Please Explain WotLK Classic Prot Warrior All Defense Stat Selection; Expertise > Avoidance/Stam

Serious discussion
1

AMR Best in Bags seems to be emphasizing the value of Expertise more than I would expect. It doesn’t just stop at Expertise soft cap (26). It seems to want to push it over avoidance stats or stamina, particularly in the case of gemming and trinkets. This mostly confuses me because I would expect the All Defense setting to maximize survival stats, and unless I’m missing something Expertise does absolutely zero for Prot Warrior Survival.

What’s the reasoning here? Why does AMR want me to gem straight Expertise even in blue and yellow sockets on pieces offering +avoidance socket bonuses? Why is a 100 attack power trinket with a +250ish expertise proc effect (crusader’s locket) valued more highly than a 100 stamina trinket with a 140 damage reduction proc effect (essence of gossamer)?

What am I missing?

2

If you post a snapshot we can take a closer look at your case.

3

Snapshot code is 53ccb5a4e85f42bfa365c34d928cb33e

Edit 1: I recently got the Repelling Charge trinket; prior to that I was using Essence of Gossamer and AMR was suggesting I replace it with Crusader’s Locket.

Edit 2: I am also seeing similar things with weapon and head enchants. For weapon, Berserking (400ap and reduced armor) is rated more highly than Mongoose (agility and attack speed); 65 attack power rated more highly than 50 stamina. For head slot, Attack Power & Crit is rated more highly than 30 stamina and 25 resilience.

Edit 2 continued: If I wasn’t set up for full-bore defense, I could make sense of it excusing a drop in survival in favor of damage output and/or threat, but, well, I am indeed configured for All Defense. I could even understand if AMR was suggesting these because of an internal need to achieve a certain threshold of threat; however, I don’t think this is the case because I am blowing everybody out of the water in terms of single-target threat. Perhaps if such an internal threshold for threat indeed exists, perhaps it is tuned too high? Just idle speculation.

4

Could you give me the string of data that you copy from the in-game addon to the website? It looks like somehow the talents are misaligned (you can see when you open the tree it has some impossible choices). I will try to figure out how it got into this weird state.

5

Sorry, slipped my mind a couple days. Here y’go.

$7;US;Mankrik;Tonoose;Nerds O War;8;2;80;-1124:14773,-1067:21595,-1085:34645,-87:-8600,-68:20178,-809:0,-933:19365,-349:610,-942:42999,-947:42999,-989:42999,12:4,-1105:10101,-76:30070,-909:0,-369:7695,6:450,-609:2160,-81:25851,-59:1750,-1091:42863,-1098:9295,-1119:42225,-1104:-42000,-470:11065,-510:0,-941:24212,-1064:23312,-749:70,-1031:120,-1011:39194,-932:-24508,13:401,-1090:42999,-577:8652,-576:1570,-21:8187,-1077:28060,-935:38550,-529:14040,1:450,-70:-13050,-530:27451,-1106:8200,-1073:36440,-990:0,-967:42999,-970:6125,-911:16283,-934:22280,-1052:29547;1;.s1;WARRIOR;2000203050000000020000000000000000000000000000000000000003553030212001155232310313120;.q1;34941s6x40034y-19;2052s13;193s11;496s9e3231;1459s12;117s7x44y-25e591;9s3x1403e-11;9s17e38;16s14;52s16e-1176;267s5x-1429y-98e-720;11s10x149e1907;1057s2;43s15e-255;446s18x-44e238;1381s1x1381y102e-844;1652s8e607;.inv;2459;581;1344;547;2017;2082;143;1402;1425;1457;5565;2078;277;6;1454;1;11;150;123;0;614;1;0;31;0;0;0;0;13;0;0;0;1;1;0;462;123;33;20;160;852;106;69;434;1434;280;38;97;22e805;149;393;63x24033y18e2036;10;30;39x0y-18z0e-891;62;352x11468y-11450e1049;5x-18y18e-9;720;564;242;179;624;1947;157;0;21;0;0;0;587;416;124;125;0;28;0;0;344e859;7;87;436;3;1233;56;2;3;12;160;35;22;21;22;27;45;136e-1176;241;21;5;33;1;3;17;1;10;107;23;29;339;56;2;328;497;112;36;8;128;72;211;0;9;846;0;232;4;68;323;3;260;158;232;825;0;183;175;8;6;55;1;1;1;18;95;14;11;5;195;58;6;27x16008e1149;11;318;181;4;26e-823;74;74e-1048;10e2;30;145e1923;366;212;0;0;0;0;1426;2;0;2554;188;2;1;2$

6

You are using an outdated version of the addon. Get the latest version for WotLK, export your character again, once on each spec, and I think it will resolve your issues.

7

That’s certainly one derp, thank you. So I’ve updated the addon and exported both specs. I no longer see impossible talent selections (on a cursory overview); however, I’m still seeing an apparent overvaluing of expertise. Similarly, it seems to want to drop Defense to 540, reducing my avoidance by over 3.5%.

New snapshot: be44746b87a74b29985eb64a5e3e7ed1

And new export paste string:

$11;US;Mankrik;Tonoose;Nerds O War;8;2;80;-1124:14773,-1067:21595,-1085:34645,-87:-8600,-68:20178,-809:0,-933:19365,-349:610,-942:42999,-947:42999,-989:42999,12:4,-1105:10101,-76:30070,-909:0,-369:7695,6:450,-609:2160,-81:25851,-59:1750,-1091:42863,-1098:9295,-1119:42225,-1104:-42000,-470:11065,-510:0,-941:24212,-1064:23312,-749:70,-1031:120,-1011:39194,-932:-24508,13:401,-1090:42999,-577:8652,-576:1570,-21:8187,-1077:28060,-935:38550,-529:14040,1:450,-70:-13050,-530:27451,-1106:8200,-1073:36440,-990:0,-967:42999,-970:6125,-911:16283,-934:22280,-1052:29547;1;.s1;WARRIOR;0502030022000000000000000000000300000000000000000000000000053351225000012521330113321;.q1;34941s6x40034y-19;2052s13;193s11;496s9e3231;1459s12;117s7x44y-25e591;9s3x1403e-11;9s17e38;16s14;52s16e-1176;267s5x-1429y-98e-720;11s10x149e1907;1057s2;43s15e-255;446s18x-44e238;1381s1x1381y102e-844;1652s8e607;.inv;2459;581;1344;547;2017;2082;143;1402;1425;1457;5565;2078;277;6;1454;1;11;150;123;0;614;1;0;31;0;0;0;0;13;0;0;0;1;1;0;462;123;33;20;160;852;106;69;434;1434;280;38;97;22e805;149;393;63x24033y18e2036;10;30;39x0y-18z0e-891;62;352x11468y-11450e1049;5x-18y18e-9;720;564;242;179;624;1947;157;0;21;0;0;0;587;416;124;125;0;28;0;0;344e859;7;87;436;3;1233;56;2;3;12;160;35;22;21;22;27;45;136e-1176;241;21;5;33;1;3;17;1;10;107;23;29;339;56;2;328;497;112;36;8;128;72;211;0;9;846;0;232;4;68;323;3;260;158;232;825;0;183;175;8;6;55;1;1;1;18;95;14;11;5;195;58;6;27x16008e1149;11;318;181;4;26e-823;74;74e-1048;10e2;30;145e1923;366;212;0;0;0;0;1426;2;0;2554;188;2;1;2;.gly;58364;58366$

8

I’ll take a look when I get a chance why it wants to gear hit/expertise in an all defense strategy.

540 defense is the point at which you can’t be crit anymore. Defense is still good beyond that threshold, but point for point it loses value compared to other stats, so it’s not surprising that the optimizer would go for other stats around there.

9

I think that the balance between damage/threat and toughness for prot warriors was favoring DPS a bit too much. We’ll tweak it in the next update, then the damage vs. toughness slider should work a bit better.

10

Thank you, I appreciate you looking into it. I really am trying to maximize my survivability, so it was concerning that AMR seemed to just draw a line somewhere saying “this is enough”.

Of course, now we get to look forward to another warrior chiming in a week or two from now wondering why he’s losing threat all the time with the All Defense strategy. Because you can’t please everybody. :stuck_out_tongue: