Cataclysm Stamina - Health Formula

[Insolence]

1 Stamina = 14 Health.

That's a raise of 40%, and a huge buff to Stamina. If we're going to get into the old Stamina vs Avoidance Debate I think Stamina has stolen the Crown, at least for 4.0.

[Gravity]

That's a very significant change because of how it boosts stamina's relative value to avoidance, however ... it's interesting to consider what other consequences there are. Will incoming damage be increased by 30 or 40% too? Does that in turn mean avoiding a hit is more valuable?

My view is stamina is now the Emperor, it's beyond the King.
I would love to be wrong (Satorri might find a way to prove I am, he's level-headed on avoidance), but at the moment I honestly can't see any reason to give a shit about avoidance at all.

[Anaroth]

This is what they should've done the last time they changed stamina. With the way pretty much all other stats work 1 stat/rating costs the same amount of itemisation points, but stamina gets 1.5 times as much value for each itemisation point.

They should undo that change now. Make stamina worth 1.5*1.4*10 = 21 hp (or better yet round it down / make it level dependent) and reduce the stamina values on gear so we don't have to multiply/divide by 1.5 all the time.

[Satorri]

Here's the trick about health that has been heavily masked by the instance design in WotLK endgame:

In theory, there is a practical cap. The specific value of that is tricky, and currently the functional range of variability is so significant that it is hard without the ICC buff to *really* be on the sunny side of that range. The practical cap can be described as the amount of damage you can readily expect to take, in a given window, in which you will not receive (sufficient) healing to overcome.

That sounds vague right? The point is, you cannot express health in terms of *never* getting healed, because if you never get healed, you die, period. You cannot express health *really* in terms of an excess of required healing because then you will not die unless you cannot survive one hit.

WotLK has masked our ability to appreciate this value because the balanced range of damage is pretty usually 30-50% of our total health. The best geared tanks with pure Stamina/EH focus, in the 30% raid buff, can push that portion all the way down to 25-35% for the constant melee swing pulse. That still means that 3 hits will kill you which can vary that ideal health target with a huge window.

Here's the catch though, when we go into Cataclysm that proportion plummets. It allows us to find a much more precise range in which you can meet your target, and above which you can comfortably say you have "enough" health. How do you figure out that range? It is simple so long as we aren't too specific. =)

1.) Understand what is the largest "spike" of damage you can take (consider Gortokk the Impaler, when his melee lines up with applying a stack of the bleed, *and* with a bleed tick, big mass of damage from differing phases)

2.) Understand the window (usually determined by the rate of healing determined by cast times at the minimum for reflexive
healers, determined by mechanics otherwise as far as distracted/moving/incapacitated healers).

3.) Understand the effective value of health. EH, woot!

#1 we can figure out worst case scenarios for damage scale on a time basis since Crushing Blows are no more in raids, and we are not crittable. That means you just need to consider the elements of the fight with only minimal occasions of varying damage value (like stacks of Magic Buffet).

#2 is a little trickier; this is where there is a fudge factor and a bit of guess work. There are situations where nothing you do will save you because of the particulars of one attempt. Other times you didn't need a safety net because your group was fully on top of it. We cannot gear for infinity (cannot be saved), but we don't gear for when everything goes right. WotLK gives us situations where we have to consider the cast times of healers, and a lot of healers, sadly enough, are still reflexive (meaning they respond to your need for healing after you take damage) or they spam blindly which is just flipping a coin for effectiveness. For the record, the best healers can anticipate damage and defy that minimum window because they've already started their cast before you take damage. These sorts of healers are few and far between though, especially after Wrath. You can set reasonable windows though, or use your EH value to create a window for an encounter, a "time-to-live" sort of calculation (again: note that it is encounter specific).

#3 is an older concept that has had some more recent renaissance. The take-home message is to remember that the value of health is inflated through the mitigating abilities. Recognize that the value of your health scales with damage reduction, the more reduction % you have the farther each point of health takes you.

In Cataclysm two key elements change:
1.) Hit size proportional to health scale drops. We still take damage but health burns down instead of flipping on and off.
2.) Healers do not operate in max HPS mode at all times

The second portion is important here too. Healers will be using their efficient mode by default, and will be able to flip into high-power mode when they need to. They cannot sustain high-power mode at all times, so they will only employ it when they *need* to. This means that a big lump of damage will not be *SURPRISE-dead* it may drop you low and the next hit may still not kill you, but the healer(s) have the ability to dial up their healing on you for the counter.

All of this softens that threshold. Health does not lose its value, it just becomes easier to see the finite value. The *only* class that has a good exception for that is DKs, but that is something that will take some mathing. The only reason we are different is because of Life Shield, but seeing as how that is no longer based on our health, and we are generally expecting the actual value to scale with damage, we are lifting that reliance on health even for us.

Let's do a quick practical demonstration though. First an extreme.

Let's say you are taking 20k hits every 2 sec, and a 40k breath every 15 sec. For the sake of argument, lets say you don't have any tools like AMS to make that breath a non-spike.

For a low extreme, if you have 45k health, two swings (5.99 sec window for reflexive healers) will bring you very close to death, as will the breath. If you take a breath and a swing at the same time, you're dead. Definitely too little health.

For a better targeted minimum, if you have 65k health you can survive a breath and a swing at the same time, but you'll have at best a ~2 sec window to be saved or the next bit of damage will kill you. Melee swings will feel a little nicer than they do in ICC right now since it takes more than 3 to kill you.

For an extreme high, if you have 150k health you can take 3 swings (6-8 sec) with no avoidance, healing, or other tricks, take a breath hit full in the face, and then still be able to survive 2 more swings (4-6 sec) with a decent margin of health left and not die. Would anyone argue that you need that much health, or that it is really helping you that much except for that situation where you're trying to pull out a win when your healer(s) die?

Relative to the damage I listed above, ICC falls between the first to examples. If you aren't pinned to the top in many of the fights, the next breath will kill you. More health means you can reduce the chances of an unfortunate sequence of events, like a healer or unable to heal, combined with a lack of CDs at the right moment,, etc. That said, it is hard to find that turning point where it becomes too high because of the scale of damage. If you can take 2 hits and a breath without dying (say 85k) that gives a 4-6 sec window in which healers can make sure you don't die in the worst situations. Even for poor/slow healers, a heavy heal takes ~2 seconds to fire off and in ICC can push you back up to full.

Now consider a new scenario, like 85 stuff. Relative to that same damage, you can readily hit 105k health. That means you can survive a breath on top of 3 hits, and not die (6-8 sec window). As opposed to ICC, healers will not normally be filling you up with every cast, but they can do a serious chunk of that when they *need* to. The less they have to the safer you are, and the way to reduce their need to put heavy healing on you is by improving the tools you have that reduce the damage you take.

Now consider, do you add:
A.) 10k more health
-or-
B.) take 1% less damage
-or maybe as is more likely the choice-
C.) give yourself another 1% chance not to take each of those hits

Adding more health seems less valuable when this is a worst case contingency, no? Hardly without value, but the higher you go relative to the damage you take, the more it feels like an insurance policy you may not use.

The feel of content makes all the difference in the world, improving the stat value on health doesn't really improve its value relative to anything else, it just makes it easier to hit that point beyond which you don't feel like you need more health.

Personally, I feel like I'm beyond set with 70k working health in ICC, but plenty of people think that I would be better suited if I had heaps more because health is King right? =) I feel like I'm on the sunny side of that desired value because I am *never* the determining factor of a wipe (and frequently get yelled at for dying too slowly when we're trying to reset).

The thing is, I cannot give you a concrete value with solid math behind it, but Clysm offers the possibility that we may actually be able to create a more concrete range, possibly expressed in terms of "the most stringent tank fight would require a max health of 120k to survive a 5-8 sec window." The specific value to your group would just require a good sense of how good your healers are at their (now more interesting but more complicated) job.

[Satorri]

And Anaroth, that is already the way Int => Mana works, do you really *need* it to be a nice 10-factor?

[Insolence]

If you think about it after seeing this, the Rune Strike change actually makes sense. More Health = higher Vengeance Cap = more Rune Strike Scaling = more Threat. Due to this change they had to reduce Rune Strike scaling so as to not make it too strong.

One thing I've noticed with people (nobody here specifically, just in general) they still think WotLK: "I must always be topped off." That's not true anymore. Your Healer can hold you at a steady 50% with minor heals and allow your Self-Healing to bring you back up or he/she can just heal you back up when some big-bad-mean Boss Ability is about to whack you. Nobody needs to be topped off, so all the ideas of "omg more Health = more Healer Mana" are just wrong, since you don't need to be capped. Actually its better for us Self-Healing Tanks if we're not. When we constantly are things like Bloodworms become worthless since it all just becomes over-healing.

For Dying too slow... Cancel those HoTs! Oh wait, we can't anymore

[Satorri]

Did they scale RS down again? I know they did it when the swapped it off the after-dodge/parry, but that makes sense for the increased use. I'm starting to feel like I want to re-up my activity on the beta, I've been super inactive for the last couple weeks.

And yeah, that is a funny hold-over that seems to only exist with people who are *thinking* about playing in Cataclysm. People playing the beta, at least the people I've bumped into, all sort of accept the new feeling of health.

[Insolence]

Yeah, AP Scaling went from 20% down to 15%. At the beginning it just seemed like an un-necessary nerf but now it makes sense heh.

[LivingPrince]

With respect to being constantly topped off, on a recent 10-man LK kill, I tried to proactively use Rune Tap much more than normal. However it was almost impossible to get any use out of it as my healers were on top of their game and every time my health dropped I was back up before I could even think of pushing the button. Same thing with the blood worms, any splash healing from them was done accidentally between heals from my healers.

If there truly is a tank damage model that where the incoming Boss DPS is slightly greater than the mana efficient HPS of your heal team, then our self healing talents will be fantastically useful. I look forward to being able to use Rune Tap and Death Strike to their full abilities.

[Anaroth]

@Sattori Yeah, I was basically saying that make it work like that, but rescale it on gear so 1 sta costs the same as 1 int again. Doesn't really change much but makes it easier to compare stats on gear.

Rune strike weapon damage has also been scaled back to 150% and with the increased rp cost it probably isn't an optimal choice for dps specs.

An interesting side to optimising tanking stats is the effect of the healing changes. Avoidance does almost nothing when it comes to determining how to heal through the spikes, and yet from a healing point of of view excess health does very little to determine how much long term healing we need. Mitigation helps with both.

DKs have the good fortune of having out mastery and other self healing as active boosts, rather than the more passive approaches for warrior and especially bears.

[Sconnell]

re: Satorri's post about practical health cap and the possibility that, beyond that health cap, it might be desirable to gem for avoidance. I think the practical health cap is a worthwhile point to consider, but I suspect health will still win out over avoidance after that point.

I think there are two significant points in favour of continuing to boost health over avoidanceqw after getting to the personal practical health cap:

1. Stamina's interaction with blood shield and vengeance. This makes extra health more than just a worse case contingency, as it contributes to threat in a way that avoidance doesn't.

2. Raid damage. More health on the tank, past the personal practical cap, gives healers more time to heal the raid before they need to worry about healing the tank. I suppose you could take this into account by approaching the cap on the basis of "how much health do I need to not die in 5-8s while being healed, and give healers some space to heal the raid."

This second point might be more relevant for 10s where there will be less healers so less room for strict raid/tank healer assignments. Generally speaking, if healers have to choose between letting a tank die or letting a dps die they will heal the tank. A tank which gets to the personal practical health cap and then gears avoidance, and gets an unlucky string of hits and needs to be topped probably won't die, as the healers will likely prioritise the tank, so the cost will be a dps dying not the tank. In this case it wouldn't be obvious that the dps dying - but in a way you can attribute it to the tank.

The opposite of this is that a tank who has high health but low avoidance becomes a "mana sponge" and the healers go oom healing them. This case would be more obvious - healers would complain about going oom.

[Insolence]

Mana Sponges are really dead though, unless the Healer actually tries to turn the Tank into a Mana Sponge by constantly topping him/her off. It's like I said above: If a healer can keep you at a steady 50% there's no need for them to top you off continuously since there's no risk of you getting 2-3 shotted anymore. Also not being constantly capped means you can benefit more from your own self-healing, and if necessary due to some sort of Boss Ability the Healer can top you off if it comes to that.

While a Healer can always rely on you to have X amount of Health, they can't always rely on Avoidance to be there. If they take a chunk out of their Mana to heal you once every so often because you got a long streak of non-Avoids, they'll start complaining about Spiky Damage again. Not to mention that in Cata you'll start off with very low amounts of Avoidance. To increase said amount to something decent you'd have to Gem mostly if not all Avoidance, and probably Enchant too. Then you'd lose out on a big chunk of Health which for one thing would reduce your Threat considerably (Vengeance cap) and for another might have saved your life when Avoidance hadn't gone off.

The most important (imo) factor of Avoidance still hasn't changed, and I doubt this ever will: Its still RNG. It might be there for you, then again it might just dump you and let you die. Even in a world where you don't die in 2-3 blows, you'd have to calculate exactly how much Health you can give up without beginning to cause yourself Threat issues due to low amounts of Vengeance, and even then, a bit of burst damage at a bad moment could cause a threat-capping incident.

I'm not going to deny that in this latest Beta Build I never, ever had Threat issues, but how much of that Vengeance could I sacrifice if I went for Avoidance? And then, would the amount of Avoidance I gained actually make a difference? Imo those are the two main points to keep in mind.

[Gravity]

At L85 perhaps raid content will make avoidance interesting to consider. I'm not convinced that Blizz can make avoidance valuable in the mechanics system we have in place. Making tanks want avoidance because the healers mana is limited will be hard to achieve, since rng limits how finely they can tune.

[Insolence]

This came up on Twitter:

Person #1: So, it's looking like health has a soft cap per boss. I like that idea.
Person #2: that's a nice way to put it.
Person #3: Wouldn't something like that bring back multiple-gear-sets for each specific fight though?
Person #2: It would bring back more gear sets, if it'd vary per boss. I think it'll be more a single ideal set though.

(Names left out)
Since Twitter's 140 Character Cap butchers intelligent discussion I'll try and write this here: Although Stamina could possibly have a so-called... "Soft-Cap" which could vary on a Boss-Per-Boss Basis (which would suck since we'd go back to Multiple-Gear Sets and Blizzard doesn't want that. Like at all I believe, not just with Resistance Gear) or it could just be a Soft-Cap for your current Tier, because no Boss will hit harder than X Amount in Y Seconds. So, what you can do: Find a "Soft-Cap" (or just try) and use it. Then you can spread the rest of your Gems into Avoidance. The issues I raised up above still exist though:
Less Health = lower Vengeance Cap.
Is the amount of Avoidance you gained actually worth it? If you gain something like idk 3% and end up with say 15% or something, sure you know it'll reduce something, but how much? And will it really be worth it to give up all that Stamina for that? More Stamina that doesn't rely on RNG will always give your healer a bigger amount of room to work with.

Now that you don't need to be topped off yes I can see the use of a "Soft-Cap" although I'm not sure there would be any point in going that far. If Rune Strike was still Avoidance-bound we'd at least gain some Threat by going that road, now we gain nothing and lose some Vengeance.

[Frozen]

Once you have no threat issues, avoidance will increase in value, even though Vengeance is the only thing providing threat.