GC and the possibility of Hit & Exp being tank stats.

[Koatanga]

I'm fine with the idea of making us pick up some hit and expertise. I feel it's a bit like cheating to ignore it as we do.

I certainly "feel" the misses now through decreased holy power. I notice when I have to alter my rotation because I miss 3 CS in a row and have no HP to use a finisher.

I do think we should get at least *some* kind of a boost in the hit department. Perhaps they could make the spirit-to-hit conversion a baseline paladin ability, so we could benefit from the base spirit we have. I don't think that's game-breaking in any sense - it would mean 117 hit rating for me, before buffs.

[mclem]

I don't think I'm the only tank that is sad about the state of threat stats these days. Back in Wrath, my goal was to do as much DPS as I could after I had content on farm. That was exciting to me.

I agree here. I like threat stats at times, but when we're doing hardmode raid encounters, I can't afford to give a damn about them. I wish I could. I liked having a few% hit and expertise so that I could push threat and stay ahead of DPS... but at the same time, I don't want the stats now because survivability is so important that any threat stats are wasted stats.

I added a comment to the EU version of that blog talking about this, about the fact that it's more *fun* to have hit and expertise and hit the enemies (and generate HP!) reliably, but it's the 'wrong' choice for progression content; the 'right' option is the frustrating option. That, at least, is something that I would have no objection to them addressing.

[Dantriges]

Yeah seems that they won´t turn it into more dodge/parry. That´s probably right out of the window. As he described, we will probably need hit/expertise to make our defensive abilities actually work at all.

If we are forced to hit/expertise cap, they hopefully plan for that in encounter design, so we don´t turn into Mr Squishy.

[Klaudandus]

Yeah seems that they won´t turn it into more dodge/parry. That´s probably right out of the window. As he described, we will probably need hit/expertise to make our defensive abilities actually work at all.

If we are forced to hit/expertise cap, they hopefully plan for that in encounter design, so we don´t turn into Mr Squishy.

This I am afraid of. I mean, we already have more stats to worry about than other classes/roles, then to us hit caps on our threat stats just so our mitigation stats actually work? And then having encounters not account for this... which has happened before.

[rodos]

The idea of forcing people to wear tier gear for a necessary class benefit is pretty bad imo.

It wouldn't be bad if it were a 1-piece bonus. No set so far has been so bad that at least one piece of it hasn't been attractive.

If you're going to tie Vengeance to gear, why not just roll it into the prot/blood/feral Mastery?

[Passionario]

Simple solution: Make Vengeance scale with Hit and Expertise (with its current level corresponding to hit/exp-capped state).

[Skye1013]

Perhaps they could make the spirit-to-hit conversion a baseline paladin ability, so we could benefit from the base spirit we have. I don't think that's game-breaking in any sense - it would mean 117 hit rating for me, before buffs.

There aren't any buffs to spirit anymore, unless you flask/pot/food buff spirit (which means you're now chosing threat over survivability, so why not just do that with a hit/exp pot/food buff?) And that 117 spirit -> hit would be what... just under 1%?

[Shoju]

Hit and or Expertise tied to making a defensive cooldown work is IMO, TERRIBLE.

The amount of QQ that it would lead to, the amount of hit that we are drowning it, it's awful. I posted in a thread on the Tanking boards US side that I think that they are going to need to focus on 1 stat or the other for tanks. not both. Needing to use both stats in some combination for anything on a tank is just too much.

I want threat to matter. Vengeance is grossly overdone. Tying a stat like.... Expertise, to Vengeance, and scaling vengeance based off that would be fine.

The reason I prefer Expertise to Hit? The cap. If you Tie something to hit rating, then you have a definitive cap to work towards, and it becomes just another type of "unhittable" mechanic. Outside of a brief stretch in Early ICC have never been even remotely close to the hard cap on Expertise, and really I was only close at that point because of a sincere lack of luck in acquiring tanking upgrades + Glyph of SoT.

Tying Expertise in, would mean that there wouldn't be a hard and fast cap the way there is with mastery, or with hit. You are essentially able to allow the "bonus" to grow, and we won't be able to cap it, at least not until we are staring Hard Mode Deathwing in the face in full on ilvl596 heroic gear with perfect itemization, and reforging.

I like that they are trying to find a way to make it more interesting, I just don't like the analogy GC used. Needing hit / expertise to make my defenses work appropriately is garbage.

[Klaudandus]

I like that they are trying to find a way to make it more interesting, I just don't like the analogy GC used. Needing hit / expertise to make my defenses work appropriately is garbage.

I pretty much agree on this; more importantly, our nature as tanks has us hate RNG, and we try to minimize its effect as much as we can -- but this would be like rolling the dice twice since we have to rely on one roll so the next roll is effective...

It's a catch-22. We maximize our chances to win one roll, but the effectiveness of the other roll decreases...

[Shoju]

It's a catch-22. We maximize our chances to win one roll, but the effectiveness of the other roll decreases...

Yeah, it kind of feels like an inherent.... Sunwell Radiance / Chill of the Throne / Halion's Precision mechanic. I think, what would work would be to base Vengeance off Expertise similar to block / shield / savage defense from Mastery, AND make sure that every tank is able to glyph to 10 expertise.

Glyph of Blood Presence
Glyph of Defensive Stance
Glyph of Bear Form
Glyph of Seal of Truth

These glyphs would then give you a baseline 10 expertise. This Expertise would also increase your vengeance to a number less than what it currently is, but still completely possible for those pushing hard mode progression to maintain threat, without having to gimp their survivability. I will admit there is a difference between a tank like myself, and a tank like Theck, or Trekkie, or any of the other "more hardcore" tanks on the boards.

From 10 expertise, until 56 expertise, each point of Expertise (not rating) increases your vengeance by X amount. This means, that for tanks who are having threat problems, they can Increase their threat by reforging for Expertise, which in turn also helps because it feeds the Vengeance monster. Thus, giving us a threat stat that we can stack, and see significant gains from.

This, seems like the most intuitive idea. It keeps threat stats as threat stats. It makes a threat stat a more meaningful threat stat. With the change in 4.1 to interrupts, Hit rating seems to be largely irrelevant, and it has a realistic cap. Expertise doesn't have a "realistic" cap, thus, allowing for more customization, more "threat sets", more interesting options for tanks.

Doing a farm run? Sweet, pull out that expertise set, put the DPS to shame, and make threat a joke.
Doing a Progression run? Sweet, Pull out the survival set, Grab the Glyph, and keep moving.

[Petrus]

That does sound like a good idea - having too high of a miss chance is extremely frustrating - when I do Cho'gall and use Seal of Insight on occasion, I drop down to about 25% chance not to hit the target (0 expertise thus 6.5% dodge, 14% parry, and 5.5% miss when I have 2.5% hit). Expertise being the threat stat also seems to make more sense than hit, as we need a lot more of it to "cap" the stat and it allows for much finer tuning on vengeance point by point - increasing it by % chance to hit is a bit harder because it caps out at 961 instead of 1682/1382 glyphed.

I just hope they solve it soon because I do like hitting the target.

[Arianne]

I think that's a really good idea Shoju and you should post it on the WoW tank forums if you haven't (maybe with a different writing style as more of a formal idea proposal). If you don't want to write it up, then I'll volunteer to do it.

[Rothifer]

I actually quite like the idea of needing hit/exp to be able to block an attack.

A thousand times no. My left eyebrow is at a severe angle for GC to even consider this. Why take out the defense stat and bring it back in another form? I am of the mind that threat stats should NEVER be tied into survival like this. There is a time and a place for threat. There is a time and a place for survival. If you want both then dodgpertise stacking with sprinkles of hirry would be fun....

Tying a stat like.... Expertise, to Vengeance, and scaling vengeance based off that would be fine.

Threat stats beget threat stats. I like it. Give all tanks a base amount so that under geared tanks listening to raiders stacking mastery and stam won't be so detrimental to the pugs. Progression raiders can still stack stam and won't have to worry TOO much about that damn so and so riding your tush like they wined and dined you.

[Klaudandus]

The idea of tying expertise and vengeance, to a certain point, is actually rather good.

Let's hope they actually listen. I remember several well known pallies posting on concerns in the forums and GC basically going "blah blah blah, I aint listening", so my faith in GC has dropped a lot since then.

[Sabindeus]

The idea of tying expertise and vengeance, to a certain point, is actually rather good.

Let's hope they actually listen. I remember several well known pallies posting on concerns in the forums and GC basically going "blah blah blah, I aint listening", so my faith in GC has dropped a lot since then.

Let's be fair here. GC never said "I ain't listening". GC is always listening. What he may have said (if I properly recall what you're referencing) is that he didn't agree. Which is not the same as not listening.