Warden Elusive Spec, Test Data & Conclusions

TLDR: It works, and most likely worth taking if you want additional survivability

I've sometimes wondered how useful this elusive spec was in the warden tree. The steam bluhman guide recommends it more for dps and supports, but I wanted some data to make my own decisions! I was mainly interested in how much it helped, if at all, versus dino's basic attack, "Hungering Maw". I've heard some mixed info about this attack, that it was an aoe because it can hit multiple targets, it was an aoe that that's not flagged as aoe for the warden spec, or that it was a single target which hits multiple targets (similar ricochet throw counting for single target specs). I've also heard the claim that this spec does not work at all. Thanks this old thread on the warden elusive spec, I learned that we could use the "locus" proc from the Guardian tree to confirm whether an attack is flagged aoe. Similarly, I figured we could use the "retribution" proc to confirm an attack is flagged as single target.

With this in mind i made a quick test build on pts to become dino food. Its intentionally an incomplete build, made to get resist data, add the 2 points in the elusive spec, and then get more resist data. A parser was not needed for this test because resist amounts are very consistent. I included multiple data points anyway to prove this to the skeptical.

The thing with mitigation is that the more you have, the harder it is to get more, and the more valuable each fraction becomes. So even though the improvement from 93.73% mitigation to 93.96% mitigation seems tiny, its roughly a 200-300 damage point difference per bite, alright for 2 spec tree points. If we compare the unblocked (lower mitigation) case, it jumps from 67.98% to 73.31%, which is nothing to sneeze at. Sometimes due to lag, sloppiness, or bad decisions, blocks are late or missed, and this helps much more in those cases (along with a soak). Finally, I think this could also be worth taking on evasion tanks since they have poor mitigation on undodged hits.

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mitigation = 1 - damage taken/base damage
locus proc to confirm aoe flag
retribution proc to confrim single target flag

laser test, single target confirmed by retribution proc

93.07% : 104 (1500) blocking
68% : 480 (1500) no blocking


dino test, hungering maw (aoe, confirmed by locus proc)

without elusive
67.98% : 44924 (140308) (unblocked)
93.73% : 8930 (142324)
94.98% : 7125 (141943) (dodge)
93.72% : 11106 (177006) (crit)
93.74% : 8817 (141000)
93.75% : 8852 (141551)
94.98% : 7048 (140400) (dodge)
93.73% : 8828 (140691)

+2 points in elusive (increases aoe resistance by 20%)
73.31% : 37348 (139941) (unblocked)
93.96% : 10649 (176371) (crit)
93.96% : 10683 (176929) (crit)
93.96% : 8562 (141800)
93.96% : 8557 (141714)
93.96% : 8445 (139858)
95.17% : 8593 (177897) (crit dodge)
95.17% : 6841 (141617) (dodge)
93.96% : 8487 (140558)