Enchant Weapon: Blade Ward - testing results

[Candiru]

If you had reckoning you should get quite a lot more procs. I'm not convinced its worth it though!

[Fridmarr]

Yeah, getting reckoning to improve the number of procs of blade warding is counter productive unless you are near the parry expertise cap.

[cordelia]

Since I don't want to start a new thread, I'll post this little tidbit re: blood draining.

Assume 40,000 health. AD range of 13,000 health. Avg boss damage of 15,000.


Scenario 1:
Health: 27,000
HIT
Health: 12,000
HIT
--w/o BD: AD Active--
Health: 1,500
LIFE SAVED
--w/BD: AD not Active--
Health: -2,000
DEAD

Scenario 2:
HEALTH:25,000
HIT
Health: 10,000
HIT
--w/o BD: AD Active--
Health: -500
--w/BD: AD Active--
Health: 1,500


Scenario 1: BD killed the tank.
Scenario 2: BD saved the tank.

I haven't done the math, but I'd be willing to bet the probabilities of Scenario 1 and 2 are identical, and relate specifically to a series of hits coming in around the original health range of 25,000-27,000.

That being said, it means BD provides a 2,000 heal when you need it (low health), and probably will save you more than it will kill you, if your healers aren't able to pick you up fast enough when your health drops low.

[Kaeos]

As promised here is a WWS from a night in [10]Ulduar. It contains progression kills of Hodir, Thorim and Iron Council.

At Hodir I had 20% uptime on Blade Warding. I don't think I was blockcapped in my Frost Gear, had a hard enough time staying uncrit. I was using Broken Promise (Stonegaurd doesn't have +Def).

Interestly, on Thorim (try 6 our kill, parser died in hallway) Blade Ward has 9% uptime. I suppose this is due to multiple mobs making me parry more often, but I also thought HotR would account for more procs. It only did dmg 3 times. I was tanking the Arena.

At Iron Council, it only proc'd once the entire fight, which is -very- suprising. Makes me wonder if it's actually accurate.

Ignis was a bunch of fail due to lack of a skilled 2nd tank.

If you go to the 'All Bosses' tab, Blade Warding has 2% uptime. But this may be useless information as this includes a lot of wiping, especially a near instant wipe in Council.

[theckhd]

I haven't done the math, but I'd be willing to bet the probabilities of Scenario 1 and 2 are identical, and relate specifically to a series of hits coming in around the original health range of 25,000-27,000.

The probability of getting hit twice in a row should be invariant, so in that sense the probabilities are identical. However, the two scenarios aren't necessarily identical, because the probability that you start at 25k hp may be different than starting at 27k. If you assume you are equally likely to have 27k and 25k before the string of hits, then yes they're identical.

Unfortunately, I doubt that's the case, and it would be an absolute pain in the ass to do analytically. It depends heavily on a lot of factors: incoming healing style and amounts (how often are you topped off? do you have a bunch of HoT stacks, or are you getting FoL/HL spam, damage shields, etc), boss hit size and swing timer, buffed maximum health, and so on. For a simple example, let's take your numbers:

Start at 40k:
40
25 (boss hits you for 15)
proceed with your 2nd scenario

Start at 40k:
40
25 (boss hits you for 15)
27 (HoT ticks for 2)
proceed with 1st scenario

Start at 40k
40
27 (boss hits you for 15, but 2k absorbed by damage shield)
proceed with 1st scenario

Each of these situations has its own probability, as does every other possible combination of hits, heals, and damage absorbs. We'd have to figure out the probability of each of these situations occurring.

Not to mention that to accurately estimate the probabilities, you can't just look at 25k and 27k - you need to look at everything in between as well, and integrate the probabilities over those starting health values. It could be that there's a larger range where the enchant will save you, making it the better bet (or it could be the opposite).

If we take a pure TTL approach like you have, ignoring all heals but the ones from the enchant, then the problem isn't too complicated, and probably depends mostly on max health. In fact, I'd guess that there would be clearly defined "max health ranges" where the enchant is good or bad. Actually this smells like a matlab simulation... hm.....

[Fridmarr]

As promised here is a WWS from a night in [10]Ulduar. It contains progression kills of Hodir, Thorim and Iron Council.

At Hodir I had 20% uptime on Blade Warding. I don't think I was blockcapped in my Frost Gear, had a hard enough time staying uncrit. I was using Broken Promise (Stonegaurd doesn't have +Def).

Interestly, on Thorim (try 6 our kill, parser died in hallway) Blade Ward has 9% uptime. I suppose this is due to multiple mobs making me parry more often, but I also thought HotR would account for more procs. It only did dmg 3 times. I was tanking the Arena.

At Iron Council, it only proc'd once the entire fight, which is -very- suprising. Makes me wonder if it's actually accurate.

Ignis was a bunch of fail due to lack of a skilled 2nd tank.

If you go to the 'All Bosses' tab, Blade Warding has 2% uptime. But this may be useless information as this includes a lot of wiping, especially a near instant wipe in Council.

For the night you basically had 1 ppm. You may have gotten an extra proc or two on Hodir with HotR hitting frozen folks or just a lucky streak, as your PPM on him is a little higher than some of the others that I spot checked. The % uptime provided by WWS is suspect because I think that is evaluated against the total time, not the just time you were alive. For instance it shows you alive for about 54 minutes on bosses but the proc had an uptime of 5'27". That is more like 10% than 2%. So if we use that 10% uptime and assume that wowwiki is correct and we need 49.18 parry rating for 1% parry before diminishing returns. Then blade ward provided you an average increase of 20 parry rating or .4% parry before diminishing returns. That's slightly better than nothing.

[steadypal]

i tried blade ward, did not like it at all

currently using blood draining, the heal CAN crit....


but the chances of a boss imo to take you barely 2k under AD threshold is unlikely, whats probably going to happen is boss takes you to 4-8k hp, where the 2-5k heal will help quite a bit

the enchant becomes better on how lazy your healers are tho, if they are on the ball, it wont proc, if they are slacking it might proc quite a bit on a given night,,, last week for me procced 35 times in the raid for 50k hp,,, this week procced 25 times for 30k hp..

[theckhd]

Just FYI, I did a slightly more thorough matlab analysis of Blood Draining. In order to not hijack this thread (which is supposed to be about Blade Ward, right?), I stuck it in its own thread. You can find it here.

[cordelia]

Analytical Results for Avoidance Gained from Blade Ward
Posted original here, you can look upthread to see where the analysis came from.

Postulate: Stacking the proc results in less avoidance, because you can consume two charges with one parry, rather than just one charge. Thus, I'll calculate the avoidance gained from BW assuming that each proc lasts 10 seconds or falls off to find an upper bound for the avoidance gained from BW.

Assumptions:
Boss Swing Rate: 2.4
Base Parry & Talents: 10

Variables:
Parry from gear: P
ProcPerMinute: PPM
Parry gained from BW: p = DR(P,200) {Diminishing Returns function applied on base parry from gear and 200 Parry Rating}

The probability for any particular boss hit to consume the proc would be 0.10 + P + p.

With a boss swing rate of 2.4, there are 4.167 boss swings in 10 seconds.

The probability the proc is consumed is therefore: avoid10=1-(1-.1-P-p)^4.167.

The probability that consumption was gained via BW: p/(0.1+P+p).

The number of avoided hits consumed via BW: avoid10BW = avoid10*p/(0.1+P+p)

Over one minute, avoid60 hits are avoided via BW, where avoid60BW= avoid10BW*PPM.

Effective avoidance = avoid60BW/25

Avoidance = PPM/25*(1-(1-.1-P-p)^4.167)*p/(0.1+P+p)

Best Case Scenario:
No parry from gear: P = 0, p = 0.039.
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-0.1-0.039)^4.167)*(0.039)/(0.139) = 0.0069

Defense Minimum Gearset Scenario:
Parry from gear pre-DR: 5.6%.
P = 0.05, p = 0.033 {These are totally approximate - haven't checked actual DR numbers}
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-.1-0.05-.033)^4.167)*0.033/(0.1+0.05+0.033) = 0.0055

Typical Avoidance Gearset Scenario:
Parry from gear: 10%, p = 0.0244 (60%DR) {These are totally approximate - haven't checked actual DR numbers}
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-.1-.1-.0244)^4.167)*0.0244/(0.1+0.1+0.0244) = 0.0038


Considering most avoidance stackers have at least 70% DR from dodge, 26 AGI provides ~0.0035 dodge.


TL;DR: If you stack no parry, this enchant is more avoidance than 26 AGI. If you stack typical avoidance pieces (Kyzoc's, Sand-Worn, Callous-Hearted), this enchant is about equivalent avoidance to 26 AGI. Warriors gain an extra 28% avoidance from this enchant due to more specials that can proc it, and this enchant beats agi hands down. No clue about DK's.

[Magnusharkov]

Hmm, good info, thanks for your hard work. It's surprising how close enchants are coming in to each other.

Would it be possible to evaluate both the avoidance and threat components of 26 agi, blade warding and mongoose to see how closely they lie together?

[Loras]

Getting a bit tired of all those PPM stuff clearly favorizing warriors and their x99 melee/instant attacks that increase the ppm chance.

[culhag]

Getting a bit tired of all those PPM stuff clearly favorizing warriors and their x99 melee/instant attacks that increase the ppm chance.

Err... the whole idea of a ppm is that it will ignore how fast you actually hit the mob.

[Jasari]

Getting a bit tired of all those PPM stuff clearly favorizing warriors and their x99 melee/instant attacks that increase the ppm chance.

Err... the whole idea of a ppm is that it will ignore how fast you actually hit the mob.

Errr no. PPM is how often it will proc off white hits... so your normal swing speed is irrelevant. However, instant attacks can trigger the proc, which is why most "1 PPM" things like mongoose have closer to 1.3ish PPMs. Since warriors have more instant attacks that can trigger said buffs, they will generally have a higher up time than Paladins.

Internal CDs with very high proc chance are what level the playing field... things like DMC:G.

[majiben]

TL;DR: If you stack no parry, this enchant is more avoidance than 26 AGI. If you stack typical avoidance pieces (Kyzoc's, Sand-Worn, Callous-Hearted), this enchant is about equivalent avoidance to 26 AGI. Warriors gain an extra 28% avoidance from this enchant due to more specials that can proc it, and this enchant beats agi hands down. No clue about DK's.

Interesting, pushes Agility even farther ahead when you consider the armor gained as well. Shame to see it be so lack luster in the end.

[Zibey]

I've gotten it today, and I have to admitt I am not really impressed with it.
Also having only 2 special attacks that can procc it is not fun...