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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsA macro for stacking parry or dodge
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 16th 2009 at 4:00PM
Fortunately, HC's macro (written by Theck of Maintankadin, apparently) is foolproof. Just plug this macro in, and hit it every time you're choosing gear:
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("If ratio above 1.88 start getting Parry. Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", (GetDodgeChance()-10)/(GetParryChance()-10)))
If your ratio of Dodge to Parry rating is above 1.88, you can start picking up Parry gear to balance them back out, or if not, keep working on your Dodge rating. Like I said, foolproof.
Tanks who know what they're doing might have other insights (and feel free to share those in the comments below), but as an easy and simple guide to what you can start stacking when, I like the way this macro works. I'll definitely have it on the bar as my pally moves towards endgame.
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Tips, How-tos, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Taladan Oct 16th 2009 6:36PM
Not completely.
Stamina is pure health. Armor and block value (for those of us that have shields) is EH. Sometimes, an armor trinket will provide more EH than a pure stam trinket.
Amsteldamm Oct 16th 2009 5:13PM
with my main being a dwarf pally getting geared up for ulduar ive noticed a big difference since i changed from stacking stam to making sure that all my stats were equal. changing out a few stam gems with mixed stat gems i only lost 1k health but gained alot in dodge and parry making a difference in my tanking. before no matter what my health was buffed up to if i got smacked that was it now i find that i dodge and parry alot more so i dont take as many of the huge hits.
Kesh Oct 16th 2009 5:20PM
Wait til you get to hodir, mimi, vezax and yogg and then any hardmodes, you'll be changing those gems back again :)
schwonga Oct 16th 2009 5:34PM
Meh, still has use for me, lets me know when dodge is less valuable than parry, even if upgrades wont always come down to parry vs. dodge being the deal maker. It is useful to know when without having to look up the damn numbers every time...
me and math have issues
Tom Oct 16th 2009 5:35PM
Yay for WoW.com highlighting something from Maintankadin (if only indirectly)!
There are a *lot* of people out there of all specs who don't know what the f*#$ they're doing. While there are plenty of resources out there to fix that problem, Protection Paladins have some of the best places to go, such as Honor's blog and the aforementioned forums. They're top-notch in not just quality, but also in civility, community, and inclusiveness.
JR Oct 16th 2009 6:17PM
When I saw the title of this article I wondered how the hell can a macro stack parry. I thought it was some new discovery and my mind would be blown away. Oh well...
Taladan Oct 16th 2009 6:36PM
Haha, same.
"Oh great. A macro to switch trinkets and such..."
sikyon Oct 16th 2009 7:08PM
Wow some people here don't understand basic math.
1) Raid buffs that buff stam buff have the same effect if you have avoiance or stam.
ex. tank with 5000 health and 50% avoidance vs tank with 7500 health and 25% avoidance. (same durability)
Kings gives 5500 health and 50% avoidance to tank 1, Kings gives 8250 health and 25% avoidance to tank 2.
Tank 1 has an effective life of 5500/0.5 and tank 2 has an effective life of 11000/0.75
Guess what, they have the same life-to-death survival time.
Reasons for stacking stam:
Take big hits. If a hit kills you regardless of avoidance then you won't be sucessful. Unmitigatable damage.
Reasons for stacking avoidance:
Less damage taken on AVERAGE. less strain on healers. remember, it may be the healer's job to keep you alive, but if you don't have enough mitigation then you can't blame them. And honestly, since there's 2x(or more) as many healers as tanks in raids, every point of improvement you make is equal to a point of improvement from EACH healer... so you get 2x the return on your buck. Tanks literally make or break raids.
Also, stam suffers from diminishing returns the SAME WAY dodge and parry do. doubling your stam doubles you time-to-live. Doubling your dodge and partty double your time to live as well. Avoidance is an inverse factor, and not linear unlike stam.
In short, lrn2lower order equation.
Mikefurion Oct 16th 2009 7:45PM
Not gonna lrn2lower order equation, but I did learn just how stupidly crazy feral druid scale with stamina.
http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/10/druidits-time-to-play-that-game-again.html
sikyon Oct 16th 2009 8:44PM
Bears already got slammed with a 10% stam nerf in recent patches, with their bonus stam going down from 20% to 10%.
comedown Oct 17th 2009 2:46AM
Of course you wouldn't worry about this. You're a DW DK tank. You're life is hard enough remembering to unzip before you piss and looking at the letters drawn on the back of your shoe to remember right from left.
Trajan Oct 17th 2009 4:08AM
/sigh. The following premise isn't meant to mirror any particular fight, just offer a way to look at things. So don't bite my head off.
Okay, imagine four tanks and a boss that hits for around 16k because it's an even number. And we're going to assume the tanks are going to be hit three times in a row, with no parry-hasting, because three times in a row is the least-common-but-still-frequent occurance with the current avoidance levels achievable from current gear without nerfing yourself. Let's also assume his healer's connection just lag-spiked, taking him out of commission for around three seconds while the other healers are either blissfully ignorant or busy as hell.
Tank #1 has 35k health (ie-is fail). He can get hit twice if he doesn't have a DoT on him, MAYBE three with a c/d. But he's going to definitely need a heal by the third swing. He's almost certainly going down.
Tank#2 has 40k health, what you can reasonably expect from a casual or unguilded player. He's doing better, and can soak up two hits if he taps a c/d. But he's going to need some healing by the time the third comes around.
Tank #3 has 45k health. Average. The first two hits aren't an issue, and if he has no DoTs and uses a cooldown, all three aren't really an issue, even with a little DoT action (assuming a major cooldown). But he's only really got a three-swing window to work with before he starts crying about heals.
Tank #4 has 50k health. A good tank that raids a lot. He laughs off all three hits, ponders just what the hell his healer is doing, and decides to pop a healthstone and use a minor c/d. His healer comes back from a lag spike, does some patching up, and the fight goes on.
That's the power of Stam over avoidance. In that very-possible scenario, no amount of avoidance would have helped anybody. Avoidance rocks for keeping your healers mana-efficient, and yeah, it MIGHT give you the dodge that saves your life in that situation. But if I had to gamble--and I do, every time I raid--I'd take the health any day.
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Oct 17th 2009 9:51AM
35k health is fail? I tank Heroics all the time with less than 30k and don't have issues. (I suppose I'd have trouble in Naxx and I obviously wouldn't be able to survive higher-end raids, but I never really had time for Naxx anyway)
I saw some dude in trade chat saying
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Oct 17th 2009 9:52AM
Bah, stupid less-than signs.
(weren't the first few WOTLK tanks under 25k and doing fine with similar healers?)
Dude in trade had a macro saying less than 4k dps is fail. I LOL'd.
inb4 downrank, I don't really care.
Raenz Oct 18th 2009 6:15AM
Hes not talking about heroic 5 mans, hes talking about raids.
Raenz Oct 18th 2009 6:19AM
Also, 26k unbuffed is about the minimum for Naxx25 if your DPS and healers have about the same level of gear
Trajan Oct 18th 2009 7:05AM
Sorry, I kinda thought that the only people who were really worried about a macro to help them decide whether it would be minutely better to stack dodge or parry would be current endgame tanks--ToC-10/25, maybe some Uld-25. Plus, I thought it would be obvious when I mentioned that the boss was swinging for 16k damage. It's been awhile, but I don't think that any Naxxramas bosses were whacking me for 16k out of my 28k health pool, except Patchwerk.
My apologies if you thought I was trolling.
To continue, another thing you have to consider is what talents and abilities your particular class and spec use that are dependent on hp. A Blood DK tank will probably be using Will of the Necropolis, Vampiric Blood, and might use Improved Rune Tap--all of which provide benefits based on maximum hp pool. Add that to Veteran of the Third War (+3% stam), and it makes Stamina a much more valuable stat for them.
And really, I think any realistic gear setup wouldn't have so much dodge on it that filling your required purple slots with +parry/+stam gems would be worth it. But like all mortals--and especially anyone who talks on the interwebz--I could be wrong.
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Dylan Oct 23rd 2009 5:58PM
"Also, stam suffers from diminishing returns the SAME WAY dodge and parry do. doubling your stam doubles you time-to-live. Doubling your dodge and partty double your time to live as well. Avoidance is an inverse factor, and not linear unlike stam."
No, 30 stam is always the same amount of hp every time you gain it. In my paladin's case 30 stam is 378 hp.
Meanwhile 20 Dodge rating is less and less dodge % with every point. 45 dodge rating is +1% dodge for your first piece of gear. At my gear level 45 dodge rating is +.8% dodge. That's what diminishing returns are.