A Large Concern
I've been really hesitant to make this post, but I've got to get my thoughts put together. I'm not sure how many from Mal Katai read my blog, but it will be a smaller audience than if I post this on the Guild Forums.
Since Beta, Tanks have debated between gearing for Avoidance and gearing for Stamina. There have been volumes written in blogs, forums and websites as the two viewpoints are argued back and forth.
We have awesome Tanks in Mal Katai, and I am proud to be part of the tanking team. That said, I think I'm the only tank in Mal Katai that goes for the Stamina or Effective Health route. Even before Paladins received their stamina buff in 2.3, I had nearly as much, or more health than our Warrior tanks. This was despite a Warrior having roughly 1.5k more health than a Paladin before gear (i.e. 'naked').
I have never gotten into a discussion with the other Tanks in the guild on this subject. Bosses are dying, and the squishies are not. That is the sole barometer in my mind. I'm not looking for perfect tanks, only adequate. And Mal Katai's tanks (all of us) are more than adequate.
Now comes Magtheridon.
Mag has two main abilities he uses on the tank.
Melee + Cleave = 14k in what will look like one hit.
Our Main Tanks, Brindall and Lan run with about 15-17k raid buffed HP. By comparison, I run with 17k-19k.
I know these guys have incredible avoidance (Dodge, Parry, Miss), but if we are counting on avoiding attacks so that you never get a Melee + Cleave to both hit, we are relying on pure luck to beat the encounter.
The last thing I want to do is to look like I'm trying to tell these very successful tanks how to play. But I'd be kidding myself if I didn't admit that I think Tank death from burst damage is going to be a major issue when we try Magtheridon.
Is this all just some pitch for me to be Main Tank for Mag? That's not what I'm trying to do. His Cave In at 30% is well suited to have a Warrior use his Last Stand and Shield Wall.
This is just me expressing concerns I have about the encounter in the place where I feel most comfortable doing it.
Since Beta, Tanks have debated between gearing for Avoidance and gearing for Stamina. There have been volumes written in blogs, forums and websites as the two viewpoints are argued back and forth.
We have awesome Tanks in Mal Katai, and I am proud to be part of the tanking team. That said, I think I'm the only tank in Mal Katai that goes for the Stamina or Effective Health route. Even before Paladins received their stamina buff in 2.3, I had nearly as much, or more health than our Warrior tanks. This was despite a Warrior having roughly 1.5k more health than a Paladin before gear (i.e. 'naked').
I have never gotten into a discussion with the other Tanks in the guild on this subject. Bosses are dying, and the squishies are not. That is the sole barometer in my mind. I'm not looking for perfect tanks, only adequate. And Mal Katai's tanks (all of us) are more than adequate.
Now comes Magtheridon.
Mag has two main abilities he uses on the tank.
- Melee: Magtheridon's standard melee strike will hit the tank for about 6,000.
- Cleave: A frontal melee cleave attack which hits for over 8,000 on plate. It is on a 10 second cooldown, so it's fairly predictable.
Melee + Cleave = 14k in what will look like one hit.
Our Main Tanks, Brindall and Lan run with about 15-17k raid buffed HP. By comparison, I run with 17k-19k.
I know these guys have incredible avoidance (Dodge, Parry, Miss), but if we are counting on avoiding attacks so that you never get a Melee + Cleave to both hit, we are relying on pure luck to beat the encounter.
The last thing I want to do is to look like I'm trying to tell these very successful tanks how to play. But I'd be kidding myself if I didn't admit that I think Tank death from burst damage is going to be a major issue when we try Magtheridon.
Is this all just some pitch for me to be Main Tank for Mag? That's not what I'm trying to do. His Cave In at 30% is well suited to have a Warrior use his Last Stand and Shield Wall.
This is just me expressing concerns I have about the encounter in the place where I feel most comfortable doing it.
Comments
You may want to double check that, but if its accurate, then paladins will make a better tank in this instance, than a warrior, just for survivability.
Good Hunting
(ps, only allowing google users to post to your blog is going to seriously cut down on how helpful people are willing to be, when it takes an extra 10 mins to post, most poeple would just not bother!)
Thanks for the suggestion!
Seem to me the more health you have the wider the margain for Ardent Defender to be usefull when it comes into play if you happen to suffer burst damage for healers to react. Just my take.
Stacking avoidance instead of Stamina is like Stacking +Crit instead of +heal, on a priest.
Sure those crits are great, and really helpful in a pinch, but if you RELY on them to keep you alive, you will die, maybe not THIS time, but eventually.
(That said of course, if you can stack your avoidance to 103%, then you only have to worry about AoE damage wiping out your paper tissue wrapped BUTT.)
Sonic Spear drops 15% of the time, but you run that instance 20 times and never see it, while your buddy got it on his first pug run. Probability Tables are great for programming, but it always feels like they hate YOU personally.
A lot of the High damage instances require a healer to be spaming greater heal on the MT ( any class ) and interrupting it if its unneeded. I cant say for certain if maggie is one of them without tabbing over to wowhead, but if that is the case here, then yes, stamina stacking is going to be better, becuse you need to be able to survive the 3.5 sec cast time of greater heal. ( 2 healers can of course overlap, doing the same thing, but youd better have a LOT of threat built up fast ;)
(This is first poster, and yes, Im almost that lazy ;p)