Feedback for ongoing Tank mitigation and balance for 1.6

[Zughalala]

anyone know the ETA on 1.6? i really wanna use these changes on live, i cant wait

[mattya802]

We still only need 1 point in PotM for 100% uptime right?

[Sebb]

in a raid 1 can work.. but it's dicey if there are disconnects. 2 is best bet.

[ebbrey]

anyone know the ETA on 1.6? i really wanna use these changes on live, i cant wait

They are adding 1.6 now to US servers TBA 17/11 EU

[Carinae]

in a raid 1 can work.. but it's dicey if there are disconnects. 2 is best bet.

For ~100% uptime you want 3/5 in PotM. If you have Retaliate and other oGCD abilities, 2/5 should be ok. The 38 RV/28VK spec will want 3/5 in PotM.

Assuming 7 abilities in a 10 sec window.
1 pt = (1-0.2)^7 = 21% chance of not refreshing
2 pt = (1-0.4)^7 = 2.8% chance of not refreshing
3 pt = (1-0.6)^7 = 0.016% chance of not refreshing

After it drops, you need to consider the average time to proc
1 pt = 2.5 abilities to 50% proc
2 pt = 1.25 abilities to 50% proc
3 pt = 0.83 abilities to 50% proc

I will try a simple Monte-Carlo to get real estimates, but you'll want 3/5 if there's disconnects.

[Carinae]

Ok, quick Monte-Carlo simulation on PotM.

Assumptions = 1.5s GCD, no oGCD abilities, 10,000 ticks simulated

Uptime estimates:
1/5 -- 80% uptime
2/5 -- 97% uptime
3/5 -- 99.8% uptime
4/5 -- 100% uptime (within my margin of error).

Conclusion:
2/5 is probably good enough, especially if you have oGCD abilities or in a fight with no disconnects.
3/5 is ideal, with no significant advantage to going higher. Given that the alternative is probably +2% DoT damage I'd say 3/5 is ideal.

[Sharogy]

@ euax, was there a conclusion on 1% block vs 1% armor? armor is better i assume?

[Eaux]

@ euax, was there a conclusion on 1% block vs 1% armor? armor is better i assume?

Armor will always be better. Armor has diminishing returns, and block has soft/hard caps. Armor, though, increases your mitigation across the board. Block only increases your average mitigation. I would go with Armor>Dodge/Parry>Block.

[Zughalala]

Armor will always be better. Armor has diminishing returns, and block has soft/hard caps. Armor, though, increases your mitigation across the board. Block only increases your average mitigation. I would go with Armor>Dodge/Parry>Block.

with this being said, what at what block rating should we be speccing out of block and going dodge/armor, or those things in WL over block stuff

[Zughalala]

self buffed, in 38/28, i ahve 1026 block (46%) and 56% in 38rv/20wl/6pal. At what point should i pick up armor/dodge for the block from the 2nd spec? 11631 armor atm, 297 (9.4%) dodge.

damn edit timer for above post

[nocks]

Overall, these changes were pretty good. Thanks Atrius!

Reaver is the clear winner, but on the other hand maybe there needed to be another 51 VK-style build. And Reaver is only the winner when it is actively stacking debuffs on enemies to get that Wasting Away bonus, which is at least trickier than "turning Accord of Emptiness on" which used to be the way to get maximum mitigation.

I'm a little sad that Paladin came in last place with the changes, but I'm glad Warlord has some good mitigation now. As someone who primarily does the smaller-scale, non-raid content, I'm pretty pleased here. I can basically tank in any spec of my choosing.

The high-end raid guys will always use whatever spec has the highest mitigation, and there will always be one spec that edges out the others. I wish that margin was a little smaller with Reaver, but y'know... it's better than it was before, I'll give you that.

[Perros_The_Second]

Overall, I like how the changes work in practice. Aggro appears to be very good (too good?) both for the mitigation tank 38Reaver/16Wl/12Pal and the avoidance optimized 26Vk/20Warl/20Pal. Overall mitigation is excellent versus R1 raid bosses and trash but maintaining buffs and debuffs is more difficult but also more entertaining than the former 51Vk with built-in mitigation. Maintaining ~5 short duration buffs in particular during movement or mob switching phases takes some getting used to. A good balance between difficulty and reward.

One possible bug we encountered: AE threat, probably from the VK Surge or an 10m AE aggroed Duke through the hedge at the entrance of GSB.

[Sebb]

I'm still digesting the changes. Going for second night in HK today. I forgot to turn my parser on because it was getting late, so I didn't get good data on 44PL/22WL compared to 38RV/8PL/20WL. In general though I had to say Preservation was really underwhelming. 80 HPS on Sicaron attempts when I put it on our MT. The block differential between 44 PL and 8 PL is just not enough to really justify the differences.

My main concerns going forward are:

1. Tuning - both threat and mitigaiton. Right now aoe threat seems slightly overtuned. Last night was the first time in months I've had to tank murdantix, but our warrior tanks have never gotten aggro over little adds sub 25%. They usually rush straight to the cleric tank. Last night I had them all and didn't even know it.

2. Scaling. The scaling between cleric justicar and warrior is out of sync. It can't possibly be in sync because we have different armor values and you scale armor non-linearly. Additionally, you're balancing around different levels in avoidance. Even if you manage to get passive mitigation balanced between RS and War, the RS will pull ahead in future gear levels due to increasing benefits from dex because they are currently not block capped. Before any rogues jump in and think I'm QQing, I'm not. I'm pointing out an obvious flaw in game design. It's equally flawed that rogues have the same HP pool as us now, the same passive mitigation, but about 15% less block/deflect.

In all T1 raid gear, I sit raid buffed at close to 1k block. From here on out, I don't need to care at all about block stat and only stack endurance. This doesn't feel right to me.

[Bloodbourne]

I'm still digesting the changes. Going for second night in HK today. I forgot to turn my parser on because it was getting late, so I didn't get good data on 44PL/22WL compared to 38RV/8PL/20WL. In general though I had to say Preservation was really underwhelming. 80 HPS on Sicaron attempts when I put it on our MT. The block differential between 44 PL and 8 PL is just not enough to really justify the differences.

My main concerns going forward are:

1. Tuning - both threat and mitigaiton. Right now aoe threat seems slightly overtuned. Last night was the first time in months I've had to tank murdantix, but our warrior tanks have never gotten aggro over little adds sub 25%. They usually rush straight to the cleric tank. Last night I had them all and didn't even know it.

2. Scaling. The scaling between cleric justicar and warrior is out of sync. It can't possibly be in sync because we have different armor values and you scale armor non-linearly. Additionally, you're balancing around different levels in avoidance. Even if you manage to get passive mitigation balanced between RS and War, the RS will pull ahead in future gear levels due to increasing benefits from dex because they are currently not block capped. Before any rogues jump in and think I'm QQing, I'm not. I'm pointing out an obvious flaw in game design. It's equally flawed that rogues have the same HP pool as us now, the same passive mitigation, but about 15% less block/deflect.

In all T1 raid gear, I sit raid buffed at close to 1k block. From here on out, I don't need to care at all about block stat and only stack endurance. This doesn't feel right to me.

They essentially removed the need to care for block when they added in the hard cap. They should have made the diminishing returns start at 40% then moreso at 60%. Capping it just led to another nerf. Now we're all about passive mitigation... block is just thrown in for whatever. There are no true block builds anymore, as most lost 5-10% block chance over night. I can understand nerfing the 70% armor increase... but we should have been able to still stack block as a form of mitigation. Adding in attacks to bosses that can't be blocked or avoided only added insult to injury.

[Nefaruis]

I'm still digesting the changes. Going for second night in HK today. I forgot to turn my parser on because it was getting late, so I didn't get good data on 44PL/22WL compared to 38RV/8PL/20WL. In general though I had to say Preservation was really underwhelming. 80 HPS on Sicaron attempts when I put it on our MT. The block differential between 44 PL and 8 PL is just not enough to really justify the differences.

My main concerns going forward are:

1. Tuning - both threat and mitigaiton. Right now aoe threat seems slightly overtuned. Last night was the first time in months I've had to tank murdantix, but our warrior tanks have never gotten aggro over little adds sub 25%. They usually rush straight to the cleric tank. Last night I had them all and didn't even know it.

2. Scaling. The scaling between cleric justicar and warrior is out of sync. It can't possibly be in sync because we have different armor values and you scale armor non-linearly. Additionally, you're balancing around different levels in avoidance. Even if you manage to get passive mitigation balanced between RS and War, the RS will pull ahead in future gear levels due to increasing benefits from dex because they are currently not block capped. Before any rogues jump in and think I'm QQing, I'm not. I'm pointing out an obvious flaw in game design. It's equally flawed that rogues have the same HP pool as us now, the same passive mitigation, but about 15% less block/deflect.

In all T1 raid gear, I sit raid buffed at close to 1k block. From here on out, I don't need to care at all about block stat and only stack endurance. This doesn't feel right to me.

1) SO spam accomplished the same thing, its a distance to tank thing with your clerics

2) Class to class scaling is always going to be a point of contention, that's just the nature of the beast, as long as each of the tanks brings something useful to the raid I see no problem with one doing slightly better than the other in one area or the other...as long as they are reasonably close.


Oh and not having to stack block lets you chose if you want a dodge ring that dropped rather than waiting for that elusive block ring or some other anecdote.