyone long as you have Debuff its 1.75m per hit so just calc it from there

Take your warrior
1.75m x .75(dstance) x .8(demo shout) = 1.05m hits + Last stand and minimal shield barriers and you can die(if you have low HP an external)
Now if you have Shield Wall instead of demo shout you obviously are gonna take a lot less dmg change .8 from demo to .5 for shield wall and you ger 656,250 dmg now you can see you can't even die with just that up.

Its pretty easy to calc its dmg.

[Anzen]

Tank Cloak Absorbs your max HP as a cap. So even if you used no CD and no mitigation you will live a hit long as you have 850k hp but who doesnt have at least some dmg reduce or absorb.

Nice, thanks for confirming my speculation.

No tank should use Protectors trinket it is worthless when you can use Skeer + Thoks those give WAY more dps throughout the whole fight.

I don't know, I'm old school. I always think a tanks first priority should always be minimizing the damage he takes and the healing he needs. I know the role of tanks has shifted quite vastly recently, but I still can't accept using double DPS trinkets on a tank (I personally use Vial & Thok's currently).

[Deleted]

The single most important thing is that you need to soak every annihilate. Due to how vengeance works your vengeance will drop a lot if you skip soaking one.
Since you are solo tanking the value of this is also diminished since as soon as you get out of the realm the boss will hit you which will again lower your vengeance.

Anyhow, if you can soak reliably, do it. If you cant, dont do it.

[Deleted]

kind of a stupid idea. you dont need to soak it, so why would you? if youre dps are that bad to the point where a tanks needs to soak annihilates to cover the dps than you really need to replace your terrible dps

Infracted

[Deleted]

kind of a stupid idea. you dont need to soak it, so why would you? if youre dps are that bad to the point where a tanks needs to soak annihilates to cover the dps than you really need to replace your terrible dps

You have not done much raiding have you?

[Deleted]

You have not done much raiding have you?

if clearing current heroic content qualifies as not much then i geuss so.

[anjan011]

You have not done much raiding have you?

Only in very early progression a tank's dps matters. Sure u can try soaking the annihilate, based on ur skill + ur heals, u could be fine or u can wipe your entire raid. Wiping on Garry is particularly painful. that fight is too long.

[Anzen]

if clearing current heroic content qualifies as not much then i geuss so.

What Firefly33 means is that raiding has vastly changed. In today's raiding environment it is extremely common to have a tank as the highest source (or one of) of damage in your raid. This translates into tanks actually holding at least some responsibility for a groups overall damage, and like DPS, they should do what they can to realistically push their classes to the limit.

Whilst soaking all the Annihilates is a more extreme example of this, it isn't unnecessary for tanks to take more damage than required to do this on other mechanics (especially since healing for the vast part is insignificant).

Examples include: tanks taking the Scorpion buff on Klaxxi Heroic (apparently borderline mandatory in 10 man - I haven't done this fight 10HC so I can't comment) and solo tanking bosses (Thok/Garrosh).

That said, and like someone else has said in this thread, I don't personally agree on a tank trying to soak all the annihilates unless he is comfortable with it. If there is even the slight chance you might die doing it, don't bother.

[Deleted]

Only in very early progression a tank's dps matters. Sure u can try soaking the annihilate, based on ur skill + ur heals, u could be fine or u can wipe your entire raid. Wiping on Garry is particularly painful. that fight is too long.

In scenarios like the OP it also matters when he is in pug groups where people do not pull their weight. In fact if he can push more dps in a scenario like that where his group is pulling lower dps it is a bigger gain.

[Frozendekay]

kind of a stupid idea. you dont need to soak it, so why would you? if youre dps are that bad to the point where a tanks needs to soak annihilates to cover the dps than you really need to replace your terrible dps

There's no risk at all if you do it properly. Cover it with CD's and absorbs, use healthstones. Start the soaking later if you don't have the CD's to cover all 30-40 seconds.

It's basically free dps. Who doesn't like that?

[Yakrion]

Dunno why people are commenting about how tanking should be just about tanking. While I don't like the current model of tank dps, it's the mark of a good tank currently that he can vengeance whore (reliably) and make the fight easier for his raid.

@OP. That said, if you die, your raid has every right to be annoyed at you. Slippery slope.

[Deleted]

It's basically free dps. Who doesn't like that?

It's not free. It comes at the expense of your healer's mana. even if it's just a little

[Anzen]

It's not free. It comes at the expense of your healer's mana. even if it's just a little

Healer mana hasn't been an issue in SoO. The only real cost would be the risk of dying.