Clarifying this "490" Defense thing...

[Shadowwolf]

So I saw a lot of talk in gchat yesterday on "All you need is 490 Defense" and some went so far as to say anything more is worthless. I want to clarify some statements I read so we dont start propigating mis-information or incomplete information. I also want to answer some questions a few had on the subject as I did some research on this since I was unsure to the validity of some of the statements I saw. I learned a long time ago you should never accept anything you read on the WoW forums posted by other players at face value.

Statement: "490 defense is the cap to mitigate crits and crushing blows."
This is false. If you are looking to mitigate crushing blows only, 350 defense is the cap, 490 is for crits. Additionally, there are some bosses within BC that have a greater than 7% crit chance and you will still get crit at 490 defense. Who those bosses are and where is difficult to say as Blizz doesnt divulge that information but they do exist and ive seen screen shots of someone with 525 defense getting critted by a boss. 490 is a good "jumping off" point for most lvl 70-73 bosses (73 being most BC bosses that say ?? for level) and a nice goal to shoot for as a start. Where you go from there becomes preferential and also circumstantial.

Question: "Is there other ways to mitigate crits?"
Yes, thats where Blizz introduced the Resilience stat. If your gear is lacking in +def, you can go with trinkets, enchants and gems to up your Resilience to compensate for crits, though this wont help with crushing blows. Resilience will reduce the effects of critical hits against your character. It has two components; it reduces the chance you will be critically hit by x%, and it reduces the damage dealt to you by critical hits by 2x%. x is the percentage resilience granted by a given resilience rating which is dependent on your level.

Statement: "Anything more than 490 defense is worthless."
This statement is untrue, and again, depends on what you are looking to improve upon on your tanking abilities and stats. Defense will improve your other tanking abilities as well the higher it goes, well past 490.

• 1 point of defense rating = 0.048% avoidance (combined miss/dodge/parry)
• 1 point of dodge rating = 0.053% avoidance (dodge)
• 1 point of parry rating = 0.032% avoidance (parry)

Note: Block is factored into +defense as well, but the gains are negligible and for the sake of Feral druids who cant block I left it out.

So as you can see, continuing to add to +defense will also help improve upon other passive abilities as well at a reasonable rate. It is better than +parry alone but for dodge %, its slightly worse, however you gain benefits for 3 areas vice only 1 if you work on dodge alone.

A great example of this "excess" +defense would be Arc. As a tank on single mobs, he has difficulty sometimes generating rage due to his miss and dodge rating being so high. As a side effect of this he takes way less damage than most other tanks. This is because the higher defense, the higher the other passive avoidance abilities.

Another good reason to work on upping defense past 490 is resistance gear. Not all specific resistance gear such as Fire, Arcane, etc comes with +defense on it, nor can all of it be enchanted with any type of +defense, sometimes only some or even as little as none. Because of this, on fights which require specific resistances and may require a gear change, upping defense with other items, or altogether will allow you to stay at or as close to 490 for optimal tanking as possible.

Question: "Can +defense compensate for lower stamina stats and other statistics?"
Yes and No. As shown above, +defense can add to other passive abilities but it cant outright compensate for less stamina. Stamina is still as crucial and trading it for +defense wont help you live equally as long. You still have to account for unforeseen variables, such as attack speed, dps and number of mobs you will be fighting. While +defense at a high number will help considerably on a 1v1 encounter with a boss or single pulled mobs, if you find the need to tank multiple mobs, this benefit will fly out the window very quickly and thats where added stamina helps even things out. Additionally, you need to account for spells which you cant block dodge or parry and +defense does not affect spell casts, it applies to physical attacks only.


Hopefully this clarifies some things for those who had questions and also for those that might have misunderstood the "490 defense" talk thats been circulating around WoW as of late.

Truth is there is no "magic defense" number that makes you un-crittable by everything in the game, if there were, everyone would be sailing through the new raids with great ease. Everything is based on what little information is disclosed and the 490 number was come to by someone doing some mathematics on the information Blizz had released about the new defensive system when BC came out. This doesnt account for the vast number of unknowns that have been incorporated into instances and bosses that they wont speak on so putting blind faith in someone on the outside's math is not the best thing to do. Yes its very accurate to a point, and yes it provides a good reference point, but by no means is it a "magic number" of sorts.

Id suggest reading http://www.wowwiki.com/Combat_Rating_System for more information if you want to know a bit more and take advice and statements on the WoW forums with caution as a lot of them are bias based on the playing preference of the person making the statement. 

[Arcdelad]

great post shadow...you make very strong points...

I think shadow's overall point is that 490 is great, but there are still diminishing returns from defense over 490...

Not sure if this hold true for palliles and warriors, but here is how each defense related item helps out for druids:

1pt of Stamina: ~3.89 mitigation
1pt of Agility: ~3.45 mitigation
1pt of Dodge: ~2.49 Mitigation
1pt of Defense: ~2.35 Mitigation (Before Crit Reduction Cap
1pt of Resilience:~1.37 Mitigation (Before Crit Reduction Cap)
10pts of Armor: ~5.58 Mitigation

The two biggest numbers on this list are armor and STA, but from my experience you get dramaitcally diminished returns from armor after 20k...stamina is really important (voc helped me see that a while back), and AGI helps dodge (more so than 1 point of dodge), and dodging an attack is better than trying to absorb an attack no matter how high your DEF is...

(So you ask then, why not have rogues main tank? or why not tank in cat form and just dodge everything? Becuase you can't dodge everything, and when you don't dodge an attack your low armor is going to spell disaster)

[un4]

Tried to find that screenie of the rogue evasion tanking patchwerk, but no luck...
In short, he dodged everything for about 15 seconds (evasion's duration) before getting crit for about 40000 damage (crushing).

[Drygioni]

I was in Shadowmoon one day questing alone when all of a sudden I aggroed a 71 elite demon in the zone. I immediatley bubbled and prepared to make a break for it when a gnome warrior from <Invictus> came to my rescue. I forget his name but he used to come on the odd ZG with us back pre BC. lil' somethin or mini .

anyway

He pretty much solo'd this "boss" and I didnt even have to heal him once. Watching his portait it flashed "dodge" "parry" "dodge" constantly. I exlaimed "He can't hit you!" and the tank replied simply "heh yeah". I would have loved to see his Def + resil stats.

[Air]

490 Defense isn't the end all be all, but it is a place to start.  Just makes it almost impossible for the tank to be critted, which makes healing alot easier.  It's better to take 5-10% damage every few seconds then to go from 90% health to 35-45% health in a matter of seconds.  This was in reference to warrior and paladin tanking.  I don't know enough about druid tanking to say. 

The next goal for a tank is huge amounts of stamina.  It's usually a good idea to forgo gem bonuses on an item, and just throw in +12 stamina gems. 

After that, getting up dodge, parry, and block up is a good idea.  Not sure what values is good for this though.  Still reading up about this.

Also, once a tank reaches 490 Defense, Resilience is pretty worthless.  I've been under the impression that Resilience is more for pvp than pve.

the reason for anything over 490 Defense is a waste is because its stats that could better used for stamina and more avoidance like dodge, parry, and block.  You could have a tank in 525 Defense, but if that person only has 10k health, there still gonna die fairly quick.  Tanks i've seen in raiding fully buffed are hitting 15k health or higher.

[voctovian]

Well, I have seen first hand that there is more to tanking than 490 defense.  

I was running with a group and fighting a "?? Boss" mob.  The MT warrior had 520 def (16k armor, 16k health) but was extremely difficult to heal.  He kept getting hit for 6k+.  After several wipes, we eventually decided to have the feral druid tank the boss.  He had a similar defence rating, but had much higher armor (26k) and dodge (45%).  With the druid tanking, we were able to get the boss down farily easily.  The warrior did some investigation following this, and found that his parry/dodge/block ratings were very low relative to other warrior tanks who have successfully MT'd the boss.

Stam, def, dodge, armor, parry & block (warr and pally) are all required to be successful as a tank.  I suspect that many builds will work, but ultimately, you cannot just focus on one or two of those stats... there needs to be a balance.

I suspect that resilience will play a significant role when tanking mobs that cast crit capable spells.. in PVP a crit pyroblast is deadly, but in PVE too, there are mobs that cast powerful magic attacks.  If they can crit, the only mitigation is resilience or resistance.

[Air]

I just found this link with some useful info.
http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.php?t=12855

Tanking
- Warriors and Paladins require 490 defense [336 defense rating] to be uncrittable. Druids require 415 defense [156 defense rating] with Survival of the Fittest.
- Crushing blows are pushed off the combat table against 73/Boss mobs when your dodge + parry + block + mob miss chance is greater than 102.7%. Most warriors easily attain crush immunity when using Shield Block, and Paladins require an active Holy Shield plus 72.5% dodge+parry+block+miss (5% of which may be supplied by the heroic badge Libram).
- Druid Bear Form's armor bonus does not include enchants or temporary buffs.

[Kothnok]

Quote
Tanking
- Warriors and Paladins require 490 defense [336 defense rating] to be uncrittable. Druids require 415 defense [156 defense rating] with Survival of the Fittest.
...

That first line is suspect since Voc experienced first hand a warrior with 525 defense not only suffering from crits, but being replaced because it was happening too often.  I seriously doubt the rest of that quoted info is any better if the very first line is so woefully wrong.

[Shadowwolf]

Depends a lot on what he was tanking though. The problem is Blizzard throws those curve balls into most of the raid encounters purposely to add "challenge" so what would normally work for a boss in a regular instance, or even perhaps a Heroic mode instance, wont work in Kara, Gruul, etc etc.

They make the game with the unknown variables so that people cant just shoot for that special number and just blow through the content at record speed because then theres no point and the challenge goes away.

The sad and real truth is no one really knows but the creators at Blizzard and they wont tell, they will hint, leak tidbits, but never outright tell and so its a guessing game for everyone. What works for one, may not work for another in regards to players, bosses and encounters.

[capnpop]

Hierarchy of hits:

1. Miss --------------------(complete avoidance of damage)
2. Dodge -----------------(complete avoidance of damage)
3. Parry -------------------(complete avoidance of damage, swing speed of current swing increased)
4. Block ------------------(damage after mitigation reduced by your block value)
5. Glancing Blow ------(Players only, variable reduction of damage; ~75% of normal)
6. Critical ----------------(200% of normal damage for physical attacks, 150% for magic/elemental)
7. Crushing Blow -----(Mobs only, 150% of normal damage for physical attacks)
8. ordinary hit ----------(baseline unmodified damage)

For PvE we can ignore Glancing Blows completely since bosses can't do that. In order to become "uncritable" 490 defense skill is needed for lvl 73 mobs that have the base of 5% chance to crit.  475 defense skill makes you "uncritable" to lvl 70 mobs (with the same 5% base crit rate).  The reason for the additional 15 defense skill (to 490) is to make up for the additional 15 weapon skill the boss would have being 3 levels higher than you.  This would push their crit chance to 5.6% (from 5.0%) and the 15 defense skill makes up for that. 

Even though we eliminated crits we have not removed crushing blows from the table.  The only reason crits are gone is due to our defense skill, not our avoidance or mitigation stats.  The best example I've found explaining all of this is from: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=114122517&sid=1#13

PUSHING NEGATIVE EFFECTS “OFF THE TABLE”

Again, WoW uses one roll (1-100) to determine if the attack is crushing, blocked, parried, critted, missed, whatever.
If all the percentages are added up, the things at the end of the table are pushed off the table.


Let me fit this all into an example.

A Level 70 Human Paladin is tanking a Level 73 Boss.
The Paladin has 490 Defense Skill, but no other mitigation whatsoever.


Miss - 4.4% Base + (0.04(Defense skill - Weapon Skill)) = 10% chance to miss
Dodge - 7.01% Base (from Agility) + 0.6% from Defense = 7.61% chance to dodge
Parry - 5% Base (excluding talents) + 0.6% from Defense = 5.6% chance to Parry
Block 5% Base + 0.6% from Defense = 5.6% chance to Block
Critical Reduced to 0% chance due to Defense
Crushing Blow 15% chance to be Crushed, unmitigatable
ordinary hit 56.19% chance remaining to reach 100%


Totals:

23.21% chance to completely avoid damage (through the attack missing, being dodged, or being parried)
5.6% chance for the attack to be blocked. Blocked attacks cannot crit or be Crushing Blows.
15% chance to receive a Crushing Blow.
56.19% chance the attack will be a normal white hit. (other factors added up=39.41%. Subtract from 100%)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Paladin can put up the ability Holy Shield, increasing Block Chance by 30%. We will also assume they have the Libram or Repentance increasing this by an additional 5%. (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29388)


Look at the table now.....


A Level 70 Human Paladin is tanking a Level 73 Boss.
The Paladin has 490 Defense Skill, but no other mitigation whatsoever.
The ability Holy Shield is active.


Miss - 4.4% Base + (0.04(Defense skill - Weapon Skill) = 10% chance to miss
Dodge - 7.01% Base (from Agility) + 0.6% from Defense = 7.61% chance to dodge
Parry - 5% Base (excluding talents) + 0.6% from Defense = 5.6% chance to Parry
Block 5% Base + 0.6% from Defense + 35% from HS = 40.6% chance to Block
Critical Reduced to 0% chance due to Defense
Crushing Blow 15% chance to be Crushed, unmitigatable
ordinary hit 21.19% chance remaining to reach 100%


Totals:

23.21% chance to completely avoid damage (through the attack missing, being dodged, or being parried)
40.4% chance for the attack to be blocked. Blocked attacks cannot crit or be Crushing Blows.
15% chance to receive a Crushing Blow.
21.19% chance the attack will be a normal white hit. (other factors added up=52.6%. Subtract from 100%)



As you can see, the amount of the table that would be a normal white hit has been significantly reduced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let's go one step further, and have the Paladin have his Redoubt reactive ability currently up, granting an additional 30% chance to block. Let us also give the Paladin 5% more Parry chance granted from the Retribution Tree talent. Let us also give the Paladin an additional 5% chance to Dodge (94.5 rating/18.9) and an additional 5% chance to Block (39.5 rating/7.9) from their gear.


Now the table looks like this:

A Level 70 Paladin is tanking a Level 73 Boss.
The Paladin has 490 Defense Skill.
The Paladin is speced 10 points into Retribution, granting 5% Parry chance from talents.
His gear provides an additional 94.5 Dodge Rating and 39.5 Block Rating.
The ability Holy Shield is active.
The ability Redoubt is active.


Miss - 4.4% Base + (0.04(Defense skill - Weapon Skill) = 10% chance to miss
Dodge - 7.01% Base (from stats) + 5.6% from Gear = 12.61% chance to dodge
Parry - 10% Base (with talents) + 0.6% from Defense = 10.6% chance to Parry
Block 5% Base + 5.6% from Gear + 65% from HS and Redoubt = 75.6% chance to Block
(8.81% chance to Block lost due to going over 100% total values on the table previous to it)
Critical Reduced to 0% chance due to Defense
Crushing Blow Pushed off the Table completely.
ordinary hit Pushed off the Table completely.


Totals:

33.21% chance to completely avoid damage (through the attack missing, being dodged, or being parried)
All other possibilities are for the attack to be blocked. Blocked attacks cannot crit or be Crushing Blows. All damaging attacks will be Blocked ones as no other option exists within the parameters of the Combat Table.



Notice how the Paladin actually LOST 8.81% of his Block Chance since it was excess and fell off the table as well.

With pally and warr tanks the goal is to have moderate avoidance (no damage) and good mitigation (take some damage) since both classes require getting hit to keep rage (mana) going.  With druid tanks the goal is to stack as much avoidance as possible since blocking isn't possible in bear form.  As far as stat allocation goes the easiest thing to stack to get avoidance or mitigation is block chance.  It's the "cheapest" in terms of item budgets.

Once you've achieved 102.4% avoidance/mitigation you are officially uncrushable (additional 2.4% is from lvl 73 or ?? bosses being 3 levels higher than you).  Congrats...

[LastDyingBreath]

Paladins can get 30% block from Holy Shield, 35% with the blocking libram.  That means that on your gear, you need to have 67.4% dodge + block + parry + chance to be missed to be uncrushable.  You also need 492 defense to be uncrittable.

Warriors get 75% block from Shield Block, meaning you only have to have 27.4% dodge + block +parry + chance to be missed from your gear.  492 is also the magic number for uncrittable status.

Druids get belly rubs from shamans, but can't avoid crushes.  415 is your defense target.