Gearing prot pally + advice...

Not really having any difficulty doing heroics without CC and healers never complain...
until one put up a fuss over it last night (and I run with her like 20% of the time).

She said I take way too much damage compared to her friend who's also a prot pally and also
pulls with no CC through all heroics.
I compared his armory vs my info and I just don't see it being possible for him to take less damage even in better gear. I read the sticky and understand the concepts (I think) about reforging dodge and parry to mastery, but I have a hard time swallowing that pill.
Here's the stats for other tank and myself.

Other tank: iLVL 349 ME: iLVL 349
HP: 166k HP: 144k unbuffed
Armor 35594 Armor 34901
Dodge 11.04% Dodge 15.70%
Parry 13.03% Parry 12.87%
Block 43.98% Block 40.71%
Expertise 6 Expertise 8
Total avoidance = 68.05 Total avoidance = 69.28 <---Didn't add in +5% miss

Now...
Now, I am very aware about healer perception possibly being skewed due to her knowing this guy and having him tank for her for a long time (per the healers statement, but I bring this up since no other healers have a problem and constantly tell me I'm a dream to heal). But we got into an argument and she choose to totally ignore the fact I have higher total avoidance than him. (His armors a tad higher and his blocks a tad higher, but my dodge/parry are higher thereby I get hit less overall).

Also, (didn't want to link armories because I don't want her throwing a fit over it later) to add to this all, I have only reforged all hit and expertise to mastery (minus two pieces with Expertise >> Parry which I'll be changing later today more than likely) and not done any dodge or parry to mastery. I have gemmed straight dodge for the most part where I can fit it and used plenty of Parry + stam gems and Dodge +stam gems so my health is at 144k unbuffed with ilvl 349, and he's at 166k with same ilvl basically.

I ended up ending the argument by just telling her the guy probably blows all his CDs every chance he gets hence why he seems to be taking less damage, didn't want to bother arguing the numbers which can't lie.

Does this seem like a logical explanation? Also, would you recommend dropping SOME dodge or parry for mastery (even though it would be an avoidance downgrade?) and is there a good chance that I hit the point where I actually need to scale back dodge and parry and gem straight stam gems? I could have sworn, even after reading the stickies, that the general CORRECT consensus was to have as high avoidance + mitigation as possible, yet I have higher avoidance (dodge + parry) AND total avoidance+mitigation (at a slight cost to mastery) than everyone else i'm seeing tanking raids.

TLDR: For me the numbers just don't add up; I have higher avoidance stats and total avoidance + mitigation than tanks that are raiding yet somehow someone seems to think the guy with more mastery and less avoidance (dodge+parry) takes less damage (could it be his bigger health pool? Or blows more CDs? had to throw that in). Seeking more clarification into all this.

Thanks in advance for any and all input.

With more mastery and significantly more health, his damage intake looks much smoother. That often makes healers panic less, which leads to them using more efficient heals and dropping fewer complaints.

22k health is nothing to ignore - that other tank is geared significantly better than you are. I assume that's because he's aimed specifically for gear with mastery/avoidance stats, while you've picked up a bunch of mastery/threat or avoidance/threat pieces. That means you achieve your combat table coverage (avoidance+block) via reforging and trinkets, while the other tank can devote both trinkets to stamina. Am I correct?

Also, what's wrong with blowing cooldowns all the time? I have like seven of them taking into account pots and healthstones and trinkets and engineering items plus my class abilities. There's no harm in using one if there's even the slightest sign of trouble. I pop one as soon as I see my health go below like 60%. If my health goes below 40%, I blow one or two more. We don't just have one big cooldown to save for a rainy day any longer, so using them is good strategy, not bad.

Based off the information you've given, it probably is easier for the healer to heal that other person than you. That said, it doesn't sound like you're doing anything horribly wrong - you're wearing what you lucked into and have enhanced it as best as you can.

With regard to reducing damage taken versus maximizing combat table coverage, it's a personal choice. Yappo has been maximizing his CTC and says that healers love him. I've decided to minimize damage taken.

If you maximize CTC then you reforge on the "60% rule" meaning that you reforge the threat stat only if it's 60% or more of the avoidance stat on avoidance/threat gear. If you minimize damage taken then you always reforge the threat stat. With regard to stat value, to maximize CTC you would value avoidance rating at just like 7.5% of the value of mastery rating, while to minimize damage taken you value avoidance rating at 75-80% of mastery rating. It's your call.

Thanks for the input.
In regards to trinkets, yes I have only 1 stam trinket (Heroic Leaden despair) while he has H leaden despair and jewelers stam trinket with stam gem in it), also hes tauren so i guess that HP racial helps a bit.

Looking at it again, I actually have about the same amount of gear as him in terms of threat stats. Except hes reforged items with avoidance and hit/expertise so that parry or dodge get converted to mastery rather than the hit/expertise. So he actually has more hit while I have a tad more expertise yet ive reforged those as I said before.

Didn't meant to say anything was wrong with blowing cooldowns, even I do but only on big pulls, don't use them every chance I get though. I'm definitely going to blow them all every chance i get when I run with said healer tonight and see what she says.

Could it be the spikiness in the damage? Like you said his damage is probably smoother.. (IE im dodging parrying more so when i dont dodge/parry/get missed it seems like a huge spike?) But would just 3.27% difference between his block and mine make THAT big of a noticeable difference?

The way I see it, it's an issue with perception. I think the numbers cannot lie therefore I have to definitely be taking less overall damage than the guy with more block and less dodge/parry. Is there anything concrete that is contrary to this that I may still be missing?


Oh yeah..
If you maximize CTC then you reforge on the "60% rule" meaning that you reforge the threat stat only if it's 60% or more of the avoidance stat on avoidance/threat gear. If you minimize damage taken then you always reforge the threat stat. With regard to stat value, to maximize CTC you would value avoidance rating at just like 7.5% of the value of mastery rating, while to minimize damage taken you value avoidance rating at 75-80% of mastery rating. It's your call.

Sorry man you lost me there, can you elaborate?

Let's say you have a piece of gear with dodge and hit rating. Let's say it has 100 dodge rating.

Maximize Combat Table Coverage

To maximize combat table coverage, you want to have the largest possible avoidance+block. Taking our example item, how much hit rating does it have?

If it has 60 or more hit rating, reforge the hit rating to mastery. If it has less than 60 hit rating, reforge the dodge rating to mastery. That's based on a typical amount of diminishing returns for a typical tank right now.

Minimize Damage Taken

To minimize damage taken, you clearly weigh pure avoidance a little bit higher relative to block, making dodge rating too important to reforge into mastery rating most of the time. Taking our example item again, reforge the hit rating into mastery regardless of the amount of hit rating it has.

See the difference? It's subtle but shows a focus on two different strategies. The other place this strategy comes out is in gear selection. A person aiming for combat table coverage would likely never take an avoidance/treat piece, like the example piece above, if he or she can avoid it. After mastery/avoidance gear, which is best for both strategies, a CTC maximizer would want pieces with the most mastery possible, then followed by lesser stats including avoidance and threat. A damage minimizer values avoidance almost as much as mastery and thus might make different selections.

Ok got you this time around.
Sounds good to me.
Again, thanks for the input.

Ok got you this time around.
Sounds good to me.
Again, thanks for the input.

Could be the health gap, since that allows more room to use the efficient heal, though this isnt my guess as to what it is. It could also be cooldowns, i use mine all the time, even when im using crowd control, a cooldown not used on trash is a cooldown wasted in my opinion, but again, i dont think this is what may be happening.

Here is my guess, do you tank with seal of truth, and do you primarily use your holy power for sotr? We can give up damage for self healing by using seal of insight and word of glory, and it isnt a small amount by any means. We are talking about enough self healing that on some bosses (this happened to me the other night in sfk) the healer can screw up and die on the pull and its not a wipe. If im going out of my way to maximize my self healing, it is very apparent to my healers.

I would complain if I were your healer and you went through all heroics with no CC[1]. It's just not optimal; you are putting a lot of avoidable stress on the healer. Shutting down just one caster in a group of 3 mobs is probably reducing your overall damage intake by up to 50%. And you lose almost nothing in terms of your groups dps output; targeted fire>AOE in Cata. Now if you are doing these blitzes successfully, then I suspect your groups overgear heroics. Three dps doing around 10k each may allow you to avoid the trash game mechanics and just zerg the instance. But your health will still bounce around like crazy, I would imagine, in quite an unnecessary and stressful way.

You say the other pally also does not use CC at all (really? not at all? and you know this how?). If so, I suspect the buffer of 20k hps causes the healer to feel less stressed. He may also be better than you at WoGing and seal switching. Do you at least mark the skull and X? Because killing stuff fast will also reduce your damage intake.




[1]Note the "all". I find CC helps more in some instances, say GB; it's almost irrelevant in others, say SFK. And good luck with those 2 healer pulls in Throne of Tides with no CC.

Digren wrote:22k health is nothing to ignore - that other tank is geared significantly better than you are.

Well 5K is from him being a tauren, so 17K health and a lot of that could be trinket choices. It is hard to say that the other tank is geared "significantly" better with just a 600 armor difference shown.

Flex wrote:

Digren wrote:22k health is nothing to ignore - that other tank is geared significantly better than you are.

Well 5K is from him being a tauren, so 17K health and a lot of that could be trinket choices. It is hard to say that the other tank is geared "significantly" better with just a 600 armor difference shown.

That's the thing, though. Their armor has virtually the same iLvl, virtually the same armor, virtually the same ctc. And yet one has 22k more health.

That's what I mean by "significantly better". I don't mean one of them has snuck into heroic raids and lucked into upgrades. One planned his gear strategy better and ended up in a much stronger place at the same progression stage.

Digren wrote: ...that other tank is geared significantly better than you ... One planned his gear strategy better and ended up in a much stronger place at the same progression stage.

It would be interesting to armory the two and compare in detail. My hunch is that what the OP needs to do is reforge avoidance into mastery, rather than stack stamina.

Objectively, 144k hp seems absolutely fine for heroics. I only have 142k hp unbuffed and I think my gear is about the best available without VPs or mega-buck BoE raid stuff (it averages ilevel 352). I have gone for a mixed sta/mastery gemming strategy and haven't found a nice stamina trinket though (I only have the green questing one but prefer to use mastery ones for most fights). The stamina/mastery arguments go on inconclusively, but I suspect that for heroics, a balance is best. You don't need 166k hp to avoid stressing your healer in 5 mans. One of our guild healers pugs a lot and disdains stamina stacking pug tanks, says he loves to heal me. Whether that is because I have 51% block or because I am meticulous in marking and applying CC, I don't know.

If you want to barrel through heroics without CC, then maybe you do need to be built like an outhouse door and stack 166k stamina. Your healer will still have to work their socks off, but since you have such a big health buffer, they may stress less. But that's not optimal play nor optimal gearing for heroics.

econ21 wrote:

Digren wrote: ...that other tank is geared significantly better than you ... One planned his gear strategy better and ended up in a much stronger place at the same progression stage.

It would be interesting to armory the two and compare in detail. My hunch is that what the OP needs to do is reforge avoidance into mastery, rather than stack stamina.

It was my impression that the OP had reforged and gemmed correctly, but has a lot of avoidance/threat or mastery/threat gear, while his friend has mostly mastery/avoidance gear. This allows his friend to devote both trinkets to stamina, while the OP must use a mastery trinket to merely match the ctc of his friend.

This means the friend can drop that stamina and push up his CTC with a trinket swap whenever he likes (and whether he should do so is a matter for a different discussion), but the OP can't really fix his gear except by replacing it.

econ21 wrote:
Objectively, 144k hp seems absolutely fine for heroics. I only have 142k hp unbuffed and I think my gear is about the best available without VPs or mega-buck BoE raid stuff (it averages ilevel 352). I have gone for a mixed sta/mastery gemming strategy and haven't found a nice stamina trinket though (I only have the green questing one but prefer to use mastery ones for most fights). The stamina/mastery arguments go on inconclusively, but I suspect that for heroics, a balance is best. You don't need 166k hp to avoid stressing your healer in 5 mans. One of our guild healers pugs a lot and disdains stamina stacking pug tanks, says he loves to heal me. Whether that is because I have 51% block or because I am meticulous in marking and applying CC, I don't know.

If you want to barrel through heroics without CC, then maybe you do need to be built like an outhouse door and stack 166k stamina. Your healer will still have to work their socks off, but since you have such a big health buffer, they may stress less. But that's not optimal play nor optimal gearing for heroics.

I've already almost ceased to mark anything in heroics. That would mean I pretty much take maximum damage on heroics as I pretty much WotLK-tank them now. I guess that classifies as barreling through heroics.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/s ... d/advanced

139k unbuffed is lower than 142. Almost 89% CTC is a LOT though (at least in my perverted version of pre-raid gear). For heroics, CTC coverage (with access to stam-trinks for specific pulls) balanced against superior avoidance for minimum damage is the best approach. By balancing I mean that 0.9% avoidance is better than 1.0% block even if it means lower CTC.

If you start slamming your way through heroics in 155k health unbuffed with gear of my quality (ilevel 353) then your healer will have to drink between every pull. That's hugely time-inefficient and will inevitably result in a larger number of wipes than needed as long as you run with the LFD.

I cannot stress enough how inferior stamina is to CTC for heroics. While I might very well have to regem the day I start to raid, for five-man heroics stamina is the wrong way to go.

Digren wrote: It was my impression that the OP had reforged and gemmed correctly, but has a lot of avoidance/threat or mastery/threat gear, while his friend has mostly mastery/avoidance gear.

He says he's only reforged threat stats, not avoidance, to mastery. He has about 6% more avoidance than me in my threat gear (which is what I logged out in) but 15% less block. My threat gear is the same ilevel (349) as his.