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As has been pointed out, because of the escalating value of avoidance, this hurts the non druid tanks slightly more than druids. Also, pallys most likely will no longer block every hit, which they have been doing since early naxx, so that is another relative reduction. It probably balances things better to be honest. High avoidance values makes balance much more difficult.

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It arguably makes stam less important (though it will always be important for tanks). Many players are probably telling you right now that only stamina and armor are important because if you ever fail to avoid two boss hits in a row that you're going to die. Under that environment, avoidance loses a lot of value.

If bosses hit for less in IC (which they will, since they will hit more often) then the value of avoidance for purposes of survival increases.

I still expect many tanks will die in two hits until they get geared up a little. But they will, and then the ability to survive two hits in a row won't be as big an issue.

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It arguably makes stam less important (though it will always be important for tanks). Many players are probably telling you right now that only stamina and armor are important because if you ever fail to avoid two boss hits in a row that you're going to die. Under that environment, avoidance loses a lot of value.

If bosses hit for less in IC (which they will, since they will hit more often) then the value of avoidance for purposes of survival increases.

I still expect many tanks will die in two hits until they get geared up a little. But they will, and then the ability to survive two hits in a row won't be as big an issue.

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Well, all I'll say is that I really hope the damage will be smoother, and tanks won't be getting 2 shot without a significant heal in between. Because in sunwell avoidance was reduced AND each boss hit was really hard.

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I am pretty sure on day one of 3.3 going live this forum will be filled with tanks who died and respond with "I thought bosses weren't going to hit hard."

It's Icecrown. It's not going to be Naxx.

Naxx was but a setback....

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Our original estimations for tank avoidance would have worked fine had we not decided to add extra tiers of gear to reward heroic boss kills halfway through the expansion.

The Cataclysm design will keep tank avoidance at more manageable levels. The loss of defense skill counts for a lot right there. We are also considering giving bosses expertise or other ways of baking in Icewell Radiance -- basically the concept that bosses scale with gear rather than just hitting harder and taking more hits.

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There are a couple of flaws in your argument here. DKs macro Rune Strike not because they suffer for threat, but because more threat is generally better for a tank and there is no real penalty for macroing the ability. Players tend to macro attacks when the macro performs for them, not when they are really, really desperate to use the ability.

Second, you can't assume that less dodge turns into less Rune Strikes in such a simple manner. You have to look at how many white hits you convert to Rune Strike now and then how many you would convert to Rune Strike after losing dodge. If you have enough of a window in between dodges to still get a Rune Strike off, then you would see no effect. I suspect that's not the case, but I also don't think you'll see your threat plummet.

We also don't see too many appropriately geared tank of any class having sustained single-target threat problems in cases where you aren't supposed to have threat problems. Yes your dps classes may sometimes get dangerously close to pulling. That is part of the game. We're a long way from when the warlock would crit on a Molten Destroyer and wipe the raid because he didn't wait for 5 Sunders.

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I actually worry about my threat in the first few seconds of a fight when I don't have misdirect or ToT.

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I dunno, I'm not 100% sold there. Damage is going to be much more regular, and even without high amounts of dodge, a paladin can still easily block in excess of 40% of the time, even in my mediocre gear. More regular damage will be pretty regularly mitigated, so from the perspective of a longer fight it seems to give a hefty advantage to someone who can block ~2k+ damage 45% of the time over someone who can't.

Maybe druids are balanced because of their higher armor and health, but DKs seem to take a pretty hefty hit by comparison.

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There are a couple of flaws in your argument here. DKs macro Rune Strike not because they suffer for threat, but because more threat is generally better for a tank and there is no real penalty for macroing the ability. Players tend to macro attacks when the macro performs for them, not when they are really, really desperate to use the ability.

Second, you can't assume that less dodge turns into less Rune Strikes in such a simple manner. You have to look at how many white hits you convert to Rune Strike now and then how many you would convert to Rune Strike after losing dodge. If you have enough of a window in between dodges to still get a Rune Strike off, then you would see no effect. I suspect that's not the case, but I also don't think you'll see your threat plummet.

We also don't see too many appropriately geared tank of any class having sustained single-target threat problems in cases where you aren't supposed to have threat problems. Yes your dps classes may sometimes get dangerously close to pulling. That is part of the game. We're a long way from when the warlock would crit on a Molten Destroyer and wipe the raid because he didn't wait for 5 Sunders.

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I'll address this one more time and then leave it because I think players are more interested in trying to turn this into a huge tanking nerf than understand what's going on.

We would not have this problem if Icecrown gear had been item level 245 or so, as we originally intended. We added a few extra tiers of gear to support heroic modes. We felt like we had to do that to have different difficulty levels and make raiding more accessible overall. We felt like we had to reward the harder modes with the better gear or nobody would have been very interested.

The proportions of relative stats on your gear are not the problem. They are proportional, give or take a little, at every tier except for stats like hit that cap out. The problem is not the class and item teams being out of sync. In fact, they are the same team.

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I'll address this one more time and then leave it because I think players are more interested in trying to turn this into a huge tanking nerf than understand what's going on.

We would not have this problem if Icecrown gear had been item level 245 or so, as we originally intended. We added a few extra tiers of gear to support heroic modes. We felt like we had to do that to have different difficulty levels and make raiding more accessible overall. We felt like we had to reward the harder modes with the better gear or nobody would have been very interested.

The proportions of relative stats on your gear are not the problem. They are proportional, give or take a little, at every tier except for stats like hit that cap out. The problem is not the class and item teams being out of sync. In fact, they are the same team.

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I'll address this one more time and then leave it because I think players are more interested in trying to turn this into a huge tanking nerf than understand what's going on.

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