On your self clickies, do you use Form of Endurance(HP, mask) and Prismatic Ward (Resist/AC, range). Or do you use just the ring, Form Of Defense (AC only) I use the Mask and Range. Because I lose 7 ac (with my current clickies) but gain 1600hp, which would equal 160 ac (Always hear 10hp = 1 ac). Seems like the smart thing to do yeah? Reason I am asking is because I see tanks use both types of combo's. So which do you use?... and why.
ae fights will do ward and endurance most fights defense and lately since i been running out of buff slots more often i use defense 90% of the time
HP > AC! Crazy talk with those diminishing returns and spell dmg and all that jazz I use the mask/range clicky myself.. the only reason I would use the ring is for buff slots really.. those are a hot commodity for tanks!
Agree Mask and range all the way. AC> hp is true if its a equal ratio but with that big of a difference you want mask range all day =)
Well, to make a fair comparison, you need to compare items of the same tier, for example T1 COTF raid, you come with 69 more AC from form of defense versus 1600 HP for the other combo, it's not 7 AC versus 1600 HP, yes you said you used a lesser version of form of defense but reading the thread it could seem you compared two clickies of the same tier
Since you are using a CotF T1 Prismatic Ward and RoF T1 Form of Defense, it's clear the Ward is a better buff. But if you have equal tiered clickies, I would use Form of Defense. For comparison, if you take a full set of WAR/PAL/SHD heroics over BRD, you gain 40 rAC. If you take Prismatic Ward XV over Form of Defense XIX (T2 CotF), you lose ~58 rAC. If you really want the AC that bad (or is it the HP? ) over other heroic groups, you should probably consider getting an AC clicky ring early on. I consider HP caps to be pretty trivial so I would go with the AC, especially because it saves you a buff slot. The resist portion of Ward is really trivial these days. The only time it would help is with a significant (>400) resist debuff.
There is a point where AC becomes so negligible that it's value becomes less than that of HP. There are soft and hard caps on AC, once you reach those for your class AC starts to diminish in it's effective value. Where that magic number is where AC starts to have such a minimal impact, I don't know. If that has changed since last time I cared enough to look into this then idk. But for those that think AC makes you a god and therefore will go to extremes to have the most, whatever makes you happy.. but at this point in the game from what I know and see, it's the mob/mechanics/ skill/knowledge and your healers that keep you alive, not if you have the most AC. I die more often because of DD and dots than actual melee damage in raids anymore. I'll take more HP at this point in teh game.
You need a ridiculous HP:AC ratio to make defense > end+ward. Granted, for knights the buff slot is a real concern, not so much for wars. Keep in mind, whatever HP:AC ratio you use for gear choices, you need to edit for buff choices. Raw HP is booted by ~20%, while raw AC is boosted by ~70%. This means you need to lower the HP:AC ratio you use for gear by ~30% when talking about buffs. IE a 10:1 or 20:1 HP:AC ratio when talking gear would be a 7:1 or 14:1 HP:AC ratio when talking buffs.
These 69 AC become + 178 AC if you upgrade your ring to T2 raid COTF and it's more easily reachable as you need to upgrade only one piece of gear versus two for ward + end I have to disagree to say that AC has not become important at the AC levels of current raidings warriors Take Prince Tarant Thex for example, with 400 + more AC than i have now compared to the time i started tanking him, i can tell you the beating i take is less hard than before, and i have the same number of healers and i use the same survival discs
