Stoneskin vs swordshattering

[Morecheeba07]

Is swordshattering still better than stoneskin when your parry is 5% higher than dodge? With the increase in ilvl came a huge jump in the amount of str we have bringing our parry rating much higher. Plus my current gear set up has tons of parry on it. And the lack of a dodge/mastery gem I have to gem for parry in some cases. I am stacking straight mastery instead of avoidance but I know it's still important to keep dodge and parry as close as possible due to DRs. I am reforging every piece of gear to dodge when it already has mastery on it. And I do have the VP trinket with a +dodge use effect so it evens out when I pop it. Currently sticking with swordshattering because stoneskin only gives me 3k health and 1% damage reduction which seems kinda lackluster. What are your thoughts/opinions on the matter?

I can't link my armory because the wowarmory is down atm.

[Tritton]

Is swordshattering still better than stoneskin when your parry is 5% higher than dodge? With the increase in ilvl came a huge jump in the amount of str we have bringing our parry rating much higher. Plus my current gear set up has tons of parry on it. And the lack of a dodge/mastery gem I have to gem for parry in some cases. I am stacking straight mastery instead of avoidance but I know it's still important to keep dodge and parry as close as possible due to DRs. I am reforging every piece of gear to dodge when it already has mastery on it. And I do have the VP trinket with a +dodge use effect so it evens out when I pop it. Currently sticking with swordshattering because stoneskin only gives me 3k health and 1% damage reduction which seems kinda lackluster. What are your thoughts/opinions on the matter?

I can't link my armory because the wowarmory is down atm.

I am personally still going with SS instead of SSG. Stoneskin's parry benefit is not affected by diminishing returns, and thus is a solid 4% increase to parry regarless of your weights. Also... you should be balancing the actualy parry and dodge #'s, not the %'s. That will give you a better indication of how DR is affecting your avoidance (you'll likely still be reforging to dodge).

I honestly have no issue with stamina, and the armor buff just isn't enough to overcome the parry chance, even as a mastery stacking DK. Here is a thread that the advantages were discussed.. although I don't agree with some of the information, it truly is up to what you may need. Likely if you're trying to make end-game progression, it will be dependant on fight mechanics.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...wordshattering

[Rickyrock]

With the increase of Armor in 4.3, I find more beneficial to use SSG.
It will be there for every hit you take.

[Kaosbringer]

Seeing as how avoidance is still more desirable I'm sticking with SS. Even for a mastery heavy tank like me the extra parry generally offers more mitigation then the extra armor and, the extra stam is not enough to really matter to much IMO.

[Darsithis]

With the increase of Armor in 4.3, I find more beneficial to use SSG.
It will be there for every hit you take.

That's precisely why you don't want to take it. DR from armor means SSG gives even less mitigation now than it did before the armor buff in 4.3.

Swordshattering is generally what you want outside of magic heavy fights like Yor'sahj

[Depherios]

Is swordshattering still better than stoneskin when your parry is 5% higher than dodge?

As it is said in many posts around the DK community, the Parry on Swordshattering does not suffer from Diminishing Returns, while the Armor from Stoneskin does. -- So you do not want to figure it into your reforging.

Stoneskin Gargoyle, on the other hand, is effected by DR. As of 4.3 it still gives roughly 1% mitigation for me. (It was around 1.1% before, but is now only 0.93%)

And the health is meh.

I used it temporarily to stack the crap out of Stamina for pre-nerf Heroic Baleroc... But I think that's the only time I've used it this expansion.

I keep a second weapon with Spellshattering to swap for times of high spell damage on fights (and a third with Fallen Crusader for those times I'm doing nothing but DPS, like on madness, when nothing is going on)

[Morecheeba07]

Thanks to everyone it helped out a lot. Merry christmas.

[Deathmooze]

i used it temporarily to stack the crap out of stamina for pre-nerf heroic baleroc

you are terrible

Infracted

[DerSenf]

you are terrible

You created an account just to tell him that? Well... good bye.

But honestly, stamina stacking is really the exact opposide you want to do for baleroc. No matter if you have 300k hp or 8 quadrillion: two decimation blades in a row will still kill you. Having more life just makes it more impossible for your healers o top yiu after the first blade.
Avoidance is the golden key to this fight.

On Topic: I recently started tanking again with my DK, havent done it since wrath. With SSG I gain 2k life and a little less then 1% physical migration. SS increases my total avoidance to 41%. I'm pretty sure going to stick with swordshattering till next expansion.

[Depherios]

A quick moment off topic to defend myself.... As much as I hate to T_T


It wasn't the Decimation Blades that were killing me... I needed enough health to live through everything else! (We replaced one of our healers shortly after this, who was slipping at the time. If anything it's our HEALER that was terrible >_<) -- The more health you had, the less stressful the NON decimation blade part of the fight got, more-so as the buff stacked, further increasing health. -- During Decimation Blades I would have both healers on me, and I could help heal myself. I also had Scales of Life and Dancing Rune Weapon's Avoidance for them.

Before Baleroc I hadn't even considered a stamina socket bonus, (unless it was yellow gems that got it!) and had passed on all the stam trinkets in T11 content... I was even using the Mastery Meta Gem! I had GIMPED myself on Stamina. It was everything I could do to piece together enough stam, armor, and avoidance gear to tank the fight. -- At first I rocked Swordshattering, because... well everything we said here! (and because I thought Decimation Blade would be the problem) But I kept getting Gibbed by unlucky strings of avoidance.

In the end I had gone and purchased, of all things... The Bedrock Talisman for the flat armor and avoidance after a decimation blade T_T -- I was going back to doing "effective health" math I hadn't done in over a year. -- Shooting for Effective Health rather than pure mitigation. When we first attempted him I was being nearly instagibbed, getting 2 shot really quickly. Stoneskin is truly an "effective health" enchant, lol... 1.1% flat reduction and more stamina!


I don't have our kill on hand, but here's another DK tank at about that time... http://youtu.be/eF2NkjnjTsI

He's rocking 212k health on the pull (which was a TON at that time, and far more than I had (or could even GET) on our kill) -- watch his health OUTSIDE of decimation blades. He is nearly 2 shot in multiple "OH CRAP! OH CRAP! OH CRAP!" moments. Now picture me, with barely 200k sweating bullets when he knocks me down to 1% with a second unmitigated connected swing at a bad time. Being healed by a druid obsessed with Hots T_T

I hated Baleroc at first!


After the Nerf I just tanked him in regular gear with scales of life. Super Easy.

Even before the nerf, I don't think I used stoneskin for more than our first 2 kills... I may not have even used it on the second kill, I forget.

But wiping on progression attempts because I was just getting 2 shot (even with a heal landing between the swings) if I got unlucky, just wasn't okay on progression attempts. -- So *YAY STONESKIN! YAY EFFECTIVE HEALTH* <-- said with all the sarcasm I can muster

TLDR VERSION: Stoneskin is the Effective Health weapon enchant. Swordshattering is mitigation. -- Right now effective health is usually a moot point.

THE END