Avoidance vs Effective Health: The Myths
There’s often a lot of confusion surrounding the benefits of the Avoidance and Effective Health sets that we as tanks use. There’s a lot of people that firmly state “I gear for Avoidance” and there’s a lot of people that firmly state “I gear for Effective Health”. Generally, I find both pursuits inferior to knowing when to utilize one or the other gear setup. There’s really no one best way.
Which is why I’m going to start this series of posts exploring the various topics surrounding Avoidance and Effective Health in an effort to shed light on how one should approach gearing an encounter.
Wait… what do you mean by Avoidance and Effective Health?
Gearing for Avoidance is when you focus your gear primarily towards Defense, Dodge and Parry. (as well as enchant and socket this way too) The point of this set is to get hit as infrequently as possible from a boss. Gearing for Effective Health is when you focus your gear primarily towards Stamina and Armor. The point of this set is to be able to survive as large a hit as possible. Let’s take a look at 2 of the common myths behind gearing yourself for Avoidance or for Effective Health.
Myth #1: Avoidance makes the healer’s job easier
This myth associates less damage taken by the Avoidance set with meaning that it requires less heals and thus, is easier to heal. The reality is your healers cannot afford to reactively heal because an Avoidance set takes bigger hits and has less health than an Effective Health set. So the truth is, an Avoidance set requires your healers to be casting the exact same amount of heals as if you were wearing an Effective Health set. Ultimately, an Avoidance set usually just results in more overheals than if you were wearing an Effective Health set. I should note though, overhealing is not a bad thing.
Myth #2: Effective Health makes healers run out of mana faster
This point really just reiterates what was talked about above. Healers heal the exact same amount whether you’re avoiding the big hits or eating them. Effective Health just results in less overheals. (which is neither a good or a bad thing, it’s just a relatively pointless mathematical result)
The Truth behind the Myths
What is lost in quickly glazing over these Myths is why they’ve started and why they are held in such high regard as truths. The myths essentially are founded as a result of a few realities that we as raiders deal with every day:
- Healers not focusing
- Content that we Undergear
- Content that we Overgear
…which is where we’ll stop today, but will give you an idea of where we’re going to take this series in the future. Feel free to add any questions of your own you’d like addressed over the coming months as we explore Avoidance and Effective Health.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:47 am
I find that gearing for a balance between the 2 is the best choice. Of course, i’m not in the cutting edge of progression (just got 2 drakes on monday), but it seems to work well for me…
Good healers can make the most out of avoidance by knowing when to cancel heals, but in order to allow them the breathing room to make mistakes, you need to be at a certain EH threshold…
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Seeing as most myths are based on some fact, there has to be a bottom line. I guess a good question would be if you avoid more hits but take more dmg with a smaller health pool is that more effective than being able to take smaller amounts of damage over a longer period? And if they balance each other out, does it just come down to how you plan to treat your healer?
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I myself gear primarily for avoidance, but I try to strike a happy medium between that and effective health. I was tanking Sartharion 10 man with 2 drakes up earlier this week, and one of my healers commented that I was boring to heal, because I didn’t take a lot of damage, so I’m doing something right.
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Fanter reply on April 8, 2009 12:47 pm:
Same. I am 4/5 valorous and pretty well geared, but i socketed and gemmed for a balance set. I tanked the 4 adds on H kt and afterward my 1 pally healer told me I was the most boring person to heal.
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Lyco reply on April 9, 2009 2:04 am:
I actually find myself running around in half a DPS set ( My dps love the extreme TPS output ), but our healers enjoy it aswell because it gives them something to do XD
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:26 am
While this topic is probably a never ending debate. I am shooting for a little more stam. I don’t see the point to jamming sockets anymore so I most likely will use stam gems for blue sockets and anything else that is not pure blue will have some type of avoidance/stam or pure avoidance. Also I will redo my threat enchants to avoidance ones. Threat may take a little dive but with new vilangance glyth, miss directs, and Tricks of the Trade I am sure raid DPS will not suffer. The one thing I keep telling myself is as soon as healers see when the boss hits the hardest they will adapt just like you as a tank need to adapt by using CD’s at the right time. You can redo and change your gear as much as you want but if you are not using CD’s pots etc. at the right time it really won’t matter what you change!!
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:30 am
One of the reasons people like avoidance (I think) is that you can see where it’s helping you. All the dodge, dodge, parry etc in the scrolling combat text just seem to be more feel-good as feedback than seeing the damage you’re taking.
What I’m wondering is whether you gain anything by going for a pure avoidance setup over a mixed set. Especially given that by the time you have enough gear for a pure avoidance set and a pure mitigation set, you probably outgear the content anyway.
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 9:56 am:
That’s a good question and the reason this series is coming out now and didn’t earlier is because we’re heading towards the 2nd set of raid content which makes it all the more relevant. After all, it’s not unreasonable to say that you could have both an Effective Health and an Avoidance set walking into Ulduar. (…and with Ulduar’s difficult ramped up, the gear decisions are going to start to matter more than they have in Naxx too)
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:40 am
I could easily argue both sides but traditionally it seems that getting a bad RNG roll for a few seconds would be dangerous if you neglect your health pool to a large extent. As a healer and a tank I prefer consistency over less damage with a spikier line. Also keep in mind that avoidance does not affect factors such as a Sarth breath.
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Oh god, giving more ammo to horrible pugs who think STAM = amazing tank. -.-
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 10:19 am:
I wouldn’t expect these posts to all come off as only in Effective Health’s favour.
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Machus reply on April 8, 2009 7:58 pm:
Well, it shows up on your health bar. If avoidance showed up on mouse over, or something, people would respect it.
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April 8th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Vene, I am delighted that you have chosen to tackle this topic and look forward to reading your insights in the posts ahead.
After reading this first installment, I do have one question.
You stated that, “Healers heal the exact same amount whether you’re avoiding the big hits or eating them. Effective Health just results in less overheals. (which is neither a good or a bad thing, it’s just a relatively pointless mathematical result).”
This being the case, what exactly is the point of having both an avoidance and an EH set?
Meaning, if your healers are healing the same amount, expending mana at the same rate, then what is the advantage of using one set over the other?
Thanks again for addressing this topic. It’s one I have often wondered about and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 10:18 am:
The point is your chances of living are better with one than the other. Ultimately, your sets are at their best when something goes wrong not when everything is going right. Which is what progression is all about.
There’s a reason we can get away with a full threat sets on an encounter we’re farming yet still die with a full survival setup when we’re learning. Healers die. We as tanks screw up. The unknown factors of progression are what we’re gearing against more than anything else. (which is why a lot of times the skill of tanking is responding to what we’ve learned from an encounter and switching our gear to accommodate what we initially didn’t expect or took for granted)
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Kazuma reply on April 9, 2009 8:38 am:
But then, whats the point of an avoidance set? Avoidance reduces incoming damage over a period of time. But if healers always heal the exact same amount, wouldn’t the EH set always be superiour and make the avoidance set pointless?
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April 8th, 2009 at 10:01 am
EH is really the way to go. Anecdotal info (my healer said they were bored, I dodged a bunch of times in a row once and it was cool) doesn’t really prove anything. They are just random events, that get assigned to people’s choice to gem avoidance.
Truth is - sometimes the RNG is going to just love you, and sometimes its not. If you don’t like being a total slave to it (and putting 9/24 people’s time and repairs/time on the line), gear EH. You will be harder to kill, easier to heal, and more successful in the long run.
Also - don’t confuse baked-in avoidance on gear with optional/added avoidance. Most tank gear has identical amounts of built in stamina, and different additional stats. I roll with defense/dodge/parry gear, that is gemmed/enchanted stamina/armor, in my max EH set.
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Psy reply on April 9, 2009 12:22 am:
RNG is RNG. It follows the rules of probability and pending a real look into Blizzard’s implementation (Which I fully intend to do this week) we must assume that it is perfectly random.
What this means is that some things CAN BE ENTIRELY DISCOUNTED. As I proved in my website link, the odds that your entire raid will get lucky crits and your group’s total DPS will go up by 5% is roughly one in a million. Literally. This is a probability that can be discounted; “Try again until we get a little luckier on outgoing damage” is not a reasonable strategy.
Some things in terms of tanking are ALSO entirely negateable.
Say you have 50% avoidance. The odds that you will be struck 5 times in a row are .5^5 = 3%. If you’re struck 200 times, that’s 195 hits which are the fifth in a series, meaning roughly 1-(.97^195) = 99.7% chance that you will be struck five consecutive times during that fight.
On the other hand, say you have 80% avoidance (This is what I tank with now, but I’m a DK so we’re ridiculous like that.) Following the same calculations, with 80% avoidance, there is a 6% chance that you will be struck five consecutive times during a boss fight. That’s reasonable enough to rely on for a kill.
Point being, don’t look at avoidance and say OMG RNG WILL SCREW YOU unless you’ve looked at the math behind it.
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Irulan reply on April 9, 2009 12:53 am:
6% chance is still a chance and over the course of dozens of attempts while learning the fight, it will certainly happen more often than you’d like. We’re talking about progression here, not farm status one-shot bosses.
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April 8th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I’d like to see some commentary post 3.1 with the changes to mana regen on whether this changes the Equation of Effective Health vs Avoidance. It seems like they are trying to change the healing game away from how it is now and I can’t help but think that pro-active healing spam could go away if mana regen is hit too much.
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 10:22 am:
Don’t worry this series will continue far into 3.1.
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Tarsus reply on April 9, 2009 6:10 am:
Awesome.
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April 8th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Which set should be used when? Give examples.
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 10:46 am:
That’ll definitely be discussed in depth in future posts, for the time being this post gives a nice overview: http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/03/17/from-5-to-1025-the-raiding-transition/ with some quick examples.
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Sephirawth reply on April 8, 2009 11:46 am:
The only really good example I can think of does not even relate to WOTLK. Currently bosses just don’t hit hard enough to insta gib decently geared tanks (With the exception of Sarth 3D).
The only time I used a heavy avoidance set (however careful not to gimp health too much) was in BC when we fought Archimond Illidari Council and Brutallus.
The fact of the matter was that so much damage was coming in you needed to get hit as little as possible. Couple this with healers having to run from doomfire and getting air bursted on Archi to moving out of flame strikes and blizzards on Council you could potentially have no healer available to you for a few seconds. Brutallus just smashed your face in
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April 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Regarding Myth #1, I’d like to refute the claim that avoidance set requires the exact same heals.
Since there are few sources of bonus armor, a non-paladin’s EH set depends on stamina stacking. Since stamina doesn’t reduce incoming damage, an EH tank will take almost the same sized hits, more often.
All healing classes have spells to deal with sporadic burst damage. Different spells deal with continuous damage. Healing an EH tank requires more of the latter than the former.
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Tengaaris reply on April 8, 2009 4:12 pm:
His point was that your healers don’t know when you’re going to dodge and when you aren’t. So they continue to cast heals as if you’re going to take a hit (on any fight that matters). Hence, they do the same amount of healing either way - the extra damage that you avoid simply translates into overhealing.
Cancel-casting works to some extent, but on a hard-hitting forefront progression boss, it’s too risky to count on.
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Ceann reply on April 9, 2009 7:04 am:
As a TBC healer turned Wrath tank I’d have to agree, less heals are needed if the tank has good avoidance. That’s not to say that it’s always the correct way to gear. Just because your healer uses less mana doesn’t always mean it’s easier for the healer or that your survivability is improved.
Healers also have to adapt to different fights, if you are using avoidance on a hard hitting boss and taking large infrequent hits then the value of proactive heals like HoTs, Prayer of Mending and shields are increased as they will soften the blow of the first hit and increase the chances of you being able to take another.
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April 8th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I’m very interested in this series, as I’m one of the noobs that buys into the myths you described. I tend to take people’s word a little too easily if it makes sense, and well, that makes sense.
Anyway, given your first post here I can see (or think I can see) where you’re going with EH vs Avoidance, so I’m kind of curious to see if I’m thinking along the same lines as you (in brief and grossly generalized, if it can’t be dodged or parried: EH, if it can: Avoidance). I’m probably mistaken, but even if I am, I’m interested to see how and why.
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Psy reply on April 9, 2009 12:26 am:
If you intend to do easy modes, clear Ulduar in the first few months rather than weeks, and don’t particularly care how fast you get through instances (A perfectly valid way of playing WoW) then it doesn’t really matter what you do. You’ll get through fine. That’s how content is made.
If you want to be the best tank you can be, then don’t take peoples’ word for things. Do the math yourself. Compare gear sets. Tinker, tinker, tinker. ALWAYS be prepared to look at what someone says and question their motivation.
Hell, do that for me. I’m an avoidance hound, and it’s how I’ll be until I have some reason to believe EHP is *actually* better. But can you trust me?
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Chet reply on April 9, 2009 7:04 am:
Yeah, it’s one of the things I’m trying to work on right now, the whole figuring it out for myself thing. I do want to be a better tank, so hopefully I’ll be able to make myself pay more attention, and do at least some of my own testing.
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April 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Revamps of:
http://www.tankingtips.com/2007/10/18/the-quick-guide-to-effective-health/
and
http://www.tankingtips.com/2008/06/10/avoidance-outside-the-math-dodge-parry-defense-block/
??
Updating them for Wrath?
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 12:12 pm:
Partly, but the idea is to go into it further than those did.
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April 8th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I think we’ll find the Effective Health Set less effective after 3.1 if the current change to defensive stance stays. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, it is this line form the PTR notes:
Defense Stance reduces damage by 5% (was 10%).
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Chet reply on April 8, 2009 11:55 am:
that’s outgoing damage I think, which is actually a dps buff:
Defensive Stance: Now reduces damage caused by the warrior by 5% (previously 10%).
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Arvernien reply on April 8, 2009 3:41 pm:
Great Stuff! As the notes had been written last week it made it sound like we were going to be taking more damage. This is a very nice buff for us…another 5% damage
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 4:02 pm:
It’s actually 5.5%
(sorry… that was like saying continuity error in a movie… suffice to say… no matter how you slice it, it’s good news)
April 8th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I my experience, only one thing in the game *today* kills tanks.
BURST.
Gearing for effective health gives you a better chance to survive the burst that the boss just dealt you.
Maybe in Ulduar the changes to mana regen will change this fact, but right now, the only thing I am afraid of is sudden burst damage. So effective health is the way I go.
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Veneretio reply on April 8, 2009 12:12 pm:
Ever died soaking bolts on Patchwerk? That’s not burst that’s killing you.
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Arvernien reply on April 8, 2009 3:25 pm:
Yeah, make friends with an alchemist and get the potion that boosts your armor. They’re good for all the tanks who are getting a relentless beating.
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Kuroyume reply on April 8, 2009 6:48 pm:
i use indestructible potions almost exclusively… so much better than healing pots…
April 8th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
The weeks following Wrath’s release up to now may have been a good time to discuss this topic as well. During that time, everybody was a fresh 80, so gear limits during progression might not have allowed for such an available choice in gear sets.
I’m a semi-softcore raider and even now I don’t have sets of gear that have a specific focus. I usually just take what I can get, especially since there are other tanks that also need gear. My only freedom in gearing right now is gem choices, and enchants. So what would be the right focus be for gemming or enchanting, without having to re-gem and re-enchant between boss fights for the benefits?
Also, what do you think about block rating and block value, in terms of effective health? I know you’ve said time and again that block isn’t avoidance, which is true, but it really likes to act like avoidance.
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April 8th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Without getting into the question of which is set is better, I’m also surprised by the claim that healers heal the exact same amount whatever you are wearing. Do you really mean that?
Canceling heals is one factor, but a bigger factor may be re-applying shields and and using long cooldowns, which they won’t do if your health stays at 100%. I guess I’m trying to say that, true, healers don’t wait for your HP to go low before deciding to heal you, but they don’t ignore your health bar either.
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April 9th, 2009 at 12:13 am
The part you’re missing is that Avoidance does in fact lower your incoming DPS, which means that if your healers are terrible and heal you even when you’re at 100% HP, as you suggest, then you can simply bring less healers and more DPS, allowing you to beat enrage and DPS timers easier.
Especially right now, when avoidance is weighted so amazingly ridiculously heavily that its effectiveness outpaces EHP, though this is more meaningful for DKs like me than for warriors.
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Onlyhuman reply on April 9, 2009 3:32 am:
I am sorry to say that but… I wish you understood what you are talking about
Vene is not missing anything here, you just not getting the point
Your healers cannot effort stop healing, what do you mean, all 6-8 of them should be waiting until you got hit?
Do not forget I still have lots of avoidance while gearing for EH,
scenario one:
Avoidance tank (34k hp) receives 2 hits in a row for 12k = he has 10k hp left
EH tank (40k hp) receives same hits but mitigated by bit more of armor to 11k = 18k hp left
now think what will happen in bad luck situation on 3rd hit
that is what EH is all about. (also when I take damage I get rage, that can be converted to threat)
I understand it may be difficult to understand from different perspective of DK class mechanics
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Rhoche reply on April 9, 2009 7:26 am:
“scenario one:
Avoidance tank (34k hp) receives 2 hits in a row for 12k = he has 10k hp left
EH tank (40k hp) receives same hits but mitigated by bit more of armor to 11k = 18k hp left
now think what will happen in bad luck situation on 3rd hit”
Well since we are giving scenario’s let me give one.
Avoidance tank (34k hp) receives 2 hits in a row for
12k = he has 10know think what will happen in bad luck situation on
3rd hit.
Last stand, sheild Wall, indestructible potions ( which should reduce
in coming damage), Priest uses CD pain surpression, Trinkets etc.
I could go on and
on that is a nice example if tanks couldnt use anything to aid them from big hits or in between heals.
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Onlyhuman reply on April 9, 2009 8:41 am:
Last stand is pure Effective Health weapon, it does not reduce incoming damage. Just allows you to survive more damage without healing. Last stand gives you +30% hp, so more you have, more beneficial it is. Read you are further away from death.
Gearing for the encounter, is better way. But if it is unknown, gear for EH.
EH is better way of surviving magical damage, avoidance won’t help much there.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Dude why spec into parry and dodge, your just keeping your healers from overhealing less man..
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Steele reply on April 9, 2009 12:50 am:
I know this argument is false, but im missing a line like “this post applies to progression raiding only”.
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April 9th, 2009 at 5:05 am
I think the EH vs avoidance argument is a bad one.
You should be looking at the fights.
OT on Patchwerk: Avoidance is King.
Tanking Malygos: Stamina wins.
Tanking Loatheb: A heavy blockrating set wins.
As always: gear for the encounter.
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Arvernien reply on April 9, 2009 10:29 am:
I’d add that EH wins on Gluth as well. After Decimate you want enough health left over to survive a couple of hits until the heal lands. That’s a situation where you don’t want to be relying on a lucky dodge.
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Orcstar reply on April 10, 2009 12:44 am:
I’d rather say at that gluth is kinda more of an avoidance fight. After deicmate 1 hit can kill you no matter what your previous health was.
With avoidance you make the chance bigger to survive if no heal lands in time and (I think) you build stacks slower of the mortal strike debuff.
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April 9th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
So i know everybody says to gear for multiple sets but what happens when your *GASP* casual due to rl issues. And you don’t have the gear for multiple sets. It just seems to me that there are far more situations where EH beats out avoidance. If i am a raider who only has 1 set of gear shouldn’t i be going for EH over avoidance.
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April 11th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I find that a good balance between the two is always a good way to go. During progression fights, Effective health is ALWAYS the way to go. From my own experience, I find that gemming for Stamina (EH), and echanting for dodge/def/parry (Avoidance) seems to promote a good balance between the two. Sure I might not have 34k unbuffed health as a warrior, but the 1-2k I lose is worth the 5% avoidance that I gain, and through defense, when I can pick up multiple pieces, it allows me more flex in my gear set and choices for different encounters.
Myself being in full valorous with both the chest from 25m sarth and legs from Maly, I can safely switch those out depending on the encounter, without gimping my EH too much, yet raising my threat, avoidance, or whatever I need for that particular boss encounter.
What makes a good tank that knows the two sides of EH vs Avoidnace, is as many have said, when to use avoidance gear and when to use your full EH gear for a boss encounter.
Same thing, even during trash, I can safely switch out a tanking piece for a DPS piece to make aggro and dmg that much more noticable when making quick fast, decisive pulls, where my dps and raid are clearing as fast as they can without making mistakes. Less time on trash equals more time on boss attempts. Too much can destroy your raid at the same time. This game is about finding a blance within your raid, between tanking, healing, and deeps.
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