I would take TF, unless your raid already has tons of them.

Thunderfurry.

The wonderful thing about having an MT with thunderfury is that he(or she) is the one person who is almost guaranteed to be hitting the boss at all times in most cases. This means that you've got the debuff up there the maximum possible time, and on boss encounters that counts for quite a bit of healing saved. You can get defense on other items.

If the other binding doesn't drop are you going to be waiting forever?

TF is better, but at what cost (esp. if you're doing most of the tanking for your guild)? Get whatever comes along first.

If you have the patience to hold out for Thunderfury, and your guild will still be running MC for a while, it's probably worth the wait. It's an awesome weapon. But I was in a somewhat similar situation, where I'd been using Bloodlord's Defender since the day ZG was patched in, and not having much luck with BWL weapons dropping. But I finally ended up upgrading to the AQ hammer a few weeks ago. I think it's a pretty solid tanking weapon so far, and it probably is the best after TF.

Also I think I have to post:

That is, without a doubt, the best tanking enchant in the game. Naysayers be damned.

Sort of on topic: how much should I trust tankpoints? I mean I always thought some stuff like +2% block on shield and +3 def on bracers were underrated but tankpoints is telling me they're underrated cause they're actually terrible. What do you guys think?

I've always thought that + block % was a shitty wasted stat, as you'll generally have Shield Block up 75% of the time anyway unless you're tanking ubrs or something.

On the other hand Shield Block blocks don't seem to trigger the shitty 8 piece wrath parry crap, so maybe block % is good afterall!

The thunderfury debuff is really really nice still from a healer's perspective.

Well if I've understood the stuff from the Glancing Blows discussion correctly (unlikely) then every 1% block, dodge or parry is 1% less chance to recieve a crit/crushing blow.

As it's basically crits and crushing blows that kill you, I'd have thought 2% less chance for that to happen is worth more than 7 stamina, but I'm a little concerned that no one has pointed that out in any of those threads. I conclude that I must be wrong.

Well the current belief is that crushing blow and crit chance are only reduced (or totally avoided) when shield block forces them off the table (block chance has higher priority than CBs and crits). Increasing your chance to parry/dodge/block does nothing to reduce crushing blows/crits. All it would do is turn one hit into a parry/dodge/block. The CBs and crits will still be unaffected in the hit table.

Yeah but if we're saying

Miss
Dodge Parry Block
Crushing
Crit
Hit

and

Miss 5%
Dodge Parry Block ??
Cushing 40%
Crit 5%
Hit the rest

then you only need to have a "natural" Dodge + Parry + Block over 50% to begin to eat into crits and crushing blows even when Shield Block isn't up.

That's definitely doable, I'd expect most BWLish Tanks would be getting on for roughly 25% block 15% parry 15% dodge.

Am I understanding this right? And if I am, what sort of value in stam or def is each further 1% of avoidance above 50% worth? Or does it just not matter, as the amount of time Shield Block isn't up is negligable?

If the last option is true, surely Dodge and Parry are massively more valuable than Shileld Block? And if you had over 25% Dodge + Parry, when you hit Shield Block you would be unable to be crushed/crit even with 0% natural Shield Block?

I'm really not sure if I'm understanding all this or not.

Crushing is only 15%.

Also, it may well come after Crit. The way to test it is to get a tank to dump his defense gear so that is total M+D+P+B (with SB up) was under 100%. Then you can see whether the big hits that become possible are crits or crushes.

So the point about +%Block is that, if you happen to be in that narrow zone where you're just on the brink of pushing out crits (i.e. 2% Block enchant would reduce incoming crits from 4% to 2% or something), then the marginal value of +%Block would be huge.

However, since I'm pretty sure this can only happen in an incredibly contrived situation, I don't think something like a 2% Block enchant could ever be worthwhile.

That's really not surprising, as TankPoints is very stamina skewed, and doesn't factor in block chance or block value at all. It's just your effective HP after factoring in reductions and avoidance.

I'm a big fan of defense, and getting as close to 25% block chance as possible, but I don't think either of them are worth getting over the stamina enchants in those slots. I like always having as much stamina as possible (within reason), and letting other stats just kind of naturally increase with gear upgrades. On the same note, I don't think core armor kits are worth putting on any slot but gloves, and that's only if it's an item you don't feel is worth 15 agility or 2% threat.

(Speaking of 15 agility, not shown in my image is pro enchanter Kappa, and me talking about having just gotten the mats for agility to weapon out of my mailbox. :( )

I'll get this lot into my brain one day. Thanks for the help.

Why do people want to get their block to 25%?

Block% is almost completely useless in raids, especially for something like the twin emps.


Assume you use shield block every time its up.
Assume the mob hits you 4 times during each shield block cycle.
Assume your dodge+parry > 24%
Assume you can't get your raw Block/parry/dodge over 80%

Over 200 hits against you (with talents shield block will catch 50% of these attacks so your block% is useless when SB is up), each block % saves you a titanic 150-180HP.

If the mob has a much higher attack speed (8 hits per shield block cycle) you will save 150-180HP over 100 hits for every Block%.

Unless i'm missing something here block% is a terrible raiding stat. However it does seem to be prevalent on our t1/t2 sets so maybe I am missing something.

Have you read this thread completely? If not, do so and/or peruse this one.

we're in the same boat. :angry:

I'm not sure what your getting at but I'll take a guess.

Is the 25% block value (that many seem to be aiming for) supposed to wipe off crushing blows and crits when shield block is used? If this is the case those people are wasting their time since the hit table looks something like this when shield block is activated:

(in this example the warrior has 15% parry and 10% dodge)

001-750 Bloock
751-900 Parry
901-1000 Dodge

In terms of reducing CBs/crits I dont see how a higher block% would help. Even at very low dodge/parry/block, CBs/crits are completely removed from the table when shiled block is activated.

I apologize if I missed the point completely.

well, looking at it from an MC-only guilds point of view, QS/BLD seem to be the most obvious choices for epic quality tankign weapons. However, i've always fancied Eskhander's Right Claw, with a Crusader the attack speed proc is great for keeping agro on the mt. Only problem is you lose defence/armour although for one item that doesn't seem like a bad choice. i'd much rather a tank keeps agro and we use one more healer on him if need be than he ahs less agro and some silly mage decides AP+Ep+Frostbolt are a good idea in Onyxia phase 1 (don't ask :()

looking at it from a BWL/AQ perspective i'm surprised Blizzard couldn't see that some warriors would go for the Druid mace from the regalai quest followed by the shield from the armaments as a combo (although a bulwark might have the slight edge, the stamina on that armaments shield is insane combined with the block and armour). I reacon Ouro will drop a shield though, and C'thun or Ouro might have a tanking weapon up there tentacled sleeves.

Z

The proc doesn't stack with Thunderclap, correct?