Blade Ward - Subject to DR?

I've been reading about Blade Ward for the last little bit, trying to decide if I just wasted money or if it was a good thing.

As I was reading, I didn't see any mention of whether or not the rating was subject to DR. I know that DKs were pissed when Blade Barrier was changed in the Blood Tree because the 10% parry wasn't subject to DR; it was a flat 10% on top of what you already existed. So 20% Parry became 30% Parry when it was active, NOT a lessened amount due to hitting DR range with parry.

As I sit here and think about it, the 200 "rating" aspect seems like it would (the DK talent read 10% parry, not the equivalent amount of rating).

But, on the other side, if it's NOT subject to DR, wouldn't that make the enchant potentially a little better than what has been previously thought?

I'm going to read over at EJ and see if I can find anything.

It's rating not %. It's affected by DR. Harshly.

Why care about something which won't last more than 5 sec?

unfortunately, i don't think pallys got love with these enchants. BW is good, but since we cast spells while tanking vs doing special hits that don't mess up the autoswing, it seems like its not too great. when i experimented with it, it seemed like my proc rate was about a 1/3 of the warrior's. im wondering if reckoning would improve it, but i really don't want to burn talent points there just to proc this guy. i actually switched back to accuracy as i still have a few BV pieces not in the t8.5 set and would only have 200 hit without enchants toward it. i can't speak to the DR as i didn't test it long enough, but i would think it would be subject to it.

Racolus wrote:Why care about something which won't last more than 5 sec?

Because more avoidance that isn't subject to the effects of DR is pretty amazing.

Blood Draining >>>>>>>>> Blade Ward.

It's basically a free healthstone every time it matters.

Theckhd's analysis shows that Blood Draining doesn't even increase your survivability. I use it on my Druid for sure, and I'd probably use it on my Paladin if it weren't for the anti-synergy between it and Ardent Defender. Ultimately, though, all of these enchantments are pretty bad unless you need threat (Accuracy is pretty good for that).

I use Blade Ward. In my testing, it gives about 2.5% Parry out of 100% (and since I have ~60% avoidance otherwise, this amounts to an effective 6.25% fewer hits taken) and about 5% uptime. You can't quite go by the uptime, though, because it drops as soon as you parry. Obviously this makes it a little difficult to calculate exactly how effective it is. I admit it does sound somewhat weak, but we don't have many choices, so this is what I go with.

moduspwnens wrote:Theckhd's analysis shows that Blood Draining doesn't even increase your survivability.

Um since when? Last I read he showed that it's always a survival increase over nothing.

Also people say we didn't get much love with BW due to relatively few attacks. But what we have all failed to consider is that other classes more rapid attacks mean that mongoose gets better for them too meaning that BW doesn't have a home.

I'm still hoping they decide to add weapon enchants for tanking at some point.

Majiben wrote:

moduspwnens wrote:Theckhd's analysis shows that Blood Draining doesn't even increase your survivability.

Um since when? Last I read he showed that it's always a survival increase over nothing.

I guess it's been a little while since I've read over it, but here's the summary:

theckhd wrote:TLDR Summary:

• While Blood Draining can push us out of AD range, and thus cause "leapfrogging" that kills us, reducing our TTL in some situations, it also adds TTL to other situations where we were in AD range but had slightly less HP than the size of the incoming hits after AD mitigation is factored in.
• As a result, at least in this simple analysis, Blood Draining will never reduce your average TTL, assuming that your "starting health" obeys a flat probability density function. So at least in that respect, the naysayers were wrong.
• Yes, the above is an unreliable (and probably incorrect) assumption, but without a more involved model of how healing effects change the probability density function, it will be hard to come up with anything rigorous. Empirical data might help here.
• Despite the fact that blood draining won't reduce your survivability, it also doesn't do anything to increase it for very large boss hits. Unfortunately, very large boss hits are often what kills a tank, making this an expensive enchant that works best in the cases we don't need it, and worst in the cases we do.

He admits, though, that the study required assumptions that may or may not be good. Still though, it doesn't paint a rosy picture, although Blade Warding, again, isn't exactly stellar. It's probably more of a personal choice.

Yeah his testing assumes super patchwerk OTing for his large hits, that is to say only large hits and spammed to full healing. Now there are a few fights like that but many more still challenging fights that are nothing like that.

P.S. Some to the single hit threats are unaffected by avoidance/armor from other options too.

Last I checked, BD was lame for a paladin, because it keeps Ardent Defender off of you. Discuss.

Read theck's thread there is nothing left to discuss on that.

Majiben wrote:Yeah his testing assumes super patchwerk OTing for his large hits, that is to say only large hits and spammed to full healing. Now there are a few fights like that but many more still challenging fights that are nothing like that.

P.S. Some to the single hit threats are unaffected my avoidance/armor from other options too.

It's the same few fights that matter. The rest of fights you will do fine with icy enchant on your mh.

Definitely not. Almost no fight has only large bursts with significant laspes between hits for a full health bar between each hit.