A few questions about tanking/threat mechanics...

[Muspel]

As I'm hoping to start tanking raids at some point in the near future (on a rogue), I figure it's best to make sure I understand all of the game mechanics first.

1. There's no benefit to having Toughness beyond the required amount for a tier, right? I'm unsure if the number is just a rough guideline, or an actual breakpoint.

2. How, exactly, does pulling aggro work? If I have threat on something, will someone pull off me if they overtake me by one threat, or is there some threshold for pulling? For instance, in World of Warcraft, you need 110% of the current target's threat to pull off them. Mainly, I need to know if I need to stop attacking immediately if another tank has to taunt something off of me for some reason, or if there's enough of a buffer that I'll be okay to keep going.

3. Is avoidance/deflection on a 1-roll system? That is, if I have 100% combined dodge/parry/deflection, will I ever take an unmitigated hit, or does it check each one separately?

[Trasgress]

1. Dont stack beyond what is required for the current tier you are in. (Should have enough just by having the tanking pieces from the tier before the one you are about to tank)

2. It works similar to what you experienced in wow, i think the number is 130% in rift if I remember correctly.

3. It checks them all seperately , Block/Deflect , Parry , Dodge, not sure in which order but yeah. If it didnt do that every tank would be running around in godmode

[Muspel]

Great, thanks!

[Tristaynia]

1) Trasgress has it right. If you're interested in the actual maths...

Mobs in expert/raid content have large bonuses to their critical damage. They do not hit you for less damage with non-crits even if you have a lot of toughness, it's all about the criticals. A base critical should do +100% damage (i.e. double what the non-critical should do). This however is modified by the following...

• Tier 1: 200% Critical Damage
• Tier 2: 300% Critical Damage
• Raid Tier 1: 400% Critical Damage
• Raid Tier 2: 500% Critical Damage

Each point of toughness removes 2% from these numbers, so having 25 toughness will cause you to take 200% - (25 x 2%) = 150% critical damage from a Tier 1 mob. 50 toughness will thus reduce this to the baseline 100% Critical damage, and this cannot be reduced any further. Adding 50 extra toughness for example will change nothing in Tier 1.


2) Trasgress is correct, it's 130% threat to pull something off someone.

As for taunts, they have 2 mechanics, the first is a 'fixation' which forces the mob to attack the taunter for X seconds, regardless of threat. The only counter for this is a further taunt. The second component will change the taunter's threat to equal that of the highest threat on the target. Now this might not mean the person currently tanking! A mage may have been say on 129% threat compared to you as the tank... if you taunt the mob your threat would become equal to the mage (who would then effectively be on 100% again and isn't in as much danger of pulling aggro. This can be used when you know someone is frequently capable of pulling aggro to reduce the problem before it even happens.


3) I've been learning the maths behind all this the last few days, or trying to! From what I can gather parry and dodge (referred to as avoidance) are rolled together. It the attack then 'lands' Block is then thrown. (Can't find much info on Deflect for rogues but I think it's the same as block). Beyond that I'm still picking the maths apart as far as mitigation goes.

So a quick example, let's say I have 25% dodge and 25% parry for a total of 50% avoidance, that would mean I take damage 50% of the time. I then have a block chance of 50%... that would not take it down to 0%, it would be half of the remaining 50% (so 25% of the total).

After that it's down to mitigation... made from a combination of Blocked amount (if any), Base %damage reduced from talents and abilities and of course armor.


If you're interested in this further I can strongly recommend Cinderhelm's excellent guide, It's a bit out of date as far as spec recommendations etc go, but the maths side is invaluable!

http://ciderhelm.com/?cat=36

[Muspel]

1) Trasgress has it right. If you're interested in the actual maths...

Mobs in expert/raid content have large bonuses to their critical damage. They do not hit you for less damage with non-crits even if you have a lot of toughness, it's all about the criticals. A base critical should do +100% damage (i.e. double what the non-critical should do). This however is modified by the following...

• Tier 1: 200% Critical Damage
• Tier 2: 300% Critical Damage
• Raid Tier 1: 400% Critical Damage
• Raid Tier 2: 500% Critical Damage

Each point of toughness removes 2% from these numbers, so having 25 toughness will cause you to take 200% - (25 x 2%) = 150% critical damage from a Tier 1 mob. 50 toughness will thus reduce this to the baseline 100% Critical damage, and this cannot be reduced any further. Adding 50 extra toughness for example will change nothing in Tier 1.

Interesting. I had assumed that enemies in higher tiers were just ignoring some portion of my toughness, and that the base amount you needed was 50 plus whatever they were bypassing, but this explains why non-tanks get wrecked so much harder in T2s than T1s.

[Sixpax]

3) I've been learning the maths behind all this the last few days, or trying to! From what I can gather parry and dodge (referred to as avoidance) are rolled together. It the attack then 'lands' Block is then thrown. (Can't find much info on Deflect for rogues but I think it's the same as block). Beyond that I'm still picking the maths apart as far as mitigation goes.

I don't believe that's correct. I'm pretty sure dodge and parry are separate "rolls". If you have 10% dodge and 10% parry, that's 19% avoidance, not 20%. For example, if a mob attacks you 100 times, you can expect 10 attacks to be dodged (10% of 100) and of the remaining 90 attacks, 9 will be parried (10% of 90).

[ShazzamCrucia]

1. There's no benefit to having Toughness beyond the required amount for a tier, right? I'm unsure if the number is just a rough guideline, or an actual breakpoint.

Generally, there is no reason to go beyond the suggested amount for a tier. However since you mentioned raiding there are some bosses that apply -toughness debuffs. Most notable for you is Murdantix. If you go into a boss fight like this right at the toughness you need, this generally will mean you are slightly undergeared, in which case a toughness rune on your chest will help tremendously. Trust me, Murd crits with 3 stacks of weaken on you HURT (I got 1 shotted before all the riftstalker buffs !_!).

So in some cases it's helpful to be 20-30 over the suggested number to provide cushion.

[Tristaynia]

I don't believe that's correct. I'm pretty sure dodge and parry are separate "rolls". If you have 10% dodge and 10% parry, that's 19% avoidance, not 20%. For example, if a mob attacks you 100 times, you can expect 10 attacks to be dodged (10% of 100) and of the remaining 90 attacks, 9 will be parried (10% of 90).

It is possible.

I have just finished dissecting the maths on two separate spreadsheets, one the Warrior BiS made by Rain, the other I downloaded weeks ago and can't remember who made it (it's not listed on it!) So apologies to the author, but it's the one entitled 'Tank Mitigation Calculator'. Unless I'm very much mistakes both seem to use a direct Parry + Dodge as a total avoidance. Identical data going into them comes out the same at the other end. Please note none of this is my work, I'm simply interpreting (and maybe incorrectly at that) but the more I look at it the more it looks like a straight forward addition.

[Muspel]

Couple more questions:

Are dodge and parry are on diminishing returns, or is there just a cap at some point? Or both? What about deflection?

Do the ratings convert into avoidance at different rates? I seem to be getting less parry % per point of parry than I do for dodge (as a rogue tank), but I'm not sure if that's some other factor that's obfuscating things.

[Quietmode]

Couple more questions:

Are dodge and parry are on diminishing returns, or is there just a cap at some point? Or both? What about deflection?

Do the ratings convert into avoidance at different rates? I seem to be getting less parry % per point of parry than I do for dodge (as a rogue tank), but I'm not sure if that's some other factor that's obfuscating things.

I'm pretty sure there isnt DR on parry and dodge. Parry caps at 20%, dodge im not sure, but i know it doesnt cap at 20%.

Dodge takes less points per 1% then parry does. (Dont know exact numbers but for example, its 40pts for 1% parry and 30pts for 1% dodge.)

[Calibrex]

However since you mentioned raiding there are some bosses that apply -toughness debuffs. Most notable for you is Murdantix.

There are other bosses too, but that is a great example. IIRC, the last boss in ROTP does a -toughness debuff too.

[Muspel]

And are any of these toughness debuffs more than -20?

[Quietmode]

And are any of these toughness debuffs more than -20?

Murdantix can take you to 0 toughness if you tank it long enough

[BrownsMageNerfDelivery]

There are other bosses too, but that is a great example. IIRC, the last boss in ROTP does a -toughness debuff too.

Some of the trash mobs also put a toughness debuff on the tank, though unlike the final boss's, this debuff can be dispelled.

[Muspel]

Murdantix can take you to 0 toughness if you tank it long enough

Oh, I see, it's a stacking debuff. I thought you meant he had a -toughness aura.