Where do resists trump stamina/armor/defense.

[Olon97]

A dedicated tank will consider their inventory like a golf bag: different tools for different tasks. I'm working on at least having 2 rings of each elemental resist so I can pre-pull add 30-40 resistance to one element. The trickier part comes into deciding other armor pieces to keep onhand or store/sell depending on how situationally valuable they might be.

Problem is I'm not experienced enough to know what's good where (or alert enough to always realize whether I'm being worked by arcane dmg vs. shadow dmg, etc.).

For best overall mitigation, what are are the situations where a 30-40 boost is better than what one likely has from rings, and what are the situations where you want absolutely every source possible of a particular resist at the expense of nearly all other factors?


Arcane:
?
PvP - Sheep happy mages.

Fire:
Oxnia - all out.
BRD - rings on some pulls.
Molten core - ?
PvP - dueling Fire mages.

Nature:
Noxious - all out.
Mauradon sludges - if you're tanking instead of kiting (hint: kite).
Princess - rings to resist knockback/flatulence.
PvP - druids & hunters to resist roots/snare effects.

Cold:
?
PvP - Cold Mages. Frost shock happy Shamans.

Shadow:
Molten Core - madgmar, and ghennas.
PvP - Shadow priests. Resist Priest & Warlock fear.

Holy:
?
PvP - ?

Please contribute/discuss. ;)

[added madgmar and ghennas to the list as suggested]

[Artega]

It's simply easier to have a Paladin or Shaman use their resistance aura/totem or to have a Druid buff you with Mark of the Wild for resistances rather than sacrifice Stamina and other stats for them.

Even with a significant amount of resistance (such as +60 from Shadow Ward), the chance to utterly negate the spell (which is what you're going for; if you're just wanting to reduce the damage dealt, stacking STA is clearly superior) is still miniscule.

There's nothing wrong with adding a little resistances here and there when possible (such as +5 on your cloak instead of +90 Armor), but for the most part, they're not worth stacking at the expense of stats.

If Shamans and Frost Shock are bugging you, drink a Free Action potion. You can't be snared anymore, and they probably won't think to Purge you until they're dead.

If you're getting magebombed, try an Arcane Protection potion. Same if you're getting dotted into oblivion by magelocks and priests, except grab a Fire Protection or Shadow Protection potion.

Pallies and their new favorite seal, Seal of Command, bugging you? Holy Protection shuts them down pretty good.

As far as resisting Fear, Shadow resistance has a very negligible effect (if any) on it; the only way to break fear is by using special abilities. If you're a Warrior, hit Berserker Rage or Death Wish or even Recklessness. If you're Undead, use Will of the Forsaken. If you're a blacksmith, use the Glimmering Mithril Insignia. Anything else and you're basically SOL.

In practical PvP, stacking STA will invariably be more effective than stacking resistances since it's MUCH more consistent (you'll never outright resist a spell, but you'll be able to take it), and it doesn't cripple you against everything that isn't reliant on that particular resistance type.

In short: make friends with alchemists and don't bother trading stats for resistances.

[liffuie]

fire for onyxia realy imo has iffy effects.

yeah it helps for stage 1 breath, and stage 2 fireblasts. but those abilities tend to do dmg easily survivable by any class, you'll never die in one hit from them, so surviving and drinking a health pot or bandaid is easy.

for the big hits, stage 2 deep breath, stage 3 fire ring ae fire resist has very little affect. Much better imo to drink a fire aborbtion potion, and load up on sta gear to survive the "big" attacks, then to try to negate them with fr gear.


for shadow resists, it can have a big affect for none tank melee's in certain MC fights
madgmar, and ghennas fight specificaly. My guilds rogues have report with 110+ shadow resist, they've successffuly resisted 90% of madgmards pbae fear, and 80% of ghennas random target 2k shadowbolt

[MongoJerry]

It's simply easier to have a Paladin or Shaman use their resistance aura/totem or to have a Druid buff you with Mark of the Wild for resistances rather than sacrifice Stamina and other stats for them.

60 fire resistance is miniscule in a place like Molten Core or Onyxia. You want to have something on the order of 200+ and some have reported that the developers who originally tested against these mobs had over 300+ fire resistance. It is possible to get decent equipment configurations with this type of fire resistance, but obviously you'll have to sacrifice a lot of stamina to get it.

So when should you sacrifice stamina for resistance, defence, and armor? Simple: When you're being healed by a whole team of healers. If you've got six priests rotating heals on you in pairs along with some shamans, druids, and/or paladins providing random heals, it's not going to make a whole lot of difference if you start off with an extra 1k life. In a raid type situation, you might be healed for like 500k damage during a fight, and having that extra life at the start will be practically meaningless. What you want to do is maximize the effectiveness of the health your healing battery is giving you, so you want to have as much resistance, armor, and defence as you can. You only need enough life so that you won't die due to a couple of lucky mob crits. Stacking yourself with extra health beyond that is a waste.

[Lord BEEF]

There are a lot of different schools of thought on this.

One is that by having an extremely high amount of stamina, its easier for priests to let you drop down a bit more and use more greater heals instead of flash heals, increasing overall efficiency. This can also make it so there is less overhealing since people aren't as worried about keeping you over 50% to avoid sudden crits.

Another school of thought is basically like what MongoJerry was saying. Get enough to survive a crit or two and you're fine, then maximize mitigation.

One thing of note is that +defense, when piled on high, makes it extremely difficult for most enemies to crit you and this can often allow you to have lower stamina since you just won't get crit.

[Olon97]

Well the discussion is still pretty abstract. Some tradeoffs are worse than others (hence my feeling that swapping in rings never hurts).

The thorium armor plate pieces are pretty horrible for instance. I still carry a couple around with me, but almost never bother putting them on. The hit in stats, armor, and defense is huge over typical high end gear in those slots.

Other tradeoffs are less extreme. You can lose 15 skill defence and 10 fire resist from Draconian Deflector and use a Darrowshire Strongguard, gaining 1 more stamina and 10 nature and 10 frost resistance. Armor and block are exactly the same. Against spellcaster mobs with nature/frost damage and minimal melee, there is no reason not to swap in the other shield.

As for whether the effect is negligible or not, a duel versus a caster in full thorium armor goes quite differently than without, in the levels where you first get the gear (late 40s).

[liffuie]

you may want to add another part to your list, the general consensus in my guild at least, is that various AE's have a breaking point of affectivness. Like for the fear in mc, around 100 is generaly considered the breaking point, less then that, and your not resising enough to be worth it.

for the onyxia encounter, since its broken down to various stages and positions I would put it as

main tank all stages: def/hp gear
stage 1: (don't realy any set gear
stage 2: 120 FR gear to resists firebolts and conflag. sta gear may be good if you can break 5k hp (thats around how much her bad breath attack does, if your encounter is going bad, not enough dps, or to clumped up)
stage 3: 150-200 fr, if not sta gear and fire absorbtion potions (

[Rinnhart]

It's simply easier to have a Paladin or Shaman use their resistance aura/totem or to have a Druid buff you with Mark of the Wild for resistances rather than sacrifice Stamina and other stats for them.

Even with a significant amount of resistance (such as +60 from Shadow Ward), the chance to utterly negate the spell (which is what you're going for; if you're just wanting to reduce the damage dealt, stacking STA is clearly superior) is still miniscule.

There's nothing wrong with adding a little resistances here and there when possible (such as +5 on your cloak instead of +90 Armor), but for the most part, they're not worth stacking at the expense of stats.

If Shamans and Frost Shock are bugging you, drink a Free Action potion.  You can't be snared anymore, and they probably won't think to Purge you until they're dead.

If you're getting magebombed, try an Arcane Protection potion.  Same if you're getting dotted into oblivion by magelocks and priests, except grab a Fire Protection or Shadow Protection potion.

Pallies and their new favorite seal, Seal of Command, bugging you?  Holy Protection shuts them down pretty good.

As far as resisting Fear, Shadow resistance has a very negligible effect (if any) on it; the only way to break fear is by using special abilities.  If you're a Warrior, hit Berserker Rage or Death Wish or even Recklessness.  If you're Undead, use Will of the Forsaken.  If you're a blacksmith, use the Glimmering Mithril Insignia.  Anything else and you're basically SOL.

In practical PvP, stacking STA will invariably be more effective than stacking resistances since it's MUCH more consistent (you'll never outright resist a spell, but you'll be able to take it), and it doesn't cripple you against everything that isn't reliant on that particular resistance type.

In short: make friends with alchemists and don't bother trading stats for resistances.
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Artega won the PvP aspect of this thread.
An additional note: +dodge and defense equate to physical damage resistance. While this will make you rock the worlds of melee fighters, mages will laugh as your burn.

Stamina, stamina, stamina. And maybe some + crit chance.

[Artega]

Artega won the PvP aspect of this thread.
An additional note: +dodge and defense equate to physical damage resistance. While this will make you rock the worlds of melee fighters, mages will laugh as your burn.

Stamina, stamina, stamina. And maybe some + crit chance.
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Dodge is bad for fighting Warriors. Very bad.

Stacking Parry would be more effective, but it's very difficult to find anything with +parry, though +Defense is reasonably easy to find.

Warriors MUST have a high crit chance to be effective in PvP if they're doing anything but playing the role of mana sponge. Both of our major passives (Deep Wounds, Flurry) are crit-activated. Plus, your crits from special abilities (such as Execute, Whirlwind, and namely Mortal Strike) will be 220% damage (or 170% if physical crits follow suit with magic crits), which means it's entirely feasible to crit for over 1200 with a MS+Enrage hit.