Protection legion Discussion

[Bethrezen]

Rather reduce magical damage, since that is not our 'strength' in tank, besides spell reflect. So more vers/mastery for bigger IPs, more DR vs magic(all damage). Where haste comes alongside, great for that too.

[celinamuna]

I think you are forgetting that your AP gains from Strength are going to be around 30% higher because of your mastery.

Still doesn't account for the lack of block/etc.

But there's a few other inconsistencies.

[Valkaneer]

Edit: Oops, didn't see that @Lysozyme already said essentially the same thing.



Yea, of course Haste is going to be better for smoothing. Going off your sims, if you go Haste > Vers > Mast instead of Vers > Mast > Haste, you increase damage taken by ~4%, and increase your "smoothing" by ~4.7%.

This whole Haste vs. Versatility debate comes down to whether you value smoothing or reducing total damage more. Personally, I think people nowadays put too much value on smoothing.

So, for anyone wondering what they should do:

If you value smoothing, prioritize Haste > Vers > Mastery.

If you value reducing damage taken, prioritize Vers > Mastery > Haste.

There's an argument to be made for both, but going off what I see in sims (both SimC and AMR. and no, I'm not just looking at stat weights), I think for overall survivability going Vers > Mast > Haste is better.

What happens if you try a balance of all 3?

[Alaexaender]

What happens if you try a balance of all 3?

I haven't done sims on this, but I'd take a guess that vers will remain in the top, and then haste/mastery will be close, with mastery winning out at higher ilvls.

My reasoning is that vers is currently the best stat, and it increases linearly with itself, so there's no reason to think it would change. Mastery and haste both have diminishing worth as they increase, so it could be possible that balancing them would be better than getting a ton of one (and getting less out of your gear as you get better).

However, Mastery should retain more value than haste. Haste has diminishing value in the formula for CDs, and shield block uptime has diminished value as it increases. Meanwhile, Mastery's block value is reduced as shield block uptime decreases, and the crit block value is reduced as mastery increases due to it being a percent, but the crit block value also increases as shield block uptime increases. Also, the attack power portion should increase in a linear manner.

Again, this is done just through logic, not sims or detailed in-game testing.

[Deleted]

Do sims take into account Dragon Scales and/or Scales of Earth procs?

[yureii00]

I have Haste > Mastery > Vers. so am I wrong? (840Ilv)
also what should be a good value for haste, 30%?

[Melenthria]

I have Haste > Mastery > Vers. so am I wrong? (840Ilv)
also what should be a good value for haste, 30%?

29% seems to be the value.

[KingIronhide1]

I have Haste > Mastery > Vers. so am I wrong? (840Ilv)
also what should be a good value for haste, 30%?

keep that haste set for your world quests and your heroics and use the vers set for mythics or if u get a shitty healer .. pretty much what i do


haste set will do more with low hp mobs or if your big dick dps is crushing the game ... vers is just more survivability

[yureii00]

s9.postimg.io/4gdp8ixcv/image.jpg

What about something like that? Keeping good amount of Vers, and Haste
Im looking for a Pre-raid build

24% haste, 20% versa, 17 Maste

[KingIronhide1]

s9.postimg.io/4gdp8ixcv/image.jpg

What about something like that? Keeping good amount of Vers, and Haste
Im looking for a Pre-raid build

24% haste, 20% versa, 17 Maste

id drop haste to like 15/20% and slot in more mastery and use the talent into the fray which will give u haste when u need it basically ... im not a fan of the ultimatium/vengence build .. i use "into the fray" and "renewed fury" both far superior talents in my opinion .. i basically never ever press focus rage all my rage gets spent on shield block and ignore pain (with renewed fury if u cast IP every 6 seconds u will keep a perma 10% dmg buff the entire time ur tanking) ... i still do 150/200k single target and 250/400k aoe dps

[AanvilGT]

Can we get DPS weights to go along with the mitigation weights, so we can know roughly how much dps we are gaining or giving up with trinket choices?

Looking at the dps results in Marok's sims, it seems like Haste > Crit >= Mastery >> Versatility. Can anyone generate actual numeric dps weights?

[Melenthria]

I would do exactly as King iron said, keep haste at around 20% and get more mastery. I have a haste set for prot and a mastery set for arms and I tanked a mythic Vault run with the arms set without noticing and I definitely felt a difference both in damage (less) and survival (more). I favor the Ultimatium/vengeance build but I find that largely irrelevant atm, they can both keep up with what you are tanking (although Into the Fray is situational).

[Marok]

TL;DR: We don't know what the stat priorities are right now. Everything is still a work in progress.

So, obviously the stat priority for Prot is a mess, and a big part of that is my fault. I confidently posted my AMR sim results, and essentially stated them as fact. At this point, I'm sure a lot of you are frustrated with the fact that Prot has no "official" stat priority and that it seems to change every other day. That frustration is completely understandable, but all I ask is that you remain patient while this is sorted out. In truth, no one really knows what the "correct" stat priority is. The reason for that being AMR and SimulationCraft both currently have their own issues and because of that, produce different results. We currently have two sources of data to go on, my AMR sims, the the SimC sims posted by celinamuna. As I just said though, neither are entirely correct/accurate.

To expand on this, here's a sort of list on the current state of things:

1) SimC is incomplete/bugged for Prot. Some artifact traits aren't implemented (I don't have an exact list, but I believe SoE and DS are both non-functional), a fix to IP was made after those sims were done, and there are a few more things I can't remember right now. I don't think it's fair/accurate to base a stat priority off sims that are only mostly working. Now, will implementing these things/fixing bugs make a huge difference in terms of what it shows for stats? Probably not. But I'd rather not base a stat priority off of a "maybe".

2) It's been suggested to go Haste > Vers > Mastery for "smoothness", and Vers > Mastery > Haste for reducing total damage taken. While that's most likely true, giving people two stat priorities to pick from isn't very helpful, especially when most don't know what TMI/smoothing/DTPS actually is and what they affect in terms of survivability.

3) AMR sims are not as bad as people are claiming. I definitely don't think they're perfect, and there's some work to be done in terms of NPS. Also, I agree that the stat weights generated by AMR are questionable at best. Strength is weighted too highly over Mastery, and Haste is weighted too lowly compared to Vers/Mastery. The "advantage" that AMR has over SimC currently, and the reason I used it to generate my results, is because from what I can tell, AMR does everything correctly in terms of buffs, procs, rotation, etc. The major flaw it has is its NPS metric.

4) There needs to be more work done in regards to SimC. For one, Haste breakpoints need to be figured out/confirmed. I did some initial testing, and Haste seems to fall off after ~28%, however I'd like to confirm that with SimC. Obviously I'd prefer not to do that now because of reason #1.

4.1) I don't think it's a good idea to base the stat Priority off one set of sims (I'm referring to the SimC sims posted above). The "problem" (it's not really a problem) with SimC is the fact that the weights that are generated only show you what will give you the most immediate improvement to whatever metric you're looking at. That doesn't help you create a general gearing strategy. Several "sets" of sims need to be run (in addition to things like scale plots) at different stat percentages in order to create an accurate priority (this is esentially what AMR attempts to do). One of the reasons for that is because of things like Haste breakpoints (see #4).

5) Haste is (very likely) the best stat for smoothing (TMI), however, in my opinion I don't think Prot will gain the most overall "survivability" from more smoothing. I think we are already extremely smooth (again, in terms of TMI), and because of that I strongly believe Versatility is far and away our best stat.* I also don't believe there is a "right" answer to the smoothing vs. damage reduction argument. This is where the whole "philosophy on tanking" discussion comes into play.

6) Using all of the evidence/data we have (which is not completely useless by the way, it's just not necessarily "correct"), Versatility is still looking to be our strongest stat for reducing total damage taken, and as I have argued, thus for survivability overall.* Assuming that this is the case, the question remains whether Haste is better than Mastery or vice-versa. There's an argument to be made for both, but considering Haste's contribution to DPS, and the effect it has on smoothing, it's definitely within the realm of possibility that overall, Haste > Mastery. However, this can't be confirmed in an accurate and reliable way until point #1 is taken care of.

So, perhaps our stat priority is Vers > Haste (to 28%) > Mastery > Haste > Crit. Maybe Haste is always second. Maybe Mastery is better than Haste. I can get a pretty good idea of what is actually better right now overall (leaning towards Haste for the smoothing/DPS reason), but I don't want to make anything "official" for all the reasons I listed above.

Finally, I'm somewhat new to my "position" (prot 'theorycrafter', prot guy, whatever you want to call me), and in hindsight I definitely should have handled some things differently in terms of how/when I presented information. The stat priority has (obviously) been a mess, which is something I'm trying to get cleared up/fixed as soon as possible.

*Edit: After the recent nerfs to Ignore Pain, Versatility's value has dropped significantly and is most likely not our best stat anymore.

[hyperhyve]

Thank you very much for clearing up the situation, Marok. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

[Marok]

Thank you very much for clearing up the situation, Marok. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

No problem. I'm glad to hear that

[Carmion]

What I currently do is simply go for itemlevel > all and avoid crit where possible.

That is a relatively safe way to gear and, to be honest, at current gear levels it will not make any game breaking difference. As long as you aim for itemlevel, you will be good in most case.

[Leih]

It does kind of feel like Mastery and Haste are close enough that at current gear levels it's hardly going to make that big of a difference anyway. As things scale up going forward, then presumably the differences will be more pronounced. Personally I'm mostly following the same strategy as Carmion for now, favoring ilvl first and foremost, and beyond that taking anything with versa on and avoiding anything with crit. Haste and Mastery are both nice enough to me.

Very much appreciate all the work Marok has put in with simming and posting explanations here though, regardless of whether people agree, it's good reading

[celinamuna]

TL;DR: We don't know what the stat priorities are right now. Everything is still a work in progress.

So, obviously the stat priority for Prot is a mess, and a big part of that is my fault. I confidently posted my AMR sim results, and essentially stated them as fact. At this point, I'm sure a lot of you are frustrated with the fact that Prot has no "official" stat priority and that it seems to change every other day. That frustration is completely understandable, but all I ask is that you remain patient while this is sorted out. In truth, no one really knows what the "correct" stat priority is. The reason for that being AMR and SimulationCraft both currently have their own issues and because of that, produce different results. We currently have two sources of data to go on, my AMR sims, the the SimC sims posted by celinamuna. As I just said though, neither are entirely correct/accurate.

To expand on this, here's a sort of list on the current state of things:

1) SimC is incomplete/bugged for Prot. Some artifact traits aren't implemented (I don't have an exact list, but I believe SoE and DS are both non-functional), a fix to IP was made after those sims were done, and there are a few more things I can't remember right now. I don't think it's fair/accurate to base a stat priority off sims that are only mostly working. Now, will implementing these things/fixing bugs make a huge difference in terms of what it shows for stats? Probably not. But I'd rather not base a stat priority off of a "maybe".

2) It's been suggested to go Haste > Vers > Mastery for "smoothness", and Vers > Mastery > Haste for reducing total damage taken. While that's most likely true, giving people two stat priorities to pick from isn't very helpful, especially when most don't know what TMI/smoothing/DTPS actually is and what they affect in terms of survivability.

3) AMR sims are not as bad as people are claiming. I definitely don't think they're perfect, and there's some work to be done in terms of NPS. Also, I agree that the stat weights generated by AMR are questionable at best. Strength is weighted too highly over Mastery, and Haste is weighted too lowly compared to Vers/Mastery. The "advantage" that AMR has over SimC currently, and the reason I used it to generate my results, is because from what I can tell, AMR does everything correctly in terms of buffs, procs, rotation, etc. The major flaw it has is its NPS metric.

4) There needs to be more work done in regards to SimC. For one, Haste breakpoints need to be figured out/confirmed. I did some initial testing, and Haste seems to fall off after ~28%, however I'd like to confirm that with SimC. Obviously I'd prefer not to do that now because of reason #1.

4.1) I don't think it's a good idea to base the stat Priority off one set of sims (I'm referring to the SimC sims posted above). The "problem" (it's not really a problem) with SimC is the fact that the weights that are generated only show you what will give you the most immediate improvement to whatever metric you're looking at. That doesn't help you create a general gearing strategy. Several "sets" of sims need to be run (in addition to things like scale plots) at different stat percentages in order to create an accurate priority (this is esentially what AMR attempts to do). One of the reasons for that is because of things like Haste breakpoints (see #4).

5) Haste is (very likely) the best stat for smoothing (TMI), however, in my opinion I don't think Prot will gain the most overall "survivability" from more smoothing. I think we are already extremely smooth (again, in terms of TMI), and because of that I strongly believe Versatility is far and away our best stat. I also don't believe there is a "right" answer to the smoothing vs. damage reduction argument. This is where the whole "philosophy on tanking" discussion comes into play.

6) Using all of the evidence/data we have (which is not completely useless by the way, it's just not necessarily "correct"), Versatility is still looking to be our strongest stat for reducing total damage taken, and as I have argued, thus for survivability overall. Assuming that this is the case, the question remains whether Haste is better than Mastery or vice-versa. There's an argument to be made for both, but considering Haste's contribution to DPS, and the effect it has on smoothing, it's definitely within the realm of possibility that overall, Haste > Mastery. However, this can't be confirmed in an accurate and reliable way until point #1 is taken care of.

So, perhaps our stat priority is Vers > Haste (to 28%) > Mastery > Haste > Crit. Maybe Haste is always second. Maybe Mastery is better than Haste. I can get a pretty good idea of what is actually better right now overall (leaning towards Haste for the smoothing/DPS reason), but I don't want to make anything "official" for all the reasons I listed above.

Finally, I'm somewhat new to my "position" (prot 'theorycrafter', prot guy, whatever you want to call me), and in hindsight I definitely should have handled some things differently in terms of how/when I presented information. The stat priority has (obviously) been a mess, which is something I'm trying to get cleared up/fixed as soon as possible.

1) One of them def works, other I think is still missing. There was no fix to IP done.

3) Str too high, stamina too low, other weights are questionable.

4.1) The issue is that AMR weights literally have nothing to do with your current gear. I'd much rather have stats that show weights for gear that I have vs some absolutely abstract values.

[Reachie10]

Is there an addon out there, that tracks amount of damage blocked and absorded via IP?

Skara shows IP as "healing", but there is no where I can see that shows damage blocked via shield block, critical block, and just normal blocks.

I'd be nice to have a breakdown, to see how much damage we are mitigating via blocking.

Any help would be appreciated!

[hyperhyve]

Is there an addon out there, that tracks amount of damage blocked and absorded via IP?

Skara shows IP as "healing", but there is no where I can see that shows damage blocked via shield block, critical block, and just normal blocks.

I'd be nice to have a breakdown, to see how much damage we are mitigating via blocking.

Any help would be appreciated!

Pretty sure you can see it in the logs. As for addons, I'm not entirely sure, but Details might be able to show what you need. Can't test, since I'm still at work right now.