World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all?

Goldy

< Blades of Wrath >

Icecrown

320. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 01:08:05 PM PDT

I will again put it in simple terms as the way I first understood this arguement that the devs consider flawed and explain again to them why its simple armor and straight up health over avoidance every single time. Unless the swing timers are so damn slow you can have healers straight up reactive heal a fight looking for avoidance then in the setup for a fight which is not just a tank but a healer section as well who form this battery has to plan on every single hit landing no matter what your avoidance is like. THis is due to the fact that its still dice roll tanking in that there is nothing that says a hit cannot land 10 straight times nor something that makes it so it can miss 10 straight times due to luck factors involved. The fact that anything in between that is likely as well means you have to prepare for the worst to avoid wiping or complain about getting "10 straight hits" which over time will happen for sure. Avoidance gives some help to weaker healing and sometimes can save you from a few big hits killing you but even what will be considered "good avoidance" in the next patch and "less spike damage" you still will never be able to plan on every third hit missing etc etc and only healing for a set amount over a set period of time as enough to keep a tank alive because they are "great tanks" and understand that avoidance is ohh so good in this new world of no avoidance.

Do realize in raiding business outside of the number crunching business avoidance = overhealing and nothing more. It has been this way forever because you havent been able to reactive heal in a long long time.

[ Post edited by Goldy ]

http://www.bow-icecrown.com/#

Ghostcrawler

Blizzard Poster

321. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:01:59 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Avoidance is not irrelevant. It's just irrelevant when determining what stats to itemize/gem/enchant for.

That may be true, but it's not really the point I am arguing. Many players here are confusing the distinction between whether avoidance matters and whether it's a worthwhile stat to stack on gear.

Here is the misstep I see several of you making:

I don’t gear for avoidance. Therefore avoidance doesn’t matter in my gear decisions. Therefore avoidance has no effect on survival. Oops.

Q u o t e:
1. Can we expect more unavoidable, devastating melee-based attacks in ICC? If so, what point do they serve from a design stand point?
2. Are we finally going to get away from the 2 hits back to back will gib the tank situation we are in now?
3. How are you going to handle Chill of the Throne when the pre-Cata patch comes out and we lose another ~18% avoidance when Defense goes away as a stat?

1. Probably. They serve as challenges that your group needs to overcome by making sure enough healers are focused on the big damage spike and cooldowns (the tank’s or external ones) are used appropriately. If you could avoid those attacks they would need to hit for even harder to compensate. If you could avoid those hits, then sometimes you would just let lucky and make it through the encounter unscathed and other times you'd get gibbed. Believe me; you want those to be unavoidable.

2. The idea behind the Chill is to lower boss damage per hit but keep damage per time the same overall. The reason I caveat that statement so much is I know that we’re going to see lots of tanks that die in Icecrown and then ask us to nerf the encounters or buff their tanks. The purpose of these changes is not to prevent tank deaths. You will die. Probably a lot. You are going into the Lich King’s home after all.

3. I dunno. I imagine we will just drop it. We’ll have a lot of fixin’ up to do before Cat is ready to go live.

Q u o t e:
He said that EH isn't the end-all-be-all that sites like tankspot tell you it is.

Well, to be fair most theorycrafting tanks on Tankspot and other places who really understand the concept of EH won’t tell you it’s the only thing that matters, just that it is very important. The problem is that some players who perhaps don’t understand the theorycrafting as well try to take the notion to illogical extremes.

If we buffed DK parry to 99% and dropped their health 5K then it would be a huge EH nerf but they would probably be the best tanks by a wide margin. Now that's a very contrived scenario but you can't argue that just because tank avoidance happens to be close right now that avoidance is irrelevant as a stat when determining survivability.

Q u o t e:
It seems like GC is answering (as he frequently does) a different discussion than what was posted.

This thread was yet another “my EH is too low, please buff” thread. I wanted to point out why there was a disconnect between many of the threads on this forum and the developers. The disconnect comes in too many attempts to convert cooldowns as different as AD and VB into EH, stack rack the tanks based on that questionable estimate, and then complain about the order.

The discussion got distracted a little with the “GC says avoidance is better than stamina” nonsense, but the above was my original intent.

It's fine if you disagree with us. I just wanted to address all of the "Everyone agrees we need to be buffed but Blizzard" arguments.

Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

Surfiehbk

< After Life >

Whisperwind

322. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:08:14 PM PDT

GC, that is fine, but I've never seen you try to justify Paladins having more avoidance, more EH and superior cooldowns to Warriors.

If Warriors actually had more avoidance or DPS than Paladins while having less EH, then your argument might hold water. But right now, this is not the case.

There are a lot of factors that are important, even if they aren't as important, as EH. These are DPS, TPS, EH, Avoidance, Cooldowns, Utility. Is it in your vision to have one tank that is better than another tank at every one of those categories? Utility is a tossup depending on the fight, but those other categories are true all the time.

[ Post edited by Surfiehbk ]

Zarko

< Way of the Wicked >

Skywall

324. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:31:06 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

That may be true, but it's not really the point I am arguing. Many players here are confusing the distinction between whether avoidance matters and whether it's a worthwhile stat to stack on gear.

Here is the misstep I see several of you making:

I don’t gear for avoidance. Therefore avoidance doesn’t matter in my gear decisions. Therefore avoidance has no effect on survival. Oops.

I don't gear for avoidance. It comes naturally on my gear and greatly contributes to my average damage taken. However, I am 3rd out of 4 tanks when it comes to avoidance levels. I am also 3rd or 4th out of 4 tanks when it comes to EH. I am also not that great when it comes to cooldowns. I do have good single target threat, but I have to play my ass off for it.

I'm a little annoyed that I have less health, less EH, less avoidance and worse cooldowns than a paladin. I also have a worse stance modifier, less mitigation over time, and I'm designed around gimmicks that have little impact in raiding.

Q u o t e:

Well, to be fair most theorycrafting tanks on Tankspot and other places who really understand the concept of EH won’t tell you it’s the only thing that matters, just that it is very important. The problem is that some players who perhaps don’t understand the theorycrafting as well try to take the notion to illogical extremes.

If we buffed DK parry to 99% and dropped their health 5K then it would be a huge EH nerf but they would probably be the best tanks by a wide margin. Now that's a very contrived scenario but you can't argue that just because tank avoidance happens to be close right now that avoidance is irrelevant as a stat when determining survivability.

There's a legitimate debate that there's such a thing as an EH "cap" for an encounter, past which there is not significant benefit to survival by increasing stamina.

However, there is no legitimate position that a tank having more stam, more avoidance, better coodowns, etc. etc. etc., is not better.

Q u o t e:

This thread was yet another “my EH is too low, please buff” thread. I wanted to point out why there was a disconnect between many of the threads on this forum and the developers. The disconnect comes in too many attempts to convert cooldowns as different as AD and VB into EH, stack rack the tanks based on that questionable estimate, and then complain about the order.

The discussion got distracted a little with the “GC says avoidance is better than stamina” nonsense, but the above was my original intent.

It's fine if you disagree with us. I just wanted to address all of the "Everyone agrees we need to be buffed but Blizzard" arguments.

Why haven't you addressed Paladin scaling? That's what this thread is about. You've made paladins have very few weaknesses. With the new DG they'll have even more advantages. A lot of us just don't get why you're going in this direction.

Gunny

< Bloodhorde >

Earthen Ring

325. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:40:47 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

That may be true, but it's not really the point I am arguing. Many players here are confusing the distinction between whether avoidance matters and whether it's a worthwhile stat to stack on gear.

Here is the misstep I see several of you making:

I don’t gear for avoidance. Therefore avoidance doesn’t matter in my gear decisions. Therefore avoidance has no effect on survival. Oops.

1. Probably. They serve as challenges that your group needs to overcome by making sure enough healers are focused on the big damage spike and cooldowns (the tank’s or external ones) are used appropriately. If you could avoid those attacks they would need to hit for even harder to compensate. If you could avoid those hits, then sometimes you would just let lucky and make it through the encounter unscathed and other times you'd get gibbed. Believe me; you want those to be unavoidable.

2. The idea behind the Chill is to lower boss damage per hit but keep damage per time the same overall. The reason I caveat that statement so much is I know that we’re going to see lots of tanks that die in Icecrown and then ask us to nerf the encounters or buff their tanks. The purpose of these changes is not to prevent tank deaths. You will die. Probably a lot. You are going into the Lich King’s home after all.

3. I dunno. I imagine we will just drop it. We’ll have a lot of fixin’ up to do before Cat is ready to go live.

Well, to be fair most theorycrafting tanks on Tankspot and other places who really understand the concept of EH won’t tell you it’s the only thing that matters, just that it is very important. The problem is that some players who perhaps don’t understand the theorycrafting as well try to take the notion to illogical extremes.

If we buffed DK parry to 99% and dropped their health 5K then it would be a huge EH nerf but they would probably be the best tanks by a wide margin. Now that's a very contrived scenario but you can't argue that just because tank avoidance happens to be close right now that avoidance is irrelevant as a stat when determining survivability.

This thread was yet another “my EH is too low, please buff” thread. I wanted to point out why there was a disconnect between many of the threads on this forum and the developers. The disconnect comes in too many attempts to convert cooldowns as different as AD and VB into EH, stack rack the tanks based on that questionable estimate, and then complain about the order.

The discussion got distracted a little with the “GC says avoidance is better than stamina” nonsense, but the above was my original intent.

It's fine if you disagree with us. I just wanted to address all of the "Everyone agrees we need to be buffed but Blizzard" arguments.

The disconnect on this issue seems to be based on perspective. Look at it from the point of view of the players. Where do we have the ability to alter our gear choices? For many of us upgrade decisions are still fairly easy to make. We get our defense cap, our hit/expertise cap, then go for anything that allows us to put on more stamina. The bulk of tanks I see gem and enchant for stamina (only flexing to get meta bonuses). This is the situation because dodge and parry tend to just naturally stack and improve with higher item levels of gear. I often armory tanks from end game guilds and I'm surprised to see that their avoidance stats aren't much different than mine, hell, sometimes they're worse, but they'll have as much as 5-6k more unbuffed health.

This is the situation that Blizzard has created. Block as a stat in general is frowned upon and considred useless outside of 5 mans or add tanking. Avoidance stacking still leaves the door open for bad luck streaks that will get ya killed. How do you avoid that? Stacking stamina.

Getting back to the point, it's frustrating to stack all the stamina you can, because that's the standard, and see either a tank in lower level gear having as much or more health than you, or one in comparable gear having substantially more health than you. It really comes into play in fights where unavoidable damage bursts are bound to happen and you know it's going to be easier to keep up the guy with higher mitigation and health than it is to depend on the randomness of avoidance and lower health. Does it matter if it's just a matter of perception? Not really because the situation has been this way for years now. Stamina stacking for the win with the exception of a few gimmick type fights.

Blizzard seems to be looking at it from the perspective that players simply don't have all the facts. That may be the case, but there are more of us that play the game than there are of you, and our in game experiences probably deserve at least a little consideration in your decision making process. When a large segment of the player base begins to feel underpowered and disadvantaged it may be more than a simple case of mass QQ hysteria.

P.S. The past comments about tan

Gunny

< Bloodhorde >

Earthen Ring

326. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:41:56 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

I don't gear for avoidance. It comes naturally on my gear and greatly contributes to my average damage taken. However, I am 3rd out of 4 tanks when it comes to avoidance levels. I am also 3rd or 4th out of 4 tanks when it comes to EH. I am also not that great when it comes to cooldowns. I do have good single target threat, but I have to play my ass off for it.

I'm a little annoyed that I have less health, less EH, less avoidance and worse cooldowns than a paladin. I also have a worse stance modifier, less mitigation over time, and I'm designed around gimmicks that have little impact in raiding.

There's a legitimate debate that there's such a thing as an EH "cap" for an encounter, past which there is not significant benefit to survival by increasing stamina.

However, there is no legitimate position that a tank having more stam, more avoidance, better coodowns, etc. etc. etc., is not better.

Why haven't you addressed Paladin scaling? That's what this thread is about. You've made paladins have very few weaknesses. With the new DG they'll have even more advantages. A lot of us just don't get why you're going in this direction.

Oh, I think I get it, but apparently my tinfoil hat is contributing to these wicked thoughts.

Constontine

< Forged by Fire >

Gorgonnash

327. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:47:01 PM PDT

how about warrior cooldowns being brought in line with other classes without having to use a glyph? Or 2 talent points and a major glyph.

Cinos

< One Shot Inc >

Daggerspine

328. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 02:59:20 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

If we buffed DK parry to 99% and dropped their health 5K then it would be a huge EH nerf but they would probably be the best tanks by a wide margin. Now that's a very contrived scenario but you can't argue that just because tank avoidance happens to be close right now that avoidance is irrelevant as a stat when determining survivability.

Respectfully, I believe that this scenario proves exactly how important EH is in encounters. Even if you buffed DK parry to 100%, Gormok's impale on normal difficulty would kill this tank instantly about 10 seconds into the encounter. So long as boss mechanics exist in-game which are unavoidable, classes with higher effective health will have an advantage.

Khurg

Terokkar

330. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 03:04:17 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
Find it funny some of you are still trying to argue, or force your point onto gc.

They obviously disagree to what you say.
They are obviously going to do it there way

What dont you understand O-o

The flawed logic behind having a tank with such clear cut advantages over other tanks.

Gustu

< Infallible >

Eonar

332. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 03:08:25 PM PDT

more wondering why a warrior tanks scales less then all other thanks in terms of stamina, we don't have an advantage over any of the other tanks, so why are we the lowest hp?

Gustu

< Infallible >

Eonar

335. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 03:12:49 PM PDT

Q u o t e:

Because theres lots of you :P

i'm sure that will be a big help when surviving a dragon's breath ><

Vandal

< Body Countz >

Cho'gall

338. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 03:18:33 PM PDT

the summary of all this is that players are pissed that their characters are effectively getting castrated in ICC because of bad game design and it's some how not the game designers fault.

Tarmaniel

< Epic Weapons Vendor >

Khadgar

339. Re: Tank EH being looked at in 3.3 at all? 10/30/2009 03:18:34 PM PDT

Q u o t e:
how about warrior cooldowns being brought in line with other classes without having to use a glyph? Or 2 talent points and a major glyph.

I don't get this gripe. DKs need a talent point to get one of their cooldowns in the first place and then need to glyph it. Paladins need to spend five talent points to maximize their cooldowns.

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