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Hip,

Thank you for taking the time to go through my logs and thank you so much for the input! :)

My response will take me some time to compose so just letting you know I'm not ignoring you My response will just be a bit lengthy and I need to dig up some old articles that I forgot to save.

Thank you for the warm wishes and cheers from challenge mode lovers who posted here as well! Despite having my 9/9 I still run and I'm always looking for people to do them with me on off days.

Whether I'm accepted or not you can add my Battle tag to your real ID and well hit some up over the weekends for those interested.

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Basically yes, if you find yourself with enough rage you could either stack some dodge/parry or if you continue the Barrier route, stack Strength to build your base AP. Just tossing out ideas.

I experimented with the new talents in beta and once they went live and I got proportionally less ap from strength gems than I did from stam gems. To make sure I wasn't crazy I tested it again tonight and I do gain more by going stam over strength. I could compound on that by dropping stats like parry or expertise for strength which would give me a bit more AP, but that doesn't seem worth it to loose that mitigation nor does it seem to be what you are advocating.

Also, the return on dodge/parry is less than it is for mastery. If I have to budget non gear stats towards something after hit/exp are done mastery gives more bang for the buck. It all depends on what the healers prefer. Even predictable damage or spiky damage.

http://elitistjerks...._cataclysm/p40/ Now outdated equations, but the principle remains the same. I think it outlines it well

http://sacredduty.ne...in-mop-part-1/Current 3 part Avoidance discussion and how DR affects it

http://www.tankspot....nishing-Returns Current discussion about block and how DR affects it

Here we go.

After further review, I’m curious about your talent and glyph choices. Is this the “normal” set-up you use in a raid? Talk to me about the utility you see out of a glyphs like Bull Rush and Incite as well as talent choices like Piercing Howl and Dragon Roar

I change talents every single fight depending on what I'm doing. Howl and Roar aren't there all the time. They may just be what I needed at that particular moment.

For instance I use bladestorm on windlord and garalon, but I don't use it much anywhere else on a boss fight. I also use avatar on garajal since the add in the spirit realm is stunable, but I seldom use it anywhere else now that the rage component is gone from it.

I typically keep revenge glyphed all the time as well as incite. Incite is free threat and dps when dc is up. The third glyph changes regularly depending on what I'm doing. It typically fluctuates between Blitz, Bullrush, hindering strikes, Heavy reap, long charge or enraged speed. That choice typically depends on whether I'm looking for greater front end threat, kiting, or free rage where I can get a charge in.

On to fight specific thoughts.

ToeS from 2/12

Protectors of the Endless

Looks like you spent a fair amount of time tanking Asani, yet I see zero interrupts? That’s a concern for me as a Prot warrior could very easily have 3 interrupts at their disposal. What was going on in that fight that you didn’t use any of those tools? Asani cast 166 water bolts during the fight.

Your active mitigation use also puzzles me. I see 61 casts of shield barrier and zero casts of shield block, what was going on there? I can appreciate the scaling value of Barrier once you build vengeance, but there are many points early in encounters or in lulls of damage taken where a Block > Barrier.

Overall your CD usage has me concerned. In a fight lasting 7:58, I see only 1 use of Demoralizing Shout, 2 uses of Last Stand (and you have the set bonus lowering the CD to 2 minutes) zero uses of Shield Wall, zero Uses of Rallying Cry, etc.

I do see 2 uses of Vigilance and 2 uses of Safeguard which is good to see you have your tanking partner’s life in mind.

Your rage use is also curious to me. You seem to be quite focused on DPS output and using your rage on Heroic Striking. I see 8 uses of Battle Trance (which tells me you could easily track and use Demo Shout effectively) 37 Heroic Strikes and 1 Cleave vs. 25 Ultimatum procs. Thoughts?

I normally tank kaolan and I was tanking him that day as well. Im not sure why it would show me tanking asani, because I dont think I ever even touched the caster adds. But, I can respond to the substance of the question none the less. When I am tanking one of those two I typically burn my disrupting shout and spell reflect on cool down but save my pummel for when I need to move them out of the healing water puddle.

About casting barrier over block, again assuming I was tanking one of the caster adds and doing so, I'm not sure why I would want to bank 60 rage to use an ability that doesn't mitigate spell damage. Barrier would absorb whatever bolts they toss at me but block would not.

Finally, I'm confused why you would be concerned about CD usage. It seems that you are advocating burning Defensive CDs on CD, which doesn't seem like an effective strategy to me. That would be tantamount to bombing heals into targets at full health. Sure you're doing lots of healing but you're not doing it where it's needed. I had planned to trow up a wall and stand at the 19:49 mark as I was at 22 stacks but I just derped and didnt see that he was that close to pooping another defiled ground on me.

So, typically I save cool downs, even the shorter ones, for when I think I'm going to need them. Obviously I don't always make the right call, but I feel its better to have it when you need it than it is to use it just because its up and not have it when you really really need it to keep you alive.

Your CD usage on Tsu Long looks a bit improved, with 3 Demo Shouts and a Shield Wall tossed in the mix, but still 20 Shield Barriers and Zero Shield Blocks, the add phases and tank swaps would dictate Block imo.

Still digging you use of Vigilance and Safeguard I must admit.

I didn't tank the big add and his babies I was helping shut down the adds that march to Tsu Long. We do this because I have so so many stuns and slows coupled with the fact that I can be all over the room as a warrior it just makes more sense for me to help dps keep those adds under control. We used a similar strategy on the last hammer phase of Ragnaros. I helped keep suns stunned/slowed while the other tank did initial the initial roundup of the larger adds.

I haven't really spent time outside LFR tanking the big add and his spawns, but I suspect that you would prove correct in block being better than barrier in that instance.

You see more frequent usage of Demo Shout because Tsu Long's breath is more frequent I know it's coming and I can look at my health to determine if I need a big cool down to pull me through or something smaller. Also, because the damage coming in is spell damage I'm using barrier.

On to Sha, again the same things. I am seeing 30 Shield Barriers and zero shield blocks (tank swaps, Thrash bursting your bubble) and zero Shield Walls. 5 Demo Shouts this time, so that’s more in line with what I’d want to see.

Thrash dictates more shouts so it was used it more frequently. If I never have to use my wall in a fight then I've done my job right. I try to save shield for moments when I know I'm about to get bombed or I see healers take a dive, or basically moments when I know I'm going to spend some time living on my own.

Going back to HoF on 2/7

Wind Lord

Looks like you solo tanked this one?

55 Cleave casts on 13 Ultimatum procs, 6 uses of Deadly Calm. Hit/expert cap and a plethora of Revenge procs would lead to a heavy Rage income, but I’m concerned about a trend of offensive mindset.

Demo Shouts hit a total of 35 targets which is good, should equate to 5-6 uses on a 6 minute fight.

33 Shield Barriers, zero Shield Blocks (initial pull, once adds die and boss pauses to do specials)

Yes I single tank this fight without much trouble. If I die it's because Quickening is dispelled too slow or not dispelled at all.

As you noted I used CDs much more frequently during the fight because the damage intake throughout the fight is pretty high. It dictates less judicious use of cool downs and more just staying up and swinging.

I suppose you could construe using DC as being offensive minded, but when coupled with the incite glyph the cleaves/heroic strikes are virtually free. If I were throwing all of my rage to cleaves I wouldn't have the rage for barriers and I wouldn't stay alive.

So in reading your critique the central question seems to be "Barrìcade, Why aren't you shield blocking?"

In short, its because I tend to fall in the barrier camp of the debate.

To be a barrier tank, you hit/exp cap which increases DPS, you stam stack, which is good for tanks for obvious reasons, and your mitigator is never obsolete (with the exception of garajal), and it gets better as your vengeance stacks.

To be a block tank, you hit cap/ soft exp cap, stack mastery/stam, which, once you get it high enough is like having shield wall on all the time with respect to physical damage. Which is great so long as no one is throwing fire balls at you.

As a barrier tank I DO occasionally switch to block. The litmus test I use on the fly is the length of time my big barrier lasts. If it gets blown out in 3s or less then block is the better option. Luckily, thus far that rarely happens to me.

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It seems that you are advocating burning Defensive CDs on CD, which doesn't seem like an effective strategy to me.

We would definitely not recommend burning cooldowns blindly on rotation. However, we have had a lot of applicants come to us - especially from 10m raiding - with the philosophy that defensive cooldowns are purely reactive / "oh shit" buttons. This opposite extreme is not what we want either. We're looking for a thoughtful balance.

Certainly a tank needs some twitchy reflexes to make quick decisions about how to handle "oh shit" moments. But on top of that foundation, we like to see someone who is able to plan his cooldown use around the mechanics of the fight. Aside from errors, big damage is predictable in this game. To use an example from your own response, Tsulong's breath. While its true that your baseline goal is to survive, we want you to take that up a notch and make your goal to require as little from you healers as practical. Putting it another way, if there is truly not much danger in an encounter, I'd rather have one of my healers DPS (making the farm fight more efficient) than to require all six so that you can ignore cooldowns.

Of course, we have a great team of healers who will be happy to take good care of you. But you should approach each fight with the goals of maintaining great control / placement, then minimizing the burden on healers, and then maximizing your offensive throughput after all that is taken care of. So that's what Hip's inspection of your cooldown usage is really about. He's trying to determine from logs how proactive you are, vs. are you sitting back and waiting until you're at 10% HP before your brain starts thinking about defensive capabilities. That said, your point is also valid - if one were to map out every cooldown it could actually hamper your survivability if it results in having no options when an "oh shit" moment comes. Hence, balance is needed.

I enjoy your application and I think you've survived Round 1 with Hip better than most. I can see that you have rationale for the way you do things.

Would you like to set up a time this weekend to chat in Mumble? In the meantime I'm going to bump you up to Guest so you can cruise the site a bit.

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EDIT: I see in the time I took to craft my response Ashin got back to you and I agree with everything he said 100%

DISCLAIMER: There's math ahead, and I'm not a mathmagician/mathlete/addicted to crystal math. I'm sure if I made any mistakes the forum police will be sure to correct me.

ON TO THE SHOW

First, I owe an apology on your Heroic Strike usage and must confess to an apparent and significant oversight on my part. If I am now reading the Incite glyph correctly you essentially get free HS/Cleave for every Devastate during DC? Turns out your HS use is probably stellar >.>

I also want to say that I am impressed, and that ain’t easy.

You have a real paradigm for your decision making. I can see the work/research you’ve put into it and you have a basis for your decisions. I feel that too many tanks don’t look for the nuance things they can do in a fight to improve their performance and you stand out in that regard.

Let’s take a look at some numbers. And use Windlord as an example.

We’ll start with all of your Wind Lord pulls on 2/7/13

Let’s look at your active mitigation use.

You had 120 casts of Shield Barrier, with 29.8% uptime, and a total reduction of 37,803,192 damage and an average bubble of 315,026.6 (which is pretty sexy).

Now, let’s check out the total melee damage you took; a total of 2056 swings for a total of 157,395,044 damage.

Now, let’s search for a reasonable amount of up time for Shield Block. Let me take the liberty to assume all 120 Shield Barrier casts were at the 60 rage threshold. 120 casts x 6 seconds per cast is 720 seconds (12 minutes of shield block coverage).

The total time of all pulls was 1297 seconds (21:37 in minutes). If you were shield blocking for every 60 rage you would have had 55.55% uptime on active mitigation.

Ok, now let’s assume that 100% of that fight time was meaningful tanking. Let’s take our melee taken, minus active mitigation theoretically spent on SBlk. [Total melee damage taken x .SBlk uptime] x base SBlk mitigation = 157,895,044 x .5555 x .3 = 26,313,209.

With your current gear you’re at 37.12% mastery/chance to critical block so we have SBlk mitigated damage plus estimated crit blocked damage; 26,313,209 + [157,895,044 x.5555 x .6 x .3712] = 45,848,135 mitigated damage.

So blind SBar usage yielded 37,803,192 absorbed damage with 29.8% uptime, whereas blind SBlk usage would have resulted in 45,848,135 mitigated damage with 55.55% uptime.

*also of note and to be totally picky (probably too picky) you gained a total of 8803 rage (that I can prove with WoL, divide that by 60 (max SBar or a SBlk) would be 146 total possible casts of active (26 more than you performed) mitigation, 876 seconds of coverage or 67.6% uptime. True not all that rage was in a single pool, nor would it all be packaged in nice 60 rage bundles, but I think it’s reasonable to say there’s room there for more.

Protectors of the Endless (7:58 fight duration)

SBar usage; 60 casts for a total of 6,298,913 mitigated damage, (average bubble of 104,981.9) 39.6% uptime

Melee damage taken; 130 swings, 20,076,348 total damage

SBlk potential at 45 casts (you gained 2700 rage at 60 rage per cast); 270 seconds or 56.6% uptime, 3,408,963.89 normal blocks + 2,530,814.79 theoretical critical block mitigation = 5,939,778.69 expected SBlk mitigation.

So blind SBar usage yielded 6,298,913 absorbed damage with 39.6% uptime, whereas blind SBlk usage would have resulted in 5,939,778.69 mitigated damage with 56.6% uptime.

So, what’s my point?

Warriors have two tools at their disposal for a reason. Even at your gearing strategy, which is totally viable, but not reaching the potential of SBlk, SBlk will beat SBar at times.

And these are just numbers, not executed in practice real-time and in-game, dependent on the play/reactions of others. The more you can do to make an encounter predictable the greater chance you are giving your team for success. You can do that with either SBlk or SBar, but you need to choose the right tool. This isn’t about one vs. the other, it’s about recognizing that you have a choice and making the right one. In your reply you talked about using SBlk on occasion, I didn't see that in your logs.

Finally, I'm confused why you would be concerned about CD usage. It seems that you are advocating burning Defensive CDs on CD, which doesn't seem like an effective strategy to me. That would be tantamount to bombing heals into targets at full health. Sure you're doing lots of healing but you're not doing it where it's needed. I had planned to trow up a wall and stand at the 19:49 mark as I was at 22 stacks but I just derped and didnt see that he was that close to pooping another defiled ground on me.

In short, yes.

Particularly with the Active Mitts strat you're taking. You're opening yourself up to being more spikey with lower uptimes on SBar (as compared to SBlk potential) rolling those other CDs reduces those OH SHIT moments. Certainly I am not suggesting using each one in a rotation all the time. However I am suggesting rolling some of them virtually on CD and others more frequently.

I am seeing some of that, which is fantastic. Demo shouts on Tsu Long and Sha were well used/placed. But with the host of other talents you've got they're going wasted when unused. You aren't conserving Deadly Calm for strict use in burn phases, so you can push as much damage as possible and make the encounter smooth/quick/successful.

I encourage you to think of your damage reduction CDs in the same way.

using those CDs more often may have less to do with your own survival as it does with the raids. With the amount of AoE damage and random dispels/movement/other strains on healers this tier the more you can do to make their job on you easier the more success your raid will have as healer attention/mana gets pulled in other directions.

So, typically I save cool downs, even the shorter ones, for when I think I'm going to need them. Obviously I don't always make the right call, but I feel its better to have it when you need it than it is to use it just because its up and not have it when you really really need it to keep you alive.

I agree with this to a point. There are times when you will need that OH SHIT button and if you don't have it, you're fucked (proper fucked). But it's more the case that a pull fails at some random unforeseen interval during the course of a pull. Your Windlord kill from last week, 8 pulls, 6 of which lasted less than 50% of the duration of a kill (maybe you were testing something as they are a mix of normal/HM). Using a portion of your defensive CDs early/often smooths out those bumps and allows healers not to tunnel on you.

So, save that Shield Wall but burn that Last Stand, especially when you're looking at 70% of the time with no SBar.

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Hip, y u so damn smart?

I'm not that smart, it just occurred to me that Barricade has the 4pc prot bonus, so SBlk only costs 55 rage, my math is off! SBlk has even more potential!

Possibility of 49 casts on Protectors, 294 seconds/ 61.5% uptime, 3,704,086.2 (block) + 2,756,580.95 (crit block) = 6,460,666.15 expected mitigated damage!

SBlk (6,460,666.15) > SBar (6,298,213)

of course the math is theoretical and the Sbar usage is from WoL so, you know (it could be even better or worse)

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I will post responses to Hip and Ashin later today once I'm off work, but I am happy to talk in Mumble this weekend.

I can log on at 9p EST or whenever is good for you. Please PM me the mumble info or send it to me via RID request

You're talking 9PM EST tonight? That wouldn't work for me, I wouldn't be available until after ~11 PM EST.

However I could make Saturday or Sunday afternoon work.

Hip, y u so damn smart?

So, this has been super bothering me. I believe my math is off, and I've been giving Critical Block double credit.

To calculate SBlk mitigation I was taking;

SBlk = Melee Damage taken x SBlk Uptime% x .3 (which should be correct)

So for your protectors fight it should have been; SBlk = 20,067,348 x .615 x .3 = 3,704,086

For Crit Blk I was doing;

Crit Blk = SBlk (from above) x 2 x % chance to Crit Blk (which I am realizing is doubling it?)

In sum (better at match jokes than math sometimes) I was overthinking/valuing CritBlk

What I should be doing for Critical Block is simply

Crit Blk = SBlk x % chance to Crit Blk

So total expected SBlk potential for you = SBlk x 1.3721

Again for your Protectors kill; 3,704,086 x 1.3721 = 5,082,376

Soooooo

SBar (6,298,213) > SBlk (5,082,376)

My mistake.

Again this is theoretical and using your current gear set up. Things would certainly change with a mastery focus. My prot war alt has an iLvl of only 478, but mastery stacks and has 49.36% chance to CritBlk

Theoretically his SBlk = 3,704,086 x 1.4936 = 5,532,422, SBar still wins

So, it's interesting to see the value of SBar in practice. Sure these numbers could change, mastery stacking and lucky RNG could yeild even more with a good run of CritBlk'ing, (or be less with poor luck) and SBar is more predictable from a total damage standpoint, but roughly 2/3 the uptime so less predictable in it's spikes (as you noted).

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Hip,

LOL Damn it man! I was crafting a response to your first post! I do appreciate your examination of my usage tho. You raise concerns and ideas that I have been thinking about myself especially going into 5.2 where they are changing some things.

I plan to do 4 Windlord fights in LFR soon, probably Tuesday, and post my results. 2 full on blocks and 2 full on barriers. I know 2 and 2 isnt exactly a full sample, but it should give us plenty of data with a wider variety of healer types and skill sets to compare the two.

Would you mind talking Saturday? I just found I had a death in the family today so I'm a little off and I need to make some phone calls home, but if you have a minute this weekend just give me the time in EST and the login info for the voice software of your choice, I assume it's the one noted in the policy and leadership forum, and I'd be happy to talk to you. You seem to enjoy tanking so I'm eager to prot-nerd out with someone in a more real time forum.

Edited by Barrìcade
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