Trying to figure out which potion to use during bossfights

[Strendarr]

I'm jealous of our bear tank being able to just eat a potion of the Tol'Vir and it got me thinking.

Our old armor potion was great, it lasted a minute and a half. These days however I'm not entirely sure if that's the one we should be using.

Should we be using a golemblood potion? It would contribute a lot of threat and damage, but not much avoidance.

Potion of the Tol'Vir? It adds some dodge, but nothing else as far as I can tell.

Earthen Potion? Armor, probably the best for reducing damage taken, but maybe it depends on the fight.

Volcanic Potion? Figured I'd try it while we were at it.

Here's what happened when I took each type.

Starting stats (with blessing of might and mark of the wild):

35473 armor (57.64% mitigation)
10.24% dodge
12.40% parry
7565 AP
1002.7 DPS
2096 SP

Earthen Potion: armor increased to 40273, increased mitigation to 60.70%, didn't see any other effect.

Golemblood Potion: 1200.7 DPS, 10337 AP, 13.83 Parry, 2852 SP

Tol'Vir: 13.58% dodge, no other effect

Volcanic: 3296 SP, no other effect

Increases per potion:

Earthen: 3.06% physical mitigation at my armor level
Golemblood: 198 DPS, 2772 AP, 1.43% parry, 756 SP
Tol'Vir: 3.34% dodge
Volcanic: 1200 SP

Q's:
Do our abilities still scale with SP and AP? If so, what would the true increase of the golemblood potion be?

Does our armor factor into attacks we block and reduce additional damage? Or is it the straight 40%? If it doesn't, it looks like the earthen potion wouldn't be nearly as useful as either Golemblood for all around boosts or Tol'Vir for avoidance.

Thoughts? I'd very much welcome people with more knowledge/brainpower to figure this out.

[Mordral]

Does anyone consider mana pots a viable alternative to the more tank oriented pots listed above for some additional freedom in the spell selection department? I use Holy Radiance quite a bit in our raids and it can be pretty brutal on my mana if I'm not careful.

[inthedrops]

The only pots I use right now are Armor and Agility.

Having to use mana pots is probably more a sign of not managing mana properly than anything else. I assume you use Holy Radiance at specific times during fights where it is known to be beneficial (such as Ultimates on CoW or collapses on Chimaeron). In those cases, you're better off learning to conserve mana to ensure you have enough at those points in the fight rather than spending too much of it before.

That's not to say I don't understand the question. When I use Holy Radiance on CoW I'm pretty much OOM for when it ends. So I lose DPS because I just auto-attack during the ultimate to let it build back up a little. But in my case the extra healing is worth the slight loss in personal DPS.

Just plan ahead.

[Durability]

Don't forget about Swiftness potions - they can buy you a few seconds of not being hit, and can be used to great effect to kite an Atramedes beam or move quickly around one of Al'akir's obstacles.

[Hrobertgar]

WoW-Classic Potion of Resistance (50 to all resistances for 2-3mins) is the best potion to take halfway thru a heavy magic damage fight. I know everyone thinks a classic lvl-60 potion is crazy. But an extra ~9% magic resistance for the last couple minutes of a fight can make a huge difference. With pre-potting, you could potentially be covered for almost the entire fight.

When I am on my tank I use recount to compare the types of damage I am taking, and for fights that are 50%+ magic damage, that potion can result in ~9% of 50% ~ 4.5% total dmg reduction which is FAR and away they best pot in the game for a tank. I carry a stack around on my tank at all times.

When Blizz decides to nerf its duration as they did the armor potion, I will cry.

[Ardrhyst]

WoW-Classic Potion of Resistance (50 to all resistances for 2-3mins) is the best potion to take halfway thru a heavy magic damage fight. I know everyone thinks a classic lvl-60 potion is crazy. But an extra ~9% magic resistance for the last couple minutes of a fight can make a huge difference. With pre-potting, you could potentially be covered for almost the entire fight.

When I am on my tank I use recount to compare the types of damage I am taking, and for fights that are 50%+ magic damage, that potion can result in ~9% of 50% ~ 4.5% total dmg reduction which is FAR and away they best pot in the game for a tank. I carry a stack around on my tank at all times.

When Blizz decides to nerf its duration as they did the armor potion, I will cry.

Ssssshhhh. We must never speak of this again.

They have eyes everywhere...

EDIT: I just tested this, and the Magic Resistance Potion does not stack with Mark of the Wild/Blessing of Kings.

Sadly, the potion is worthless.

[vexryn]

WoW-Classic Potion of Resistance (50 to all resistances for 2-3mins) is the best potion to take halfway thru a heavy magic damage fight. I know everyone thinks a classic lvl-60 potion is crazy. But an extra ~9% magic resistance for the last couple minutes of a fight can make a huge difference. With pre-potting, you could potentially be covered for almost the entire fight.

When I am on my tank I use recount to compare the types of damage I am taking, and for fights that are 50%+ magic damage, that potion can result in ~9% of 50% ~ 4.5% total dmg reduction which is FAR and away they best pot in the game for a tank. I carry a stack around on my tank at all times.

When Blizz decides to nerf its duration as they did the armor potion, I will cry.

Ssssshhhh. We must never speak of this again.

They have eyes everywhere...

EDIT: I just tested this, and the Magic Resistance Potion does not stack with Mark of the Wild/Blessing of Kings.

Sadly, the potion is worthless.

Wow, their eyes really are everywhere... and they act FAST! :/

[Ardrhyst]

WoW-Classic Potion of Resistance (50 to all resistances for 2-3mins) is the best potion to take halfway thru a heavy magic damage fight. I know everyone thinks a classic lvl-60 potion is crazy. But an extra ~9% magic resistance for the last couple minutes of a fight can make a huge difference. With pre-potting, you could potentially be covered for almost the entire fight.

When I am on my tank I use recount to compare the types of damage I am taking, and for fights that are 50%+ magic damage, that potion can result in ~9% of 50% ~ 4.5% total dmg reduction which is FAR and away they best pot in the game for a tank. I carry a stack around on my tank at all times.

When Blizz decides to nerf its duration as they did the armor potion, I will cry.

Ssssshhhh. We must never speak of this again.

They have eyes everywhere...

EDIT: I just tested this, and the Magic Resistance Potion does not stack with Mark of the Wild/Blessing of Kings.

Sadly, the potion is worthless.

Wow, their eyes really are everywhere... and they act FAST! :/

I sorta remember it behaving that way back when we used them for Ragnaros kills in Molten Core. I don't think it's a recent change.

[Treck]

Tanks gear has such a small impact in the raids these days, so much in fact that we stopped giving tanks gear.
I still got 8 of the 20 Earthen Potions i started this content with.
Cant remember how many swiftness potions ive used tho.

[pfunkmort]

are health pots so terrible? with the wog nerf, I find once in a while I like to have the instant health.

[Treck]

If your prepotting, always go with golemblood obviously.
The armor you get from one of those pots for 25sec or whatever is very neglectable.
During the fight, id still say that the armor pot has very little use, Healthpot IS the stronger pot to use imo mid fight.
Golemblood mid fight isnt really gonna change much, IF your really really pushing dps and you dont think youll need the healthpot later on, use it i guess.