WoW DEFENSE CAP: Seriously I wanna settle this once & for all...

Ok Im gonna go on a bit of a nerd rant here. Its just pissing me the hell off that nobody can give me a straight answer on this lol! The question is: What is the def cap for plate wearers(Warriors, DKs, Pallys).

Im gonna give my oppinion followed by my reasoning.

Def cap for level 80 plate wearers is 540 against a level 83 opponent. Base defense for level 80 characters is 400(5 X 80). An opponents base chance to crit you is 5% + 0.2% for every level they have on you. Therefore, a level 83 opponent has a 5.6% chance of critting you. Each defense point after your base def reduces the enemy's crit chance by 0.04% Thus, to successfully become uncritable by a level 83 opponent, you would need a grand total of 540 defens(5.6/0.04 = 140 + 400 base def).

Despite this mathematical fact, there are a load of players claiming that 540 is NOT the def cap and that it is too low to discontinue pouring in def points. This is when the diminishing returns rule kicks in. Is 540 defense the point at which diminishing returns occurs? Better yet, how diminished are the returns and is it worth it to put more def points in taking DR into consideration.

The ultimate question is; at what def value should a tank discontinue focusing on defense points?

Any thoughts?

Thanks everyone,
- The Emperor

You are pretty much right on your assessment. 540 is the magic number. Does it make you "uncritable"? No it doesn't, but it's as much mitigation as you'll get. Our tanks don't even get the nod in Nax 10 or above without 540. 530 is a good number for Heroics also.

I'll see if I can my hubby to chime in here. He has played tanks (warrior and now dk) from day one.

540 is the target number at level 80.
But he says, depending on class, it is sometimes worth it to go over (primarily for DK's as icebound fortitude is a % of defense). When you hit 540, though, it's usually more worth it to start working on other mitigation stats: parry, dodge, block (if a warrior or pally), and of course stamina.

According to hubby, 540 will push crits off the table.

If you want to really get in depth with it, check out class mechanics forums at elitist jerks:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/

i tank with a blood death knight and once i became uncrittable at 540, i just started gemming for stamina. In the higher raids, it's a lot easier on my healers when i have more hp because tanking for death knights tends to be spiky anyway.
Another thing is that once you get some tier 7 or 7.5 or equivalent gear, you'll see it has a lot of avoidance stats so i would just worry about gemming for either more stam like me, or more threat, through strength gems or hit gems if you're not capped.

You 3 RULE!!!! Thanks so much for clearing that up for me it was pissing me off all over the place.

The only thing is, 540 doesnt seem like an incredibly high number. Im almost positive I can achieve that with items alone, without any enchantments. My Warrior is a fresh 80 so im pretty much covered in blues ranging from 76-80 and im not far off 540 as is.

1 More thing; what are the advantages of tanking with a DK as opposed to a warrior. I do love playing my prot tank and warriors are the premier tanking class... DKs however seem alot of fun too especially because they have a bit of a magical twist to there abilities. Howz aggro control as a dk tank? Is it harder on healers considering the lack of shields?

Thanks for the help all of you!

- The Emperor

... what the hell did you all just say???

MTP Jeff said:

... what the hell did you all just say???

Click to expand...

LOL! Sorry man I got caught up in my nerdiness. Its actually nowhere near as complicated as it sounds. Once you hit level 60 with your character, you can choose a few avenues to go down; they basically come down to raiding or PvP. The PvP path consists of doing battleground quests and eventually when your a geared up level 80 you would start participating in arena battles which get you the best pvp gear in the game.

Because I've already been down the pvp avenue, im gonna try my hand at raiding. Raiding is alot more difficult and if you wanna get good at it, theres a few mechanics of your character that must be kept in mind. People take raids pretty seriously for some reason, its almost like a casino. Everyone is there to have fun, but if you dont know what your doing you will get scorned by the players you're raiding with.

Because my character is a warrior, my primary role in a raid is a tank. This means that its my job to keep the enemies attention and take their hits while the spellcasters dish out major damage. Because its my job to take hits, I need a major amount of defense.

Defense rating can come in 2 ways. 1, your natural defense which is your character's level multiplied by 5. The other way is from items that give you defense rating. What I was basically saying is that as a level 80 tank, i would need at least 540 defense (natural + item given) to make my character unable to achieve a critical hit against. Crits do double damage. in a raid, if im not uncritable, the healers are going to have a hell of a time keeping my ass alive.

Diminishing returns is the term used to describe the fact that after I hit a def rating of 540, i dont benefit as much from a def ratign above 540. The game has these rules in effect so that players dont max out one skill and become invincible.

lol thats pretty much it in a nutshell, let me know if you have any other questions

MTP JEFF FTW! Love you man,
- The Emperor

The only advantage, in my opinion, that DKs have over other tanks is that they have more CDs to blow in situations that threaten an RNG wipe, like 3D Sartharion. Otherwise, depending on your spec, I'd argue that DKs play pretty much like pally tanks, with a lot of AoE threat (Diseases and D&D, plus other talents, like Unholy Blight if you're an Unholy OT) coupled with some rather good single target threat gen. On the other side though, they do tend to take the most damage out of all the tanking classes, so healers need to be on their toes. In 25-man VoA with even a well-geared DK tanking the four adds on Emalon, the DK was a mana sponge, in terms of healing.

Just my 2 cents.

Hubby tanks as a DK, I'm a disc priest. He played a prot warrior up until WotL, and says he would never go back. He likes not having to rely on rage, he likes being able to put out dps as a tank.

Threat is NEVER an issue. They are especially good with aoe pulls. Threat seems to be a non issue in general though since the expac.

From a healing perspective...DK's are a little harder until they get geared. We struggled a bit at first, but once he got his stats up, it smoothed right out. Part of that was the dk, but part of it was the fact that I had a new spec. I had played holy from launch thru BC, so it took me a while to get in the swing of things. So heroics were a real pain at first.

Once a dk is geared, they are my favorite tank to heal. Then pallys (overwrite my 3% damage reduction buff) and warriors, and druids last. Not that there are many druid tanks left, lol.

i have 42% avoidance (dodge + parry) on my death knight, my healers love me because i have a really large health pool, especially when i use my talent ability Vampric Blood, which gives me 15% more health and raises the effect of healing by 35% for 30 seconds. With that buff up, i can have 44,000hp for 30 seconds every 2 minutes.
People also take me over our prot pally tank for saph fights because a talent of mine has the chance to nearly halve magic damage, and combined with the big health pool, it's less stressful on my healers when i take one of his breaths.

MTP Jeff said:

... what the hell did you all just say???

Click to expand...

LMAO, is it bad that I don't play a tank and I know exactly what you ment then?

Thanks 4 the help everyone!!!! I've decided not to reroll. I love playing my warrior and besides everyone and their mother is playing a dk right now... theres really no novelty to it at all. I also dont believe for a second that dks tank better than warriors.

Thanks again every1!
- The Emperor