Icewalker vs Tuskarrs Vitality post comment

There seems to be some dispute appearing on the forums regarding the usefulness of [Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality] compared to Icewalker. Personally I am firmly in the [Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality] camp, but thought I would go into a little more depth.

Icewalker

Icewalker gives 12 hit rating and 12 crit rating. The benefits of this are simple enough to understand. At level 80 this comes out to +0.46% hit and +0.26% crit.

Part of the reason I am not a fan of this compared to Tuskarr's Vitality is that the same benefit can easily be obtained through gems. Realistically in endgame ICC gear you should not entirely be starved of hit rating. I believe that in my current gear plan I have just past 10% hit without the need for enchants or gems. If this is the case for you also then the hit rating is a wasted stat, and so the useful affect of Icewalker is down now to 0.26% critical strike rating.

I'm not going to go into discussion of the critical strike soft cap, but considering that an endgame raiding moonkin will be running at about 30-35% crit rating unbuffed (translating to around 50-55% on Wrath/Starfire out of Eclipse, or 90-95% on Starfire in Eclipse assuming no Focus Magic). For the purposes of napkin math I will assume 1/3rd of the time each eclipse is up, and the final third is spent out of eclipse. Realistically the proportion of eclipse time is higher. I will also assume that if you have a 0% crit rating, your dps is 100 (so read 100% damage).

With a normal crit rating as indicated above, so 55%/95% your DPS will be 168.3%ish. With Icewalkers contribution this rises to a massive 168.6%ish. A 0.3% dps increase.

Tuskarr's Vitality

Tuskarr's Vitality gives another simple enough benefit on the surface. It increases run speed by 8% and gives you 15 stamina. At level 80 (or in fact any level) this comes out to 150 hit points for Moonkin.

If we assume a 5 minute fight with no movement then order for Tuskarr's Vitality (based on movement speed alone) to be better than Icewalker then it will need to save at least 0.3% of DPS that would be lost through movement.

When does Tuskarr's Vitality outperform Icewalker?

0.3% of the spells cast in this time period corresponds to the equivilant of 1.5 seconds of lost casting time due to movement. Assuming movement only as much as neccesary in order for Tuskarr's Vitality to save 1.5 seconds of movement time, you need to move for 18.75 seconds within a single fight (that is 18.75 seconds without Tuskarr's Vitality). This corresponds to about 131 yards of movement, or 26 yards per minute.

This may sound like a lot of movement however this accounts for a lot of recent content. I can't really comment on the second phase of Icecrown bosses, however going on TOTC and Icecrown (up to Saurfang) I can see the following being good examples of fights that are good for Tuskarr's Vitality

4th Feb 2010 Just as an update I have added in more of the ICC fights. The more I see of ICC, the more it feels like every fight requires significant movement. I will probably have to trim off this list. I haven't added in anything about Arthas or Sindrigosa yet as I haven't actually touched them yet, but from the reads of tactics it looks like they will be on this list soon too.

• Northrend Beasts (range on worms, range on Icehowl, avoiding crash)
• Lord Jaraxxus (range on adds, avoiding legion flame)
• Faction Champions (range on adds, stamina provides slight survivability boost here too)
• Twin Valkyr (running for colour changes, orb avoidance/soaking)
• Anub Arak (avoiding his spikes, avoiding adds, getting range on adds)
• Marrowgar (to get range on far spikes, avoid the spinny bugger, and avoid flames)
• Deathwhisper (to get range on specific adds, move out of death and decay, avoid ghosts)
• Saurfang (to keep range on adds should they not die 100% fast enough)
• Festergut (to get to the spore exploding location and spread out after)
• Rotface (to kite little oozes, move away from explosions, and out of the slime spray)
• Professor Putricide (if you really need to ask about this one, then just enchant whatever you feel like! So much movement)
• Princes (fireballs, shocks, getting to the target, lots of nasty things)
• Blood Queen (running in with links, running out for air phase, that flame thing, getting to your biting target)
• Dreamwalker (getting range on adds)

Non-combat benefits

This won't directly affect those that are seeking every last point of DPS at any cost, but I thought it was worth mentioning for the majority of players. The increased run speed is useful when not in combat. It reduces the amount of time you spend flying from place to place in the world. It reduces the amount of time running around cities.

Even in raids it has a place, reducing the transition time from pull to pull. It is not a massive speed boost but still it is nice. It makes it marginally faster to position pre-pull, to gather up after kill, or to gather up after a wipe. Icewalker provides no out of combat benefit. Again this doesn't matter to those after every last point of performance, but it does make life a little bit simpler.

Greater Vitality

For the sake of completion I thought I would look at the alternative foot enchantments available. The first up is Enchant Boots - Greater Vitality. This gives 7 health and 7 mana per 5 seconds. My sentiment regarding Mp5 for a Moonkin is that it is a waste of item budget. The same applies to Hp5 and so I would consider this enchant a waste compared to other options.

Enchant Boots - Greater Spirit

18 spirit? Really? If I see any Moonkin using this then I will cry and maybe die a little inside. It may be ok for trees, I really don't know, but for Moonkin you gain a massive 5.4 spell power and maybe a little mana regen. Woo.

Conclusion

Realistically the difference between Icewalker and Tuskarr's Vitality is pretty trivial. If you are at a point where you are not hit capped, or even if you under 10% as an Alliance (as many will aim for 9% and assume a Draenei for the last 1%), then Icewalker may be of more use to you.

If you are hit capped then the difference depends heavily on how much you move in combat. If you are so inclined to ensure the best dps possible down to the smallest point then it would be beneficial to have 2 pairs of boots, one with each enchant for different types of fight. I will not be going this far though and will stay with Tuskarr's Vitality.