tank scaling

[Maenetus]

in live level +3 can crush
in beta level +4 can crush
all raid bosses are level +3

(crushes actually aren't designed for raids, they're a leveling mechanic to discourage you from fighting red mobs)

[msg]

Zarc you fail a bit, but it's ok. Crushings were removed, criticals were not. So you do need the right about of defense to not be crit by bosses still.

Varithorn1, if you're going to be an arrogant troll you should check your facts.

See wrath talent change notes:

# Survival of the Fittest (Feral): Increased to 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.

Do you need any defense to be uncrittable in bear form? No.

[arel00]

One should not be afraid to ask questions. That's how you learn!
Besides, I am known to be a well-read person in-real-life, so I got nothing to be ashamed of. :P

Anyhow, the tooltip of defense clearly states that it reduces your chance to be critically hit, that I know, but it does a
whole lot of other things too, so I figured maybe that part only affects players or whatever. Have never
really had any reason to overlook how tank mechanics works, what you need, etc, untill now. But let's put that aside,
whoever told me, and it was so long ago that I really can't remember who it was, about the "mobs-can't-crit"
mumbojumbo was obviously missinformed. Now. Let's see if I get the drift here.

One needs defense in order to become uncrittable. One becomes uncrittable when one have the base amount of
defense plus the amount of defense which grants you -6% chance to be the victim of a critical hit. Defense
also gives block, parry and dodge. Druids get a whole lot of dodge from agility and talents, and they can't
use block (no sheild) or parry (no weapon). Therefore Druids don't need any defense aside from the base
defense they get by default. Which means that the only things a Druid can use, and needs, to imrpove their tank-survivability is health, dodge and armor.

Is that how it works? :P

//Zarc

To put it simply. Mobs have a fixed chance to crit you, based on the difference between yours and their level. A mob 3 levels higher than you, meaning the highest difference you can find in raids (since bosses are currently 73, will be 83 on WotLK) has exactly 5,6% chance to stuck you with a critical blow.
Since our talents now give us 6% crit chance reduction, we are fully uncrittable by raid bosses and lower mobs.

It is true defense also raise your chance to be missed and your dodge/parry/block chance.
Said that, it comes to how much defense we need to get 1% chance to be missed. And the same goes with 1% chance to dodge, since we can't parry or block.
That is what makes defense a bad stat when you are already crit immune. Now that crushing blows are gonna be removed, miss or dodge have exactly the same effect: avoiding a direct blow, taking no damage, no other side-effects (PvE wise, of course). Being the same, it comes to what stat gives you more avoidance. As things are, pure agility way better then defense to stack avoidance.

Thus, with the new talents we have no need for defense at all. It's not that having defense on a single item will nerf us, but it's a very shabby effect when compared to agility.

[Prandur]

I wish they'd retool defense to give at least CLOSE to equal benefit to all tanking classes.
I don't see why they couldn't simply up the dodge chance a druid gets per point of defense rating, for instance, since half the effect is lost on us, and getting your mitigation/avoidance from a wider range of stats is better due to the way ilvl stat allocation works.

Meh, hopefully 3.02 or whatever will get up on the PTR soon so I can see what tanking's like with the new talents/gear (I'm assuming they're going to redo our tanking gear like they did the plate)
Hopefully they'll convert some of the lost armor into expertise/hit, I'm WAY low on that stuff in T4/isle badge stuff.

[Maenetus]

I wish they'd retool defense to give at least CLOSE to equal benefit to all tanking classes.

and warriors/paladins wish they got half the benefit of armor on rings that druids do.


with 0 def on leather you'll only be getting def on rings etc that will likely have armor on them where you get 400% more out of it.

even if you call def twice as good for warrior/paladins druids still get the better bargain out of rings with armor and def.

[arel00]

I wish they'd retool defense to give at least CLOSE to equal benefit to all tanking classes.

There's no more need for such a thing. Having defense on our items previously would have meant a tank buff and no dps use. Now we're crit immune via talents, and simply don't need defense anymore.

It would be the same as worrying about spellhaste viability for different classes.... good to talk about, but it's not a feral stat. Defense from 3.0 onward isn't feral stat anymore.

[kiljare]

and warriors/paladins wish they got half the benefit of armor on rings that druids do.


with 0 def on leather you'll only be getting def on rings etc that will likely have armor on them where you get 400% more out of it.

even if you call def twice as good for warrior/paladins druids still get the better bargain out of rings with armor and def.

This is true, except that we have lower armor to begin with..so the rings bring us up to par. The small mitigation gain is probably less for us than the defense gain is for avoidance on the other tanks.

[Prandur]

There's no more need for such a thing. Having defense on our items previously would have meant a tank buff and no dps use. Now we're crit immune via talents, and simply don't need defense anymore.

It would be the same as worrying about spellhaste viability for different classes.... good to talk about, but it's not a feral stat. Defense from 3.0 onward isn't feral stat anymore.

All our rings/cloaks/necks will most likely have defense on'em, is all.
Would be good if half the defense rating budget wasn't a complete waste.

[arel00]

All our rings/cloaks/necks will most likely have defense on'em, is all.
Would be good if half the defense rating budget wasn't a complete waste.

More likely there will also be items without defense. There are already some, even in TBC.

[Prandur]

Maybe, just haven't seen any yet.
Most the stuff I've seen with armor on has had defense, strength and maybe some dodge rating.
Some nice feral itemized tank jewelry would be awesome, preferably with a nice sta/armor/dodge rating/agi stat spread with one of either hit, expertise or str on for some TPS lovin.

So far most of the non-armor slot stuff I've seen have been either warrior statted or some kind of hybridy crap that noone gets full use of.

[Koumaru]

The best rings I'm seeing for bears so far are still pre-raid blues. Until that changes, I'm just going to call them the Heavy Clefthoof Rings...

All of the raid-drop tanking gear for the "off slots" is looking like loads of strength and defense rating along with dodge and only occasionally some bonus armor. The formulas for mitigation from strength for the other tanks are still arcane to me, so I have no idea how we're faring with the bonus armor versus other tanks' gains from the strength and fully utilized defense (except for DKs who still get screwed on block).

On the off-slot items that don't have armor, however, we fall behind on mitigation and avoidance because of the strength and defense rating.

So unless this hole in itemization is patched up, we are losing the avoidance war as gear scales up, just like in TBC, while losing some of the mitigation lead that we still have (with armored off-slot items, bears still have the armor advantage). Let's hope Blizzard balances this stuff out.

Balance the bonus armor budget with the strength/defense budget. Make Thorns damage scale with AP for ferals? ;D