"During the 1.8 bugged shield block I went out with 310 defense and fought level 60 ghosts in Deadwind Pass. I killed them all using just autoattack in defensive stance, and kept Shield Block refreshed every time it cooled down. In over 2000 attacks made while Shield Block was active, I got zero critical hits. There is no question that Shield Block removes critical hits from the combat table. Sadly, I lost the data from that testing to a corrupted file for further analysis of how miss/dodge/parry fell out from it.

And so I am now testing crushing blows, and will be able to answer the dodge/parry/miss question as well. It is a longer process of course, since we don't have the Shield Block bug anymore. "

- Satrina

Basically this is saying that a crit and a block cannot both happen in PVE (we know it can for pvp). From that, it is implying that a block takes precedence over a crit, that is, crit AND hit are replaced by block in the combat table (assuming one table). The idea of one combat table to me seems pretty unlikely since there will be very little room for regular hits from a lvl 63 mob (15% CBs, 8ish%crit, your mitigation, all this leaves about 20% left over for hits).

My understanding is that if your block chance goes over 100% you can't be crit.

Design flaw? Or working as intended?

I don't know -- one of our warriors with firsthand experience in this area might be able to comment more insightfully.

I discussed this exact issue with Moz back when I tanked a raid spamming Shield Block the whole time and didn't notice a single crit or crushing blow. I was very suprised by the results but didn't go out and test it as much as the person referenced in the OP did. Seems to work the way it's described for me.

Not sure about working as intended, but you're correct (from my experience).

I want paw block. And pawrry.

Oh god.


Oh god


That was weapons-grade bad, beef.

I lol'd.



This is what our MT tells me too by the way, which is why our two main tanks moved to Imp SB for Emp tanking. 15 minute fights makes it pretty likely a devastating crush/crit/unbalancing combo will occur.

Blizzard uses a roll combat system.
Basically when a mob attacks, the game rolls a dice (lets say 1-1000 for arguments sake, assuming 15% Parry, 10% Dodge, 20% Block).

If the game rolls 1-150 You Parry
151-250 you Dodge
251-450 you Block
450-900 Normal Attack
901-950 Miss
951-1000 Crushing Blow

Since the game will never hit more than one number, you will never have a partially blocked crushing blow, and if you get over 100% Block, you simply can not be crit/crushing blowed.

The table is extremely simplified, but the concept is the same. (Imp. Shield Block after Unbalancing Strikes is extremely useful for preventing crits/crushing in this way also).

Honestly, it seems like a design oversight, but since it would require an overhauling of simple combat mechanics I doubt we would see a fix until expansion.

This thread is amusing considering that R&D Emps thread which I just read, I'm amazed it got dragged out for 5 pages. I thought this was common knowledge, especially while SB was bugged there for a while.

That emperor thread is going places. And I don't think it's anywhere I want to be.

Assuming this model, how do you explain dodges and parries between two blocks in a 100% improved shield block? My only guess is that the shield block only takes away from offense abilities such as normal hit, crit, and crushing. Has anyone ever seen a miss between the two blocks?

It's a priority issue.

As far as I can tell, the priority list is:

Miss
Dodge/Parry (not sure of the order of these two, probably doesn't matter, might be testable using a rogue with Evasion up)
Block
Crit
Crushing

And anything left over is a normal hit. The table is filled in that order, and anything that extends beyond the "end" of the table is simply not possible. If the table isn't filled with the specific attack outcomes, the rest of the table represents "hit".

This explains why when a rogue pops evasion, typically most strikes on the rogue that connect will be crits. It explains why Cold Blood attacks miss/dodge/parry. Explains why warriors with SB up aren't crit/crushed. Basically makes the most sense given what we know about the combat system (especially that crits are calculated across swings, not across hits, and that +hit doesn't actually increase hits, it reduces misses).

A note to anyone who would actually like to test this, you might want to use a warrior with 8/8 wrath with the parry buff during all the test swings. It might take longer to get results, but I would say that they'd be more conclusive.

My understanding of the 8/8 wrath bonus is that It's only consumed as a saving roll, such as if they don't miss you, or you don't dodge, then you'll parry it. It doesn't eat the free parry regardless on the first attack against you.

What happens if a warrior with shield block is overpowered?

Is the only possibility that is left in the table miss?

Does every overpower miss when shield block is activated or are the impossible things (parry, dodge and block) replaced by crit, hit and miss ?

From the OP.

NVM, I missed the part where it said "we know it can for pvp"

Just to be clear, the priorization of swing results would imply that in order to be uncrittable, you don't need 100% block. You just need Miss+Dodge+Parry+Block to be >= 100%. This seem correct (it implies that a Warr with SB up is uncrittable even at 300 defense)?

Are you sure? Surely it just means that you'd have ~33% (assuming all stats are equal) to pass each check.