In Defense of Block Rating

[thugthedum]

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 %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.

This is what I had in mind. Trash fights on the way to bosses. Heroics bosses (L72 stuff).

[Tiarnach]

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.

The thing that I see you guys focusing on is the effect that dodge has while shield block is in place, and not what happens when the charges of shield block have been consumed and weighing the options there...soooo, I'll do it real quick cause I haven't worked on the math yet. It's important to cover that fact to flesh out the 3rd hit information in its entirety.

Now, first of all, we take the 2% to block standard from above and apply it to the hit table, and you get to see those results twice. Which gives you a 2% on each of the 3 hits. Now, alternately if you do not dodge (which on 2 hits you would have a 4% increased chance to dodge, and thus conserve your shield block) then the 3rd hit looks like (from above):

1-10miss
11-28 parry
29-48 dodge
49-68 block
69-85 hit
86-100 Crush


Now, if you stack the equivalent of the 5% block onto the hit table, the first 2 tables look the same as the 5% block (with shield block) table above. Meaning you gain 0% on the hits while SB is up. Then on the 3rd hit, it looks like:

1-10 miss
11-28 parry
29-46 dodge
47-71 block
72-85 hit
86-100 crush

So in this case you pick up a 3% chance overall to in some way mitigate the crushing blow. So, if we take a look at the 3rd hit tables and break them up by crushing blow versus non crushing blow (note:the part where I factor in chance to have shield block up comes next):

3rd hit w/2% dodge:

10+18+20+20=68% to avoid crushing blow.
15% for a crushing blow.
17% for a normal hit.

3rd hit w/5% block:

10+18+18+25=71% to avoid crushing blow.
15% for a crushing blow.
14% for a normal hit.


So, in this case, you are slightly more likely to avoid the crushing blow on the 3rd hit when making the roll against the hit table itself. This would make block seem to be more advantageous for avoiding 3rd hit crushing on a point for point basis. However, we haven't factored in the increased chance to block the 3rd attack due to dodging the first two. The easiest way to do this is to examine avoidance versus shield block probabilities.

Out of 50 series of 2 attacks (100 attacks total), with 2% additional dodge, I would dodge 2 more attacks (does it ever depress you guys to know that we're scraping for 1/50 odds on most of our stuff?). Now, that means that I have a 2% chance of blocking that 3rd hit because my shield block charges are still intact. So, that brings our final hit Crushing vs not table to:

3rd hit w/2% dodge (including additional shield block):

10+18+20+22=70% to avoid crushing blow.
15% for a crushing blow.
15% for a normal hit.

Hrm...so it actually appears that for a 2% dodge vs 5% block, you come out on top taking block for avoiding the 3rd crushing blow in the midst of it all. But what happens if there's a 4th hit (Parry thrash, for example) before your sb timer comes up? Well...you drop back to the 68% non crushing (due to mitigation) value, and now you're 3% behind shield block for that particular attack.

Now, you could actually split these values up into damage taken to a certain extent (5% to reduce 150% to 100% damage vs 2% to avoid 100% or 150% damage), but I'll leave that math for someone that cares. The goal of this discussion is to ultimately reduce burst damage on a tank through the mitigation of crushing blows, and it appears that the hit tables say that a 5% block vs 2% dodge comparison say the block is the better choice for 3rd hit mitigation and certainly the better choice for 4th hit.

Now, my math might be a little rusty, so please feel free to correct me, but I'm fairly certain the above analysis takes it a step further than "Look at the values when your SB is up!"

[Tiarnach]

Looks like I spotted a small mistake already, 2 attacks out of 50 series is actually a 4% opportunity to have shield block in place for the 3rd strike, thus boosting the numbers to 72% and making 2% to dodge more effective.

[Crimsonstorm]

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.

Trading Vindicator's Chest and Moroes Trinket for Jade Skull chest and a sta trinket is a good change in many situations because it increases effective health. The loss of avoidance stats does make you take more damage on average, however with the higher stamina this is ok, since your healers have more time to heal it. In fact, its probably easier for the healers to heal you because they have more room for error.

Additionally, as you noted, dodging less means more rage, which helps you hold aggro better.

These are great changes. The fact that Jade skull has more block rating is irrelevant, except on multimob trash pulls. If you took the block rating off of Jade Skull breastplate, it would be better than Vindicators. Therefore, Jade skull is better than vindicators.

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.

Those swaps arent against the better judgement of the community. Most raid tanks (not those who only do 5 mans), find Stamina/Armor/Block value to be the most important stats, and thus would favor Jade Skull and the Stam Trinket in most situations.

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

The block rating is kindof like resilience. Its like 'oh well, I wish this item had a different stat which actually helped me....but the other stats on it are better than on the alternative, so I'll take it'.


Block rating is good when:
1) You are fighting multiple mobs, and
2) You are blocking for a significant portion of the damage those mobs do in 1 hit.

Many items that happen to have block rating, are often still good in other situations, because block rating is often paired with block VALUE, which rules, and the item with block rating + block value, is generally better than some item with defense and doge rating or whatever else.