In Defense of Block Rating

[Graalsemk]

I've slowly been accumulating DPS gear as well but tend to leave it in the bank unless I know there will be a specific encounter where it will be useful (Aran for instance)

I tend to just wind up taking off gear if I am raged starved. I've gotten fairly used to tanking BM kara attunements sans pants

I'm not sure why you'd want to stack BR for prince though. It won't impact the frequency of crushing blows, you shouldn't be running into rage problems and +stam or even +dodge would increase your survivability more during the fight.

[thugthedum]

Well then srsly, what's so bad about BR?

if I get it wrong that it's wasting shield block, then there's really not much wrong with shield block rating at all as a stat. I see a block as an incredibly good thing. You didn't get crushed; and you do get some damage incoming for the rage. It's quite rare that healers can't heal me thorugh

Prince hits you for 3,500 (300 blocked).
Prince hits you for 3,800.
Prince hits you for 3,500 (300 blocked).

No matter how fast he's hitting. But if a rage starved tank skips the shield block because his dodge rating is too high just so he can get some rage, then he's going to see

Prince hits you for 5,200 (crushing).
Prince hits you for 3,800.
Prince hits you for 5,200 (crushing).


And that's much harder to heal through. So in that case, BR > dodge. It's mitigation, not avoidance. 35% BR and 500 BV would be heaven! It's like a 35% chance to mitigate via armor -and- mitigate via block value -and- get rage via shield specialization -and- get rage via damage. And the way the stuff is itemized, that's not terribly difficult to attain.

The original reason to write the guide was that there is a lot of anti-BR fud out there. I wanted to get across why it was a "bad" stat but at the same time try to diffuse it a bit.

I guess I'm always concerned that some new tank (i.e. me!) is going to read a rant "lol that foo thought he had to have 25% block rating zOMG lol block rating is ftl" and go shard all his block rating gear.

What am I missing? At this point I'm almost ready to begin advocating we all try to get to 50% block rating, not just 25%!

OK now from theory wonking (which admittedly I'm not great at) to reality (somewhat better track record here).

What I'm doing on the Prince right now is aiming for the sky with dodge, then defense, then EH, but consciously avoiding BR. Because he hits fast. Because I'm not often rage starved on the Prince. Because he can output a lot of damage. I was avoiding BR because I put the facts presented here together in a way that made me think that my "BR was eating shield block charges". (still not sure it isn't!)

What I'm doing in 25 man content (Maulgar, Gruul so far) is stacking EH to the sky. 15,600 HP, 15,300 armor unbuffed - not bad for a a scrub MT fresh from Kara, but only 490 def and a tiny bit of +parry and +dodge. I figure with three healers spamming me, I'm not helping them out when I avoid. I'm helping them out when I mitigate and can take two hits in a row if they have to run away from the whirlwind for a second.

Back to theory...

On this board I've seen reference to the concept of a "natural block" and I think the author means to infer "one from BR, not from shield block buff". But from what I understand of our one roll combat table, they are one and the same.

So if the Prince is hitting once per second in phase two let's say, and shield block lasts 6 seconds, and the shield block buff works by upping your block % chance to 75 and the combat table is single roll, and you have a stupidly high block rating from gear as well, you're going to spend those blocks faster are you not?

12:00:00.00 You gain Shield Block.
12:00:00.01 Prince hits you for 3,200 (300 blocked).
12:00:01.00 Prince misses you.
12:00:02.00 Prince hits you for 3,100 (300 blocked). <- buff is gone!
12:00:03.00 Prince hits you for 4,500 (crushing).
12:00:04.00 Prince misses you.
12:00:05.00 Prince hits you for 4,500 (crushing).
12:00:06.00 Prince hits you for 3,800 (300 blocked).
12:00:06.01 You gain "Shield Block"

Wouldn't you rather stack dodge, and shed block rating, in hopes that 12:00:02.00 is a dodge not a block?

Thugthedum adds Vindicator's Hauberk to the Prince outfit.
Thugthedum adds Boots of Elusion to the Prince outfit.
Thugthedum adds Moroes Lucky Pocketwatch to the Prince outfit.

Now, I have a bad habit of talking over people as they try to answer my questions, so I'll do my best to stop!

1.) Is there a such thing as a natural block? I.e. one from block rating, not from the buff. I postulate no, but wait for answers from smarter folk.

2.) In an "avoidance" fight like the Prince, would you not want to avoid block like the plague and stack other forms of avoidance to the sky in order to try to maximize the shield block buff?

3.) If you could stack your combat table against an L73 so that it looked like "0 crit, 0 hit, 0 crush, 30% dodge, 20% parry, 50% block" all the time, without the buff, wouldn't you want that? (this would be better than palla uncrush even! So point being BR sucks against hard bosses until you can get enough to be uncrushable)

4.) The comment about stacking block rating and block value in Heroics: doesn't this also apply to Kara trash and some Kara boss fights? (my original point)

[Crimsonstorm]

1.) Is there a such thing as a natural block? I.e. one from block rating, not from the buff. I postulate no, but wait for answers from smarter folk.

Yes, you can get a block result without shield block skill active. Say you have a combination of block rating/talents to get to 25&#37; block (on your character window), this means that 25% of attacks that a lv 70 mob makes against you will be blocked, reducing their damage dealt by your shield block value. If the resulting damage is now 0 this will display as "block", if there is still some damage it will display that amount of damage and say in the combat log (### blocked).

Every 7.9 points of block rating you get increases the chance to get a block by 1%.

2.) In an "avoidance" fight like the Prince, would you not want to avoid block like the plague and stack other forms of avoidance to the sky in order to try to maximize the shield block buff?

You would want to stack avoidance to avoid the shield block skill's buff from falling off. There is no specific need to avoid block rating, as it does not effect the rate at which the buff falls off.


3.) If you could stack your combat table against an L73 so that it looked like "0 crit, 0 hit, 0 crush, 30% dodge, 20% parry, 50% block" all the time, without the buff, wouldn't you want that? (this would be better than palla uncrush even! So point being BR sucks against hard bosses until you can get enough to be uncrushable)

Here is why you would not want that:
If instead of that, you had more like 20% dodge, 20% parry, 25% block, then you would have spent 189 less itemization points on dodging (18.9 rating per % * 10%), and 197.5 less itemization points on block(*7.9 rating per % * 25%)

Those 386 itemization points could be stamina instead, for example, netting you 579 stamina (since 1.5 stam costs the same as 1 block rating or dodge rating).

That 579 stamina, with Vitality, and Blessing of Kings, would result in 579 * 10 * 1.15 = 6659 hp.

So thus, the reason you wouldnt want 30% dodge 20% parry 50% block is because you'd rather have 20% dodge/20% parry/25% block and 6659 more hp. Or something like that. (Or maybe you get armor instead of some of the hp. Or block VALUE).

4.) The comment about stacking block rating and block value in Heroics: doesn't this also apply to Kara trash and some Kara boss fights? (my original point)

Trash where you are tanking several, light hitting mobs, yes. For example the group non elite pulls before moroes. Or a couple other fights.

[Crimsonstorm]

Here is a simple explanation of why block rating is unnecessary and a waste of a stat AGAINST A BOSS. (Not that it makes you worse or anything, it just doesnt make you better while a different stat would).


Lets say youre stacking stam/armor/block VALUE, and you have:
+6% miss (from defense - so 11% total), 17% dodge, 17% parry, 20% block.

Now the "hit table" that wow uses to determine the result of an attack against you, looks like:

1-11: Miss
11-28: Dodge
28-45: Parry
45-70: Block
70-85: Normal Hit
85-100: Crushing Blow (if its a 73 mob, else normal hit)
(no crits due to 490 def).


Now you activate shield block, and your block % goes to 95%

Now the table looks like:

1-11: Miss
11-28: Dodge
28-45: Parry
45-100: Block

All of the extra block, all the normal hits, all the crushes are pushed off the top of the table. Miss, Dodge, Parry are NOT pushed off the table. You are 'uncrushable'. Every attack that results in a miss/parry/dodge will not dod damage and will not eat a shield block charge. Every attack resulting in a block (the rest of them) will eat shield block charge and do normal damage minus your shield block value.



NOW, lets say you go and add 10% more base block, by adding 79 block rating. Block is now 30% base. The hit table without shield block up is:

1-11: Miss
11-28: Dodge
28-45: Parry
45-80: Block
80-85: Normal Hit
85-100: Crushing Blow (if its a 73 mob, else normal hit)
(no crits due to 490 def).


Against a normal mob, you increased the amount of attacks that will result in a block, which is a good thing if you have very high block value and armor (say youre blocking 600 of a 1500 hit, thats significant). If youre only blocking 300 and your armor is worse so its hitting for 2000, thats not very relevant. This is why block rating is good vs soft hitting, multimob trash, when you are overgeared and have very high armor and block value.


Now lets look at your table with shield block up:

1-11: Miss
11-28: Dodge
28-45: Parry
45-100: Block

See, there is NO CHANGE from the table you have with 20% block! Because all of that extra block is off the table, when shield block is up. Its IRRELEVANT in this situation.

Against a boss, you are trying to be in this table all the time - shield block always up. You are trying to never be in the case where shield block is down.

But sometimes a boss will get through your shield block charge. Now you have:
1-11: Miss
11-28: Dodge
28-45: Parry
45-80: Block
80-85: Normal Hit
85-100: Crushing Blow

instead of

1-11: Miss
11-28: Dodge
28-45: Parry
45-70: Block
70-85: Normal Hit
85-100: Crushing Blow

There is 10% more chance of blocking like 600 (with high BV), of a huge hit (4k? 6k? 10k? depends on the boss). Note that Crushing blows were not reduced at all, and wont be reduced unless you MASSIVELY increase block.

So adding 79 block rating to increase your block by 10% against that boss, resulted in the benefit that during the times when shield block is down (not many!), you have a 10% chance of blocking a few hundred points of a hit that is hitting for thousands.

Would you rather have:

A) During a few times in the fight, you have a 10% chance of blocking aorund 10% of a hit?
B) Instead of the 79 block rating you instead stack 118 stamina (because its cheaper), resulting in 1360 more hp with vitality and kings buff.

The 1360 hp is massively more beneficial.



THAT is why we dont care about block value. It doesnt do anything, and wastes item points, that you wish were stmaina or armor or something else.

[Crimsonstorm]

Now note what avoidance does to help keep shield block up.

In our example above, 45&#37; of hit were being avoidaed (miss/dodge/parry), and 55% were being blocked, with shield block up.

For a mob hitting 3 times in 5 seconds, there is a .55*.55 = 30.25% chance that the first two attacks will hit, and then a 15% chance that the third will crush, so a 4.5375% chance that those 3 hits will go: hit, hit, crush.

Adding 5% dodge, its now a 50% chance that each attack will be avoided, and thus the chance of hit/hit/crush is now only: .5*.5*.15 = 3.75%.

So adding that 5% dodge reduced the chance of hit/hit/crush (getting a crushing blow through before you can put up shield block again), from 4.5% to 3.75%.

However, if that 5% dodge could have been stamina, it would be 5*18.9*1.5 or 142 stam, or 1630 hp.
If you do that a couple times, choosing the stam over the dodge, then you reach the point where even if it DOES go hit/hit/crush, you still LIVE. So instead of just reducing the chance of death by adding avoiadance, you actually eliminate it.

[Graalsemk]

Well then srsly, what's so bad about BR?

In short, BR is bad because it is a waste of an item's budget.

Every item has a set number of "points" that it has to spend on it's attributes. Points that have been spent on BR are points that would have been better spent on armour, stamina, block value, avoidance or threat generating statistics such as hit or crit.

if I get it wrong that it's wasting shield block, then there's really not much wrong with shield block rating at all as a stat. I see a block as an incredibly good thing. You didn't get crushed; and you do get some damage incoming for the rage. It's quite rare that healers can't heal me thorugh

The way the hit system works is on the single die roll model.
Miss
Dodge
Parry
block
hit
crit
crush

Where one die roll falls through the chart to determine the result. Any result of "block" will consume a charge of your shield block ability, regardless of whether it fell in the block range on the table that would have been your "natural" (unagumented) or or the block range of the shield block talent.

If this were NOT the case BR would have more value.

Prince hits you for 3,500 (300 blocked).
Prince hits you for 3,800.
Prince hits you for 3,500 (300 blocked).

No matter how fast he's hitting. But if a rage starved tank skips the shield block because his dodge rating is too high just so he can get some rage, then he's going to see

True, but the odds of you being so raged starved in prince phase 2 that you can't spam shieldblock are infinitesimal. Either that or you are in tier 6 and the fight should be trivial

Prince hits you for 5,200 (crushing).
Prince hits you for 3,800.
Prince hits you for 5,200 (crushing).


And that's much harder to heal through. So in that case, BR > dodge. It's mitigation, not avoidance. 35&#37; BR and 500 BV would be heaven! It's like a 35% chance to mitigate via armor -and- mitigate via block value -and- get rage via shield specialization -and- get rage via damage. And the way the stuff is itemized, that's not terribly difficult to attain.

again, your choice isn't simply between dodge and BR. While 35% BR and 500BV would certainly be nice, you would gain vastly more EH through itemization that favoured stamina and AC instead of BR and BV. Also, in fights where you may be getting worrying crushing blows because of frequent hard hits, rage should not be an issue.

The original reason to write the guide was that there is a lot of anti-BR fud out there. I wanted to get across why it was a "bad" stat but at the same time try to diffuse it a bit.

Honestly, I don't think it needs to be defused. The only time where block rating has value is if you can hit passive crush immunity by having total avoidance at 102.4% At that point block value would have tremendous value, but until that point it is utterly useless. Whether or not a passive crush immunity set would be viable for tanks due to rage limitation issues is a topic for another thread

I guess I'm always concerned that some new tank (i.e. me!) is going to read a rant "lol that foo thought he had to have 25% block rating zOMG lol block rating is ftl" and go shard all his block rating gear.

Go shard it. Unless it has high block value, then it has value because it means bigger shield slams, not because of the BR.

What am I missing? At this point I'm almost ready to begin advocating we all try to get to 50% block rating, not just 25%!

Crushing blows are the last thing to get pushed off the hit table, so unless your total avoidance is going to exceed 87.4% BR is useless. At that point BR begins to have value, but it's value must be weighed against what you have given up in terms of EH in your itemization.

OK now from theory wonking (which admittedly I'm not great at) to reality (somewhat better track record here).

What I'm doing on the Prince right now is aiming for the sky with dodge, then defense, then EH, but consciously avoiding BR. Because he hits fast. Because I'm not often rage starved on the Prince. Because he can output a lot of damage. I was avoiding BR because I put the facts presented here together in a way that made me think that my "BR was eating shield block charges". (still not sure it isn't!)

It is. BR eats shield block.
my priority list for tanking gear as an MT is 490 def, max possible EH, then SBV and avoidance.

What I'm doing in 25 man content (Maulgar, Gruul so far) is stacking EH to the sky. 15,600 HP, 15,300 armor unbuffed - not bad for a a scrub MT fresh from Kara, but only 490 def and a tiny bit of +parry and +dodge. I figure with three healers spamming me, I'm not helping them out when I avoid. I'm helping them out when I mitigate and can take two hits in a row if they have to run away from the whirlwind for a second.

I'm mainly in kara gear + the T4 shoulders and a couple of stam trinkets. I'm running 16.7k max health unbuffed and 16k armour with 490 def and a little bit of parry and dodge. I think that the extra health and armour makes it more likely that I will survive the two hits, than having a slightly higher chance to block and reduce the incoming damage by 3-400 per hit.

Back to theory...

On this board I've seen reference to the concept of a "natural block" and I think the author means to infer "one from BR, not from shield block buff". But from what I understand of our one roll combat table, they are one and the same.

They are.

So if the Prince is hitting once per second in phase two let's say, and shield block lasts 6 seconds, and the shield block buff works by upping your block % chance to 75 and the combat table is single roll, and you have a stupidly high block rating from gear as well, you're going to spend those blocks faster are you not?

No. Well, sort of. It depends on what you have given up to get the BR.

Let's say your hit table is as follows: (assume crit immune and miss dodge parry total 45%)

M/d/p 45%
block 25%
hit 17.4%
crush 15%

With shield block up that becomes
M/d/p 45%
block 57.4%

If you were to sacrifice EH to increase block % it would make no difference to the rate of shield block consumption:
M/d/p 45%
block 35%
hit 7.4%
crush 15%

With shield block up that becomes (no difference from first example)
M/d/p 45%
block 57.4%

If on the other hand you were to sacrifice avoidance to increase BR, then your charges would be consumed faster:

M/d/p 40%
block 30%
hit 17.4%
crush 15%

With shield block up that becomes
M/d/p 40%
block 62.4%

Not suggesting these numbers are an accurate reflection of your gear, just illustrating a point.

12:00:00.00 You gain Shield Block.
12:00:00.01 Prince hits you for 3,200 (300 blocked).
12:00:01.00 Prince misses you.
12:00:02.00 Prince hits you for 3,100 (300 blocked). <- buff is gone!
12:00:03.00 Prince hits you for 4,500 (crushing).
12:00:04.00 Prince misses you.
12:00:05.00 Prince hits you for 4,500 (crushing).
12:00:06.00 Prince hits you for 3,800 (300 blocked).
12:00:06.01 You gain "Shield Block"

Wouldn't you rather stack dodge, and shed block rating, in hopes that 12:00:02.00 is a dodge not a block?

I'd rather stack stamina and armour to be more likely to live no matter what hits me, because eventually it WILL hit me.

Also, is that a typo? "dodge, and SBR". Stacking SBR isn't going to make the 12:00:02.00 more likely to be a dodge.

Thugthedum adds Vindicator's Hauberk to the Prince outfit.
Thugthedum adds Boots of Elusion to the Prince outfit.
Thugthedum adds Moroes Lucky Pocketwatch to the Prince outfit.

Now, I have a bad habit of talking over people as they try to answer my questions, so I'll do my best to stop!

LOL no problem, I just hope some of my answers are worth listening to.

1.) Is there a such thing as a natural block? I.e. one from block rating, not from the buff. I postulate no, but wait for answers from smarter folk.

Long answer: You could use the term to refer to a block which fell within the range that your base block rating defined, but it would have no difference in terms of in game effects from the one that was blocked by the buff. Both would consume a charge of shield block. Only reason this can be a useful term as it may be a useful term when discussing passive crushing immunity.

Short answer: no.

2.) In an "avoidance" fight like the Prince, would you not want to avoid block like the plague and stack other forms of avoidance to the sky in order to try to maximize the shield block buff?

If you are going the avoidance route yes you are correct. I would still advocate the max EH route, even on the prince fight.

3.) If you could stack your combat table against an L73 so that it looked like "0 crit, 0 hit, 0 crush, 30% dodge, 20% parry, 50% block" all the time, without the buff, wouldn't you want that? (this would be better than palla uncrush even! So point being BR sucks against hard bosses until you can get enough to be uncrushable)

The whole idea behind the passive crush immunity thread The answer is maybe yes, maybe no. What will you need to give up in terms of EH to achieve this? (remember, you will still eat big magic damage in some fights, still take big normal hits and you need to survive those to) What will this level of avoidance do to your rage, and hence threat generation. Will the dps still be able to beat the enrage timers?

4.) The comment about stacking block rating and block value in Heroics: doesn't this also apply to Kara trash and some Kara boss fights? (my original point)

Stacking block value in heroics and for kara trash is great. Hell, any time a boss becomes very easy to survive/be healed through it is time to try and up your threat generation to speed up the kill.

However, instead of BR and BV. Stack BV and +hit/crit/ap while reducing your armour/avoidance (not so far that you die). This will give you more rage and threat benefits than stacking BR.

I am still firmly in the camp that BR should never be stacked unless you have decided to build a passive crush immunity set

[Graalsemk]

It seems Crimsonstorm is a much faster poster than I

[Armstrong]

It is. BR eats shield block.

Only if the extra BR came at the expense of some Miss/Dodge/Parrry.

[thugthedum]

Yes, you can get a block result without shield block skill active. Say you have a combination of block rating/talents to get to 25&#37; block (on your character window), this means that 25% of attacks that a lv 70 mob makes against you will be blocked, reducing their damage dealt by your shield block value. If the resulting damage is now 0 this will display as "block", if there is still some damage it will display that amount of damage and say in the combat log (### blocked).

Every 7.9 points of block rating you get increases the chance to get a block by 1%.

OK what am I missing. When you hit shield block, you get a buff. The buff increases your chance to block by 75% for 5 or 6 seconds. This converts hits/crushes to blocks. The buff has a limit of two blocks. The Prince starts hitting twice as fast. If you de-equip your 5% block trinket and replace it with a 2% dodge trinket, do you not buy yourself a 7% edge to keep that shield block buff up just a little longer?

I'll admit, I'm confusing the matter here because I am trying to tear down BR and defend it at the same time. Point of my guide is to say "go nuts with BR on trash, heroics etc cause lots of the BR gear you are seeing has more stam (Jade Skull) or more BV. Now, on an avoidance fight, go dodge heavy and reduce BR to a minimum. In a 25 man, aim for EH."

[thugthedum]

Wouldn't you rather stack dodge, and shed block rating, in hopes that 12:00:02.00 is a dodge not a block?

Also, is that a typo? "dodge, and SBR". Stacking SBR isn't going to make the 12:00:02.00 more likely to be a dodge.

Ah, but I didn't say SBR or shield block rating. I said shed block rating; as in "reduce it as much as possible."

[Graalsemk]

Only if the extra BR came at the expense of some Miss/Dodge/Parrry.

True, I think I made that point later on. But the bit you quoted was probably misleading.

[Graalsemk]

Ah, but I didn't say SBR or shield block rating. I said shed block rating; as in "reduce it as much as possible."

my mistake I read "shed block rating" as "shield block rating"

[Graalsemk]

OK what am I missing. When you hit shield block, you get a buff. The buff increases your chance to block by 75% for 5 or 6 seconds. This converts hits/crushes to blocks. The buff has a limit of two blocks. The Prince starts hitting twice as fast. If you de-equip your 5% block trinket and replace it with a 2% dodge trinket, do you not buy yourself a 7% edge to keep that shield block buff up just a little longer?

I'll admit, I'm confusing the matter here because I am trying to tear down BR and defend it at the same time. Point of my guide is to say "go nuts with BR on trash, heroics etc cause lots of the BR gear you are seeing has more stam (Jade Skull) or more BV. Now, on an avoidance fight, go dodge heavy and reduce BR to a minimum. In a 25 man, aim for EH."

The case with the 2% dodge trinket for a 5% block trinket buys you a 2% edge not a 7%. It all comes down to the hit table

Assume 10% miss, 18% parry, 18%dodge, 25% block

your hit table looks like
1-10miss
11-28 parry
29-46 dodge
47-71 block
72-87.4 hit
87.5-102.4 Crush

with shield block up that becomes:
1-10miss
11-28 parry
29-46 dodge
47-102.4 block

If you were to swap out your +5% block trinket for your +2% dodge trinket you have:

1-10miss
11-28 parry
29-48 dodge
49-68 block
69-87.4 hit
87.5-102.4 Crush

with shield block up that becomes:
1-10miss
11-28 parry
29-48 dodge
49-102.4 block

So on 2% of attacks which were previously blocks you are now dodging.

[thugthedum]

good point.

thanks for playing, btw. I find I'm never happy knowing a fact until I know why it is so.

edit:

also, of course I see all the points about itemization. Obviously, when you come from the standpoint that "the world is my oyster", BR isn't all that grand (unless you can get enough to become truly uncrushable). But in real world choices, so far as an MT going from tanking blues to Kara purpz, it was pretty easy to over stack dodge rating, especially when you keep reading that block rating is the devil. And this new tank is going to find his threat per second suffers in certain fights with too much dodge! What is he to do? At that stage, it's hard to get enough EH together to compensate without something like the tankatronic, furies deck, or the breastplate of kings.

[Graalsemk]

Glad to help I find that trying to answer questions like these makes me rethink my logic on this kind of stuff. Also, writing down all my answers on a forum with participants whose tanking knowledge is of such a high calibre means that any of my misconceptions or misunderstandings will be pointed out to me.

[Crimsonstorm]

If you de-equip your 5% block trinket and replace it with a 2% dodge trinket, do you not buy yourself a 7% edge to keep that shield block buff up just a little longer?

You buy yourself a 2% edge. With shield block up, your block %age is really "everything that isnt a miss/dodge/parry". Increasing or decreasing block rating, alone, has no effect. Increasing dodge/defense/parry will make more of those attacks be avoided, and thus not be a block.

[Crimsonstorm]

[QUOTE=thugthedum;38694]Obviously, when you come from the standpoint that "the world is my oyster", BR isn't all that grand (unless you can get enough to become truly uncrushable).
[quote]

Even if you got enough to become completely uncrushable, you wouldnt want the block rating, it would be far better

You get to be uncrushable by hitting a button every 5 seconds. You dont need to sacrifice 5k+ hp to do it via avoidance+block rating. Better to have the high hp from stacking stamina, and get uncrushability by hitting a button.

But in real world choices, so far as an MT going from tanking blues to Kara purpz, it was pretty easy to over stack dodge rating, especially when you keep reading that block rating is the devil. And this new tank is going to find his threat per second suffers in certain fights with too much dodge! What is he to do? At that stage, it's hard to get enough EH together to compensate without something like the tankatronic, furies deck, or the breastplate of kings.

Pre-kara avoidance (dodge/defense/parry) is pretty darn good, until you get so much that your rage becomes gimped.

The goal is once you start raiding, (Kara, etc), stack Armor and Stamina foremost, followed by Block VALUE, Hit rating, and Avoidance.

[Crimsonstorm]

There is basically one case where block rating is beneficial, imo.

And by beneficial, I mean "gives a reasonable amount of return for its itemization cost".

That is:

When tanking a non boss (so that youre not hitting shield block), where you are getting hit frequently for small amountd (multimob trash pull), and you have high block VALUE.

In this case, block will function like mini-dodge. You get over twice as much block &#37;age per rating point as you do with the avoidance stats. So if you are able to block like 40%+ of the amount of damage the hit is for, then block rating becomes useful. So for example if youre blocking 600 of a 1500 hit, its useful. This pretty much limits block rating's usefulness to multimob trash.


In these cases, block is actually better than dodge, because its better for rage generation and ease of healing, to take small steady hits (constant small damage), than to alternate between no damage and high damage, which avoidance tends to do. With high avoidance when you get strings of nothing hitting you its bad, because you get no rage, and when you get strings of everything hitting you, its bad because you take a lot of damage.

Mid levels of avoidance are best, (40-45% probably) because that way you get a lot less times of being rage starved, or getting hit every time.

[Jeneara]

(Just joined the forum, so Hello )

Stacking block *value* also has the added benefits for Shield Slam, and threat generation, which make it probably 2x more useful than block *rating* in boss tanking.

I'm currently at 21% dodge, 19% parry and a way-too-high 28% block (14.5k unbuffed, human) in my tank gear. Of course, even though we all know and want value over rating, Blizzard hasn't seemed to follow suit - giving us much more access to rating gear over value gear.

I haven't taken any effort to get the Moroes trinket, as I've not had problems tanking Prince (or Moroes) due to my death even the first time around - just the group having issues running around the balcony or crappy infernal landings. I may have been slightly more geared than some first-time Prince tanks however. But if you miss a single Thunderclap and Demo Shout drop (both fully imp. w/talents) its bound to happen alot and hurt.

[thugthedum]

I am nearly ready to give up on it.

The main strength of the argument was my personal experience, trading Vindicator's Hauberk (lower EH, higher avoidance, more rage starved, less HP) for Jade Skull (higher EH, lower avoidance, less rage starved, more HP) and the Moroes Trinket for a high stamina trinket.

I found on those swaps that increasing my health and decreasing my total avoidance increased rage gen which increases threat output. It adds a tiny bit of stress to healers, but nothing like the kind of stress caused by a warlock accidentally taking aggro.

While I was making these swaps I was noticing that against the better judgement of the tanking community at large, block rating when up, rage went up, threat went up, wipes went down.

I almost didnt equip the Jade Skull out of fear of 'too much block'.

Now I equip breastplate of kings, so it's less of an issue - but while the guide is in disrepair, I think the idea of a guide around when to use BR and when not to is still not a bad idea.