Tanking 101: Stats Part 2: Avoidance
Bastosa on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 20 Comments Tags: avoidance, block, dodge, parry, tank, tanking 101 
Today I would like to continue the tanking discussion we started the other day and dive a little deeper into the world of tanking stats. Last time around I discussed defense, which is the first major stat you need to get capped as an up and coming tank. It actually carries over quite nicely into today’s topic. Once you have 540 defense and are “capped” you can keep stacking it to improve all the stats I am discussing today. In fact some argue “cap” is the wrong word as you continue to see benefit from additional defense. Now, I would like to talk a bit about avoidance. So lets get right into it!
Avoidance –
What is it? Just because mob swings at you doesn’t mean he has to hit you! In fact we generally prefer that he doesn’t. This is where avoidance comes it. When a mob swings at you there are basically 5 options if you are at or above 540 defense. He either a) hits you b) misses you c) you parry the attack d) you dodge the attack or e) you block the attack.
Our goal is to make it so that A is not an option. Miss is a built in game mechanic which we have little control over (defense will help some here), fortunately we have lots of control over block, dodge, and parry. We need to stack these stats so that we avoid as much incoming damage as possible. Block technically falls into the “mitigation” category where it only stops a portion of the incoming damage, so I will cover that next time, for now let’s talk about dodge and parry.
Dodge: This stat increases that chance that you will dodge the attack, avoiding the damage from the swing completely. That’s right, you take no damage if you dodge! This makes it one of the best stats for a tank to stack. This is obviously better than avoiding just a portion, and therefore all things being equal is preferable to block. It is harder to stack than block (less rating per point on your gear), but it’s well worth seeking out the gear to help with this.
Parry: You didn’t think it could get any better than avoiding all damage, but it can. When you increase your chance to parry an attack the tank benefits from the avoided damage. The swing timer on YOUR attack is sped up after a parry which results in more damage from you, and higher threat on your target. This stat is especially useful to warrior and death knight tanks (especially DKs). Bears can’t parry and Pallies see little benefit. It also happens to be the most difficult to stack in terms of points per overall avoidance percentage.
How Much Do You Need? It can obviously be bit of a balancing act getting all these stats straightened out. Overall a tank can become “block capped” at 102.4% avoidance. This means when dodge, parry, block, and miss add up to 102.4% every incoming attack will be affected by one of those stats. This is not easy to do, but remember to take into account class abilities. Paladins for example have a fairly easy time of reaching this because holy shield gives 30% extra block rating, and it is possible to keep it up 100% of the time. If you do reach the block cap then it is time to stop stacking block and replace it with the superior dodge. Ideally just stack as much avoidance as you can, because it rocks. Just strike a balance, some of it is more effective, some is easier to stack.
A few things to keep in mind are that there are diminishing returns on these stats, so taking one of them way above the others may not be your best bet. However when in doubt dodge is almost always your best option for an avoidance statistic. This topic goes pretty deep so feel free to read around for more info, I am just giving you the basics here.
What Is The Real World Raid Application? You can see how this would be very important in a raid. With raid bosses hitting as hard as they do, pushing some of that damage completely off the table is a huge plus to your raid. Looking at fights like Patchwerk, having an off-tank with high avoidance means some of his huge hateful strikes go away completely!
I would argue that avoidance is the most important stat for tanking as it has a profound affect on how much damage is coming it. You can have all the health in the world, but if you are taking lots of damage then you are still hard to heal, and are likely a big drain of mana on your healers.
That is my overview of avoidance, my personal favorite tanking stat. Next time I will go over mitigation, and how to take a chunk out of the damage that gets through!
Reader Comments (20)
Thanks again Bast! These are great for quick checks of tanking and how to make things run smoothly during raids and such. I've recently begun tanking a little with my DK and have found the def cap a little difficult to reach but I'm sure as I progress the gear should become more and more available.
Another great post Bast!! (Hope some other classes will get added to something like this). For the not so hard core players, it is nice to have some numbers crunched for us as we look at different gear that drops. I am slowly working on my Pally alt.
A note, this is how a Rogue can "tank" is the avoidance stats. It is a lot of work and requires the group to really watch what you are doing, but it is possible for a rogue to play the roll or even cover for him if things get hairy.
*not to be picky or anything, but the word "it" was used twice instead of "in". First paragraph after Avoidance in bold and then in the second to last paragraph. not an english freak, but just something i noticed.
Oh, ment to ask what addon is that you have that gives you the stats? I haven't seen that before.
Thanks!!
whats the addon that tells you all that info thats shown in the screenshot?
Again a good article.
BTW the addon looks like either Ratings Buster, or Equip Compare.
Looks like RatingBuster to me :) Never used EquipCompare though, so they might as well be identical to eachother.
Also, I doubt it's possible to reach the 102.4% avoidance cap right now, as we've only been given the first few encounters in this expansion. 102.4% avoidance tanks weren't possible untill later in TBC too, but feel free to prove me wrong. (I am way too lazy to bother with the math).
Like last time, good to see blogs being a little more technical. /cheer
As I see Disc priests becoming more popular, perhaps it's possible to kidnap two of your priest healers (one disc, one holy) and let them give their views on their respective favorite talent trees? That would be really interesting. I've seen both specs in action, but never gotten extensive information on the subject, so it'd be an interesting read. (That being people actually doing some current end-game content, not Itzkoopa's lvling spec experiences :))
I think dodge rating and parrying rating are fine in all but as being a warrior (prot obviously) i feel as though my block rating should tower over the others. When i block i become enrage Increaseing damage by 10%, good for a raid, why? Well with the more damage i do the more aggro so thats just one reason why i need a high block rateing. Two whenever i do block they take 20% of the damage i blocked/ three i can use revenge (prot warriors best friend)/ four i generate two rage every time i block/ five I also have a chance to block 30% the normal amount of damage and if this happens it increases the chance to critically hit with sheild slam. Thats pretty much all that happens if i block so as you can see prot warriors really need block rateing, defense is wonderful too, but if a peice of armor has 30 dodge raeting over another piece with lets say 22 block rateing and your a prot warrior specced right you want the block rateing.
Deidare
Turalyon (normal)
PROT warrior
For the Horde!
Dps- We need tankz please; Me- im a tankz: Dps- Tankz!; Me- your welcome.
Can anybody tell me what the addons on the pictures allow us to see (+6.91) (+o.61%) And things like that near the Enchant and Gem ?
It's definitely ratingbuster: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rating-buster.aspx
:)
There used to be a macro at 70 that you could use that would calculate your total avoidance and print it to the screen, but would it still work at 80 with the scaling?
Or - does anyone know of a macro (or good addons) that will calculate your avoidance automatically?
Thanks you For the Information !
Hey man, great guide! It's helped me to try tanking with my DK (my first attempt in WoW to tank).
But my question is completely unrelated (sorta). I'm a Ret Pally by nature, and have tried holy, and I know one thing for sure... Divine Shield drops aggro, at least when I use it (maybe it's protection, but at any rate, it's the 100% damage reducing shield).
I can see where tanking while taking no damage would be nice, but only if mobs still want to bash your brains in. Do tanks ever use the full bubble, or just the "bubble wall" the other spell has become?
Only thing I have to say is that the "block-cap" is completely and utterly irrelevant to any calculations or anything in general for tanking. 102.4% was merely the amount of avoidance you needed to be immune to crushing blows, as they got pushed off the combat table. Now 102.4% is...nothing.
There is NO reason to stack block rating whatsoever. Although it gives you an extra 1000 or so mitigation per hit, you are NOT going to get 102.4% chance to block and there's no reason to advocate false hope in thinking so.
In response to Deirdare comment, although I doubt they will read this...simply put, No. First of all, you read "Critical Block" wrong. When you block, you have a 30% chance to double the amount blocked. You innately get 15% extra chance to critically hit with shield slams when you spec that. However, this does not make Block Rating better.
With how the combat table works, you have your chances to parry, miss, and dodge before you block. This means that, if you are at the minimum of 540 defense to be crit-immune, I'll say you should have about 19% dodge, 15% parry, 20% block, and 5.5% miss...this is assuming you basically have no stats besides defense. With these stats, you have a total of 59.5% total avoidance/block. Since block is the very last item on the combat table before hits, you have a 39.5% chance to avoid the attack versus the 20% chance to block. Every time you avoid or block, you're already blocking half the time...in theory. In practice, you're actually blocking what seems like 50% of ALL hits against you. You block more than enough as it is.
Since that was mainly rambling that some may not follow, let me sum it up for you here. Dodge and parry rating allow you to mitigate 100% of the damage taken. Block rating allows you to mitigate around 1000 damage every time you block. To say the least, 1000 versus the 8000-15000 hits that you will be taking is absolutely nothing. Now, 100% of 8000-15000 is...8000-15000. 7000-14000 damage to be healed against or 0 damage. Really, the choice is yours...but it seems quite obvious to me.
@ Zalius
I am block capped. It is quite obtainable for a Paladin with holy shield. Other classes, I agree, very difficult.
102.4 used to be uncrushable. Now it means that every hit will be mitigated somehow.
My blocks push off about 1400 damage. Now given, against hard hitting bosses that may not seem like much. But I have been under 1400 health on plenty of fights, if I hadn't blocked I would be dead.
It is especially useful on AOE trash pulls. It takes off tons of damage! More on block next time!
Oh, and the add-on is Ratings Buster. I am thinking about doing some posts on the add ons I use. Would that be interesting to you guys?
Bast! That'd be awesome! Cuz being a Prot Pally myself I can see what may help me out a little better. And who knows, maybe you can learn of some new ones...
Oh stats, stats, stats... CRAP.
Just grab Rawr from www.codeplex.com/rawr.
The important thing about tanking is not stats, it's knowhow!
Yes, I'm Tank, a Feral Tank, the sub-tank thanks to Blizzard not making us immune to spells.
I've done tons of Raid runs! Sometimes as MT (Main Tank), other times OT (Off Tank), other times as DPS...
Tanking is mainly 2 things: keeping aggro and MAXIMUM mitigation. If you keep mobs near you, the party does the rest.
Sometimes it's hard to tank 2-3 mobs... CRAP! Try to make heroics with AoE casters, that's fun... and teach's a LOT. Survival, Mitigation, Aggro, Threat, Taunts...
I learn'd a lot just doing SM (Scarlet Monastery) with low level aggro parties. Take low levels and watch mobs running to them... and you aggro'ing 10-15 at same time, taunting like hell. When You learn'd to control that... make party use AoE spells.
This as became more easy, because of 3.0 talents multi target abilities... but even so... It's really fun... to aggro all Cathedral and tank.
In BC I've been with parties with T5-T6 Mages... the true aggro pulers.... and trust me... that is a challenge, cause they don't control Aggro... all they want to do is nuke, nuke, nuke, so, either You fullfill your DUTY as Tank/Raid Leader and instruct party members to control aggro, or you try to learn the members way of playing and how to avoid aggro losing.
I know that many people think that you are a great tank, but IMHO you should practice more, learn more what the abilities do, learn to control mobs, ... (continue) You lack a true tanking vision.
Think of Tanks like this: You are a big giant, with big armor, with a big pool of Stamina but with a small weapon to damage mobs. So as big as you are, you just MOCK mobs to you, and allow for party members to nuke them. You are the true hero, you sacrifice yourself for the survival of the party. Even if you have to stay alone against 10 mobs for party to flee... You should... THAT IS YOUR PURPOSE, thats what you where made for, that is your core, your moto...
And with that comes honor, respect, 1.st loot, but above all Self learning and Self respect.
But you should teach members (via whispers) of what they do wrong, but MOSTLY congratulate them when they do an excelent job.
Things that Project Lore should try to teach:
- Tank should always READ boss abilities before pulling. Avoid wiping.
- Tank should always keep an eye to the environment. Mobs spawn from sides, pats, ...
- Tank should try to be the mob marker, unless it's he's 1.st time inside. Due to this he will learn mob abilities and be able to react to it.
- Tank should always pull and stay near mobs... not runaway. That allows for party members to gain threat and you loose aggro
- Tank should unCC 1+ mellee mob if he lacks rage. That will allow for the gain of more rage, meaning more aggro, meaning less time to kill mobs.
- Tank should ALWAYS turn mobs BACK to melee party members
- Melee party members should DPS from behind mobs, where they can't parry or block.
- Primary reason for the existance of a healer is Tank healing, not CC. If you can mitigate mobs, don't make healers CC. Take the time to learn mobs abilities.
- Tank should check mana of members before pulling
- Tank should kite a little to minimize healers spam and allow for party healing, WHEN NEEDED.
Check bosskillers for some lessons on tanking.
Lesson: If you have to wipe... at least learn something from it.
It is definitely possible to hit 102.4% avoidance at the moment as a paladin. In purely heroic/crafted gear my paladin sits at 102.3% avoidance. Once i get my final bracer upgrade from hc old kingdom (yes i know diminishing returns bite it but its the only epic bracer pre raid) and my guild starts raiding nax enough for me to get some upgrades i should easily hit that cap.
<---- is learning to druid tank so thankyou green for the lesson
i think me starting as resto helps because i understand more than just "PEWPEWPEW"
Hey guys, I've got a question;
My pally tank has the following avoidance stats;
20.24% Block (Thats 50.24% with HS)
16.02% Parry
19.73% Dodge
With HS up, it makes a total of 85.99%
Do I add 5% miss to this table? Even If I do, its still way below 102.4%, and I'm in Badge-Naxx 10 gear with 2 rep. blues left.
Or am I missing something at this math?