Should I reforge parry/dodge into hit and expertise?

[messupp]

I am still gearing DK tank and I'm in a sticky situation.

My dodge is: 9.97%
My parry is: 19.43%

but then my hit and expertise are really low.
My hit is: 1.76%
My expertise is: 4.08%

Should I reforge a bit of my parry/dodge into hit and expertise? If so, then how much?

[Darsithis]

I personally don't. DS shields/heals even if it misses or is parried. I haven't seen any personal need for increased dps as a tank in our raids. The only point to hit/exp capping as a blood tank is to increase dps.

[Vereesà]

Should I reforge parry/dodge into hit and expertise?

Yes, you will see a notable increase in DPS if you cap your hit and softcap your expertise. There is currently not a single encounter in the game where a tank wouldn't want to sacrifice avoidance in favor of hit and expertise caps (albeit the other tanking classes cap their hit/exp due to different reasons than DPS) because even tank DPS is important now in MoP.

[skmage]

Our guild will be getting into Heroics this coming week in MGV. Not sure if I should risk getting trucked to squeeze out a little more DPS. I do however understand that enrages are tight so at the same time DPS does matter. Which is why im kinda torn on what I should do too. Heard that Heroic Stone Guard hits the Tank like a freight train if your the one tanking 2 Guardians.

[Mionelol]

You should always, always cap hit/exp. You will see the difference in both DPS and reliability of your RP generation, while you will absolutely never see the difference in the minor avoidance difference you would gain by not reforging to exp/hit.

@right above: All of the damage from stone guard is a dot, they don't melee for anything remotely significant.

[Yoshimiko]

Always, Always, Always soft cap expertise, and hardcap hit. Never sacrifice Mastery. Pretty much only 2 rules for gearing a dk. Mastery>Expertise>hit>stam>expertise is how I'll be gearing my DK.

[skmage]

You should always, always cap hit/exp. You will see the difference in both DPS and reliability of your RP generation, while you will absolutely never see the difference in the minor avoidance difference you would gain by not reforging to exp/hit.

@right above: All of the damage from stone guard is a dot, they don't melee for anything remotely significant.

Ok thank you I appreciate the reply.

Always, Always, Always soft cap expertise, and hardcap hit. Never sacrifice Mastery. Pretty much only 2 rules for gearing a dk. Mastery>Expertise>hit>stam>expertise is how I'll be gearing my DK.

Is the soft cap 7.50% or is that the hard?

[Yoshimiko]

Ok thank you I appreciate the reply.




Is the soft cap 7.50% or is that the hard?

15% is hard cap. The point at which you cannot be parried anymore. My monk has it, My Pally is somewhat close, but I wouldn't aim for it on DK yet because you'll end up sacrificing mastery.

[Reniat]

You don't strictly need the hit/exp. The increased DPS is always beneficial, but it is still a survivability loss, and depending on your gear and the content you are doing it may not be worth it.

[Nillo]

Depends on raid size / boss and how well you work with your healers.
In general I agree with Mione - taking longer to kill the boss is usually more likely to wipe you than how much damage you take.

@right above: All of the damage from stone guard is a dot, they don't melee for anything remotely significant.

Was about 50/50 last time I checked :P

Mastery>Expertise>hit>stam>expertise is how I'll be gearing my DK.

I'm pretty sure expertise is below hit, because it doesn't affect rune strike... and after the soft cap (Death Strike can't be parried) it's just about as strong as haste (with haste being much better for survivability).

[skmage]

With my gear I have a MAJOR lack of hit. I think only 2 things have Hit on them. It's either going to be get Hit capped or get Expertise capped. So which is more important?

[Reniat]

They are equal. You could argue hit is better since rune strike can't miss, but you could also argue that exp is better since it makes outbreak miss less as well (exp also gives spell hit now). in practice it really doesn't matter a ton.

[Nillo]

You could argue hit is better since rune strike can't miss, but you could also argue that exp is better since it makes outbreak miss less as well (exp also gives spell hit now).

What you're saying still makes hit affect everything and exp not work for rune strikes.

[TenDance]

You don't strictly need the hit/exp. The increased DPS is always beneficial, but it is still a survivability loss, and depending on your gear and the content you are doing it may not be worth it.

You can't measure tanksurvivability the same way as DPS. Even if math (a sim) told you that over a thousand hour long fight you'll receive less damage when geared for avoidance, during actual raiding this means nothing. That's the same way those sims are a tool to assess certain things regarding DPS in certain situations. But they're not the be all end all-solution.
Avoidance is always a bad stat, because it is unreliable. No one likes that, especially not a healer. What you need is reliable survivability. DS is henceforth your tool of choice.

Hit/Exp will generate more SoB-stacks and lots of RP. RP means more runes, more runes transcend into more DS -> more DPS and more survivability.
Furthermore, it is cheap to get your softcap. Reforge and you'll see how minor your avoidance gained will be in comparison.

P.S.: Exp counts towards spellhit! Hit 7,5% + Exp 7,5% = 15% Spellhit - easy enough.

[Reniat]

Avoidance is always a bad stat, because it is unreliable. No one likes that, especially not a healer. What you need is reliable survivability. DS is henceforth your tool of choice.

You're right in that avoidance is less valueble due to it's inconsistency, but hit/exp are also unreliable in a sense. With 0% of both hit/exp, there is 7.5% chance of missing (hit), a 7.5% of being dodged (exp soft) and a 7.5% of being parried (exp hard). this means there is a 22.5% chance that your attack will be unsuccessful. Now lets put this into practice.

Let's say you had an average of 4 seconds between death strikes (napkin number). In that 4 second window, you will have 3 melee hits (0s, 1.5s, 3s). At 22.5% per hit, the chances of loosing a single stack of SoB in that window is 53.5%. Now factor in that you can still be parried (unless you are going to exp hard cap), and apply that to the same window between DS and you find that there is about a 38.6% chance of seeing any benefit from hit/exp in any 3 melee swing window (assuming both soft capped).

So yes, getting hit/exp gives a level of consistency (it's still not 100% unless you exp hard cap), but the actual benefit returned compared to avoidance stats is still subject to RNG. you are still trading one rng for another in a sense.

Hit/Exp will generate more SoB-stacks and lots of RP. RP means more runes, more runes transcend into more DS -> more DPS and more survivability.
Furthermore, it is cheap to get your softcap. Reforge and you'll see how minor your avoidance gained will be in comparison.

The average benefit in terms of mitigation due to hit/exp capping is roughly 2%. compare this to the ~3-5% avoidance lost from the ~5k stats required to hit/exp cap.


You are right to say you can't measure tank survivability in one number, or even an array of numbers, but that doesn't mean you can just throw math out. Tank theorycrafting is very abstract, because there isn't one number to maximize/minimize, but math still has it's place in finding ways to make us subjectively easier to heal. Here we are comparing the 2 stat types (avoidance and accuracy) to find which will help us survive more, and we find that both aren't 100% reliable. Yes accuracy works to add consistency, but the actual benefit of hit/exp itself isn't consistent.

so in summation:
you are choosing between more overall reduced damage (avoidance) and the chance (note the word chance) at returning an otherwise lost SoB stack (accuracy).


I choose avoidance>accuracy simply because at our current gear level the avoidance lost from hit/exp capping is too significant. I raid 25H at a world 300 level (I say this because this priority would likely change if I had the healers of a top 10 guild) so first comes consistently reducing bursts, then comes lowering inc dmg, then comes increasing DPS. If I was to be pushing world firsts I would likely place accuracy above avoidance due to slightly better healers (not trying to bring down my healers, but not all of them would be world first viable) and the higher demand for DPS. My guilds current progression is being held back by people not carrying their weight when it comes to raid awareness and not making stupid mistakes. Surprisingly me being a DK tank on 25H Gara'jal is the least of our worries right now, so the added DPS from me being hit/exp capped wouldn't directly help progression. If we had the strat down and were consecutively wiping to enrages, then I'd be stupid not to hit/exp cap (and also use death siphon at that point).

What i'm trying to say (very lengthily) is that both are viable, depending on your situation as well as your healers.

So ends my 6:00am theorycrafting mini-rant. don't hate me for any grammar errors.

[Nillo]

You're right in that avoidance is less valueble due to it's inconsistency, but hit/exp are also unreliable in a sense. With 0% of both hit/exp, there is 7.5% chance of missing (hit), a 7.5% of being dodged (exp soft) and a 7.5% of being parried (exp hard). this means there is a 22.5% chance that your attack will be unsuccessful. Now lets put this into practice.

Let's say you had an average of 4 seconds between death strikes (napkin number). In that 4 second window, you will have 3 melee hits (0s, 1.5s, 3s). At 22.5% per hit, the chances of loosing a single stack of SoB in that window is 53.5%. Now factor in that you can still be parried (unless you are going to exp hard cap), and apply that to the same window between DS and you find that there is about a 38.6% chance of seeing any benefit from hit/exp in any 3 melee swing window (assuming both soft capped).

So yes, getting hit/exp gives a level of consistency (it's still not 100% unless you exp hard cap), but the actual benefit returned compared to avoidance stats is still subject to RNG. you are still trading one rng for another in a sense.

Nope. While Hit/Exp under cap are still inconsistent and subject to RNG it doesn't matter as much since those are dps stats and it generally doesn't matter WHEN you do the damage as long as you do it. It's also hardly noticable whether you get that SoB stack or not.
There's 2 differences when it comes to avoidance:
1) Avoidance is in the 30-50% range which means it's always inconsistent AND you tend to get lucky streaks (healers fall asleep) and unlucky streaks (you're dead or healers have to waste lots of mana).
2) It does matter WHEN those streaks happen - if you get hit a lot at an inappropriate time (healer just used mana hymn) you die - if you dodge 5 times in a row while you have IBF up it's wasted. It does even out in overall damage taken, but damage spikes are usually what's dangerous and avoidance does little to prevent them.

---------- Post added 2012-11-05 at 02:24 PM ----------

so in summation:
you are choosing between more overall reduced damage (avoidance) and the chance (note the word chance) at returning an otherwise lost SoB stack (accuracy).


I choose avoidance>accuracy simply because at our current gear level the avoidance lost from hit/exp capping is too significant. I raid 25H at a world 300 level (I say this because this priority would likely change if I had the healers of a top 10 guild) so first comes consistently reducing bursts, then comes lowering inc dmg, then comes increasing DPS. If I was to be pushing world firsts I would likely place accuracy above avoidance due to slightly better healers (not trying to bring down my healers, but not all of them would be world first viable) and the higher demand for DPS. My guilds current progression is being held back by people not carrying their weight when it comes to raid awareness and not making stupid mistakes. Surprisingly me being a DK tank on 25H Gara'jal is the least of our worries right now, so the added DPS from me being hit/exp capped wouldn't directly help progression. If we had the strat down and were consecutively wiping to enrages, then I'd be stupid not to hit/exp cap (and also use death siphon at that point).

You choose between some minor overall damage taken increase (that is already partly mitigated by exp/hit generating RP/SoB) against a more significant dps increase.

The main point is probably 25m vs 10m where the 25m players tend to go for more damage mitigation (since tank damage taken in 25m is higher) while 10m players prefer exp/hit (because tank damage is a significant part of overall damage there).
We've already had this discussion over and over again back in DS times where you were already geared past any reasonable mastery levels (damage taken mostly covered by self/splash heals) and you could gain so much more by going for stamina (=> vengeance) and hit.

[Reniat]

Nope. While Hit/Exp under cap are still inconsistent and subject to RNG it doesn't matter as much since those are dps stats and it generally doesn't matter WHEN you do the damage as long as you do it.

First off, for the section you were quoting I was looking at hit/exp purely from a survivability standpoint, not dps. It's a huge chunk of dps (~10%) no matter which way you look at it, but that wasn't what I was addressing.

1) Avoidance is in the 30-50% range which means it's always inconsistent AND you tend to get lucky streaks (healers fall asleep) and unlucky streaks (you're dead or healers have to waste lots of mana).
2) It does matter WHEN those streaks happen - if you get hit a lot at an inappropriate time (healer just used mana hymn) you die - if you dodge 5 times in a row while you have IBF up it's wasted. It does even out in overall damage taken, but damage spikes are usually what's dangerous and avoidance does little to prevent them.

You don't rely on avoidance to survive. I could care less when an unlucky streak hits, because I am using my other abilities (death strike, cooldowns ect.) to make sure that I don't need to rely on avoidance. in 25H progression Avoidance is for the most part purely a dmg reduction stat that reduces your overall damage at the end of the day. it's not intended to keep you alive. You survive with your active abilities by making sure your death strikes are being used properly and that Cds are being used to prevent spikes (not recover from them). If you are using your abilities correctly, you should theoretically be able to successfully (successfully, not necessarily comfortably) tank without any avoidance at all. Your healers would probably oom relatively soon, since they would have to be spamming you since they wouldn't have the occasional break of a dodge/parry to catch up, but with proper use of your other abilities you shouldn't be at risk of being bursted down and mana would be the only concern. Add back in your unreliable avoidance and mana is comfortable again, but you would still be stable from your active abilities since you should still not be relying on avoidance in the first place.

[skmage]

Furthermore, it is cheap to get your softcap. Reforge and you'll see how minor your avoidance gained will be in comparison.

P.S.: Exp counts towards spellhit! Hit 7,5% + Exp 7,5% = 15% Spellhit - easy enough.

Wish it was easy enough. I need to reforge pretty much every piece of gear to get expertise soft capped (7.50%) and then im left with about 3.40 hit....which is no where near capped. Is it not worth it if I can only get 1 out of 2 soft capped?

[Nillo]

Wish it was easy enough. I need to reforge pretty much every piece of gear to get expertise soft capped (7.50%) and then im left with about 3.40 hit....which is no where near capped. Is it not worth it if I can only get 1 out of 2 soft capped?

Hit > Exp just saying.
And no it doesn't matter if you can get either of them capped - get as much as you can as long as you're still comfortable with the damage you take.

[Yoshimiko]

Does your rune strike need to hit to gain the talent effects?

Mobs have a 7.5% chance to dodge, a 15% chance to parry, and a 7.5% chance to be hit.

Up until softcap, Expertise is valued at double that of hit, after that expertise is valued slightly less than hit. If rune strike's talents are based off of just USING runestrike, Softcap Expertise > Hit rating. If I'm mistaken and it is not, Hit>Expertise for sure. More runes > Dps in all cases. Never, NEVER, sacrifice mastery for hit or expertise though. If a piece of gear you have has no hit, expertise, or mastery - always reforge mastery.