Tank Threat Part 1 - Scaling

Tanks serve a really simple function in principle, but a really wierd one in practice.

The principle is to control. Control damage output, where it is directed to, and positioning. The implementation varies from class to class. However there are two basic principles they all share:

1) Damage intake reduction. They should all take fairly similar amounts of damage, although the methods by which this is controlled may vary.
2) Threat output. All tanks should be able to output enough threat to keep the target focussed on them. This of course has to scale upwards to keep pace with DPS output from other classes.

I'm not going to examine the first one, I'll leave that to others. I'm going to focus on #2 - Threat Output.

The first big thing about Threat Output is that it needs to be fun. Now while fun is a subjective term, the universal truth of RPGs is that people like big numbers. Big numbers are awesome.

Now you could just say "Well then make tanks do 0 damage, and just generate threat numbers." That might be enough for some people, but the universal truth about MMOs is that people like competition. They need some way of comparing themselves to others. In WoW specifically this comes down to Damage, and Healing.

This means that just dealing Threat numbers isn't enough. Tanks need to do damage as well. However problems start arising when you need to be able to scale the Damage (and therefore threat) as content progresses along tiers. How do you pick a method to do this that allows your character to grow and progress, but doesn't hamper you or your raid's ability to clear content?

Blizzard has chosen to use something called "Vengeance". This increases a Tank's attack power by a 5% of incoming damage, up to a maximum of 10% of your Base Health + Buffed Stamina. Unfortunately there are inherent problems with this method.

The first and most obvious is that it doesn't scale backwards (or downwards I guess) as well as DPS does. By this I mean a DPS class will continue to do high amounts of DPS at lower tiers of content (be they raids or 5mans), but a Tank will not be able to do as much relative Threat. Of course you could always follow the "tank off your pants" method to solve this problem, but that shouldn't be necesarry. A tank should be able to generate sufficient amounts of threat to hold off equally geared DPS, regardless of the level of content they are doing.

The second is that any Tank that has mitigation that scales off of AP, cannot have their mitigation and threat independantly balanced while Vengeance exists. Increasing mitigation will decrease opening levels of threat, but increasing opening levels of threat to compensate for this makes the Tank completely overpowered at high levels of Vengeance.

I'm speaking of course, of Druids.

If we were to do away with Vengeance, we would have to find some other method of scaling Threat output with gear progression. So what does each Tank have in common with relatively similar values?

- Item Level
- Health
- Mastery
- Incoming Damage
- Outgoing Damage

Item Level is a pretty hokey concept, and I'd rather it remain simply a descriptor rather than an actual gameplay mechanic.

Mastery I like as a concept, but you could only have it increase the amount of threat generated, not damage. This seems to go against the concept of "fun".

We've already tried a combination of Health + Incoming damage, and look where that got us.

But what about Outgoing damage? It's much more constant than incoming damage, making it a much more reliable scalar for both future and past content. But how do you determine how it caps? Well, why not use the existing Vengeance formula?

That means 5% of your outgoing damage is added to your AP, with a maximum cap of 10% of your base health + your Stamina. Thia makes Vengeance:

1) Much more of an "active" scalar than a gear/encounter dependant one.
2) It becomes much more constant and reliable for threat generation. This makes it much easier to balance around.
3) Tank switches become less of an issue since both should be building up equal amounts.
4) Avoidance strings become a good thing and don't cause your threat to suffer.
5) It scales downward infinitely better than the current model.

The only problem is that it becomes more of a constant in PvP. The solution? Disable it when PvP flagged.

And no, I don't give a rat's ass if you want Tank-specs to be viable in PvP.

I'll be making a post later on about what could be done to balance or improve Druid threat specifically.

Team Waffle Podcast Episode 4

Is now up.

Check it.

http://teamwafflecast.com/?p=103

Arielle's Threat Spreadsheet - V1.1

I updated my spreadsheet with more accurate Live values, mostly at Reesi's behest. I was slacking >.>

Most of my calculations were accurate within a very, very tiny variance (less than 1%). However Thrash is just completely messed up.

I've tried every way I can think of to use Blizzard's datamined Tooltip information, and I just can't get correct values when I use it. Not even close. It doesn't make any sense.

If anyone has any insight they'd like to share with me I'm all ears.

I've also added Pulverize damage with 3 different weapons (Heroic Seliza's, Malevolence, and Herioc Malevolence). I was going to add Mangle, but I had a small damage variance that I just couldn't account for. Maybe I'll try and figure it out again later, but eh. Part of me feels like it's counting the bonus from MSS twice. Maybe I'll respec later to test that theory.

Anyways, here is the sheet.

Team Waffle Podcast - EP#2

Hey Ya'll,

I forgot to tell you, but Episode #2 of the Team Waffle Podcast is now available.

Check it here:

http://teamwafflecast.com/?p=78

Gearing your pre-raid Bear Pt. 3 - Post-Raid

I've constructed a normal mode raid gear list that has what I am pretty sure are the BiS items/enchants for a Bear. This list was constructed with the following restrictions:

1) No BoP profession specific items. This is not a "is Profession X better than Profession Y" debate.
2) Randomly enchanted BoEs from Temple of Wind were ignored. These cannot be relied on. In some cases they will definitely be better than the static drops, but are incredibly random.
3) No PvP gear was used. I'll be making a post later on regarding PvP vs PvE gear.
4) Avoid Haste if it all possible. It is a terrible, terrible stat for Bears.
5) The least desirable secondary stat was reforged to Dodge Rating, regardless of what it was.
6) This is for maximum MITIGATION, not THREAT. If you are having threat issues when you start raiding (not likely) you can drop some of the Hit / Expertise reforges.

Gemming:

For the most part gem Agility, unless the socket bonus warrants something else. If you are having survivability issues (ie. not enough health), then switch to primarily gemming Stamina unless the socket bonus warrants it. You will still need 2 Yellow (+Dodge) gems to make your Meta work.

Reforging:

As previously mentioned, reforge the least valuable secondary stat to Dodge Rating.

Item List:

Helm: [Tsanga's Helm]
Reforge: 67 Crit Rating -> 67 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Trash Drop in Bastion of Twilight.

Necklace: [Necklace of Strife]
Reforge: 50 Haste Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Valiona in Bastion of Twilight.

Shoulders: [Poison Protocol Pauldrons]
Reforge: 59 Crit Rating -> 59 Dodge Rating
Obtained: The "Tron" encounter in Blackwing Descent.

Back: [Cloak of Biting Chill]
Reforge: 50 Crit Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Maloriak in Blackwing Descent.

Chest: [Sark of the Unwatched]
Reforge: 79 Crit Rating -> 79 Dodge Rating
Obainted: Atramedes in Blackwing Descent.

Wrist: [Parasitic Bands]
Reforge: 50 Crit Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Magmaw in Blackwing Descent.

Hands: [Double Attack Handguards]
Reforge: 59 Expertise Rating -> 59 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Chimaeron in Blackwing Descent.

Waist: [Belt of Nefarious Whispers]
Reforge: 73 Hit Rating -> 73 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Leatherworking.

Legs: [Stormrider's Legguards]
Reforge: 75 Critical Rating -> 75 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 2200 Valor Points.

Feet: [Storm Rider's Boots]
Reforge: 59 Haste Rating -> 59 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight.

Ring: [Hornet Sting Band]
Reforge: 52 Haste Rating -> 52 Dodge Rating
Obtained: 1250 Valor Points.

Ring: [Signet of the Elder Council]
Reforge: 50 Haste Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Exalted Reputation with The Earthen Ring.

Trinket: [Tia's Grace]
Reforge: Nothing
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Siamat in the Lost City of the Tol'Vir.

Trinket: [Fluid Death]
Reforge: 128 Hit Rating -> 128 Dodge Rating.
Obtained: Purchasable with 1650 Valor Points.

Weapon: [Malevolence]
Reforge: 91 Crit Rating -> 91 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight.

Relic: [Relic of Golganneth]
Reforge: 28 Haste Rating -> 28 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 700 Valor Points.

Additional Trinkets that you will want to pick up, should you need them:

Trinket: [Symbiotic Worm]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Magmaw in Blackwing Descent.

Trinket: [Mirror of Broken Images]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Exalted with Baradin's Wardens.

Trinket: [Vial of Stolen Memories]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Valiona in Bastion of Twilight.

Trinket: [Essence of the Cyclone]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight.

Notes:

There is very little choice when it comes to gearing your Bear at T11. Since our stat priorities are very clearly defined, there is only 1 piece of gear that fits those priorities per slot. In some cases, there's only even 1 option (Relic, Weapon). Talk about removing "choice" from gearing. Jeezus.

The two trinkets listed in the main set are what I would use for regular tanking. The additional trinkets fill niches that you may find uses for. Additionally, the BiS Heroic Level raid set will be identical to this one except with Heroic versions with the exception of the helm. The helm will be replaced with the T11 helm.

Team Waffle Podcast - Ep 1

Hey y'all,

I wanted to let you know that I finally finished the post-production Team Waffle's first podcast episode.

Get it here.

Arielle's Spreadsheet V1.0

So I did a spreadsheet. It shows the AP coeffecients for our threat abilities, except Mangle. I chose to ignore Mangle since it is far, far, far and away our best Threat ability, so modelling it is kind of pointless.

So what I've found so far while doing this, after hours of math:

1) Thrash does not currently consume Omen of Clarity procs. This has to be a bug.
2) The bleed portion of Thrash is affected by Armor. This is contrary to the very definition of a bleed. This has to also be a bug.
3) Pulverize scales like crap. Although since its only purpose is to grant 9% Crit, that doesn't really matter.
4) There's a breakpoint around 9500 AP where Thrash becomes better than Lacereate for Threat. However since Lacerate will trump Thrash for mitigation this won't really matter until possibly T13 or T14.
5) There is also a breakpoint around 20,000 AP where FFF becomes better than Lacerate for threat. However again since Lacerate is better for Mitigation, and that this also depends on the Spell Damage debuff existing, it doesn't have any practical application.
6) All of the Bear damage ability tooltips are incorrect, except FFF.

You can find the spreadsheet here. Let me know if you find anything or have any questions.