Getting schooled about gear Icebane Hauberk

I recently looted this Icebane Hauberk http://www.wowhead.com/?item=67143 I should have gone with my first instinct and given it to a DK. Instead I decided to reforge it and gem it and see how it would work in my gear set.

In order to get it to provide the same combat table coverage coverage as Chestplate of the Steadfast http://www.wowhead.com/?item=58101 I gain 2k health and some hit. I reforged the parry to mastery and gemed it with mastery and stamina.

It might be a good chest for a DK with all the parry on it but I don't think it deserves a spot on the gear list above the Chestplate of the Steadfast. The mastery is just to good for Protection Paladins.

Hopefully I'm missing something. This is the formula I'm using to find my combat table coverage:

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combat table coverage. Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5))

I get 81.66 with my mastery trinket and 78.47 with stamina for Chestplate of the Steadfast http://www.wowhead.com/?item=58101
I get 81.00 with my mastery trinket and 77.85 with stamina for Icebane Hauberk http://www.wowhead.com/?item=67143

Here is my armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/hydraxis/incite/simple

Guess I'm just a little disappointed that its not really a upgrade.

edit.

I also tried reforging the hit to mastery hoping that the extra parry would bump it up on the coverage on the combat table but it actually lowers them.

There has to be some level where stamina and avoidance exceed mastery rating. Combat table coverage may be good, but maximizing combat table coverage is not the same as minimizing damage taken.

Chestplate of the Steadfast has 514 stamina, 693 mastery rating equivalent, and 253 avoidance rating equivalent in my model, once enhanced (always ignoring enchants).

Icebane Hauberk has 572 stamina, 598 mastery rating equivalent, and 361 avoidance rating equivalent. Mastery rating equivalent includes the contribution of armor and thus takes into account that difference.

Thus, in giving up 95 MRE, you gain 58 stamina and 108 ARE.

If your goal is to maximize combat table coverage, then you should value ARE at about 7.5% of the value of MRE. In that case, yeah the Chestplate of the Steadfast is better. But you should be consistent in this, and always value avoidance as just 7.5% of mastery rating. Looking at your gear, you don't do this. For example, on your helmet, you use a red gem to get 20 parry rating and 30 dodge rating. If your goal is to maximize combat table coverage, you should have ignored the socket bonus and used a mastery/stamina gem, because 20 MRE is better than 50 ARE for combat table coverage.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to minimize damage taken, then ARE is worth about 75% of the value of MRE. In that case, it makes sense to take 50 ARE over 20 MRE, and it makes the Icebane Hauberk much better when compared with the Chestplate of the Steadfast.

Clearly also, you value stamina pretty highly. You've chosen to use +101 stamina gems for your JC bonuses, instead of mastery gems. On some pieces you've chosen to use pure stamina gems instead of any mastery at all. So you seem to value stamina, at minimum, of a ratio of 1.5 to 1 (i.e. 30 stamina >= 20 mastery rating).

To be consistent with how I see you gearing, you should consider the Icebane Hauberk to offer the equivalent of 120 mastery rating, which is more than the 95 mastery rating you give up from the Chestplate of the Steadfast. Thus, the Icebane Hauberk is better for you.

As a separate thought, let's see what we can tweak to get this more obvious. In terms of real differences

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                      Set with Chestplate of the Steadfast     Set with Icebane Hauberk
Armor                                                                   +128
Stamina                                                                  +58
Dodge + Parry Rating                                                    +119
Mastery Rating                    +113

First off, let's even out the stamina. Suppose you take the Icebane Hauberk, and then replace the two pure stamina gems on your belt with stamina/mastery gems. Now the effective difference between the two gear sets is:

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                      Set with Chestplate of the Steadfast     Set with Icebane Hauberk
Armor                                                                   +128
Stamina                             +2
Dodge + Parry Rating                                                    +119
Mastery Rating                     +73

Per Theck's math, 7 armor is about as good as 1 mastery rating. So adjusting for the armor difference,

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                      Set with Chestplate of the Steadfast     Set with Icebane Hauberk
Armor
Stamina                             +2
Dodge + Parry Rating                                                    +119
Mastery Rating                    ~+55

That's I think as far as I can easily adjust your gear, but that's a pretty direct comparison. 55 mastery rating is more combat table coverage than 119 avoidance rating, but 119 avoidance rating results in less damage taken than 55 mastery rating. You can decide which is more important and select the piece that fits your strategy best.

Good luck!

Thank you for the response.

I replaced the gems in my belt as you recommended, well kind of I chose a parry/mastery so I could pick up the socket bonus. I used the mastery/stamina gem for the colorless slot though.

At what point is it better to change to stamina over avoidance stats? Is there a rule of thumb number? I seem to remember reading on one of the theory crafting posts that its around the 80 % mark.

The reason I am gemmed the way I am is because I am gemming per the survival gemming guide. It rates the 101 stamina gem at the top of the list for blue or colorless sockets ( or red gem with poor bonus ).

Ideally I would move the stamina gem in my shoulders to the colorless in my belt and will as soon as they add the socket to the crafted belts. I plan to replace my belt then.

If you can please explain to me how the formula I am using to determine combat table coverage works. I see that it takes dodge, block ( I equate this to mastery ), and parry into account. How do I add in armor?

I don't mind constructive criticism at all and if I am doing something wrong I'd like to fix it.

Thank you for your time.

Incite. wrote:Thank you for the response.

I replaced the gems in my belt as you recommended, well kind of I chose a parry/mastery so I could pick up the socket bonus. I used the mastery/stamina gem for the colorless slot though.

At what point is it better to change to stamina over avoidance stats? Is there a rule of thumb number? I seem to remember reading on one of the theory crafting posts that its around the 80 % mark.

The reason I am gemmed the way I am is because I am gemming per the survival gemming guide. It rates the 101 stamina gem at the top of the list for blue or colorless sockets ( or red gem with poor bonus ).

Ideally I would move the stamina gem in my shoulders to the colorless in my belt and will as soon as they add the socket to the crafted belts. I plan to replace my belt then.

If you can please explain to me how the formula I am using to determine combat table coverage works. I see that it takes dodge, block ( I equate this to mastery ), and parry into account. How do I add in armor?

I don't mind constructive criticism at all and if I am doing something wrong I'd like to fix it.

Thank you for your time.

Stamina over avoidance is a very difficult call, as it is very encounter dependent. The way I'm addressing it is by establishing a baseline stamina per tank stage, and encouraging people to reach that baseline before attempting to move into the next stage.

Comparing pieces of gear, though, much be done somewhat in a vacuum - I could use a different rating system for each tank stage with different weights per stat, but for now I don't. Thus I have to pin some equivalent of stamina to mastery for comparison purposes. I pinned this ratio at 1 stamina = 0.7 mastery rating. This actually makes stamina a little better than the 1.5:1 ratio, but note that I still gem at 1.5:1 before evaluating gear. It's somewhat arbitrary but I felt this was a reasonable middle ground between all sta and all mastery for the purposes of item comparison.

Yes, the 101 sta is the top choice for a blue socket, but 67 mastery rating is the top choice for a yellow socket. Picking between them is still your decision. Were I a JCer, I'd probably use two stamina and one mastery rating JC gem.

Armor doesn't affect combat table coverage at all. It only affects total damage taken. But - given a snapshot of gear and content, it can be approximately related to any other stat that affects total damage taken. Theck worked out the math here that related it to mastery for a given point, which is where I took the ratio I'm using:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... ic#p632421

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Blizzard has made gearing much harder than it was in WotLK by making two stats viable for stacking (sta and mastery rating) which can't be easily compared. (In wrath you could stack armor and sta but when and how much for each was obvious.) They also made it much harder to compare items because of how much they can be adjusted via gems and reforging. Thus, proper gearing is more of a spectrum than a point.

I pretty much point people towards a middle ground of that spectrum, because most will make small adjustments to my advice (or small errors in implementing it) but that will still leave them within the spectrum of good gearing. If you understand the tradeoffs, though, you can ignore my advice and take your own path anywhere in the spectrum, and you may find equal success.