Prot war left scratching his head

[Steinnrand]

Ok so pre the patch i was fine, i could even throw on some dps gear and not get utterly destroyed, but tonight my first night in icc since the patch something happened, Heroic fights that use to be a joke, now im getting hit so hard that i get 2 shoted.

Here is my armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&cn=Steinnrand

the mastery use to be parry, supposedly this may help if not please let me know. or if i should switch gems/enchants/reforge.

Honestly i have no idea whats going on so any input would be fantastic.

[Sirloinsteak]

reforge most of your dodge into mastery, also you may want to put 2 points into hold the line, and any dodge that you don't reforge into mastery trade it off 1 for 1 and forge it into parry as well as changing your main hand weapon now to blade ward to make sure you consistently have hold the line active.

For me last night its was the opposite to your story ... all the other tanks were dying around me and I felt unkillable, nothing like blocking 60% of a Hard mode LK swing then smashing him back in the face with a revenge.

Its all about the crit block and stacking block so you have a greater chance to crit block.

I basically had the mind set of keep my dodge and parry both above 20% and go balls to the wall on mastery increasing your block and crit block chance as high as i could ... and it seems to have worked wonders for me.

[meech]

I thought dodge was the new defense?

[MellvarTank]

No, there is no defense. You get crit immunity through talents.

[Bashal]

No, there is no defense. You get crit immunity through talents.

I think he just meant that he figured dodging was better than parrying or blocking.

If not, I'm asking it, lol:

Since we're just talking about swapping various % chances, and none of this is a sure thing (except when SB is up, you know you'll block hits then), wouldn't adding to dodge be preferable to adding to parry or block (mastery)?

[MellvarTank]

Block is really good right now actually.

The only thing that makes Dodge>parry is DRs. Yes, they are still there, and yes... parry DR is still harsher than dodge's.

[Agnum]

Since there are dodge gems, does anyone know if they are going to be putting in Mastery gems? My enchants went to dodge. I know it won't be right away, but maybe for Cata?

[Bashal]

Block is really good right now actually.

The only thing that makes Dodge>parry is DRs. Yes, they are still there, and yes... parry DR is still harsher than dodge's.

So in your opinion, the order of preference for "avoidance" stats (please note the quotes, I'm using the term loosely) would be Block>Dodge>Parry?

[BruisedOoze]

Yes there are Mastery gems for Cataclysm. The primary colour is yellow and go by the 'Fractured' adjective.

http://cata.wowhead.com/item=52094

[Bashal]

changing your main hand weapon now to blade ward to make sure you consistently have hold the line active

Hm! That never occurred to me. I'd been sticking with my trusty "blue frickin' lightning" enchant.

[MellvarTank]

It's tough to say at this point. I'm valuing them all equally. I have to get some tanking in to see how the healing plays out and what the damage intake is like. I doubt I will gear for parry at all, just passively with the DRs smashing it down. Dodge still has good returns and mastery (block) seems to stack quickly as well. When we have had a few weeks to tweak out everything else, I'll be able to give you a better idea on priority for reforging.

[Jellysound]

I'm misunderstanding the usefulness of Mastery. I don't know if there is a cap on block, or if critical block differs in some way, but I read that Blocking was cut off at 30% and without mastery on gear I had 30% I put some on my gear and it didn't make a significant change, Do I need to calculate Block chance?

Does mastery just take an obscene amount of points in order to increase my block percentage?
I always was against stam stacking gear, Should WArriors be gemming dodge+stam?

[Lepka]

@ Sirloin... What's your Armory? I'm interested in having a look at it. I actually Reforged today, and changed my parry to expertise, and I actually noticed a big difference in my ability to hold aggro. But there are still some slight problems. It could be my spec build, or maybe I need more for certain stats. Im Hit capped, and now exp capped... so I should be good there. I'm not 100% sure what the problem is.. but it seems im not the only one complaining.

[uglybbtoo]

So in your opinion, the order of preference for "avoidance" stats (please note the quotes, I'm using the term loosely) would be Block>Dodge>Parry?

Taking theck's and polandis work on paladins I am assuming it extrapolates to warrior's. Unfortunately I dont read polish or use mathlab to be able to get it absolutely.

But from
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...rb_v=viewtopic

What they are saying is you need dodge and parry numbers very close to each other and have the 102.4 block cap.

Quoted paladin figures:

theckhd wrote:H = hit size
A = Avoidance
B = Block

Damage taken = H(1-A-B)+0*A + 0.7*H*B = H(1-A-0.3*B)

Now trade avoidance dA for block dB:

DT'=H(1-(A-dA)-0.3*(B+dB))

Diff=DT'-DT=H-HA+HdA-0.3HB+0.3HdB-H+HA+0.3HB = H(dA-0.3*dB)

Thus, you take less damage if the avoidance you lose is less than 0.3 times the block% you gain.

Assume 10 of each stat. Mastery is fixed at 45.906 rating per point of mastery, and each point gives us 2% block. 10 mastery therefore gives us 0.43567% block, and we'd need 10 parry to give us less than 0.1307 avoidance for the trade to be worthwhile.

According to the matlab model, that occurs when you have 931 parry rating, or 21.21% parry on your character sheet.

It's the same calculation for dodge, but since we have more base dodge it comes out to 21.6% dodge on your character sheet. To get that in rating, you need to assume a particular level of agility buffs, so it's probably just easier to work in percentages.

Credit to Polonadis:

When trying to reach the block cap, your general reforging strategy should be to keep your dodge just above 21.6% and parry just above 21.44%. This will ensure that all dodge/parry rating that is reforged to mastery will be converted at a rate that is favorable to your overall avoidance


So I am going to start at those figures and fiddle a bit because our base numbers are a bit different unless someone can fill in the blanks for me.

[Bashal]

What they are saying is you need dodge and parry numbers very close to each other and have the 102.4 block cap.

Whoa. You mean we should be going for unhittable again?

[MellvarTank]

Whoa. You mean we should be going for unhittable again?

That would be my first thought regarding the new block mechanics. Especially being that the average block is substantially higher now (absorbs more damage) than it has been all expansion.