Stage 4 Knight's Badge

[Encenoa]

After saving all of my resources to plan for upgrading the Knight's Blade to Stage 4, I've now realized that it isn't even an upgrade for me. Am I wrong? Currently rocking a Heroic Warforged Tablet of Turnbuckle Teamwork & Warforged Normal Pillar of the Earth.

[Damosapien]

if you're not constantly dying knights badge is far better than pillar

[Encenoa]

if you're not constantly dying knights badge is far better than pillar

Can you elaborate a little more as to why this is the case?

[Jjmackey]

Can you elaborate a little more as to why this is the case?

What Damosapien said is true in some sense, not true in others; I think it's just an issue of lack of clarity.

I think that when he says "constantly dying," Damo means dying due to lack of effective health, which assumes proper play and bad gear. In this case, yes, the Pillar of the Earth is a great trinket because not only does it have a ton of stamina on it to increase your health, it also has static Bonus Armor ($$$) and Versatility (still a decent defensive stat). In short, PotE is an amazing trinket if you're keeping TMI and effective health in mind when gearing, but not so much in terms of damage reduction.

Another interpretation of "constantly dying" could be that you'd be dying because of poor play, a situation in which no trinket is going to make or break your survival. If you're making mistakes with an extra ~700 or so stamina that the PotE gives (depending on version), you'll likely still die, there's just more of a buffer before you die. A trinket like Knight's Badge would give you static Bonus Armor, which is both damage output and damage reduction, and the proc effect of crit will grant you a good amount of parry (potential for a decrease in damage taken through avoidance) and extra damage output. In short, if you're dying because you're not making the best decisions as a tank (as opposed to the first scenario in which things just hit for more health than you even have (think Mythic Gruul first/second week with his Inferno Strike/Slice)), it's likely that the Knight's Badge will be a better trinket in terms of damage reduction for survival.

TL;DR because I'm long-winded : Pillar is great if you're taking hits that take up nearly all of (if not more than) your entire health pool; if you're not in those situations though, it's purely a TMI trinket (and that's not a bad thing). If your healers don't think you're spiky though and you can survive the big hits, then Knight's Badge is a pretty good trinket for damage output and total damage reduction.

[Erlaya]

Napkin Math comparing the two:

Turnbuckle is:
508 Mastery All the time
297 Averaged armor

Knights Badge 4of4:
333 Armor all the time (So 40 greater Armor than the above when averaged)
337 Crit averaged crit


Additional points:
In favor of Turnbuckle
The Turnbuckle offers a huge boost to Armor in times where it's needed (Soft enrages, etc...)
The mastery reduces the number of total unmitigated hits by 1.54% (Before our mastery bonus)

In favor of Knights Badge
The Knights Badge applies the armor before you are being hit all the time and as such offers a smoother amount of damage over the course of a fight.
The Mastery doesn't have any effect on unmitigated (Miss/Dodge/Parry/Block) hits where as the armor does
The on proc Crit offers periods of time with a huge increase to parry (~12%) which of course means 12% more attacks that are 0 damage.
The crit proc still offers a reduction to magical attacks that can be parried.

My recommendation would be to keep both and use them for different styles of fights. If a boss has unblockable(especially magic) attacks which can be parried then Knight's Badge is likely the better option. If a boss has a period of frenzy or enrage then the Turnbuckle offers a much better on use damage reduction. If you are not using the use of the turnbuckle fairly close to cooldown then the Knights Badge will offer a much smoother damage reduction.

There is also the Crit vs Mastery argument to take into account and if you prefer (or are in a position of) gearing crit then the Knights Badge will be better.

For reference I am currently using: Knights Badge(3of4) and Heroic Blast Furnace Door for the massive armor reduction they both provide. Additionally they have seperate procs that do either. In my bags sits Pillar of the Earth, and Tablet for times when an on use CD is better.

[Shieldarm]

Something to keep in mind about Pillar is actually the Stamina it provides. Or more specifically, its interaction with Resolve. A little while back, someone posted the formula Resolve uses, which came out to show higher stamina actually slows the rate Resolve's percentage goes up, or in effect lowering your resolve. What that means for you, is weaker Shield Barriers. While I can't confirm the guaranteed accuracy of his formula, it is fairly easy to test.

I popped a stamina flask, went to a tanking dummy, and watched my resolve. At between 49-50k damage, I popped a 60 rage Shield Barrier, and backed off, as I record the value. Rinse and repeat. Then, I turned off the flask, and repeated it. Had about 40 points for each, still using the 49-50k damage range, and without a flask, my barriers averaged about 1.6k stronger absorbs.

Stamina is good, if you find you need the extra hp to even survive the hit. But, if you're able to survive it, and it doesn't drop you into the 1-2 shot range from it, then it will negatively impact your overall damage mitigation and smoothing. For that reason alone, I myself would rather use even a 2/4 Knight's Badge over a normal Pillar of Earth, Warforged or not.

[Erlaya]

Something to keep in mind about Pillar is actually the Stamina it provides. Or more specifically, its interaction with Resolve. A little while back, someone posted the formula Resolve uses, which came out to show higher stamina actually slows the rate Resolve's percentage goes up, or in effect lowering your resolve. What that means for you, is weaker Shield Barriers. While I can't confirm the guaranteed accuracy of his formula, it is fairly easy to test.

I popped a stamina flask, went to a tanking dummy, and watched my resolve. At between 49-50k damage, I popped a 60 rage Shield Barrier, and backed off, as I record the value. Rinse and repeat. Then, I turned off the flask, and repeated it. Had about 40 points for each, still using the 49-50k damage range, and without a flask, my barriers averaged about 1.6k stronger absorbs.

Stamina is good, if you find you need the extra hp to even survive the hit. But, if you're able to survive it, and it doesn't drop you into the 1-2 shot range from it, then it will negatively impact your overall damage mitigation and smoothing. For that reason alone, I myself would rather use even a 2/4 Knight's Badge over a normal Pillar of Earth, Warforged or not.

There was a tooltip change in this last patch that removed Stamina from the description. This implies that Stamina no longer has an effect on Resolve? It's a pretty simple test to perform which I will perform tonight if no one else bothers.

[Deleted]

Stamina never had an effect on Resolve on live servers.
Only "Weighted Damage Taken over the last 10s" increases Resolve.

[Erlaya]

Stamina never had an effect on Resolve on live servers.
Only "Weighted Damage Taken over the last 10s" increases Resolve.

This is what I originally thought but there is a widespread amount of information claiming that stamina has an effect on resolve.