Ulduar Tanking - HP vs Avoidance

Having a Death Knight as my offtank has really opened my eyes to the woes of stacking stamina over avoidance/mitigation. He just a lot harder to keep up, and that ~10k HP he has over me isn't helping.

Although, blocking and other factors may be key here... I've started eyeing my other trinkets that have been gathering dust. Namely the Rune of Repulsion, as I don't have a Defender's Code. Untill recently, I scoffed at these trinkets in favor of my Essence of Gossamer and Alch Stone.

The thing that started all this is when I swapped in my Repelling Charge instead of the Essence. To me (and my healers) the avoidance it grants has a much larger impact than the small HP buffer. Then I realized that the Alch stone is pretty much the same, save for the Dodge. If not for that Dodge it'd be banked and there would be no issue.

The Rune of Repulsion grants 1.93% parry and has a nice Use (7.6% parry for 20 sec). The Alch Stone grants 1.2% Dodge and +75 Stam.

What it comes down to is 0.7% Avoidance & CD VS +75 Stam & ~1,300 more HP from my potions.

I'm sure I'll get a new trinket and I won't have this problem anymore, same thing happened when I was trying to get block capped. And I know what I've described... trinkets are situational.

I guess it took me all that text to basically ask, what are you guys doing in Ulduar when it comes to your HP vs Avoidance? Without HP trinkets I sit ~35k buffed, without a priest. (10 mans... what ya gonna do )

Rune of Repulsion may be one of the worst tanking trinkets in the game. If you want to stack avoidance, you're better off using Valor Medal of the First War (2.13% dodge; 8.51% on use).

As for tanking normal mode fights, 35k HP may suffice if you're stacking enough avoidance and block. However you're going to want 42-45k HP raid buffed once you start attempting fights where the bosses hit regularly for nearly 20k.

HP >> avoidance, avoidance being really too unreliable !

What happened last time I was on XT-002:
- 12 hit avoided
- 6 hit landed

At this stage, I died because in the long term, the healers couldn't keep me alive and I couldn't get enough EH to get two hit with no heal.

For XT, you want to gear for EH rather than avoidance since many of the main burst attacks cannot be avoided. When i say EH, i dun mean just stam, but rather a combination of armor and stam with a block-capped set.

Easy way to check block cap:

Code: Select all

/run dr=function(x)return 1/(1/16+0.9560/x)end;DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 - Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5+dr(floor(GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL))*0.04)))

Macro courtesy of æ

Belarkan wrote:HP >> avoidance, avoidance being really too unreliable !

What happened last time I was on XT-002:
- 12 hit avoided
- 6 hit landed

At this stage, I died because in the long term, the healers couldn't keep me alive and I couldn't get enough EH to get two hit with no heal.

Well it sounds a little like a contradiction to me. If healers can't keep up in the long term, I'd assume it's 'cause you took too much damage => more avoidance would help(or mitigation)? XT hits me for 15k on average in 25man anyway, and on our last (rather slow, 6:07) kill i took 45 hits, avoided 66,2%...and didn't really need any more than ~41k hp at any point.

I run Monarch Crab and Repelling charge.
Gives me nice stamina bonus with avoidance use, and nice avoidance with EH use.

Hoping for heart of iron at some point, would allow me to use dual EH static, avoidance uses, or just upgrade on monarch crab with HoI depending on fight.

Khayne wrote:Hoping for heart of iron at some point, would allow me to use dual EH static, avoidance uses, or just upgrade on monarch crab with HoI depending on fight.

Understatement of the century. Anyone who is a tank is hoping for heart of iron, regardless what they believe.

We've had ridiculously good luck on that, 3 out of 4 weeks it's dropped. Makes a change considering we only ever saw Wall of Terror once despite having Naxx on farm after the 3rd week of Wrath >.<

If your DK is in one of the builds that's maxing stamina (e.g. blood) then he's loosing some avoidance. I pair with a DK for tanking who tanks in unholy and he's fine. He has a lot more avoidance than me and the only reason we take about the same amount of long-term damage is my shield. If he's not getting hit much his Bone Armor is up most of the time and reducing a lot of incoming damage.

Perhaps your DK is stacking stamina at the expense of large amounts of avoidance. There is some diminishing returns on stacking health.

I think both extremes can be good here - but I would correct it to say EH vs Avoidance, and I would go as far as to say establishing a good mix is better.

I have 25500 unbuffed armor, 33k unbuffed hp, and just shy of 60% avoidance (with raidbuffs). I'm just a little shy of the block cap, but 2% doesn't really bug me for the avoidance gains I've got.

I can survive two hits from anything in Ulduar, and I have enough avoidance that I don't have to take two hits in a row often. Don't undervalue armor here as part of EH - it really comes a long way in helping you take those two hits in a row.

I run Heart of Iron and Furnace Stone as trinkets - both cooldowns are great to have, and rotating those with shield wall on certain bosses will drastically lower your damage intake over a fight.

Don't undervalue your threat stats either, especially hit - Yogg requires quick pickups in p3 and having that hit really helps I find. Also remember that as DPS get upgrades they are really going to be breathing down your neck, especially on fights like Hodir hard mode and General Vezak.

If I may be so bold, I'd suggest getting to the point where you can take two hits back to back from a boss, then stacking avoidance. Having 3 cooldowns is nice too.

There isn't any clear winner here. A lot of the decision will come down to each encounter. General Vezax, for example, is a fight where avoidance is going to be the best stat as long as you can survive 2 hits in a row. In general, small gains in EH don't mean anything if they can't increase the number of consecutive boss hits that you can survive. This is true for a fight like Deconstructor, but not so much for a fight like hodir or thorium. Hodir and Thorim are fights with smaller increments of incoming damage from multiple sources (as well as those big boss hits), and thus small hp gains will actually contribute to your survivability.

On the topic of threat, I am finding it matters more than I previously believed. After shedding my tier 7 and block gear, I was down 10% damage on HoTR and about 500 BV. This hit my threat hard, and now I am finding our mages and warlocks riding my threat on some fights. That being said, I would continue to ignore threat stats (with exception of hit rating). This just means that Hand of Salvation will actually see some use in the future.

In short and human failure aside:
=> EH if you are in danger of dying between heals.
=> Avoidance if your healers tend to go oom.
=> Threat if you are not dying (<5%).

Regarding progression (here: Ulduar) and learning fights: Definitely EH.

Also:

Ghostcrawler wrote:To be honest, despite all of the nerfs, mana regeneration still doesn't seem to be an issue for healers in Ulduar.

The set in my armory Is what I use for Uld 25/10 I believe im at 49.9 avoid Un buffed with 33kish hp, but we have been pretty lucky so far with tank drops.

I've done some tests and my conclusion was to add as much stamina as I could once I reach the 100% on a 83+ mob.
So far I can reach 44k HP full buffed with 2.3k BV (with T8 bonus) and 60% of avoidance. In my guild we are doing 100% of our raids with a discipline priest which means I got all the time a bubble around me absorbing nearly 7k.

So I'm not experiencing any problem to stay alive.

I love these threads, makes me realize just how unlucky I am at getting drops !
Anyway, I have noticed that I get hit soooo much harder now and w/the face roll naxx was that is shocking. I'm in the process of trying to balance EH and Avoidance. I tank w/warriors as MT's (just the guilds dynamics) I have no issues w/threat because I'm constantly trying not to pull off the MT yet staying close.

Im hoping I too get the heart of iron and maybe some day MAYBE I'll be able to upgrade the Red Sword of Courage.
Currently I'm at 31.2K unbuffed 105.3% avoidance and about 24K armor. I'm hoping as I upgrade I can take 2 hits again w/o the threat of dying. I could in patchwork, still don't feel that comfortable in Ulduar yet.