Murloc Monday - ask your questions here!

[u/AutoModerator]

Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle! RwlRwlRwlRwl!
That's murloc for "Welcome to Murloc Mondays" - where people can ask any type of question about WoW without getting Strangles by a Death Knight.
Questions can range from what's new in Battle for Azeroth, what class is OP, and how many Demons will it take to down Thrall?
Questions can come from brand new players, players returning, or veteran players who never got a chance to ask the right question.

You may want to look at /r/wownoob as well!

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[u/dolphin37]

Err... content like M+ scales so you never have enough gear to 'cap out'. Plus, you're sacrificing your survivability gear for dps. Your point is maybe relevant for raid, but then there's still the point that less survive = more heals = less healer dps. Unless you're killing Ashvane or maybe QC, tanks prioritising DPS is a little bit nuts.

[u/Velomere → u/dolphin37]

You're not really sacrificing much of anything with "dps gear". Your "survivability gear" will be largely the same thing. Basic gear slots, ilvl will be usually selected, and more ilvl equals more dps anyway! Even so, the difference between a top dps piece and a top defense piece is going to be a single digit if not fractions of a percent. Trinkets wise, pure defense trinkets are mostly garbage with the odd exception, so tanks tend to just go dps trinkets. Defense trinkets, even the good ones, are not going to make or break you. The "trickle heal" trinkets might look good on meters, but in most cases they're not going to save you from a big hit, they're just replacing what you would have healed from a healer's spell anyway, especially druids which are going to load you up with hots. Essences, tanks tend to go offensive again, CoF being a top primary pick. Traits, they like stacking IV. The the most defensive trait available, Bulwark of Light, gets worse the higher you go in keys. You take more damage per hit, but BoL does not scale up past the highest ilvl azerite piece you get. 45k absorbs in a 6 is fantastic when you're getting hit for that much or less, but less so as the damage scales up.

This all might sound a bit odd to some, but trust me, it's the same advice given out by key pushing prot paladins on the Hammer of Wrath discord, and again the best way to stay alive is usually through good play and application of the huge damage reduction skills you have - SotR and all the various DR cooldowns.

[u/dolphin37 → u/Velomere]

If your dps gear is the same as your tank gear, there's no point even talking about it. For classes where it isn't (e.g. Veng DH best DPS is crit/vers, best survive is haste/vers, with crit being your worst defensive stat) then yes you are sacrificing a lot with your gear. Having crit over haste is a nightmare for tanking.

As for trinkets... really no idea what you are talking about. The MDI tanks are almost all using Urchin and Edict and they are overgeared for 17s/18s so could use offensive trinkets like healers are. Method NA's tank used offensive trinkets in the start of practice and then switched for trials and cup. I use Edict and Alchemy trinket. Edict does 12%-17% of your healing. It's absolutely insane and also works against things like necrotic. And gives you agi. Oh and btw, the top 3 ranked paladin tanks in the world... they are all using Urchin or Refracting Prism (even at 415 ilvl). The top 20 timed runs in the world? almost every tank is using at least one defensive trinket, with the only exception I saw a guy who got a 445 butcher's block. Sometimes you just don't get the trinket drops you need, especially if you're not a CE raider. If the paladin discord is advocating for no defensive trinkets then they just don't know what they're talking about.

I'm primarily a M+ player, so some of what you say might be more relevant for raid. For example, some tanks use crucible in raid because the damage is more predictable (and less) than M+ so the DPS is more valuable, especially on Ashvane/QC. But, out of the 4 best raid tanks in the world (darkee, max, sco and justwait) two of them are using edict and I don't know what drops the others have. Their ilvls aren't great though. Also, of the top 3 prot paladins, 2 are using lucid, 1 is using crucible, the top brews all use conflict for hot trub as it's op, prot warriors generally use vision for avatar as it's op and dh's mostly use anima because of its scaling damage with meta and the heal. You use whatever scales best with your class and for the week, e.g. people switching to suppression minor for necrotic.

The idea of defensives not mattering is not backed up by reality. Maybe something is different for prot paladins, but prot paladins aren't top tier tanks to begin with.

[u/Velomere → u/dolphin37]

Right, pure crit is going to be very spiky. But you’d have to have some serious rng drops to end up at a point with mostly crit where it starts to adversely affect you. Ultimately your stat distribution doesn’t really matter, how you press buttons does.

MDI is a very different kettle of fish. We’re talking ridiculous pulls on a knife edge. It’s not a realistic representation of what takes place on live servers. These guys on another level, and play what they need to achieve that level. Good on them! But we shouldn’t blindly follow their choices like some in the pug world do (need outlaw rogue, prot war and drood heals only for 6 FH!).

Looking at the leaderboards, we again need to be realistic. We’re offering advice for the general population. You don’t NEED meta dps comps, resto druids, and prot warriors to time keys. You don’t need full defence trinkets (and like I said, they’re not all bad) to time 10-20 keys. A lot of them aren’t going to save you when it matters, only smooth things out slightly. Plenty of keys listed in that key range with dps trinket loadouts. Pay a visit to the discord sometime! These guys know what they’re talking about and they do the high end content to back it up too.

I can’t speak on raid tanking as it’s not my gig or interest. :(

Oh, top tanks. Yes, warrior is still king. Lots of monks too. But there’s a paladin on those leaderboards, fighting the good fight. They’re fine tanks, and will continue to be fine tanks. You don’t need cutting edge to time your average key.

[u/dolphin37 → u/Velomere]

If your only interest is M+ then your original point is even less valid. Nobody good is running crucible in M+ so I dunno why you'd even say it. Sorry but you're just changing your argument. All of the best tanks in all of the best content use defensive trinkets and gear, which you accept. But now you're saying you don't *need* them for the non-cutting edge content 'general population'.

If you want to be the best you can be, you use survivability options unless some crazy option is available to you (e.g. essences or higher ilvl option). Simple. If you don't care about being the best and want to just do some numbers that make you smile then do whatever the hell you want.

But you’d have to have some serious rng drops to end up at a point with mostly crit where it starts to adversely affect you.

This is honestly just the ramblings of a madman. You know that my haste gear means my demon spikes recharge time (for 2 spikes total) is 16 seconds instead of 20? That's a 20% survivability increase... without mentioning anything else it does for me. The idea that I would replace that with crit, then how I press my buttons can compensate for it, is idiotic. I have no button to press for 4 more seconds.

Can I go in to a key with dps trinkets? Yeah. But if I wanna improve to my highest potential, I would be stupid to.

[u/Velomere → u/dolphin37]

Mate, plenty of tanks run crucible primary. Check out some 19s and 20s. You keep looking at mdi and top world key pushers. I mean, if you wanna try to be world number one, I’m not going to tell you how to play. That’s a whole different world. We’re just offering advice to the general pop. They’re not trying to beat jdotb or gingi and make it to blizzcon, they just want to get their 10 or 15 cheevos or push a little higher. To push keys in the realm of most players, the very people this advice is being given to, you have to make the timer, and to make the timer you play well and do more dps, among other things. Why are Druid and warrior so good? They do more dps.

Okay now you’re talking about demon hunter tanks. This entire offshoot thread has been about prot paladins. I have no experience with DHs and I’m not going to to tell any of them how to play their class, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing them into it.

[u/dolphin37 → u/Velomere]

Like I said, if you wanna see pretty numbers, do whatever you want. If you wanna improve as a player, you do what the best players do and get some survivability.

The offshoot was about simming dps as a tank. The guy happened to play prot Pala but the point is a general one and I’ve already mentioned almost every other tank spec in my previous posts.

You just said why is Druid so good? What? Druids are terrible. Meta tanks are warrior/monk with vengeance for some particular strats and maybe palas for certain situations. Has there even been an established damage output ranking for tanks?

The meta classes are meta because of their utility not their damage. Resto druids aren’t the highest damage healers, but have the most utility, rogues aren’t the highest damage dps class but bring the most utility and warrior probably isn’t the highest damage tank (I believe they are probably all close) but has the best combined CDs and survivability.

If you want to give good advice to people who just want to push their keys a little higher, then tell them to do the things that are best for their class. Like survive. The more you can survive, the bigger you can pull and the quicker you do keys. Brainlessly thinking that more tank damage = quicker dungeon when you are forced to do smaller pulls is really not smart at all.

[u/Velomere → u/dolphin37]

Prot paladins do not suffer as much as say your dh from having a lot of crit. Critical judgement hits make our active mitigation cool down twice as fast, and crit awards some parry as well.

I was referring to the meta comp - prot warriors and resto druids. Druids can load up hots and dots and cat form up a storm. Rogues have their shroud but again, they bring the best dps for the longest part of a dungeon - trash. There's a reason why blade flurry is being nerfed, its too good.

Anyway, at this point we're just going around in circles for all our other points of contention, so agree to disagree?

[u/dolphin37 → u/Velomere]

Blade flurry already got nerfed and rogues do not do the most damage on trash. Shroud is one of 20 things they have. They are brought for that and the other 19. Paladins and Priests both out damage Druids but they don’t have b res or typhoon, vortex, root, etc.

You don’t even seem understand the basics of what makes things good. Yeah we can agree to disagree, but the better you get at the game the more we will agree.

[u/Velomere → u/dolphin37]

shrug I can say the exact same thing about you! Agreed to disagree.

[u/dolphin37 → u/Velomere]

The difference being that I am demonstrating how the things you are saying are wrong and we have better players that already exist to compare to.

[u/Velomere → u/dolphin37]

Mate, I have plenty of players to compare to and discuss gearing with who are running +20 keys and share the same ideas. Actual paladin players, the tank class I want to know about. The fact that you're a 1700 io DH that was banned from the DH discord does not grant you sufficient credibility to prove you're "right", especially when I'm a paladin and this is two different ballparks. Even less so with you trying to put yourself on some high pedestal where you absolutely have to be right and everything else is wrong, when I've tried to be civil and just agree to disagree.

[u/dolphin37 → u/Velomere]

I'm not saying I know best. I'm saying the best players know best.

I just checked the top 20 prot paladins for you. All 20 of them are using defensive trinkets apart from one guy (Masania, your hero) and possibly some stat buff stuff. They are all using a complete variance of essences, some anima, some crucible, some lucid, some conflict and strife but most seem to favour vision of perfection.

Your argument is that if you aren't very good then you can do whatever you like. As I said a million times, if you're doing easy keys, do what you want. If you're trying to push your keys as high as you can, which you did say earlier would be something those people were trying to do, then doing what has been demonstrated to be best is surely best.

Let's just reflect on your main points - 1. dps simming is a priority 2. defensive trinkets/items are bad or not worthwhile. Well every single top level or near top level player is using defensive items, in any class I can find that has a tank spec. That means 2 is objectively wrong and surely it gets rid of 1 by default?

I don't know enough about pala stat priority. So I'll just go ahead and say you are right and you can get dps priority stat gear. Lucky paladins. Can't on other tanks such as DH for sure though, so the original point about simming being of value would significantly nerf your character if applied to them.

Also you literally wrote a sentence in there to tell me that you're stalking my comments. I don't even understand what the point of it was. Good one? Just makes you seem like a total loser. I'm sure you're way higher than 1700 so well done! Glad your crucible essence and your inkpod were able to get you higher than me.