Loading ...Back to Basics: Tanking Stats
A while back, I got asked what stats mattered the most for a Threat, Avoidance and Effective Health set. For some reason today, I was inspired to question that question. Why do we only ever care about what stats are the most important? We care because we assume we already know what the tanking stats are, but that we don’t know of the tanking stats which is best. I feel like I’m always missing a fundamental step in my answers to questions like this. What are ALL the stats that matter?
The 10 Tanking Stats
In no particular order…
- Armor
- Stamina/Health
- Defense Rating
- Dodge Rating
- Parry Rating
- Block Rating
- Block Value
- Strength/Attack Power
- Expertise Rating
- Hit Rating
Yes, there are other Stats
Mirror of Truth could easily be thrown out there as a counter to the above assumptions, but it’s not. Mirror of Truth is only strong for us because of it’s proc (The Attack Power) not because of it’s passive effect. (The Critical Strike Rating) It’s safe to say you can ignore stats that aren’t among the 10 Tanking Stats. Anything not listed above is either downright useless for us (Intellect) or is a less than ideal threat stat for us. (Armor Penetration)
Stats by Extension
You’ll have noticed that I lumped Stamina and Health together as well as Strength and Attack Power together. This is because Stamina offers Health and Strength offers Attack Power.
- 1 Stamina = 10 Health
- 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power
The above doesn’t really do those stats justice though as Raid buffs and Talents will affect those stats. Not to mention, Strength also offers 1 Block Value for every 2 Strength you have. Other than the occasional enchant where the primary stat (Stamina, Strength) isn’t available, you won’t want to go out of your way to take the stats by extension. (Health, Attack Power) Just take what the primary stats give you.
The Fundamental 4: From Stats to Sets
Now that we’ve looked over what the stats are let’s get back to the original question of, “What’s most important?” The fundamental 4 tanking sets are the Effective Health set, the Avoidance set, the Block set and the Threat set. There are others, but we’ll only look at those today because the 10 tanking stats fit rather perfectly into only 1 set each. This isn’t to say that you don’t need Avoidance stats in an Effective Health set or vice versa, but it is to say that what’s important for each of those sets really only fits into 1 set.
The Effective Health set
- Armor
- Stamina/Health
The Avoidance set
Why is Defense here?
- Defense Rating
- Dodge Rating
- Parry Rating
The Block set
- Block Rating
- Block Value
The Threat set
Expertise or Hit?
- Expertise Rating
- Hit Rating
- Strength/Attack Power
Note: Every set should always make sure to have 540 Defense Skill (689 Defense Rating) so that you cannot be the victim of a Critical Strike.
Final Thoughts
Making sets is not a rush. Let it happen gradually. If you’ve already got some really nice tanking boots, you should be passing them to another tank with ugly tanking boots first before picking up a 2nd pair for your Avoidance set or your Threat set. Basically, you want to fill these sets up when no one wants a piece of loot. Beyond that, don’t concern yourself with your guild’s loot system. Don’t let a great upgrade for one of your sets get disenchanted because you’re saving up for Leet Weapon X or Sexy Legs Y. You aren’t competing with the other tanks, you’re working with them. Celebrate the items they get as much as you celebrate the items you get yourself and always remember that no single piece of loot will make or break whether you’re a good tank or not.
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
I cannot agree strongly enough with passing on minor upgrades for other tanks. I myself am still using the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions for this very reason. The rest of my gear is already epic, I can stand keeping a blue in my set if it means the raid as a whole improves.
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April 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
The only question I have on this refers back to your enchanting (3.0.8) post. Almost all of your threat enchants were Agi, which I had always kind of assumed wasn’t a great warrior stat. This furthers that assumption. Is it just that there aren’t any better threat enchants out there right now? If that’s the case, is it really worth enchanting gear for threat? I mean, I suppose if you have a piece that you only use in your threat and/or dps set, you should enchant it for threat, but for any piece you use in multiple gearsets, even if threat is its itemized strength, does it make sense to enchant for threat with agi?
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Veneretio reply on April 3, 2009 10:25 am:
Well to be fair, the only enchant I list for threat with Agility is cloaks and you’re correct that it’s only there because there aren’t any better options. That being, it’s still worth enchanting a threat cloak with a threat enchant.
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Chet reply on April 3, 2009 10:56 am:
true, I suppose because it was on top, it was the first thing I saw, which gave that one enchant more weight in my mind. How that became “almost all” in my mind, I really don’t know. Sorry for misrepresenting your post there.
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Veneretio reply on April 3, 2009 10:57 am:
Buh, no worries. It was a good question to bring up regardless.
Machus reply on April 3, 2009 5:31 pm:
Is 23 haste no good?
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tPaste reply on April 3, 2009 10:34 am:
==Is it just that there aren’t any better threat enchants out there right now?==
Yes
==If that’s the case, is it really worth enchanting gear for threat?==
Sometimes
==I suppose if you have a piece that you only use in your threat and/or dps set, you should enchant it for threat, but for any piece you use in multiple gearsets==
Yes
==but for any piece you use in multiple gearsets, even if threat is its itemized strength, does it make sense to enchant for threat with agi?==
Usually not.
At least not in my opinion. basically when I enchant gear I enchant it with the best enchant possible for the slot if it’s used for multiple sets. I think Wrists are a good example of this. for a while I only had Bracers of the Unholy Knight (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40306) which I put 40 stam on the second it was available in 3.0.8. Then shortly after that I spent the badges on the Bracers of Dalaran’s Parapets (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40734). While 15 expertise is technically far inferior to 40 stam in most cases I knew I would only use the Parapets in my threat set because the Unholy Knights are so good. For those bracers I went with the expertise enchant, and would have gone for and agility (for the crit) had it been the only threat option on that slot.
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April 3rd, 2009 at 10:31 am
Agility is definitely part of the 11 Tanking Stats.
It just can’t be assigned to one of those sets explicitly.
But you could also say that Agility is kind of a meta-stat (Armor+Dodge+Crit), maybe thats the reason why Vene didn’t mention it.
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Veneretio reply on April 3, 2009 10:44 am:
I did sorta mention it. :p I consider Agility a less than ideal Threat stat. It’s Avoidance and Armor benefits are even more minimal than it’s threat benefits.
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tPaste reply on April 3, 2009 10:51 am:
DAMN YOU VEN YOU KEEP BEATING ME TO REPLIES
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Veneretio reply on April 3, 2009 10:57 am:
Not my fault, you’re so long winded
Myzery reply on April 3, 2009 1:01 pm:
Agility.
Point for point it’s our best stat when you factor in the three tanking aspects of:
Survival (as dictated by EH theory)
Mitigation (TDR)
Threat (maxing TPS/DPS)
You need to do a careful analysis of agility to truely understand it’s benefits. For min/maxing a particular aspect of tanking, it’s a poor stat. But when looked at the three aspects as a whole, it’s more effective then it’s counterparts in balanced situations where you need both survival and tps/dps. Point for point, AGI provides gains that rival armor/dodge/defense in both TTL calculations AND in total damage reduction.
I don’t want to include specific numbers in a blog reply, but If you want a better understanding of the benefit of agility, look at the models in the current version of RAWR. Or, for once, do some testing yourself.
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Veneretio reply on April 3, 2009 2:09 pm:
You make an interesting point and I will look into it, however the jab at the end of your comment was unnecessary. I would appreciate a bit more tact in the future.
Signu reply on April 7, 2009 10:44 am:
While Agility is really the only stat that benefits all three of the categories, why would you take an itty bitty amount from all three over a considerable amount of one. Suppose you have 3 red sockets. You could gem 3 agi or 1 expertise(threat), 1 dodge(avoidance), and 1 strength (mitigation). I can’t check the numbers at work, but I’m pretty sure 8 SBV is usually more mitigation than 32 armor.
tPaste reply on April 3, 2009 10:51 am:
While this is true, little of our gear comes with Agility. IMO the reason for that is because if you’re min/maxing it’s the weakest stat. It’s just not that attractive. For example I’d never Gem agility. If I needed a red gem which is what Agility is and I’m chasing the bonus I’ll go Expertise for threat, Dodge for avoidance and Expertise/Stam or Dodge/Stam for Effective Health. In call cases while Agility does buy you all the categories in one stat it’s less of any of those than other options and it’s just not worth it. To me the only time Agility does make sense is in the case of an enchant when there isn’t a superior option for that set for that slot.
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April 3rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I would be interested in reading about when to use certain sets. I’ve got the makings of an effective health set, an avoidance set & a block set…but am not really sure when to use effective health versus avoidance.
I have one set hat offers about 1.5k hp higher than another set that offers about 3% more avoidance. What kinds of situations should I go for HP and what kinds should I go for avoidance?
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Chet reply on April 3, 2009 1:29 pm:
Well, EH can take more hits and more consistently, but requires more healing, while avoidance damage is generally spikier (is that a word?) since you might go 4 or 5 attacks without getting hit, then take a few hits in a row with a lower health pool than your EH set. Overall though, an avoidance set should require less healing, as you’re not constantly taking damage. Block sets maximize SBR, which means you should take fewer unmitigated hits. As a side effect, most SBR pieces have SBV, so your shield slams should be pretty hefty. This is good for taking lots of small hits (adds/trash).
So basically EH is good for bosses that hit hard, so you need a stam buffer. Avoidance is for bosses that don’t hit quite so hard, but maybe hit faster, and also for moving fast through an event, as it doesn’t take as much healing generally. Block sets are for, as mentioned, adds and trash, where you’re going to be taking a lot of small hits.
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Machus reply on April 4, 2009 5:13 am:
The boss where I found that question most interesting was the lynx boss in Zul Aman (70). That boss hits fast and hard at certain points in the encounter, and there are other things happening that stress the healers.
Normally that would be approached as an Effective Health boss. I found that our raid was more successful if I used avoidance. But both choices were reasonable.
Generally I would say if you die because healers didn’t have the cast time or GCD to heal you, use more EH. If you die because thy didn’t have mana, long CDs or spellpower, use more avoidance.
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April 3rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I have ever myself (yet) in a situation where I need to completely sacrifice Threat stats (Exp./Hit) to increase EH. Actually the more it goes, the more I try to do the complete opposite, which is quite hard considering (imo) Threat set is the most difficult to build, unless you have been farming the content for some time. Perfect threat upgrades (legs and trinket from 25maly, neck KT 25naxx, boots from Thad) seem to be way harder to get than any item for a block set (which drops from 10man naxx and early boss in naxx25 - the only harder item to get being the helm from Sapph).
Providing the warrior mechanics, the phase where you are getting the first pieces of your 25man gear, you are getting a bunch of avoidance and/or EH pieces which are completely downgrades in terms of threat. Then what do you do if you don’t really need more EH or avoidance for the content you’re doing?
/sigh I just re-equiped my Shard of Contempt as it gives me better tps/dps than the Mirror of Truth.
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Furiat/Vege reply on April 4, 2009 4:42 am:
Hell I still weer Shard on most bosses.
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April 4th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I agree with pretty much everything except the point about crit rating being useless. It boosts TPS alot, since our threat now comes mostly from damage, and a a few crits in a row can take it to places we thought it couldn’t go.
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Furiat/Vege reply on April 5, 2009 12:45 pm:
That might be true. While crit affects all our skills, AP (pure one) does not: Shield Slam, Devastate. It also increases dmg (threat) from Deep Wounds rolling. But it would need some number crunching I think.
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April 5th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
The only damage that does NOT scale with AP is Shield Slam and damage shield. Everything else, including Dev, Rev, conc Blow, Shockwave and HS scale with AP.
The idea behind crit not being good for tanks is that as a tank, you want to aim for steady, sustained TPS so your DPS have a good idea on what they can aim for too. Sure crits are good, especially with Impale and DW but expertise and hit win out over crit every time.
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Furiat/Vege reply on April 5, 2009 11:53 pm:
Bah, couldn’t find any reliable source with Devastate’s formula (and I was sure it was only weapon dmg). Seen that it’s AP coef is 5%, so it’s quite low actually. Or am I still mistaken?
I don’t think that getting crit over AP does not increase sustained tps. It does, just like AP (same is with dps actually). We already have at least 25% (up to 30%) crit rate raid buffed (to our most important skills, Revenge, Shockwave, Conc Blow sitting at 10-15%).
It never will be as important as expertise or hit for a threat stat, no one wrote anything like that. The question is: is it as good as raw AP or it is better, near Str (or maybe even between hit and Str)?
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April 5th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
How do you feel about balance? Is it necessary to only go for one set or is it possible/practical to balance each. Why can’t I keep some of my Effective Health while still going avoidance. I tend to lean toward avoidance, myself, but I’m curious.
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April 5th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
A “balanced” set is probably the one to use on most encounters IMO. There are not always definite advantages in going all out EH, or all out threat or avoidance. Even those specific sets are still going to have a fair amount of all the above mentioned tank stats. Gear and spec depending on the encounter. When faced with much harder content, gear decisions will become much more important.
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April 6th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hmm, thought I posted this before I left for work, but apparently it didn’t go through.
The only comment I’d make is that your Block Set is usually not just block rating and block value, it’s actually Avoidance set + Block rating/value. A common time that you’d use this set is on Sarth3D as an add-tank. You’re not maximizing your threat, you want to maximize your AOE-tanking survivability.
Without this distinction, people may think that a blue blockrating/value item is better than an epic dodge+parry+blockrating item; 50 block value isn’t as good as an extra 2% chance to completely remove incoming damage (in my opinion).
Note: in this set, you also want to make people aware that +def is a better gemming solution than +str for the added block value.
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Chet reply on April 6, 2009 1:51 pm:
I 1/2 agree here. One of the reasons I like a block set is consistent rage generation. I have to agree that anything with both parry and SBR would be far better than a SBR+SBV piece, but unfortunately, thanks to the DK class, and the homogenization of gear, dodge+parry is much more common than SBR+Parry, and, in my opinion, dodge, while not to be avoided (no pun intended), isn’t really something I search for in a block set, unless an unhittable set is within my reach, but then I would just go all out on all dodge/block/parry/def to try to make it happen.
Then again I’m still kind of a noob at this whole tanking business.
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Ebs2002 reply on April 6, 2009 2:34 pm:
Well in that case I’d suggest a separate section for Avoid+Block, as it certainly does have its merits when AoE tanking.
I can see why you wouldn’t want to avoid on, say, Loatheb, and would instead prefer just to block and take steady damage/rage.
An example would be the Burning Skull Pendant (28def 44bv) vs the Titanium Earthguard Chain (34def plus a socket). For 3D adds, I’d choose the titanium chain over the skull pendant, even if I’m losing 40 block value, I’m picking up another 0.5% avoidance overall.
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April 7th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Hey, I was just wondering since the passive 50crit on Mirror of Truth is not all that desirable, wouldn’t the Anvil of Titans (40 Wintergrasp tokens) be more attractive, with it’s passive 50 resilience? I know resilience is also not the most attractive, but the effect is the same (1000 ap). Thanks.
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Veneretio reply on April 7, 2009 8:01 am:
Crit isn’t the most amazing stat for us, but it still is a threat stat and we’re only wearing the Mirror of Truth when we want more threat so I’d definitely give it the nod over Anvil of Titans. That said, it’s possible if you wore enough dps style pieces that the resilience would be useful to maintain not being crit. However, such a set I believe would be a bit too lackluster survival-wise to warrant using even if it may end up having a lot of threat/damage potential.
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Thirdson reply on April 7, 2009 8:06 am:
I see, thanks for clearing that up, as a Tank that just hit 80, competing with well-geared dps for threat is one of my issues. I may just have to pick one up.
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Darraxus reply on April 7, 2009 1:19 pm:
Unless you have a surplus of emblems, I would say buy the tanking upgrades first.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Stack spirit. You will become your own healer!
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April 14th, 2009 at 1:58 am
“You aren’t competing with the other tanks, you’re working with them. Celebrate the items they get as much as you celebrate the items you get yourself and always remember that no single piece of loot will make or break whether you’re a good tank or not.”
Great piece of writing verne, nice subject to highlight. As for the last piece to this article I slightly disagree. While it is all very well passing over gear to the next tank, the glut of tanks these days is such that regretfully you are in direct competition whether you want to or not. It would be nice to work with the others, which is doable with 2 or 3 but when there is 8 or 9, human nature tends to panic and gear selfishly for fear of not being able to get a raiding spot :D..
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