Preparing Your Tankadin for Patch 3.0: Part 6 Threat Stats and Reitemized Gear

10/6 - Part 1: General Tanking
10/7 - Part 2: The New Seal and Judgement System
10/8 - Part 3: Changes to Existing Talents and Spells
10/9 - Part 4: New Talents, and suggested Trees
10/10 - Part 5: The New Threat Rotation or 96969
10/11 - Part 6: Threat Stats for Protection Paladins and Tank Gear Reitemization
10/12 - Part 7: Inscription and Glyphs
10/13 - Part 8: Comparing the 4 Tanks10/14 - PATCH DAY!

The purpose of this post is to examine the value of various stats to Paladins in Wrath and the 3.0.2 patch.

Mitigation Stats: Armor, Def, Block Rating, Parry, Dodge, Block Value, Str. We know 1 STR = 0.5 Block Value. We know that Block Value is increased by 30% by the new Redobut.

Health Stats: Stamina. We assume most Protection Paladins will have Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise, so each point of stamina equal to 1*1.06*1.06, or 1.12.

Threat: Expertise, Str, Stamina, Hit, Attack Power, Spell Power. We can assume most Protection Paladins will take Touched By The Light which makes each point of Stamina worth 0.3 spell damage. We further assume most Protection Paladins will have Kings available to them, so each point of STR becomes 1.1 points of STR. Each point of Strength equates out to 2.3 AP with the Divine Strength Talent.

Attack Power or Spell Power: This is the central question in figuring out the new Protection Paladin. I will state that I feel Attack Power is the superior stat for a Protection Paladin.

Most of the spell coefficents have 1 AP = 1 SP. Since 1 STR = 2.3 AP with Divine Strength, and is worth the same in item budgets as 1 Spellpower it's usually going to provide better results for damage. Chuck in the fact that 2 Str = 1 BV and I feel that AP is a clear winner.

So we have a set of stats that perform in only one area, either Mitigation, Health or Threat. These stats do not have any benefit from our Talents. These are Armor, Defense, Block Rating, Parry, Dodge, Hit, Attack Power, and Spell Power. These all give roughly equal value to their item value budget.

Double Duty Stats

Now we come to the bonus stats. These stats serve double duty.

Strength. Strength provides Threat and Mitigation. Strength is worth .5 Block Value which is increased by 30% to be worth 0.65 Block Value. Strength is also worth 2.5 AP with both Kings and Divine Strength. So we conclude that 1 point of Strength actually yeilds 3.15 points of item budget.

Expertise. Expertise provides threat from reduced dodges and parries as well as some mitigation from reduced parries. This is more difficult to quantify but I believe it is a safe assumption to say that due the double benefit of both mitigation and threat, it should be worth more than a single use stat.

Stamina. Stamina is a double duty stat in that it increases our health and also boosts our threat by adding Spell Damage through Touched By the Light. Stamina provide 1.12 points for health and 0.3 points worth of spell damage making each point of stamina worth 1.32 item value points.
Block Value. Note that Block Value doesn't become a Threat stat until Level 75 when Tankadins get Shield of Righteousness. Block value gets increased by Redoubt so we can conclude that each point of Block Value is worth 1.3 item value points.

So in list form, from best stat on gear to worst stat we have:

1. STR: 1 STR = 3.15 IP
2. STAM: 1 STAM = 1.32 IP
3. Block Value: 1 BV = 1.3 IP
4. Expertise: Difficult to quantify, but worth more than 1 point.
5. Everything else.

Tank Gear Reitemized
Well isn't this just hunky dory. I've shown that Strength is a GREAT stat for Tankadins in 3.0, and I've shown it's superior to Spell Damage. But what is our gear covered in? Spell Damage.

Well you are in for a little surprise come 3.0.


All the Tank gear has been reitemized. Spell Damage was removed and Strength was added. In the case of the 'Warrior' gear, either Defense or Dodge or some other stat was reduced to make room for Strength.


Here are a couple of examples:
  • Chestplate of Stoicism +34 STR -17 Defense
  • Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate +51 STR, -60 Spell Damage
  • Blue's Greaves of the Righteous Guardian +34 STR, -11 Block Rating, -1 Hit Rating, -26 Spell Damage
  • Bonefist Gauntlets +30 STR, -9 Parry, -21 Hit
  • Sabatons of the Righteous Defender +20 STR, -23 Spell Damage
  • Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor +32 STR, -37 Spell Damage
  • Sunguard Legplates +29 STR, -8 DEF, -8 Dodge
  • Iron-tusk Girdle +22 STR, -11 Dodge
  • Girdle of the Protector +20 STR, -23 Spell Damage
  • Girdle of the Fearless +23 STR, -23 Hit Rating
  • Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx +22 STR, -9 DEF, -7 Expertise

This is a spreadsheet I made based on the new Itemization stats. I took a stab at ranking them based on the analysis I did here.


http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxRKUgjn9TRr-KY-8OzuQRQ

Comments

Unknown said…
Thank You for putting this series together. I'm away on training for work all next week so I'll behind the curve.

It saddens me that I -just- got the Amani Punisher to drop in ZA to replace the Consortium Blade and now it's going to be moderately useless.
Ardent Defender said…
Expertise seem to help a bit in reducing the miss hits or deflected hits by HotR. I'm sure for 3.0 they will be a bit of a degree of that happening. As I had a bit of it leveling in Beta. At some point you do pick up gear with Expertise and the Glyph of Vengeance with Expertise helps a bit. I do know I get less deflected/dodged/miss hits. But I'm sure in 3.0 their may be a bit of it and hard to say how much.

Strength does allot of Double duty as well in that the AP from it affect all spells and it increases your character sheet DPS which turns around and affect HotR. Affects your melee damage as well which adds up a bit more valuable for questing where all your damage counts.
Anonymous said…
Great articles!

Now a off topic question. Latest tests in beta have shown that spell damage (or power if you like) weapons are still a bit better for tps than the melee ones. But we know that Blizz is trying to push the use of melee weapons. And the question is: is it better to use fast melee weapon (more swings, less hotr dmg) or slow melee weapon (less swings, more hotr dmg)?
Honors Code said…
The latest I've seen on Maintank seems to indicate we want to use Tank weapons with defensive stats. The TPS advantage of slow weapons or spell damage weapons is small enough that it doesn't overcome the benefit of Tanking stats on Tanking weapons.
Tim Pullin said…
Def should be #1 on your list until you have +540 Def (it is kind of double duty in that it provides both crit reduction and avoidance).
Anonymous said…
Thanks for this series! It's what I was looking for for a month already :)

I'd just like to ask what you think we should go for.. what amount of block/strength. I feel a little lost :s
Anonymous said…
Really nice work! Best source of information I found so far to "patch lost players" like me. About the spreadsheet, is it possible to download it? Did I miss weapons there? They must add some mitigation/treath.

Keep up the excelent work!!!
Anonymous said…
Tensas...
Hmmm, where'd you get 540 defense from? It occurs to me that there's absolutely no reason to go above 490 defense anymore. After that, defense will provide some more avoidance, but wouldn't strength and stam be much much better stats than defense? Even at that point, block value or straight dodge seems more important than defense past 490.

Maybe Honors can shed some light.
Honors Code said…
I'm not sure where 540 is coming from unless you are talking about Wrath which is outside the scope of these articles.

Popular posts from this blog

Cataclysm Profession Bonuses

Raid Comp Tool

Back To Basics: The 969 Paladin Threat Rotation