The thing is, this is easily measured and tested in practice. Can you be sure the times you were crushed with shield block active were not caused by:
* Drinking a potion right before a swing (or another action that makes you temporarily unable to block)
* Lag
* Not facing the mob server-side (knockbacks can sometimes cause a mob to get strikes from behind on you, and you can't block when you aren't facing the mob.)
* A Temporarily debuff on you that impacted your overall avoidance (like at Twin Emps)

I having tanked without getting crushed for a very long time with less than 25% block I can assure you that you do not need 25% block to avoid crushing blows. As far as the single hit table, it's easy to observe that without even needing to deal with a mob that crushes, you can easily show that with simple math tanking a regular level 70 mob (or even something lower level - if you want a really long sustained test it's pretty easy to use one of those servants in blasted lands that can only be killed by clicking their crystal.) It's easy to show that with sufficient overall miss+block+dodge+parry chance of any mix + the shield block skill you become immune (because none of the attacks are not in one of the categories of miss/block/dodge/parry.)

The great thing about the scientific method is that it's not a popularity contest, and it provides a perfect framework to measure, observe, and make predictions about things like this.

I have never seen anything that could replace my lifegiving gem, an extra 3000 heal is just very useful, and the small amount of stats added by passive-like trinkets don't make up for it. On to the trinkets that are more or less passive:

This cannot be said too many times: +block rating and +block value have always been terrible stats, and this is even more true in tbc where most bosses hits for thousands of damage with each hit. Styleen's Impeding Scarab was only useful at 60 because there was no alternatives. At 70 it's not very useful. Gnomeregan autoblocker could see play in some very threat-sensitive fights i guess, but as a mitigation trinket it's still very subpar. (Great for protection specc grind and pvp though). Adamantite figurine is quite good, at least as long as you are below the defense "cap". If you get to the "max" defense without it, Moroes pocket watch is a decent replacement. Note that as long as you still need defense, you should never use moroes pocket watch. It could also have some uses for having a higher chance of losing sunder-like debuffs in some fights i guess.

The best passive trinket of them all of what we have seen so far seems to be the Argussian Compass. There is no denying how good stamina is, and the use helps a bit too.

Edit: More on the worthlessness of block stats.
+block rating: Lets assume a very low dmg boss hitting for 3000 damage per hit. Let's assume an extremely high block value of 500 (to get this you need to sacrifice other useful stuff. This means that each block prevents about 1/6 of the damage in the attack. This means that each point in block rating would give about 0.021% total mitigation versus said mob. compare this to 1 dodge rating, which gives about 0.053% mitigation, or 1 defense rating, which gives mitigation close to 1 dodge rating if you already are crit immune.
+block value: Let's again assume the boss hits for 3000 dmg and you have 500 block value. I don't have any data on how much % of the attacks that are blocked, but let's for this experiment assume you block 60% of the attacks. This means 1 block value gives you about 0.0024% mitigation.

This gives styleens a total of 1.62% mitigation (using very simple models obviously, just to give an impression). this makes it about as good as a passive trinket with 31 defense. This means that, even if you are alreay crit immune, even if you never activated it, adamantite figurine would still be better than styleen's impeding scarab. Mindless spam of GAB would give on average 0.2% mitigation. This makes it much worse than most other tanking trinkets, even lvl 60 ones like mark of tyranny.

It's even worse than you note for +block rating, because on most boss fights you're spamming Shield Block. That fills up your combat table with blocks (well, not completely with blocks, but mostly) regardless of how much block rating you have.

If I took myself (~18% block, last I checked) and another warrior who focuses more on block (let's say ~40% block) and parse our damage over an average boss fight where we both mash shield block, we'll both be parsed much closer in how often we actually block attacks than our block rating gear would indicate.

They should improve the stat in some way to reflect the fact that 'uh, warriors already get a skill for this'. I mean, it's well-itemized for paladins as-is, but I seriously don't think anyone is going to complain if a tanking stat that a lot of paladins are collecting already gets improved. They could use the help as well.

So ... get your block to 25% and then don't go out of your way to stack it more? Just like defense to 490, it seems like a kinda simple solution to me. You guys should just be happy that you get such amazing returns from Defense, as it raises Block and Parry in addition to -Crit, Miss, and Dodge, and that once you get 25% you become virtually immune to crushing blows.

Block value has always been for multi-mob trash tanking, and with the changes to Shield Slam back in the day it's a good way for warriors to raise Threat and mitigation at the same time.

And is it really a surprise that Styleen's, a level 60 trinket, is worse than a level 70 trinket?

I think the issue is more that Warriors quite simply have no need for Shield Block Rating at all as you only need a combined miss/parry/dodge/block of over 100% to get rid of Crushing Blows, which basically means that any crit immune warrior will also be crush immune with Shield Block up, but it is something thrown around on their class specific gear. Both the tier 4 and tier 5 sets thus effectively 'waste' points on Block Rating, while it'd be far more useful to a warrior if it were put into Dodge Rating instead.

Base miss/parry/dodge/block is about 20%. The defense to get crit immune adds another 20% on top of that, and Shield Block is 75%.

For Paladins Block Rating is more valuable since it's the quickest way to get your miss/parry/dodge/block up to a level of being able to push off Crushing Blows with Holy Shield, so we can pretty much build our sets around it optimally, since we'll probably always be wanting some Block Rating on our gear (So if our set pieces were to be heavy on it, we could compensate that on other pieces when we don't need it). For Warriors on the other hand it's not a desirable stat unless it'd appear in extremely high quantities so that you wouldn't need Shield Block to get rid of Crushing Blows, but as someone said earlier in this topic, if that point were to ever be reached it'd probably get nerfed.

edit: damn, above poster beat me to it!

Current prevailing thinking is that 25% to block is not required to push Crushing Blows off the table with Shield Block on. You get 10% parry, 10% block, 5% miss, and 5% dodge (roughly) with basic tanking talents. That's 30% combined avoidance+mitigation without ANY defense skill at all, plus 75% block while Shield Block is active.

Yes, you can find a few people who disagree with this view, but no one has posted a single shred of conclusive evidence, only anecdotal material.

Agreed. Block value at least has that advantage.

To be honest, it seems to me what you WANT to say is something more like:

If they made block rating a more valuable mitigation stat, it wouldn't improve druids at all while improving the other two tanking classes, and that's something that should be considered.

I don't want the thread to turn into a druid vs. warrior rant at all, but I'd agree with that statement. Tank balance (um, if you can call it "balance") is something that's at a very delicate place right now, and they need to be careful going forward.

Ty Frag,

True, I was knocked back, was MTing High King for the first time, but:

a) None of that crushing happened after I put 27% block....

b) Other guilds (including their MT and guild leader), that have been high ranked for years now, are adamant about having at least 25% block at High King, "something they learned the hard way". They are also ranked #1 on their server and so does think the #1 guild on mine, so, at least specifically for Maulgar I trust them and my own experience.

So specifically for this fight, does anyone have data/observations?

It's not specific to the Maulgar fight, but my evidence is pretty simple: Paladins are able to mitigate crushing blows. If removal of crushing blows was dependant on hitting 100% block, it would be simply impossible for Paladins to push off crushing blows, as Holy shield only adds 35% (with the heroic libram), meaning 65% block baseline would be required.

On the other hand, many Paladins (including myself) that have done some raid tanking have found ourselves able to mitigate crushing blows just as well as warriors by hitting 67.4% total mitigation (miss/dodge/parry/block) without Holy Shield active. If you armory me you'll se that I've got about 20% block, so with Holy shield that's only 55% meaning that I should be taking a lot of crushing blows if it was dependant only on block %.

Because we must hit 67.4% mitigation, figurine of the colossus is a tremendously helpful tool. Aside from that purpose, however, I don't really like it for raid tanking....I simply haven't replaced it because stacking 4% worth of dodge would be big hit to my stamina. Personally, I'm running around with FotC/Argussian Compass at the moment...as stamina-starved as Paladins are at the moment, 36 on a trinket is a welcome sight. Of course, pumping up stamina while maintaining 67.4% mitigation, and deciding how much of the mitigation is block versus avoidance is a really though balancing act, but that's the reality of the situation for Tankadins right now...gear selection is *very* important.

This is where you are wrong. Even at the stats you describe armor is still more effective. And in almost all scenarios stamina would also be better even if it didn't mitigate damage, because it would make you survive bursts better, and you are never really going to run out of healer mana in the raid just from healing the main tank.

I'm not saying blocking is bad, but items that increase block value increase it by far too little for it to help with tanking compared to what it costs on the item. The only situation where block value becomes useful is where there are lots of soft-hitting mobs, and in these situations shield block will be up much much less which again makes block value bad.

Devilshark cape will never be better than Cloak of Eternity or Gilded Thorium Cloak for mitigation. Gnomeregan Auto Blocker will never be better than Adamantine Figurine for mitigation. (No matter what nihilum's main tank uses)

Ignoring the whole avoidance vs. mitigation stuff, I would think Devilshark is the better cape with its 18 dodge rating.
Also the Auto Blocker is good for Shield Slam, especially when you use the click for burst threat.

I tank Maulgar every week, without 25% block, and I don't get crushed when shield block is up (and yes, I do keep combat logs, and use a version of recap that watches for crushing blows, so I'd know if I'm getting crushed.)

The thing is, having more than 25% will in fact keep them from getting crushed (whenever eligible,) but that doesn't mean that less than 25% will cause them to get crushed. If anything humans are horrible at tracking statistics, I'd be willing to bet that in all your time tanking with more than 25% block value (if you've been a tank for very long) you've taken some crushing blows, but in all cases you've confidently assigned those crushing blows to causes other than "oh I needed more block chance/rating" (server lag causing a window without the buff, charges of shield block being consumed, back to the mob, ...)

However, it sounds like you're quickly willing to assign any case of a crushing blow when your block chance is under 25% to being caused by your block chance being too low. That's a convenient excuse, but it doesn't make it correct. In fact, ironically, if your theory is "I need to add more block rating" odds are you will add more block rating, and then watch the next few fights with extreme intensity (to test your theory), and that intensity is likely to mean you are more careful to make sure you don't have any windows without shield block up, or when they happen you correctly identify why (since you were looking more closely.)

Anyways, if you agree with the basic concept that "for a hit to be crushing, it cannot be a block, dodge, parry or miss" you can easily prove to yourself that you can make it so that no attack will be anything other then a block, dodge, parry, or miss by using the shield block skill when your total avoidance+block chance is over 25%. You don't need a level 73 mob to show this, simply find a lower level unkillable mob in blasted lands that can land normal hits on you. Then spend 1-10 minutes proving to yourself that as long as shield block is active, even with less than 25% block chance the mob cannot get anything other than a block, parry, dodge or miss. At that point you've got your smoking gun (and yes if you want to save yourself time, people, including myself have done this and other variations that show this.)

I mostly use Dabri's (for the avoidance) and LGG. LGG is only 1500 more maxhp, and a heal but sometimes it's nice to have a larger healthpool for a while, if the healers are in trouble or something. Say you've lost one healer and you need a larger buffer waiting for a combat res. Sure, after the nerf in 2.1 I probably will replace it in the 25 man raids.

Defense rating is not useless after 490, it still adds good avoidance. Almost as good avoidance per point as dodge rating. That makes Styleen's not pure crap, though Dabri's adds more defense.

The GAB is part of my trash gear which has ~650 block value. Great fast threat on trash. Block value probably adds more TPS than AP per point even though it only affects shield slam. But I guess most tanks don't have a problem with threat in 25 mans raids.

Double stamina trinkets is very nice, but since I dropped engineering for blacksmithing I guess the rocket launcher is out of the question.

And to the people talking about a 2-roll, or that you gotta have 25% block for shield block to make you immune to crushings - the census is it's a 1-roll, and there's lots of research to back that up. Present proof or something other than stories or don't drag it into every other discussion about tanking. Thanks.

You are not making any sense. What are you trying to say? Even if you have full tier 5, it's still better to get armor and stamina over shield block on the other slots. The shield block that exists on tier 5 isn't all that useful, you would have preferred more armor, stamina and avoidance on it. (This is why the tier 5 currently on live servers is very weak compared to other gear, i wouldn't use much of it even if i had access to all 5 parts).

For situations where threat is important, shield block is excellent. Max our your hit, and after that go for shield block which is as someone said usually better than ap. I value the stats mostly for boss fights since the trash will die anyway. I haven't really run into any situation where losing aggro is a bigger issue than dying.

Personally I feel Trinkets are always situational and thats how blizzard ment them to be. I feel there is no "Ultimate Trinket" that should never be replaced. I optimize trinkets for whats happening in encounters. When learning content I always put block rating and stamina higher then 100% avoidence because healers are worrying about where to stand, aoe attacks, and managing mana. As we progress through the attempts and the boss becomes "downable" I switch to a balance set of gear and communicate with my healers about issues they may be having. If there are phases that a boss goes through and they are having issues with healing in a certain phase I make sure I have activation trinkets that will assist them throughout that phase.

Remember Tanking is three things
1.Staying Alive
2.Making it as easy as possible on your healers(have you ever had to heal?)
3.Keeping threat on your assigned targets(DPS is simple you click and almost always are not the person leading the raid. DPS can manage their own freaking threat!)

In the next patch, there is a +45 stamina trinket with a pet summon use effect available from th Netherdrake reputation grind.

Nice replacement for the Argussian Compass, or this trinket & the compass would give you a massive +81 stamina bonus for your trinkets.

Remember to take opportunity cost into account. In blue gems, defense and stam trade at a 2/3 ratio (.667). Thus, at that conversion rate (ignoring socket bonuses), the Netherdrake trinket translates into 30 def, making the The Adamantite Figurine a better deal. If you are using any +def gems to get to the 490 cap, you're better servered replacing your def for stam in your gem slots before you replace your Figurine for the Netherdrake trinket or the Argausian Compass in your trinket slot.

It's best to just do both.

That said, a similar argument could be phased as, "In addition, avoidance provides progressively higher mitigation percentages as mob damage scales, wehreas block value does not."

Until such a point that bosses and such stop getting more powerful--which probably won't ever happen--I don't think block will ever really "catch up" other than on small trash.

Apparently the 2 piece moonglade druid 2% dodge set bonus buff stacks on a per druid basis, given enough druids with the set it would be possible, albeit impractical, to do.

I would really like to see a definitive answer to this ongoing question about whether 26.5% block rating + shield block would knock crushing blows off completely (Assuming boss level my math may be off).

Dodged/Parried attacks cannot be blocked and do not eat up shield block charges, So it would seem to me that you can only block a attack that isn't avoided and you need a 100% chance to block that attack for it not to be a crushing blow.

Now does that mean you need 100% block chance or does it mean you need enough block combined with avoidance to push yourself over 100%

I would like to think blizzard would be putting shield block rating on so many items for warriors for a reason because currently warriors can achieve well above the needed avoidance with shield block up if that theory is correct.

What im trying to say is does block raiting have a seperate table after taking into account avoidance.

I currently using Moroes pocket watch Styleens auto blocker and dabri's depending on the fight.

Thank you

At the moment I am using Mark of Tyranny and Styleen's Impeding Scarab (which gets exchanged with Adamantite Figurine from time to time).

Random rambling: 2.38 defense skill rating = 1 defense skill (at level 70)

The reasoning is quite simple really. Mark of Tyranny gives me some dodge (0.63 %) and 198 armor, increasing mitigation from 57.67 % to 58.00 %. A random hit from a boss in BC can be around 15 000 base damage (13 500 after defensive stance), so I lose about 45 damage per hit, 67 damage per crushing blow. That means around 200 damage less taken between full health and death, and some small amount of extra dodge. I prefer this greatly to one of the evasion trinkets since I can guarantee that this will have effect.
For non physical combats or combats with a large elemental component it would obviously better to take another trinket, in which case I would pick Timelapse shard or something.

The Scarab is just a remnant of the past. Block% is both easy to come by and worth very little, but aside from that the 20 defense skill rating is sufficient to put me over the 490 barrier.
The choices are limited, the only thing that could replace this trinket for me while staying above the 490 barrier would be a higher +def trinket.

Adamantite Figurine would give 5 more defense skill (0.6 % total evasion) and an on use effect, but the scarab grants me some block value, which is a reduction of about 0.5 % per hit, assuming that all or at least most hits will be blocked in important boss fights. Again here I prefer to cushion the blows rather than mildly increasing avoidance (steady damage and rage income).
I'm not entirely sure which of the two is better, but the difference is so small that I don't think it even matters. Styleen's WILL improve your aggro by both higher shield slams and a higher rage income, while still providing adequate protection, but the figurine is better for tense moments like a pull or an enrage. I will definitely keep using both and switch them as I think is best.

I think any armor trinket with the current budget would probably blow all the others out of the water, but I doubt we will be getting one any time soon. As you probably noticed I'm an incredible armor whore because I have had too many rage deprivation problems when stacking up even a bit of evasion gear.

One of our tanks uses auto-blocker and scarab mostly when raiding (I think!), if he pops both his mitigation/avoidance is almost shield wall worthy (for melee). From a healer PoV its nice to have a tank that can react with such items to timed events or otherwise unforseen burst damage instead of a passive trinket (although scarab has both!).