Mitigation of all 4 tanks... Looks like DKs come out ahead?

[Saverem]

Is it just me, or did DKs get the bigger piece of the cake when it comes to mitigation?

Lets compare the 4 main static mitigation abilities that all tanks get. (All these abilities are assumed to be talented)

Warriors: Shield Wall - 40% mitigation 2m cd (or 60% mitigation for 4m cd if glyphed)
Druids: Survival Instincts - 60% mitigation 5m cd (couldn't find any talents to reduce its cd, 5m seems pretty high)
Paladins: Guardian of the Ancient Kings - 60% mitigation 2m cd
DK: Icebound Fortitude - 60% mitigation and immunity to stuns 2m cd

All of these lasts 12s.

Looks like Druids are the losers in this round, 5m cooldown is a bit too long. I looked around for any talents or glyphs that would decrease that cooldown but couldn't find any. Warrior are also behind the other tanks in mitigation, they are the only class that is stuck with a 40% mitigation unless they glyph. DKs are the obvious winner with maximum mitigation on top of stun immunity.



Now lets look at the secondary static mitigation abilities

Druids: Barkskin - 20% less damage for 12s 1m cd
Paladins: Divine Protection - 20% less damage for 10s 1m cd
DKs: Bone Shield - 20% less damage until 3 charges of Bone Shield are spent (time varies), 1m cd.
Warriors: Shield Block - increases chance to block by 100% for 10s, 30s cd.

Warriors get the small end of the stick here. The better geared the Warrior, the less effective this ability will become for them. (Bad geared Warrior might have 25% chance to block making this ability 75% more effective where as a better geared Warrior may have 35% chance to block making this ability only 55% effective. Also, Warrior's cooldown is the only ability there that doesn't work on spell damage.


Now for the reactive abilities

DKs: Death Strike - Heals for at least 15% of DKs total HP or 30% of all damage taken for last 5s (which ever heals for more), also applies a shield that absorbs another 50% of the heal effect, modified by mastery. (Useful vs spells)
Warriors: Critical Block - Block has a chance to crit decreasing damage received by 60%, Mastery further increases it. (More uselessness vs spells)
Paladins: Holy Shield - increases Block chance by 15%. Their Mastery further increases Block chance. (Also useless vs spells)
Druids: Savage Defense - Each time you deal a critical strike while in Bear Form, you have a 50% chance to gain Savage Defense, reducing the damage taken from the next physical attack that strikes you by 75% of your attack power. Mastery increases chance and amount absorbed. (useless vs spells)

DKs are the only ones that have an ability that works with spell damage. I assume they'll be DSing every 5s or so what with the crazy rune regen they'll be getting from the RS procs now that RS is spammable.



Now for the bonus survivability round!


Paladins:
Ardent Defender - 20% less damage for 10s and will be brought back to 15% HP if it's up during an attack that would have otherwise killed you. 3m cd
Word of Glory - 60% more heals on Word of Glory and any overheals applies shield.
Sacred Shield - You know what it does. Mostly only useful when no Holy Pallies in raid.
6% more healing recieved.

Warriors:
Blood Crazed - 10% chance per hit to heal 7.5% of your HP over 5s.
Field Dressing - 20% more self heals and 6% more healing received.
Impending Victory - Chance to use VR when target is below 20%, heals for 5%
Last Stand - 30% more HP for 20s, 3m cd
Frenzied Regen - 36% healing over 10s, 3m cd

DKs:
Blood Tap - Heals for 15% of total HP, 30s cd.
Vamp Blood - 15% more HP and 25% more healing received for 10s, 1m cd
AMS - 75% less damage taken from spells based on total HP, 45s cd
Death pact - Heals 40% total HP consuming pet, 2m cd
WotN - 20% less damage taken below 35% HP and refreshes cd of BT and gives you a Blood rune, 45s internal cd
Dancing Rune Weap - Increases threat by 50%, increases damage by 50%, increases parry by 20% for 12s, 1.5m cd
Blood Parasite - 15% chance on melee to summon bloodworms that explode and heal.

Druids:
Regen - Increases HP by 30%, heals based on rage 20s, 3m cd
Couldn't find any more for Druids other than flat 12% damage reducing talent, dodge talents, and 10% hp increasing talent. Kinda stingy. I really don't know anything about Druids, so feel free to correct me. I have the other 3 tank classes though.

[Pnad]

i don't think you understand the word mitigation.

[Saverem]

i don't think you understand the word mitigation.

mit·i·gate vt \ˈmi-tə-ˌgāt\
mit·i·gat·edmit·i·gat·ing
Definition of MITIGATE

1
: to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify
2
a : to make less severe or painful : alleviate


Pretty sure I do.

[Deleted]

It's because they don't get shields, so they must make the game fair or face a load of QQ

[Brandon Degaph]

i don't think you understand the word mitigation.

This.
It's also important to understand the resources each tank has at their disposal to use their survivability CDs.

[Shartadin]

You lost me when you stated Sacred Shield... which is gone.

[Oweena]

Mitigation is armor + absorbed damage (block/savage defense) in the sense of WoW.

Abilities such as barkskin, icebound etc they are all damage reduction.

30% health increase etc thats all survivability

and increased dodge, well thats ofc avoidance.

Of course DK's are going to be ahead of all the other tanks in usable abilities thats what makes them different

Compare that to a druid though and you'll see a druid has more inbuilt chance of surviving, higher armor, higher HP.

[Pnad]

mit·i·gate vt \ˈmi-tə-ˌgāt\
mit·i·gat·edmit·i·gat·ing
Definition of MITIGATE

1
: to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify
2
a : to make less severe or painful : alleviate


Pretty sure I do.

well you know how to copy paste an online dictionary in an attempt to look educated.

ability like last stand, are not mitigation, they do absolutely nothing to lessen dmg taken ... to mitigate, sorry man.

good post though, just poorly titled.

[Xendrie]

mit·i·gate vt \ˈmi-tə-ˌgāt\
mit·i·gat·edmit·i·gat·ing
Definition of MITIGATE

1
: to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify
2
a : to make less severe or painful : alleviate


Pretty sure I do.

I like how you check up a site that explains the word to prove him wrong

[Saverem]

Mitigation is armor + absorbed damage in the sense of WoW.

Abilities such as barkskin, icebound etc they are all damage reduction.

Now you're getting into semantics. Doesn't matter what you call them in WoW, they are what they are. SW/IBF/GotAK/Druid one, all mitigate damage by its definition. Whether WoW players call it that or not is irrelevant to this topic.

[Dragonwing]

Why did you write Sacred Shield??? Sacred shield doesnt exist in Cata

[Pnad]

Now you're getting into semantics. Doesn't matter what you call them in WoW, they are what they are. SW/IBF/GotAK/Druid one, all mitigate damage by its definition. Whether WoW players call it that or not is irrelevant to this topic.

there is a little term that has been coined called 'effective health' which coupled with 'mitigation' increase your time to live.

[mikro]

Just a few things you need to correct as far as opportunity cost goes:

DKs: Bone Shield - 20% less damage until 3 charges of Bone Shield are spent (time varies), 1m cd.

This talent wont be used much since its on the GCD and it uses an unholy rune meaning you lose your Death Strike for that rune set. But yes, I'd say when looked at without any context it is about equivalent to the other listed. Also, if I remember correctly bone shield charges have a 2s ICD meaning a ~6s uptime(depending on boss attack speed/multiple mobs ofc).

DKs: Death Strike - Heals for at least 15% of DKs total HP or 30% of all damage taken for last 5s (which ever heals for more), also applies a shield that absorbs another 50% of the heal effect, modified by mastery. (Useful vs spells)

The shield is physical dmg only, although I can understand your confusion since it is not stated on the tooltip.

DKs:
Blood Tap - Heals for 15% of total HP, 30s cd.
Vamp Blood - 15% more HP and 25% more healing received for 10s, 1m cd
AMS - 75% less damage taken from spells based on total HP, 45s cd
Death pact - Heals 40% total HP consuming pet, 2m cd
WotN - 20% less damage taken below 35% HP and refreshes cd of BT and gives you a Blood rune, 45s internal cd
Dancing Rune Weap - Increases threat by 50%, increases damage by 50%, increases parry by 20% for 12s, 1.5m cd
Blood Parasite - 15% chance on melee to summon bloodworms that explode and heal.

I agree that DK's have some neat cooldowns, but you are completely ignoring the opportunity cost associated with them. Blood tap still eats a blood rune and a GCD. Death Pact takes half of your RP bar and requires 2 GCD's and 2 cd's to use. DRW will basically never be used for survivability, it is a threat cooldown and it uses over half of your RP resources(3 rune strikes).

It should also be mentioned that DK's are designed to take more dmg than every other tank as mentioned in a blue post some time ago.


I'm not trying to argue with you on anything, just saying that things change slightly when you look up from the paper.

[Asmodejjj]

Since nothing is final yet and Cata launches in 2 months, how can we even debate this yet? Blizz might make changes to CD's and effects at any time, what's the point of talking numbers now?

[Kimirik]

Pretty sure DKs can't block, AND don't get the extra stats from an actual tanking weapon or shield. So, they have less health and armor as well as the inability to block.

[Snes]

DK's are better in the cooldown department because of their lack of a shield. This is nothing new.

[Garrim]

Before everyone bashes him I do think we has some valid points.

Warriors and druids do seem to have a bit of lackluster abilities to prevent any type of spell damage. Yes we have spell reflect but I don't believe this works raid bosses in Cata, unless something has been changed but we don't know yet because raids aren't in beta.
Druids obviously lack more buttons/cooldowns because cats would have them and you'd have a MDPS with higher then average CD's so most are passive in their form/talents.

Something to watch but I do not see warriors being on the short of the stick in physical mitigation, but maybe more suseptable to spells then paladins or DK's. I don't know how all paladin abilities work in Cata and if things are bugged or not so I think it's hard to debate. However a warrior in beta could really help us here when it comes to how well our EH is and if spell damage seems to be a real issue for us.

[Monath]

Blocking an attack reduces damage taken by 30% correct?

If so that means that essentially a warrior would take 30% less damage from a boss while Shield Block is active, except from spell damage. On top of that the warrior would also still be able to perform critical blocks further increasing the amount of damage mitigated. Thirdly Shield Block can not only be used as a defensive cooldown, it can be used as an offensive one as when talented it provides an extra 100% damage to your shield slams.

[Deleted]

Druids and DKs seem passively stronger, as long as you neglect the value of a shield. Pallies still have the strongest survival abilities, though, with DKs creeping up on the list. I believe Blizzard mentioned some beta patch ago that DKs and Druids felt a bit more tough than Pallies and Warriros, but they all seem to have equal strenghts and flaws.

I'd really like to see a change to Spell Reflect, making it "reduce all spell damage taken by 10% for it's duration and reflect the first spell cast against you". In other words, manking it a small, yet existant, damage reducing ability.

plus, bringing a protection warrior also brings safeguard to the raid...

[Deleted]

you said warriors are useless vs spells... spell reflect, this one move makes them awesome as they generate threat and block dmg in the same move, talented it even gives them 60 rage, which allows for more threat. tanking isnt just about CDs its about managing your threat and keeping yourself alive while also trying to prevernt damgae to conserve healer mana. This thread sounds like you have never played a tank or done your research.

Furthurmore, you have started a thread on a topic which doesnt really need to be discussed, all the tank classes are gonna be different and it would be pointless if they were the same. DKs may have more avoidance and mitigation CDs but they also dont have shields which is the main reason warriors and palas have less CDs.