Defender's Code vs. Furnace Stone

I'm thinking of eventually using Heart of Iron plus one of these two trinkets and I'm wondering which would be better.

Defender's Code
Equip: 850 Armor
Use: Increases dodge by 455 (11.56% @ L80 - Before DR) for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)

Furnace Stone
Equip: Increase your dodge rating by 105 (2.71% @ LVL 80 - Before DR)
Use: Increases armor by 5152 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)

Since the rest of my gear stacks so much avoidance, I'd only get around 1.5% dodge equip out of Furnace Stone (including DR and buffs) vs. the 850 Armor which is really nice with how hard bosses hit. But 5152 armor is pretty crazy mitigation vs. the around 9% use of Defender's Code (inc DR and buffs).

I'm leaning very heavily towards Furnace Stone, however, a constant 850 armor is very intriguing. What do you guys think?

blackonyx71 wrote:I'm thinking of eventually using Heart of Iron plus one of these two trinkets and I'm wondering which would be better.

Defender's Code
Equip: 850 Armor
Use: Increases dodge by 455 (11.56% @ L80 - Before DR) for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)

Furnace Stone
Equip: Increase your dodge rating by 105 (2.71% @ LVL 80 - Before DR)
Use: Increases armor by 5152 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)

Since the rest of my gear stacks so much avoidance, I'd only get around 1.5% dodge equip out of Furnace Stone (including DR and buffs) vs. the 850 Armor which is really nice with how hard bosses hit. But 5152 armor is pretty crazy mitigation vs. the around 9% use of Defender's Code (inc DR and buffs).

I'm leaning very heavily towards Furnace Stone, however, a constant 850 armor is very intriguing. What do you guys think?

I've never thought of Defender's Code as a particulary strong trinket. Furnace Stone is better to my eyes.

I never thought so either until ulduar. a constant 850 armor isn't so bad against around 20k hits - it would prolly help to mention im using leviathans coil (880 something armor ring) and 225 armor to back, plus armor pot and buffs and everything, it rly knocks a big chunk of boss hits. So, 850 armor on top of the other stuff would put me around 33 with indestructible pot up, but i don't know compared to the other trinket, I can't tell.

I'd honestly go with Furnace Stone. It's very strong.

I'm most interested in getting to the breakpoint of surviving 2 hits on the hard hitters. It's a balancing act between armor and stamina.

Heart of iron is a very strong option, and well-rounded, and probably will be a permanent trinket for me once I get it. That means these are directly competing with EoG for the second slot, and whether 111 stamina or 850 armor ends up as more EH is what I need to look at. Going by tankspot's calculator, EoG is almost twice as much EH as the 850 armor. As I get other ulduar upgrades and have more stamina, that may swing back to a more equitable level, though I'll be getting passive armor upgrades as well thanks to higher ilvl plate.

-- Of course the furnace stone is entirely different. If other ulduar gear gets me to that threshold without the trinket slot, it gets a lot more value as a nice avoidance boost, and 5k armor is probably 5-7% knocked off each swing as a use effect, which may or may not have more value than an avoidance use.

Defender's code is around a 2% damage reduction.

If I'm not mistaken, x armor can never consistently equal 2% physical damage reduction. The amount of overall physical damage reduction armor gives you is based on how much you have, so the more armor you have the slower the % goes up.

Rasmfrackn wrote:Going by tankspot's calculator, EoG is almost twice as much EH as the 850 armor. As I get other ulduar upgrades and have more stamina, that may swing back to a more equitable level, though I'll be getting passive armor upgrades as well thanks to higher ilvl plate.

-- Of course the furnace stone is entirely different. If other ulduar gear gets me to that threshold without the trinket slot, it gets a lot more value as a nice avoidance boost, and 5k armor is probably 5-7% knocked off each swing as a use effect, which may or may not have more value than an avoidance use.

Yea, simply 111 stamina > 850 armor in terms of EH. However, that calculator doesn't compute the proc / on use effects. I'm very unimpressed with EoG's proc, it does close to nothing for MT'ing vs. 8-9% dodge every 2 minutes (including personal DR etc)

I really like the consistent mitigation of Defender's Code compared to how little the equip dodge is on Furnace Stone once you factor in DR, for me personally it would be down to 1.5% dodge and fall to 1% as I get more gear(factoring buffs and everything into it). For that, I like the Defender's Code more. However, when comparing the use effects on each I'd much prefer 5152 armor over 8-9% dodge, since it's guaranteed damage reduction and quite a bit at that. So, my problem is equip stats vs uses. Is there any mathematical evidence that would prove one trinket mitigating/avoiding more damage, or is my comparison purely personal preference?

blackonyx71 wrote:If I'm not mistaken, x armor can never consistently equal 2% physical damage reduction. The amount of physical damage reduction armor gives you is based on how much you have, so the more armor you have the slower the % goes up.

Yes... and no. The amount of damage as an absolute that it mitigates diminishes, but the amount of damage as a fraction of the damage you take does not, otherwise the gains from armour would be exponential, as they were with avoidance pre-WotlK.

Panzerdin wrote:

blackonyx71 wrote:If I'm not mistaken, x armor can never consistently equal 2% physical damage reduction. The amount of overall physical damage reduction armor gives you is based on how much you have, so the more armor you have the slower the % goes up.

Yes... and no. The amount of damage as an absolute that it mitigates diminishes, but the amount of damage as a fraction of the damage you take does not, otherwise the gains from armour would be exponential, as they were with avoidance pre-WotlK.

I didn't say anything about the damage you take, I'm just talking about % physical damage reduction overall.

You never said you where speaking about overall physical reduction.

How's this:

Given a naxx-25 tanking set (with shield), defender's code is around a 2% damage reduction.

You are severely and erroneously undervaluing armor.

To say the Defenders code is terrible is certainly undervaluing it, it's a solid damage mitigation trinket with a very powerful on use ability. Whether it's good in your gearset or not depends entirely on the boss and what other items you're using, clearly in most cases the trinkets from Ulduar will be better but i'd imagine very few people have access to them yet given we've only had a week on the bosses.