Prot Pallies look over here!

[Angella]

Firstly, I wasnt saying 102.4% was wrong or disagreeing with you, I was qualifying what I said, which was that i wasnt arguing against 102.4% or saying you argued against it, I was starting with the precepts of why stacking EH past a certain point isnt going to help as much as avoidance.

We have limited cooldowns that we can safely use compared to other classes.

I don't lack in producing threat, but the fights you need the cooldowns on, mainly thorim, hodir, mimiron and beyond have the dps producing a lot of threat which can make it difficult.. not only this but hosalv hurts us more the later we use it in the fight.

What are you referring to when you say less damage per hit, are you talking about damage compared to your total HP, because trust me, having that extra 2-3k hp at the expense of 2-3% avoidance just isn't worth it at all once you're past a certain point.

You are right, the 2 hit rule doesnt stand when you've used a cooldown.. however even with glyphed hosalv, you're taking reduced damage fro 22 seconds out of 2 minutes. The rest of the time you're taking full damage., which is roughly /6ths of the time.

EH is simply how many hits you can take before you die without healing.. so you don't even mention healing and EH together.. i dont know how i could put it clearer than i did before... whether you die by a 2k overkill or a 15k overkill you're still dead.. so you may as well reduce the chance of being chain hit.

Perhaps you're confusing eh optimisation with stam stacking...

We're getting closer to a middle ground.

I understand the logic of saying it doesn't matter if you get overkilled by 3k or 14k. I really do. The basic premise of my argument is that stacking EH in conjunction with proper use of CDs is a great way to avoid the overkill in the first place. A partial reason for this is that a lot of heals partly heal the 15-20k hit you just took (think HoTs, HS, AoE heals). The extra 3-4k hps with a well-timed CD use can boost you to being able to take another hit. This is in contrast to avoidance, where you may be able to avoid another hit, but should that fail you're dead. Assuming the worst happens every single time, stacking EH is better imo and at least in practice for me (and I've tried both quite a bit).

I have never, ever, had a problem with threat in wotlk. The few times it has come up it was b/c RF was off. Stupid me - was still able to keep threat using taunts (try it sometime - its a good lol).

When you stack EH you stack a couple of things. Stamina is an obvious one - as is AC. But you'll also want to itemize for the amount absorbed by your shield. It is EH when you've hit 102.4% after all.

I think this is the disconnect. You're assuming when you get hit for 2k or 15k on an overkill, that the healers cannot modify the amount needed b4 the overkill hit lands. I'm arguing that there are some 'oh-shit' buttons healers have to make that 2k to 15k overkill a 6k hp left or a 7k overkill. Stacking EH makes the 'oh-shit' buttons more valuable. If you're always at the 15k healing needed b4 that overkill lands, even a paladin healer will need to pop a HL - which takes too long to cast.

It sounds like you're talking more about time till death (TTD) than you are about EH. I agree avoidance will help a lot in the avg TTD department. What I'm looking to do is have a lower TTD, but also with a lower variance. Because the hits are more predictable, I'm easier to heal than an avoidance tank. I've healed both more than enough times to know.

[Exerci]

I think this is the disconnect. You're assuming when you get hit for 2k or 15k on an overkill, that the healers cannot modify the amount needed b4 the overkill hit lands. I'm arguing that there are some 'oh-shit' buttons healers have to make that 2k to 15k overkill a 6k hp left or a 7k overkill. Stacking EH makes the 'oh-shit' buttons more valuable. If you're always at the 15k healing needed b4 that overkill lands, even a paladin healer will need to pop a HL - which takes too long to cast.

It takes too long to cast a holy light? First of all, it takes like, 1.3 seconds, second of all, if you take a large spike of death like that, it's usually predictable, and the paladin healer, if he's awake, will be precasting holy light. The only exception I can recall from Ulduar where large amounts of damage can come fairly quickly is Thorim when he goes Unbalancing strike in the same second as a melee crit. And even then, we healers DO know that Thorim is a mofo and will all be precasting heals. (I play both prot and holy, just not at the same time )