Avoidance Change - Blue Tracker

#0 - July 12, 2009, 9:33 p.m.

We all know that the avoidance change is a nerf, but there's a lot of confusion about how much of a nerf it is. It's easy to punch in the numbers and gasp, but a lot of people don't include diminishing returns because it takes more then a pencil and paper. I'm going to try to help give people an idea about how much avoidance they're going to lose with the changes. To recap, here they are:

Q u o t e:

* Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.
* Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.
* Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more quickly than dodge.

I'll be using the armor sets found in Communism's Happy Thread of Numbers, I believe they're all listed out here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17900052692&sid=1

These are just examples. Individual mileage may vary.

Druid:
3.1
Dodge = 7% (base) + 10% (talents) + 35.316% (everything else)= 52.316%

3.2
Dodge = 7.4% + 10% + 32.039% = 49.439%

Net change: -2.877% avoidance

DK:
3.1
17.340 + 10 = 27.340% dodge
14.585 + 5 = 19.585% parry

3.2
15.946 + 10= 25.946% dodge
15.224 + 5 = 20.224% parry

Net change: -1.394% dodge, +0.639% parry = -0.755% avoidance

Warrior:
3.1
18.253 + 5 +5 = 28.253% dodge
11.443 + 5 +5 = 21.443% parry

3.2
16.852 + 5 +5 =26.852% dodge
11.878 + 5 + 5 = 21.878% parry

Net change: -1.401% dodge, +0.435 parry = -0.966% avoidance

Paladin:
3.1
19.504 + 5+5 = 29.504% dodge
11.218 +5+5 = 21.218% parry

3.2
17.955 + 5 +5= 27.955% dodge
11.658+5+5= 21.658% parry

Net change: -1.549% doge, +0.44 parry = -1.109% avoidance

Ghostcrawler

#39 - July 13, 2009, 9:50 p.m.

The main goal of the change was to make parry not so much less attractive than dodge as an avoidance stat. Since tank avoidance is so high already, we wanted to do that by nerfing dodge a little, not by buffing parry.

This hurts druids slightly more than other tanks, but the emphasis is on "slightly." This is not the big druid nerf that some forum posters have predicted. We will continue to evaluate tank survivability and threat generation based on PTR tests with "Patchwerk" to decide if druids need to be nerfed or DKs buffed or look at Prot warrior dps or anything else.

This is also not the big avoidance "come to Naaru" that some posters predicted. Overall, we think avoidance is too high and the game would work better with lower tank avoidance, but suddenly dropping everyone's avoidance by 20 or 30% would be a very big change with many ramifications for healing and gear among other things. It would also feel like a big nerf to the many players who didn't understand why it would be better for the game in the long term. But I still expect it is coming at some point.

Ghostcrawler

#54 - July 13, 2009, 10:28 p.m.

Q u o t e:
However, as far as the dodge vs parry, you've got to consider that a lot of people think in absolutes. "Parry is not as good as dodge" turns into "NEVER GEM PARRY BECAUSE IT'S A GARBAGE STAT". I don't think it'll change their perceptions, but that's more of a problem with humanity.

Oh yes. At some point "Not BiS" became "trash." :)

It's not the end of the world if parry gems rot. But we want to be able to put parry on say rings without those just being sharded.