Stam > All

[rathok]

Idk, to me it seems like a bad design on the itemization of gear. SSG was supposed to be a stepping stone until you got def capped which is when you'd switch to SS. Now, i see tanks wearing 5/5 conq with all almost full ilvl 226 epics and then a random ilvl 200 trinket from reg TOC because its better in that it has 126 (roughly?) stam on it.

[procne]

and to me it seems like bad design of boss encounters. having almost every boss that can kill tank with 2 hits if theres no heal between them leads to situations like this. you cant expect that tank with high avoidance will never get 2 hits in a row therefore killing him. stamina tank may survive it even tho he takes more damage overall.

but healers dont feel this additional damage anyway. MT healers mostly end up spam healing cause they simply have no means to do reactive healing. they mostly overheal too.

someone not familiar with tank / healing mechanics in wow might think that healer's job is to heal more than tank takes damage. that winning fight is about having more hps than boss deals dps. but in fact it all comes to spam healing and praying that tank doesnt die between heals

[plagueshard]

Why do people say that SSG adds 3% avoidance? Its not like you wouldn't be def capped w/o it so all it does is free up def gems and gives you some bonus stam.

Too many people think this.

Defense gives dodge/parry/miss past the defense cap.

[Avey]

I wasn't aware that If i gave up 7k hp I'd gain another 25% avoidance, thanks for the heads up. Maybe if I drop another 7k so I'm down to 18k hp and 100% avoidance.

If we are talking something like a heroic.. I don't care if the tank has 50% avoidance or 35%.. hes not going to die with 32k hp period. All that hp gives the healer a huge cushion to heal. Most avoidance is worthless in heroics / weak hitting bosses as your heals will just end up overhealing cause he avoided the attack. When your heals were going to heal him to 100% anyways.

Avoidance Tank @ 100% hp (25,000 hp)
Boss attacks, tank dodges (25,000 hp left)
Your heal lands for 13,000 (tank at 25,000 hp still)

vs

Stamina Tank @ 100% hp (32,000 hp)
Boss attacks hits tank for 13,000 dmg (tank has 19,000 hp left)
Your heal lands for 13,000 (tank has 32,000 hp now)

Now add in a parry gib... since they do and always will exist unless your tank is rocking around 50+ expertise.

Avoidance tank (25,000 hp):
00:00:00 Boss attacks, tank dodges
00:00:01 Your heal lands... overhealed
00:00:02 Boss attacks, tank dodges
00:00:03 Your heal lands... overhealed
00:00:04 Boss attacks, tank dodges
00:00:05 Your heal lands... overhealed
00:00:06 Boss attacks, tank dodges
00:00:07 Your heal lands... overhealed
00:00:08 boss attacks hits tank for 13,000 (tank has 12,000 hp left)
00:00:09 tanks attack is parried, bosses attack is hasted hits tank for 13,000
00:00:09 avoidance tank dies
00:00:09 Your heal fails lands for 13,000, tank died right before your heal lands cause he dies pretty much instantly
RAID WIPES

vs

stamina tank (32,000 hp):
00:00:00 Boss attacks, tank dodges
00:00:01 Your heal lands... overhealed
00:00:02 boss attacks hits tank for 13,000 (tank has 19,000 hp left)
00:00:03 tanks attack is parried, bosses attack is hasted hits tank for 13,000 (tank has 6,000 hp left)
00:00:03 Your heal lands for 13,000 (tank now at 19,000)
Stamina tank was able to survive longer, giving his healers enough time to heal him.

In both examples the heals are healing the same exact amount, and the same exact time. The boss is also hitting the same exact speed and damage in both. I even had the avoidance tank dodge many more times than the stamina tank and stamina tank still wins hands down.


Remember in raids you heal if the tank dodges or not. As long as you can outheal the incoming damage, there's no need for a tank to gear for pure avoidance. Tanking isn't about avoiding as many hits as possible it's about SURVIVING AS LONG AS POSSIBLE AKA EFFECTIVE HEALTH. The stamina tank in this comparison survives 50% longer than the avoidance tank. It doesn't matter if the avoidance tank dodges the boss for 5 mins straight, soon as he doesn't avoid an attack and the boss parries him he is dead AKA PARRYGIB.

A few things here...

#1- your speculation is off

you go on the premise that:t

--tank 1 avoided/dodged and then got two shotted...what if he dodged/avoided the hasted strike and didn't get hit at all?
--tank 2 didnt avoid the dmg *stam tank) took a normal hit, a hasted hit, and another normal hit...then dies.

#2- as a healer, and a good raid healer at that. you have an attitude that is a bit off about healers. If we healed regardless if you were taking dmg or not, we would go oom. hands down. part of healing is the art of knowing when to heal. ANY good healer that knows a fight can almost hands down PREDICT 95-97% of incoming dmg.... the other 5-7% of incoming unpredicted dmg will never land for anything that we cant heal in time. And if it does, it means the tank got critted which is his(or her) fault.

my point is this...dont try to prove or disprove an avoidance vs stam tank with a theoretical simulation. It just as easily could have gone in favor of the avoidance tank...(you know since he has a MUCH better chance of not getting hit than the stam tank)

also..side note- i NEVER overheal that much. NEVER. My raid lives and I finish with mana left. that means when an upgrade comes with more SP haste crit etc, i can drop some int to take that upgrade. where as a healer that heals like your theory above would be gemming for int and praying they would have enough to heal the tank when he actually needed it.

[Hamma]

my feral druid mostly stacks stam or stam agi if its a red socket. All of the avoidance I need I get from having high iLevel gear. I easily tank Algalon 25 man with this setup.

[Walkingpig]

Avey:

It is important to remember the crucial point (you raised it anyway)... Predicting the damage. Predicting and managing the damage is much easier on a 'stamina' tank. If you've followed tanking theorycrafting for long enough, you'll have read many EJ threads about effective health. Avoidance tanking may be required, and suitable in niche scenarios - but ultimately effective health makes life easier for everyone. An avoidance tank may be fantastic, but if it costs him enough of his mana pool eventually the RNG WILL fail for him, and on a number of those occasions, the healers will not respond in time to bail him out.

OP:
Yes, people are very judgemental - Pick a reason out of the hat! They're used to being carried by bored, well geared tanks. Had a bad experience with a 'noob' tank who hasn't been at it for a long time.... I've had the same problem myself in the past when returning to prot.

However, on the upside - do some reading about effective health, armor rating on gear is pretty normalised these days based on ilvl - so i guess you do end up only having to think about stamina. Coincidentally - having high stam makes you look as pro as you are, and is also the correct way to go theoretically.

[Lucky_]

Why do people say that SSG adds 3% avoidance? Its not like you wouldn't be def capped w/o it so all it does is free up def gems and gives you some bonus stam.

25 defense adds the following stats:

a. 1% chance to dodge.
b. 1% chance to parry
c. 1% chance for incoming attack to miss
d. 1% reduced chance of taking a critical hit

a, b and c account for a total of 3% avoidance.


Also, if you're def capped without SSG, your gear choices are likely very, very bad. I'm in 3/5 t8.5 and 1/5 t8, rest random ul10/ul10HM/ul25 tanking items (it's my secondary spec for raids), and I'm not even near defense cap without SSG. As a DK, unless you're not def capped with SSG, you should NEVER gem for defense, as stamina is just a better option in all cases, and when it's not stamina, you should be gemming hit/exp until cap. This means yellow slots are usually hit+stam, and red slots are exp+stam, until you're capped, unless slot bonus us just plain bad, in which case you go straight for pure stamina.

And if you're a main tank, in many cases you just go straight for stamina anyway, ignoring socket color, but that's another level of play entirely and has nothing to do with heroics.


To make a long story short, as a tank your goal is to make yourself as close to actual defense cap as possible with SSG while being at least at the cap. Rest of the stats should be directed to stamina, expertise, hit and dodge. Defense does not make a good stat to stack until diminishing returns really start to kick in from dodge and parry, and that's not going to happen at gear levels being discussed here.

[rathok]

Too many people think this.

Defense gives dodge/parry/miss past the defense cap.

no shit, but your not going to keep stacking defense past the cap now are you. Thus, you would have that same avoidance no matter how your geared because your never not going to be def capped.

[Warbec]

I can't help but notice the new trend with tanks... My DK tank had been out of the loop for a while and after several nurfs i found him with about 26k hp unbuffed despite wearing 12/16 epics. Whenever i would join a pug for a heroic (mind you my DK has champion of the frozen wastes title and i've tanked pretty much every heroic in the game) i would still get kicked from pugs because of my "shit gear".

Since then, I've picked up 2 upgrades and regemmed/encahnted everything just stacking stam while keeping def capped and now I've got about 31.2k hp unbuffed. The general reaction from people is! ...that I'm geared to the teeth just because i have more HP.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

QFT!!!
Like... I was on my Pala Tanker. He is an alt so gear isn´t maxed out so he only has 27k health selfbuffed.
But my avoidance is higher than normal which compensates de lower health.

I went into a VoA Emalon run (which I was going to Tank) and the second tanker had 40k health. He kicked me because I only had 27k health.
"LOL! tanking emalon with 27k health!! impossible noob!"
Seriously... that´s just some display of "lack of tanking knowledge". I even had the Acheivement fr him to see.
I tanked Emalon when I had 25k and didn´t had a single problem (only 2 healers)(and tanked adds too in other run).
You just need to know which skills to use at the right time and high avoidance.

Fact is that people want to PUG but if we don´t meet the "IMBA REQUIREMENTS for Ulduar 75man" (yes I wrote it right) we won´t be able to enter.

Another stupid thing is requiring the "acheivement" to enter a PuG.
Like... wtf? Does anyone forget the tactics when they change to an alt?
When we started Naxx we only had 1100spelpower and we did it! Now everyone require "more than 2k sp"
"WOOT?? U have less than 2000sp?? lmao! u can´t do Naxx like that! Naxx is for the big boys Smiley"

-.-

[rathok]

A few things here...

#1- your speculation is off

you go on the premise that:t

--tank 1 avoided/dodged and then got two shotted...what if he dodged/avoided the hasted strike and didn't get hit at all?
--tank 2 didnt avoid the dmg *stam tank) took a normal hit, a hasted hit, and another normal hit...then dies.

#2- as a healer, and a good raid healer at that. you have an attitude that is a bit off about healers. If we healed regardless if you were taking dmg or not, we would go oom. hands down. part of healing is the art of knowing when to heal. ANY good healer that knows a fight can almost hands down PREDICT 95-97% of incoming dmg.... the other 5-7% of incoming unpredicted dmg will never land for anything that we cant heal in time. And if it does, it means the tank got critted which is his(or her) fault.

my point is this...dont try to prove or disprove an avoidance vs stam tank with a theoretical simulation. It just as easily could have gone in favor of the avoidance tank...(you know since he has a MUCH better chance of not getting hit than the stam tank)

also..side note- i NEVER overheal that much. NEVER. My raid lives and I finish with mana left. that means when an upgrade comes with more SP haste crit etc, i can drop some int to take that upgrade. where as a healer that heals like your theory above would be gemming for int and praying they would have enough to heal the tank when he actually needed it.

Obviously he is oversimplifying the situation for the sake of explanation. No tank fully buffed in a raid is going to have 25k hp. He's just trying to illustrate the point that stam tanks are more consistent and no matter how much avoidance you have, if you eat a 35k hit then you'll die if you don't have more than 35k hp. There is a chance you'll avoid it but in the event you don't then you just killed 24 other people.

[rathok]

QFT!!!
Like... I was on my Pala Tanker. He is an alt so gear isn´t maxed out so he only has 27k health selfbuffed.
But my avoidance is higher than normal which compensates de lower health.

I went into a VoA Emalon run (which I was going to Tank) and the second tanker had 40k health. He kicked me because I only had 27k health.
"LOL! tanking emalon with 27k health!! impossible noob!"
Seriously... that´s just some display of "lack of tanking knowledge". I even had the Acheivement fr him to see.
I tanked Emalon when I had 25k and didn´t had a single problem (only 2 healers)(and tanked adds too in other run).
You just need to know which skills to use at the right time and high avoidance.

Fact is that people want to PUG but if we don´t meet the "IMBA REQUIREMENTS for Ulduar 75man" (yes I wrote it right) we won´t be able to enter.

Another stupid thing is requiring the "acheivement" to enter a PuG.
Like... wtf? Does anyone forget the tactics when they change to an alt?
When we started Naxx we only had 1100spelpower and we did it! Now everyone require "more than 2k sp"
"WOOT?? U have less than 2000sp?? lmao! u can´t do Naxx like that! Naxx is for the big boys Smiley"

-.-

yeah... suffering from "carry-me" syndrome no doubt. Last week when i had 25k hp unbuffed we did emalon 10 with 2 healers and mine was in 1/2 blues and we didnt have any problems. 1 shotted him.

[Lucky_]

Fact is that people want to PUG but if we don´t meet the "IMBA REQUIREMENTS for Ulduar 75man" (yes I wrote it right) we won´t be able to enter.

The point here is very simple: if all 25 people were geared as you are, it would be impossible. You're essentially asking people in the pug to compensate for slack that your gear will cause.

Sure, emalon is tankable with subpar gear. Not even hard if you can stack 3-4 ul25 geared and skilled healers to maintain heal/shield spam on him. But this is a PUG - meaning we can't assume that awesome players are there to carry you.

And therefore you will be kicked out of 9/10 raids, because you're a major wipe risk - one that few would be willing to take. The fact that it's doable is meaningless - it's not "doability" that pugs look for but "reliability" - and in that level of gear you're anything but reliable.


This quite possibly sums up the entire argument OP is trying to go for: PuG leaders do not look for "doable" tanks, they are looking for "reliable" ones. And subpar geared tanks are rarely reliable

[Warbec]

The point here is very simple: if all 25 people were geared as you are, it would be impossible. You're essentially asking people in the pug to compensate for slack that your gear will cause.

Sure, emalon is tankable with subpar gear. Not even hard if you can stack 3-4 ul25 geared and skilled healers to maintain heal/shield spam on him. But this is a PUG - meaning we can't assume that awesome players are there to carry you.

And therefore you will be kicked out of 9/10 raids, because you're a major wipe risk - one that few would be willing to take. The fact that it's doable is meaningless - it's not "doability" that pugs look for but "reliability" - and in that level of gear you're anything but reliable.


This quite possibly sums up the entire argument OP is trying to go for: PuG leaders do not look for "doable" tanks, they are looking for "reliable" ones. And subpar geared tanks are rarely reliable

When I tanked Emalon, my AVG ilvl was 210 ("Athene Gear Check Addon") and the first time I tanked Emalon was on the first day (everyone was still in 200-213 gear) when 3.1 hit.
No one was carrying me in that first day that´s for sure.


The problem was only the 27k health and not the 42% dodge/parry/block. If that raid leader would even check my gear he would say: "Wow... how can you that gear but such low health?"

Anyway they didn´t found any other tanker (was 3 am) and they call it before they even started.
They just didn´t even wanted to TRY... they simply called it. That´s sad... >_>

[Lucky_]

When I tanked Emalon, my AVG ilvl was 210 ("Athene Gear Check Addon") and the first time I tanked Emalon was on the first day (everyone was still in 200-213 gear) when 3.1 hit.
No one was carrying me in that first day that´s for sure.

Of course, back then everyone still went full out on consumables, minimized their healers, because back then killing the ad in time was actually a problem. It was largely undoable as a real PuG in the first week.
Tanking was much less of an issue back then. Sorting out DPS and getting the proper burst on overloaded ad was the main issue.

The problem was only the 27k health and not the 42% dodge/parry/block. If that raid leader would even check my gear he would say: "Wow... how can you that gear but such low health?"

To paraphrase the old tankspot quote, "if you see a raid tank focused on stacking avoidance over stamina for general boss tanking, know that you're seeing a completely and utterly clueless tank, and your raid and guild would be better off without him".
A decent raid leader, upon seeing low health tank with high avoidance stats should kick one on the spot for a simple reason: such tanks cause healer ragequits due to stress and general ragequits due to easily avoidable wipes.

[Warbec]

A decent raid leader, upon seeing low health tank with high avoidance stats should kick one on the spot for a simple reason: such tanks cause healer ragequits due to stress and general ragequits due to easily avoidable wipes.

As you wish :P
Btw my main is healer and the only tanks that can get me "ragequits" is Druid due to "contant damage with no avoidance".

Meh

[Craz]

--tank 1 avoided/dodged and then got two shotted...what if he dodged/avoided the hasted strike and didn't get hit at all?
--tank 2 didnt avoid the dmg *stam tank) took a normal hit, a hasted hit, and another normal hit...then dies.

tank 1) I said the avoidance tank could dodge every single attack for 5 mins, but soon as he doesn't avoid an attack and it's followed by a parry hasted attack HES DEAD. And yes it happens extremely often. It happens 5-10 times per boss fight.

tank 2) Can you not read the little combat log I made up? It clearly shows 13k heal landing every 2 secs, 1 sec after the boss hit lands which the boss is also swinging every 2 secs. The stamina tank will have survived this every single time.

[Craz]

To paraphrase the old tankspot quote, "if you see a raid tank focused on stacking avoidance over stamina for general boss tanking, know that you're seeing a completely and utterly clueless tank, and your raid and guild would be better off without him".
A decent raid leader, upon seeing low health tank with high avoidance stats should kick one on the spot for a simple reason: such tanks cause healer ragequits due to stress and general ragequits due to easily avoidable wipes.

So true, if I see a tank wearing avoidance vs a very hard hitting boss, I know he can drop instantly from 100% to dead just by a boss auto attack + hasted attack. I have no clue why healers always think the avoidance tank is easier to heal... when in fact hes the hardest tank to heal.

General rule of tanking you need to have enough hp to survive 2 boss hits without a heal. Because every single tank will eat parrygibs unless you are extremely geared enough to have say 60 expertise. Yes this is part of the reason expertise is so good, it helps you avoid parrygibbing, as well as adding to your threat. Think of a parrygib as like a crit.. you will be taking 2x dmg within 1 second but instead of this hit being 2x dmg, it's just 2 hits for same dmg but overall its the same damage you are taking. Expertise helps you lower that chance, just like defense helps you get rid of boss crits.

Crits = burst, parrygib = burst, you need to be able to survive this or you are worthless.

[nwo]

95% of all pugs judge a tank by looking at how much HP he has. They think that the more HP you have, the better tank you are. This is false. IMO, DKs take the most damage out of any tank, but they have cooldowns to compensate for it (not that other tanks do not).
It's almost retarded how much harder it is to tank on a DK than it is on a pally. Not only do pallies not take any melee damage from heroics, but they also don't have to worry about using a specific rotation. DKs have a specific rotation because of runes and more specifically death runes.

[Ace23323]

The reason why effective health > all for MAIN TANKS is that in a raid environment, the two most important things involved are (1) coordination and (2) control. For this specific dicussion, #2 is important.
An avoidance tank (generally) puts the success of a raid in jeopardy because he can't survive back-to-back hits without a heal. The situation, then, is out of the control of the healers, as RNG becomes a major factor--not a good recipe for success.

There is nothing more stressful in a raid (especially a hardmode raid) environment than a healer knowing that should anything go wrong, he needs to keep healing the main tank or the raid could wipe. With a stamina tank (who is STILL GOING TO HAVE TONS OF AVOIDANCE!), the healer has a cushion. He knows that if you take a 20k hit from a boss at the same time a great DPS takes raid damage, he has time to get off a flash heal on the low DPS and then get a heal off on you, knowing full well that even if the boss hits you one more time before his heal lands, you'll still be alive. RNG is removed from the equation here to a much higher degree, making your overall odds of success better.

[saulverde]

I don't understand why this is a mystery, as long as bosses have slow hard hitting swings then stam will beat out avoidance. Stam is constant and makes things predictable. Now if the boss hits fast and not as hard I could get hit 3 times and be fine I would go for more avoidance. Stam is better for the content blizz is making currently.

If they want people to change how they are gearing then they will need to change the encounters they are building.