Loading ...How good is Defense?
I was reminded recently that I had wrote about How much Avoidance Defense gives over a year ago and that even today, people don’t quite understand just how good it is. Let’s rehash the facts:
- 4.92 Defense Rating = 1 Defense Skill
- 1 Defense Skill = 0.04% Miss + 0.04% Dodge + 0.04% Parry + 0.04% Block
- 1 Defense Skill does NOT = 0.16% Avoidance because Block % is not Avoidance.
- 1 Defense Skill = 0.12% Avoidance
Defense, Parry, Dodge
- 49.18 Parry Rating = 1% Avoidance
- 41.00 Defense Rating = 1% Avoidance
- 39.35 Dodge Rating = 1% Avoidance
So, as we see again… Defense offers a better return on Avoidance than Parry does and almost as good of return as Dodge. However, this is not to say that everything is the same as it was. Things definitely have changed. Two things, in particular, in fact:
1. Blocking
It’s useful now or I should say… Block Rating/Block Chance is useful now. In the past, we could and did spam Shield Block and while it gave us Carpal tunnel, it also meant that we blocked virtually every single attack rendering additional Block chance relatively useless. Well, as you know Shield Block has a 40/60 second cooldown now which means that when it’s down… blocking matters. The result is:
- 41 Defense Rating = 1% Avoidance + 0.33% Block Chance
- 41 Dodge Rating = 1.04% Avoidance
Suffice to say, it’s worth giving up 0.04% Avoidance for 0.33% Block Chance now. Then again, what if I told you that you weren’t even giving that up. Well, that brings us to the next point…
2. Diminishing Returns
Those ugly 2 words that result in endlessly amounts of math that’s nearly uncomprehendable without a PhD. What’s a simple way of explaining it? The more Parry Rating you have, the more Parry Rating it will take to make up 1% Avoidance. The more Dodge Rating you have, the more Dodge Rating it will take to make up 1% Avoidance. And yes, even the more Miss Rate you have, the more Miss Rate it will take to make up 1% Avoidance. Which means that maxing out one Avoidance stat (i.e. Dodge Rating) is no longer as good as it once was. We want balance.
…and that’s what Defense provides. It balances your Avoidance gain across 3 Avoidance stats instead of 1. You also may have noticed above that I didn’t mention Block Rating in what’s affected by Diminishing Returns. That is because Block Rating is not affected by Diminishing Returns.
What’s it all mean?
Things have changed. Defense is no longer 2nd best. Point for point it is now better than both Parry and Dodge Rating. Which isn’t to say that neither Parry nor Dodge are bad stats, but when faced with a 1 to 1 comparison the paradigm has shifted from:
Dodge > Defense > Parry
To:
Defense > Dodge > Parry
Does that mean that we should just blindly stack Defense instead of Stamina, Armor and Expertise though? No, of course, not. Those are different stats that fill different roles, but when it comes to Defense, Dodge and Parry, Defense wins. Don’t stop at 540 Defense, start there and go beyond.
December 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Can anyone please tell me what sites are as good for info like this or from tankspot for my shammie?? I had the idea that Defense is king now but it’s awesome to have all of this explained clearly… i’m a smart chick but I tend to wanna fall asleep when I go to Elitist Jerks, all I hear is a Charlie Brown voice… thanks for making this kind of reading entertaining
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December 12th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I can easily stack 560 Defense (without everything enchanted) with my gear at level 79.
Of course I’ll end up going with more stam enchants then, but for warriors at least it’s pretty simple to end up well over 540 defense even before you ding 80.
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Ekzteg reply on December 12, 2008 11:10 am:
Im curious how you are over 540 defense before you even hit 80. As a recently dinged 80 myself my current defense is at 511. Surely you are assuming everyone entered wrath with full TBC raid gear.
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admin reply on December 12, 2008 11:16 am:
He’s probably using pieces made by Blacksmiths as they offer insane amounts of Defense Rating. (…a little TBC raid gear doesn’t hurt either though ;))
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TomHuxley reply on December 12, 2008 4:41 pm:
Actually, I had no raid gear beyond ZA (and badges) when Wrath hit, although it’s a very nice head start for those who have it.
TomHuxley reply on December 12, 2008 4:40 pm:
When I logged earlier I had only the badge belt from TBC: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Laughing+Skull&n=Tomhuxley
If I throw full survival gear on I’m at 23k HP with over 560 def skill; that will go down of course when I ding 80 in 24 hours or so (but I can stack over 700 def rating if I need to, so there’s no issue with the def issue).
I did luck out and get Seal of the Pantheon the first time I tanked Halls of Lightning, and I am wearing two of the daunting pieces and tempered saronite shoes. I don’t know what else to say; compared to TBC it’s been incredibly easy to get uncrittable. Maybe the fact that I was very aware of it from last time I ran?
I will say that I laid out a plan of crafteds (what skill my BS had to be) and instance/quest drops before Wrath came out, so I’ve been executing on a plan the entire time, which helps a lot. My plan was to be ready for heroics before I hit 80 (which I am) and to be ready to MT naxx a week afterwards, which I’m currently on track for. Taking a few hours to sit down and draft up a plan is the most efficient time you can spend in the gearing process IMO.
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Karl Hungus reply on December 13, 2008 9:38 pm:
Hey Tom, hitting the defense cap is ridiculously easy when you first hit 80, simply because of the pre-80 crafteds that give massive defense bonuses. If we take a look at the Duanting Handguards (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41357) and compare it to the T7 ones (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39622), the lower level one actually has much more defense rating.
So you say defense isn’t an issue, but once you start getting better gear that has more well rounded stats, then you’re going to find yourself in a place where you’ll be looking to enchants to bring up your defense.
You’ve got a very good idea laying down a plan, I’ve got a list of instances I need to crack to fill out my gear yet, but just make sure you take into account that 540 defense cap becomes a bit harder to keep up later on in the game.
Turk reply on December 14, 2008 7:04 am:
Its not as simple as u stated, myself with full sunwell/bt gear didnt reach 540def at lvl 80. almost all ur gear needs to be replaced so its not that great of boost! but with a little work its easily fixxed!
Goodmann reply on December 18, 2008 9:47 pm:
I must lean to agreeing with Tom it isnt a hard thing to manage the def cap at all i had well over 520 at 3.02 patch.
Replacing some items for others during lvling was easy thing and as Tom i had well over 540 before lvl 80 if i needed to be there witch didnt make a difference untill Loken since hes a fragt train in disguise as many must have noticed…
December 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I held onto my defence trinkets for when I get the shiny purples with less defense, but atm, I am using two stamina trinkets.
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December 12th, 2008 at 9:57 am
45% avoidance seems to be good for t7 content from the feedback I’ve been getting from our healers. I have actually been hunting up more block rating to help reduce that “spikiness” to my damage intake.
Motivation? Patchwerk hitting me for 5 (1755 blocked) with shield wall up. I like seeing that so much that I wanted more of it.
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December 12th, 2008 at 11:39 am
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41168
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41168
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41168
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41168
(This is the first time I’ve tried the item link here, so here’s hoping I didn’t dork it up)
Get that made ASAP. Requires no titansteel, so it’s relatively up to you how fast you get it made. Having it ready as soon as you ding 80 is HUGE in helping your quest to 540. Seeings how it’s only the 2nd ranged item in the game with Def Rating on it, I’m willing to bet those of us that tanked at 70 had either the crafted Eng gun or the gun off Teron (i.e. no defense) so this is straight profit as far as increasing your Def rating fast.
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Matt reply on December 12, 2008 11:53 am:
Alternatively if, say, you want to save your money for the very nice crafted titansteel shield, there’s an easy to get (quested) throwing axe with +19 defense rating on it available in Storm peaks.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43187 (Weighted Throwing Axe).
Sorry, couldn’t be bothered to learn to code to make that a cool link.
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Matt reply on December 12, 2008 11:55 am:
Erm, nevermind that last bit. Apparently it makes a cool link automagically.
Anyway that “very nice crafted shield” I was referring to is this: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42508
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Ridlyblade reply on December 12, 2008 1:49 pm:
I’d definitely craft the gun first over the shield. As of right now in the current tier of gear, the gun is irreplacible. I can think of 4 shields off the top of my head I’d rather use than that one for the other stuff they offer, two of which involve heroics. So those two are very easily obtained as well.
I’d say pick up the Saronite Bulwark to hold you over until you can get either the badge belt or the Crest of Lorderan from Heroic Old Strat.
You’ll save your self more gold in the long run from crafting mats to enchanting mats for the quickly revolving shields.
(Speaking of enchants, I’m kinda miffed there’s no new stam to shield enchant, but 15 arcane dust isn’t much to come up with)
December 12th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
When does dodge start to suffer from these deminishing returns? If I recall correctly the epic trinket from naxx has 84 defense and the new “badge” one has 84 dodge. Is there a point where dodge is clearly worse to the point of something with 50 dodge vs another option with 40 defense is still not worth using because those extra 10 points aren’t counting for enough to lose out on the SBR you’d get with the defense? In other words, is there a point where using the 84 defense trnnket along with the 65 defense trinket gives more avoidence then using the 84 dodge with the 84 defense?
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Ridlyblade reply on December 12, 2008 1:44 pm:
There’s alot of math involved with figuring it out. Every point of agility beyond naked, Def beyond naked, then every point of Dodge rating have to be taken into account. It’s really dynamic for every individual piece of gear you come across. So really the nuts and bolts of it all is go for Defense over dodge or parry to get an overall net increase point for point.
That being said, if there’s clear upgrades (i.e. blue>>purps) that happens to have dodge or parry, as well as Def, use it
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Kavtor reply on December 12, 2008 9:06 pm:
The math comes down to that even with diminishing returns, you need about 20% dodge from gear before it’s worth having 1% parry in terms of real avoidance.
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December 12th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
This is awesome thanks for the post. I’ve been wondering and shuddering over exactly how far “diminishing returns” is reaching… now i know. Thanks a lot.
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December 12th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Shouldn’t be very hard to get to the miniumum defense threshold of 540.
Take a look at the gear list on http://www.tanklikeagirl.com/2008/12/02/wotlk-shopping-list-for-prot-warriors if you’re having a hard time.
Using only blue crafted BS pieces, quest pieces and the cloak from honored rep with Wyrmrest should net you 547 defense before enchants, assuming that you didn’t get rid of your Adamantine Figuirine and Dabri’s Enigma.
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December 13th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
very good post and very informative. I myself have always gone with a balance of the three and never stopped stacking def. When Blizzard made the changes to my character they simply helped me out a ton by increasing every single thing that i do and making it more effective or cause more threat.
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December 13th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
What is strange is that as you get better gear, like T7 10 man, your avoidance goes up due to gaining parry and dodge stats but your defense goes down. Staying at or above 540 has been much more difficult than getting there. For a while I could only use 2 of the 3 T7 pieces I had.
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Vrathmat reply on December 13, 2008 9:02 pm:
Yeah I agree. Hitting 540 wasn’t too terrible. I actually had the gear before my base defense skill hit 400. It’s the maintaining it when new gear comes along that doesn’t necessarily have more +def on it that can be the challenge right now.
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megagrogan reply on December 14, 2008 12:38 am:
just try to get trinket from HoL or naxx, can wear whatever you want with one of them
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Tankette reply on December 15, 2008 11:48 am:
I have the Seal of the Pantheon but prefer to use the Essence of Gossamer most of the time. I also use my Indestructible Alchemist Stone since it gives me 1% dodge and 75 stam.
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December 15th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Ahhh handy to know this indeed.
For information getting the def cap is easy, i’ve barely won anything from any instances yet or done any for that matter (bar the def trinket from HoL).
You can hit the cap easy with just the tempered saronite set and the titansteel set.
I was pushing over 555 def. a few gems (mix of def and stam) included ofc.
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December 15th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
actually.. on this subject… I was in H HoL the other day at 542 def.. We got past the nonelite rock elementals after the first boss and the fire elementals crit me with a melee swing a couple of times.. Now… Would that be considered fire damage or melee dmg?
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rochelle reply on December 15, 2008 2:24 pm:
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=59183
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rochelle reply on December 15, 2008 2:26 pm:
Boo for hitting the submit button too early.
The fire guys cast that buff on themselves, you can dispel it with a shield slam. There are a few other mobs with similar self buffs in the game that you occasionally run into for a nice wtf?! moment.
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Hao reply on December 16, 2008 12:47 pm:
must’ve snuck in a crit or 3 while my ss was on gcd or sword and board didn’t proc or due to my own intent to keep 3 mobs under control. >.>
December 16th, 2008 at 2:47 am
Hopefully as more people get to Patchwerk in 25m, more and more people will see how retarded the concept of EHP is!
Anyway, AVOIDANCE, HOOO!
Stack block value, my warrior pals!
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Veneretio reply on December 16, 2008 8:14 am:
Effective Health is all about reaching the minimum requirements for an encounter. Like it or not, if you’re able to stack avoidance for Patchwork, that means you’ve already outgeared it. The guilds that walked into that fight still sitting in sunwell gear HAD to stack Effective Health b/c otherwise they’d have never survived a single hateful strike. Effective Health is a concept for those that wish to survive an encounter they undergear. It is the best concept for doing that.
Regardless, please refrain from calling concepts “retarded”. It simply degrades any discussion about a concept immediately.
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Ridlyblade reply on December 16, 2008 9:49 pm:
Playing a healer in raids has definitely opened my eyes as to how i should gear for tanking.
Personally I much much prefer to be able to accurately predict incoming damage. The only way to give the healers that luxury is to go for good EH and not stack the piss out of avoidance.
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December 16th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Maybe nice to note that 540 defense means uncritable by mobs of level 83 (assuming you are 80). In heroics the bosses are level 82, so a defense of 535 is enough to be uncritable by them. So small gear change to max blockvalue/blockrating for heroics sacrificing some defense is possible.
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December 17th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Is there an updated script?
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(5.6-((GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL))*.04+GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_CRIT_TAKEN_MELEE)),1,0.5,0)
So this is the old macro for assuring your uncritable, but it’s based on the old 73 mobs, is there a new one? ive been looking and I cant find one. Hittting 540 def is easy, maintaining 36K hp with only commanding shout, capped hit, and 540 def is kinda f-ing hard lol.
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December 17th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
36k? i hope u mean 26k..
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Darraxus reply on December 18, 2008 7:46 am:
Depending on his gear. He could be at 36k with a bunch of epics, which would prbably by why he is struggling to keep 540 defense.
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Velcro reply on December 18, 2008 8:25 am:
Or a deathknight…
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December 18th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Defense is so good it makes you only write one post a week
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admin reply on December 18, 2008 1:35 pm:
Ya, gotta balance all the projects with wow, life and full time job O.o
Suffice to say… http://www.tankingtips.com/tanking-formulas is now updated.
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Talisman reply on December 18, 2008 3:07 pm:
What’s wrong with one post a week?
And YAY for the formulas! You rock
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Darraxus reply on December 19, 2008 9:05 am:
I want mah tanking tips!!!!!
April 8th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I’ve been stacking defense, not to the exclusion of all else, but certainly beyond 540 where a lot of other tanks seem to want to stop.
I was discussing it with my guild’s main tank the other day and the topic of dimishing returns came up, which Vene mentions briefly.
Anyone know the relative level of effect that diminishing returns has on defense compared to parry and dodge? Defense rating ends up being much higher (~700) to get uncrittable than Parry and Dodge ratings usually get (in the 300-500 range it seems). Does this mean that defense starts seeing dimishing returns sooner?
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May 25th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I was wondering… Is this still accurate information?
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Blackmambism reply on May 25, 2009 2:25 pm:
yes it is
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July 9th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Will this change with the parry and dodge changes in 3.2?
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September 1st, 2009 at 6:54 am
While the 49.18/41.00/39.35 conversion factors have changed in patch 3.2, I do not believe that +defense always offers the best increase in pure avoidance now nor did it in 3.1.
The reason why is diminishing returns. The conversion factors only tell you how much -undiminished- avoidance those stats give you. Each point of dodge/parry/defense you add reduces the gain given by the next point of that stat. In order to find the actual avoidance each stat will provide, diminishing returns must be applied via the dodge/parry/miss cap and your class-based k factor. (Tankspot has a nice post on this subject here: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f63/40003-diminishing-returns-avoidance.html) In other words, which stat is best depends on which stats you already have.
The take home lesson, then, is to keep your stats reasonably balanced. Smarter people than I have already gone to the trouble of determining the ideal proportion and details can be found on TS/EJ/elsewhere.
(Caveat lector: For warriors and paladins, the shield-based mitigation benefit of +defense may tip the scales a little more towards defense. What I have stated above refers only to pure avoidance (i.e., dodge, parry and miss))
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