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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!

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I got into a bit of an argument with Death knight tank in a PUG raid the other day that make me realize that tanking stats are often misunderstood. This particular tank was convinced that Stamina was the end all be all of tanking stats and that nothing else mattered. This is of course far from the truth, but it got me thinking.

With the introduction of a new tanking class, and the supposed tank shortage in general there are lots and lots of people playing a tank for the first time.

If that’s the case then there lots of people who need to understand tanking stats so that they can gear themselves to be the best tank they can be. With that said I have decided to do a series of blogs discussing the major tanking stats and saying what they mean. Hopefully this will give tanks and non-tanks alike an understanding of what tanks are looking for, and what to look for in a tank!

Today I would like to talk about the stat that everyone is talking about. Defense!

Defense

What is it? Defense is the one that you probably hear the most about. The reason for this is likely because it is the first major cap that up and coming tanks need to hit at level 80. Defense’s role is twofold. First it determines the level at which a mob can critically strike you. Secondly, it adds additional value to your avoidance stats (I'll get more into that next time).

How Much Do You Need? The reason that 540 is the defense cap is because when you reach 540 defense you can no longer be critically hit by a level 83 mob, and by level 83 mob I mean a raid boss. For every level you take off the mob, you can take 5 points off the max required defense rating to remain uncritable. If you are only running heroics then you really only need 535 defense because the highest level mob you will see there is level 82. If you want to be uncritable against a level 80 mob the you really only need 525 defense.

That being said if you want to raid, you need to push crits off the table. So your number one gearing priority needs to be reaching 540 defense.

You probably noticed during the leveling process that the higher your level, the less defense rating you are actually getting from your items. This is because defense scales with level, and you will need a tremendous amount to make sure you are at the cap at 80 if you are still leveling. Think ahead! Crafted gear is a great place to find defense for reaching that cap.

What is The Real World Raid Application? So we’ve pushed crits off the table, but why is that important? When you take a crit you are taking 200% damage. This is very high spikey damage that is unpredictable and hard to heal through. If a crit gets through and you are not topped of (or even sometimes if you are) you will likely die. Raid bosses can often hit for upwards of 10k on plate, it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out doubling that damage is very bad. If you die the raid wipes and you are an unpopular person... please resist the urge to blame the healers.

So there is a taste of my first Tanking 101 column. This first one is pretty basic, but please let me know what you think. Next time around I will be covering Avoidance, so stay tuned!

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