Endurance v. Willpower (Shadow Tanking)

[Dracyula]

Amazing amount of walls of text here. I am usually good at reading this but this was over kill.

 

Wipes don't happen because everyone was flawless and you didn't have 50 will power. Wipes happen because people frak up. FACT. If you do every fight perfectly you are free to stack cunning for all that matters, you will more then likely down the boss anyway. Guess what protects you from frak ups? HP. Someone fraked up and didn't interrupt head shot? Well i have 19k hp now i can take it and live. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN interrupted but i wasn't, you want to die and blame dps or live kill the boss and blame dps after?

 

SOA fight (8 man) 1 healer is in trap 1 healer is getting bounced around, and you have to eat the pyramid that hits you for 10+k guess what will help you survive this situation?

 

This goes on. And i am not even touching overhealing issue on low hp tanks....

 

That said i'v seen more then 1 situation in wow where i was down to <100 hp as a tank in hardmode fights and that is with 200k hp pool, so ya that 1 extra sta gem made me live. Was i "SUPPOSE TO" drop that low? No healers didnt quite heal right, but it happend and i lived. I also a bunch of death where it was XXXX(overkill ~100) damn if only i have that 100 more hp...

 

I don't disagree with most of your post, but have you ever wiped when a boss was at 1% in that other game? I have. Extra DPS may have made the difference. It could go both ways.

 

D

[Dyinn]

I don't disagree with most of your post, but have you ever wiped when a boss was at 1% in that other game? I have. Extra DPS may have made the difference. It could go both ways.

 

D

 

Well.. let DPS worry about that 1%. We as a tank are here to make sure that we dont loose that 100HP.

[Arbegla]

This entire discussion is based upon theory. I do not question that with current gear options and boss mechanics that stacking END may be greater than WIL.

 

The only point I am trying to make is that in "theory" there is a point when END is redundant, or so minor, that adding WIL is more effective.

 

 

The point I'm trying to make is once you get to a point where willpower might become better then endurance stacking endurance anyway will allow your healers to DPS far more damage then what willpower would add to your DPS.

Yes a healer will have downtime during a fight where they can DPS, I am not saying that a healer wont be able to add 267 DPS during a fight. I am only saying that they will not be able to add 267 EXTRA DPS just because you added 2000 END, as it only gives them an extra 10 seconds for the entire fight. (The extra 10 seconds is added because of the extra health pool AND additional healing that the tank can do).

 

This is what your not quite getting. It doesn't addd a straight 10 second for the entire fight. It adds 10 seconds anytime the tank is refreshed up to 100% hp. Which happens a lot throughout the fight. Anytime the tank would be healed to full (either via self healing, or from healer healing) you reset the timer. Thus giving your healers a compounded time frame with every heal they do.

Once again this entire thread is based on theory (hence the large numbers being used), and in reality either way you go the difference it makes is extremely small.

The difference in DPS is extremely small, but the increase in life span (and the amount of time your healer can use to compound their heals with) is pretty massive. That is my argument. Once you get to a point where the healers can keep up in such an amount where they stand around and do nothing (say 1 minute or more self sufficient tank durability) then they should DPS, as that would increase overall DPS by much larger then adding a DPS stat to the tank would.

The debate just keeps going in circles, so I will let it be. Anyone reading will have enough information to form their own opinions anyway.

 

EDIT: For those of you that didn't read the entire post, adding 200 END (a reasonable amount) will increase your healing from TT by 10 HP/Second. So in a 5 minute fight it adds a 3000 HP heal, thus allowing the healer to cast one less heal.

 

D

 

The argument does keep going in circles, and I think even Kitru's bowed out of it already, bit aside from my own math i haven't seen anyone else throw as much information into this debate as i have. I proved exactly how useless the DPS increase is for willpower, and how much beneficial extra endurance will be in the long term. Especially when compared to each other, the numbers just don't add up.

 

Also, your wrong on the overall gain. While yes, adding 200 endurance increases overall healing by 10hp/second, it would amount to much more then 1 less heal throughout the duration of the fight.

 

I've showed that already by increasing the time until death by a pretty decent amount (11.4%) thus the healer would need to heal 11.4% less. Which unless the healer is only using 10 heals throughout the fight, it would amount to much more then 1 less heal.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

*sigh, the healer does not get 11.4% in additional time each time the tank is topped off because it takes 11.4% longer to heal the extra hp.

 

I don't know how to be any more straightforward than that.

[Arbegla]

*sigh, the healer does not get 11.4% in additional time each time the tank is topped off because it takes 11.4% longer to heal the extra hp.

 

I don't know how to be any more straightforward than that.

 

My point is that it doesn't take 11.4% longer to heal the extra hp, because the tank is self healing more hit points. Percentage healing > flat rate healing, which is what healers have.

 

If a healer can heal 4% health every 10 seconds, and the tank can health 12% every 30 seconds, then that means the tank heals at the same rate the healer does.

 

Meaning the healer isn't needed. If the extra endurance allows the self healing to met, or exceed the healing a healer can do, then why have a healer to begin with? Why not have them there just to off-heal, and then DPS when their healing isn't needed.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

The tank can already heal 12% every 30 seconds, adding 200 END adds 300hp to the heal. If that extra 300 HP allows the healer to skip a heal then you are correct, but in most circumstances the healer will either; not have to heal anyway because the tank is at 100% or close enough, or they will still need to heal because the tank is not close enough to 100% to skip a heal.

 

I just want to point out that your 11.4% increase in time for the healer is misguided.

 

D

[Arbegla]

The tank can already heal 12% every 30 seconds, adding 200 END adds 300hp to the heal. If that extra 300 HP allows the healer to skip a heal then you are correct, but in most circumstances the healer will either; not have to heal anyway because the tank is at 100% or close enough, or they will still need to heal because the tank is not close enough to 100% to skip a heal.

 

I just want to point out that your 11.4% increase in time for the healer is misguided.

 

D

 

But why are you keeping the tank at 100%? Why waste the resources to do that when the tank self heals enough to handle being at 88%? Why keep a tank, that has a good majority of their mitigation via self healing, at 100%, thus negating that self healing?

 

The 11.4% increase is only misguided if you insist on keeping the tank at 100% hp and negating any of the self healing available. If you dont keep the tank at 100%, then you'll see exactly how you'll be increasing their life span.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

You should not keep the tank at 100% since this means you are over healing. My point was; if the tank is at 88% and self heals he will not need a heal from the healer. Furthermore, if the tank was a 70% and self heals to 82%, the healer can still safely heal without over healing, so he will heal. adding 300 hp to the self heal has not saved the healer any time at all in this specific instance.

 

It should be thought about in the long term anyways. When you do this, the 200 END equates to 3000 additional health that the healer doesn't need to worry about for a 5 minute fight.

 

How is 3000 additional healing 11.4% more lifespan over a 5 minute fight?

 

D

[Arbegla]

You should not keep the tank at 100% since this means you are over healing. My pngoint was; if the tank is at 88% and self heals he will not need a heal from the healer. Furthermore, if the tank was a 70% and self heals to 82%, the healer can still safely heal without over healing, so he will heal. adding 300 hp to the self heal has not saved the healer any time at all in this specific instance.

 

It should be thought about in the long term anyways. When you do this, the 200 END equates to 3000 additional health that the healer doesn't need to worry about for a 5 minute fight.

 

How is 3000 additional healing 11.4% more lifespan over a 5 minute fight?

 

D

 

I've already explained that via the math, and how 3000 additional healing (and the 2000 additional hitpoints) amounts to a life span difference of .97 seconds, or when comparing 7.49 to 8.46, an 11.4% increase in lifespan.

 

This means, that without ANY healing at all, your tank goes from being able to survive for 7.49 seconds by himself, to being able to survive 8.46 seconds by himself. This means that any healing resets that time frame, and as long as the amount of time it takes to heal is less then the amount the heal gives, then it is compounded with every single heal (if a heal takes 2.5 seconds to cast, but then adds 5 seconds to the 'time until death clock' then its a gain of 2.5 seconds, in which the heal can then use a DPS attack (for 2.5 seconds) before needing to heal again. This compounds with every heal.

 

If you can't understand the math i used to show the 11.4% but you want to argue that its not an 11.4% increase, then by all means show me math that does. Because either way the added DPS of willpower isn't going to decrease the fights duration by 11.4%.

[TrevNYC]

Shadow Tanks are not the type of tank you want to constantly top off, which i think is where the break down is happening on the argument. Those in favor of willpower are saying that once you get to a certain hp mark (X) that you don't need anymore hp because a healer can keep you at 100% hit points easily, and as willpower adds 'some' DPS you should stack that instead.

 

No, that's not what they are saying. They are saying that X is the value where the healer can keep you alive 100% of the time, not where you can be kept at 100% HP all of the time. For all they care, you could spend most of the fight at 50%. All that matters is that you don't perish.

 

The math doesn't make sense any other way. If you have 40k health and take 5k damage, it takes a 5k heal to get you back to 100%. If you have 30k health and take 5k damage, it takes the same exact amount of healing to get you back to 100% -- 5k. More health affects the amount of time the healers can wait before starting to heal you back to full, but it doesn't affect the amount of healing you need to get back to full. That's a function of boss dps.

 

Another complicating factor is that people keep talking about willpower as dps, and tanks don't "need" dps because it's not their job. Willpower is threat. Threat is absolutely part of a tanks job. The part of the discussion that gets short shrift is that the dps players are upgrading along with you. If you have "enough" health (we've been calling that 'X') and you upgrade +10 end and +5 willpower, while your dps players upgrade +5 end and +10 willpower (or cunning, or str, or aim) then their threat is increasing at 2x the rate that yours is. But you only generate 50% more threat from your stance. As these upgrades continue, they will start to creep up on your threat.

 

Nothing wastes healer resources more than a dps who ganks aggro, especially if they die and make the fight last longer. Similarly having dps players who throttle back because they are afraid of pulling aggro from you also makes the fight last longer than it needs to and wastes resources.

 

WoW addressed this (I'm not treating a game that millions of people play like it's Lord Voldemort) by mechanics that turned end (there, stamina) into a dps stat for tank specs who actually were taking damage, so that they gained more threat to keep pace with dps players who were upgrading). We don't have that mechanic here, which means that you're doing a disservice to the whole group by refusing to consider dps stats once you have a comfortable level of health for the encounter.

[Dracyula]

Okay, I will give you math that applies. To know the lifespan of a tank, you need to know how much damage is coming in. You stated that in an OPs setting a boss does 4300 DPS. Over the course of a 5 minute fight, the tank will take 1,290,000 damage. In order to kill the boss, there needs to be healing equal to that (minus starting hp). So, the tanks lifespan is relative to the damage coming in versus the healing that is done.

 

With these numbers 3000/1,290,000 equals .0023% increase in lifespan. This percent is your effective mitigation (added by 200 END) of the damage that comes in during the 5 minutes.

 

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I am not saying endurance is bad, I am saying that it's purpose is not to mitigate damage. The purpose of END is to prevent a quick death that the healer cannot react to. Once you are at the point where damage spikes/ boss mechanics will not kill you before the healer can react, it may be worth looking into WIL over END.

 

D

Edited January 11, 2012 by Dracyula

[Dracyula]

No, that's not what they are saying. They are saying that X is the value where the healer can keep you alive 100% of the time, not where you can be kept at 100% HP all of the time. For all they care, you could spend most of the fight at 50%. All that matters is that you don't perish.

 

The math doesn't make sense any other way. If you have 40k health and take 5k damage, it takes a 5k heal to get you back to 100%. If you have 30k health and take 5k damage, it takes the same exact amount of healing to get you back to 100% -- 5k. More health affects the amount of time the healers can wait before starting to heal you back to full, but it doesn't affect the amount of healing you need to get back to full. That's a function of boss dps.

 

Another complicating factor is that people keep talking about willpower as dps, and tanks don't "need" dps because it's not their job. Willpower is threat. Threat is absolutely part of a tanks job. The part of the discussion that gets short shrift is that the dps players are upgrading along with you. If you have "enough" health (we've been calling that 'X') and you upgrade +10 end and +5 willpower, while your dps players upgrade +5 end and +10 willpower (or cunning, or str, or aim) then their threat is increasing at 2x the rate that yours is. But you only generate 50% more threat from your stance. As these upgrades continue, they will start to creep up on your threat.

 

Nothing wastes healer resources more than a dps who ganks aggro, especially if they die and make the fight last longer. Similarly having dps players who throttle back because they are afraid of pulling aggro from you also makes the fight last longer than it needs to and wastes resources.

 

WoW addressed this (I'm not treating a game that millions of people play like it's Lord Voldemort) by mechanics that turned end (there, stamina) into a dps stat for tank specs who actually were taking damage, so that they gained more threat to keep pace with dps players who were upgrading). We don't have that mechanic here, which means that you're doing a disservice to the whole group by refusing to consider dps stats once you have a comfortable level of health for the encounter.

 

Exactly. I don't know why I haven't been getting more support on this discussion, am I being trolled?

[Goonbandito]

Why are you even playing a tank in pvp then?

 

I do not pvp as a tank to dps, I PVP as a tank to hold objectives, guard team mates. If I wanted to be dps I'd spec inf and do as you suggested.

 

I think you misunderstand. Shield Rating (and by extension Absorb Rating) as well as Defence Rating are statistically all but useless in PvP. You cannot Shield against any attacks other than attacks that are listed as 'Weapon Damage' and you cannot Defend (ie Deflect/Parry) against Force/Tech attacks. The vast majority of attacks that players use are un-defendable.

 

If you don't believe me, grab a friend and duel them. Ask them to use an ability that does Weapon Damage (eg their basic filler attack). You will shield and defend against it. Now ask them to use one of their abilities that do Kinetic/Energy/Internal/Elemental damage or a Force/Tech attack. You will never be able to shield or defend it. Then take a look at your abilities and see how many of them are abilities that you cannot defend against.

 

If you want to actually tank in PvP, your only gearing option is to stack Endurance. Shield and Defense will help against some attacks, mainly the lower damaging 'filler' attacks, but almost all the high DPS attacks will be undefendable and mitigated purely by your armour (only if its a Kinetic/Energy damage attack) and your expertise rating.

[Arbegla]

Okay, I will give you math that applies. To know the lifespan of a tank, you need to know how much damage is coming in. You stated that in an OPs setting a boss does 4300 DPS. Over the course of a 5 minute fight, the tank will take 1,290,000 damage. In order to kill the boss, there needs to be healing equal to that (minus starting hp). So, the tanks lifespan is relative to the damage coming in versus the healing that is done.

 

With these numbers 3000/1,290,000 equals .0023% increase in lifespan. This percent is your effective mitigation (added by 200 END) of the damage that comes in during the 5 minutes.

 

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I am not saying endurance is bad, I am saying that it's purpose is not to mitigate damage. The purpose of END is to prevent a quick death that the healer cannot react to. Once you are at the point where damage spikes/ boss mechanics will not kill you before the healer can react, it may be worth looking into WIL over END.

 

D

 

But for a shadow tank, endurance DOES equal mitigation. Due to the self healing involved. That is what i'm trying to get across. If you disregard the self healing aspect of a shadow thank, then yes endurance wouldn't add any mitigation at all, and thus willpower is the better option.

 

But because of the fact that Shadow tanks have self healing, which scales with max hit points, it can be considered a form of mitigation, thus more endurance is actually adding more mitigation value. More hit points you have, the more self healing you can do (as boss DPS is a constant, and self healing is a percentage) and thus the more mitigation you have.

 

Which is exactly what I'm showing. After 'other' forms of mitigation, that incoming 4300 DPS is reduced to 2251.76DPS. Then you factor in the self healing, which for 18k hp is 125hp/second, which you'll subtract directly from the incoming DPS.

 

So, over that 5 minute time span, that tank is actually only taking 638,028 damage.

 

With 16k hit points the self healing value is 115.33hp/second so the incoming DPS after factoring in self healing is 640,929 damage.

 

Thus, adding 2000 hit points, reduced the total incoming damage by .004%.

 

That is my point. Endurance is another form of mitigation for self healing tanks. While that mitigation is minor, its still there, and any means to boost that mitigation is best, especially when boosting willpower adds very little of a boost.

 

Willpower itself isn't going to add a huge amount of DPS, even to a DPS class, due to the fact that willpower doesn't scale very well. 5:1 for bonus damage, and 140:1 for bonus crit.

 

Power and critical (the actual stats) are a much better means to build DPS, which DPS classes will have. The only reason DPS will have more willpower then a tank is because its not worth it to them at all to stack endurance. They gain no benefit from it, so they might as well stack willpower, but just because they stack twice as much willpower then a tank class doesn't mean they deal twice as much DPS as a tank class.

 

So saying that 'well, the DPS is stacking willpower, and the threat modifier is only 50% for tanks, so tanks need to stack willpower as well to compete with DPS and hold threat' argument has very little basis. Especially with the very rough estimates that Kitru posted showing that tanks deal 80-90% the DPS of a DPS (without stacking DPS stats) so threat should be a non issue for a tank to hold.

 

Plus with so many abilities that hold threat, and the fact that Shadow tanks are already very high DPS classes, threat shouldn't be an issue at all. A tanks SOLE goal would be to boost their mitigation any means possible, and endurance is simply a mitigation stat for shadow tanks due to their self healing mechanics.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

Which is exactly what I'm showing. After 'other' forms of mitigation, that incoming 4300 DPS is reduced to 2251.76DPS. Then you factor in the self healing, which for 18k hp is 125hp/second, which you'll subtract directly from the incoming DPS.

 

So, over that 5 minute time span, that tank is actually only taking 638,028 damage.

 

With 16k hit points the self healing value is 115.33hp/second so the incoming DPS after factoring in self healing is 640,929 damage.

 

Thus, adding 2000 hit points, reduced the total incoming damage by .004%.

 

That is my point. Endurance is another form of mitigation for self healing tanks. While that mitigation is minor, its still there, and any means to boost that mitigation is best, especially when boosting willpower adds very little of a boost.

 

Willpower itself isn't going to add a huge amount of DPS, even to a DPS class, due to the fact that willpower doesn't scale very well. 5:1 for bonus damage, and 140:1 for bonus crit.

 

Now we are getting somewhere. I agree with your math here (I did not add the additional forms of mitigation when I came up with the .0023%), so it seems .004% is more accurate.

 

So, we are at the point where a tank with 16k health can add 200 END to gain .004% mitigation and 2000 hit points. The 2000 HP is vastly more important than the .004% added mitigation, so much that it is not even worth mentioning mitigation when talking about adding END, even for shadow tanks.

 

The problem here is that you are arguing that adding END for mitigation is better than adding WIL to increase DPS, and this is where my opinion differs from yours.

 

A tanks SOLE goal would be to boost their mitigation any means possible, and endurance is simply a mitigation stat for shadow tanks due to their self healing mechanics.

 

This statement tells me that you have tunnel vision. Every character in a group should do everything possible to benefit the group as a whole, regardless of their primary role. To elaborate, if you are always successful in your primary function, why not add to a secondary function?

 

Your thought process fails when a particular stat has diminishing returns, specifically, your opinion is to add as much END as possible, regardless of how effective it is, since it will always add "some" mitigation.

 

The question is now; would you rather add 200 END for .004% added mitigation when you can add the same amount of WIL and end the fight .008% faster? (this, of course assumes that you have enough HP for the healer to react to the incoming damage)

 

In the very least, I am happy that we are now talking apples to apples.

 

D

[Arbegla]

Now we are getting somewhere. I agree with your math here (I did not add the additional forms of mitigation when I came up with the .0023%), so it seems .004% is more accurate.

 

So, we are at the point where a tank with 16k health can add 200 END to gain .004% mitigation and 2000 hit points. The 2000 HP is vastly more important than the .004% added mitigation, so much that it is not even worth mentioning mitigation when talking about adding END, even for shadow tanks.

 

The problem here is that you are arguing that adding END for mitigation is better than adding WIL to increase DPS, and this is where my opinion differs from yours.

 

The same could be said for the willpower increase. I think our 'apples' to 'apples' boils to down to preference, and either answer would be correct. If you like having a larger safety net (life span increase) and very slight mitigation increase (as shown the the .004% increase) then stack endurance.

 

If you want to deal slightly more DPS, or your having just slight threat issues (as in, the DPS steals some threat, but not all the time) then stack willpower.

 

This statement tells me that you have tunnel vision. Every character in a group should do everything possible to benefit the group as a whole, regardless of their primary role. To elaborate, if you are always successful in your primary function, why not add to a secondary function?

 

Your thought process fails when a particular stat has diminishing returns, specifically, your opinion is to add as much END as possible, regardless of how effective it is, since it will always add "some" mitigation.

 

That tunnel vision is again, set by my previous experience. While tanks in CoH can be built offensively, for the hard targets, they need every little bit of mitigation possible.

 

In my equation for life span (which is basically what X is from previous arguments) Hitpoints and mitigation are an inverse of each other. The more hitpoints you have, the less mitigation you need to maintain the same life span as someone with a large amount of mitigation, but few hit points.

 

For a shadow tank, hit points not just adds to the time until death by sheer value (more hits points means more damage can be dealt) but also adds to the mitigation (if minor) because of self healing.

The question is now; would you rather add 200 END for .004% added mitigation when you can add the same amount of WIL and end the fight .008% faster? (this, of course assumes that you have enough HP for the healer to react to the incoming damage)

 

In the very least, I am happy that we are now talking apples to apples.

 

D

 

Personally i would, due in part to the limited gain of DPS via willpower. Endurance will scale much faster then willpower would, using the previous example, of 2000 endurance vs 2000 willpower.

 

You'd increase your overall DPS by 267.7, about a .08% increase.

 

2000 endurance would add 20,000 hit points (so if you have 16k, from the previous example, you now have 36k)

 

With 16k hit points the self healing value is 115.33hp/second so the incoming DPS after factoring in self healing is 640,929 damage.

 

So I'll run the numbers for 36k hit points.

 

CT heals 38hp/second, TK thrust would heal 144hp/second, and BR would heal 30hp/second for a total of 212hp/second. Subtract that from the the 2251.76 incoming DPS, and over a 5 minute fight you'll have 611,928 total incoming damage.

 

So 2000 endurance equates to a mitigation value of .047%

 

Using a time until death metric, you'd have (36000 / (2251.76 - 212)) or about a 17.65 seconds for your healer to react, compared to the 7.49 seconds that 16k hp would give you, which is a 236% increase on time until death, by increasing your hit points by 225%.

 

So apples to apples your looking at 2x the DPS for willpower then the mitigation gain from endurance, once you find X. The issue then is finding X, at what time is your healer able to react to prevent you from dying. My time until death metric gives a value for X, the issue is finding out if that value applies to the fights mechanics.

 

If you need more time for your healer to react, stack endurance. If you don't, and your healer is comfortable healing you in the time frame you've already given them, then stack more willpower.

 

Personally, I'd still stack endurance either way, as at the end of the day my job as a tank is to survive, and if we need more DPS, then the healer can off-heal (as I'll be survivable enough by myself) and contribute more DPS then i would by stacking willpower.

[Beastfury]

You two sure go at it. Yet self healing is hardly even main reason why tank stack HP. There are 2 main benefits to HP.

 

1) protection from OH #$%% moments, when things hit hard or healers mess up or w/e. Ok this does suffer somewhat from a diminishing returns, but only somewhat.

2) Healing efficiency. Take absurd example of 100k hp tank. Healers can keep him under not fully healed 100% of time resulting in ZERO over heal. Any time you are at full hp you waste self healing and hots. Any time you at full hp and you dodge while heals goes of you waste the full heal. And at this point it is impossible to reach HP level where it would stop to matter.

 

Stacking willpower suffers badly from scaling. You suffer tank damage penalties, you lack most dps increasing talents etc. If you look at raid over all adding willpower to a tank is horribly inefficient way to add dps to a raid.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Beastfury

[TrevNYC]

Personally, I'd still stack endurance either way, as at the end of the day my job as a tank is to survive, and if we need more DPS, then the healer can off-heal (as I'll be survivable enough by myself) and contribute more DPS then i would by stacking willpower.

 

But the healer can't compensate for the lost dps that comes from the actual dps players having to throttle themselves to keep from pulling aggro off you, and this dps is multiplicative and cumulative. If you do 100 more dps, then every dps can do ~150 more dps without pulling off you. This gets further multiplied by the number of dps in your group.

 

If you have threat lockdown (meaning that every dps can go all out at maximum efficiency without pulling from you) then it comes down to personal preference of course, but it is a mistake to assume that current threat lockdown will continue when the dps players are gaining threat at a much faster rate than you are (they aren't gearing for survival at all -- only dps, even on secondary stats), or when they are simply getting better at playing their specs.

 

As a tank, it's easy to focus on making things easier for your healer, and there's no faulting anyone for caring about that. But they aren't the only ones you need to look out for. Again, as a tank, your job isn't just to survive. It's to make sure that everyone else survives, often by literally stealing the spotlight from them. You need to create the best environment for the healers to to their jobs AND for the dpsers to do theirs, which means that every close call can't mean you cater to the healers. You have to throw a little appreciation toward the other guys from time to time.

 

Nothing is so humbling as when you, as an overgeared health-stacking tank, watches an overgeared dps-stacking damage dealer spend half the fight getting the attention from mobs that you're supposed to be getting, and watching your healer scramble to keep him up. All that extra health cushion doesn't amount to anything if the boss keeps getting distracted by squishier targets. It helps to build some threat cushion too.

[TrevNYC]

Stacking willpower suffers badly from scaling. You suffer tank damage penalties, you lack most dps increasing talents etc. If you look at raid over all adding willpower to a tank is horribly inefficient way to add dps to a raid.

 

No it isn't. You only "stack" willpower when you have more than enough health for the encounter, which includes whatever cushion that your healers need for "oh snap" moments.

 

Tanks act as a cap on the raid's dps, which is why adding willpower scales very well in terms of threat. First, each point is 50% more effective because of your technique. Second, it increases the ceiling for overall raid dps by the total number of players who are trying to dps. For example, if there are 4 dpsers and 1 tank, adding 100 dps to the tank increases total raid dps by 700 (100 from tank, plus 150 * 4 dpsers).

 

Obviously, increasing the ceiling doesn't do anything if your dpsers are maxxed out on the dps they can do. But they should be getting upgrades and learning how to play better along with you, which means they will start increasing the dps they can put out. You need to stay ahead of them.

[Dracyula]

There is no point where you would EVER want to trade out endurance for willpower. Even if that endurance is 'redundant' your always just making your healers life easier.

 

Adding willpower will NEVER boost your DPS numbers by enough of a margin to make up for the added mitigation and durability adding endurance would add.

 

Unless you get to a point where your healer isn't required at all, which as Kitru already explained, just isn't possible, then there is no reason to stack willpower over endurance. Any increase in endurance is going to increase your lifespan (and time for your healers to react to you taking damage) at a much greater rate then increasing willpower would decrease the duration of the fight.

 

And while i understand the time duration is the same (between 2.4 seconds, and .008% decrease) its much easier to see the difference between .008% decrease in fight duration, and 11.4% increase in lifespan. Its much easier to see which is larger, and which is better to stack.

 

Your most recent post is infinitely more acceptable than this one.

[Zintair]

Nothing is so humbling as when you, as an overgeared health-stacking tank, watches an overgeared dps-stacking damage dealer spend half the fight getting the attention from mobs that you're supposed to be getting, and watching your healer scramble to keep him up. All that extra health cushion doesn't amount to anything if the boss keeps getting distracted by squishier targets. It helps to build some threat cushion too.

 

Id hardly call that humbling, just incorrect building of your character based on the way the games mechanics currently work.

 

I currently reside at around 1500 Endurance and 1250-1300 Willpower and have zero problems with aggro/enrage timers or anything else.

 

We are able to get a healthy balance of both.

 

There is really no debate going on here. People talking 2000 willpower 2000 endurance. Like ***?

 

 

Keep Endurance/WP on a 1400 / 1200 ratio and you will be fine if you PUG or casual play or want to stay alive and let DPS do what they are supposed to.

 

OR

 

Keep Endurance/WP on a 1200 / 1400 ratio and you may need a solid group but will clear faster at the risk of missing interupts or bad encounter luck (Mind Traps for example).

 

 

There is a HUGE grey area where people could fit into, there is no RIGHT answer here.

[Dracyula]

There is really no debate going on here. People talking 2000 willpower 2000 endurance. Like ***?

 

The debate is not about current game mechanics, it is about tanking philosophy.

 

The reason that the large numbers were brought up was to demonstrate that mindlessly adding END is not always the answer if you want to maximize your effectiveness.

 

Keep Endurance/WP on a 1400 / 1200 ratio and you will be fine if you PUG or casual play or want to stay alive and let DPS do what they are supposed to.

 

OR

 

Keep Endurance/WP on a 1200 / 1400 ratio and you may need a solid group but will clear faster at the risk of missing interupts or bad encounter luck (Mind Traps for example).

 

Let's use the 1400/1200 ratio as an example, one side was saying that if you have 2000 extra WIL/END to play with, you should always add it to END, therefore making it 3400/1200.

 

The other side was saying that since you will be fine "if you PUG or casual play or want to stay alive" with 1400 END, so you should add to the WIL making it a 1400/3200 ratio.

 

The ONLY point I wanted to make was "You should not MINDLESSLY add END without looking at the big picture", the large numbers were only used to clarify my point.

 

I agree that it is a gray area, as that is the point I am trying to make.

 

D

[Arbegla]

But the healer can't compensate for the lost dps that comes from the actual dps players having to throttle themselves to keep from pulling aggro off you, and this dps is multiplicative and cumulative. If you do 100 more dps, then every dps can do ~150 more dps without pulling off you. This gets further multiplied by the number of dps in your group.

 

While i understand what you mean by the tanks 'dps limit' also increasing the raids overall limit, we're not talking HUGE increases in DPS here. We're talking less then 1/10 of a percent (200 endurnace = .008% increase in overall DPS)

 

That basically means that if you have threat issues before you'd still have threat issues after even if you were to stack willpower as soon as you hit X on your endurance (X again being the time frame your healer would have to heal you from 0 - full)

 

Threat is much easier to manage by using proper rotations, cooldowns and positioning and not by increasing overall DPS. While threat is directly related to DPS, as a tank your threat multiplier is already so high that it doesn't matter as much. If you do 10 points of damage, your DPS can do 15 points before they even match your threat. Then they have to do 30% more damage (or 18 damage total) for the boss to even think about going after the DPS.

 

You have a lot of lee way on DPS as a tank, due to not just your higher threat multiplier, but the fact that there are threasholds on threat that prevent a DPS from pulling aggro the minute they out damage you. If its anything like WoW, a DPS has to do 30% the threat of a tanks current threat (or 180% the damage of a tank) in order to pull threat off the tank.

 

If you have threat lockdown (meaning that every dps can go all out at maximum efficiency without pulling from you) then it comes down to personal preference of course, but it is a mistake to assume that current threat lockdown will continue when the dps players are gaining threat at a much faster rate than you are (they aren't gearing for survival at all -- only dps, even on secondary stats), or when they are simply getting better at playing their specs.

 

Unless your DPS is doing 180% damage then you are on a near constant basis, then there is very limited reasons to stack willpower for the sake of threat management.

As a tank, it's easy to focus on making things easier for your healer, and there's no faulting anyone for caring about that. But they aren't the only ones you need to look out for. Again, as a tank, your job isn't just to survive. It's to make sure that everyone else survives, often by literally stealing the spotlight from them. You need to create the best environment for the healers to to their jobs AND for the dpsers to do theirs, which means that every close call can't mean you cater to the healers. You have to throw a little appreciation toward the other guys from time to time.

 

Nothing is so humbling as when you, as an overgeared health-stacking tank, watches an overgeared dps-stacking damage dealer spend half the fight getting the attention from mobs that you're supposed to be getting, and watching your healer scramble to keep him up. All that extra health cushion doesn't amount to anything if the boss keeps getting distracted by squishier targets. It helps to build some threat cushion too.

 

If a well geared DPS is pulling so much threat off a equally geared tank, then there is obviously something else wrong then just gear. Is the tank using all their threat management tools correctly? Is the DPS AoEing when they shouldn't be? There are far more variables to consider then just mindless stacking more willpower as a means to control threat.

[Arbegla]

The ONLY point I wanted to make was "You should not MINDLESSLY add END without looking at the big picture", the large numbers were only used to clarify my point.

 

I agree that it is a gray area, as that is the point I am trying to make.

 

D

 

and my point is basically the flip side. Don't mindlessly stack willpower without looking at the bigger picture. I'll agree its a pretty gray area, not just limited by what your other team mates are geared, but what the enrage timers are, and how your base mitigation is.

 

For example, if your durable enough that you healer only has to heal you once every 10 seconds (to keep you at full) then that gives the healer plenty of time to DPS in between, and effectively become an 'off-healer' for the duration of the fight.

 

On the flip side, if your hitting enrage timers with less then 1% of the bosses HP left, then maybe adding that willpower would've helped. Or if your marginally losing threat (say DPS are hovering at 175% your damage, and thus really close to pulling threat off you at any given time) then willpower might help out.

 

Either way though, I'd still personally stack endurnace. Its a self sufficient thing for me, and while i do understand the bigger picture (especially with all the math i've shown) I feel extending my personal time until death, assuming i can handle all the aggro on me, is also going to be better then marginally increasing my overall DPS. But again, personally perference. I do feel that the debate has basically come down to 'If you can handle threat, and your healer can keep you alive, stack whatever you feel like, because its a marginal benefit either way.'

[Dracyula]

While i understand what you mean by the tanks 'dps limit' also increasing the raids overall limit, we're not talking HUGE increases in DPS here. We're talking less then 1/10 of a percent (200 endurnace = .008% increase in overall DPS)

 

Remember that the .008% increase in DPS is in relation to the entire groups DPS. For this argument you need to figure out how much DPS is added versus the TANKS current DPS.

 

EDIT: With the large amount of text in these posts, I did not explain why. If you would like me to elaborate, I will.

 

D

Edited January 12, 2012 by Dracyula