World of Warcraft

[Ground_Breaker]

Re: World of Warcraft

What's the general consensus regarding hit cap for prot paladins now? Obviously tanks need to come close to the cap for threat gen, but with the massive buffs we got, I'm wondering if it's even worth it anymore.

I have low hit and low expertise; my Hammer of the Righteous gets deflected and dodged all the time, I miss judgments and Avenger's Shields, but I can hold aggro on all kinds of trash packs. The other night I took 5 mobs out of both packs of trash in front of Deconstructor without any problems holding aggro. I'm not getting constant ToTs or hunter MDs either.

I'm thinking it may just be a lack of good DPS in my guild, but I'm curious if anyone else has noticed they always have a huge threat lead and as a result are gearing away from BV/BR/Hit/Expertise and more towards pure avoidance stats.

[devonin]

Re: World of Warcraft

I don't think hit cap is remotely necessary for prot paladins. Having some certainly helps, but so little of my threat is coming from actual weapon swings anymore. Between exorcism working on everything, shield of the righteous, hammer of the righteous hitting 4 targets and consecrate up all the time, I'm spamming off so many things that generate gobs of threat, that even the odd miss and dodge here and there barely dents my threatgen.

Pretty much the only thing that has any hope of pulling initial threat away from me is a retribution paladin whose darkmoon card greatness procs on the opening salvo. And even they I can pretty much stay ahead of if they are following directions enough to be hitting the same thing that gets my exorcism and judgement.

That said, I know several warrior tanks who gem for expertise, and I'm using a shield with hit specifically to help ease the threat generation burden, but my avoidance is much better compared to the rest of my needed combat stats than it used to be in BC.

[Sir Psycho]

Re: World of Warcraft

That said, I know several warrior tanks who gem for expertise, and I'm using a shield with hit specifically to help ease the threat generation burden, but my avoidance is much better compared to the rest of my needed combat stats than it used to be in BC.

Getting as close to 60 expertise as a warrior is something we strive to get. My shield slam gets parried way too much.

If I'm running a Naxx25man or something like that, I'm usually at 40expertise unbuffed(50 with pot and food) and I still get SS parries like 8% of the time. SS being our biggest threat generator in a single hit, we need to make it so we don't get parried. If my opening SS is parried, I have to taunt.

Difference between 26 expertise and 50 expertise as a warrior is about 1 to 2k TPS. And if I'm in my threat gear, I'm pushing 7.5k TPS(50exp with pot/food). In my avoidance gear, I'm pushing about ~6k TPS(33expertise).

[Sir Psycho]

Re: World of Warcraft

P.S. tanking's fun, i should start raiding soon http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...nyxia&n=Sindes

Get rid of your parry gems. Now. Seriously. Get rid of them. Go dodge, or go stam. Avoid parry gems.

Parry has harsher diminishing returns and takes more rating percent then dodge does.

[Ground_Breaker]

Re: World of Warcraft

Get rid of your parry gems. Now. Seriously. Get rid of them. Go dodge, or go stam. Avoid parry gems.

Parry has harsher diminishing returns and takes more rating percent then dodge does.

This. If you must have a red gem in your gear for whatever reason, it should be the dodge/defense orange gem or maybe a full dodge gem if you're desperate. Just about anything is better than parry.

Also, unless you're stacking stam, you should go work on SoH rep to get their inscription of the pinnacle for your shoulders, better avoidance.

Get at least a Heavy Borean Armor Kit on those gauntlets if you can't afford the Armsman enchant.

You have two rings with 0 defense, so you should at least get the Titanium Earthguard Ring to free up a slot for gear upgrades. Also, don't hesitate to use your BS prismatic sockets for pure def gems to also give you a little more breathing room for choosing upgrades. The point is to spread the defense rating around so when you upgrade a piece, you don't lose a substantial amount of defense rating. There are quite a few pre-raid blues that have a crapload of defense rating on them, which is great, but your first epic upgrades for those slots usually have way less defense, so you want to have as much as you can on as many different pieces as you can to alleviate that big def rating loss.

[Tokzic]

Re: World of Warcraft

you know what's funny

People say that never being at the top of the DPS meters is no fun, but I'm actually having a lot less fun with competitive DPS this patch. I was having a blast having to work damn hard to reach the top of the charts in Naxx. Now, I have not been in a single fight since 3.1 hit where I was lower than #1 on DPS charts, including my class leader (who has better gear than me what). I'd love for my guild to run a parse sometime soon so I can demonstrate exactly how literally I mean that.

ps hodir is the funnest raid fight i have ever done, holy damn

[devonin]

Re: World of Warcraft

This. If you must have a red gem in your gear for whatever reason, it should be the dodge/defense orange gem or maybe a full dodge gem if you're desperate. Just about anything is better than parry.

Wow, that's some pretty black-and-white language, you do realise that the reason parry is more expensive to stack is that it is objectively superior to dodge right?

While it costs more rating to get there, 1% parry is just -better- than 1% dodge or 1% miss or 1% block.

[Kagome]

Re: World of Warcraft

Yeah our rogues have jumped to the top of our meters too. My DPS got worse in 3.1 because of the spirit changes and Naxx gear having little to no spirit.

[Sir Psycho]

Re: World of Warcraft

While it costs more rating to get there, 1% parry is just -better- than 1% dodge or 1% miss or 1% block.

1% parry is "better" because it gives a bit more threat generation. Dodge is still the superior avoidance because it's cheaper for more. Avoiding damage is avoiding damage. Wouldn't you want more for less?

And besides, without a single parry gem in my avoidance gear, I have 22% parry and with all 8dodge/12stam gems in my gear I'm at 26.50% dodge. Without the gems, I drop to about 25% dodge. If I had 8parry/12stam in my gear, my parry would only be about 22.75%. 1.5% avoidance > 0.75% avoidance.

[Kagome]

Re: World of Warcraft

When you parry you get a haste to your next attack that makes it almost instant.

[Sir Psycho]

Re: World of Warcraft

When you parry you get a haste to your next attack that makes it almost instant.

It's called parry gibbing, when you parry your next attack comes twice as fast. Bosses used to do this, when a tank got parry-gibbed, it usually meant a wipe.

Basically 1.6 attack speed turns into .8 attack speed for one AA. Rocks for warriors when your HS spamming.

[Ground_Breaker]

Re: World of Warcraft

you do realise that the reason parry is more expensive to stack is that it is objectively superior to dodge right?

For threat gen, sure. The only reason you'd want to parry an attack instead of dodging it is if you need the increased time on your next attack, which you'd only need if you don't have a comfortable threat lead. It's not like parry reduces the GCD or something, it just gives you one faster attack.

I imagine that you'll probably say something like, "100% damage reduction + a faster attack > 100% damage reduction," but, like you said, parry rating is more expensive to stack, so I see that faster attack as a bad trade-off for losing extra avoidance from dodge.

EDIT: You're right about 1% parry being better than 1% block, but what I meant by "anything is better than parry" is basically dodge or defense. Any avoidance stat is better than parry.

[Gano]

Re: World of Warcraft

Hey guys Ulduar is pretty fun I think. I've been magering it up since I was last here and my guilds cleared 25 man through Auriaya, stupid crazy cat bitch. Focusing on Hodir tonight, woo!

I wish my regen wasn't nerfed, Arcane is lame now.

[tsugomaru]

Re: World of Warcraft

We have a winner in achievement points.

~Tsugomaru

[Tokzic]

Re: World of Warcraft

Hey guys Ulduar is pretty fun I think. I've been magering it up since I was last here and my guilds cleared 25 man through Auriaya, stupid crazy cat bitch. Focusing on Hodir tonight, woo!

I wish my regen wasn't nerfed, Arcane is lame now.

Gano! <3

For a second I thought you were in my guild without me even knowing because that's exactly where we're at and exactly what we're doing tonight. We had some goes at it yesterday but unfortunately the dumbass affiliate:raiding member ratio was scary high yesterday and of all things the Flash Freeze kept getting us. HOW HARD IS IT.