WotLK TankadinPoints Theorycraft

NOTE: This thread will address theorycraft surrounding the TankadinPoints system. The current Gear Rankings by TankadinPoints thread is here.


TankadinPoints Introduction
This is a ranking system that attempts to revalue every possible tanking item for Tankadins in terms of the Tankadins own strengths and weaknesses, talents and skills. It is designed to accurately reflect how useful an item is to the Tankadin in terms of (1) Avoidance, (2) Effective Health (EH), and (3) Threat. It SHOULD not be an absolute gearing guide. Tankadins need to gear for certain benchmarks such as Defense minimum and Taunt resist cap. However, it should serve to act as a guide for which piece of gear is better for a tankadin "in general" than another piece of gear.

TankadinPoints Spreadsheet
WotLK-TankadinPts.xlsx

Attached please find a spreadsheet with WotLK gear lists and TankadinPoints calculations for all gear pieces for Avoidance TankadinPoints and Effective Health(EH) TankadinPoints. Threat TankadinPoints calculations to follow. Gem slots are currently all treated as 30 stam gems. Meta gems are implemented. Diminishing returns is not implemented.

The original thread that started Tankadin points is here. Previously called Paladin Tanking Item Points(PTIP), I have renamed it to Tankadin Points, and also simplified it somewhat. The idea is to rate each piece of gear in terms of three categories: Avoidance, EH, and Threat. Under each category, you calculate the effect of the item with typical raid buffs, and then express this using the cheapest available item point conversion, providing an Effective ItemPoint value for the item, called TankadinPoints.

Example
A belt has Defense Rating, Dodge Rating, Agi, or Parry Rating. Calculate total avoidance provided by the belt. Sum Dodge%, Parry% and Miss% into one single Avoidance percentage. Re-convert these into ItemPoints using the Dodge Rating:Avoidance% calculation. This represents how many Dodge ItemPoints the item would be worth. This helps normalize the different avoidance stats. A trivial level 70 example would be 4 belts, each one with different stats: (Belt A) 23 agi(25 after kings) (Belt B)25 parry rating, (Belt C) 20 defense rating, and (Belt D) 19 dodge rating. All four belts have identical TankadinPoints: 19. This is because all four belts provide the same amount of avoidance: 1%.


To-Do List
Calculate Gem TankadinPoints by color, type and socket bonus
Add in all available trinkets.
Add in all available weapons.

Theorycraft sticking points
Diminishing Returns on Avoidance.
Expertise contribution to avoidance.
Role of Block Rating: mitigation or avoidance, and how much?
Valuing "on-use" effects.
_________________

Avoidance TankadinPoints

Steps:

(1) Calculate total avoidance granted by the item via Dodge, Parry, and Miss.

(2) Calculate the amount of Dodge Rating required to reach this avoidance level.

(3) This is the # of itemValue points from Avoidance.

(4) Multiply Expertise Rating by 0.05.

(5) Sum (3) and (4).


Current Issues

(1) How much avoidance does Expertise actually give?

(2) How to integrate Diminishing returns?

(3) What about block rating? Does it go here?
_________________

Effective Health TankadinPoints

I calculate Effective Health(EH) using the following formula:

EH = (HP + 2.5*BV)/(1-DR)

(1) Base EH is calculated using 6000 base hp, 2111 Stamina, and base 80 rare armor levels. This results in 19878 armor, and 31,754 HP. Base BV is 1111.

(2) The modified EH that would result from adding a piece of gear is calculated. Modified armor is based solely on the difference between this gear and the base lvl 80 gear.

(3) EH difference is calculated: (2) - (1)

(4) (3) is divided by 40, which is the EH gain from 1 point of raw Stamina.

Notes:
(1) The base Stamina and base SV are from Psiven's threat spreadsheet.
(The HP may be a tad high, I think I double-corrected for Stamina mods.)

(2) According to steps (1)-(3), adding 1 itemPoint of STA results in 40 EH gain. Adding 1 itemPoint of Armor results in 30 EH gain. Adding 1 itemPoint of BV results in 11 EH gain. (see spreadsheet calculations)

Current Issues
(1) I need to get better starting numbers for Stamina and BV, and double-check to make sure that Sta modifiers aren't applied twice.

(2) Is 2.5*BV the best value here? I chose this, because most insta-gibs I see generally have 2-3 melee hits involved between the last "Full health" and the death. WotLK raiding may very well change this.

(3) Does Block Rating go here? Or does it affect EH at all?
_________________

Threat Tankadin Points

Currently, this calculation is completly tied to this thread, specifically, my post here.


(1) Each Threat component is simply multiplied by it's normalized TPS/IVpoint.
e.g. Str stays the same, AP is multiplied by 0.61, BV by 0.45, etc.

(2) The above is summed.


Current Issues
(1) AS is not calculated.
(2) Ideal threat cycle is not definitive (see (1)).
(3) Wings and trinkets are not calculated.
(4) Reckoning. 'Nuff said.
_________________

I have a few problems with this:

1) lack of block rating

2) the way you came up with your "effective health" value for block value seems wrong to me. I don't think block value belongs in the effective health equation at all, because it's variable depending on the bosses damage per hit (and attack speed indirectly). Armor, and stamina are not.

3) You're treating 1 item value worth of dodge, as if it's equivilant to 1 item value of effective health, and 1 item value worth of threat, these are 3 quite different mechanics that mean quite different things (for instance, threat means nothing if you've already got enough of it, and avoidance means next to nothing if you're doing an "effective health" intensive encounter (one in which your healers simply can't outheal the damage))

I think better then using your equation, would be simply to look at the item value of an item (sum up the item value of all stats), and judge by eye which item suits your needs better.

The result of this equation, is that it's going to undervalue a lot of your avoidance stats (that aren't dodge), it's (IMO) overvaluing the crap out of a stat like strength (since you get a lot of threat from it, and it's going through your BoK and talent bonusus)...Correct me if I'm wrong...but if you were to take 2 items...with with 50 dodge, and 1 with 50 strength, your equation would give the 50 strength item a higher score for tanking...that just seems all kinds of wrong to me.

Please feel free to contradict me, if I'm made any poor assumptions here.

I'm trying to come up with a ranking somewhat similar to this..and the rankings I came up with..which I like better are simply:

http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=gm=3;wt=42:44:22:43:20:21:41;wtv=1:1:0.67:0.65:0.325:0.14:0.07

This gives you gear that maximizes armor, defense, stamina, block rating, and block value (our strong points).

Then I eyeball the gear that has similar rankings and choose based on preference (for instance, 2 items within 15 points of each other, I'll take the lesser ranked item because it's got 50 dodge rating).

The big question/problem I have, is figuring out the importance of avoidance, vs. effective health (and block value) on tankadin gear, can a tankadin ignore block/parry and simply get uncrushable, uncrittable, and stack block value, minimizing the damage every single hit does (with max HP's), or do we forgo blocking entirely and stack avoidance? Or mish/mash the two in some middle ground? Every point of avoidance makes every point of block value that you hvae LESS useful. And of course, the usefulness of these stats all depends on the boss encounters, and your particular raid makeup (are your healers going OOM [more avoidance] or unable to keep up with healing[more EH])

Oh, and just a general point - while I appreciate the amount of work that has gone into this post, arbitrary points-based analysis of tanking gear beyond "This item has higher ilevel and is therefor better" is next to useless unless you're discussing a specific fight, and in relation to the rest of your gear.

People saying XYZ Naxx-25 legs are better than ABC Naxx-25 legs are simply not correct, IMO. Better for what?

Block cap/value? Avoidance? EH? Threat? Combinations? Which one is best? It depends.

A "master list" of "this piece is best" simply can't work as it's ignoring 90% of the problem: What does the boss do? What's the rest of my gear like?

Here's the easy rating system:

#1: Malygos-25 = KT-25

#2: Naxx-25 = Malygos-10 = KT-10 = Sarth-25 = Badge-25

#3: Naxx-10 = Heroic = Crafted.

IE: ilevel is king, then consider the boss mechanics.
_________________
This isn't the "Offtankadin" forum.
Knaughty of the Nightfall.
Tanking 101 and Advanced tanking

There is a lot of merit in figuring out a non-situation based ranking system. Not all of us have enough time to invest in getting every possible item available, thusly a system that identifies the best general use is of great merit in helping more casual players identify where they should be investing time.

Good work.

What Knaughty has pointed out I think holds a lot of truth. To be able to work out which item would be better in a given slot, all the rest of your itemization would have to be taken into account as well as your current stats.
It would take something along the lines of what is attempted (albeit imperfectly) with the maxdps.com website. Even then, the specific fight type and conditions would definitely come into play.
We are faced with collecting multiple gear sets regardless. There will never be a single perfect "gnomish army knife" set of gear that can do all jobs without swapping out pieces here and there.
Just some examples of different boss mechanic types that change what might be ideal for a gear load out:

fast hitter/dual wielder melee
slow, but hard hitting melee
magic damage galore
boss that stuns/incapacitates
_________________
If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness must be the father.

Mavrix
BE Tankadin
Dalaran

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dalaran&n=Mavrix

Did this discussion and program of finding rankings die?
_________________
If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness must be the father.

Mavrix
BE Tankadin
Dalaran

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dalaran&n=Mavrix