Block - is it any good?

[orcstar]

Warriors DKs. It really isn't the class but it's the player.
Wariors have this things death knights can't do: get a set for avoidance and get a set for blockrating.

If you compare the gears in Naxx25 as a warrior you can easily build a set for both of these roles.
Use the set for the situation.

[Hengist]

Mmm... could it be that gearing for 25s and gearing for 10s are different? As in, yes, the content is tuned to the appropriate number of people, but the smaller hits make certain stats (aka, SBR and SBV) scale better than in 25s? I mean, it's possible to throw 15-20k hits in a 25man, but virtually impossible to do that in 10man and still expect healers to pull through.

SBV, SBR, and the oft-forgotten Critical Block make the average hit size very significant when discussing the value of these stats. So warrior vs paladin vs DK/Druid comparisons would shift depending on whether we're talking about 10mans or 25mans.

I'm talking about encounters when tanks get tons of melee and/or magic damage. I absolutely agree that block is great when you take small hits, but those fights are not usually "tank fights", when boss hits like a pansy, the difficulty lies somewhere else most of the time. But being a tank and enjoying it is mostly about tanking those fights where tanks survival skills and tps do matter, and those are the fights where I feel inferior to tanks relying on pure avoidance and mitigation. I don't want to be a toy tank for toy bosses, being replaced by real tank when we meet some big nasty mofo, but being one of the guild's officers I can't argue about letting me or our protadin tank Sartharion 3D or Malygos, because this is just suboptimal, and guild > my ego. On the other hand, I want to enjoy this game and my role like I did before. On our 3D tries I can do fairly decent job at drakes or adds, so its fine, but on Malygos I am just significantly worse choice.

From experience I don't see the large disparity between a DK and Warrior. I am sure one might feel like it is there when they don't do as well as they would like, so it is easy to feel like one class is just that much better than your own, but I think it really depends on a lot of factors. DK's are not defacto standard that much better, even for Patchwerk. Shoot, for us, we found that warriors/paladins ended up making better offtanks for patchwerk than our DK did. We simply took less damage overall and ours was certainly less spikey. A lot of it has to do with gear/skill/etc.

There is not much about skill in standing there, being hit and popping cds. Gear is comparable. Its just about math - I have about equal health to our DK, slightly higher. He has 5k more armor, I have defensive stance. His avoidance is good 10% better, if not more. He got imba cooldowns, I have block. Can't imagine how damage on DK could be more spiky than on warrior, I also don't think paladin's 100% block chance can make up for DK's cooldowns and avoidance superiority.

OT on patch is just an example, amybe not so sharp because of damage being only physical. But lets take Malygos or Sartharion 3D, there is no way paladin or warrior can be as good MT on those encounters as druid or DK, just by design. And Ghostcrawler admits that it is ok. Tank equality my @#$.

I find block itself to be a good stat. Even rating is good if you aren't block capped yet. Yes, for a warrior it is typically less reliable because you can no longer guarantee a block, but it isn't like block stops working the moment shield block is down. There aren't simply two extremes where on one side shield block is up and you are blocking attacks and on the other side shield block is down and you no longer block. You still should be blocking 20-30% of the time, which while not as good as avoidance, is still decent mitigation. I am not sure I would gear for it specifically (maybe an experienced warrior can comment on that), but I definitely wouldn't discount it as nothing. All of our forms of mitigation (and avoidance) work together to keep us alive as a whole. Just because a contribution is small doesn't mean it is meaningless.

If I had to guess, I would guess that warriors are balanced around the fact that they don't block all the time and that it is random when shield block is down. Of course none of us are blizzard devs, so that would be only a guess for any of us.

If devs think that blocking for twice as much sometimes makes up for not blocking at all sometimes, as long as overall damage taken is equal they are wrong - spikes kill tanks, not the 3% difference in damage taken seen in wws... In TBC palas and warriors were non spike tanks, since we didn't get crushed, unless very unlucky or lazy. Now paladins kept this quality, but warriors became tanks with spikiest damage of them all. So what that I am blocking 15 - 30% of teh time, if healers have to heal me anyway like I will not block at all.

EDIT: As a note, I noticed the OP was gemming for hit/expertise. Those are definitely important threat stats, but if you are having trouble with survivability, then you might consider gemming for avoidance instead until you feel comfortable going back to hit/expertise.

Its my threat set.

[Canariensis]

I've seen a few posters use the term: "block cap". I have not previously considered a "cap" - is there a % of block that renders it useless? Or is this just a phrase being tossed out?

[Bulvox]

block rating is absolutely where its at man it makes ur shield slam an extra taunt....

[Astemus]

Blocking = Either I take a hit or I take less.
Dodge/Parry = Either I take a hit or I don't.

Not sure why people keep saying blocking is less reliable than avoidance stats. Maybe it's half as good as dodge? That's why it's twice as cheap on an item budget.

Also, block RATING has nothing to do with shield slam damage. Block VALUE increases your shield slam. The only threat block RATING does is from damage shield.

[Hengist]

I've seen a few posters use the term: "block cap". I have not previously considered a "cap" - is there a % of block that renders it useless? Or is this just a phrase being tossed out?

Its not a real "block" cap, its the sum of you dodge + parry + chance to eb missed + block equal to 102,4, meaning that all normal melee hits aimed at you will either miss, be dodged, parried or blocked. Its something taht in TBC and vanilla was called being uncrushable.

Paladins are already at block cap cause of Holy Shield, warriors can't reach it yet in any sane way.

[Hengist]

Blocking = Either I take a hit or I take less.
Dodge/Parry = Either I take a hit or I don't.

Not sure why people keep saying blocking is less reliable than avoidance stats. Maybe it's half as good as dodge? That's why it's twice as cheap on an item budget.

Its half as good as dodge only if you can block half of the melee hit... which won't happen if the boss you're facing really wants to kill you, not just pokes you with his finger.

[jere]

There is not much about skill in standing there, being hit and popping cds. Gear is comparable. Its just about math - I have about equal health to our DK, slightly higher. He has 5k more armor, I have defensive stance. His avoidance is good 10% better, if not more. He got imba cooldowns, I have block.

There is quite a bit of skill to being a good tank.

Can't imagine how damage on DK could be more spiky than on warrior, I also don't think paladin's 100% block chance can make up for DK's cooldowns and avoidance superiority.

Spikey damage is the main complaint healers have about DK's typically. When their cooldowns are all used up, they take more damage, very similar to how you compare a warrior with shield block up to a warrior without shield block up.

Also, Paladins don't start with 100% chance to block. We actually have to gear up to it, and doing so too early can lead to you over gimping your stats. We eventually hit a point where it is comfortable to do it, but not every paladin will be there right now.

OT on patch is just an example, amybe not so sharp because of damage being only physical. But lets take Malygos or Sartharion 3D, there is no way paladin or warrior can be as good MT on those encounters as druid or DK, just by design. And Ghostcrawler admits that it is ok. Tank equality my @#$.

Someone has to be better on any given encounter. Malygos is easily tankable by a paladin or warrior. The difference there is not so bad. Sarth 3D is a good example though. I think even the devs have commented on that, but one encounter so far isn't the end of the world, and it is still doable by us. However, we aren't picked to tank based solely on one encounter. I think tank equality has been the best it has ever been. It still needs improvement, but it is much better than it used to be.

If devs think that blocking for twice as much sometimes makes up for not blocking at all sometimes, as long as overall damage taken is equal they are wrong - spikes kill tanks, not the 3% difference in damage taken seen in wws... In TBC palas and warriors were non spike tanks, since we didn't get crushed, unless very unlucky or lazy. Now paladins kept this quality, but warriors became tanks with spikiest damage of them all. So what that I am blocking 15 - 30% of teh time, if healers have to heal me anyway like I will not block at all.

Actually, the overall damage reduction is pretty close if you compare blocking for lots some of the time versus blocking for less all of the time. Plenty of simulations were done on it. It's close. As for spikes, that is what you have things like shield block, last stand, shield wall, and trinkets for. You avoidance only works a percentage of your time too. Healers will heal you as the encounter dictates. You still need avoidance and block to reduce damage to give them time/room. Obviously avoidance is better for that, but block is still good and should not be dismissed.

[Canariensis]

Its not a real "block" cap, its the sum of you dodge + parry + chance to eb missed + block equal to 102,4, meaning that all normal melee hits aimed at you will either miss, be dodged, parried or blocked. Its something taht in TBC and vanilla was called being uncrushable.

Paladins are already at block cap cause of Holy Shield, warriors can't reach it yet in any sane way.

i'm aware of the 102.4, but that's not a "block cap"...people have actually used the phrase "block cap" and I was unaware of any such cap explicitly on block.

It appears there are buzz words and phrases that get tossed out a lot...this appears to be one of those times.

[jere]

i'm aware of the 102.4, but that's not a "block cap"...people have actually used the phrase "block cap" and I was unaware of any such cap explicitly on block.

It appears there are buzz words and phrases that get tossed out a lot...this appears to be one of those times.

It's called a cap because once you reach 102.4%, adding more block rating provides you exactly no more benefit. It's not perfect terminology, but it works ok.

[Hengist]

There is quite a bit of skill to being a good tank.

In that case, no, not really. Just pump up tps, manage your cds, keep up defuffs and buff, nothing else. Basic stuff.

Spikey damage is the main complaint healers have about DK's typically. When their cooldowns are all used up, they take more damage, very similar to how you compare a warrior with shield block up to a warrior without shield block up.

1) They take more damage than they did with cds, but it is still not more than me when I am not blocking. Worst hit on dk is mitigated by his superior armor alone, while worst hit on me is mitiagted by my armor + def stance. Turns out to be the same - but DK gets those "worst case" hits much less often, because his cds have very big uptime, and he avoids LOT more hits. It may look like DK's damage is spiky because he avoids so much, but those spikes are no worse than unblocked hit on a warrior. Once healers know what to expect, this is easy to heal. Granted, DK can get very unlucky and get unavoided hits exactly during the no CD window, but same may happen to me - series of unblocked hits in a row.

2) They can decide when to pop cds, I can to much lesser extent - I can pop Shield Block on purpose, but I ahve no control over usual block and critical blocks.

Also, Paladins don't start with 100% chance to block. We actually have to gear up to it, and doing so too early can lead to you over gimping your stats. We eventually hit a point where it is comfortable to do it, but not every paladin will be there right now.

That is irrelevant to the discussion, I find paladins to be very close to warrior in that what I see as tanking imbalance. And it the content I am interested in, ie heroic raiding, all paladins do have 100% chance to block.

Someone has to be better on any given encounter. Malygos is easily tankable by a paladin or warrior. The difference there is not so bad. Sarth 3D is a good example though. I think even the devs have commented on that, but one encounter so far isn't the end of the world, and it is still doable by us. However, we aren't picked to tank based solely on one encounter. I think tank equality has been the best it has ever been. It still needs improvement, but it is much better than it used to be.

"Easily tankable", I disagree. In guild like mine, on server like mine, during progress, Malygos isn't easily tankable by warrior or paladin, it is just tankable. It is easily tankable by druids and dks with high enough tps.

While I agree that someone has to be better, I have few problems with that.
- the difference is too big. On Sartharion 3D it is HUGE.
- I can't seem to find any fight where warrior is superior. Honestly, it feels like all things specific to warrior, like melee attack speed slow or magic damage mitigation were given to everyone else, or phased out from boss encounters (fear break, spell reflecting, crushing blows). What we have now is good mobility, but in the world of 30 yard taunts it doesn't matter that much.
- Malygos and Sartharion 3D are the two most important and challenging fights in current content. Block tanks are disadvantaged at MTing both of those. I expect in the future more fight with huge magic and melee damage flying, we won't deal with them any better than we do now, unless Spell Reflect will suddenly start to work on boss abilities, but I can only imagine the crying it would cause. I also do not expect block value of paladins scaling proportionally to boss damage, I rather expect it to mean less and less as bosses hit harder.

Actually, the overall damage reduction is pretty close if you compare blocking for lots some of the time versus blocking for less all of the time. Plenty of simulations were done on it. It's close. As for spikes, that is what you have things like shield block, last stand, shield wall, and trinkets for. You avoidance only works a percentage of your time too. Healers will heal you as the encounter dictates. You still need avoidance and block to reduce damage to give them time/room. Obviously avoidance is better for that, but block is still good and should not be dismissed.

Like I said, 3% difference in overall damage taken doesn't matter during progress like spikes do. I can shield block/shield wall/last stand predictable spikes, or try to cover those that did not kill me, but I can't do much about those that were unexpected, or those that killed me outright.

[swelt]

Threads like this make me understand why they banned multi-quoting on the EJ forums - it just engenders bickering. Honestly Hengist, if you were in my raid I'd pick a druid or DK to tank before you, because of your negative attitude alone. You are blowing this out of all proportion, and for what?

I happen to quite like block for it's mixture of mitigation, direct threat from shield slam and passive threat from damage shields. I think the shield block spell gives warriors a very strong, flexible ability. You can use it for snap threat (direct or passive), you can reserve it for mitigation, etc. But in those situations where it's not that useful, I switch gear to suit. No big deal.

[Hengist]

Threads like this make me understand why they banned multi-quoting on the EJ forums - it just engenders bickering. Honestly Hengist, if you were in my raid I'd pick a druid or DK to tank before you, because of your negative attitude alone. You are blowing this out of all proportion, and for what?

Your personal opinion about me is irrelevant to the topic, please keep it to yourself.

And why out of proportion? Tank equality was supposed be an important conception in WotLK, but I cannot see it. I am trying it find people who share may point of view, or people who can convince me that I am wrong, and where I am wrong. If things are like I see them, I want and expect tehm changed. If things are not like I see them, help me understand where do I fail. Tankspot is read by many people, who's knowledge about tanking is higher than official forums average + they are tanks, or they are actively inetrested in tanking. Such community can give me the high quality feedback I am looking for.

[morelore]

Your personal opinion about me is irrelevant to the topic, please keep it to yourself.

And why out of proportion? Tank equality was supposed be an important conception in WotLK, but I cannot see it. I am trying it find people who share may point of view, or people who can convince me that I am wrong, and where I am wrong. If things are like I see them, I want and expect tehm changed. If things are not like I see them, help me understand where do I fail. Tankspot is read by many people, who's knowledge about tanking is higher than official forums average + they are tanks, or they are actively inetrested in tanking. Such community can give me the high quality feedback I am looking for.

If you feel inadequate, nobody will ever convince you otherwise. That's not anyones job but your own anyway. Believe it or not, there are fights in this game that matter besides S+3. Can a druid tank loatheb? Sure, but I can do it better. If you're going to pick one specific fight that obviously mechanically favors huge stam pools and CD burning (that happens to be the "end" of current content, but it's still only one fight) and decide that if you can't do that you're useless, then of course you're not going to feel good about yourself.

Tank parity is alive and well in current content. Will Blizz screw it up in Uludar, taking the easy route of huge magical breaths to force gear checks on people? Who knows. Save the QQ for when it happens.

[jere]

I think we are just gonna have to disagree on this. I think you are getting a bit too worked up. It isn't as bad as you make it out to be in my opinion. Sarth3D is about the only encounter I can think of that actually fits your fear. I would encourage you to try not look at it so negatively. There are definitely problems and deficiencies to work out, but getting too polarized on things doesn't really help. It isn't as bad as you make it out. If you look at various DK threads on various forums, they have similar fears that you do. How warriors and paladins are so much better and they are behind. It's very easy to get caught up in the "I am so far worse than everyone else that I have no hope" mentality. Everyone falls in that trap every once in a while.

As for your views on paladins:

That is irrelevant to the discussion, I find paladins to be very close to warrior in that what I see as tanking imbalance. And it the content I am interested in, ie heroic raiding, all paladins do have 100% chance to block.

The note on that was a correction. You are spreading false information. And no, not every heroic raiding paladin is at 100%. Most are very close, but not quite there yet. Many are there, but not all as you claim.

I am only 99ish % out of the 102.4% needed for example, and I have been raiding heroics for a couple weeks. Remember that drops are random and there are various types of DKP systems out there. Not everyone is able to get all the gear they want immediately, even in heroic 25 man raiding.

[Garbid]

I happen to quite like block for it's mixture of mitigation, direct threat from shield slam and passive threat from damage shields. I think the shield block spell gives warriors a very strong, flexible ability. You can use it for snap threat (direct or passive), you can reserve it for mitigation, etc. But in those situations where it's not that useful, I switch gear to suit. No big deal.

For hard hitting bosses:
Your average blockrating = 1.5%-3% mitigation
Less then 0.1% of your total threat is from damage shield (unless your really slacking on hit/exp side of things).
Dose not add any threat to shield slams.
And when you use the shield block ability fo mitigation or snap threat as you said, it gives you 100% shieldblock no matter if you got 0% or 102.4% passively. So rendering all the blockrating you had before useless (aka not being used).

So I still fail to see the logic in blockrating for warriors being good...

[Kazeyonoma]

So are we still discussing block here or have we diverged to a QQ about DK/Bears > Pally/War because if that's true I'm handing out infractions and closing the thread.

Take your bullshit elsewhere if you have to 'cause I don't want it here. If you want to talk about the legitimacy of an aspect of a class do so with an open mind. If you're coming in here to QQ but hiding behind the premise of "Block" then just quit now while your ahead. The math has been done, no matter what you "think". There's a fine line between seeing the truth and bending the truth to make your point seem based on reality.

Get it together.

[Hengist]

If you feel inadequate, nobody will ever convince you otherwise. That's not anyones job but your own anyway. Believe it or not, there are fights in this game that matter besides S+3. Can a druid tank loatheb? Sure, but I can do it better. If you're going to pick one specific fight that obviously mechanically favors huge stam pools and CD burning (that happens to be the "end" of current content, but it's still only one fight) and decide that if you can't do that you're useless, then of course you're not going to feel good about yourself.

Tank parity is alive and well in current content. Will Blizz screw it up in Uludar, taking the easy route of huge magical breaths to force gear checks on people? Who knows. Save the QQ for when it happens.

Its not about feeling, but about numbers, facts, actual proof. Sartharion 3D is so important, because it is the single one fight in teh current content, which is hard for the avergae TBC raiding guild. Being inferior at tanking Loathen means only that healers will spend some more mana, and Loatheb will die anwyay, but being inferior at tanking Sartharion 3D is very often a difference between the kill and wipe.

And I do not want to save QQ after it happens, because then it will be too late, I will reroll/respec/quit or just spend my time benched. I want the issue become more visible before the Blizzard will follow the Malygos/Sartharion 3D route.

I think we are just gonna have to disagree on this. I think you are getting a bit too worked up. It isn't as bad as you make it out to be in my opinion. Sarth3D is about the only encounter I can think of that actually fits your fear. I would encourage you to try not look at it so negatively. There are definitely problems and deficiencies to work out, but getting too polarized on things doesn't really help. It isn't as bad as you make it out. If you look at various DK threads on various forums, they have similar fears that you do. How warriors and paladins are so much better and they are behind. It's very easy to get caught up in the "I am so far worse than everyone else that I have no hope" mentality. Everyone falls in that trap every once in a while.

You are probably right, this is important to me, so I may indeed see it as more significant than it really is, sadly I cannot find any encounter which favours warrior class by design, especially the important one.

Also, ignoring the issue will mean that nothing will change ever. Blizzard must receive feedback to realize what things are done right and what things are done wrong. Being prot paladin you should know it best, without qq there are no changes.

About paladins not having 100% block - I assume some level of gear, someone's lack of luck or big number of people in guild do not really change the way class is supposed to work. Paladins are supposed to block 100% of melee atatcks (well, unless you tank some crazy horde of mobs which can burn Holy Shield charges, but redoubt should cover it anyway), and they can reach it without sacrificing too much. Warrior can't.

[Hengist]

Post added by mistake.

[Hengist]

So are we still discussing block here or have we diverged to a QQ about DK/Bears > Pally/War because if that's true I'm handing out infractions and closing the thread.

Take your bullshit elsewhere if you have to 'cause I don't want it here. If you want to talk about the legitimacy of an aspect of a class do so with an open mind. If you're coming in here to QQ but hiding behind the premise of "Block" then just quit now while your ahead. The math has been done, no matter what you "think". There's a fine line between seeing the truth and bending the truth to make your point seem based on reality.

Get it together.

IF block is indeed bad, then if it affects class balance is up to everyone to decide for himself. This thread is about block. Of course some other things may directly result from that, how it could be in any other way, if we're talking about classes balanced around block.

The math can show the average damage taken, and overall damage taken, but can it show how damage spikes affect healing the tank.

If you want to close the thread, because it in some way is against your belief that all tank classes are equal, and nothing can be said that would be against this belief, I cannot stop you, but first maybe make sure if you are seeing the truth, or maybe just your opinion is different than mine.