Getting the perfect 5 man heroic balance

[Bung]

I'm a tank warrior and I'm looking to find the perfect balance of my stats for heroics. I've read so many threads that at this point I'm plain confused and slightly concerned about my avoidance numbers. I understand that different gear sets are for different scenarios and I would like some feedback from the awesome tanks on this site as to how I can get a "perfect" balance. I'm not a math guy (I'm a tank geez) so long mathematical explanations would probably confuse me even more. I have regemmed/enchanted plenty to get my expertise/hit to a decent level. My character in the armory is Bungholiolio:

27.6k HP Unbuffed
23K armor
21% dodge
17.5 % parry
14.73 % Block
31 Expertise
255 Hit Rating

Is my block too low? Should I add Strength gems? Does block even matter for a warrior that uses shield block on every CD? These numbers vary greatly on which trinket I use. I have Lavanthor's Talisman, Seal of the Pantheon, Essence of Gossamer, Valor Medal of the First War. What trinkets should I equip for 5 mans? I also have the bracers Bindings of the hapless prey which boosts BV. Like my main man Ciderhelm I spec Deep wounds with only 2/5 in shield Specialization. Should I vary this until I get better gear with more block?

No healers complain about my tanking...but my goal is to be the best tank on the server(I'm serious!). Any advice you have is much appreciated.

[Dreador]

Statwise you're golden, don't change a thing. I can't comment on spec since I'm trolling from my cell phone at work and it can't pull up the armory...But I digress; the stats are in line, so as long as the ability to tank well is there you have nothing to worry about.

[Goresaw]

If you are only talking about heroics, you have way too much hit and expertise. The hit/expertise cap in heroics is 5.4%, so thats like 180 hit rating and 22 expertise.

Personally, I think block rating/block value is overpowered for heroics and I'd max that. My gear is not optimal, but I'm running with heroic capped expertise/hit and 21.34% block chance with about 1100 block value. This is with about 28.5k hp, 18.1% dodge, 16.5% parry...

I'd definitely use lavanthor's... I use it and I think its the best trinket for heroics. I attach it to shield block with a macro, and when I pop it and shield block I start blocking for more than 3000... thats almost total immunity to melee against alot of heroic trash packs and its a ton of damage/threat from damage shield.

The World of Warcraft Armory

There's my armory.. like I said its not optimal, I just hit 80 the sunday before last. My next upgrades are the T7 badge chest, the gundrak gloves, the AN belt, and the essence of gossamer... once I have those I think I am pretty set outside of raids. I mostly just do heroics because I really dont have 4ish+ hours at a time to devote to naxx, so like you I am gearing mostly with that in mind.

[Bung]

Thanks so much for both of your responses. In terms of the hit/expertise numbers I am pretty sure that 26 expertise and 264 are the soft cap numbers for level 83 bosses. I also find that when I have one strong DPS in the 5 man group in the 2.5k-3k range (which i nullify vigilance style) the extra expertise/hit is the only thing keeping me above that person on the omen threat meter. I see many players avoidance numbers closer to 20% for all three dodge/parry/block. I was under the assumption that block only lowers the damage whereas dodge completely avoids it so I have focused more on dodge. I now equip essence of gossamer on my way to the bosses and then i switch trinkets to valor medal of honor and all i see when the boss swings is DODGE!

[geros]

The 83 bosses are in 10/25 man raids and not in heroics. The cap for hit and exp sound reasonable to me in heroics. Since everything is lvl 82 or lower in there. If you don't believe it, record your combat log and parse it out after lowering your hit down to ~5.6%. That extra hit/expertise is wasted and could probably be converted to STR/SBV to create a higher baseline of threat for heroics. I'd turn your full exp gems into stam/exp or into str gems.

If your block value is high enough it can act as full avoidance as well in trash in heroics.

you've got the correct 15/5/51 spec and all. If you really want to min/max tanking crap level BS/JC to take advantage of extra gem slots and the JC only gems.

[Hit Me]

The 83 bosses are in 10/25 man raids and not in heroics. The cap for hit and exp sound reasonable to me in heroics. Since everything is lvl 82 or lower in there. If you don't believe it, record your combat log and parse it out after lowering your hit down to ~5.6%. That extra hit/expertise is wasted and could probably be converted to STR/SBV to create a higher baseline of threat for heroics. I'd turn your full exp gems into stam/exp or into str gems.

If your block value is high enough it can act as full avoidance as well in trash in heroics.

you've got the correct 15/5/51 spec and all. If you really want to min/max tanking crap level BS/JC to take advantage of extra gem slots and the JC only gems.

Why would you stop getting expertise after you are hit capped? I was under the impression that they were separate and that getting enough expertise to eliminate parries was beneficial for both threat generation and survival. I'm not sure what the magic number is for heroics, but it's 57 expertise for raids and I wasn't aware of the hit cap affecting expertise.

[geros]

raid bosses are the only mobs (with a few exceptions) that have a different hard and soft exp cap as well. So hit and exp are both in the realm of ~5.6% to be hard capped for heroics.

[Hit Me]

raid bosses are the only mobs (with a few exceptions) that have a different hard and soft exp cap as well.

Do all the heroic bosses have equal chance to dodge or parry an attack? The reason there are two "caps" with raid bosses is because a raid boss has a 6.5% chance to dodge your attack and a 14.25% chance to parry your attack. It takes 26 expertise to become undodgable and 57 to become unparryable.

[geros]

I'm not sure if anyone has parsed the WOTLK heroics to confirm this but it was done in TBC to death. I can't imagine they changed the +2 mob behavior in the expansion.

[Goresaw]

Yes... in heroics the bosses are lvl 82. Against lvl 82 mobs, you have a 5.4% chance to miss, and they have a 5.4% chance to dodge or parry. 22 expertise and enough hit for 5.4% (like I said, I think its about 180) is enough to HARD cap you against every mob in a heroic. With that level of hit/expertise you will never ever see a miss dodge or parry unless you're under some sort of debuff (I know there's a few mobs that increase your chance to miss with an insect swarm like ability).

If we are talking about heroics only, once you have 22 expertise and 180ish hit your next best state is shield block value. Mobs in heroics really dont hit that hard... even with nothing up except glyph of blocking you are probably taking 50% of the dmg off the hits when you block, and when you pop shield block every 40 seconds which is almost every pull, you can basically go immune

its also a huge threat stat because it boosts shield slam and, probably more importantly, damage shield... when I pop lavanthor's and shield block and have a value of over 3000 thats 600 dmg per block with a chance to crit and stack deep wounds....

[Bung]

Thanks again for the feedback. Im going to switch out Valor Medal of Honor for Lavanthors as well as switch out some hit for strength/block value. Im still going to keep my expertise 26+ because now im doing more 10/25 man raids. Goresaw, what kind of stats should i be trying to mix my gear, trinkets, gems, enchants for these raids? Should i be trying to get 20% for all three dodge/parry/block? what about HP, expertise, hit for raids? I do know each raid is situational but what about some baseline stats?