Warriors - When Do I Use Evasive?
 

Hey guys! I see this question come up a lot with new warriors in our guild and figured I’d make a post detailing when to use this wonderful disc.

First off, when grouping, you should be using this disc almost every time it’s up. Especially when not facing higher lvls mobs that require Defensive, like the Temple Guards or Guardians of Zek in Kael. Evasive in grouping saves the healer sooo much mana every time it’s up that it dramatically increases the efficiency that pulls can come in
A few nights ago, I was in KC basement and using this on every cooldown when mobs were in camp. I needed a heal every 8+ mobs. I’m pretty decently geared, but regardless, it helps ever warrior!

In raids, there are several mobs that evasive is REQUIRED. These are:
Trakanon
Dracoliche
Venril Sathir
Nortlav the Scale Keeper

These mobs proc 1500hp lifetap on hit, so your goal is to get hit as little as possible!

After these, generally speaking, it’s more efficient to use evasive on mobs that are lvl 60 and under.

For everything else, use defensive. Hope this helps! :) I’ll post a few other “guides” on certain tanking topics when I get around to them. “What items should be in my bags?” “What mobs rampage? And how do I efficiently set rampage?” “Aggro...should I ALWAYS click a full mallet?” etc. if you guys have other topics you want covered, just put them in the comments. I’m not some master of warriors, but I thought a few of these could help people who are new to warriors learn the basics, once you are 52+.

There are a handful of additional creatures which have a high damage bonus and low damage interval. Some of the Plane of Growth named come to mind. Evasive performs well against such targets.

Danth

All the 900+quadding boss also "require" evasive too...

how nice to have an experienced raid tank sharing knowledge here!

my question would be, what is the rule of thumb on when to use evasive vs. def? there may not be one but one that covers 90+% of the scenarios is good enough

for example gwurms in skfyfire, i find def to be more effective than evasive for some reason and it contradicts with my past experience

I almost always use evasive when there is any doubt. On the monk epic quest bros; defensive and max damage shield so they kill themselves.

Evasive is useful against General in Kith since his 500 dd lifetap procs just about every other hit it seems.

Also I've heard that its good to use on glimmer drakes to limit dispel proc, but can't confirm it actually helps more than defensive.

Evasive mitigates 25% of the damage you would take, on average, but with variance. Defensive mitigates 35% of the damage you take, with no variance. The rule of thumb is that Defensive is better unless:

1) If there is a proc on successful hits that is nasty enough that the procs are doing more than 15% of the total damage you're taking.
2) You are in a situation where the 3 minute lower cooldown is relevant. This is generally in XPing groups, where evasive mitigates more damage over time because when used on cooldown it is active for a larger % of the total time fighting, but could also be for any sort of very extended combat situation with few or no breaks.

Which is pretty much in line with the OP's suggestion.

I thought that VS was one mob that rangers tank due to weaponshield parrying all attacks and lasting 15 seconds.

I'm not sure though if that is a 15 second kill on P99. We did it on live around PoP expansion.

You need an enormous amount of DPS to kill VS in 15 seconds on P99. When we've killed him its more like a 45 second fight. It is usually done with an evasive warrior receiving a rune chain to block the lifetaps that land. You probably could rotate between rangers and have 2 or 3 block all the attacks, but its a little finnicky to transfer aggro like that and if you screw it up or he lives long enough for the disciplines to wear off before killing him he'll lifetap back up.

Thanks for the info. Figured was the case :).

Funny how a couple years and 5 levels/AA's can change things up. That said, I've seen the P99 folks do crazy feats far beyond the typical timeline. 20 years of strategy goes a long ways.