Iammoot

My Israeli friend is going back to Isreal tomorrow (wednesday) to serve in the military which means that I won't see him for 3 years if not longer. I may be on at raid time but I honestly don't expect to.

I don't think you've noticed this yet--I do get demolished D:

don't be getting any ideas about a decapitated dragon or an oversized/overpowered lightning machine now

[quote name='Ulqui

*sunglasses*

We shall see who has the last laugh.

I know what I wrote. QUIT EDITING MY POSTS! You think I didn't notice when you changed my signature, but I did notice. THIS WILL NOT GO UNPUNISHED!!!

Visiting the girlfriend in Orlando for the weekend. Probably won't be online at all.

A couple friends took a road trip to visit me over the weekend so I may not be on too much. I should be able to make the raid on monday but, until then, I won't be able to make any alt raids.

bow chicka bow wow

exactly

nou

TRY TO CHANGE THE STRAT! I DARE YOU! @_@

The fact that he doesn't need a healer is only because his health pool is so large that he has the time to react to damage spikes. The Point of View of EJ is not how much healing you need but how much damage you can reduce/mitigate. Sure, it works for him, but you're in a top end raiding guild where a dk tank has to be able to do that kind of self healing in order to remain competitive with block tanks. The point of mastery for warriors and paladins is to incease our block which isn't actually avoidance but more of a mitigation stat. The further a tank is from the 102.4% minimum avoidance, the spikier the damage he takes is. Blood DK mastery is meant to act as a block since they don't have shields and therefore don't have the armor/mitigation of other tanks (which they also make up for with ridiculous amounts of self healing). Finally, the article does not state definitively that mastery is the best stat to gem for, but that it merely increases survivability. However, if Agroshibs is able to keep himself alive without a healer than he is definitely doing something right. However, I've noticed that Death Knight tanks have a much larger spectrum of variable damage taken because there are so many ways to play the role as a tank. Some DK tanks take alot more damage than others because they don't have the timing or experience to mitigate damage like block tanks can naturally do. Whatever works, I suppose. I've seen tanks in guilds who were doing heroics a month or two into cata who were stacking stam and they did well enough without the mastery. Mastery doesn't actually reduce the total amount of damage you take too much in the long run, but simply makes it less spikey. That's the reasoning behind warrior/paladin mastery stacking, but otherwise I'm just quoting EJ.

Quoted from EJ at 3:00 AM on 6/2/2011 "Stats and gems [...] How to gem is not yet conclusive, however there is a strong argument developing that you should bias avoidance and mastery rather than stamina. [...] Mastery as a stat does not increase your classic EH [Effective Health], but increases your survival, as does avoidance which will be a more interesting stat choice in Cat than it was in WotLK." The post was updated for 4.1 on 4/27/2011

*Iammoot likes this!*

Hey Rebel, got a few things that I'd like to throw your way. 1.) On our Magmaw kill, the chains post-mangle seemed to be a little disoriented, i.e. 1 would come down and then another a second later, etc. That is why I died during the last ~20 seconds of the fight--Magmaw was just up for too long and Mangle autokilled me. To counter this, maybe we could have one of the jumpers count out "3.....2.....1.....GO!" at which point they all use their chain and there is cake at the end. 2.) For Atramades, I disagree on the idea behind changing our strategy. Yes, while sound did appear to be a problem for some people, I am hesitant to blame this on the strategy over the lag and framerate issues among other things. Besides, I think we would run into *additional* problems if we were to switch who is hitting the gong. I know that, personally, it has taken me months to get used to the cycle of searing flames and staying attentive. Telling someone different to do it is asking that person to relearn the fight whereas a repositioning the boss is very easy on the part of the tank. However, I do think that the strategy could be reworked: This is a link to the tankspot guide to 25m normal atramedes. What they do is one ranged pile, one melee pile and the tank. I think this strategy could be play-do-ed to our strategy if we were to kee the ranged pile somewhere in the middle of the room with the meelee always at a flank or tail position on the boss. I have noticed a pattern with respect to how I manuever the boss when I am going for gongs. First, I always pull Atra to the NW corner of the room. After the first air phase, I go to the SE corner of the room. Then it's a toss up whether I go to the NE or the SW corner but either way, we usually know where Atra's rough position is and can plan around it or could even just call out a reliable melee/ranged to stack up on. EDIT: Aesthetics...

I found this quite anticlimactic.

Does that make paragon the stars of "So You Think You Can Dance"?

Why do we not have guides like this for every class? Alot of people could benefit from this idea.

[quote name='Phobi

THIS LOOKS HARD. Oh wait..... 5 buttons with cds.... Just kidding!

Ranked 3 times! XD

I only made this post because I saw Nemesis stacking stam trinkets and gems. I told him that he needed more mastery and he was quizzical. When I logged on later to talk with him about it, he was offline, so I figured that making a post on the forums--a general one at that--may be useful not only to him but to everyone else as well. Tl;dr version: apologies if you find this redundant. It was meant for Nemesis anyway

Before you read this!!!! The primary purpose of posting this is only to stir debate about stat stacking as a tank. For example, I saw that both Prydain and Nemesis are stacking stam alot in their bear between trinkets and gems. While it appears that this is still a viable strategy, a primary focus of each thread was pointing out that mastery, for most classes, does a good job of smoothing out the damage that you're taking. All that means is that, while mastery and other avoidance stats may provide a supposedly "RNG" damage mitigation--and let's be honest, it is RNG--they do a good job of making the damage more consistent. Consistent damage is easier to predict and, therefore, easier to heal. I'll let you make the decision for yourself, but I have found that I consistently take less damage than both Prydain (on the cho'gall fight we did on monday) and Nemesis, here and there. Death Knights: From EJ: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110102-blood_%7C_dk_endgame_tanking_%5B4_x%5D/#Stats_and_gems More speficially, "Stats and gems "Parry and dodge have the same rating and diminish at the same pace. They're equal now. Reforge for Mastery, unless you need to reforge for hit/expertise (threat). "How to gem is not yet conclusive, however there is a strong argument developing that you should bias avoidance and mastery rather than stamina. "Runeforge: possibly swordshattering rather than gargoyle. "There is no consensus yet on how to measure effective health, and most importantly, at what point EH ceases to be relevant. Mastery as a stat does not increase your classic EH, but increases your survival, as does avoidance which will be a more interesting stat choice in Cat than it was in WotLK. There is a long discussion here including maths, tables and formula if you'd like to contribute." Warriors from EJ: http://elitistjerks.com/f81/t110315-%5Bcataclysm%5D_protection_warrior/ Specifically: "Survival Stat Priority: "Stamina > Mastery > Parry > Dodge "Stamina is still your best stat, but not to the extent of sacrificing everything else as was the case in WotLK. Conserving healer mana is a very real concern now. Mastery is your best stat for smoothing out incoming physical damage, and also increases rage generation through blocks. Parry provides the same avoidance level as Dodge now, but also procs the Hold the Line talent. Dodge will become more valuable as gear ratings climb higher to reduce diminishing returns losses from over-stacking the other stats." Paladins: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t110338-cataclysm_tanking_protection_field_manual_updated_feb_9_2011_4_0_6_a/#Stat_Overview Specifically: "Now for a word or two about reforging. Reforging will allow you to shift stats around on gear to (hopefully) optimize your build by moving 40% of a secondary stat to another (even not present stat) on the same item. What does this mean for tanking Paladins? Now that blocks are no longer a fixed amount of mitigation but instead reduced damage by a certain percentage it is in our interest to try to block as much as possible. As such we want to reach the 102.4% total avoidance threshold (also referred to as "block cap" or "complete combat table coverage") that we have aimed for in the past. This pushes regular hits off the table so that any physical hit has to come through a block. Given that tanking Paladins should be reforging for Mastery as much as possible. Note though that is it unlikely you will be able to reach the 102.4% threshold early in Cataclysm. Until post 359 item level gear and epic gems are available ratings will be too low. Regardless, you want to get as close are you possibly can to the 102.4% threshold." "The reforging (and gearing) strategy are aimed toward maximizing mastery to maximize your block chance. This is important for Paladins because being block capped smooths out the rate of incoming damage, reduces damage spikes, and makes it easier for your healers." Finally, Druids (this is actually one of the sites I skimed that actually supports the above but only because thenature of your mastery is sketchy): http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t114069-%5Bferal-bear%5D_cataclysm_release/#Gems Specifically: "Your only real meta gem choice for tanking is [Austere Shadowspirit Diamond]. In specific cases you may find [Effulgent Shadowspirit Diamond] or [Powerful Shadowspirit Diamond] useful, but generally speaking Austere will be just fine. For the rest you'll want stamina or hit for blue gems, crit, dodge, or mastery for yellows, and agility for reds. If you're ever in doubt you can default to [solid Ocean Sapphire], but be sure to keep your meta gem activated. Use Rawr or the spreadsheet to help you figure out what you need."