Prot Paladin Question from a noob.

[Draketalon]

Please don't say hit and expertise aren't important for tanks. Just don't.
Here's how all these stats work. Hit rating increases your chance to hit with your melee swings and melee based abilities (such as Crusader Strike)and also your spells but this is not important because as far as i remember you get increased hit rating on spells for paladins, this stat is very important to cap because it's the most reliable thing to increase your threat or TPS (threat per second). Expertise rating increases your chance for your melee attacks to not be dodged or parried, this stat has a double edge effect: while it still increases your TPS output reducing the boss' chance to dodge or parry your attacks, it also increases your avoidance slightly. You're gonna wonder how, well there's an in-game mechanic which acts this way: After you parry an attack your melee swing resets, to be more understandable after you parry an attack you immediately strike with a melee swing thus ignoring your attack speed. Why is this an avoidance increase? Because any tank has a standard hit table: this is filled by 9% chance to be missed (as far as i remember, i might be mistaking), the value of your dodge chance and the value of your parry chance, and then the value of your block chance.

Let's say you have 11% dodge 10% parry and 30% block, your hit table will look like this: 1-9 missed, 10-20 dodge, 21-30 parry, 31-60 block. This hit table provides the game mechanics enough information for it to calculate each boss' attack. So in a normal (expertise capped) fight, your boss attacks will only hit you for the full value 40% of the time. If you're not expertise capped the boss will hit faster, and all the avoidance stats will diminish in effect thus lowering your avoidance and being hit more.

Now the problem is it's pretty much impossible at this time to reach the hard cap for the expertise rating and not loosing alot of important stats (if not impossible at all), so that's why hit and expertise caping are considered a waste. I myself use full hit cap (provided by food and reforging), and soft expertise cap (only caping dodge rating, also through geming and reforging). I choose specing like this to provide more damage output and more TPS output.

If your guy just stated he needs expertise to increase his dodge he's wrong, if he knows what i just wrote here then he's right. Either way caping hit and expertise is pretty good especially if you have a good dps group in your raid.

[Akiliez]

Look me up on the armory and you will see how it's done. I'll log in and switch to my tanking spec/gear and log out in a few min here for you cuz I'm pretty sure i logged out last in my pvp stuff. But I have a note on my desk that reads like this.... Mastery>mastery>mastery>parry & dodge (kick all tanks from group that are hit/exp capped).


Akiliez - Llane

[Deleted]

Please don't say hit and expertise aren't important for tanks. Just don't.
Here's how all these stats work. Hit rating increases your chance to hit with your melee swings and melee based abilities (such as Crusader Strike)and also your spells but this is not important because as far as i remember you get increased hit rating on spells for paladins, this stat is very important to cap because it's the most reliable thing to increase your threat or TPS (threat per second). Expertise rating increases your chance for your melee attacks to not be dodged or parried, this stat has a double edge effect: while it still increases your TPS output reducing the boss' chance to dodge or parry your attacks, it also increases your avoidance slightly. You're gonna wonder how, well there's an in-game mechanic which acts this way: After you parry an attack your melee swing resets, to be more understandable after you parry an attack you immediately strike with a melee swing thus ignoring your attack speed. Why is this an avoidance increase? Because any tank has a standard hit table: this is filled by 9% chance to be missed (as far as i remember, i might be mistaking), the value of your dodge chance and the value of your parry chance, and then the value of your block chance.

Let's say you have 11% dodge 10% parry and 30% block, your hit table will look like this: 1-9 missed, 10-20 dodge, 21-30 parry, 31-60 block. This hit table provides the game mechanics enough information for it to calculate each boss' attack. So in a normal (expertise capped) fight, your boss attacks will only hit you for the full value 40% of the time. If you're not expertise capped the boss will hit faster, and all the avoidance stats will diminish in effect thus lowering your avoidance and being hit more.

Now the problem is it's pretty much impossible at this time to reach the hard cap for the expertise rating and not loosing alot of important stats (if not impossible at all), so that's why hit and expertise caping are considered a waste. I myself use full hit cap (provided by food and reforging), and soft expertise cap (only caping dodge rating, also through geming and reforging). I choose specing like this to provide more damage output and more TPS output.

If your guy just stated he needs expertise to increase his dodge he's wrong, if he knows what i just wrote here then he's right. Either way caping hit and expertise is pretty good especially if you have a good dps group in your raid.

Again, I haven't played a block tank in Cata and can only speak for Feral Druids. But your statement about Hit and Expertise would NOT apply to a Feral I can ensure you. I'm ilvl 360 and so are my dps'ers. They average around 25k single target and I don't really have threat issues. I'm gemmed/reforged for full Dodge and I have a nice uptime on SD as well. So unless your statement only applies for block tanks, I don't agree.

---------- Post added 2011-05-26 at 08:01 PM ----------

Look me up on the armory and you will see how it's done. I'll log in and switch to my tanking spec/gear and log out in a few min here for you cuz I'm pretty sure i logged out last in my pvp stuff. But I have a note on my desk that reads like this.... Mastery>mastery>mastery>parry & dodge (kick all tanks from group that are hit/exp capped).


Akiliez - Llane

I'm taking it, that you are playing US right? Browsed the EU Armory and didn't find you lol. Is Llane the name of the server or your guild?

Edit: I found you, but you're still in PvP gear.

[ZeroEdgeir]

I agree with 4KhazModan, those are the correct gems a prot pally should be aiming for. Might want to have you applicant brush up on his tanking. There is no real need for hit/expertise. We get all of our threat from Vengeance, and we only really needed hit for Rebuke, which is now 100% chance to interupt. Unless ur 10 man comp does not have any Misdirects or Tricks of the Trade, then maybe i could see him wanting a lil bit of hit, but even still shouldnt be capped.

My 10M Raid comp doesn't.... it's called when I pull: Divine Plea > Avenging Wrath > Judgement (> Avenger's Shield if no Sacred Duty proc) > 3pt auto-crit Shield of the Righteous = Threat MINE.

Here is my Armory (it is a 32/9 atm, and I plan to move the 2 points from Rule of Law to Eye for an Eye, just keep forgetting): http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...achievement#81

[Deleted]

My 10M Raid comp doesn't.... it's called when I pull: Divine Plea > Avenging Wrath > Judgement (> Avenger's Shield if no Sacred Duty proc) > 3pt auto-crit Shield of the Righteous = Threat MINE.

LOL But yeah, that's what I thought so.

[Gnomepowa]

Basically this guy is going for FULL Hit and Expertise cap. Now, I play Feral Bear and I'm pretty sure that's a nono even for Prot Paladins. His reason for doing this, is to gain more Dodge. What is the logic behind that argument, if there is any?

Maybe he meant he gains less dodges from mobs...
Either way those affect threat not survivability so if he really meant it than he has no clue.

[Draketalon]

Indeed at high end gear those values start not to matter because everything seems to be scaling better then it was in previous expansions. I think it must be because of the new tank mastery. Anyway, yea you're right, i was talking bout tanks in general. I remember when i started tanking in full 346 and my rogue was getting too close to me on TPS so i decided to start caping my aggro stats.

I only stated the value of those stats in general not how are they working at different levels of gear.
I too noticed that H/E starts to be less valuable when your gear gets better.

[capnmorgan]

He shouldnt be hit or expertise capped. He should have a good amount so that he dont miss, and wont gain holy power. 5% hit is a good baseline and thats it. After that, its all mastery. Being hit and expertise capped has NOTHING to do with dodge. Two different things.

[Deathgoose]

Drake, I'm not sure what you wrote in the first paragraph. You start by talking about expertise, which is you stopping the BOSS from parrying/dodging, but then you talk about YOU parrying an attack.

If you're talking about the BOSS's attack being sped up due to parrying (aka parry-gib), I thought that mechanic was removed a long time ago.

If you're talking about YOUR attack being sped up due to parrying, again, Hit/Expertise have nothing to do with your chances of parrying.

No one is saying that capping Hit/Expertise wouldn't be nice, they are just saying on current gear, you can't have it all, and certain things have priority, which is Mastery and avoidance. The threat stats come after.

And as to the question about gemming for Dodge, it's a yellow gem along with Mastery, and Mastery has priority.

[Jokerfiend]

I've also read it's Mastery (Yellow), Mastery/Stam (Green), and Parry/Mastery (Orange) for the socket bonus. Depends on if you want a wee more +Stam or +Mastery. Just like reforge for more Mastery. It just seems to be that important for us.

---------- Post added 2011-05-26 at 02:46 PM ----------



I've taken about a 4-5 month break from wow, only came back a week or so ago, so I'm relearning some of the theorycrafting and trying to actually get geared myself.

So why the 1% higher? Is it because the Str->Parry conversion isn't penalized for the DR or something else? I haven't tanked seriously since Wrath, so I'm still relearning myself.

Right on the head, it's right on the EJ forums. I don't care to repeat it as they could explain far better then I could.

[Sahiel]

Please don't say hit and expertise aren't important for tanks. Just don't.
Here's how all these stats work. Hit rating increases your chance to hit with your melee swings and melee based abilities (such as Crusader Strike)and also your spells but this is not important because as far as i remember you get increased hit rating on spells for paladins, this stat is very important to cap because it's the most reliable thing to increase your threat or TPS (threat per second). Expertise rating increases your chance for your melee attacks to not be dodged or parried, this stat has a double edge effect: while it still increases your TPS output reducing the boss' chance to dodge or parry your attacks, it also increases your avoidance slightly. You're gonna wonder how, well there's an in-game mechanic which acts this way: After you parry an attack your melee swing resets, to be more understandable after you parry an attack you immediately strike with a melee swing thus ignoring your attack speed. Why is this an avoidance increase? Because any tank has a standard hit table: this is filled by 9% chance to be missed (as far as i remember, i might be mistaking), the value of your dodge chance and the value of your parry chance, and then the value of your block chance.

Let's say you have 11% dodge 10% parry and 30% block, your hit table will look like this: 1-9 missed, 10-20 dodge, 21-30 parry, 31-60 block. This hit table provides the game mechanics enough information for it to calculate each boss' attack. So in a normal (expertise capped) fight, your boss attacks will only hit you for the full value 40% of the time. If you're not expertise capped the boss will hit faster, and all the avoidance stats will diminish in effect thus lowering your avoidance and being hit more.

Now the problem is it's pretty much impossible at this time to reach the hard cap for the expertise rating and not loosing alot of important stats (if not impossible at all), so that's why hit and expertise caping are considered a waste. I myself use full hit cap (provided by food and reforging), and soft expertise cap (only caping dodge rating, also through geming and reforging). I choose specing like this to provide more damage output and more TPS output.

If your guy just stated he needs expertise to increase his dodge he's wrong, if he knows what i just wrote here then he's right. Either way caping hit and expertise is pretty good especially if you have a good dps group in your raid.

Parry haste has been turned off for most if not all bosses in Cataclysm, so it's not a significant issue (and really, it was never 'significant' to tanking). In addition, if any tank is finding they need to gem hit/expertise to hold threat then there is a problem, Vengeance provides such massive threat for every tank class that if you have issues holding aggro you need to look to your priority list/rotation first of all and fix whatever is wrong there.

Also, your understanding of the hit table seems... flawed. A faster attack speed for a boss doesn't lower your avoidance chance, your chance to dodge/parry remains exactly the same, the boss simply has more rolls on the table thus resulting in more chances to get a block or hit, your actual ability to avoid attacks hasn't 'diminished' one jot. That said... you're going back to worrying over parry haste, forget about it!

If you are trying to maximise dps on fights where survivability doesn't matter, then fine, I could see gemming/gearing for hit and expertise but not on fights where you actually need to do your job and be a real tank.

Whilst, of course, a good tank will have alternate gear for when needed (primarily trinkets) there is a 'general' idea of how to gear for most bosses which aren't trivial content for you and hit/expertise isn't it. If you want some advice and help with more ideal gearing you could do a lot worse than read this thread; http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...hp?f=3&t=29732

[Deleted]

What, is he actually gemming/reforging hit/exp???

Yeah he is Eowor and I've been fairly forward about how fail it is. Can't wait for his reply *Giggle*

But I've learned several things about Prot Paladins from reading your responses - Ty for that

[Draketalon]

hell you all taking it word by word. I just stated how they work in general, and how in some scenarios more expertise could provide better avoidance.
Also, no if you get hit more then usual in a fight, your stats won't provide the same avoidance due to DR (if you roll 30 the next time you roll you'll have less chances to roll 30).

Yea i was talking about the boss parrying an attack, and yea tbh i didn't know they removed the mechanic so it's probably my bad for that.

[underdogba]

mastery for yellow gem. mastery/parry for red. mastery/stam for blue. I match my sockets. Prismatic slot=mastery

Chiming in on the tangential point of gemming decisions --

Yellow: Mastery Blue: Mastery/Stam Red: Mastery/Parry Pris: Mastery; and
Yellow: Mastery/Stam Blue: Stam Red: Parry/Stam Pris: Stam

are both perfectly legitimate.

There is no objective reason other than pure conjecture to think that picking either one of these would suddenly be massively better than the other. On general-type boards like this, this whole subject has degenerated into an irrational holy war.

[Deleted]

Stack Mastery but still try and even out Dodge and Parry.

That's the general concensus.

[Malthanis]

Also, no if you get hit more then usual in a fight, your stats won't provide the same avoidance due to DR (if you roll 30 the next time you roll you'll have less chances to roll 30).

Incorrect. Diminishing returns only affects the ratings of dodge and parry, not how they affect the combat table. If you have a 15% chance to dodge, you will dodge (on average, RNG is RNG) 15% of the time, regardless of how many times a boss swings at you.

Also, base miss chance on players is 5%, not 9% (don't mean to be rude, just thought you should know).

[Draketalon]

Incorrect. Diminishing returns only affects the ratings of dodge and parry, not how they affect the combat table. If you have a 15% chance to dodge, you will dodge (on average, RNG is RNG) 15% of the time, regardless of how many times a boss swings at you.

Also, base miss chance on players is 5%, not 9% (don't mean to be rude, just thought you should know).

I'm being gunned down! /cry

Yea you're right bout the DR thing, now i remembered the old 102,5 rule ( or whatever it was the exact value 102.21? .. anyway)
Wasn't sure bout the miss chance too, must be another memory i had when we used to stack defense rating to increase that miss chance. Anyway thanks for the feedback and sry for missinforming, been a long time since i tanked so.

[Malthanis]

I'm being gunned down! /cry

I'm a paladin, I can't use guns. Just laser shields.

Combat Table Coverage = 5% + Dodge chance + Parry chance + Block chance

As of right now, I'm at roughly 188k and about 90% (fully raid buffed), and I think I'm almost BiS for normal raiding. I'm set up to focus on mastery (not sure if I logged out as Prot or Ret, but feel free to click my sig and take a look). The only expertise I have is from the SoTruth glyph and the human racial, and that's all I feel is necessary.

[Deleted]

Maintankadin will explain most stuff for you quite well.

The community is very supportive there and give good advice, just make an account and ask whatever question you want

[Chicolatino]

[QUOTE=ZeroEdgeir;11626885]My 10M Raid comp doesn't.... it's called when I pull: Divine Plea > Avenging Wrath > Judgement (> Avenger's Shield if no Sacred Duty proc) > 3pt auto-crit Shield of the Righteous = Threat MINE.

yes ZeroEdgeir, i use the exact same pull also, don't get me wrong. that is EPIC threat right off the bat.....BUT!!!!! there are times when you miss with avenger's shield, and also i'm sure a lot of prot tanks can relate where there are times where effing SotR doesnt wanna hit the boss >.<!! and then in that situation we find dps catching us in threat. does it happen all the time? no. but DOES it happen? sometimes yah >.<

Danish Girl also this applicant tank we are talking about, for all we know his healers are SUPER LEET and are able to heal him w/o the extra avoidance he should have w/o gemming hit/exp. threat atm should not be an issue for tanks. he should in all honesty try to get as close to "block cap" as possible. block cap atm is 102.4 total avoidance (if i'm not mistaken, if i am someone correct me) but the way we get that number is

5% (chance for boss to miss an attack) + dodge % + parry % + block % = TOTAL AVOIDANCE (currently)

someone also did mention that parry should be 1% above dodge because of raid buffs we get BUT that might chance in next patch since they stated agility will NO MORE give tanks dodge =*( *tears*

Feel free to look at my pally Chicolatino <Novocaine> Bonechewer, US =)