So a druid with 41% dodge could get hit with an attack that would do 10,000 damage but dodge 41% of the damage. That would leave you with 5,900 damage which is then mitigated by armor… At 65% physical damage mitigation, that would be 2065. So you could mitigate 80% of incoming damage pretty easily but not avoid it altogether. Then Blizzard could make some bosses that really, really, really hit hard without relying on the RNG to see you through an encounter. You could reasonably make bosses that hit for 150k base damage (about 120k on cloth) and expect a tank to survive it. Or have a shortened swing timer but they “only” hit for 100k base damage.

And for the RNG… Just give bears a form of parry. OK… Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

It’s really not unheard of that armor would stop non-physical damage. A shield stopping a fireball? Logical! And it’s commonly practiced in several other games, with only a hand full of abilities actually penetrating or ignoring armor. WoW seems more and more the odd-man out compared to my other experiences. I’ve even seen dodge used as mitigation instead of avoidance, which makes it more of a flavorful armor I guess. I mean, Agility is boosting our armor, right? Armor must, in itself, take into account some abstract idea of avoidance. I’d wager the flavor argument is really lost entirely on either end of the spectrum.
.-= Skip Cocoa´s last blog ..The MBTY Bus is Comin’, and Everybody’s Jumpin’… =-.

Potential aspects of the stat to make it balance-able:
- Decreases magic damage and physical damage in an uneven ratio — more mitigation for magic vs. physical would make it a stat you would have to balance with armor, parry, block, dodge.
- In order to maintain unique tanking roles for classes, each tanking class could be talented for Willpower differently. While base Willpower would be a static, always-on mitigation stat, it’s dynamic function could be varied, i.e.:
– Ferals – “Savage Will” – each point of damage you take generates a temporary (potentially stacking) buff increasing your Willpower by a percentage of that damage. Would therefore mitigate more strongly vs. magic users.
– Death Knights – “Grave Resolve” – in keeping with DK design, a cooldown ability with a spike to Willpower, perhaps one that gradually decreases after applied.
– Warriors – “Iron Will” – Reverses the magic and physical mitigation of Willpower temporarily.
– Paladins – “Ascetic’s Restraint” – Decrease spellpower to increase willpower.
- Classes could generate willpower based on different statistics, in order to maintain consistent gear itemization. Similar to Agi vs. Crit Rating items could have attributes that increase Willpower directly or indirectly. Since Blizzard has been working to make itemization less specialized, this might not show up often on Leather gear, but it would also allow them the option of making a piece of non-Tier gear clearly a tank-optimized piece.

Clearly, not a very refined notion, but one I think could work with some consideration.

~Aerkhen
(Burning Blade)

The other previous dreams would be infinite mana and light speed haste.

To go along with this playful glee, I think Blizzard should change it so that bears must tank facing the opposite direction. They can be crit and cannot parry/dodge/block from a front and only when they’ve pivoted around. I don’t know how their moves would work then but its just a thought. :P
.-= Mann´s last blog ..Design 01: Slash Roll, my beloved WoW guild =-.

The “Survival” part of tanking is largely passively determined by what gear you’re wearing, punctuated by cooldowns for taking spikes of damage or for emergencies. Just about everything else is spamming your threat-generating abilities. I’d like to see a shift towards actively determining whether all-or-nothing avoidance, mana-efficient die-slowly mitigation, raw hp, or out-and-out threat generation are important from moment to moment in the fight. More nuanced gear choices to emphasize one or another aspect of survival or threat generation would be nice.

Tanking is getting a bit boring, especially with the lack of CC. I’d love a more active, fun tanking experience. Not just swipe and maul spam.

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@ Savvy-Savvage = you’re probably right that haste can be a really effective threat stat. where the caveat comes in is that it does nothing for your mitigation, unlike crit which helps both threat and mitigation. well, i suppose that since hasted mauls will crit more frequently, it could help mitigation a little. additionally, all the fancy tank warriors will have block value sets and avoidance sets and effective health sets, so there might be room for it.

Also, infected wounds should proc passively from thorns and not off of those other active abilities!

Ever think of making a haste set for more maul damage on boss fights? I get like 52% of my damage from maul so I’m thinking 20% haste would be approximately 10% more threat. I’m sure I”m missing something.