Ulduar Tanking - HP vs Avoidance

Conaan! wrote:

Kaienn wrote:Hard Mode IC.

Steelbreaker is a joke with a paladin tank. I dispel myself and then while we kill Steelbreaker, I have someone else focus me for dispels and I follow the rotation to a T (Substituting Exorcism [Glyphed] for Consecrate, and Hammer of Wrath for Hammer of the Righteous @ 20%) and put out like 9k+ dps.

i call bull, 9k dps on steelbreaker? you would have to be standing in the rune to get close to that, and even then, i doubt you are hitting 9k, much less over it (OH SNAP pun intended)

psst... http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=61888

This goes back to the Block vs. Avoidance subthread that is/was weaving through here.

My Armory

Last night I swapped the Eternal Earthsiege (+21 def/5%SBV) with the Austere Earthsiege (+32 stam/2% armor) and Lavanthor's Talisman with the Valor Medal.

Rough stats before the change: 23.5K armor, 28.7K HP, ~23% dodge, ~20% parry, ~20% block (without HS) - about 107% total avoidance/mitigation according to the macro (WITH HS)
After swap: 24.2K armor, 30K hp, ~26% dodge, ~19% parry, ~16% block - about 103% total av/mit w/ HS

Obviously I couldn't/didn't change the metagem while raiding, but I was playing around with the trinkets. With the dodge trinket, incoming damage felt a lot spikier, and my low health dinger went off a lot more. The block trinket just seemed to be much smoother. Like one poster above, seems counterintuitive to the whole EH+Avoidance being needed for Ulduar. This was in 25man Uld on the trash immediately before Kologarn, and then the Rubbles during the Hologarn fight.

Later on, in my 10man, I popped the dodge trinket back on for Hodir, and again, it felt like I was just getting pounded more than normal. After wiping a couple times, I popped the block trinket back in and it seemed a little smoother. (We were trying hard mode, and I had 2pc. FrR gear on, so that may have helped with the spikiness on Hodir). We got him the third time (not enough dps for the hard mode timer).

Thoughts?

Bastien wrote:Obviously I couldn't/didn't change the metagem while raiding, but I was playing around with the trinkets. With the dodge trinket, incoming damage felt a lot spikier, and my low health dinger went off a lot more. The block trinket just seemed to be much smoother. Like one poster above, seems counterintuitive to the whole EH+Avoidance being needed for Ulduar. This was in 25man Uld on the trash immediately before Kologarn, and then the Rubbles during the Hologarn fight.

For tanking trash block is always better than dodge. Mobs would eat the HS charges very fast leaving you with you relatively low(relatively to block) chance to avoid/block an attack. This makes sence talking about trash tanking, but usually when discussing EH vs Avoidance matter players tend to refer to tanking bosses as a MT.

Bastien wrote:Like one poster above, seems counterintuitive to the whole EH+Avoidance being needed for Ulduar.

As you are already beyond the unhittable(102.4%) that extra block falls off the attack table and you actually get way more from dodge. Block rating gives you absolutely NO, or 0 EH. Same for dodge, but dodge actually does something by increasing your chance to avoid an attack. Again talking about boss tanking( HS 100% up)

Bastien wrote:Later on, in my 10man, I popped the dodge trinket back on for Hodir, and again, it felt like I was just getting pounded more than normal. After wiping a couple times, I popped the block trinket back in and it seemed a little smoother. (We were trying hard mode, and I had 2pc. FrR gear on, so that may have helped with the spikiness on Hodir). We got him the third time (not enough dps for the hard mode timer).

Something similar happened to me as well. Later i found out that healers felt too relaxed after me avoiding *many* hits in a row and were simply not spamming me as they usually would. With block though, you would take more hits in a row forcing your healers to spam, thus adjusting their cast in a way where they land right after you are being hit.