Greedy Goblin

Monday, August 22, 2011

Resistances

Please look at this damage taken chart from a Rhyolith kill:


This belong to my experiment of using Prismatic elixir on raids. Without the elixir, but with aura or totem, you get 24.6% elemental damage reduction. With elixir, 32.7%. Orcanio did not use the elixir, everyone else did. The tank got 500K melee from fragments and 235K from the boss in P2. All the other damage was fire.

Let's calculate the unresisted fire damage. It's damage / 0.673 for everyone but Orcanio, damage / 0.754 for him and (damage - 735K)/0.673 for the tank. 11046K. Using resistance aura saves us from 2717 K damage. Using elixir saves us from further 894K. This was a 5 minutes fight, so 298 DPS/person was saved. Does it worth the DPS loss from missing flask? Questionable (please keep in mind that one can use 2 elixirs, so 275 spirit/mastery/crit/haste and the 298 DPS stands against the lost main stat).

However it's clear that the tank should use the resist and mastery combo all the time. This case just the resist part saved 465 incoming DPS on him, I can't calculate the melee damage reduction from mastery. I can't imagine a fight where the stamina flask would be better than resist and mastery.

While resist elixir + 275 secondary stat vs 300 primary stat is debatable, there is one thing that is not: resistance wrist enchant from leatherworking. The 70 resist saves 6.5% magic damage (assuming no elixir), and costs only 130 primary stat. It seems, LW is overpowered, especially for tanks.
Chris sent a perfect set of specimens.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm not sure about the others but str increases parry for dk's. therefore main stat reduces melee dmg received.

Squishalot said...

Although one shouldn't base a strategy on the assumption of a wipe, you may need to factor in the additional cost of a) swapping elixirs and flasking up for the next fight once you pass the magic-damage bosses, and b) the cost of drinking new elixirs post-wipe.

Mithfin said...

Resistance flasks/elixirs/potions was widely used for magic damage heavy progression fights without tight hard enrage all the time. The last one was Nefarian hc. But... Ryolith? Poor nerfed to the ground giant? There is no reason for that, with proper piloting incoming raid damage is pathetic even on hc, and the 2nd phase lasts about 30 secs anyway, you can cover entire duration with raid-wide cooldowns.

Unheilvoll said...

In case of bears, leatherworking wrist enchant of +130 agility is much worth than +70 resistance, because bears use agility for physical mitigation (they get much more from it -ap, crit and dodge- than what others tanks can get from pure stamina or strengh - parry).

There are only few cases (Al'akir, I think) where unavoidable magic damage is more than physical damage for an entire combat. In those few cases, +70 resistance is better for bears also.

Andru said...

Stamina is usually taken to prevent worst case scenarios.

400 or whatever extra DTPS on the tank will not drive your healers OOM. A two-shot will, however, wipe your raid.

The purpose of a tank is never to take as little damage as possible over the course of a fight, it is to keep the attention of the boss and not die to melee autoattack+ magic spikes, or melee+melee special attack spikes.

This is why prot paladins should never use Holy Shield on CD, nor spam WoG on CD (which reduces overall damage taken), but save them for OMIGOD HERE COMES THE BIG ONE (which reduces damage taken/extends life total when it matters most).

I, however, have no idea how scary Ryolyth P2 is, nor how spiky the shards are. The above theory is right in general, but may vary from boss to boss.

Andru said...

Oh, I alomost forgot.

There's plenty of fights where stamina is better tham mastery+ resist.

Prime example are dragon bosses. (Chosest to memory is Nefarian, but the same considerations applied to Sindragosa, Sapphiron, Halion, Razorscale, all of which had the potential to insta-gib a tank with a magic+cleave combo. Reducing the magic component did not do much, since it was actually the autoattack/cleave that hurt the most.)

Grim said...

Using your formulas I get 1.36mil unmitigated for Orcanio and 1.14 for the runner up (You). So while the chart looks really pretty with the rebelling dude on top, he is just standing in fire more than others.

The elixir would save him from ~83k damage. Stepping into one fire fewer would do almost the same.

Anyway, Ryolith has been nerfed into oblivion. Which is good - previously he was just too random; now he's still random, but easily beatable even in the worst case. So I'd say that flasks should be used from now on just to make it faster and cheaper.

Riptor said...

i think it's safe to say that raid wide resistance Pots should only be needed during hc Bossfights. In Normal Mode the DPS should cut down the time it takes to kill the Boss so significantly that it should not be an issue.
I agree with your Calculation but i really don't think it is worth it on normal Mode. Although it makes the Job of the Healers easier, you should actually use the time you loose as the DPS need longer to kill it to define if Resistance Pots are actually usefull.

Sten Düring said...

Depends on fight.

If the nature of the fight is attrition, ie evenly spread damage without noticable spikes, then an MDR approach is preferred.

Most fights, however, include periods with large damage spikes. Stamina and/or reliable defensive cooldowns are preferred there.

Now, arguably using the mastery elixir will indeed make the paladin Holy Shield more reliable, in which case a flask is out of the question. What would be best for the second elixir then depends on what type of damage is most usual. Even a magic heavy fight could include a larger total amount of incoming physical damage, which would make the armour elixir better for the tank.

Leeho said...

On Ryolith unavoidable damage is low. Fire damage became an issue when person stays in the fire - or when raid is gaining too much stacks of the debuff from active volcanos. Both those reasons should be solved by proper tactic, and not resistance elixir.

Why don't you publish your raid logs on WoL? This way we may see what was the damage - how many times people stayed in the fire, and how many stacks they got during the fight. Your readers may help you with analyzing them, som imo it's ungoblinish to keep them private (:

Anonymous said...

"This is why prot paladins should never use Holy Shield on CD, nor spam WoG on CD (which reduces overall damage taken), but save them for OMIGOD HERE COMES THE BIG ONE (which reduces damage taken/extends life total when it matters most)."

Wrong, this type of playstyle is of average quality. Once you start to play any content beyond mediocre where your gear AND skill matter this won't work. The reason for this is shit may never seem to hit the fan for you as tank, healer goes OOM or is otherwise under pressure because of a mistake by someone, and oops. Too late.

It is better to prevent such. Obviously, all must perform, but as a tank you are able to contribute. In general, long CDs (1+ min) are used for such "oh shit" situations. Divine Protection, for example. WoG can certainly be used when it'd be fully utilized, especially when healer is under pressure. By not using your short CDs you put unnecessary pressure on healer, and the cycle repeats.

It is therefore adviceable to use your CDs, and preferably at the right moment. No, it isn't "cool" not using them. It does not make you a good player since it requires the other players to be better players than they'd otherwise be. You may even force the healer to pop a CD unnecessarily in this way. Instead, a good player -be it tank/DD/healer- is able to utilize (low) CDs while having them off CD when it really matters (e.g. shit is hitting the fan). If you know the fight/instance well you are able to time such. Or you are able to use the right CD, while keeping the right CD off CD as well. For example, if you do a bear run in ZA you can use CDs which will be available again on boss (counts for all roles) or even use them on the harder trash fights/harder bosses. Such increases your performance and hence increases the time you have to kill the 4 bosses. Granted, it may seem irrelevant in ZG or FL trash but if you exercise such you'll be good with it also in a fight where you are not overgeared such as a boss fight on HC raid. Another example: I've tanked on my DK Nefarian and Occu'Thar. On Nefarian the breath and the crackles can be mitigated heavily by cycling through your CDs (AMS, Mirror, Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap (which can even heal raid), and of course using Death Strike correct). On Occu'Thar, pre-nerf, using them correct puts pressure off healers during and right after eye phase (the only time healers have to heal raid).

"There are only few cases (Al'akir, I think) where unavoidable magic damage is more than physical damage for an entire combat. In those few cases, +70 resistance is better for bears also."

The weakness of a bear tank is magic mitigation. You can make 2 gearsets (or even 3): one for physical damage, one for magic damage, one hybrid. Although for a beginning tank who is starting with some normal FL raids it might be only a few items the difference can be huge (e.g. Baleroc requires no stam trinket). In heroic raiding it may be easier to simply replace the bear tank with a prot pala who are excellent at magic mitigation fights.

Torpid said...

Actully, the BS + JC combo remains the best passive combo for tanks, as BS/JC grants 80/81 mastery/dodge/parry respectively, although the JC/Alchemy combo is superior if one doesn't mind paying around an extra 10g a wipe. (Alchemy double dips from both the mastery elixir and the armor/resistance elixir. Alchemy gives 80 extra mastery for the mastery elixir, and I believe around 120 extra armor or 15 resist all respectively.)The main problem of course, is that the two professions are extremely expensive, JC is one of the most expensive professions to level, and while Alchemy isn't as bad, you'd have to constantly pay for elixirs. (The 2/4 hr duration on flasks actully saves money if you're not min/maxing and merely want to pass your guild requirements though.)

But honestly, race choice affects tank quality far more than profession choice, since NE tanks have a constant 2% miss bonus that stacks with increasing returns with more avoidance, and which is not affected by diminishing returns on avoidance. (Although one might wish to go with a human/dwarf paladin instead if EHP is an issue (human if the boss has a stun effect, as tanks cannot block/dodge/parry attacks while stunned, dwarf if the boss doesn't have such an effect, for a minor mitgation CD), since block capped paladins have an effective 43% EHP increase as .7 damage taken per 1 dmg hit (when a hit is blocked) turns into 1.43 damage hit needed to kill an 1 hp paladin, though a critical block capped warrior will end up being king on the EHP scale, taking a mesely 38% damage from hits (with the block increasing Meta Gem) resulting in an 263% EHP increase, but that won't be for a long time.

Péter Zoltán said...

The superiority of the mastery/resist elixir combo for tanks is well (?) known since T11 :)

Mithfin said...

@ Anonimous.
Sorry, what?
Sure mate, 1-(1-0.18)*(1-0.06)=~0.23=23% passive magic damage mitigation, 20% magic damage taken decrease for 12 secs (1 min cooldown), 50% magic damage taken decrease for 12 secs (3 mins cooldown) is much worse then 10% passive magic damage mitigation, 20% magic damage taken decrease for 6 secs (30 secs cooldown), 60% magic damage taken decrease for 12 secs (4 mins cooldown) and useless in PvE spell reflection ability.

Bears are the best magic damage tanks, there is no questions about it. They have more then twice better passive magic damage reduction and it overweights anything else.

Anonymous said...

@ Minfin,

Start to specify where your numbers come from or they are worthless.

Druid tanks are nerfed in 4.2 due to Savage Defense only working on physical damage. For ALL other tanks this isn't the case.

Hardcore guilds stacked warrior + paladin with a druid tank as alternative before. They won't stack a druid tank for magic mitigation tank now if they did not by default before. After all, druid tanks became less powerful in 4.2.

Mithfin said...

So, you have no idea what 18% damage reduction and 6% magic reduction I'm talking about. Well, maybe you should check feral talents then? I bet you missed the Natural Reaction buff from 12% to 18% made to compensate SD changes.

Anonymous said...

Oh I know what some percentages could mean. I know that 6% is NOT from the feral tree. I just want you to specify your numbers.

I didn't know SD was compensated. That 6% is less powerful than DS since DS is (or should be when it matters) also always up and mitigates for more damage than 6%.

Either way, your point doesn't change my last 2 points.

And from what I understood feral tanks are being considered because of their avoidance stats.

Tenko said...

That's nice, but for Heroic Rhyo I'd rather have extra damage, since Superheated comes pretty fast. Smart use of prismatic elixirs is very helpful, though. I used one for H Valiona & Theralion, since I was on the downstairs team, and also to get the achievement on Siamat where most of the server was still wiping in Vortex Pinnacle.

For Rhyo, though, the best damage reduction strategy is don't step on shit and have someone misdirect adds to a tank, since they get loose pretty easily.