Back in February, I extolled the virtues of Vigilance as the best tanking ability in the game. I spoke about how to apply it to tanks, despite the marginal and wholly unimportant threat loss. Now they've changed it, and guess what? It's even better than it ever was before. Before patch 4.0.1, tanks would more often than not whine incessantly about their infinitesimal threat loss when a warrior tank rightfully applied Vigilance to them, now, all I hear is the "revolutionary idea" to put it on another tank. This idea is far from revolutionary, as I know for a fact I'm not the only tank to apply it to another before the patch. As a result of the patch, Vigilance has gone from completely amazing to mind-bogglingly awesome. Not only does it retain the 3% damage reduction, as well as the infinite Taunt refreshing (the two abilities that made it so great), but it also has forgone the lackluster threat transferring in exchange for a direct attack power increase based on Vengeance as if 20% of the damage was done to you.
What is Vengeance? Essentially, Vengeance is a stacking buff to the damage we deal, based on the damage we receive, capped by a percentage of our stamina. It's a passive ability given to every tank spec, designed to give us increasing threat gains (by way of stronger attacks) the higher tier gear we access. So moving into a higher tier of raiding, we get hit harder, so we deal more damage due to Vengeance. As we start to get gear for that level of raid, we're being hit less hard, however, we have much more stamina, further increasing our maximum Vengeance stacks to compensate. Due to this passive ability, we never have to worry about the dps getting out of hand due to our gear stacking just as well as theirs, a common problem in later Icecrown tier raiding.
So, Vengeance will work quite well for tanks all around due to being scaleable, as well as allowing us to hit surprisingly hard for a tank. The other day while in Icecrown, a warlock forgot to dismiss his pet and jumped down the hole after Blood Queen Lana'thel, and his pet ran to him, dragging the entire procession of trash along one side with him. I did my tankly duties and grabbed the mess up as well as I could, in the process taking massive damage and stacking my Vengeance to insane heights. I easily topped over ten thousand attack power, and because I was able to attack so many targets, I quickly found myself doing over eleven thousand dps! Only our resident star death knight was able to top me. This example just goes to show the amazing power held within Vengeance, which will reach even more astonishing numbers by the time we reach Cataclysm raiding, where tanks will have one hundred thousand to one hundred fifty thousand health!
How does this all relate to Vigilance? Since Vigilance now gives a portion of Vengeance to you, putting it on a dps is almost pointless, unless they're not too bright and tend to pull first most of the time. Putting it on another tank, will copy 20% of that Vengeance to you, giving you a significant advantage over other tanks, especially in a single target situation. You're not stealing their threat, or their Vengeance, so they have nothing to worry about, you're merely boosting your own. This makes tank swap fights even easier, due to your already considerable attack power bonus. The only danger is in accidentally pulling before you're supposed to, which may happen on more than one occasion if one is not careful. Before these changes, I recall doing 10-11k tps, and it was a pretty big deal. After the changes I can easily reach 14-15k tps, and with other bonuses I can occasionally reach beyond 20k tps.
There is only one downside I foresee happening as we enter into Cataclysm, which I was hoping to avoid after the single-mindedness of Wrath's tanking community. That is, with Vengeance capping with your maximum stamina, I can see a lot of tanks heading into the expansion with the idea to stack stamina derpa-derpa. Unfortunately, the way the ability is set up at the moment, there is very little reason not to. In Wrath, I resisted the fad to stack stamina at the expense of other stats like armor, because a healthy balance of stats is always better. Sadly, stamina has now become king and armor has been nerfed to a shadow of its former glory, making single stat stacking a very appealing idea. As I go into the expansion, I will be maintaining that a balance of stats like mastery as well as stamina and armor will be the ideal way to go as a tank. I guess the only way to find out will be to play the game and see.
Thanks for reading, and tune in next entry for: Survivability Vs Threat.
25 October 2010
22 October 2010
Hit Rating, Expertise, And You.
When I initially intended to write this entry, hit rating and expertise, while nice, were pretty low on the tank's list of important stat requirements. Most of a tank's attention was toward survival and threat was usually a minor issue. The whole entry was going to be about why not to worry about hit, as so many tanks seemed to do, and to accept it when it was on gear, but to never gear with it in mind. But now that patch 4.0.1 has dropped, the World of Warcraft is a different place, and suddenly hit and expertise are back in a big way.
Threat in all it's forms has changed, and with it so must we. Our AOE capabilities have remained mostly the same, but unfortunately, no one else's has. I personally have found paladins, mages, and death knights to be more troublesome than they used to be, sometimes even in single target situations. My first random when the patch dropped was pretty pathetic. I had thought with the normalization of rage, I perhaps wouldn't need the rage talents. Boy was I wrong. I was completely rage starved the entire run. So I changed my talents to receive more rage when I charged or blocked, and as a whole my starter problems were alleviated. Still though, at times the dps would catch up to me, and I realized I needed more hit rating and expertise. If you can't hit, you can't deal threat. Before, a simple Revenge was sufficient enough threat to overcome most problems, and missing often was rarely a problem, before long, I had so much threat as to be boring. I would throw in random abilities just to mix it up. Now that threat is designed to be something tanks are supposed to work on the entire fight, suddenly hit became so much more important. Not to mention, the basic design philosophy for warrior tanks has changed. I'll illustrate that philosophy below.
Essentially, warrior tanks have now become all about their shield and mitigating damage, rather than avoiding it completely. I've heard of a lot of tanks gemming for dodge and parry, and reforging for them as well. That would be a mistake, since when we avoid an attack, we get a grand total of zero rage from it. With the normalization of rage, we want as much rage as we can possibly get, and avoidance will simply hurt that. No rage means no threat. No threat means everyone dies.
Our mastery stat is Critical Block, which means the more mastery we stack, the more we block. Mastery is designed to be a stackable and desirable stat from 80-85, so we can see how our design is being pushed toward block. Now a lot of tanks may reject that logic right offhand because block has been a fantastically sucky stat for the last several years. However in patch 4.0.1 it's received a massive overhaul, and now mitigates a flat 30% of the incoming damage one receives, with 60% being reduced with a critical block. This is what warrior tanks are all about now. In Cataclysm, our health pools will be ridiculous, 150,000+ and that's just to start the expansion, and enemies will be hitting less hard then they currently do (relatively). What does that mean? Less spike damage, and therefore, less reliance on dodge and avoidance as a whole. Mitigation of the incoming damage will be how to survive, and the best way to get rage in this world will be through one of the best new talents we have available. Shield Specialization. We stack block, we live longer, we get Shield Specialization, we get massive rage the more we block. Block block block. Mastery mastery mastery. It may seem like we take more damage now, and for a time, we will. Because Wrath of the Lich King raiding isn't built around the idea of tanking like that. Entering Cataclysm will be where the changes really start to gel.
Leave avoidance to the bears, leave parry to the death knights, and revel in the glory of your shield! Remember the best reason to be a warrior, an unstoppable fighting machine that brings the battle to the enemy, charging in and shouting, not dealing with sissy dodges when a simple block will do. Bask in the rage that blocking will pour upon you. With that rage, pummel your enemies in the face and for crying out loud don't miss!
The first problem you must fix is to never waste the rage you have, and to get more expertise and hit. Expertise first, as it's still better than hit. Reforge your armor to mastery, and dump all that dodge and parry, with the Icecrown debuff gone, you won't miss it anyway. With the loss of Damage Shield I even put Titanium Shield Spike back on my shield to further aid my threat gain on trash. These simple changes made sure I was always on top of my threat, and never lacking for rage.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next entry for: Vengeance And Vigilance.
Threat in all it's forms has changed, and with it so must we. Our AOE capabilities have remained mostly the same, but unfortunately, no one else's has. I personally have found paladins, mages, and death knights to be more troublesome than they used to be, sometimes even in single target situations. My first random when the patch dropped was pretty pathetic. I had thought with the normalization of rage, I perhaps wouldn't need the rage talents. Boy was I wrong. I was completely rage starved the entire run. So I changed my talents to receive more rage when I charged or blocked, and as a whole my starter problems were alleviated. Still though, at times the dps would catch up to me, and I realized I needed more hit rating and expertise. If you can't hit, you can't deal threat. Before, a simple Revenge was sufficient enough threat to overcome most problems, and missing often was rarely a problem, before long, I had so much threat as to be boring. I would throw in random abilities just to mix it up. Now that threat is designed to be something tanks are supposed to work on the entire fight, suddenly hit became so much more important. Not to mention, the basic design philosophy for warrior tanks has changed. I'll illustrate that philosophy below.
Essentially, warrior tanks have now become all about their shield and mitigating damage, rather than avoiding it completely. I've heard of a lot of tanks gemming for dodge and parry, and reforging for them as well. That would be a mistake, since when we avoid an attack, we get a grand total of zero rage from it. With the normalization of rage, we want as much rage as we can possibly get, and avoidance will simply hurt that. No rage means no threat. No threat means everyone dies.
Our mastery stat is Critical Block, which means the more mastery we stack, the more we block. Mastery is designed to be a stackable and desirable stat from 80-85, so we can see how our design is being pushed toward block. Now a lot of tanks may reject that logic right offhand because block has been a fantastically sucky stat for the last several years. However in patch 4.0.1 it's received a massive overhaul, and now mitigates a flat 30% of the incoming damage one receives, with 60% being reduced with a critical block. This is what warrior tanks are all about now. In Cataclysm, our health pools will be ridiculous, 150,000+ and that's just to start the expansion, and enemies will be hitting less hard then they currently do (relatively). What does that mean? Less spike damage, and therefore, less reliance on dodge and avoidance as a whole. Mitigation of the incoming damage will be how to survive, and the best way to get rage in this world will be through one of the best new talents we have available. Shield Specialization. We stack block, we live longer, we get Shield Specialization, we get massive rage the more we block. Block block block. Mastery mastery mastery. It may seem like we take more damage now, and for a time, we will. Because Wrath of the Lich King raiding isn't built around the idea of tanking like that. Entering Cataclysm will be where the changes really start to gel.
Leave avoidance to the bears, leave parry to the death knights, and revel in the glory of your shield! Remember the best reason to be a warrior, an unstoppable fighting machine that brings the battle to the enemy, charging in and shouting, not dealing with sissy dodges when a simple block will do. Bask in the rage that blocking will pour upon you. With that rage, pummel your enemies in the face and for crying out loud don't miss!
The first problem you must fix is to never waste the rage you have, and to get more expertise and hit. Expertise first, as it's still better than hit. Reforge your armor to mastery, and dump all that dodge and parry, with the Icecrown debuff gone, you won't miss it anyway. With the loss of Damage Shield I even put Titanium Shield Spike back on my shield to further aid my threat gain on trash. These simple changes made sure I was always on top of my threat, and never lacking for rage.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next entry for: Vengeance And Vigilance.
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