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Zure · 06/27/07, 8:41 PM

I would place every suggestion in the context of which Blizzard sees as each tanking class's ideal purpose.

It seems the intention is to keep warriors as the clear tanks on fights with significant non-physical damage components (16% reduction) and to give them the ability to all around take the least overall phsycal damage (mitigation + avoidance), at the expense of spikiness. Warriors limitations are the spike dmg potential mentioned before, but more importantly their weakness at generating threat when not being directly damaged.

Druids on the other hand are given the stam + mitigation to produce the most consistent throughput of physical damage, at the expense of taking net more damage (due to lower avoidance and inability to push crushing off the table). Druids also produce the highest single target threat values, and this threat generation is a) very scalable and b) accompanied by higher rage efficiency, making them not need to take much damage in order to build hate.

Finally paladins were given a niche tanking groups of many mobs, as their threat generation scales incredibly well across multiple attackers due to consecrate, holy shield and ret aura. They are limited by the lower health pool they'll have due to the need to itemize other stats, and the mana requirements they face... paladin threat generation is completely unaffected by the damage they take in the short term, but cannot be sustained more than a few minutes without making the paladin's mana regen your raid focus (Spriest + resto shaman for example).

Giving warriors a very high shield block value would turn them into druids by a) removing spike damage and b) allowing them to gear for smoother, sustained rage generation. This is a bad thing as it removes the unique elements that druid tanks bring to the raid.

So in conclusion, even assuming shield block value is useless currently, that's a good thing!

Further, shield block value is very valuable:

a) in non-raid settings is amazing... and not every stat makes sense for every setting (e.g., mp5 in 5 mans, spirit in pvp) And there's another component to this argument -- increase block values too much and 5 mans/fast attacking mobs become absolutely trivial;

b) in raids it is the best scaling element of threat generation... you can't just leave that aside, as threat generation is the most crucial element of many TBC fights with enrage timers and tank deaggros;

c) shield block may be low value, but it's never no value -- it is extra mitigation, just as is extra armor -- it may not be enough for you, but 600 damage off every attack, when say a damage spike takes 3 hits to kill you (e.g., 8k hits with one greater heal landed during the barrage) is akin to having an extra 1800 health. My completely unresearched hunch is that most set gear is so stam heavy already that the 149 additional stamina it would have taken to give an extra 1800 health would probably cost almost as much as the modest shield block value found on warrior set gear now.

06/27/07, 8:41 PM	#16
Zure Don Flamenco Zure Undead Mage <Purple Train> Nathrezim	I would place every suggestion in the context of which Blizzard sees as each tanking class's ideal purpose. It seems the intention is to keep warriors as the clear tanks on fights with significant non-physical damage components (16% reduction) and to give them the ability to all around take the least overall phsycal damage (mitigation + avoidance), at the expense of spikiness. Warriors limitations are the spike dmg potential mentioned before, but more importantly their weakness at generating threat when not being directly damaged. Druids on the other hand are given the stam + mitigation to produce the most consistent throughput of physical damage, at the expense of taking net more damage (due to lower avoidance and inability to push crushing off the table). Druids also produce the highest single target threat values, and this threat generation is a) very scalable and b) accompanied by higher rage efficiency, making them not need to take much damage in order to build hate. Finally paladins were given a niche tanking groups of many mobs, as their threat generation scales incredibly well across multiple attackers due to consecrate, holy shield and ret aura. They are limited by the lower health pool they'll have due to the need to itemize other stats, and the mana requirements they face... paladin threat generation is completely unaffected by the damage they take in the short term, but cannot be sustained more than a few minutes without making the paladin's mana regen your raid focus (Spriest + resto shaman for example). Giving warriors a very high shield block value would turn them into druids by a) removing spike damage and b) allowing them to gear for smoother, sustained rage generation. This is a bad thing as it removes the unique elements that druid tanks bring to the raid. So in conclusion, even assuming shield block value is useless currently, that's a good thing! Further, shield block value is very valuable: a) in non-raid settings is amazing... and not every stat makes sense for every setting (e.g., mp5 in 5 mans, spirit in pvp) And there's another component to this argument -- increase block values too much and 5 mans/fast attacking mobs become absolutely trivial; b) in raids it is the best scaling element of threat generation... you can't just leave that aside, as threat generation is the most crucial element of many TBC fights with enrage timers and tank deaggros; c) shield block may be low value, but it's never no value -- it is extra mitigation, just as is extra armor -- it may not be enough for you, but 600 damage off every attack, when say a damage spike takes 3 hits to kill you (e.g., 8k hits with one greater heal landed during the barrage) is akin to having an extra 1800 health. My completely unresearched hunch is that most set gear is so stam heavy already that the 149 additional stamina it would have taken to give an extra 1800 health would probably cost almost as much as the modest shield block value found on warrior set gear now.