Crushing Blows / Shield Block

[Tobius]

We had our first (woot) raid to BT last night, and I have been looking at our WWS report and again I think I am taking too many crushing blows...

WWS

Armoury: Tobius / EU-Aggramar

Particularly, on Naj'entus attempt two, I took 14 crushing blows!

Gear wise I feel I have enough expertise but my dodge/parry are perhaps a little low.

Also, from WWS reports can you work out how much shield block was up? I notice it records 59 shield block uses but i'm not sure if thats accurate due to the way the buffs fade/reapply.

Any comments would be most welcome.

[Worldie]

Too much block. Literally, you have too much block.
It's probably fault of your chest and legs, which you should try to replace as soon as possible... for example, with the new badge chest and legs which are extremely sweet for warriors

About shield block.. there's not much you can do for it other than spamming it and keeping TC up... and make sure noone is hitting him from front!

[Kream]

Too much block. Literally, you have too much block.

No amount of block rating can cause you to be crushed.

In the damage in details, it shows you how many partial blocks you did for the fight. For attempt 2 you blocked 151/182 attacks. Browsing the log file, you aren't maintaining Shield Block well. Shield Block gains should come 5 seconds apart, since it has a 5 second cooldown but you are going for long stretches without Shield Block. It is also showing you are using a lot of heroic strikes.. perhaps you are rage starving yourself with HS and not leaving enough rage to Shield Block? Thunderclap was applied 10 times in 8 minutes. It's a 30 second buff.. so you aren't maintaining Thunderclap either.

I'd suggest a buff bar such as ElkBuffBars where you can seperate out your buffs and place it somewhere more obvious. I have Battle/Commanding Shout and Shield Block on one bar and Thunderclap/Demo debuffs on the other.

[Tobius]

I think its UI tweaking time. I do have bars showing cooldowns on shield block / thunderclap / demo but they are a bit small and out of the way and I tend to get carried away spamming buttons (hence the high number of Heroic Strikes) and not keeping track of my cooldowns.

Am I right in thinking blocked attacks cant crush? That would suggest block is as good as avoidance for preventing crushings, though I dont intend to gear for more block. Its more a byproduct of the gear I have then a choice to get so much.

Thanks for the comments guys.

[Kream]

Am I right in thinking blocked attacks cant crush? That would suggest block is as good as avoidance for preventing crushings, though I dont intend to gear for more block. Its more a byproduct of the gear I have then a choice to get so much..

Block attacks cannot be crushes.
When Shield Block is active, your entire combat table (above miss, dodge, and parry) will be blocks.. and you will not get crushed.
Shield Block rating doesn't prevent you from being crushed unless you have a ton of it.

Your Combat table (w/o Shield Block)
11% miss
17% dodge
17% parry
32% block
8% normal hit
15% crushing

Your Combat table (w/ Shield Block)
11% miss
17% dodge
17% parry
55% block

So if you added 8% worth of block rating or dodge, you'd still get crushed for the same percentage if Shield Block is down (and note when Shield Block is up, the block rating has no effect).

[Tobius]

That makes sense. Cheers.

[Armstrong]

In addition to what everyone mentionned above, increasing your miss / dodge / parry will help reduce the number of crushing blows you take over time by lowering the chance of your Shield Block charges being consumed. (Read here for explanation)

The gear your armory shows right now is a very nice threat set, but probably not what you should be wearing while learning a new boss fight in a T6 instance. Particularly one where your healers are overly busy keeping the raid up.

Hopefully you have some decent avoidance gear in your bags, or at least some extra badges to get the new chest and legs. Your cloak could use an enchant, ideally +12 Defense. The defense enchants for chest and bracers are also the best out there on a strictly point-for-point basis, and would be good choices if your guild is planning on making some progress through MH & BT.

[Tobius]

Cloak is a new addition which is why it isnt enchanted yet, have been thinking about what to choose. Tbh I discounted defense initially, I'll take another look.

[Thedom]

Another thing I noticed that could be contributing to things is that you are at 486 defense which probably isn't helping matters (perhaps you are in different gear than your normal tank gear when I saw, if so then ignore me). Like the others said the new badge gear is loaded with plenty of armor, stam, avoidance, AND threat so those would be great upgrades for you. Elsewise good luck and hopefully it won't be so rough on you next time.

[Tobius]

Yeah I logged out in some gear I was wearing in Heroic Underbog. Armoury should be showing my "normal" tank gear now.

[Stroja]

No amount of block rating can cause you to be crushed.

I think Worldie was pointing out the very high block%, and indirectly pointing out the low pure avoidance stats.

[Thedom]

Thats what I figured but thought I'd say something just in case. I'd have to say tweaking the UI so you are more aware of Shield Block and TC is probably your best bet and like has been mentioned a bit more avoidance (as much of an effective health whore as I am) would probably be beneficial.