[Guardian] Stat Priority now and for 6.2?

[Tripleblack]

Hello all, new bear tank here.

I'm wondering what our stat priority is right now.

Icy Veins says

"Stamina (until you have enough, see below);
Bonus Armor;
Mastery;
Versatility;
Multistrike (up to 10% raid buffed, see below);
Haste;
Critical Strike."


But Noxxic says

"Armor > Stamina > Multistrike > Bonus Armor > Mastery > Versatility >= Agility = Haste > Crit"


Looks like Mr Robot is going for the Multistrike also.


So my question is, what is our stat priority currently and will it be changing in 6.2?

Also any good Bear Druid info sites would be helpful!

[Deleted]

From my impression discussing this on The Inc bear (http://www.theincbear.com/forums/) the ideal order will be: Bonus Armor>Mastery>Multistrike>Haste>Versatility>Crit

From looking at the itemization of T18, the tier 18 set bonuses are very strong and you should get 4 pieces of them due to the items. That said, knowing what you want to get is helpful if you wanna craft.

Anyway, the logic behind it is: Mastery is good because it is your attuned stat, gives damage but also scales well with survivability. Multistrike helps you survive, but also gives damage, its basically stamina+damage so its very cool. Haste is a stat that just makes you better at everything, more procs, more mangles, more more. Crit is bad though since excess rage is a problem especially since you gonna get the change to frenzied regen in 6.2, which makes capping rage even more likely.

[Gorgodeus]

Item Level > Bonus Armor > Mastery > Multistrike > Haste > Versatility >> Critical Strike

Item Level is king, if it is a leather piece, due to you gaining Stamina, Agility, and Armor.

Bonus Armor follows closely behind due to obvious reasons.

Mastery is your attuned stat, and beats out Multistrike because it actually mitigates damage due to the shield it provides.

Multistrike is your best stat from a pure survival perspective, due to it adding to your health pool, but provides no mitigation.

http://summonstone.com/druid/guardian/#stats

[Deleted]

Item Level > Bonus Armor > Mastery > Multistrike > Haste > Versatility >> Critical Strike

Item Level is king, if it is a leather piece, due to you gaining Stamina, Agility, and Armor.

Bonus Armor follows closely behind due to obvious reasons.

Mastery is your attuned stat, and beats out Multistrike because it actually mitigates damage due to the shield it provides.

Multistrike is your best stat from a pure survival perspective, due to it adding to your health pool, but provides no mitigation.

Well its not pure item level in the sense that it was in BRF, since you will have items which are 5 or 10 item levels better than some.

I'd say if an item is a tier upgrade, then go for it. But if an item is say a 695 and has mastery haste, and an item is 700 ilevel and has crit versatility, go for the mastery haste.

[aggixx]

Item Level is king, if it is a leather piece, due to you gaining Stamina, Agility, and Armor.

Cloaks have armor as well FYI

[exochaft]

I'd still say stamina still trumps ilvl, if only for keeping around a stamina trinket or two for those "just in case" moments. If you don't have enough health to reliably survive, it doesn't really matter what your ilvl or the rest of your stats are. Every time I've tried to rely on multistrike for that HP buffer, I get disappointed more often than not. Fortunately, with how gear is nowadays, worrying about our HP isn't nearly as big an issue as it was in the past, but it's still a consideration nonetheless.

[Dreyen]

Yea, Bonus armor > Mastery > multistrike > haste > vers > crit still holds true. noxxic is just weird...never understood the 10% multistrike part on icy veins since it's just a linear bonus. BA, Mastery and multistrike simply makes you a massive effective health beast, and with the SD buff we'll skyrocket our TMI.

[Braindwen]

post 6.2, crit>haste if anything. The only real benefit haste has over crit is extra T&C procs, and for a whole host of reasons (loss of the current 2pc, gain of the new tier bonuses+DR on SD, leech trinket that tank healers ideally still want), T&C is going to be a more situational tool next tier. Still useful, but the difference between it and FR won't be nearly as big as it is now, so extra T&C procs mean much less.

Comparing the two stats defensively, you'll have:

• Near Identical RPS (small enough difference that whether you take SotF for the rage or FoN for the DPS determines which is worth more)
• More T&C procs and, if you're already stacking multistrike, a small boost to MS from haste (40% multistrike means 9 haste rating is also worth about 1 MS rating)
• Boosted CW, and if you still think DoC is a good talent (and it's technically still the best talent for personal survival, even if it's not strong enough to be worth much for the massive DPS loss from not taking HotW), greatly boosted DoC from crit
• Crit being strong at 2 targets and then falling off dramatically as thrash takes over, while haste doesn't fall off as hard for AoE but is still generally poor at anything not single-target.

DPS-wise haste is good single target (though weaker burst because HotW <3 crit), but is absolutely terrible for anything else because it doesn't affect DoTs or our class trinket (or Mirror of the Blademaster, if you're really going hard on AoE damage), things that make up a huge amount of our AoE/cleave damage.

This isn't to say haste joins crit in the dump next tier. If anything, the new bonuses benefit higher RPS more than the current ones help haste out. If you think haste is a decent stat in 6.1, it'll still be a decent stat in 6.2. What I am saying is that the only situation where haste>crit would be when you're already stacking the hell out MS, so if you think 6.2 haste is a decent stat, you should think the same of 6.2 crit.

[Nekusar]

post 6.2, crit>haste if anything. The only real benefit haste has over crit is extra T&C procs, and for a whole host of reasons (loss of the current 2pc, gain of the new tier bonuses+DR on SD, leech trinket that tank healers ideally still want), T&C is going to be a more situational tool next tier. Still useful, but the difference between it and FR won't be nearly as big as it is now, so extra T&C procs mean much less.

Haste also reduces the GCD and as you mentioned has a nice interaction with MS, also at higher gear levels it's already pretty hard to dump rage so I'm not sure how T&C is going to become situational in T18 if anything you'll just be mashing Maul harder than you are now especially with the FR rage changes.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Where does Agility fit into this mix?

[Dreyen]

For dps, it's above bonus armor i believe, because of raidbuffs giving it more ap than BA per point. For survival, i'd say after multistrike and mastery, it only gives dodge and attack power (Which only buffs frenzied regen/tooth&claw procs).

[Bunnychaser]

Where does Agility fit into this mix?

it's almost 2x as good as BA for dps because HOTW multiplies your agility by 2.5x in cat form, while it doesn't multiply bonus armor at all.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Ok so bonus armor while you're still leveling/gearing up, then agility later when you can afford to be more aggressive?

[Bunnychaser]

Ok so bonus armor while you're still leveling/gearing up, then agility later when you can afford to be more aggressive?

Bonus armor for bears is significantly weaker than other tank classes.

In terms of armor, bears have the most by a large margin, meaning 200 bonus armor for a paladin can be 3% damage reduciton, while for a bear it may be 1.5 or 1% even. A geared warrior has ~4400 armor. I have 6686 in bear form. I have 1100 bonus armor, and it only comes out to a measly 4.00% damage reduction.

BA is very weak compared to both mastery and MS in terms of effective HP//mitigation, speaking for physical abilities. The reason why people prefer MS is because the things that kill you tend to be magic in HFC, so you want something that can at least help with both, and mastery falls on it's face for magic for obvious reasons.

[Dreyen]

Bonus armor for bears is significantly weaker than other tank classes.

In terms of armor, bears have the most by a large margin, meaning 200 bonus armor for a paladin can be 3% damage reduciton, while for a bear it may be 1.5 or 1% even. A geared warrior has ~4400 armor. I have 6686 in bear form. I have 1100 bonus armor, and it only comes out to a measly 4.00% damage reduction.

BA is very weak compared to both mastery and MS in terms of effective HP//mitigation, speaking for physical abilities. The reason why people prefer MS is because the things that kill you tend to be magic in HFC, so you want something that can at least help with both, and mastery falls on it's face for magic for obvious reasons.

wrong, BA is the absolute best defensive stat for bears. the damage reduction does get diminishing returns, but it is necessary for armor to not scale exponentially: 1% more DR at 0% DR is less powerful than 1% DR at 98% DR: one reduces your damage by 1% and the other reduces it by 50%.

Bonus armor scales your effective health linearly, so each point is as good as the previous one. Plus it scales really well, way better than mastery.

Also, mastery and BA gives attack power, which increases your healing, so they are not useless vs magic, but multistrike is def better vs magic.


But otherwise, you don't ever gear towards agility, there is no gear that gives that option in mythic HFC anyways.

[Bunnychaser]

wrong, BA is the absolute best defensive stat for bears. the damage reduction does get diminishing returns, but it is necessary for armor to not scale exponentially: 1% more DR at 0% DR is less powerful than 1% DR at 98% DR: one reduces your damage by 1% and the other reduces it by 50%.

Bonus armor scales your effective health linearly, so each point is as good as the previous one. Plus it scales really well, way better than mastery.

Also, mastery and BA gives attack power, which increases your healing, so they are not useless vs magic, but multistrike is def better vs magic.


But otherwise, you don't ever gear towards agility, there is no gear that gives that option in mythic HFC anyways.

I'm a bit confused as to how BA works then... If I take off my boots, my numbers go from 64.94% Reduction Total and 60.94% without BA, to 62.54% and 57.95%.

Meaning that with less armor (In this case, 6027 vs 6686 armor), I gain 7.920621225194% DR at 6027 armor gaining 1053, and with more armor, 6686, I gain 6.563833278635% (effective %) from the same amount of bonus armor. The diminishing returns from that seems like a HUGE amount.

Our warrior has a base 4628 armor // 50.81% DR. When he gains 899 BA, he gains 9.04414382342471% DR, putting him at 56.18%. Meaning him gaining ~15% less bonus armor than me gives him 37% more damage reduction. Most of the reason for this, from what I'm noticing, is because bear form does not scale bonus armor. His bonus armor is almost 1.5x better than my bonus armor.

I'm sure you're correct about it being better than mastery; it just feels stupid when me gaining a stat is 40% worse than our other tank gaining the same stat... BA doesn't just scale linearly, it scales negatively. That's what I'm pointing out. Wasn't really relevant to what he was asking, now that I think about it. Just got a bit distracted when he mentioned bonus armor. :P


tldr:
Me with 6686 armor gains 4% DR (effectively 6.56%) from 1053 armor.
Warrior with 4628 armor gains 5.3% dR (effectively 9.0%) from 899 armor.
His bonus armor (rating for rating/linearly) is way better than mine. Bears are stupid.

[Dreyen]

Armor does have dimishing returns, but that's so armor doesn't get exponentially better. To see how truly efficient armor is, you have to calculate how much effective health (EH) it gives you. EH is how much damage you can handle with your health and armor combined

To calculate how much bonus EH you have to follow this formula:

(1 / (1-DR)) * 100 = What your EH is (100% being the base amount)

By doing this you can see different thresholds:

0 % DR = 100% EHP
50% DR = 200% EHP (Takes twice as many hits to kill you)
75% DR = 400% EHP (Takes 4x as many hits)
85% DR = 666% EHP (Takes 6.6x as many hits, Current maximum DR from armor)

If you look at it, you can take twice as much damage from 0% to 50% DR, but to take twice as much damage from 50% DR you only need to reach 75%. It shows the exponentiality of DR. If armor didn't DR, it would be a crazy exponential stat that would become extremely overpowered as gear progresses. A quick exemple of that would be Warcraft 3 beta, when armor didn't DR. The paladin hero who gave a bonus armor was ridiculously overpowered due to lack of armor DR, and I believe it was actually possible to hit 100% DR with him, which suffices to say, wasn't balanced.

So use that formula for your situation, you'll see it's actually pretty linear. This math is true with any reduction of a number with a percentage: Reducing by a percentage is always more than augmenting by the same percentage: if you lose 10% of 100$, gaining 10% back of the 90$ leftover bucks will only get you back to 99$.

[Bunnychaser]

Armor does have dimishing returns, but that's so armor doesn't get exponentially better. To see how truly efficient armor is, you have to calculate how much effective health (EH) it gives you. EH is how much damage you can handle with your health and armor combined

To calculate how much bonus EH you have to follow this formula:

(1 / (1-DR)) * 100 = What your EH is (100% being the base amount)

By doing this you can see different thresholds:

0 % DR = 100% EHP
50% DR = 200% EHP (Takes twice as many hits to kill you)
75% DR = 400% EHP (Takes 4x as many hits)
85% DR = 666% EHP (Takes 6.6x as many hits, Current maximum DR from armor)

If you look at it, you can take twice as much damage from 0% to 50% DR, but to take twice as much damage from 50% DR you only need to reach 75%. It shows the exponentiality of DR. If armor didn't DR, it would be a crazy exponential stat that would become extremely overpowered as gear progresses. A quick exemple of that would be Warcraft 3 beta, when armor didn't DR. The paladin hero who gave a bonus armor was ridiculously overpowered due to lack of armor DR, and I believe it was actually possible to hit 100% DR with him, which suffices to say, wasn't balanced.

So use that formula for your situation, you'll see it's actually pretty linear. This math is true with any reduction of a number with a percentage: Reducing by a percentage is always more than augmenting by the same percentage: if you lose 10% of 100$, gaining 10% back of the 90$ leftover bucks will only get you back to 99$.

Let me rephrase it in terms of EHP.

He has 50.81% DR from his current armor. When he gains 899 armor, he gains 5.37% DR. If I apply this to EHP, he goes from 203.29335230738 to 228.206298493838 EHP. This is a flat gain of 25%, and a percentage gain of 12.153200000044%. Him gaining 899 bonus armor gives him a 12.1% higher EHP.

I have 60.94% DR from my current armor. When I gain 1053 armor, I gain 4% DR. If I apply this to EHP, I go from 256.016385048643 to 285.225328009127 EHP. This is a flat gain 29.2%, and a percentage gain of 11.409013120365%. Me gaining 1053 bonus armor gives me a 11.4% higher EHP.

Note: I gained an approximately 17% larger amount of bonus armor. I gained more bonus armor, but received a smaller % of EHP from it than he did.

His bonus armor is approximately 25% better than mine. Simply because he has less armor. Linear gains and decays punish higher numbers of stats. The only way for them to make bonus armor truly equal for the classes would be to make it a completely separate stat to armor. Because bears have the highest amount of armor, bears are punished by this almost 25% more than another tank in similar gear. Armor gets worse the more you have, it doesn't remain equal to face value.

If a warforged tank ring drops in a raid that both a bear and the other tank want, the bonus armor on that ring is 25% better for the other tank that it is for a bear.

I'm not saying armor shouldn't DR, I'm just saying that having it a stat on gear shared between tanks punishes bears for having the highest armor. We gain less (defensively) from bonus armor on gear than other tanks.

Sure, you could say "the game is balanced around bears having higher armor" and all that gibberish, but there's no reason for a stat shared between tanks--a stat meant to be important to all tanks--should have a different weight for one tank than all others.

A great example of this is versatility. Versatility is not 'better' for a certain tank class, because no tank class has a passive versatility buff (beyond perhaps seraphim, although I'm unsure of the interaction).

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

But otherwise, you don't ever gear towards agility, there is no gear that gives that option in mythic HFC anyways.

I'm still leveling my bear, so was deciding between Knight's Badge & Skull of War as a relatively cheap AH trinket. Proc is the same - crit isn't our best stat, but at least it'll help mangle produce more Healing Touch. So the choice was between a big chunk of passive Agi on Skull or Bonus Armor on Knights Badge. I went with the badge. Really didn't need either of them at this point, but I like to overgear dungeons because you never know what you'll get for a party at this point.

[Dreyen]

I guess it does make sense. I misunderstood then, it is indeed a bit lame that lower armor tanks gain more EH than us :P

However, bears have significantly more health than warriors, so armor is even more effective than it is for warriors, so it should even the odds, if not put them in your favor. My warrior co-tank has, i believe, 650k hp raid buffed, and i usually hover at 1mil hp, so using your math, I have 65% more hp than he does, so my HP destroys any advantage his low armor gives him.

And while we're at it, bonus armor is gone from the game for legion, so that's a problem that will eventually go away. I don't think it should mean that all BA items goes to your warrior first though..

- - - Updated - - -

I'm still leveling my bear, so was deciding between Knight's Badge & Skull of War as a relatively cheap AH trinket. Proc is the same - crit isn't our best stat, but at least it'll help mangle produce more Healing Touch. So the choice was between a big chunk of passive Agi on Skull or Bonus Armor on Knights Badge. I went with the badge. Really didn't need either of them at this point, but I like to overgear dungeons because you never know what you'll get for a party at this point.

Knight's badge is the clear winner : there's just way more BA than AGI on that trinket. It might make you do less burst dps than the skull while using HotW, but your survival will increase a lot more with the bonus armor and your dps in bearform should make up a bit for it.