Avoidance Tanking

[The Madgod]

Because I stack dodge and Agility, when fully raid buffed, my Armor and Dodge are significantly higher than whats on my Character sheet. When using all my cooldowns while buffed my Dodge percentage is more alon the lines of 56% with it being above 40% with just buffs alone.

EDIT:
Also, I think you misunderstand the way percentages work. With Dodge, even 1% can mean alot less damge over length of a fight.

Lets say a boss hit us both 10k. If the boss has a 3 second swing timer and the fight last for 300 seconds(thats a five minute fight) he would hit us both 100 times.

Given a large number of fights with 1% more dodge than you, on average I will take 10k less damage(no matter wether is physical or magical, magical damge can be dodge as well) than you.

Now with raid buffs, I'm much more likely to have 10% more dodge than you, which means on average, I will take 100k less damage than you.

Also, I thank you, I think you're the only person who'd bother to look at my Armory so far.

Diminishing Returns, mate. The dodge chance isn't static. every time you dodge, the chance you dodge the next hit is reduced. As well, theres no way in hell you can have over 50% dodge, screenshot or it never happened. the amount of agility you have would give you MAYBE 3-4% extra dodge when raid buffed.

even if you take less damage, you are more spiky to heal, meaning you could die with a bad string of RNG; the healers dont have to heal, and then they have to heal a LOT, FAST. It just doesn't bode well, especially in any progression content.

[Milyardo]

Diminishing Returns, mate. The dodge chance isn't static. every time you dodge, the chance you dodge the next hit is reduced. As well, theres no way in hell you can have over 50% dodge, screenshot or it never happened. the amount of agility you have would give you MAYBE 3-4% extra dodge when raid buffed.

even if you take less damage, you are more spiky to heal, meaning you could die with a bad string of RNG; the healers dont have to heal, and then they have to heal a LOT, FAST. It just doesn't bode well, especially in any progression content.

I'll take a screenshot this evening.

[Taotaisei]

Iirc, it's better to get defense up to the 580 mark at which point it then becomes better for dodge [and then parry at some point] when going for avoidance. On progression content though I will never bring you unless the other tank is dying in bed. I'd much rather have my 50k unbuffed tank who understands the game [and reads how nearly every post on EJ/Tankspot] and that Stam stacking is nearly always better. 60k+ in 10 mans and so much more in 25's. Let the avoidance be on the gear. Get socket bonuses if you must, but half-assing avoidance/stam is just showing how little you know.

Edit: My point about the dodge DR is that eventually Parry is "better" than Dodge I just don't know at what %, you may want to look it up.

[Milyardo]

Diminishing Returns, mate. The dodge chance isn't static. every time you dodge, the chance you dodge the next hit is reduced. As well, theres no way in hell you can have over 50% dodge, screenshot or it never happened. the amount of agility you have would give you MAYBE 3-4% extra dodge when raid buffed.

even if you take less damage, you are more spiky to heal, meaning you could die with a bad string of RNG; the healers dont have to heal, and then they have to heal a LOT, FAST. It just doesn't bode well, especially in any progression content.

I'll take a screenshot this evening.

EDIT:
Also, as for that diminishing return statement, it just isn't true. I think most people confuse dimishing return with the Law of uniform large numbers.

[tjanson]

I feel validated about the way I tank because I've done it since Naxx, through Ulduar, and even in Grand Crusader. I worked back then and it continues to work now even with the ICC debuff. Nilinor always has been, and is still one of the top 20 Paladin tanks on my realm(using wow-heroes as a reference).

So using your logic, any sort of bad behavior or flawed playstyle is justified if you manage to clear old content at some point. Also, I noticed that you haven't actually completed ToGC10. What happened? Was Anub'arak destroying you every time you were frozen?

I had to laugh at your "I'm in the top 20 paladin tanks on my realm according to wowheroes" comment. Using sites like that to measure your epeen might be one of your problems.

[kenneth044]

I feel validated about the way I tank because I've done it since Naxx, through Ulduar, and even in Grand Crusader. I worked back then and it continues to work now even with the ICC debuff. Nilinor always has been, and is still one of the top 20 Paladin tanks on my realm(using wow-heroes as a reference).

Funny thing... Your paladin hasn't done totgc25 and haven't cleared totgc10 :-*
Oh wait! I guess I was just April Fooled

And I doubt you are one of the top 20 paladin tanks on your realm, since you haven't done anything after 4/12 in ICC25 - except your realm is very low populated!

Edit: @Tjanson. You beated me by 3 minuts! damn annoying television!

[Bob002]

Diminishing Returns, mate. The dodge chance isn't static. every time you dodge, the chance you dodge the next hit is reduced. As well, theres no way in hell you can have over 50% dodge, screenshot or it never happened. the amount of agility you have would give you MAYBE 3-4% extra dodge when raid buffed.

even if you take less damage, you are more spiky to heal, meaning you could die with a bad string of RNG; the healers dont have to heal, and then they have to heal a LOT, FAST. It just doesn't bode well, especially in any progression content.

I'm sorry, but you're incorrect on DR. DR means that the more rating you get of something, the harder it becomes to reach the next 1%.

Say it takes 20 rating for 1% dodge. I pick up 40 rating, so I now have 2% dodge. To get 3% dodge I need 22 rating now. That's how DR works, not how you described.

As far as Taotaisei's post goes, the reason for the dodge/parry debate is that it takes less rating for one vs the other. I don't know the numbers offhand and I'm not looking them up atm, but say it takes 20 rating for 1% parry and 30 rating for 1% dodge, that would be the reason to gem one over the other.

[Stanton]

I feel validated about the way I tank because I've done it since Naxx, through Ulduar, and even in Grand Crusader. I worked back then and it continues to work now even with the ICC debuff. Nilinor always has been, and is still one of the top 20 Paladin tanks on my realm(using wow-heroes as a reference).

I was the same way through Naxx and Ulduar, block and avoidance tanking, and my healers LOVED me. Was always told they would rather heal me than the warrior main tank on any encounter. That said, Blizz changed the rules on us a bit for ToC and ICC. They don't want us to be that kind of tank anymore, they want us to get hit less often but for more damage and have designed the encounters and our gear to reflect that. Your damage mitigation is in armor to reduce that damage and the stam to stand there and take it instead of avoiding the hit that eventually RNG is going to clobber you with.

I'm not saying you're wrong in your choices since they are YOUR choices and you can play anyway that you're comfortable with but this is the way that tanking is going for all classes and in Cata it's going to be even more so with everyone having tons of stam. Might be good to get used to it now than having to learn later.

[thetaurenrogue]

You do realize you are missing 10K+hp raidbuffed by your gemming enchanting and trinket choices right?

[The Madgod]

mkay well though i admit i was wrong about DR in one aspect, it is still the main issue with avoidance tanks.

Effectively, the more gear you acquire, the less effective it is for you. Tanks who stack EH have less of an issue with DR.

You're basically inhibiting yourself when gearing for avoidance more than EH in today's raids.

[Milyardo]

I'm not saying you're wrong in your choices since they are YOUR choices and you can play anyway that you're comfortable with but this is the way that tanking is going for all classes and in Cata it's going to be even more so with everyone having tons of stam. Might be good to get used to it now than having to learn later.

I was under the impression that Avoidance would become more important after the changes in Cataclysm. The reason why avoidance isn't considered very important today is because Mana management much isn't an issue. Thus most tanks have no reason to minimize the amount of damage they take.

With Avoidance there is risk, and most tanks are risk aversive, that however doesn't make it inefficient.

[Zka]

Nilinor always has been, and is still one of the top 20 Paladin tanks on my realm(using wow-heroes as a reference).

Lol, what a flawless logic!

[Milyardo]

Lol, what a flawless logic!

What Logic? That was a statement.

[Gribel]

Hey there. I made some simulations on Rawr to find the highest % of avoidance obtainable in H ICC gear. I did it with a DK because of the way Str turns into parry for them. I came up with 88.14% avoidance fully buffed with 2 tanking weapons with Rune of Swordbreaking on them. Sadly, 88.14-20=68.14, which is definately not worth having only 44.5k buffed hp.

Some simple math -> (1-0.6814)x(1-0.6814)=0.1015 so for every two attacks, you have 10,15% chance of getting hit in a row. If a boss' swing timer is 2 sec and the fight is 5 min long, he'll deliver 5x60/2=150 blows disregarding the use of special abilities and parry haste. So your chance to not get hit twice in a row in a fight with an unrealistic amount of avoidance is (1-0.1015)^149 if I'm not mistaken.

EDIT: made a little mistake with the numbers.

My point is, avoidance stacking is so inferior that in BiS the tank would likely die even without Boss' special abilities.

[Ronark]

What Logic? That was a statement.

Because WoW-Heroes uses Gear Score to rate people.

[Milyardo]

Hey there. I made some simulations on Rawr to find the highest % of avoidance obtainable in H ICC gear. I did it with a DK because of the way Str turns into parry for them. I came up with 88.14% avoidance fully buffed with 2 tanking weapons with Rune of Swordbreaking on them. Sadly, 88.14-20=68.14, which is definately not worth having only 44.5k buffed hp.
Some simple math -> (1-0.6814)x(1-0.6814)=0.1015 so for every two attacks, you have 10,15% chance of getting hit in a row. If a boss' swing timer is 2 sec and the fight is 5 min long, he'll deliver 5x60/2=150 blows disregarding the use of special abilities and parry haste. So your chance to not get hit twice in a row in a fight with an unrealistic amount of avoidance is 1-(1-0.1015)^149 if I'm not mistaken.

This is true, which is why I stated in my original post that Stamina and avoidance have to be balanced, as gear in WotLK doesn't have enough Stam by itself.

I wanted to come up with was some way of formally determining the maximum about of avoidance, while having the risk at some acceptable value.

[thrizie]

@OP: Complete the following sentence: "I set up my character badly because..."

[kenneth044]

I was under the impression that Avoidance would become more important after the changes in Cataclysm. The reason why avoidance isn't considered very important today is because Mana management much isn't an issue. Thus most tanks have no reason to minimize the amount of damage they take.

With Avoidance there is risk, and most tanks are risk aversive, that however doesn't make it inefficient.

This is wrong! the reason why you don't stack avoidance anymore is because high end bosses would rip you apart without breaking a sweat! With the incoming magic damage together with hard hits, your avoidance just doesn't cut it anylonger.
Right now you have sacrificed close to 10k HP, just to gain 5-10% avoidance... and to be honest, WHAT A WASTE! If you wish to be any effective, then you would regem, enchant and gear!

You can compare it to a holy paladin gemming mp5 instead of int for mana regen. It will do 'till a certain level, but int will just do soooo much better.

[deathwish5]

April fools joke LOL. Im not buying this nobody is that dumb... You dont gem agility for any the tiny amounts of armor and dodge you get make almost no difference gem stamina!! I gemmed full stam on my warrior and has 27% dodge and 20% parry and like 20% block all from gear. No defense gems or enchants. This is APRIL FOOLS DAY LOL!

[Brince]

This is true, which is why I stated in my original post that Stamina and avoidance have to be balanced, as gear in WotLK doesn't have enough Stam by itself.

I wanted to come up with was some way of formally determining the maximum about of avoidance, while having the risk at some acceptable value.

Sindragosa's breaths during phase 3 hit for 35-50k. Good luck with your HP, i've more healt than you in my scrub tank gear.
Stamina >> avoidance that's it. It's useless if you dodge 9/10 attacks if the one that lands oneshot you. Truste me healers don't love an avoidance tank.