The Community Protection Warrior FAQ

[shadowkras]

Was my previous post completely ignored? :-/

What post?

[Dashield28]

Was my previous post completely ignored? :-/

Nope. I liked it. I do agree with you completely. I usually try to balance my stats by a fromula that has been working pretty well for me.
Keep mastery or Block around 50% (more if the gear permits). Keep parry as high as you can and dodge within 2% of your parry. But that is just me and no I have not done models on it or in depth min/maxing. I think it is a good overall track for my current gear.

Given that the way we do our Shannox fight I had to improve my threat stats a little, I ams still trying to maintain somewhat of a balance in my defensive stats and am currently at about 83% Avoidance/Mitigation Vs. Lvl 85 Elites.

[Deleted]

Was my previous post completely ignored? :-/

Not at all. You basically said what I was saying, but I figured I should post as well, since I had a few numbers to share for the topic. You could edit my last answer with bits of my elaborated post and your above post

As long as the point comes through, I don't mind who's words used for it.

[Deleted]

Not at all. You basically said what I was saying, but I figured I should post as well, since I had a few numbers to share for the topic. You could edit my last answer with bits of my elaborated post and your above post

As long as the point comes through, I don't mind who's words used for it.

Ah, no, that's not what I meant. I meant questions rose later on on last page that I felt like I responded to several posts back.

You bring up a good topic, though - extending the F.A.Q. I'm glad the thread's been active the past days, it's definately going in the direction I originally hoped! But how should we take care of this, should we extract a (few) general question(s) from active discussions in this/other thread(s) into questions and copypasta replies?

I don't want to be the sole judge, so I suggest that anybody who's up for it should go through the process of creating a good summarized question and a well-constructed answer and post it here or in a PM to me!

[MorphexEU]

Was my previous post completely ignored? :-/

Yes, you are Swedish. So we do not read your posts. <3
Love you though <3

[Deleted]

I don't mind helping out. I can edit my original post with three Q&A for you, but I think the process we have for now seems to work pretty well. If anyone has a good idea for a Q&A, write it up and post here. You can then pick the good ones and paste them on the F.A.Q, granted they are of good quality and pertinent, and edit them to fit the format if necessary.

[Dashield28]

Well I think that we need something like.

"Tanking For Dummies" Question Section.
"Oh So You're MT..." Boss tanking questions
"MaCrows'a'Murder" Useful macros.

For instance. Tanking for Dummies.

"Should I ever sit down when tanking something?"
"What happens if I have to kite something and turn my back?"
"How do I know what buff food is good for me? Dodge, Parry, Mastery?"

Or for "Oh So You're the MT.."

"How do I figure out boss position in an encounter"
"What boss abilities are potentially lethal to melee? Ranged?" (Face boss away, cleave sucks)
"How do I know when to use which cooldown?"
"What classes benefit my threat, damage, survivability during a boss encounter?

For MaCrows'a'Murder something like:

"What is a good AOE tanking macro?"
"What is a good rage dump macro?"

Just suggestions. I dont know what direction you want to go in though. And yes, I realize some may be more obvious to us veterans, but you would be suprised how many newbies in heroics dont realize you cant block with your ass. (unless you're a bear with a shield strapped to your behind)

[Deleted]

@Dashield28, I see where you're coming from, but this isn't intended to be a guide in any way. It's supposed to be a place for discussion where we create a summarazition of the most commonly asked questions and reply to those with straight answers. Basically to translate math or difficult concepts into guidlines and suggestions. It's intended to promote discussion with a goal to educate the larger mass of the community in details regarding gameplay.

[shadowkras]

But how should we take care of this, should we extract a (few) general question(s) from active discussions in this/other thread(s) into questions and copypasta replies?

Yes, why not?

"Should I ever sit down when tanking something?"

I do it all the time. When i call a wipe and healers dont stop healing.

[Dashield28]

@Dashield28, I see where you're coming from, but this isn't intended to be a guide in any way. It's supposed to be a place for discussion where we create a summarazition of the most commonly asked questions and reply to those with straight answers. Basically to translate math or difficult concepts into guidlines and suggestions. It's intended to promote discussion with a goal to educate the larger mass of the community in details regarding gameplay.

Gotcha. So what do you think about all the non-tier gear being flooded with a 1 defensive and one threat stat? At least Blizz had the commons sense to remoev it from the shoudlers that drop off Rag. Are they telling us that the last tier they bascially made us forget about threat starts but now they are loading every single piece for gear in it?

Are we moving towards more of a threat tanking system? more towards the 6+% hit and 26 EXP WOTLK? Can we expect more untauntable bosses in next raid tiers and should we save this threat gear for then?

[Deleted]

Gotcha. So what do you think about all the non-tier gear being flooded with a 1 defensive and one threat stat? At least Blizz had the commons sense to remoev it from the shoudlers that drop off Rag. Are they telling us that the last tier they bascially made us forget about threat starts but now they are loading every single piece for gear in it?

Are we moving towards more of a threat tanking system? more towards the 6+% hit and 26 EXP WOTLK? Can we expect more untauntable bosses in next raid tiers and should we save this threat gear for then?

No I don't think so and even in Wrath, at least at the end, threat stats were not a big deal. I tanked with very little in terms of hit rating and expertise when doing ICC. I think it is more Blizzard's way of controlling our combat table coverage. Right now, in terms of Firelands gear, I have a sword, ring, legs and gloves but I have not seen a big increase in my block. Some, but as I get more pieces, I will actually end up losing some since mastery is not present in so many items. Instead I see mastery being swapped for avoidance, which in turn has increase significantly.

Untauntable bosses aren't actually something that promote threat stats. In such cases, where aggro is swapped between tanks, threat is just something that tanks need to control more and you do that by not going crazy with it. Remember, no matter how much hit or expertise your OT, if you are riding 90% vengeance and he has zero, you will always beat him by miles. Particularly since most tanks have abilities that require a dodge or a parry (like Revenge) to be used and without them, their threat suffers further.

I think this kind of damage control, if you will, is in Blizzard's interests because if we hit unhittable too fast and too easy, it becomes a real challenge to provide us with new tiers of gear, without letting our stats go crazy.

[Dashield28]

No I don't think so and even in Wrath, at least at the end, threat stats were not a big deal. I tanked with very little in terms of hit rating and expertise when doing ICC. I think it is more Blizzard's way of controlling our combat table coverage. Right now, in terms of Firelands gear, I have a sword, ring, legs and gloves but I have not seen a big increase in my block. Some, but as I get more pieces, I will actually end up losing some since mastery is not present in so many items. Instead I see mastery being swapped for avoidance, which in turn has increase significantly.

Untauntable bosses aren't actually something that promote threat stats. In such cases, where aggro is swapped between tanks, threat is just something that tanks need to control more and you do that by not going crazy with it. Remember, no matter how much hit or expertise your OT, if you are riding 90% vengeance and he has zero, you will always beat him by miles. Particularly since most tanks have abilities that require a dodge or a parry (like Revenge) to be used and without them, their threat suffers further.

I think this kind of damage control, if you will, is in Blizzard's interests because if we hit unhittable too fast and too easy, it becomes a real challenge to provide us with new tiers of gear, without letting our stats go crazy.

Its true. I myself have gotten the legs, ring, neck, cloak and belt. I still have the 365ilvl cloak which has more def stats on it and I swap it occasionally. They do have to control it but it just seems that they will put a ridiculous amount of a defensive stat on an item paired with a moderate amount of a threat stat.

The way we were doing Shannox forced me to stand in the cleave to generate some vengeance just to get ahead of the DPS. And I wont lie, i did put on some threat gear i had and reforeged a couple stats as teh first few attempts it was jsut impossible. It wasnt until i got to about 4.5% hit and 15 EXP that i had enough so he didnt have slow down too much and me keeping up within at elast the top 2 dps. Of course trix and MDs were used as far as i can recall. I wasnt paying much attention to that, more to the traps.

Given that, and the nature of the Baleroc or hell even the hatchlings on Alysrazor, it just points to the fact that we cant be missing as much as before. I see a significant DPS drop and I mean by like 5k on the hatchlings if i choose to use my avoidance bracers vs my threat bracers.

[Deleted]

The way we do Shannox is not by tank swapping. Instead we keep Riplimb at max distance from the boss and when he throws the spear, I will heroic leap, intervene, or just run as far from it as I can. DPS also helps with slows and this way, the Jagged Tear stacks drop before the hound returns the spear to Shannox. Naturally, you can also use the crystal traps for the same purpose, but it's a bit shoot and miss because of the buff Riplimb has, allowing it to evade the traps.

I can't speak for Baleroc, as I haven't done it yet but all fights I've participated in so far, including Alysrazor, I have been able to complete with no more than 1 exp and less than 1% hit rating. The hatclings are a bit close call on Alysrazor, I'll admit, but I can still get away with it. Actually I think I've lost threat stats, as I've replaced with threat / avoidance gear with avoidance / mastery gear. But, the future will tell, if we'll indeed need threat stats. For now, I will still work to minimize them, although I did respec to include more single target talents for now, and fewer AoE abilities, as they are not really necessary.

[Dashield28]

The way we do Shannox is not by tank swapping. Instead we keep Riplimb at max distance from the boss and when he throws the spear, I will heroic leap, intervene, or just run as far from it as I can. DPS also helps with slows and this way, the Jagged Tear stacks drop before the hound returns the spear to Shannox. Naturally, you can also use the crystal traps for the same purpose, but it's a bit shoot and miss because of the buff Riplimb has, allowing it to evade the traps.

I can't speak for Baleroc, as I haven't done it yet but all fights I've participated in so far, including Alysrazor, I have been able to complete with no more than 1 exp and less than 1% hit rating. The hatclings are a bit close call on Alysrazor, I'll admit, but I can still get away with it. Actually I think I've lost threat stats, as I've replaced with threat / avoidance gear with avoidance / mastery gear. But, the future will tell, if we'll indeed need threat stats. For now, I will still work to minimize them, although I did respec to include more single target talents for now, and fewer AoE abilities, as they are not really necessary.

Thats the strat we switched to after a few failed attempts. I mean we have him down both weeks now. Baleroc is bascially a dps race against his enrage and involved a lot of tank taunting back and forth for his blade phases. Its an easy fight but its tight. I think last night on 10 man, we got him with about 3 seconds before enrage. We also rock 3 heals, but it should be doable with just 2.

The main thing about hatchlings on 25 i found is that if my SS gets parried too often (crits for 700k) it can be very costly. Not impossible but costly tot he fact that you can bring hatchlings into the tornado phase. I usually have one up for about 3-5 seconds of the tornado phase but most of the time they die when the phase starts.

But as they say, more than one way to skin a cat. I have been rockin my avoidace gear for the Beth'tilac fight though since that one is just a swap tank boss.

[Deleted]

But as they say, more than one way to skin a cat.

I have to say, never heard that before. Why would you skin a cat?

[Deleted]

Kk, so I read through my previous questions and re-wrote some bits of them. Especially had to redo the Q&A about reforging to include some later conclusions. Also added a bit to the first and included new questions that I've seen pop up a lot recently. I removed the question about how to calculate the DRs, as I sort of agree with Iyona that the point of the FAQ is to disinclude as much actual math as possible and find better guidelines to explain the choices.
That is not to say that it is not a useful skill to possess but don't quite feel it belongs in this thread, particularly at the advent of useful addons like RatingBuster.
Feel free to give input about the decisions. It is a community project after all.

How can I tell if an item is an upgrade for me?

There is an addon called RatingBuster which, much like the default UI, shows the differences between the your current item and the item you are considering, listed neatly in the tooltip. However, the major difference is that RatingBuster automatically converts the stat ratings into readable values. Since the 4.2 patch it also accurately converts mastery into block value. The addon also automatically accounts for diminished returns. This alone usually allows you to discern whether or not an item is an upgrade for you. Mind you still need to know what stats you want and have a good idea what each stat is worth, but this addon does help a lot by taking the math out of the equation.

What about reforging, what stats should I reforge?

In general, you will want to aim to reforge another stat into mastery, at least in relatively low gear levels because while dodge or parry, being avoidance, would reduce more damage per percent, mastery offers more returns and smooths the damage you take out. If you instead stacked avoidance you would have a high exchange of taking no damage and taking big damage. Mastery takes the middle road by affecting more number of hits than avoidance and lowers the damage of those hits by a fair degree. This means your damage taken is smoother and your healers can use their medium to small heals, allowing them to save mana and conserve their cooldowns for those major tank-killing boss attacks, like Electrocute was on Nefarian.

As for what stats to choose to reforge, you will want to start from threat stats like hit rating and expertise, and if neither is present, pick either dodge or parry, as long as you maintain your proper ratio of those two stats. In some rare cases, there are items that have one threat stat and one avoidance stat and the ratio between them is significant enough that reforging the avoidance stat into mastery might yield more combat table coverage. However, there are several problems with this. First is the fact that combat table coverage does not guarantee lower damage taken and the second is that as your avoidance grows (and the associated DR with them) the threshold at which this actually happens becomes lower and lower. In early Firelands gear I could no longer confirm a single item that matched the criteria, despite there being several good candidates and I believe this is true for some pre-Firelands gear as well.

When your gear improves and your combat table coverage reaches a high point, you will have a choice, whether to continue to work towards unhittable (or block cap, as some prefer to say it) or to begin swapping mastery for more EH (in the form of stamina) or avoidance (in the form of dodge and parry). The exact ratios between mastery, stamina, and avoidance depends greatly on your own abilities as a tank, as well as the abilities of your raid and it is a judgment you need to make for yourself. Personally, I believe a good threshold to start investigating your options is around 90-94% combat table coverage.

So I dinged couple of days ago and got some gear since. Am I ready to tank heroics?

There is an old wisdom about good DPS players and it goes something like this:

DPS = Gear^(Player Skill)

The same equation applies to tanks (that's you) and healers. I have done enough heroics with so many alts that I can promise the above is 100% true; you do not need a lot of gear if you simply know what you are doing with your class and role. However, if you are unsure, simply follow the ilvl requirements for gaining access to running random heroic dungeons. If you aren't cheating your way into ilvl 333, by carrying pvp gear in your bags or something like that, then you can be certain that you have enough gear to survive those dungeons. It does not mean you can just rofl-stomp through the dungeons but at that point the major deciding factor is personal skill, rather than gear.

What about the Zandalari heroics?

Same principle applies; if you did not cheat your way to the appropriate item level, then you are ready to tank those dungeons.

What about, when am I ready to start raiding?

This depends heavily on what level of raiding you are interested to start. If you are talking about tier 11 (this includes the Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and the Throne of the Four Winds) then you can start as soon as you can do 5-man heroic dungeons. The exact threshold, once again, depends on your skill level but keep in mind that most of us started raiding at this level, and that was before all the above dungeons were seriously nerfed.

For Firelands, it is a bit trickier as it is designed with average item level of 359. If most of your gear is at that level, or at least on the level of 353 (the Zandalari heroic dungeons) then you are ready to start raiding in Firelands. This is not a nerfed dungeons (not at the time this was written anyway) so be prepared for a more rough reception than perhaps in T11.

Ofc, as always, personal skill of you and your team of raiders accounts for a lot so think of the above item levels simply as guidelines. If you want to start sooner, just start. Get in there, raid for a few nights and see how it goes. That is by far the best method of discerning readiness.

[MorphexEU]

*clicks the like button for Dannyl's post*

[Deleted]

Nice work, Dannyl, I'll look over it all too tomorrow.

Oh and btw, boss swing timers is quite interesting. I've recorded normal mode Raggy's debuffed swing timer to 1.8 and normal mode Majordomo's debuffed swing timer to 1.5.

[Deleted]

Nice work, Dannyl, I'll look over it all too tomorrow.

Oh and btw, boss swing timers is quite interesting. I've recorded normal mode Raggy's debuffed swing timer to 1.8 and normal mode Majordomo's debuffed swing timer to 1.5.

Cheers for the timers.

[Mammoth]

Thanks for the cheers. Always nice when the work is appreciated. I knew I did not quite answer your question, but allow me to do so now. I'm sure Theck was not wrong about what he posted, and in his defense, he did say "for general purposes" when he mentioned the 66% marker, but for the fact that it was back in January. Our avoidance has evolved greatly since, particularly after 4.2. E.g. my avoidance has leaped forth with the addition of a couple of items into my inventory.

...

Anyway, I think the lesson here is a) the 66% marker no longer remains true, even for paladins I think b) even if it was, it still pays to be thorough and investigate all effects of the change. Combat table coverage does not necessarily equal less damage taken.

As for what stats to choose to reforge, you will want to start from threat stats like hit rating and expertise, and if neither is present, pick either dodge or parry, as long as you maintain your proper ratio of those two stats. In some rare cases, there are items that have one threat stat and one avoidance stat and the ratio between them is significant enough that reforging the avoidance stat into mastery might yield more combat table coverage. However, there are several problems with this. First is the fact that combat table coverage does not guarantee lower damage taken and the second is that as your avoidance grows (and the associated DR with them) the threshold at which this actually happens becomes lower and lower. In early Firelands gear I could no longer confirm a single item that matched the criteria, despite there being several good candidates and I believe this is true for some pre-Firelands gear as well.

I'm a little bit confused with your two posts. From the second quote the bit in bold sounds correct. Avoidance is getting higher, so each point in dodge/parry is getting less effective. However, the bits in blue from both posts imply that the better gear we're getting, the less likely it is that reforging avoid->mastery is worth it. Surely its the opposite. Some point in the future as our gear improves, avoidance is going to get so poor that we're going to reforge it down on high avoidance + low threat pieces.

The 102.4% unhittable will rear its head eventually, which I admit could reduce the value of mastery, depending how they coded it. But theoretically for a few people, they could get into a situation where its better to reforge the avoidance.

Frankly, anything that comes within 5% of being better to reforge the avoid, rather than the hit/exp, might be worth it just for the increased damage. The hit/exp become essentially bonus stats.