Diamedes

I think shield block can be 1 of 2 things end game.

1. In 5 mans and heroics to some extent it can be overpowered, reducing most of the damage you take, considering its easy to have a high shield block rating and shield block ability makes it overpowered in this setting.

2. Now in a 25 man raid setting, where bosses hit a lot harder shield block value becomes all but useless, I mean its nice takin 500-700 damage off of each hit that gets through but its more of mitigation over time and will never save you from anything really. This is not to be confused with the shield block ability and negating crushing blows, just the actual shield block value.

My idea is to keep shield block rating as is, but instead of a standard shield block value, each shields block
value is set to a certain percentage, say 20% and block value is converted into extra percentages but never getting to be too much. So say a normal mob is hitting for 500, 20% of that would be 100 taken off your mitigated damage from armor, you still get rage, reduce damage and its not overpowered. Now in a raid setting, if your gettin hit for 5k a pop, that would be 1000 damage reduced, now this isn't overpowered but its a much nicer reduction in damage and would scale with damage being dealt. And the shield block value would add small percentages because if your shield block% went over 25-30% range then yes it would start being too good on raid mobs.

I realize since the game is balances around our mediocre block value this would make everything easier right now so it would take tuning but Ive heard rumors of the devs taking out crushing blows altogether in an upcoming patch so if this is true than shield block seems to be the best way to increase our mitigation or druids will be the best tanks hands down.(Not that that would be the end of the world, just that we would need something to compensate)

 

Rott

You're way off the mark here.

Shield block value is the absolute best way to increase your threat generated. Shield slam damage is affected by block value, hence it scales nicely. In end-game raiding warriors stack stamina, armor, and shield block value. It's not so much about mitigating damage as it is being able to take hits and generate as much threat as possible so that your dps can push that much harder.

The actual amount you are blocking is not really considered by end-game prot warriors, they are concerned with block value in relation to shield slam damage.

 

Calgar

Agreed with Rott. The threat is the reason tanks take shield block value, not the mitigation.

430ish base damage + block rating

600 block rating

~1000 damage per slam. Innate threat of the skill, plus the damage, modified by defense stance and defiance bonus = a crap ton of threat....like 1500 EASY

That extra 400-500 block value can EASILY account for 100 threat per second, and that means 100-130 more dps per dps'er....given 12-15 dps players, that 500 shield block just allowed you to add something like 1500+ more dps to the raid. Which is like 1.5 more decent rogues.

 

Diamedes

You guys are kinda missing the point, I agree the threat is nice and nothing is changing about the threat scaling except the formula since you'd be blocking for more on raid mobs.

All Im talking about is the mitigation, nothing else would change, As it is right now, shield block rating is all but useless on our gear, we don't need to to block attacks because we already do block every attack that isn't dodged/parried or missed, and the only reason to up your block value at the moment is shield slam threat which is fine right now. Im pretty sure the devs don't intend for shield block rating and shield block value aside from the threat it produces to be useless. Especially if they remove crushing blows and change nothing else, we would need some kind of way to mitigate more damage(and paladins too) to come even close to the mitigation of a bear.

 

• Kelce

TBC moved all ratings away from flat percentages in the first place to allow for level based scalability. Even if they changed it to Shield Block Value rating (or something) it would not be a helpful change since SBv serves threat generation more than it does damage reduction. Besides, 600+ per hit is not an insignificant amount of reduction. Although I just wondered, is that pre or post armor reduction?

 

Diamedes

It would be post armor like it is now. And about 600+ a hit being a significant value, it depends, On a mob hitting you for 1k-2k sure, but the thing is the harder you get hit the worse shield block value gets from a percent mitigated standpoint, that just doesn't seem right to me.

I understand right now if they did this and changed nothing we would essentially be taking much less damage and be overpowered but tuning would be required but it would also give warriors and pallys something to stand out against druid tanks. They are and will always be the kings of armor and stamina, while we would have lower armor but block for more.

 

Rott

Why should warrior's have mitigation close to a feral druid? That's the reason for a feral druid's existence. Warriors avoid more damage than a feral druid, that's how it's designed to work.

To quote the great Samir Nagheenanajar, "Horrible, this idea."

 

◊ Sarutobi

But isn't that already the case now? As it is, yes, druids have more of a health buffer and armor to reduce physical damage slightly more, but warriors and paladins have better avoidance (parry) and the ability to push crushing blows off the hit table (shield block/holy shield).

I guess I just don't see how this could be accomplished without turning druids into 3rd rate tanks.

 

Diamedes

So you're saying if the devs in a future patch remove crushing blows (The main reason warriors and pallys close the gap on druid mitigation) then everything is ok? And you might wanna check some druids raid buffed mitigation levels, they can easily be in 45-55% range before armor comes into play.

But basically in summary you're saying that it would be fine for druids to have the same avoidance as a warrior, more HP in most cases and a ton more armor, with crushing blows removed from the game and its balanced.

 

Rott

Got a link for this supposed crushing blow change? Would be hard to believe because it would require a complete overhaul of tanking warrior/paladin mechanics.

It seems as though you're viewing mitigation and avoidance as the same thing, which it's not.

 

Bandagraph

When comparing druid tanks to warrior/paly tanks, it is important to remember what happense to the classes as gear levels increase.

At karazhan gear levels, warriors get normal hit for aproximately what a druid will get crushed due to armor differences. However, as that warrior's gear level increases, he is gaining both avoidance and armor mitigation. The druid on the other hand only gains avoidance as he/she should already be armor capped at 75% mitigation. Consequently, as the gear levels increase, raid groups will get more benifit from plate wearer's ability to nearly eliminate crushing blows.

The above is the reason that warriors do not need anything to set them apart from druid tanks. They are already superior, and the gap widens as gear improves.

 

Diamedes

I don't have a link, Ive read it on EJ that it was in a dev chat, IRC or something, that crushing blows were something they wanted to look at, and yes it would require a lot of reworking on warriors and paladins, we all know because of that it might never happen.

But if you want to talk about the here and now, I would trade whatever mitigation this new shield block value would give in terms of pure avoidance any day. So if it gives us an extra 10% overall shield block mitigation, Id trade 10% dodge or parry any day. Less spikey damage, even flow of rage, easier to heal, yes please.

 

• Jamor

I think you cheapen the amount of mitigation that comes from blocked.

Blocking 600 damage on a 6K attack is 10%. I think that's a pretty nice chunk of damage to not be taking. With my trinket and 2 pc T5 bonus I block like 950 damage. I would hardly call that "all but useless".

 

Rott

So you're essentially asking for warriors to be turned into druids (alot more mitigation as apposed to avoidance)? The best response has really already been said, warriors are fine just the way they are. This sort of discussion has already been thoroughly covered here and on other forums.

 

Diamedes

Rott like I said earlier, druids can and do have just as much pure avoidance as a warrior, and most raid warriors gear for stam and armor not to be like a druid but because thats the best way to gear, you can't count on avoidance to save you because eventually the worst case scenario is going to happen and your avoidance will fail.

 

Zure

I would place every suggestion in the context of which Blizzard sees as each tanking class's ideal purpose.

It seems the intention is to keep warriors as the clear tanks on fights with significant non-physical damage components (16% reduction) and to give them the ability to all around take the least overall phsycal damage (mitigation + avoidance), at the expense of spikiness. Warriors limitations are the spike dmg potential mentioned before, but more importantly their weakness at generating threat when not being directly damaged.

Druids on the other hand are given the stam + mitigation to produce the most consistent throughput of physical damage, at the expense of taking net more damage (due to lower avoidance and inability to push crushing off the table). Druids also produce the highest single target threat values, and this threat generation is a) very scalable and b) accompanied by higher rage efficiency, making them not need to take much damage in order to build hate.

Finally paladins were given a niche tanking groups of many mobs, as their threat generation scales incredibly well across multiple attackers due to consecrate, holy shield and ret aura. They are limited by the lower health pool they'll have due to the need to itemize other stats, and the mana requirements they face... paladin threat generation is completely unaffected by the damage they take in the short term, but cannot be sustained more than a few minutes without making the paladin's mana regen your raid focus (Spriest + resto shaman for example).

Giving warriors a very high shield block value would turn them into druids by a) removing spike damage and b) allowing them to gear for smoother, sustained rage generation. This is a bad thing as it removes the unique elements that druid tanks bring to the raid.

So in conclusion, even assuming shield block value is useless currently, that's a good thing!

Further, shield block value is very valuable:

a) in non-raid settings is amazing... and not every stat makes sense for every setting (e.g., mp5 in 5 mans, spirit in pvp) And there's another component to this argument -- increase block values too much and 5 mans/fast attacking mobs become absolutely trivial;

b) in raids it is the best scaling element of threat generation... you can't just leave that aside, as threat generation is the most crucial element of many TBC fights with enrage timers and tank deaggros;

c) shield block may be low value, but it's never no value -- it is extra mitigation, just as is extra armor -- it may not be enough for you, but 600 damage off every attack, when say a damage spike takes 3 hits to kill you (e.g., 8k hits with one greater heal landed during the barrage) is akin to having an extra 1800 health. My completely unresearched hunch is that most set gear is so stam heavy already that the 149 additional stamina it would have taken to give an extra 1800 health would probably cost almost as much as the modest shield block value found on warrior set gear now.

 

• redliner

I find Shield Block Value just fine, and it will still be even if this "ghost" of change makes it into the game. (link please) Granted, a change like that would require massive tuning to encounters, itemization and all tanking classes, no doubt about it, but changing Shield Block Value doesn't strike me as a wise move. Druids would be insanely overpowered with the removal of Crushing Blows if the class would be left as is. It won't be the Warrior class that'd be needing tuning.

As has been said several times, Druid tanks shine earlier compared to Warriors. This is in my opinion a slight game flaw, but is completely unrelated to the topic of this thread. Warriors could use some love in the gear dependability-department, but again; Shield Block Value is fine. It's the best threat generating stat and block helps closing the armor gap.

P.S. I want the time spent reading/responding to this thread back. It is a non-issue until someone provides a link saying the -will- change Crushing Blows and in what way. "We want to take a look at Crushing Blows" means nothing.

EDIT: typo

 

◊ Xerophyte

Ho-hum. The best way of upping TPS, is it?

Assume 800 TPS, 70% of listed damage from Shield Slam (20% miss, 10% crit, ~25% DR) and that Shield Slam is used every cooldown

1 Shield Block Value = .7 * 1.45 / 6 = ~.169 TPS
1% additional TPS = 8 TPS = ~47.3 Shield Block Value

That's equivalent to ~30.7 of any combat rating in item budget. Slightly shy of 2% hit, which is slightly more than 2% more threat given 20% avoidance.

Weapon skill rating is likely stronger still, although I admit I am more a little shaky on the mechanics here. Assuming 15 points of skill mean going from ~8% parry, miss & dodge on L73 to ~5% then 30.7 in skill rating is a little more than twice as good as the same amount of hit rating when hitting mobs from the front. However, I could be way off if skill doesn't work the way I think it does...

Anyhoo, point stands: if your goal is improved threat generation, get hit and most likely also weapon skill first. Block value is a nice hybrid threat/avoidance-stat, but certainly not the first choice for either in a raid situation.


Edit: For what it's worth, the TPS spreadsheet ( [Warrior] Tanking TPS sheet. ) is in agreement that both hit & weapon skill are preferable to block value for equal item budget, but I've no clue if it handles skill more correctly than I do.

 

Wensleydale

Kalgan, May 2007, WoW Stratics "Ask the Devs" IRC chat: Yes, we have had a similar discussion regarding crushing blows. We feel they add too random an element for players in endgame content.

http://wow.stratics.com/content/feat.../logs/0001.php

 

suicuique

I'm pretty sure everyone who invests into shield block value has talented Shield Mastery.
As such you just encreased the TPS gains of SBV (shield block value) by 30%.
Thus you get 8 TPS = 36.4 SBV.
I'm not sure how SBV is valued at itemisation level ... but that would be something like 1% crit. Does gearing 1% crit get you 8 TPS in tanking gear? I dont think so.
Increasing your hit rating is a wise idea, but you only can get so far by doing this (as misses are capped). Besides, it's not as if you often have the choice to geht either SBV OR Hit rating on comparable tanking items. I don't see SBV and hit rating as rivaling stats.
And you get hit rating to cut the worst cases, less so to improve aggro ... and even than it's hardly superior to SBV.

The common belief at the moment is that 1 weapon skill gets you .1% less dodge/parry by the mob (though some tests indicate that it only affects dodge twofold, but nor parry). But let's assume 1 weapon skill point gives you .1% less dodge/parry by the mob. Getting 5 skill points (equivalent to 20 skill point rating) would reduce mob avoidance by 1%.
For me that's *roughly* on the same value as investing into SBV. And you have to consider that weapon skill rating on good tanking items is few and far between. Again hardly a competing stat with SBV for this reason alone.

And to add some other point which has been overlooked in this thread: mitigating attacks is upkeeping the rage flow. Avoiding attacks does not.
Try tanking e.g. Lurker (or Tidewalker) in your all out avoidance gear (if you are decently geared you should get more than 50% dodge+parry alone) ... I found the damage dealers in my raid to be threat capped then. Rage starvation is an issue in avoidance sets. Not for mitigation sets though.

 

• Exewut

Look, it's not going to happen.
He specifically says that he thinks it's to random. So they could figure out a way to make it less random, without removing it. Think, 30% of the hits crush now, but only for 125% damage. Vwoila, less random, but the same total damage taken.

Also, I love how magic damage is being totally ignored in this entire argument.

 

stampy

This is an excellent argument in the case where we are considering the ability to design our own gear, but doesn't do so well in the face of actual itemization. Item choices where we can actually use a weapon skill vs. hit vs. block value comparison are not happening.

As far as weapon skill goes, its Mallet of the Tides and Gauntlets of Enforcement, off the top of my head -- unfortunately, no item sites can search on weapon skill, so please let me know if I am missing something. There are no weapons with block value, and the gauntlets have very high block value anyways. There are no decisions to be made concerning weapon skill vs. block value.

There are more items with +hit than with +skill, but in the end the decisions between block value and hit are still rare. I dont think anyone is going to be choosing to wear the T4 chestpiece over T5, regardless of the hit vs. block value. Granted, if I had them both in my bags, I would keep the T4 for for farming aether rays and night elves -- but that isn't a tanking discussion.

The closest there is to a reasonable gear choice question would be the Shield of Impenetrable Darkness vs the Aldori Legacy Defender, and whether or not 18 more (unimproved) block value is better for aggro than 15 hit. Ignoring the armor and stam differences, I think you are correct in valuing the hit, unless the player has gone completely mad with +8 hit gems and is up around 8% hit already.

The reason block value is frequently considered the "best" way to up TPS is that the actual itemization makes block value plentiful, easily available, and stackable without too terrible an impact on mitigation and stamina. Bang per Item Budget is not a valid argument when we are simply not given to option to select the more efficient stat.

 

dukes

There are more reasons you use warriors to tank than just crushing blows. Spell reflect is a required skill for some bosses/mobs unless you want to take very serious risks. 16% straight up magic mitigation is another reason, along with being able to break fear as an innate ability. They also get the best itemised gear for a pure-tanking situation (if druids had pure stam/agi gear with a bit of def or resillience added, it would be insane - warriors get 5-6 stats to spread their focus on which means they get more stat points for itemlevel on well itemised pieces and they get the pieces while druids generally don't for a pure-MT situation).

Block value is a perfectly viable system as it works right now - theres certainly no need to make shield block mitigate a fixed % of damage as it just makes it a second form of armour that works the same against all melee hits (and blizzard have already moved away from %based systems with the rating systems, as things were scaling too seriously for TBC).

 

• Jamor

My opinion is that for pure threat gains, +hit up to the cap is a cheaper way to get that done. Over an extended time line, +hit up to the miss cap will correlate into threat directly via a %.