[MoP Guardian] Thoughts on Mastery

[Keiyra]

MoP SD will stay up 100% of the time as its a passive armor boost as far as i understand
Absorbs are verry strong when overgearing places armor does not help a lot there

? erm isn't it a 40% chance to dodge for 6 secs for 60 rage or something? I'm not talking about MoP mastery which is a passive armor increase.

[Arielle]

MoP SD will stay up 100% of the time as its a passive armor boost as far as i understand
Absorbs are verry strong when overgearing places armor does not help a lot there

Whaaaat?

You might want to double-check that you know how SD currently works on Beta.

[Kelimbror]

Like someone mentioned before, preventing the damage from happening is much better than always recovering from it later. You say the 'math' is the same, and it probably is. The problem is numbers don't always directly correlate with real world scenarios. I would rather be rewarded for playing smart and anticipating what comes next than have to play catch up from RNG with self heals or healers mana bombing you...which leads me to:

Replacing the current SD with two different abilities that provide reductions of physical and spell dmg would at least reward good play. Mastery could just support those abilities, buffing the reduction/chance/both for these so that we have to balance mastery with rage generating stats in order to keep those abilities active.

It sounds similar to shield block/spell reflection....but at this point they have little lines left to tiptoe on to keep things balanced yet different. After 7 years of tanking even I'm starting to wonder if there can be a difference in tanks other than aesthetics and misc. utility.

[exochaft]

You have it backwards. Missing the dodge or missing the absorb is the exact same thing, you take a full hit. Assuming the uptime is similar between current SD and MoP SD then there is no difference in RNG. If either does not "proc" then you take a full hit, its not only 30k extra for missing the absorb, its you take the full hit.

Its 30 k less when the absorb succeeds, that's the only difference: when the proc succeeds, current SD absorbs some/all of the hit, MoP would dodge all of the hit. Now you could say then when they are succeeding, with the current SD you still are taking damage and therefore from a healing profile, you would still need small/moderate amounts of healing when SD works, and more healing when it doesn't. Whereas in MoP when SD succeeds you are taking NO damage, which for a healing profile means you need no healing and then you need more when it fails (spikier healing requirements in that sense, even though your total damage taken may be less with MoP SD than current SD)

(again assuming uptime will be on par between current and MoP SD)

If people look at their logs concerning the actual uptime of SD on live, it's definately much higher than the 20% number that someone threw out. From a log of my DS raid last night, where I was non-stop tanking (since ones where you shift out of bear will lower uptime), I showed an uptime of SD at from 60-69%. Now, why is the success of SD working on live pretty good? 2pc T13 helps, but the driving force is the number of times we can proc SD between actual hits. As it stands, the more you dodge, the higher your chance of SD proccing. Moreover, when SD procs, you know it'll do something if you do not avoid a hit.

The innate fear of SD becoming a 40% dodge button stems from several things.

The big factor is that it can fail: SD on live, when it's "used", guarantees something will happen, while the SD on beta does not. Simply stated, increasing your dodge by 40% doesn't mean you're going to dodge, but an "absorb on next hit" mechanic meant you'd always get some benefit when SD was up.

Another factor is waste. When we spend 60 rage on SD, we obviously want something to happen, but we can look at it from two ways. As mentioned previously, we could not dodge anything, making us wish we just saved that rage for FR. From the other side of the coin, we could use SD and dodge everything... now why would that be bad? While this is the weaker side of the coin admittedly, this comes again from knowing if SD did something: "Did I just dodge all those attacks due to SD or would I have dodged them all regardless?" This sentiment worsens if, after dodging all attacks, SD expires and you get hit for every attack afterwards while SD is on CD. I honestly think popping SD and dodging all attacks and wondering if SD did something really isn't a problem by itself, but in conjunction with SD being able to fail and knowing SD really did nothing... THAT is a problem.

While everything may balance out in the end in terms of damage taken, the end doesn't always justify the means. Our armor is going to have to be really stellar compared to other tanks to ease the tensions of a very RNG mechanic designed to be our primary damage reduction. As it stands, no one will ever know if SD really worked throughout a fight, and the best we can say is "well, it looks like it might've averaged out... but I cannot point to a situation and say 'yup, see there? I popped SD and it 100% did something!'"

*edit* - While I've mentioned it earlier, I'm hoping Blizz will move SD towards something that will guarantee at least something on some level. If you want to keep the dodge increase aspect of SD, if you marry the concept with the paladin method SotR, you get an ability that guarantees you dodge the next attack with the chance to dodge the following attacks reduced (just for pure example and show, SD guarantees 100% chance to dodge the first attack, 20% to dodge the following attacks for the duration).

[tangedyn]

You're wrong. It can't be blocked, dodged, parried or miss. It is, however, affected by armor.

Impale is not affected by armor

[Keiyra]

@exochaft

Oh I totally agree with you, i'm not enamoured with the current MoP SD and you make many valid points.
I was just pointing out to another poster that the RNG failure of a dodge not happening is the same as the RNG failure of an absorb shield not forming, since those posters seemed to imply the former was somehow worse than the latter.

*edit* - While I've mentioned it earlier, I'm hoping Blizz will move SD towards something that will guarantee at least something on some level. If you want to keep the dodge increase aspect of SD, if you marry the concept with the paladin method SotR, you get an ability that guarantees you dodge the next attack with the chance to dodge the following attacks reduced (just for pure example and show, SD guarantees 100% chance to dodge the first attack, 20% to dodge the following attacks for the duration).

That would definitely be a better way of handling it. Hopefully we'll see some more iteration on druid abilities/talents in the future.

[Kelimbror]

Oh I totally agree with you, i'm not enamoured with the current MoP SD and you make many valid points.
I was just pointing out to another poster that the RNG failure of a dodge not happening is the same as the RNG failure of an absorb shield not forming, since those posters seemed to imply the former was somehow worse than the latter.

Mathematically I will agree with you. Anecdotally I will say that the former is much less fun than the latter. Also, healers have an easier time predicting incoming damage with shields, even though the overall damage result could be the same. The shield chance always had damage coming in at a steady rate. After multiple attempts learning a fight, there are no moments (other than personal errors) where it got hard just because the shield didn't activate.

With dodge RNG on the other hand, things can go from normal to wipe in seconds because of the same mathematical chance string of not dodging. It is inherent in the mechanics of how those numbers affect other player reactions and abilities. This could stem from boss damage design flaws and possibly bosses won't be that tightly tuned, but with shields there were never unpredictable "Oh crap the tank is at 10% health in seconds and now we're dead" moments. Like someone mentioned before, with faster hits of less damage it would even the parity between these mechanics, but that makes no room for design changes.

My whole point is that the numbers don't give you a realistic interpretation. So I'm essentially agreeing with you and disagreeing with you at the same time...Merely explaining why people notice that dodge is worse than shields, but can't mathematically explain why, aren't necessarily wrong and neither are you. Paradoxed.

[Keiyra]

Merely explaining why people notice that dodge is worse than shields, but can't mathematically explain why, aren't necessarily wrong and neither are you. Paradoxed.

I know what you are trying say Kitty, but dodge isn't worse than shields, in any way for the tank, specifically. The only real difference is in how a healer may respond to your health profile which i totally get (i raid as a healer so trust me i do know what you mean).

For a quick contrived completely arbitrary example, a boss that hits for 40k melee each time, and a tank with 200k health and 30k SD shields.

starting health: hit, shield, shield, shield, hit, hit, hit, hit, shield:
Tank health would be 200: 160, 150, 140, 130, 90, 50, 10, -30, -40

Now with SD being a dodge instead of shield: 200: 160, 160, 160, 160, 120 , 80, 40, 0 , 0

If you were to graph those, the shields overall would be a generally decreasing line, while the dodge has plateaus of no decrease.

Over the course of a whole fight, yes as a healer I would prefer the shield option, in that during healing I wouldn't have as many periods where i would find myself over-healing or not needing to cast on the tank.

But the point I'm trying to make is that during the crucial "RNG failure" that everyone seems to throw around, (the 4 hits in a row in my example), is that the RNG is just as bad to heal through for not having shields as it is for not having dodges, either way the tank took 160k in 4 melee hits. Either way that's the crisis period to a healer, and there is no difference between whether you didn't dodge or didn't shield - either way you just took 160k in 4 hits.

So if you want to push that dodging is worse than shielding, use the healing profile argument: it is easier to heal the shield model that has a more consistent and predictable health decline than a dodge model that has plateaus of no damage taken. Don't blame it on the RNG failure string, because those look the same to a healer whether you didn't dodge 5 times in a row or you didn't shield 5 times in a row, either way you took 5 hits to the face.

Anyway I think we both generally agree on the overall issue and are sort of dancing around certain facets, so I'll go sit this song out and get a drink.

[Kelimbror]

Anyway I think we both generally agree on the overall issue and are sort of dancing around certain facets, so I'll go sit this song out and get a drink.

Agree...I think I'm getting more conceptualized in the thought process now, which factors how fast and how hard bosses hit for, contrasted with healer mana and ability to spam.

The game has long moved on from huge hits chained from failing to dodge which required constant spamming and endless mana. I should just assume that will continue in MoP and then you are right, it's just arbitrary preference that is affecting a bias.

[Kaeth]

Keiyra:

In your comparison of Savage Defense bubbles (live) and Savage Defense dodge (beta), the passive-vs-active nature and 60 rage cost need to be taken into account.

Also, you're comparing two survival mechanics in live (SD and dodge) to a single mechanic in beta (dodge alone). In live, the outcomes of an enemy attack against a bear will be either a full hit, a (full or partial) absorb, or a dodge. In beta, it's either a full hit or a dodge. Will our mastery-scaling armor be roughly equal to the average of the full hit and absorb outcomes?

RNG is why avoidance is a better passive and makes for a crappy "cooldown." Even with the RNG-reliant SD we have in live, it's passive. We can take measures to improve uptime, but we're never hitting a button and crossing our fingers.

[Williee]

Being full stam gemmed, i have about 260k hp i believe in beta...
I glyphed might of ursoc, making it a 50% hp boost
I have almost 400k+ wen i have that cooldown up
which in a situation such as impale, will help me survive by a huge margin w/ barkskin + sac
But i see what you mean, effective health and mitigation can be used in different ways

I like the might of ursoc ability vs live frenzy (hp portion) because it brings your max health + your current health to 30% (or 50% if glyphed). The live frenzy only boost ur max hp 30% which makes it almost useless if you don't receive a heal. Assuming you are at 1% hp, beta glyphed might of ursoc will bring the user to 50% hp which is almost 200k heal in a way.

[Noviskers]

If people look at their logs concerning the actual uptime of SD on live, it's definately much higher than the 20% number that someone threw out. From a log of my DS raid last night, where I was non-stop tanking (since ones where you shift out of bear will lower uptime), I showed an uptime of SD at from 60-69%. Now, why is the success of SD working on live pretty good? 2pc T13 helps, but the driving force is the number of times we can proc SD between actual hits. As it stands, the more you dodge, the higher your chance of SD proccing. Moreover, when SD procs, you know it'll do something if you do not avoid a hit.

When I said there was about a 20% chance of live SD to proc, I was not referring to up time of the ability. I was only stating that, like dodge, the current SD has some RNG involved in it and is not a guaranteed thing like some people were making it out to be. While its true that you have about 3 chances to proc it every 3 seconds (assuming you use 2 abilities and 1 auto attack) there still is that possibility that none of those would proc SD.

[aggixx]

When I said there was about a 20% chance of live SD to proc, I was not referring to up time of the ability. I was only stating that, like dodge, the current SD has some RNG involved in it and is not a guaranteed thing like some people were making it out to be. While its true that you have about 3 chances to proc it every 3 seconds (assuming you use 2 abilities and 1 auto attack) there still is that possibility that none of those would proc SD.

Pointless correction, but it's actually more like 4.75 chances every 3 seconds. Auto attacks happen every ~2.1 seconds depending on haste, GCD abilities every ~1.25 seconds depending on haste, and maul every 3 seconds.

[Themessiah]

You have it backwards. Missing the dodge or missing the absorb is the exact same thing, you take a full hit. Assuming the uptime is similar between current SD and MoP SD then there is no difference in RNG. If either does not "proc" then you take a full hit, its not only 30k extra for missing the absorb, its you take the full hit.

Its 30 k less when the absorb succeeds, that's the only difference: when the proc succeeds, current SD absorbs some/all of the hit, MoP would dodge all of the hit. Now you could say then when they are succeeding, with the current SD you still are taking damage and therefore from a healing profile, you would still need small/moderate amounts of healing when SD works, and more healing when it doesn't. Whereas in MoP when SD succeeds you are taking NO damage, which for a healing profile means you need no healing and then you need more when it fails (spikier healing requirements in that sense, even though your total damage taken may be less with MoP SD than current SD)

(again assuming uptime will be on par between current and MoP SD)

Hey Keiyra - You are of course correct - but my post wasn't trying to state that there was a difference between missing a dodge and missing an absorb in terms of damage taken. It's my fault, since I didn't express myself clearly, and I completely understand where you got your reading from! The one thing I will point at to show you that I was accepting your point (about failing to dodge/absorb being the same in terms of damage taken) is when I state that "missing an absorb will cost you in the region of 30k extra damage" meaning 30k additional damage to the damage you would have taken with the absorb had it been up - 50k in this instance (making missing a dodge and an absorb equivocal).

Either way, I believe the more important point the post made was that dodge tanks with high armour will prove very hard to balance unless you make them potential victims to rng by design. I said somewhere else that this might be a return to dodge, dodge, splat. It's exactly that scenario I have in mind when saying that our armour will have to be high enough to do the effective work of the live version of SD (which smooths our damage intake, rather than causes it to spike). And if our armour is that high, not to mention our near 100% active additional 40% dodge, then how can we avoid being OP? Boss damage would have to go up to compensate - which means an effective return to dodge, dodge, splat - which means our damage spikes again - which means we need more armour... ad infinitum!

Edit: Added this to the former post as well:

"The point here is that balancing the new dodge, and the old absorb will be, I think, remarkably tough, in that one smooths damage and the other causes it too spike. In this sense, there is a tangible difference between dodging and absorbing, because the amount dodged and amount absorbed are radically different. If we're balanced around absorbing, we're designed to concede large hits (50k in this case). If we're balanced to dodge, then we're not designed to conceede large hits. But if we are still in MoP still able to take large hits (balanced to take large hits), but nonetheless possess a base 40% dodge as well, then we'll be OP. Not that I mind being OP "

[Noviskers]

Either way I don't know if I really agree with blizzard's change because I think it would be hard to balance with the other tanks. For example a bear druid would need to be balanced that if RNG is unkind to them and they do not dodge any attack mastery needs to reduce the damage they take so its not too much more than say a pally who is guaranteed at least a free 100% and a good chance of less. But at the same time it cant be so powerful that a druid is dodging all the attacks and taking no damage.

So as it is now I think blizz is in for quite a challenge. I would rather have SD changed to something like "Savage Defense - Your direct damage attacks and abilities have a 20-30% chance to absorb the next physical damage attack equal to x% of your attack power (increased by mastery). Lasts 6 seconds."

With this it would be an active version of the savage defense we have on live since you couldn't get the SD absorb without having this ability.

---------- Post added 2012-04-19 at 02:48 AM ----------

Pointless correction, but it's actually more like 4.75 chances every 3 seconds. Auto attacks happen every ~2.1 seconds depending on haste, GCD abilities every ~1.25 seconds depending on haste, and maul every 3 seconds.

True I didn't take maul into consideration or haste for that matter.

[Kelimbror]

"The point here is that balancing the new dodge, and the old absorb will be, I think, remarkably tough, in that one smooths damage and the other causes it too spike. In this sense, there is a tangible difference between dodging and absorbing, because the amount dodged and amount absorbed are radically different. If we're balanced around absorbing, we're designed to concede large hits (50k in this case). If we're balanced to dodge, then we're not designed to conceede large hits. But if we are still in MoP still able to take large hits (balanced to take large hits), but nonetheless possess a base 40% dodge as well, then we'll be OP. Not that I mind being OP "

This is unfortunately true. It seems that with mechanics like this, it complicates not only balance from an ability and tank perspective, but overall tuning of bosses as well. I don't know how we got here from Burning Crusade tanking models, but I imagine it was accelerated by the introduction of Death Knights. Who knew what a mess they would cause? Lol.

To be honest, as 'special' as we feel to be big, armory, literal meat shields, I think only having armor and dodge as mitigation is an outdated design. Having an absorb mechanic, while similar to DKs, was a blessing in terms of options. If Druids will never be able to parry, then we need the absorb to stay. Piling all our design into two buckets, that both have diminishing returns but motivate us to stack them anyways, is alarming this far into the game's life.

I'm all for us having a responsibility(and fun) using active mitigation abilities, but I feel like we are devolving from a design standpoint. The tanking model in Cata, sadly, was probably the best in terms of cohesiveness of our toolkit.