As majority of the warriors are at combat table full coverage, I'll reinstate my opinion from few months past

Get all the socket bonuses you can, still work heavily towards mastery (with enchants / reforges). Depending on the boss fight, swap trinkets. Just swapping trinkets would change 5-6% of combat table coverage. At least for me, it is still barely possible to go with scales of life and stamina flask and cover full combat table without temporary buffs.

In late future, it is likely to hit to trinket-capped (using two no avoidance / mitigation trinkets and covering full ctc), at that time this may need a re-discussion.

However, as healers get geared, heal costs stay the same, they gain more regeneration and cast bigger heals. Obviously bosses will start to hit much harder. At that point, getting full CTC along with all the stamina you can get to give healers some more time to avoid casting fast heals at all should be the most efficient way.

I'm still yet to get an answer in detail with my healers about this topic, if we have some main tank healers here, I think they could guide us much better than on what they would prefer.

By the way, has anyone tested how the crit block bonus from shield block works with temporary mastery buffs? As in does it dynamically update, so that if halfway through shield block Porcelain crab procs, do you get the massive amount of extra crit block through SB too? Or, if the buff is just fading and you activate shield block just before it, does the crit block from SB go down once the mastery proc fades?

I'm having trouble finding answers to a couple of questions.
1) My equipped Ilvl is 378, and as best I can tell I have all the proper gems and enchants, and everything is reforged to mastery where possible, otherwise I've got parry into dodge to bring them close to equal. But with all that, I'm not sitting anywhere close to 102.4% CTC. Right now, unbuffed I have 15.10%dodge, 16.19% parry, and 60.44% block, totalling 91.73%. I'm night elf, so I guess that puts me at 93.73 total? Am i missing something about my calculations? Or something in my gear? Or possibly something about how CTC works that i'm not understanding? If someone could take a peek at my armory and clarify, I'd appreciate it.

2) About meta gems, I'm using [Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond] which I'm pretty sure will not meet up to the other two meta choices, [Austere Shadowspirit Diamond] or [Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond], but thought it was worth discussing. Since I'm NOT at CTC, it seems i need all the mastery I can get. And, by using Fleet, It allows me to put +50 mastery on my boots instead of Lavawalker. So the total tradeoff is 69 mastery for 81 stam + one of the bonuses from the other two metas, either 1% shield block or 2% armor value.

...After working this out as I type I think I've just answered my own question, [Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond] just doesn't make the cut. So now my question is, which of the other 2 is best?

1. Reaching full CTC at 378 ilvl will require extremely specific and well-itemized gear (including certain heroic T11 items, such as the Al'Akir cloak), as well as full raid buffs, mastery elixirs, and mastery food. Realistically, you won't block cap until you've gotten a lot of 391s. It's not as hard as it would be if you weren't a night elf, but it's still far from trivial.

Quick tip: use the 365 cloak from the Thrall questline instead of the 378 rep cloak. Mantle of Patience is the name, if I remember correctly.

2. At high block amounts, Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond is technically superior to the Austere gem in terms of raw DTPS (damage taken per second), but it's a miniscule difference. Personally, I recommend the Austere gem until you're actually block capped, since it'll make those occasional unblocked hits a bit less lethal, which the Eternal gem won't do.

EDIT: You're actually at 98.73% unbuffed. There's a base 5% chance on the combat table. Night elves have 2% extra from their racial, so add up your dodge, block, and parry, then add 7% to get your current combat table coverage.

Brewxane, full CTC is reachable for you. But you do need the 365 cloak, and to use mastery elixir + food, and also either get the engineering-crafter 365 gun, or use the mastery DPS rep trinket, or switch alchemy for blacksmithing, or go full mastery on some sockets. reforging that chest dodge->mastery would be preferred too. and a block meta gem.

like this: chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm

(that has exactly 102.4 for a nelf, awesome, isnt it?)

That actually won't affect his block chance, just the amount of damage absorbed when he does block. He should be using it once he's block capped, though.

Is it actually worth using that meta gem right now? I haven't read up alot at all on Prot lately but I'd like to get back into it like I used to in Tbc and Wotlk, its just that I only see people using the 2% AV one

Past a certain amount of block, the Eternal gem is better in terms of raw DTPS (damage taken per second).

However, if you're not block capped, the Eternal meta gem will make your damage intake spikier than the armor gem, since the unblocked hits will be bigger.

It's a miniscule difference either way, though. Personally, I'm still using the Austere gem because unblocked hits are scary enough as it is.

If unhitability also causes uncritability, could we investigate how speccing 2/2 Tactical Mastery and changing to Battle Stance for Colossus Smash as a primary filler would affect our damage output?

Un-crittability assumes the benefits of Defensive Stance prior to CTC. Currently, it's recommended that if you're going to switch to Battle Stance to use Colossus Smash, you do so when you're absolutely certain you're not going to take any damage spikes during your time in Battle Stance.

Which talent is this? Are you referring to Bastion of Defense? If so, it does not offer Crit immunity- it reduces the Warrior's chance to be Crit by 3/6% while in Defensive Stance. It does not apply to other stances.