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Q u o t e:


I wouldn't blame only the Itemization team at all.

It is more of a disconnect I think between the teams, which if you have ever worked in a large corporate environment isn't a hard thing to accomplish.

It can even happen between a team of 10 members if they are located in slightly different area's on the same floor of an office.

The problem I think is more they try to get fast changes in to make sure players don't get benched but don't look fully at the long term effects they will have, in tiers to come scaling wise. Mostly they do this because they can always come back to it later would be my guess.

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Through all the years I've been playing this game, I would say that WotLK is probably the worst content/balance that I've seen. I attribute this to the merge between Blizzard and Activision (as I don't really see any other major change to company structure), but I still believe it is the fault of the itemization department. The itemization team knows how every stat scales, and they do things that make no sense to me half the time. I saw tanking legs from Ulduar (not sure if it was 10 or 25 man) that had armor penetration on them. Seriously? ArP on tanking legs. If this doesn't show that the itemization team is lost then I don't know what does. Obviously that piece of gear was ALWAYS going to be disenchanted as there is no point in ever wearing a stat intended for dps on a tanking piece. I also see only 1 item in ToGC for tanks that have hit rating on them. Explain this one to me, because I would really like to know why the itemization team felt that hit rating was no longer important to tanks. The only conclusion I can come to with this is that the itemization team (plus the other teams involved with PvE design) feel that you shouldn't be wearing the highest item level pieces of gear on every single slot. You should pick and choose, which is fine but flawed.

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We just don't think that works. If you put very unattractive stats on gear then players just go back the previous tier of gear and complain that we don't know how to itemize. If you put bonus stamina on the tier 10 gear, then that means the next tier of gear better have bonus stamina as well. If it has avoidance instead of that bonus stamina, tanks just shrug and go back to the tier 10 gear.

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This does kinda remind me of the player reaction to deciding staves wouldn't have a 'tanking' variety after Naxx. I know I kept onto Origin long enough that I lost out on rolls on Twisted Visage (the one time it dropped), and now I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs hoping I even get to see the weapons from ToC or Ony I want drop at all, let alone win the roll.

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I still disagree with you. Again, I base it on the likelihood of a tank dying from a string of hits. Bears become *much* more likely to have this happen than other tanks do. You can't just look at it from total damage taken.

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You can disagree, but that doesn't make you right.

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I still disagree with you. Again, I base it on the likelihood of a tank dying from a string of hits. Bears become *much* more likely to have this happen than other tanks do. You can't just look at it from total damage taken.

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This doesn't touch EH, which is exactly what you are talking about.

It ups the chance of worst case scenario some yes. But since druids have better EH it helps off set the value of TTL.

If you have a higher chance to get worst case scenario, but handle it with the best TTL value, then they off set each other.

Much like for physical hits more armor can offset less HP to make them equal.

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I still disagree with you. Again, I base it on the likelihood of a tank dying from a string of hits. Bears become *much* more likely to have this happen than other tanks do. You can't just look at it from total damage taken.

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How so? with a 20% dodge nurf most people are saying they have around 30% dodge/parry raid buffed. That is also what bears are saying they will be at (30%). Meaning bears have now closed the gap between all tanks and have superior EH (which was suppose to be the deal, more hp for less avoidance).

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I still disagree with you. Again, I base it on the likelihood of a tank dying from a string of hits. Bears become *much* more likely to have this happen than other tanks do. You can't just look at it from total damage taken.

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I am a former healer, and from my experience I would always prefer a tank that has a reasonable amount of avoidance but takes an expected amount of damage. This would allow the healers to assign a set number of healers to that tank and know that the tank will be taken care of. I would venture to say that if a tank is getting a steady stream of hits and the right number of healers are assigned to that tank, then everything should work itself out. The only thing that I would be worried about is if there is a possibility of being killed in 3 hits in a relatively short amount of time (2-3 seconds).

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I don't think so. We didn't decide until last night to do the Icecrown Radiance. Without the extra tiers that the Ulduar and ToC hard modes included, then the max gear level might have been more like ToC normal 25 is today, and we didn't add Jormungar Radiance.

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Well but you nerfed avoidance last patch too, the end result of that put me back to pre Ulduar avoidance numbers. I'm not saying you had this planned, I'm saying it was inevitable with the original gearing.

Not that it matters, avoidance is too high now, so it has to be dealt with. I hope the new gearing mechanisms and lack of defense don't have us hitting this a third time. This kind of falls under that "doesn't feel right", "not fun" type of mechanic. Tanks spend a good bit of time obsessing over gear choices, then getting some of that ripped away kind of stinks.

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How so? with a 20% dodge nurf most people are saying they have around 30% dodge/parry raid buffed. That is also what bears are saying they will be at (30%). Meaning bears have now closed the gap between all tanks and have superior EH (which was suppose to be the deal, more hp for less avoidance).

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Most plate tanks I have seen will end up with considerably more than 30% avoidance after this goes into effect.

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First off, don't insult my math abilities. You have no idea who you're talking to. Second, this isn't a pure math issue (at least, not the way you think it is). I'll explain.

Currently, as far as I can see, the tanks all have approximately the same damage mitigation (if you include block mechanics). Thus, the tank with the lowest avoidance takes the most damage. That tank is currently the feral druid.

By taking away 20% of everyone's avoidance (with, by the way, no way of making it up, as the other tanks have), you push feral druids into the danger zone of being likely to be hit by strings of attacks, as opposed to avoiding part of a string, and thus surviving. Unless it becomes evident that taking 5-6 hits in a row is unlikely to wreck a tank, such a probability is unattractive. Thus, you are impacting feral druids more heavily than you are the other tanks.

Also, by doing this, you are making agility even less attractive for tanks (since, as you pointed out, dodge is unattractive at low levels). As such, you are reducing the crit chances of the various tanks. Guess which tank depends on crit for part of its damage reduction?

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Well you aren't understanding the escalating returns on avoidance. You'll now take, by comparison to the other tanks, a lower difference in the percentage of hit chains. You'll still take more of course, but the gap is actually decreased, that's what he's trying to tell you.

Plus pallys will no longer block every attack, so there's another factor. That's likely not a huge deal, but it is a change.

EDIT: Just throwing some math behind this.
Assuming 65% avoidance for the non druid and 45% avoidance for the druid

Chance of tanking 3 hits in a row
Without IR Druid = 17%
With IR Druid = 42%
Increase of 247%

Chance of taking 3 hits in a row
WIthout IR Non Druid = 4%
With IR Non Druid = 17%
Increase of 425%


So, while the absolute number of chain hits is obviously higher, in relation to the other tanks it's a smaller increase. Non Druids will see their spike event frequency increase 425% while druids will see theirs increase by 247%

GC will boss damage will be decreased to compensate for the dodge loss and won't this radiance make pallys and warriors the preferred tanking class for the entire instance? Unless there is a lot of magic damage that can't be mitigated anyway. To be honest I don't research the new fights because I'd rather fight them without prior knowledge, but this subject is interesting.

hey GC, just wondering if you guys ever considered upping boss level from teir to teir.. ex having nax bosses at lvl 83, and ICC bosses at 84 or 85.

this might solve the problem with avoidance because you could always be having more avoidance, but it would do slighty less because you are fighting a higher leveled mob. it also means you would not have to add expertise to bosses.

the only forseeable problem i can come up with is crushing blows: you could simply (i say that in a relative term) add the same type of script that stops certain bosses to not parry haste.

just wondering if it has or has not come up and if there are reasons for not doing so

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hey GC, just wondering if you guys ever considered upping boss level from teir to teir.. ex having nax bosses at lvl 83, and ICC bosses at 84 or 85.

this might solve the problem with avoidance because you could always be having more avoidance, but it would do slighty less because you are fighting a higher leveled mob. it also means you would not have to add expertise to bosses.

the only forseeable problem i can come up with is crushing blows: you could simply (i say that in a relative term) add the same type of script that stops certain bosses to not parry haste.

just wondering if it has or has not come up and if there are reasons for not doing so

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Crushing blows would come back at that point. Crushing blows happen from enemies 4 levels higher than you.

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Well you aren't understanding the escalating returns on avoidance. You'll now take, by comparison to the other tanks, a lower percentage of hit chains. You'll still take more of course, but the gap is actually decreased, that's what he's trying to tell you.

Plus pallys will no longer block every attack, so there's another factor. That's likely not a huge deal, but it is a change.

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The gap is decreased, by I'm looking at it in terms of the likelihood of it happening. Yes, it becomes more likely for everyone. And yes, the chance of it happening actually increases more for the other tanks (see? I can actually do math). However, what I'm saying is that the chance of it happening reaches a critical threshold for druids. It becomes quite likely to happen, as opposed to just more likely. As in, with the maybe 30% avoidance we'll now have, there's a 49% chance of getting hit twice in a row. There's a 34.3% chance of getting hit three times in a row. There's a 24.01% chance of getting hit four times in a row. So, approximately 1 out of every 4 times, we'll take 4 hits in a row.

Let's compare to a deathknight (and don't misunderstand, I know this hits DKs pretty hard for other reasons), who will likely end up with around 40% avoidance. There's a 36% chance of getting hit twice in a row. There's a 21.6% chance of getting hit three times in a row (less than our chance to get hit 4 times in a row). There's a 12.96% chance to get hit four times in a row.

This also devalues agility, as low levels of avoidance simply aren't very worthwhile. So we'll see even more stam stacking than before. Thus, we'll have less agility. Thus, we'll crit less often. Thus, savage defense will proc less often. Thus, we'll take un"blocked" hits more often.

asdf

I'm sorry, but I just have to ask...do you truly hate bears? I mean, all bear tanks have is FLIPPING DODGE! We have no parry or block or whatever other weird avoidance stats DKs, Warriors, and Pallys have. It's bad enough last patch nerfed our dodge, and now you're asking us to tank with about 20-30% instead of our usual 40-50%? Lame...

Huh. Putting boss expertise and such into tooltips? That seems kinda clunky.

Perhaps you could add a new option in the right click menu on the target frame of the NPC, that would pop up a dialog with such relevant info. Hell, if you felt like putting more strain on your writers you could even include some flavor text in the pop up. Content vector ahoy!

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Q u o t e:


Crushing blows would come back at that point. Crushing blows happen from enemies 4 levels higher than you.

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i know, thats why i suggested adding the script to cancel out crushing blows from the bosses, so that only mobs ppl actuly solo while levling do them


ps. i just realized that my guild didnt change on the forums:P lol now it doesnt look like im in a scrub guild:P

How will Icewell Radiance affect DR on dodge? Do we lose 20% of our dodge percentage after DR?