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Protection: really going for Hit/Expertise/Haste over Avoidance?
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Post by
Maelchav
Hello all.
I've been reading up on tanking (my protection paladin has been my main for a long time, but I'm resting him to level my warlock first), and I've seen a lot of talk about the new stat priorities. People are saying Hit (to 7.5%) and Expertise (to 15%) > Haste > Mastery... pretty much excluding the avoidance stats Dodge and Parry. For paladins and warriors. These are people who are supposedly currently raiding.
How is this possible? Tanks eschewing Dodge and Parry for DPS stats, and doing better for it? I get a vague feeling of wrong-ness from this. Is this a passing trend that Blizzard is going to fix at some point? Just doesn't seem right. Or is this a way of letting us play protection and retribution without having to assemble two sets of gear?
I understand the explanations about the mechanics that make it work - if you always hit with your Holy Power builders, then you can more consistently keep up the Shield of the Righteous buff and/or self-heal with Word of Glory. It's not that I think they're lying or anything like that... it's the concept that bothers me.
What do you guys think? Am I crazy to be skeptical? Am I living in the past?
Thanks.
Post by
Avalith
CTC capping is a thing of the past with the new two roll system Blizz has implemented. In order to CTC cap now, you'll have to stack impossible amounts of dodge and parry as mastery only comes into play on the second roll.
For prot paladins in particular, the only useless stat now is crit. Hit and Expertise allow for more holy power generation, which directly increases your survivability with Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory. Haste reduces your GCD, allowing you to get off a clutch ShoR or WoG quicker. Not only that, but with pally abilities hitting so much softer than they used to, you practically
need
to be hit/exp capped in order to do a respectable amount of DPS to keep aggro.
Post by
Freezador
This all of course assumes your tank is decent at his or her rotation, correct? Like with any DPS theory rafting, sometimes you have to take into account the rotation being dropped on the floor.
With that in mind, I’m seeing here is marginal gains for exp/mastery over exp/avoidance if you’re good at keeping SotR up, and quite likely more than marginal DPS gains for exp/haste over the other two if your rotation is bang on. So for your average to worse players, exp/avoidance is likely the way to go.
The distinction is needed because the paladin tanks in my guild range from awesome to asleep at the wheel. Love this post though, I definitely enjoyed the details.
Yeah, I think you’re completely right. A tank that’s keeping up a good rotation should be aiming for exp/haste or exp/mastery. A tank that’s sloppy would probably be better off with exp/avoid, or potentially even just stacking mastery and ignoring exp hard cap. Hard cap’s strength lies in making efficient use of SotR. If you’re botching your rotation badly, I suspect that a large part of the hard-cap’s value isn’t realized.
Ah yeah, that’s a good point, too. expertise is useless if you aren’t hitting buttons.
I will not really try to answer your question but want to
link
the discussion of more knowledgeable people.
What I take from this is that one should really try to make a honest self-assessment in terms of how well you are playing. Are you flawlessly executing your rotation, watching for possible spikes and using all your abilities at the right time? Then you should probably go the haste/mastery/exp-hard-cap route. If you're still learning avoidance/exp-soft-cap
avoidance/mastery might serve you better.
There are no right answers for everyone. Just experiment what suits your style best what your healers like best and go with that.
Post by
Maelchav
That's an interesting angle. It should go without saying, but you're right to say it.
I wouldn't categorize myself as an asleep-at-the-wheel tank, but I wouldn't put myself at the other end of the spectrum either. I'll probably go with Hit and Expertise at 7.5% each, and then go for Mastery and avoidance stats. Mostly because that's a concept I'm more familiar and comfortable with. I don't run with a guild, and I mostly just do random heroics and maybe some LFR, so I'll see what healers are telling me (taken with a grain of salt, of course). But rotation, specifically keeping Shield of the Righteous up as much as possible, will be my focus while tanking.
Thanks for the advice, and for that link.
Post by
nephthyswanderer
I'm not a lazy tank, but to me the theorycrafting always assumes that you can hit the right ability every time perfectly to maximize every ability. Right now, in heroics atleast, I'm so focused on add pick up and boss movement that hitting Judgment and CS the second it's up just ain't happenin. Paladins have so many tools and Hands and self-heals that I just can't keep up on them all. Seems a bit bloated to me at the moment, but I don't want to give any of it up.
For me, I'm still gearing/gemming/enchanting primarily for mitigation beyond soft caps on hit and exp. Given that not a single f*ing weapon is geared only for mitigation, I'm not reforging anything out of hit or exp.
Post by
Nooska
If you go for hit and exp, its hit > 7.5% and exp to 15% - nothing is gained from only going to 7.5%, you are gaining as much from 4-5% as you are from 8-9% - you push off dodge first and parry second, 7.5% of each.
Also, if you go for hit/exp, you don't want parry/dodge (avoidance), as they diminsh the gains of the HEMH gearing, if you want avoidance (or TDR) gearing, don't bother going for hit/exp, get those points in avoidance or mastery instead - while mastery is definately less valuable while gearing for avoidance, it is the only stat apart from aavoidance that will passively reduce your damage intake as it increases block chance.
Post by
nephthyswanderer
If you go for hit and exp, its hit > 7.5% and exp to 15% - nothing is gained from only going to 7.5%, you are gaining as much from 4-5% as you are from 8-9% - you push off dodge first and parry second, 7.5% of each.
Also, if you go for hit/exp, you don't want parry/dodge (avoidance), as they diminsh the gains of the HEMH gearing, if you want avoidance (or TDR) gearing, don't bother going for hit/exp, get those points in avoidance or mastery instead - while mastery is definately less valuable while gearing for avoidance, it is the only stat apart from aavoidance that will passively reduce your damage intake as it increases block chance.
The following not directed to you at all Nooska.
But this is a major reason I'm really losing interest in this game. No one is forcing me to make min-max decisions or activities, but situational glyphs and talents coupled with calculus style gear determinations are ridiculous. Gear sets for magic fights, gear sets for mitigation, gear sets for stamina, a hugely bloated ability listed coupled with tons of different potions and foods just adds way too much decision making lol. I miss my own vanilla level ignorance where something was better because it required a higher level.
Post by
Fetzie
In my opinion it is better than "stack mastery, then stack stamina, and there are only three glyphs that don't suck donkey-balls available to you, so use them". I don't really like locking up 7650 stat points in simply hitting the mob though.
Post by
44284
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Freezador
Gear sets for magic fights, gear sets for mitigation, gear sets for stamina, a hugely bloated ability listed coupled with tons of different potions and foods just adds way too much decision making lol. I miss my own vanilla level ignorance where something was better because it required a higher level.
Wasn't vanilla the time where you needed multiple gear sets (regular tanking, threat, nature resist, fire resist, frost resist)? Now there is no such decision making necessary. Your threat set can double as your main tanking set and resist stats are mostly removed from gear.
Trinkets are really the only slots that are worth changing to adapt for different fights (in case you even have multiple viable trinkets available at this time),
Post by
1054185
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Nooska
@Freezador mentioning nature and frost resist I think its TBC you may be thinking of / mixing in - though I didn't pick up a paladin till I could be a holy cow, so I can't speak too much about it (druids not having an actual nature/frost resist set for SSC meant it was ½n½ for add tanking anyway)
Post by
Freezador
Actually I was thinking of the original
Naxxramas
. Maybe I'm overstating the importance of this type of gear at the time. I did not raid back then after all.
Anyway, the
gear
was there and beneficial to a point, so chances are you would try to build a set for it to have an easier time with certain bosses. Nature resist gear seems to have been mainly from
AQ drops
.
Something you don't have to worry about nowadays.
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