Some preliminary conclusions concerning avoidance in 3.2

holy crap, Theck, that's some amazing (and fast!) work!

baneoftruth wrote:holy crap, Theck, that's some amazing (and fast!) work!

Well, don't trust the numbers too much until Jere & co. have time to check my code. It's entirely possible that in my haste to get things calculated and posted, I overlooked a detail or two.

It's not that the code is amazing (well, it IS), it's more the reasoning about what it means, and the excellent way you distill that into a "how is this valuable".

I like that they're making parry rating similarly valuable, and not quite as fail-boat to gem as it is currently. It also means that with the avoidance from dodge rating and parry closer to agility, I might be more tempted by agility, for the very small additional armor gains.

Also, with a nerfed avoidance, this might be part of how they are making BV more useful, by making it apply on a larger number of attacks.

Many tanks use the 30 STA, 15 resilience enchant, thus the baseline defense rating would be slightly lower. Would the ratio change significantly if we start at 667 defense rating?

I ran similar numbers for figuring out what the changes did. For those that aren't mathematically oriented. It easier to just look at some break points.

For 0 Parry Rating the break point to add 1 Parry Rating is 689 Defense Rating, 223 Dodge Rating.
For 50 Parry Rating the break point to add 1 Parry Rating is 689 Defense Rating, 316 Dodge Rating.
For 100 Parry Rating the break point to add 1 Parry Rating is 753 Defense Rating, 431 Dodge Rating.
For 150 Parry Rating the break point to add 1 Parry Rating is 844 Defense Rating, 554 Dodge Rating.
For 200 Parry Rating the break point to add 1 Parry Rating is 935 Defense Rating, 677 Dodge Rating.
For 250 Parry Rating the break point to add 1 Parry Rating is 1026 Defense Rating, 800 Dodge Rating.

Its highly unlikely in current gear to break the 150 Parry Rating point, and unless 3.2 has huge upgrades it will be unlikely to break the 200 Parry Rating point. Its pretty hard not to have at least 200 Parry Rating. So IMHO, its still a weak stat, and most likely you will never gem for it.

Alright, so in top end non-hard mode Ulduar 25 gear that's purely focused on stamina stacking, I sit at 674 defense rating, 514 dodge rating, 195 parry rating. For my red gem choice in 3.2 I'll still be getting more bang for my avoidance buck out of 15 STA, 10 Dodge than 15 STA, 10 Parry or 15 STA, 10 AGI.

Nadir wrote:Alright, so in top end non-hard mode Ulduar 25 gear that's purely focused on stamina stacking, I sit at 674 defense rating, 514 dodge rating, 195 parry rating. For my red gem choice in 3.2 I'll still be getting more bang for my avoidance buck out of 15 STA, 10 Dodge than 15 STA, 10 Parry or 15 STA, 10 AGI.

Sadly yes, even with the stats coming closer together, the point where Parry Rating is crap is still low enough that the random pieces with it will make it the worst choice for gems.

For gear there is more to it than that, but that calculation is far beyond my abilities.

Something I've been interested in working out is what the best values would be based on the iLvl calculation. The iLvl system WoW uses makes it so you can get more total stat points if the values are closer together. For an example an item can have say 100 Defense, 20 Parry, and 20 Dodge for a total of 140 stat points. But if you brought the values closer for the same iLvl of gear it would be something like 55 Defense, 55 Dodge, and 55 parry for a total of 165 stat points. The math I did, and Theck's calculations figure out what the best distribution of stats is given X stat points. The question then is what the best stats given a certain iLvl? You will get more stat points using a 1:1:1 ratio, but will that end up being more avoidance total? There is a little room here because we need other stats like hit, expertise, and such. But the ILvl system might bring the relative ratio's closer together if its thrown in. I'm gut instinct though is that Parry will still remain weak as you could make a 3rd category for other ratings intead of just Defense, Dodge, Parry. Something like Defense, Dodge, (Parry, Hit, Expertise) If you add the needed Hit and Expertise to Parry then it would bring the actual ratios closer together and maximize the ILvl distribution.

theckhd wrote:

1. Take current ratings and subtract out 689 def, 96 dodge, and 64 parry
2. Figure out your current ratio of dodge:def:parry
3. if one of these is higher than the ideal ratio of 2.4:1.8:1, swap out some of the rating that's above the target ratio for a rating that's below or at the target value.
4. Recalculate and lather, rinse, repeat.

After 3.2 hits and we are sure about the numbers....
Sounds like an AD plugin waiting to happen =)

I know Blade Ward is bugged to have a higher proc rate than normal on the PTR right now. Assuming the proc rate stays the same in 3.2 as it is on live right now, will Blade Ward stay a third rate weapon enchant or will it start to be a better survival enchant than agility or mongoose? If I'm not mistaken, I'm guessing that with the normal amount of parry we have on gear, the agility based enchants will remain better.

jere wrote:I think there may be a mistake in your equation. I see you are using the same C value for both dodge and parry. Shouldn't you be using different C values for different types of avoidance?

EDIT:
Actually, looking at your equation, it isn't really doing what you want it to do. You can't really assume the difference will be 0.14570712 at every level of dodge and parry.

My equation was doing exactly what I wanted it to do. My conclusions were very modest, intentionally--I made clear exactly what assumptions I was making, and the parry coefficient didn't turn up in the equation at all. I was just trying to figure out how much dodge would make parry just as good assuming 540 defense and no other avoidance. The moral was just that the crossover point was close enough that it was likely that it would actually be something to worry about in real gear situations, not just some abstract theoretical possibility.

I didn't have the software to do the sort of analysis theck provided (I was working mostly by hand and with a few limited online calculator tools), though I was planning on doing something more detailed once I was done with my trip today. Fortunately now I don't have to!!

Thanks, theck, as always.

So, does this mean that agility makes relative gains against dodge rating? They are both getting thier dodge contribution reduced by the same amount, but the armor contribution of Agility is staying the same.

Hmm, looking at those calculations it seems I should start stacking defense..

Came out with some -64 dodge, +64 parry and +346 defense ratings from some small fiddling in excel. I could of course be totally off the chart with this though. (currently 669 dodge rating, 733 defense and 215 parry ratings)

Very nice work. Sometimes I really wonder how you guys work your magic.

So basicly it means we're still gemming for dodge or agility in red slots, defence in yellow.

What I am however more interested in, is how this effects the relationship between stamina and avoidance. Like theck pointed out before, the simulation I am looking for wich compares EH to avoidance prolly doesn't exist. But we could at least make an educated guess at wether or not it becomes interesting to skip socket bonuses and go for straight epic stamina gems, instead of these multicoloured ones. And a guess on how health/avoidance enchants relate to each other for overal survival.

Thanks alot Theck.

Anybody smart enough to confirm Theck's awesomeness?