Armor, how much does it really help?

[Ignus]

Maybe I've just got a skewed view of things since I rolled a plate class to learn the game, but armor does not really seem helpful to me as a tank.

I mean, sure it's nice, but I'd rather leave toughness empty of talent points than sacrifice any of my other talents.

can someone provide a statistical analysis of exactly what armor does?

I know it scales linearly in terms of time to death while it does not seem to scale linearly, but with a dodge parry and miss combination of upwards of 40-50%, how much use will I really get out of it? I think bosses hit hard enough that the armor would not really save me, it would not be reduced enough.

I think I may undervalue it, but I need to get the facts, so I ask the theory crafting paladin tanks of this forum to set me straight either way, with absolutes ^^

[Daeren]

Yes, you are undervaluing it. Armor is the greatest thing ever after health.

If you're at 66% mitigation from armor, adding 1% more mitigation = 3% less damage taken.

And for the heavy hitters, armor is godly. I almost want to get imp devo aura for more armor.

[Lore]

It's pretty simple; even with 50% avoidance, you're going to be getting hit the other 50% of the time. What happens when you don't dodge/parry the next hit?

There's a fairly complicated relationship between avoidance and mitigation that can be summed up fairly simply: If I die to spike damage, I need more mitigation. If I die to healers going OOM, I need more avoidance.

[honorshammer]

If I die to spike damage, I need more mitigation. If I die to healers going OOM, I need more avoidance.

This needs to be added to Tankadin 101.

[Aina]

hmm, this gave me a random thought - a bit of brainstorming:

Considering you're uncrushable, every attack will be a Block in the worst case. So when Armor works, Block works too. How would Block Value compare to Armor? Has anyone done any research on this?

Now to be honest I haven't given armor values on my gear any attention at all. I've just been busy reaching uncrittable/uncrushable/10kHP asap. I don't even know if there's many items that have bonus armor.
But lets say 200 extra armor vs 20 extra block value or whatever - any idea how they would compare?

This is probably a question that is impossible to awnser though Attack speed of the boss and the power of his attacks shift the results alot...

Has anyone given this any thought yet? Or is this all moot because there's not much to choose between anyways?

[Sabindeus]

hmm, this gave me a random thought - a bit of brainstorming:

Considering you're uncrushable, every attack will be a Block in the worst case. So when Armor works, Block works too. How would Block Value compare to Armor? Has anyone done any research on this?

Now to be honest I haven't given armor values on my gear any attention at all. I've just been busy reaching uncrittable/uncrushable/10kHP asap. I don't even know if there's many items that have bonus armor.
But lets say 200 extra armor vs 20 extra block value or whatever - any idea how they would compare?

This is probably a question that is impossible to awnser though Attack speed of the boss and the power of his attacks shift the results alot...

Has anyone given this any thought yet? Or is this all moot because there's not much to choose between anyways?

Block value scales with raid bosses MUCH worse than DR. I once did a theorycraft comparison between a Paladin with 60% armor DR and Imp RF and 300 block value vs a Druid with 70% DR, assuming they have the same avoidance (miss/dodge/parry vs miss/dodge), and a mob would have to hit for 3945 unmitigated for the Paladin to be taking the same amount of damage as the Druid. Any higher and the Druid starts taking less damage.

[Solthas]

That's worth some comparison. Say in your superior cloak, you can in fact choose between 20 block value and about 200 armor.

20 block value is just that, 20 less damage. But the armor's benefit depends on your armor. Average tankadin with no/few epics would have what, 12k with devotion?



Alright. If you accept the tank has 12k armor...

Using Armor / (Armor+400+85*(Level+4.5*(Level-59))) (I tested it, this is the correct formula)

So with generic cloak of bonus armor, you get 200 additional armor. With generic cloak of block value, you get 20 block value (Devilshark vs some druid cape)

I did it on a calculator, getting .53197 w/ 12k, .53609 with 12.2k

.00412 / .43609 (percent of total dmg taken with 53% reduction)
is .00945, or just under 1% less damage overall.

Then the formula would be incoming total unreduced damage, multiplied by the armor reduction, minus current block

(X*.43197) - (Block+20) = Damage taken (On a block). Since I'm assuming same avoidance, we can ignore it for now...

Or (X*43609) - (Block) = Damage taken

((X*.43197)-200) - ((X*.43609)-220)...

The difference is positive means block was superior, negative armor

If my math is correct, 20 block will beat 200 armor until you would be being hit for ~5000 nekkid. This is roughly 2150 damage if you've got on your 12k armor plate.

Anyway, pretty shaky math, it's early and I haven't had breakfast yet. Essentially, block value > armor until you are taking raid boss size hits. And that's just 200 armor. Maybe imp devo+aura mastery is better than I thought for holy/prot.

[Aina]

Block value scales with raid bosses MUCH worse than DR. I once did a theorycraft comparison between a Paladin with 60% armor DR and Imp RF and 300 block value vs a Druid with 70% DR, assuming they have the same avoidance (miss/dodge/parry vs miss/dodge), and a mob would have to hit for 3945 unmitigated for the Paladin to be taking the same amount of damage as the Druid. Any higher and the Druid starts taking less damage.

Hmm, interesting. But, to get 60% armor DR you'd need around 16k armor. To get 70% DR you'd need to up that to a wopping 25k(!). 9k armor doesn't compare to 300 block value in gear terms, though I dunno how your numbers would be if it was between two paladins.

Math isn't really my strongest point though >_<

But this might be interesting for some fights, I dunno, Prince? Moroes? Altough you could say Moroes is trivial anyways, so maybe this whole issue is trivial.
Might be nice though if we can come up with some rule of thumb to compare armor value with block value when choosing gear.

[Alixander]

If I die to spike damage, I need more mitigation. If I die to healers going OOM, I need more avoidance.

This needs to be added to Tankadin 101.

I figure it's worth mentioning that health qualifies as a type of mitigation in this case. Many people consider health a separate stat, but it really does fall under the category of mitigation since it allows you to take more damage before you die.

[Arcand]

I figure it's worth mentioning that health qualifies as a type of mitigation in this case. Many people consider health a separate stat, but it really does fall under the category of mitigation since it allows you to take more damage before you die.

Because I feel like pointlessly splitting hairs (bear with me, I do this sometimes):

Additional health performs the same function as mitigation as far as giving your healers more reaction time - a hit that used to be 25% of your health is now only 20%.

However, once your healers have enough time to use their most mana-efficient (generally slowest) heals, there's no further benefit to stacking stamina. At that point you need true mitigation or avoidance, which will reduce the absolute damage you're taking and hence the healer mana per second required to keep you up.

[Lore]

One important thing to recognize about getting healed - it doesn't really matter that much how much damage actually needs to be healed from you, the same amount of mana is going to be spent. The difference between a 3k hit and a 5k hit as far as your healers are concerned is fairly negligible. You'll get healed for that amount 3 or 4 times over in the next couple seconds as every healer throws something at you. That's why avoidance is the better method for saving healer mana - you dodge a hit, they don't heal you, mana is saved. You'd have to have a heck of a lot of mitigation in order for it to be anywhere near as effective as far as healer mana goes.

[Alixander]

I figure it's worth mentioning that health qualifies as a type of mitigation in this case. Many people consider health a separate stat, but it really does fall under the category of mitigation since it allows you to take more damage before you die.

Because I feel like pointlessly splitting hairs (bear with me, I do this sometimes):

Additional health performs the same function as mitigation as far as giving your healers more reaction time - a hit that used to be 25% of your health is now only 20%.

However, once your healers have enough time to use their most mana-efficient (generally slowest) heals, there's no further benefit to stacking stamina. At that point you need true mitigation or avoidance, which will reduce the absolute damage you're taking and hence the healer mana per second required to keep you up.

True, you are right there, but the only way to get more armor is getting higher iLVL items. As your iLVL goes up your armor will, but your STA might not. You could end up with more armor, but a lot less stamina due to a majority of the given item's iLVL points going towards avoidance stats.

[Sabindeus]

Block value scales with raid bosses MUCH worse than DR. I once did a theorycraft comparison between a Paladin with 60% armor DR and Imp RF and 300 block value vs a Druid with 70% DR, assuming they have the same avoidance (miss/dodge/parry vs miss/dodge), and a mob would have to hit for 3945 unmitigated for the Paladin to be taking the same amount of damage as the Druid. Any higher and the Druid starts taking less damage.

Hmm, interesting. But, to get 60% armor DR you'd need around 16k armor. To get 70% DR you'd need to up that to a wopping 25k(!). 9k armor doesn't compare to 300 block value in gear terms, though I dunno how your numbers would be if it was between two paladins.

Math isn't really my strongest point though >_<

But this might be interesting for some fights, I dunno, Prince? Moroes? Altough you could say Moroes is trivial anyways, so maybe this whole issue is trivial.
Might be nice though if we can come up with some rule of thumb to compare armor value with block value when choosing gear.

16k armor is easy to get on the same level of gear as 300 block value for a Paladin.

25K armor is easy to get on that level of gear for a Druid.

That's why I chose those numbers.

[Aergis]

We've discussed the value of block compared to armor a few times. Quick summary is that block value pays off more when tanking things that hit fast for lower damage, like moroes or prince. Armor wins when dealing with big slow hitters like gruul or mag.

Check out the tanking simulator in this forum. You can mess about with the armor and block value and try to come up with some comparisons fairly quickly. I just stickied it to make it easier to find.

From messing with it a bit I've found that at around 15k armor tanking something that hits for about 7-8k, 250 block value equates to almost 2000 armor if I remember correctly.


Also Joannadark makes a good point in another thread, pasted here.

IN GENERAL, assuming incoming damage is significantly high;


If you CURRENTLY have:
-ALOT of Armor
-LITTLE Block Value

Then when adding NEW gear upgrades:
-additional Armor is of LOW value in terms of its relative contribution
-additional Block Value is of HIGH value in terms of its relative contribution



If you CURRENTLY have:
-MODERATE/LOW Armor
-HIGH Block Value

Then when adding NEW gear upgrades:
-additional Armor is of HIGH value in terms of its relative contribution
-additional Block Value is of LOW value in terms of its relative contribution

[Aergis]

but the only way to get more armor is getting higher iLVL items

This is exactly why I've been so interested in Block value of the last months. Given that I have 17k armor now buffed, I can't really find anywhere to get more without next dungeon upgrades. Block value can be thought of as an extension of more armor, assuming you aren't losing armor to do so. A great example is Gnomeregon Auto-Blocker. Adding 50 block value from a trinket becomes 65 from shield spec, which should be close to adding another 500 armor when things hit for 8-9k. As things hit less than that, it increases the amount of armor it "simulates".