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Maintankadin

Expertise for MTing pallies - how much does it help?

rocket
Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:16 am

Expertise for MTing pallies - how much does it help?

I truly enjoy the theorycrafting associated with pally tanking, especially since I have been doing it for a while now...with my earliest actual raid OT role was either Naxx as the AoE add tank on Gluth, or an OT in AQ40 on Skeram. Ever since, like a lot of us presumably, we really had to earn our stripes of being a viable main tank for a large number of the bosses.

Now we have another variable : expertise, that I have read is second to spell damage for threat generation. I am trying to maximize my potential by tying this into my gearset - and need some advice fromt he experts here to short circuit a trial and error process.

I definitely see it having a huge effect as a OT on boss role, since after the review of multiple WWS reports at BT level, "Swing" is the top, or in the top 2 damage sources - so reducing the dodge and parry will increase overall damage, plus reduce parry gibs to the MT. Depending on the specific encounter, I can use the H-MgT shard of contempt, the brutalizer, and the SSO neck (aldor) for a pretty nice reduction in dodges and parries (i think -6.5 to both dodge and parry)

As a MT, however, I am trying to rationalize the tradeoff between the reduction in avoidance, and the gain in expertise. My tradeoffs would be the Pendant of Titans neck, and currently a Moroes trink (but am still waiting for SM insignia to replace it). I hope it is obvious that i do use a spell damage weap (HoJ with 40 spl dmg). In terms of threat as a MT, I generally have little issue with threat generation, and maintaining a threat pad on top of the rest of the dps (where when I ask the top dps, they say that they can generally go all-out after the first 10 seconds or so).

Is the rationalization that since the dodge and parry would be reduced by the boss by e.g. 6% total as a MT, there will be 6% more white and seal damage, and the healers - which seem generally bored farming BT can pick up the lack of avoidance? Is it more that the parry gibs are the primary source of MT deaths, so reducing the parries are really important? Is it more of a way to increase threat even more if the dps are threat capped?

On a boss like Kalecgos, where I am Tank #1 for the first 4 portals, i am especially sensitive to losing the avoidance - as I typically use the Moroes trinket about 10 seconds before Portal Tank 1 will reappear to take over the dragon to give me the extra avoidance that seems to help when at that point, a lot of the healers - sometimes all but 1, are left above to heal me. In a circumstance like this, do you all recommend to stick with the extra avoidance (especially the 300 dodge offered by Moroes on use), or again use more expertise?
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Worldie
Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:40 am
Expertise is a fairly good threat stat once you pass some limit.

If i'm not wrong, once passing 825 TPS, 1 expertise becomes comparable to 1 spelldamage since at that point most of our threat will be coming by SoR swings.
Obviously there's also the added benefit of reduced parryhasted swings.

I'm not sure in which post i've found the math, i'll look for it, or someone more theorycrafter than me could enlighten you as well.
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Snake-Aes
Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:03 am
hm..the sticky...
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rocket
Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:36 am
I guess my question is not really posed at the question of maximizing threat, but the trade of avoidance vs. expertise. I generally see that I can trade my tanking neck and trinkets pre-combat to maximize expertise, or maximize avoidance. More specifically, the trade of increasing avoidance vs minimizing boss parries for tank survivability.

From a threat point of view, I think my guildmates trust my threat production, so i am keeping the expertise somewhat ready to equip. My crushfree tank threat set runs about 650 spl dmg buffed(without zeal proc counted), where the avoidance is closer to 550 buffed.

Worldie - from your statement "...most of our threat will be coming from SoR swings", whereas my boss fights still tend to have consecrate at the top, with Swing and Seal 2nd and 3rd. Depending on the specifics of the fight, for me consecration can be from on-par in terms of my damage to double or more that of swing/SoR.
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Worldie
Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:12 pm
I see where you want to come.

Well i'm almost at 1000 buffed spelldam and my SoR are the biggest part of my threat (Cons ticks for 200ish making it around 380 tps.

Anyway, regarding what you said...
Well the point is that parrygib isn't really anywhere close to worry a paladin, since our only melee is our white swings. We might get the occasional parrygib but we are nowhere close to warriors in the needing of it for either threat or mitigation.

There's no real point in stacking expertise unless it's for threat, and even there, not in a excessive way. You aren't going to notice any difference in damage income even at expertise cap.
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rocket
Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:37 pm
geez! 1000 spl dmg in a tanking set!

my "DPS" set as prot is at best 950, but I think it is suicide for me to use that on bosses...on trash though you betcha - like for lower stuff
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Worldie
Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:06 pm
That's obviously raidbuffed, includes a shaman with WoA, and judgement of the crusader Razz
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Worldie
Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:16 pm
We often have a shaman in tank group, i just ask him to drop WoA instead of GoA if i need threat. Which works for 90% of mh and bt, i'd not bother in Sunwell obviously.
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DJSticky
Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:22 pm
The dps warrior who gets to be my commanding shout female assistant (when needed) doesn't like WoA to much, although I suppose if I need the shout I'd most likely like GoA anyway.

We are low on shammys though so it doesn't happen to much anyway, wtt some mages for shaman pst.
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Fangwui
Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:24 pm
well windfury does help our threat substantially.
Worldie
Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:53 pm
Has been verified that the wizard oil still increases our threat more than windfury.
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rocket
Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:16 pm
Did a Botanica badge run today, 1220 spell damage in my tanking threat gear - counting wizard oil, some dmg food, and the Alar tome proc. it does proc a lot btw. Got the mender 30 min buff as well, which made me see how much I could get, SoR was whooping butt, and consecrate was ticking for high high 200s when the tome was on proc.

I never knew the crossover point for spell damage where SoR overtakes consecration...must be in the 1000 spell damage range or so...
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Worldie
Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:27 am
Wasn't the "enough spelldamage" for WF to > WoA+oil be in the order of 1000 or i'm wrong in remembering?
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