31 and the 4 are pretty much given. My question is around what should constitute the 16?

Currently I have them in Anticipation (5), Toughness (3), Improved Bloodrage (pre req for) Last Stand, and Defiance (5).

I read a lot about people advocating Shield Specialisation and Improved Shield Block, are these worth dropping the +10 defense of Anticipation for?

My current defense value in tanking gear is 418, which includes the Anticipation talent, but once Mag deigns to drop my frikken legs again this will drop a little.

Also, is the constant damage mitigation of more armour worth it over the "oh shit" situational use of Last Stand?

Yes the 16th ponit is for improved shield block.

Depends what you're tanking.

If you are an MC tank I would recommend Anticipation, Toughness, and Imp Shield Block. Forget Defiance. At that point you're just trying to mitigate as much damage as possible to be kind to your undergeared healers' fledgling mana pools and regen capacity.

As you move into BWL, Defiance and Last Stand gain much greater utility because of the aggro-based and spike-damage-based encounters. You'll find that you lose fights not because all your healers go OOM but because you die to a bad damage spike or loss of aggro control.

We do Luci to Domo in just under 4 hours currently, gearing up for Rag (spawned him once, 65% pre-sons) and had our 3rd Onyxia kill last night.

I can certainly understand not worrying with Defiance for MC, but while we still learn/master the encounter I think Onyxia would screw us over without it.

I've grown damn fond of Last Stand, particularly in the Golemag fight when he hits 10% and for those entertaining PvP moments when fighting another warrior and suddenly he can't execute you any more. I suspect it'll also be useful while we learn the Ragnaros fight.

Also depends if you have/use a lifegiving gem or not. If you do (like me) and don't have a better 2 trinket combo (any combination of styleens/onyxia trinket/hear of hakkar) then its probably not even worth looting. I don't have last stand, but if i did i would probably only use it to el oh el at my total hp and take screenshots. I understand nurfed's onyx got 15k hp, but i don't think his priests needed it any more-so than 10k.

However, something else worth considering, if you use draconian deflector like every single warrior in my guild does (fuck chromaggus and his stupid crossbow, shield plx) and you only block for 95-105 with wrath boots and 3 piece might, then you gotta ask yourself how worth-while improved shield block is. It's a difficult decision, luckily it's not one of high importance. When i was speced defiance i had neither, and instead went for 5% crit because i'm a greedy shit-head.

Oh look it's the comedy paladin in a warrior thread again B)

I rerolled several months ago you jerk :-(

I stand by my comment given your last few posts in said threads :o

PS: No Drillborer's from Garr?, also yeah fuck that stupid crossbow - I mean who needs that pos am I right?

rawr

The biggest problem with imp shield block, at least for me, is the threat loss either in terms of rage usage or cooldown usage associated with it.

I don't have drillborer, some of the other guys do, but since the defense nerf its been a pretty clear-cut decision for us. And im sure its easy to say crossbows ahoy when you have the elementium shield equipped. ^_^

Also, when did tehax replace you as mt?

There isn't a replacement necessary, one thing we are blessed with in EJ is a bunch of excellent, well-geared tanks who would easily be MTs of any other guild. For the record, I was away for 6 weeks meditating in the Himayalas but that's another story.

I was only being half-serious, but I would gladly have all our hunters decked out with Ashjre'thul given the DPS upgrade at the cost of a shield. Also, maybe you'll discover why Last Stand isn't as el oh el as you'd suggest, but then again you do have blessing of kings :D. Most of the BWL encounter's threat lies in your tank dying to spike damage, you can never really have enough - particularly if you're just getting your first few kills (and working on Nefarian). Also, there really isn't a clear cut decision in regard to gearing - it's all pretty dependent on the encounter and what pieces you have to work with. For example at this point I don't ever bother equipping Draconian but used to swap it with DB depending on the encounter.

Understandable, you'd be surprised how infrequent we actually have blessing of kings, we had loevon run back to ironforge to respec retribution the other day durring chromaggus because we were flat-out of paladins who had that much in ret. I havn't found an encounter where i would use my immovable object (somewhat similar to drillborer) over draconian. Anything with fire damage is a given, something like broodlord where you want avoidance as much as possible would lean towards +defense (although one time we had a few of the 2k armor potions which made a substantial difference in how often i was getting combat resed, so that one might get reconsidered). If i had imp shield block, a high block shield like immovable object would be nice for flamegor thrash, although he isn't very hard no matter how you slice it.

What it comes down to is draconian deflector is a perfectly designed blue item that holds its ground against every purple shield with the exception of the shields off hakkar and chromaggus.

Anyways back to last stand: i understand its utility fully, moz. When chromaggus hits 20% and enrages, or when nefarian calls the priest class yell, it shines to the fullest. Livegiving gem also does this, so if you have the trinket, and are being forced into a decision about whether to go imp shield block or last stand (cuz 3% crit from cruelty is obviously unacceptable ;-)) then yeah go shield block, why not.

I see the trinket as a complement to Last Stand.

Use the Lifegiving Gem on Nef's first warrior yell.

Then using Last Stand on the next one.

Then if a third one comes up your trinket is probably cooled down.

People who use Gem + Last Stand are the same time just so they can see 14000+ hp are very silly.

I don't like anticipation. Defense is great, but not at 10 for 5 talent points.

Toughness is much more important in my opinion, and scales better. Defense reduces the chance of you taking crits and increases your chance of avoiding hits. Toughness helps you survive through a nasty crit/crushing blow streak which I believe is ultimately more important.