Leapfrogging Ardent Defender

[Klaudandus]

I like AD more than most, but this is probably a bit much. If anything, blizzard undervalues(d) the significant power of controllable burst mitigation abilities, see DKs nerfs for proof of that. Yes, AD has much bigger limitations for being there when you need it than something that you can control. It's definitely not a pally defining talent, at least not now that we are supposed to be tanking bosses instead of just AoE packs. It's popular in the absence of other options, but it's not a great MT talent against challenging content.

I used to run the tankadin addon, back in TBC, and if anything it showed me that AD was quite optional.

I think the best option is to make it more like DK's WotN - its nothing we have to manually trigger, acts somewhat like AD but with the clear difference that does not get leapfrogged like AD

[Solare]

I think the best option is to make it more like DK's WotN - its nothing we have to manually trigger, acts somewhat like AD but with the clear difference that does not get leapfrogged like AD

Why all the fuss about it getting leap-frogged? You have, what, 28k health UNBUFFED? That must rise to just a few thousand shy of 40k fully raid-buffed. Ardent Defender kicks in at 14k health (35% of 40k) and is just going to keep going up as we get more health. Now, I can only think of three situations where I'm ever getting hit for that much. Sarth breath, Maly breath, and Hateful Strikes. All of which are insane damage burst situations where you're getting healed for mad crazy amounts. Still think AD is useless?

[Fridmarr]

I think the best option is to make it more like DK's WotN - its nothing we have to manually trigger, acts somewhat like AD but with the clear difference that does not get leapfrogged like AD

Why all the fuss about it getting leap-frogged? You have, what, 28k health UNBUFFED? That must rise to just a few thousand shy of 40k fully raid-buffed. Ardent Defender kicks in at 14k health (35% of 40k) and is just going to keep going up as we get more health. Now, I can only think of three situations where I'm ever getting hit for that much. Sarth breath, Maly breath, and Hateful Strikes. All of which are insane damage burst situations where you're getting healed for mad crazy amounts. Still think AD is useless?

Well that's now, when you overgear the content. When I progression tanked Naxx/Maly I was in the low 30s fully buffed. Also, as has been pointed out repeatedly, Ulduar will be more difficult from the get go. One boss on the PTR was hitting for 25k with his autoattacks. Leapfrogging AD isn't anything new, it's always been possible on many bosses, and that will likely continue.

[majiben]

There's a secondary issue with AD besides leapfrogging. The one two punch. That is when you take a hit that takes you into AD range and a second hit kills you anyways. This is possible if the hits are greater than 21% of your hp, or roughly 8-9k. Now this isn't very likely if the hits are around 21%, at 35% (13-14k) you start getting leapfrogging and at 50% AD becomes useless (20K).

[Smartos]

However, giving up the 3 points for AD doesn't allow you to get any alternative mitigation talents. So it comes down either choosing AD or threat talents and I really don't see many, if any progression MTs taking threat talents over AD.

Oh, I see many progression MTs taking talents like crusade over AD. To be honest, I hardly see any maintankadins here in Germany who take it.

[toothdecaykills]

I'm surprised these threads continue to come up, I had thought the worthy discussion on this front had been done ages ago. Alas, those who don't see the benefits of this talent have their reasons, but now that it is down to 3 points, I see no reason NOT to invest in this fantastic tool.

I think it was Winchester who said...

What people forget is that AD mitigates the 2% of damage that would have killed you

[Yadard]

GC, via MMO Champion:

Will raids want Disc priests? We are honestly not too worried about that. We'd estimate about half of the healing priests we've watched in Ulduar are Disc, at least for the guilds that are making boss kills. Consider, that when you have a tank with 45,000 health and a boss is hitting for 25,000 health (which is not the kind of thing we did in Naxx, but is in Ulduar), none of the healing you can do will let that tank survive two hits in a row. But Power Word: Shield will.

That seems to imply that we will indeed see bosses capable of 2-shotting a tank and leapfrogging AD. If that's the case I'll be out of AD faster than you can say, "three wasted tallent points," and I love AD dearly.

[Grehn|Skipjack]

The question then becomes "Where are you going to put those talent points?" Your options are: Reckoning for a meager tps bonus, Imp HoJ which is all but useless versus raid bosses, Stoicism, Guardian's Favor, and Divinity which is about as useful as AD versus raid bosses and less useful against everything else.

[Yadard]

You'll probably point out a lot of flaws with 0/53/18 but that's my initial thought . It's not a perfect spec, I probably don't need Imp. Might to cover for the Retadin bringing Kings but it's a starting point IMO.

[Fridmarr]

You'll probably point out a lot of flaws with 0/53/18 but that's my initial thought . It's not a perfect spec, I probably don't need Imp. Might to cover for the Retadin bringing Kings but it's a starting point IMO.

AD for 3 points is likely light years better than 5/5 divinity. The odds of AD saving you aren't great, but almostly certainly much higher than Divinity. You can easily cut back to one point in SA, get AD, and still have two points in divinity if you want.

[Yadard]

This build presumes GC is as good as his word and bosses in Uldar can 2-shot you with 45k HP. At that point AD is just three wasted tallent points that might save you if your healers are asleep on trash whereas the extra healing means you are more likely to be at a high enough HP level to survive the second hit should you suck a bad RNG moment.

[Fridmarr]

This build presumes GC is as good as his word and bosses in Uldar can 2-shot you with 45k HP. At that point AD is just three wasted tallent points that might save you if your healers are asleep on trash whereas the extra healing means you are more likely to be at a high enough HP level to survive the second hit should you suck a bad RNG moment.

He's not saying every boss will, he's saying that there are bosses that can. You can see how hard these bosses hit on mmo-champion if you want. As far as I know, AD plays nicely with those shields too.

[Yadard]

If AD works I'll be sticking with it, I'm a big fan. I don't trust the numbers on MMO Champion as I suspect that the bosses will get a final private 'polish' before they go live.

[Holyday]

Divinity is trash and for three points AD will have it's moments of good use.

[toothdecaykills]

This build presumes GC is as good as his word and bosses in Uldar can 2-shot you with 45k HP. At that point AD is just three wasted tallent points that might save you if your healers are asleep on trash whereas the extra healing means you are more likely to be at a high enough HP level to survive the second hit should you suck a bad RNG moment.

He's not saying every boss will, he's saying that there are bosses that can. You can see how hard these bosses hit on mmo-champion if you want. As far as I know, AD plays nicely with those shields too.

AD also works EXTREMELY well when you cast Divine Protection. I'd say in these scenarios this is where AD shines the best, its synergy allows so much more survival in oh crap situations (perfect time for you to expect to cast DP after all). If folks were comfortable with 5/5 AD, I see no reason why 2 less points wouldn't be cause for celebration.