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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsChill of the Throne: Dodge nerfed 20% in Icecrown Citadel
by Adam Holisky 
Oct 29th 2009 at 2:18PM
So while dodge will be nerfed, the ceiling on damage given to a tank will likely decrease. This will in turn, at least theoretically, make healing more about strategy (applying HoTs and planning heals) and less reactive (twitch response to apply the biggest heal at exactly the right time).
This is interesting to note as it's a move towards the Cataclysm way of tanking, as has been explained by Ghostcrawler: less avoidance on tanks, less spike damage, and thus requiring smaller heals.
Daelo's and Ghostcrawler's full statements after the break.
This post is currently being edited.
From Daelo:
Ghostcrawler has also chimed in:For Icecrown Citadel, we are implementing a spell that will affect every enemy creature in the raid. The spell, called Chill of the Throne, will allow creatures to ignore 20% of the dodge chance of their melee targets. So if a raid's main tank had 30% dodge normally, in Icecrown Citadel they will effectively have 10%.
Why are we doing this?
The high levels of tank avoidance players have obtained is making the incoming damage a tank DOES take more "spiky" than is healthy for raiding. Ideally, tanks would be receiving a relatively constant stream of damage over time. This allows healers to better plan their healing strategy, broaden their spell options, and simply give more time to react. Tanks could use their cooldowns more reactively. Instead, the current situation is that if we make a hard hitting melee boss and a tank doesn't avoid two successive swings then the tank could very well be dead in that 1-2 second window. The use of reactive defensive abilities instead becomes a methodically planned affair, healers have to spam their largest heals just in case the huge damage spike happens.
We've been trying to do a fair amount to mitigate the effect of high tank avoidance on the encounter side of things during this expansion with faster melee swings, additional melee strikes, dual wielding, narrowing the normal variance of melee swing damage, and various other tricks. There's a limit to what we can do, however. So to give us a bit of breathing room we've implemented Chill of the Throne. Going forward past Icecrown Citadel, we have plans to keep tank avoidance from growing so high again.
We'll have this on the PTR soon so players can see the effects inside Icecrown Raid.
Additional relevant statement from Ghostcrawler yesterday:Our original estimations for tank avoidance would have worked fine had we not decided to add extra tiers of gear to reward heroic boss kills halfway through the expansion.
The Cataclysm design will keep tank avoidance at more manageable levels. The loss of defense skill counts for a lot right there. We are also considering giving bosses expertise or other ways of baking in Icewell Radiance -- basically the concept that bosses scale with gear rather than just hitting harder and taking more hits.
What I would like to see in Cataclysm is higher health pools but also lower heals (and tank avoidance) overall. Hopefully everyone won't be on the verge of almost dying, yet the risk of overhealing will be more real such that you can't just madly spam all of the time if you want to make it to the end of the encounter.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 8)
Killrah Oct 29th 2009 2:27PM
Those who fail to learn from Sunwell Radiance are doomed to repeat it.
Golis Oct 29th 2009 3:37PM
"Sunwell Radiance was just a setback..."
Kurdaj Oct 29th 2009 8:19PM
So why didn't they re-itemize stats for the top 100 items that tanks actually use and then give proper t10 rewards?
What, because the gear upgrade isn't good enough, players won't raid ICC? Who are they kidding, this is the most hyped raid ever. If I had a guild that could do ICC, I'd head in there, gear incentive or no.
Legend Oct 29th 2009 2:28PM
A good idea, but it only affects one stat. Watch as tanks start to stack ungodly amounts of Parry to compensate for this.
Craig R Oct 29th 2009 2:31PM
Because Feral Tanks needed another reason to not get taken to raids.
LilBanshee Oct 29th 2009 2:54PM
20% avoidance is 20% avoidance, it doesn't matter which stat it originally came from. If you can get 1% more dodge as easily as you can get 1% more parry, theres no reason to choose parry over dodge. Diminishing returns is the only reason to choose one avoidance stat over another.
Alden Oct 29th 2009 7:42PM
... It would be foolish to "stack ungoldy amounts of parry" since the diminishing returns would mean that you would have relatively little to show for your work.
If putting in 3 dodge gems gives you 1% more avoidance now, then IT WILL STILL GIVE YOU 1% MORE AVOIDANCE WITH THE DEBUFF TOO.
...
And what tanks gem much dodge or parry anyway? Seriously?
There is no reason to switch itemization at all with this.
joshbuddha Oct 29th 2009 2:36PM
Well thanks Blizz effectively nerfing druids again, awesome so can bear tanks go a single patch without a kick in the teeth? Stam Nerf, armor nerf, dodge and agi nerf before, and now a 20% tax on our only form of evasion, thanks if you didn't want druids to tank why don't you just re institute crushing blows?
Dave Oct 29th 2009 3:32PM
My initial reaction was similar, but I'm sure it will work out fine. It's not like GC and crew are all of a sudden going "holy crap, we totally forgot about bears and their reliance on dodge to tank!" or "screw bears, never liked them anyway." They know dodge is the only avoidance stat we have and I'm sure they'll be keeping an eye on the play data to make sure I doesn't cripple us. Yeah, we don't tank the same way we did through BC. I still have never felt like I couldn't continue to do my job as a tank as well as anyone else.
Chris Anthony Oct 29th 2009 3:35PM
You understand that if they'd nerfed Parry etc. instead of Dodge, people would be saying "so why should we take anyone but a druid tank to ICC?", right?
Wowinsider Oct 29th 2009 3:43PM
Hey man, be glad you're not a DK. This isn't just an avoidance nerf for them. It's a threat nerf too because an excessive amount of our threat comes from Rune Strike, which only procs when we dodge or parry an attack.
When you're rocking about 50-60% avoidance, that's at least a third less procs, meaning a third less Rune Strikes approximately. That's a huge threat nerf.
Meanwhile, warrior rage generation goes through the roof.
You've effectively nerfed DK threat and buffed warrior threat in one move Blizzard. GG.
shamman22 Oct 29th 2009 3:59PM
To the above poster, um nope. Because you guys also have block. We have no block or parry, we have dodge for avoidance and that's all. If they completely eliminated parry, you guys could just stack block, which is a huge difference. Bye bye bear tanks, it was good to know ya.
Chris Anthony Oct 29th 2009 4:09PM
@shamman22, if you're referring to DKs, no, they don't have Block. Death Knights can't use shields.
Snuzzle Oct 29th 2009 4:22PM
Bears have higher dodge anyway. Say that warrior has 30% dodge, now it's 10%. Since bears only have dodge, my bear has closer to 45%-50%. So now I'm down to 25%-30%. Still gobs more dodge than a warrior.
Bears will be fine.
Wowinsider Oct 29th 2009 5:02PM
Also, let me explain this once again for all you people saying "poor druids". The avoidance loss is the same for all the tank classes. There is no tank class that doesn't have more than 20% dodge coming out of T9.
Also note this is a flat 20%, not 20% of the dodge you have. You lose the same amount of avoidance regardless of the amount of dodge you have.
(The only caveat to the preceding statement is if you manage to get below 20% dodge, which isn't possible in any realistic sense.)
So please, for the love of everyone's sanity, engage your brain and realize this doesn't affect bears more.
muffin_of_chaos Oct 29th 2009 10:25PM
> So please, for the love of everyone's sanity, engage your brain and realize this doesn't affect bears more.
In terms of who it affects the most, it depends on the strengths and weaknesses of the tanking class under consideration.
Specifically, bears generally have the lowest total avoidance, because their dodge is about equal to the others' combined dodge and parry or less (esp. in the case of DKs) while having almost no +enemy miss from defense. This is the distinctive weakness for a bear tank, whereas her high effective health is her strength.
Chill of the Throne will pronounce that weakness because avoidance gets worse the less of it you have. But it doesn't reduce her strength, effective health.
Basically, it boils down to this change exaggerating the higher tendency of bears to need big heals fast and other tanks to need fast heals. This is probably, overall, a nerf to bears on fights that split healers' attention, and a nerf to other tanks on tank-and-spank fights.
Bronco Oct 29th 2009 2:38PM
Apparently Blizzard doesn't learn from their mistakes.
Thetealone Oct 29th 2009 2:34PM
(points to article : Shifting Perspectives: The disappearance of the bear)
Thanks Blizzard, we(bears) always wanted to be the MT for Arthas and this will help a lot when deciding who will tank.
Why not 15% dodge, 5% parry? Some balance would be nice. But meh.
Frye Oct 29th 2009 2:44PM
This argument is a little bit overstated. If they were reducing Dodge by 15% and Parry by 5%, then Pallies, Warriors, and DKs would lose 20% avoidance upon stepping into Icecrown, while Bears would lose only 15%, making them the preferred tank. Nerfing Dodge and only Dodge was the only way to keep this nerf from affecting tanks differently.
Rhabella Oct 29th 2009 3:04PM
@Frye
The math is not that simple. When a plate wearing tank has more avoidance to give up (parry in this case) they can stand to lose more avoidance. Thetealone’s solution, though not perfect, does make more sense from an encounter standpoint because they are reducing more avoidance on tanks that have more avoidance vs the bear who only has one true avoidance stat (dodge).