Tanking: resistances?

[rotjochie]

Hello fellow tanks,

In the recent weeks I have been progressing through ICC with my guild to the point where we are now 11/12. I'm tanking as a paladin and my gear is decent with about 5.9k GS.

I've noticed some fights to be particularly magic damage heavy (Sindy for example, as OT you will take primarily magic damage) and I couldn't help but to wonder: would some extra resistances come in handy? The first items that spring to mind are:
-the ICC25 Sindy trinket, Sindragosa's Flawless Fang (228 stamina + CD which gives big resistances)
-the Onyxia10/25 ring, which gives +30 to each resistance + 800 armor + 115 stamina + 55 defense rating.

The trinket is very good and arguably bis in HC version, but the ring is ''only'' ilvl 245. I'm wondering if it's worth taking the ring over say, Harbinger's Bone Band (69 strength, 124 stamina, 60 defense rating, 60 dodge rating, 38 hit rating). The second big value of the Ony ring is the armor, obviously, which will also help in other encounters with mixed damage.


I've found the following on the web (http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Resistance):
Damage reduction percentage = 100% * effective resistance rating / ( K + effective resistance rating )
Is this formula accurate at all?

[Demmye]

You will probably want to run with Sindy trinket for most bosses in ICC, mostly because of Stamina and well, use comes in handy on last bosses as well. Onyxia 25 ring is very good in general and I would recommend playing with it until you get VDW25hc ring (not because of resistances, because of armor). You did not specify if your guild is progressing through normal or heroic, but I am sure of one thing: resistances are not worth it on heroic Sindy. Why? Because Sindy herself hits like a truck and the only significant magic damage (Frost Breath) can be mitigated with dprot, self-hos and sindy trinket+eof trinket.

[angrylol]

I found this helpful.

[rotjochie]

You will probably want to run with Sindy trinket for most bosses in ICC, mostly because of Stamina and well, use comes in handy on last bosses as well. Onyxia 25 ring is very good in general and I would recommend playing with it until you get VDW25hc ring (not because of resistances, because of armor). You did not specify if your guild is progressing through normal or heroic, but I am sure of one thing: resistances are not worth it on heroic Sindy. Why? Because Sindy herself hits like a truck and the only significant magic damage (Frost Breath) can be mitigated with dprot, self-hos and sindy trinket+eof trinket.

We're working on ICC10n. The LK attempt is tonight actually :)
I did not manage to get the Ony25 ring on this save, but I did get the Ony10 ring (slightly worse stats, just slightly). Sadly I do not have the Sindy25 trinket because all the 25 pugs strand at DBS/the Pug Killer (lol). This means that on trinkets I am limited to the EoT trinket (flat armor + dodge CD) and the choice between the Onyxia head quest trinket (15 fire resist, 108 parry rating, 69 defence rating and 101 health per 5 sec.) or Heart of Iron (162 stamina + dodge CD that DOES NOT share CD with the EoT trinket, not sure if that's intentional..).

As for Sindy, my thoughts were mostly about off tanking as currently I am the off tank. The OT should not get melee hits except briefly during phase 3 when the taunt swap happens. This means that the majority of damage taken should be magic for the OT. Hence my thought about the resistances; it could be consideral damage mitigation.

-edit-
Also, while I'm at it: I have recently begun caring more about my armor since the most significant improvement in my gear lays there. An essential upgrade that I still need to get is the Professor Putricide 10n/10hc trinket which gives armor + stamina but that'll be future saves. Currently I am sitting at 38k armor with 44.8k health self buffed and I'm struggling to get more armor. I have been told that the cap is 48k-ish.

Right now I have an armor necklace (ICC25n), armor sword (ToC10hc), one armor trinket (EoT), one armor ring (Ony10) and only my shoulder (ICC25hc), head (ICC25n) and boots (Boots of Kingly Upheaval, BoE) do NOT have ''green'' armor. Any advice?

[rotjochie]

I found this helpful.

I am far from being a math guy, lol. It's all just a little complicated to me, the graphs etc.

One thing in particular is unclear to me: does 1 point of resistance contribute to damage reduction?
Example: is 131 resistance better than 130 resistance? Because following the graphs, I came to the conclusion that there are certain points where more resistance would be useful. So for example 150 would give the same amount of DMG reduction as 130, but 160 would give more. Could you clarify please?

[angrylol]

I am far from being a math guy, lol. It's all just a little complicated to me, the graphs etc.

One thing in particular is unclear to me: does 1 point of resistance contribute to damage reduction?
Example: is 131 resistance better than 130 resistance? Because following the graphs, I came to the conclusion that there are certain points where more resistance would be useful. So for example 150 would give the same amount of DMG reduction as 130, but 160 would give more. Could you clarify please?

Pretty much this:

Resistance Minimum Possible Resist
128 10%
219 20%
340 30%
510 40%
765 50%

So with 128 resistance you will resist 10% of damage as minimum (24% chance), or RNG will get you better proc of resisted damage:
You will resist 20% of damage (49% chance)
You will resist 30% of damage (25% chance)
You will resist 40% of damage (<1% chance)

Each point of resistance will boost chance of higher resisted % of damage, and at some certain points you will start to have chance to get even higher resisted rolls, for example, at 235 you will start to have chance to resist 50% of damage(0.38% chance). At 219 you will no longer have 10% resist but minimum will be 20% resist, plus of coarse much higher chance to resist more damage.

So, I guess its best to push these "caps" to reliably boost amount of minimum resisted damage, however each bonus point still is good to boost chances to get higher resisted % of damage, 218 is still way better than 128. Look "Potential partial resist" table to see % chance of each possible amount resisted.

I hope this makes sense, that is what I understood of it all.

[rotjochie]

Pretty much this:

Resistance Minimum Possible Resist
128 10%
219 20%
340 30%
510 40%
765 50%

So with 128 resistance you will resist 10% of damage as minimum (24% chance), or RNG will get you better proc of resisted damage:
You will resist 20% of damage (49% chance)
You will resist 30% of damage (25% chance)
You will resist 40% of damage (<1% chance)

Each point of resistance will boost chance of higher resisted % of damage, and at some certain points you will start to have chance to get even higher resisted rolls, for example, at 235 you will start to have chance to resist 50% of damage(0.38% chance). At 219 you will no longer have 10% resist but minimum will be 20% resist, plus of coarse much higher chance to resist more damage.

So, I guess its best to push these "caps" to reliably boost amount of minimum resisted damage, however each bonus point still is good to boost chances to get higher resisted % of damage, 218 is still way better than 128. Look "Potential partial resist" table to see % chance of each possible amount resisted.

I hope this makes sense, that is what I understood of it all.

Thank you very much, did totally clears it up :)