do blood really has better EH than frost

[vkei]

i have both frost and blood tank spec now
like 40k in frost and 42 in blood (both with FP) *my 2Hander actually has more sta than my DWs
ofcoz 42K makes me LOOKS like a better tank..but
say a raid boss hitting for 40k , and i have 68% phy. damage reduction from armor in raid
blood take 12800 a hit, that is 30%
frost take 12000 a hit ,that is also 30%
so why everyone say blood has the most EH?
i understand blood has a better CD that's true, but frost do better on AE,and a longer IBF, both singal target threat are more than enough

i don't really want 2 tank spec, but just for a test, i can't pick one now, i like frost but everyone out there like tank with most HP

[mhp]

Blood has higher EH due to the higher stamina, the self heals and vampiric blood. Mostly vampiric blood, though, the rest is fairly well covered by frosts' mitigation.

If you like frost, stay frost and tell the naysayers to learn to play.

[fren]

I had the same feeling when i started tanking, i tried both and both had their pro's and cons just play what you like best. Both are valid for tanking, pick what you feel is the right spec and you enjoy.
Don't just take blood because others say so, tell the haters to piss off.

[Nangz]

EH is your health divided by your armor % it has nothing to do with mechnaics of cooldowns, avoidence or anything of the sort

The talents and reasons why blood is higher EH are these.

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50029

Does give 3% stamina which is a decent increase.

The only EH increasing talent in frost tree is
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50385

but try to prove me wrong i'd say that 3% stam>2% less damage taken.

[vkei]

i know 3% sta vs 2% less damage is the affecting EH , that's in my maths
and i know which is better is depence on how much sta u have and how hard the boss hit , for now i think they are pretty much the same , maybe 3% sta will get better on better gears but the diffrence won't be too big

VB is great , this is the thing i have to consider , since i don't really found a good way to use my UBA , i can't even feel the diffrence when my UBA on, so i just use it together with my IBF now

[Nangz]

i know 3% sta vs 2% less damage is the affecting EH , that's in my maths
and i know which is better is depence on how much sta u have and how hard the boss hit , for now i think they are pretty much the same , maybe 3% sta will get better on better gears but the diffrence won't be too big

VB is great , this is the thing i have to consider , since i don't really found a good way to use my UBA , i can't even feel the diffrence when my UBA on, so i just use it together with my IBF now

I do think that the 3% stam vs 2% less damage isn't a huge difference but its same concept as gemming stam. It gives your healers more reacting time aswell as buffer room.

But i do think that frost's cooldown does quite frankly suck.

Blood's is amazing and could actually be given to all specs but that'd be way op

[jai151]

You have to think of Stamina as a form of mitigation. To do that, you have to think of your health not as 45k/45k but as 100%. You really only have to change that style of thinking if healer mana becomes a factor (right now it isn't) or if healers can't keep pace with constant incoming damage.

Let me explain. You have two tanks, Tank A with 50k health and 50% mitigation and Tank B with 45k health and 55% mitigation. The boss swings for 50k. Tank A takes 25k damage, dropping his health to 50%. Tank B takes 22.5k, dropping his health to 50%. So even though Tank A took 2,500 more damage, they both end up at 50%.

Stamina, however, works on magic and unmitigatable sources as well. So if that boss happened to also have a magic attack for 22.5k that hits right after the swing and both tanks have no resistance or magical mitigation, Tank A survives with 5% while Tank B dies. Of course this doesn't apply to the Frost v Blood debate, as the 2% is all sources.

[Sharaki]

3% stamina + 15sec VB (15% more stamina is kinda meh for situations where damage reducing cooldown is must)
vs
3% avoidance + 2% damage reduction + http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51271 + 50% more uptime / longer IBF


Migitation PoV frost is superior, especially for fights like Festergut.

[rollie9]

to answer

do blood really has better EH than frost

i will tell you: Yes.

[jai151]

3% stamina + 15sec VB (15% more stamina is kinda meh for situations where damage reducing cooldown is must)
vs
3% avoidance + 2% damage reduction + http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51271 + 50% more uptime / longer IBF


Migitation PoV frost is superior, especially for fights like Festergut.

3% avoidance is beside the point for mitigation.

3% stamina vs 2% DR is going to come out about equal. The amount of damage needed to make 2%DR significantly better would one shot you anyway.

15% stamina vs 25% armor is an interesting comparison. Remember, 15% stamina means it takes 15% more damage to kill you. 25% armor means it takes X amount more PHYSICAL damage to kill you.

The longer uptime on IBF doesn't have a real counterpoint in blood. Closest is the steady stream of self healing, which is really hard to compare.

It's not nearly as cut and dry as it appears

[Nangz]

3% stamina + 15sec VB (15% more stamina is kinda meh for situations where damage reducing cooldown is must)
vs
3% avoidance + 2% damage reduction + http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51271 + 50% more uptime / longer IBF


Migitation PoV frost is superior, especially for fights like Festergut.

You also forget the 35% healing effect increase which makes it probably more potent. On a fight like festergut where the healers have to spam to keep you up this makes it easier.

[Sharaki]

It's not nearly as cut and dry as it appears

If you compare only big hit vs big hit, you can basically ignore all selfheals blood has. If you compare damage taken in period of time, that 3% avoidance counts as well (and selfheals if not overhealing) and thats why I mentioned it. It's true that UBA is only for physical, yet in most fights where damage to tanks is big (gunshipbattle to some extent while its joke i know, saurfang, festergut, Council) it's physical damage.

On a fight like festergut where the healers have to spam to keep you up this makes it easier.

But won't save your ass if you tank 3stack without any reducing cooldowns and take 2 hits in a row

[jai151]

If you compare only big hit vs big hit, you can basically ignore all selfheals blood has. If you compare damage taken in period of time, that 3% avoidance counts as well (and selfheals if not overhealing) and thats why I mentioned it. It's true that UBA is only for physical, yet in most fights where damage to tanks is big (gunshipbattle to some extent while its joke i know, saurfang, festergut, Council) it's physical damage.

The actual amount of damage taken is meaningless. It's whether or not you survive. So the percentage of health remaining after the hit is the important number.

So the question is whether that 25% armor mitigates more damage than the 15% health boost adds HP.

But won't save your ass if you tank 3stack without any reducing cooldowns and take 2 hits in a row

It doesn't have to. The 15% health boost will.

[bigjenk]

Dont forget wotn which does matter and factors into eh.

[Fornaw]

The difference in effective health is pretty small. The reason I switched from Frost to Blood is because Vampiric Blood is a much better all around tanking cool-down than UBA.

Aside from the obvious fact that VB actually has an effect on spell damage, unlike UBA, UBA use was always rather awkward to me. UBA needs to be used when you have at least enough health (and incoming heals) to not die before it expires (or else you waste much of the benefit it could provide), and is better off used when not at full health because you may avoid the next hit and waste part of the effect. There are times as a frost tank where you may die because you did not activate UBA early enough, this is rarely the case with VB since the amount of effective health granted by VB is constant no matter what health you had when you activated it.

This means UBA works fine on Gormak and Festergut because you know when the damage is coming, but Vamp Blood works fine there too. On the flip side Vamp Blood is equally effective no matter how low your health is when you activate it, but again should most likely not be used when at full health because you waste part of the increased healing taken if you avoid the next attack. Vamp Blood has a slight advantage on fights like Marrowgar where your healer may be spiked or running from fire, Deathwhisper for the magic damage, even Gunship if your healer takes a nosedive when jet-packing around. Will of the Necropolis is another very important feature of the Blood tree, and a big part of making Blood a better progression tank spec to me.

Now here is a question. Many Blood DKs don't take Spell Deflection, and while this is obviously a situational talent those points need to be spent to advance in the Blood tree. It seems many Blood tanks take threat talents instead, can someone give me a good reason why that talent is so unpopular that might convince me to spec out of it when I'm pretty happy with my threat generation?

[jai151]

Now here is a question. Many Blood DKs don't take Spell Deflection, and while this is obviously a situational talent those points need to be spent to advance in the Blood tree. It seems many Blood tanks take threat talents instead, can someone give me a good reason why that talent is so unpopular that might convince me to spec out of it when I'm pretty happy with my threat generation?

It's twofold. One is that it's a relatively minor chance to take half damage from a spell. Two is that it only triggers from direct damage spells and most direct damage spells are intended to be interrupted (Deathwhisperer's frostbolt, for example).

So to sum up, it's unreliable and rarely useful.

[Admuntour]

As the previous poster pointed out.
Spell deflection is too unreliable to be good. Magic damage is usually either, so high that it can kill you in 1 shot if you don't use a CD, or so small that a bit of reduction won't make a difference, or medium damage and interruptible. So where you need spell deflection the most is on those big hits where it can kill you, problem is you need for it to proc, and the chance is quite small. A good example was Sartharion, I chose to spec UH there cause all the cooldowns and talents where better suited for mitigating the spell damage and it was much better then SD.

As for Blood vs Frost EH.
I believe blood wins out. The reasons are, vampiric blood being a better cooldown, being useful for both magic damage and physical damage, and also granting more healing. Then will of the necropolis, to save you when the shit hits the fan and a healer gets silenced, impaled, stunned etc. Rune tap, for a personal emergency self heal, and last but not least all the self healing from death strike.

[mhp]

Blood vs Frost really comes down to VB vs UbA, as the rest of it is pretty balanced out (bloods higher health, frosts higher mitigation; blood's self heals, frost's avoidance). And VB is superior.

Other than that, the two are so very close, that the difference is minimal as far as survival is concerned.

WotN is also good, but not nearly as significant as VB.

[Sharaki]

Blood vs Frost really comes down to VB vs UbA, as the rest of it is pretty balanced out (bloods higher health, frosts higher mitigation; blood's self heals, frost's avoidance). And VB is superior.

Totally ignoring 50% better IBF, which is reason why I chose frost for festergut (so my cooldowns fill whole 3stack part of the fight, not relying on pain supression)

[Nangz]

Totally ignoring 50% better IBF, which is reason why I chose frost for festergut (so my cooldowns fill whole 3stack part of the fight, not relying on pain supression)

50% better? not really it is 50% longer but that doesn't make it that much better.....

Even so blood's cooldowns last longer and are more effective. Example

Blood- Vamp blood with glyph is 15 secs and IBF is 12 secs so that means you must last 3 secs without cooldowns (or you can use trinkets or even army) and that is 31 secs excluding trinkets.

Frost- IBF is 18 secs and Uba is 15 BUT UbA isn't enough to keep you alive through festergut so your going to need more. Army for 4 secs your up to i'd say maybe 25 secs (18+4+3 cuz uba sucks)