Seriously considering dropping Ardent Defender.

I have to know how much Ardent Defender helps, really. In how many circumstances do we get hit by something that won't already kill us at 35% health? The only situation I can imagine AD being worth it is when you have a relatively weak boss and the healers slacked off. I trust my healers enough to not really see this happening.
What's the real usage of AD? Where do I see it shining? Where will it save my life enough to be the difference between "we wiped again" to "wohoo one-shot!"?
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AD is roughly equivalent to +10% more stamina assuming it isnt leapfrogged. The question you have to ask yourself is do you want a further 10% stamina to allow your healers more breathing room?
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I'd say its excellent for AoE tanking. When I tank Moro murlocs I'm quite often below the 35% mark. Gonna try the AD addon tonight I think.
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I've recently made an Excel macro that will extract your damage taken and healing received timeline out of the combat log. From this, I have made a timeline graph of my health (assuming I know my health at the start of the fight w/buffs). I've also color coded the "Current Health" column to show when I am in AD range after a hit.

It's very rough and I'm sure it can be improved, but I'd be happy to upload it if someone can tell me what the best way is.

Raid Buffed I hit about 20K health now, Ardent Defender kicks in at about 7K health now, that is actually a pretty huge increase in effective health at least for me.
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Visit my crappy blog... Nerf This...

One thing I hadn't thought of until playing with my spreadsheet (but seems pretty obvious) is that even if AD doesn't save you from dying on a particular hit, it means that you are at higher health after being healed out of AD range than you would have been.

On one of our tries on Illhoof (who we didn't kill), where I was AOE tanking everything, AD didn't save me from any single hit (not counting the very end), but at some points I had an extra 1,000 - 1,300 health due to dipping in and out of AD.

On another try it did save me early on where I would have died at -96 health while our healers were trying to keep our other sacrificed healer alive. I also ended up with 3,500 extra health at one point coming out of an extended period being in AD range with small heals.

im at almost 22k hp raid buffed. Ad kicks on at 7500 hp for me... Sounds good right? On last nights hyjal clear, i was tanking MUCH more than usual.. On the begining ghoul pulls i tanked them all. On the later abom pulls i was tanking up to 3 aboms along with all ghouls and a few spiders. Watching the mod's report i went below 35% hp once all night. And thats only because my main healer was commenting in pali chat on how easy i was to heal... I watched my hp slowly going down, reached for my nightmare seed to find that i forgot to grab it from my bank.

Ill continue to watch it for a few more weeks.. Still have 1/2 of black temple this week along with 2 ZA runs, maybe kara, and my regular farming. If it continues to be like it was in hyjal, then i agree that it may be a drop-worthy talent
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Official tankadin of <The Core> Tichondrius

I know this is only anecdotal evidence, but I've asked three of my healers and they have all told me that Ardent Defender makes a serious, noticable difference. They tell me it's obvious that it kicks in and that it saves my life more than I would think. It's particularly useful in progression fights where my HP pool dips low more often.

BTW, you can take 142% of your hitpoints in damage before dying when AD is active.

that is good advice... talk to your healers.

many many times I've heard the healers say "the warrior would have died right there"
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In the add-ons section you can download an addon that will figure out when AD kicks in and how much damage it saved you. I recommend everyone try this and see how it works for a few days.

My suspicion is that it doesn't kick in as much as people think it does when doing MTing but it is totally valuable when grinding. However, without quantifyable results, it's impossible to say. So do this, and report back.

Wait until you have a healer that doesn't know about that mechanic/talent and they comment on how you were just saved by the grace of the gods.

I honestly couldn't be arsed with Theory Craft in regards to AD. It's saved my ass on more then one occasion, that's for damn sure.
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Batteries not included.