well, dodge comes so easily for druids that it doesnt make sense to avoid it per se, especially with stuff like 35 agi to 2h out there and the greater benefit of stacking multiple stats in terms of stat efficiency over stacking a one or two stats.
but still, the other lessons of the post are pretty important too, even to non-wars and non-druids; armor DOES NOT diminish. i see many clothies and even druids claim that a piece of armor is "useless" because it provides a marginal stat upgrade combined with an armor upgrade. what they fail to realize is that armor is linear; each point of armor is worth as much as the one before it and the one after it. damage reduction is diminishing, and for good reason. the higher % of DR you have, the more each % matters.
to expand on this, assume the following:
you are fighting a monster. this monster attacks at a speed of 1.0 with a damage of 100, aka 100 dps. you have X% damage reduction.
when X = 0%
-the monster must maintain 100 damage per hit in order to deal 100 dps to you.
when X = 25%
-the monster must maintain ~133 damage per hit in order to deal 100 dps to you. this is an increase of ~33% damage.
when X = 50%
-the monster must maintain 200 damage per hit in order to deal 100 dps to you. this is an increase of 100% damage over its original dps, and ~50% increase in damage over the dps it needed at X=25%.
when X = 75%
-the monster must maintain 400 damage per hit in order to deal 100 dps to you. this is an increase of 300% damage over its original DPS, and a 200% increaes in damage over the dps it needed at X=50%.
so by raising your DR by 50%, you force the opponent to increase their dps by 100% over what it would be if you were at 0% DR. if you think your average dagger rogue nets about 600 dps over the course of the initial 12s of a fight, by increasing your armor by 25%, you force that rogue to increase his dps by 200 in order to maintain the same level of damage he had before. thats huge.
and thats also why the DR cap is 75%. any % DR past 75 becomes SO strong that it effectively trivializes encounters. expanding on the above examples:
when X = 90%
-the monster must maintain 1000 damage per hit in order to deal 100 dps to you. this is an increase of 900% damage over its original dps, and 250% increase in damage over the dps it needed at X=75%.
taken to the most extreme:
when X = 99%
-the monster must maintain 10,000 damage per hit in order to deal 100 dps to you. this is an increase of 9900% damage over its orignal dps, and 900% increase in damage over the dps it needed at X=90%.
those last 9% of DR are "worth" more than the first 90 were in terms of damage blocked. just like the 25% gained from 50-75 is worth more than the 25% gained from 25-50. this is why more armor is needed per % as your DR rises. its a soft cap of sorts, with a hard cap at 75%.
and this confuses people. it fools them into thinking that since DR diminishes, then armor must diminish too. but armor doesnt. armor provides a flat increase to time alive, explained nicely in the post i linked originally. this increase in time alive is further compounded by stamina, which is affected most by armor, and in turn affecting armor, creating a system of incredible synergy where the sum is truly greater than the whole of its parts.
moral of the story? every little bit of armor helps when dealing with physical damage.
Edited, Apr 18th 2007 3:31am by Quor