Actual Usefulness of Toughness?

Post by 233242

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Post by Slowhand

There is a reason all tanks tanking everything take their armor increasing talent all the time.

It is flat mitigation you aren't getting anywhere else. It goes way beyond the % reduction you see on the screen, the simple fact of the matter is it's a lot of mitigation on heavy hitting encounters. That boss swinging for 10k, is hitting a tank with 60% armor for 4k, and a tank with 64% armor for 3,600. Going from 4k/swing to 3.6k/swing is 10% damage reduction over what you were getting hit for. It scales higher than you might initially think.

I know there are some people here who can explain it a little better than me, but don't try to dance around it, 5/5 Toughness is mandatory, especially considering that DKs have problems with avoidance more than anything right now.

Edit: Also you mentioned armor has "diminishing returns." This is only partially true. The %reduction value the tooltip shows does indeed suffer from diminishing returns, but armor as a whole is always the same value increase in your total time to live. Think of it this way:

You go from 0 to 10% mitigation, lets say thats hypothetically 1000 armor. That boss that was swinging for 10k unmitigated is now swinging for 9k. You have gained a 10% reduction over what you previously were being hit for. Now pretend you are at 50% reduction, you add the same 1k armor, but you only go to 55% mitigation. That boss was hitting you for 5k, and is now hitting you for 4.5k. That is still a 10% mitigation boost over what you were being hit for, even though the paper doll only shows "5%".

Post by 233242

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Post by Slowhand

Only your math is hella flawed dude.

I gave you the numbers, we're talking a 4% mitigation TOPS. 4% off of 4000 is 160 damage. 3840 instead of 4000. That's the deminishing returns on armor MAKING Toughness poor.

Now, I'm also relatively sure that Toughness is NOT amplified by Frost Presence, as FP is +60% armor contribution *from items*.

160 damage per swing is not a lot. I'm not saying it's not SOMETHING, but I'm saying 5 talent points? The extra damage from white swings alone will reduce the length of the fight (on extensive boss fights) by a swing or two, and that's damage reduction right there. Add to that the increased threat production afforded by increased damage.

I was running a friend through Old Kingdom on my tank and I hadn't run it on my grind. I was just minding my own business, when something hit me for 8k. I was like, what the F? I check my combat log and it was a spell. Toughness isn't gonna affect that either.

Even if Toughness was modified to reduce all damage taken by x% instead of increasing armor it would be a huge benefit. Say... 2/4/5/6/7%? That would be a great mitigation tool for DKs that would also improve their caster tankability.

Then again... in my build I have a stacking resist up to +230, that's pretty stellar /flex

Thanks for the response =D I'd like to hear some more arguements though - I could be horribly mistaken about the armor values.

That isn't even remotely close to how it works. Check out tankspot.com

Edit: There's a lot of good reading on tankspot that should clear up a lot of things.
Edit2: Thing you miss primarily, is that armor is taken off at one lump sum. A boss swings for 10k, your armor is checked, at 60% mitigation, you take 4k damage. You get some armor from gearing up a bit, and you're now at 64% mitigation, that same boss will now swing at for 3.6k. That is 400 less damage per swing from Big Baddie X than you were taking before. In other words, 10% of that previous value of 4k. There is not effective diminishing returns on armor. The %value you see in the screen is the result of a logarithmic function that keeps armor scaling in linear check. Trust me :P
More Edits: http://www.wowwiki.com/Image:ArmorVsTimeToLive-LVL70.PNG Level 70chart, but if you notice, your effective time to live as you add more armor scales linearly until you reach armor cap.

Post by 233242

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Post by Slowhand

I didn't realize the "deminishing returns" that I saw matched the reduction in overall damage.

IE. 10k = 1/2, 20k = ~1/3, 30k = ~1/4

Each 10k step equally increases the effectiveness of your health - THAT'S interesting.

Cool. Thank you =)

Edit: Now, I have to try and figure out how parry/dodge reduce the effectiveness of armor. Hooray!

Tanking is basically World of Mathcraft, enjoy your stay :P

Post by 188741

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Post by 233242

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Post by visas

tougness is definitely worth taking for any heroic or raid tanking build. You can get by in 5 mans without it, but I eventually had to respec for it for more serious tanking (sucks too, i had to give up some other talents i really liked for it).

I gained around 3000 armor with the points in toughness while in frost presence, taking me up from 18k to about 21k - a pretty decent increase if you ask me. Then again, I played a feral druid pre-wotlk, so i like having ridiculously high amounts of armor =P

Post by 108903

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Post by Wildhorn

Here I managed to take toughness and keep improved icy talons. I still think the 25% haste is too good to pass up.

Icy talon is not that good for you. Haste is the less useful stat for 2hand tank and if you have a shaman in your group, it make it completely useless.

Actual Usefulness of Toughness?

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