http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

Just posting this here to get some solutions from a different source, and to make sure all the numbers are right. Also, agree or disagree?

I think you're being a bit harsh on poor block rating.

Block rating is the 2nd cheapest defensive budget stat(7.9 Block rating = 1% Block, 2.4 def rating = 1 def).
When shield block is not up, having a nice cushion to fall back on for added mitigation is never a bad thing, this is especially true on fast attacking bosses.
Shield Block Value(Not rating) is an excellent source of damage mitigation when you have the natural block rating to back it up, most tanks have stacked up on block value to increase their TPS to begin with(Shield Slam).
I also think that if somebody were trying to stack up their total avoidance to the 85%-100% range they'd find that easiest to do with Block Rating.

I've discussed this topic many times in the past during my 2+ year tenure as a Warrior MT. I have to generally agree with the linked thread that Shield Block% is virtually pointless for a Warrior, unless you're talking about heavy time spent trash mob tanking. For optimizing boss fight mitigation or survivability, it's not really a useful stat by any particular measure.

There are some interesting numbers floating around about how T5 geared Warriors can fill up their entire combat table in a passive way due to the cheapness of Block%, though...which is a curious prospect. If that's true, then there may be a use for it--but I can hardly think that Blizzard would find that the "intended" use of the stat. Who knows though?

I suppose if you are in the position to make a run for the "full passive combat table" thing, it can be an interesting stat. Otherwise, it is primarily just fluff added on to items to fill up the budget. I've always wished that it could either be replaced on items or made a bit more useful.

Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, some trash situations also benifit from it in rare occasions. For instance, the old example of Demo Shout tanking the Fankriss adds...never hurt to have some extra block rating/value there. Boss fights just don't benifit much from it in the long run though.

Yep, unless you can fill the combat table to be crush immune without Shield Block up, this stat is pretty pointless against anything that hits hard like raid bosses. Makes me wonder why it appears so frequently on high end raiding armor.

Hmm, after much browsing of wowhead, this setup is interesting:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30889
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30980
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30970
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30974
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30976
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19431
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32501
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30028
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30083
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30007
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30096
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32267
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30116
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29925
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32253
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30874
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32515

This combination of gear gets: 229 block rating, 88 parry rating, 172 dodge rating, 77 agility, and 429 defense rating. Naked, I have a 10.8% chance to block and parry, a 4.75% chance to dodge, and 5.2% chance to be missed. That's 31.55% avoidance. The gear adds 36.14% chance to block, 9.94% chance to parry, 18.82% chance to dodge, and a 7.15% increased chance to be missed. That brings the total avoidance to 103.6%. Now, I don't know if you need 102.5% or 100%, so if someone could clarify that, it would be awesome. I think it's really cool that with this gear, you don't have to use any of the 16 gem slots for avoidance, and you can still be passively immune.

as said before shield block rating has its use. when you gathered enough gear with alot of ratings on it you won't need shield block, not shield block rating.

shield block rating is cool, cause its cheap and when we block we still get hit and get rage from getting hit.
our biggest rage-source as a tank is to get hit, i don't want to parry/dodge every hit. i couldn't hold threat that way.

so everything is fine and at the time i reach crushing immunity i will kick shield block out of my action bar

shield block buff gives us only crushing immunity for 2 hits, that is a problem, you are not immune all the time.

While being passively crush immune is nice, I'm not sure if it outweights the sacrifice of other stats (HP/AC/avoidance) on gear. I don't know how common it is for raid bosses to eat up the charges of shield block and get an unblocked hit in.

I see some potential for dual wielding bosses though, where "only" 84.6 % (?) avoidance is needed to be crush immune.
Seeing the spike potential of Prince Malchezaar, the old Romulo (MH, OH, Poisonous Thrust and Deadly Swathe all at the same same time stap, yay), and having Illidan as another potential dual wielder on the horizon, I'd say block rating is nice to have for an gear set against dual wielders.

My major issue with block rating is that it's mostly useless unless you're at ~85% block+avoidance. So you need to stack block rating to a certain extent before it starts having any actual effect. And even then, I'm not sure if it's worth the sacrifices.

For one I do believe that is the intended use of shield block rating. If it wasn't intended and just an oversight, there probably would be block rating gems too.

Also, I do think getting naturally crush immune is worth some total avoidance and hp sacrifices. Even on slow and hard hitting bosses, like Magtheridon, getting crushed is quite probable if you forget to refresh shield block right at its cooldown. But I also believe that it's not worth even trying unless you know you can hit 102.4% dodge+parry+block+miss.

If it was possible for me, I would go as far as drop 2k unbuffed hp and any amount of dodge+parry+miss just to get naturally crush immune. Blocked hits are very steady dps to be healed and total crush immunity eliminates unexpected bursts completely.

I disagree. I believe Shield Block rating is a slight oversight, Blizzard didn't give much thought to it.

First of all, its a paladin stat. Since paladins Holy Shield only grants 30-35% blockchance, they need blockrating or other avoidance to push Crushing blows off. Since blockrating is teh cheapest stat, its favorable for paladin tanks.

However, i don't believe Blizzard gave much thought to blockrating and warriors. They just slapped some blockrating on some of the gear, and thats it. Its very similar to the druid Tier 4 gloves right now, 24 critrating is a Complete waste stat for a druid, and we are still petitioning for them to make it 24 agility instead:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29097 - Gauntlets of Malorne

Blizzard itemization department isn't the smartest thing i ever met. I don' believe they will change blockrating anytime soon because, quite honestly, i don't believe they ever "intended" anything with it other than having once more fancy stat to throw on an item so it wouldn't get too much parry/dodge/stamina/armor and make warrior tanks overpowered.

I could be wrong of course.

About the sacrifice of HP/AC for the passive immunity: If you look at the gear I listed to attain passive immunity, the worst piece of gear is the gloves from void reaver and the tier 5 leggings. This means that clearly, armor class not sacrificed at all. Also, NO GEMS were used in the achievement of the immunity, so you can use fifteen 12stam gems and one 18stam gem. With the gear listed, you'd be at around 15-16k unbuffed, with passive immunity to crushing blows.

That's some confusing expression. Half of the people who read that thread now thinks you really cannot block what would otherwise be a crush right now. You might want to clarify that.

Has this been confusing too?

Changed it to:
If the combat system rolls, and decides that you're going to be crushed, you can't block, there is no second check/roll.

Absolutley no offense intended but I think that's even worse. Try:
Even including 'second roll' makes me twitch a little bit.

If you actually could hit 102.4% dodge+parry+block+miss, there'd also be no need to hit the defence cap as you couldn't be crit either. You could just stand there like a muffin uncrittable and uncrushable right up until you met a boss with a stun and got absolutely wrecked when all that avoidance is suddenly nullified

I find it very interesting that if Tennisplaya's maths are right, there's a set available right now that can hit that without even taking into account gems and enchants. Just as the goal of WoW 1.x early raid tanking gear was to reach the defence cap (remember, the awesome blues necessary to do it pre-MC did not exist in the early days), and since then has really been to max stamina since the defence cap is so easy to reach, perhaps the new goal is: reach crush immunity without gimping yourselves.

Illidan will certainly duel wield and given that this is Blizzard, an attacks-speed-hasten enrage on a duel wielding final boss is pretty likely. It's quite possible that an Illidan MT must reach crush immunity or else be unhealable, and that the itemisation is quietly working towards that.

I second that. The idea of being crit and crush immune is extremely tempting as a tank. In reality, there are very few bosses that you can be 100% crush immune with shield block. Even Gruul will slip an attack in between the shield blocks every now and then, with TF/Imp TC on him.

The set provided would actually not hurt a same level comparable tank set too much, and as previously stated all 16 gem slots are still open.

As far as Illidan goes, supposedly Nihilum will be releasing a video soon. Hpefully it shows what kind of damage hes putting out.

rk you are completly right, but don't forget. defense gives us avoidance .

Defense gives you a lot of different effects, but not much of each. If I remember correctly dodge rating gives you more avoidance than defense for the same item budget.

If defense would be nerfed in a way that makes crit immunity difficult, we could expect half of all gruul attempts to be wipes due to bad luck and nothing else. The early BC raids, unlike MC, were designed for crit immune tanks.

These tanks will never have such a set. Imagine you have to refarm a lot of your gear to get the gimmick stat block rating up to the required level.

Yes, I think you are.

1) Getting crit immune is not difficult, but a significant nerf would make it nontrivial. Especially for guild entering the raid game. And perhaps for druids (guessing here).
I dont think Blizzard wants to harass startup guilds anymore then they did pre 2.1

2) It would leave resist fight in the cold. Getting crit immune there is quite a task. Even now.

3) Getting crit immune is not as optional as it was in good old MC days. I dont think Blizzard wants to balance fights around the assumption that crits can get thrugh here and there.

Crit immunity is here to stay.
As referance see the official statements to randomness the crushing blows bring. Crits are even worse.
Can you imagine tanking Vashj without being crit immune?
I cant.

I'm not saying crit immunity should go away (of course not). But I find it weird that people can be completely ignoring +def gems or socket bonuses starting before entering Karazhan.

You both ignored another option of what I wrote: What if defense stopped affecting miss rate, and the impact on dodge, parry and block was adjusted?

Ok, maybe it wont be defense they do something to. But there is an issue here I'm sure they'll address.

Why should it?
There are ways to lower one's miss rate (+hit, weapon skill). Why should there be no way to raise the opponents miss rate?

Especially seeing that the crit reducing and miss raising part of def is working when you are stunned, feared, sleeped, etc.

I'd rather have them remove the other parts of def than miss und crit.
And frankly I still do not see why you think that part of def skill should be adjusted.

Sockets are there for customizing your gear to your play style, the bonuses aren't meant to make or break a piece.

If defense stopped affecting the miss rate and dodge/parry/block rates were upped to compensate for there wouldn't be a huge difference.

If you're sure there's an issue here then just spit it out and stop rambling.

Interesting. What kind of stamina does this set provide if you socket all +12 stamina gems in?