1.8/1.9 Reaver Tanking

[Souldancer]

stated simply, the reaver / vk mitigates 2% more damage than the reaver / wl.
NOT 3% less.

Forgive me if I'm being thick, but is this 2% taking into account the buff from the WL crystal (which was the whole point of using WL calls in the first place I thought)?

[TheGrinnz]

Forgive me if I'm being thick, but is this 2% taking into account the buff from the WL crystal (which was the whole point of using WL calls in the first place I thought)?

Yes, I listed it out a couple posts up

The point of using WL calls is many things. Entrenchment Caller, crystal bonuses, dodge bonus, and threat generation.

[Souldancer]

Yes, I listed it out a couple posts up

The point of using WL calls is many things. Entrenchment Caller, crystal bonuses, dodge bonus, and threat generation.

Ok, then is the guide not using correct number percentages? It still says

With Reaver's mitigation combined with Call to Entrench, you get a total of 30% physical damage mitigation and 33% spell damage mitigation. Maintaining the crystal bonus gets you to 33% physical and 36% spell. This is alongside the additional armor (and possibly resist) bonus from Warlord that the Void Knight build does not have access to.

So either something is off with his numbers, or something was originally off with yours, but they aren't matching up.

[TheGrinnz]

Ok, then is the guide not using correct number percentages? It still says



So either something is off with his numbers, or something was originally off with yours, but they aren't matching up.

That's including the Call to Entrench buff that's overwritten by Motif of Tenacity in raids. I'll reword that part as well.

[Souldancer]

That's including the Call to Entrench buff that's overwritten by Motif of Tenacity in raids. I'll reword that part as well.

Are you saying it overwrites the self-buff?

[TheGrinnz]

Are you saying it overwrites the self-buff?

No, the raid buff (5%)

[Primalthirst]

Armor, Block and Dodge do not mitigate spells.

For pure physical damage you are correct.

That would matter if their were any fights where Magic damage was a factor.
The only one I can think of is Laethys and a lot of people run 44 RV there.

[wayne62682]

So... 38 Reaver/20 WL/8 Pally is overall better than 38 Reaver/28 VK/0 PL outside of magic fights? With or without HK Crystal, which only seems to provide a bit of extra mitigation, above the normal, while the normal is the same as Reaver/VK?

[Primalthirst]

So... 38 Reaver/20 WL/8 Pally is overall better than 38 Reaver/28 VK/0 PL outside of magic fights? With or without HK Crystal, which only seems to provide a bit of extra mitigation, above the normal, while the normal is the same as Reaver/VK?

Without HK crystals VK has superior mitigation for magic and physical fights.
With HK crystals WL has superior mitigation for magic and physical fights, but has less threat and utility.

[TheGrinnz]

The thing everyone is missing is the passives from Paladin and Warlord that VK doesn't have.
The main difference is the Armor, 5% from Warlord, 5% from Paladin and Empowering Strike is a huge difference. That alone causes me to take ~8-9% additional damage from unblocked hits in VK as compared to WL/PL and when you really get down to it unblocked hits are the real determinant in spec viability currently.

Just did the math on this, and added it to the guide.

Armor - The armor bonus from Warlord and Paladin (if pointed into) can be considered additional physical mitigation as Armor is directly translated into physical damage reduction. The exact amount varies depending on your current armor level.

5% Armor Bonus
8114 Armor (Dungeon gear) - 1.20%
12868 Armor (T2 Raid gear) - 1.08%
15116 Armor (T3 Raid Relic gear) - 1.02%

10% Armor Bonus
8114 Armor (Dungeon gear) - 2.34%
12868 Armor (T2 Raid gear) - 2.09%
15116 Armor (T3 Raid Relic gear) - 1.97%

Empowering Strike is an additional bonus that could bring it to the 30% physical mitigation point, I'll look into that another time. Not a huge difference though. The formula is DR = Armor / (Armor + 6500), for both the pre-bonus armor and post-bonus armor values.

Now, the bonus to Block is another matter. It appears to me that the 5% bonuses to block (from Warlord, Paladin, and Shield of the Hero) are direct additive boosts to block chance and not susceptible to any cap, this is why I have the points there in my build. For unblockable hits of course this is moot but it seems worth it for the rest.

The bonus to Block (and Parry) from Ravenous Strength is via strength so it's a bit different, I haven't looked at how much block chance it gives comparably.

[TheGrinnz]

Also, I changed the builds to take points from Planar Attunement to put them back in Soul Feast; I go back and forth on this as the healing isn't much, but it's worth more than +4% death damage at least. And it makes Creeping Death a bit more useful.

[TheGrinnz]

Also, either Armor and Physical Mit don't stack additively (in which case Armor is worth even less) or there's some kind of cap on total physical mitigation, because otherwise high level gear could get you to 100% physical mitigation in either spec...

[TINYd]

dont see how this is efficiant with a war crystal it gives u same % on calls if its with or with out the war crystal and its kinda useless to put that many points into war anyways i get better mit out of the 38 reav/16 war/12 pala.

[TheGrinnz]

dont see how this is efficiant with a war crystal it gives u same % on calls if its with or with out the war crystal and its kinda useless to put that many points into war anyways i get better mit out of the 38 reav/16 war/12 pala.

The Warlord crystal adds 3% general damage reduction and 3% dodge when using both calls. The 20 points in warlord gets you Cutting Distraction as well as bonuses to Armor, Block or Dodge which are all highly valuable against physical damage. Also, Promise of Steel does more damage (thus higher threat) than Sweeping Strike. I'm not sure where you're taking the points out of Warlord but Dramatic Presence and both calls are required.

[TINYd]

well with my 38/16/12 dont need the extra dodge or parry and all the extra calls raid buffed im blocking bout 96% of the attacks and taking barely any damage as is so it kinda useless for extra chances that wont happen cause its only 3% anyways

the other main tanks in my guild use that build and use the war crystal and they take a ton more damage then i do in my build so just saying that i think my build has more mit then that one just by looking at tanks in raids