Blade-Ward..Why Not?

[Riz]

I was one a few people i knew who was using the blade ward enchant in WotLK..Now ive been playing with my warrior alot since Cata, and with "Hold the Line", Blade-Ward was the first enchant that came to mind..I had some threat isses recently with reg 5man gear and 333weapon, and have since upgraded almost fully 346 and some 359...Now that im fine with threat i decided to test it out.. Mending was just so minimal, and i figured "why not"...(wind-walk is not yet an option)

From past usage i know it stacks up to 3 times, each stack giving 200 Parry rating(topping at 600 pr) until u next parry, releasing the parry rating and unleashing some added dmg(minor dmg)...Ive noted that ATLEAST 1 stack seems to be almost constant for me (with only 14-15% parry im currently at) and im just wondering why no one seems to think its a good use enchant?...Ive only seen 1 reason in any thread i can findon this site, that being "It rarely procs"...I have to disagree...I havent actualy compared proc-rates, nor do i plan too, but any extra avoidance is always welcome to me, and i just wanted some of your, more intelligent, input...

Thanx in Advance

[klausi]

All other WotLK procc enchants are nerfed via reduced ppm for any character above lvl 80, you might want to check again how good the procc chance actually is for lvl 85. For a lvl 80 character it was ~ 1.7 ppm iirc.

But i wouldn't really worry to much about this topic, with 4.1 you can buy Windwalk's required Maelstroems with Justice points

[Fetzie]

Remember, the uptime is not an indication of how effective Blade Ward is. Rather the amount of proccs you get - if you are never parrying despite the buff being there the enchant isn't doing its job.

[Booi]

Are you noticing that uptime on single target bosses? Or is that uptime the product of aoe tanking in 5 mans?

[Riz]

I havent rlly payed too much attention to how high it stacks...With SCT i have any procs, or buffs show up and stick, center screen..And blade ward seems to be up as much as SnB, SS, or Incite...I'll have to pay closer attention, but im sure its not reaching 3 stacks..Ive seen it reach 2 stacks a time or two(400 Parry Rating) but how oftenb ill have to check thelogs on a boss battle andget back to you...

I didnt know maelstrom were finally gonna be available in4.1 so like klaus says, its kinda moot now..Or will be XD Thanks forthat info

[MellvarTank]

Again to repeat: If bladeward has a high-uptime and low proc rate, then it is bad. If it has a low uptime and a high proc rate, it is good.

[Stephanius]

I've tested blade ward for a while, but found it lackluster. I couldn't care less about the added damage, I want the added avoidance. I've never seen it stack. While Mellvar insists that many procs are good, I disagree. The added parry percentage isn't high (200 rating), and it's gone once you did parry. Compared to your overall parry chance, the added chance is small. We parry too often to make this small chance worthwhile.

I was confused by the nominally not so awesome windwalk description and posted this thread here.
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...weapon-enchant

Some Windwalk logs here.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/fxlnr9d544kfhcge/

TLDR: forget Blade Ward. Get Windwalk. More avoidance and you get to run a bit faster.

[MellvarTank]

While Mellvar insists that many procs are good, I disagree. The added parry percentage isn't high (200 rating), and it's gone once you did parry.

I think you are misunderstanding my point on this one. If it procs and you parry right away, it may have helped. If it procs and stays up until it falls off (without a parry) or has to stack up to 3x before a parry occurs, it isn't doing jack-all for you. I'm not arguing whether or not it is usefull (I'm relatively sure it sucks even worse now than it did in wrath), but my point is that if it procs and you parry it may have done its job, whereas if it procs and stays up on you for long periods of time it definitiely is not doing its job.

Cool side note - Windwalk run-speed = awesome fun.

[Fujka]

Blade Ward was only fun for tanking Anub adds in togc. It stacked and procd so quickly it wasnt funny.

[Stephanius]

200 parry rating @ 85 is approx 1.13% parry. That's hardly anything compared to your parry chance without it. While RNG and chances are fun, the odds are bad for that buff having done anything before it 'procced-off'.

The combination of rating value at 85 and lowered effect gain rate break the effect it had at 80. Blade Ward was introduced with Ulduar in patch 3.1. It took 45.25 parry rating for 1% parry at 80 after patch 3.2 (49.18 before that). That made the 200 parry rating from Blade Ward worth approx 4.41% parry. And it did proc often enough that you gained two or even three stacks, giving you 8.83% or 13.25% bonus parry chance (before diminishing returns). That's a serious tweaking of your avoidance chance. It's fair to say that the blade ward parry chance significantly augmented your parry chance. In that case it is probable that the buff did it's job when you parry.

In Wrath it did work as you say, but in Cataclysm it might just as well make you glow pink - that'd be about as useful. =]

[vazhkatsi]

on the PTR each crystal costs 3750 JP, thats about 6 hours of heroics, if an average heroic took half and hour and had 4 bosses. your best chance for crystals is farming the new troll instances.

[Deadweightlol]

200 parry rating @ 85 is approx 1.13% parry. That's hardly anything compared to your parry chance without it. While RNG and chances are fun, the odds are bad for that buff having done anything before it 'procced-off'.

The combination of rating value at 85 and lowered effect gain rate break the effect it had at 80. Blade Ward was introduced with Ulduar in patch 3.1. It took 45.25 parry rating for 1% parry at 80 after patch 3.2 (49.18 before that). That made the 200 parry rating from Blade Ward worth approx 4.41% parry. And it did proc often enough that you gained two or even three stacks, giving you 8.83% or 13.25% bonus parry chance (before diminishing returns). That's a serious tweaking of your avoidance chance. It's fair to say that the blade ward parry chance significantly augmented your parry chance. In that case it is probable that the buff did it's job when you parry.

In Wrath it did work as you say, but in Cataclysm it might just as well make you glow pink - that'd be about as useful. =]

Why are you not considering the benefit of HTL?

Seems you're only looking at the enchant as it relates to it's own proc (not proc chance, but the dmg proc), rather than it's effect on sought after talents that could benefit from additional parry (ie: HTL).

[MellvarTank]

It's effect on HtL would be minimal as it would not give you enough benefit. IF you parried with the enchant then HtL comes into play, but the benefit is not enough to say that you parried BECAUSE of the enchant.