Liar

Isn't the meta gem you speak of increasing the block value instead of the rating?

EDIT: [Eternal Earthstorm Diamond]?

 

Xav

Yea, Emeraude probably misread it It would take a pretty block-rating focused item set to become crush immune still, and the sacrifice is indeed lots of "real" avoidance, health, and threat stats.

 

suicuique

I beg to disagree. Without too much hassle you get into the last 15% of the combat table when you are at the content clear level. This is *without* equipping clearly inferior items, but with 4 T6 , Illidan helmet, neck form RoS, ...

Saying that block rating is useless at this point is delusional.

Though going all the way to being passively crush immune isn't worth it ..
I tanked Gorefined once in such a set, aggro seemed more of an issue to me ... could have been an unlucky try though.

EDIT: And yes, I know what shield block is for ... but rage starvation, lag issues, movement requirements etc do happen.

 

Darkrenown

The new meta is 10% value, not rating.

Edit: Going for dinner and not refreshing the page before posting FTL.

 

Xav

I'm at 82% "avoidance" unbuffed in my typical tank gear on live right now. It would take another 20% avoidance to become uncrushable. That's a ridiculous amount of block rating needed, and it's so much that you would have to stack items SPECIFICALLY FOR IT to reach the crush immune level. Which is pointless, since you can get better survivability (especially now with fewer and fewer crushing bosses) by using the itemization points on other stats.

I don't think anyone is going to agree with you.

 

galzohar

Not only fewer crushing bosses, but also higher expertise means less parries which means less crushes, therefore less value to be passively crush immune.

 

suicuique

You'r implicating that cutting INTO the crushing 15% is not worth it: "Either be crushing immune or don't care"

Again I disagree.

For your reference ... this would be my stats:
22 expertise, 17054 HP, 97% avoidance (block, parry, dodge, miss) vs Lvl 73 mobs

all completely unbuffed
In my eyes equipping another item (expertise + blockrating would be nice) would be very much worth it.

EDIT: and yes , against current bosses being crush immune may be not worth it ... but that is a consequence of being at the farm level and current bossdesign. Not of block rating being per se worthless.

 

Xav

You have to completely remove all chances of crushing in order to not be crushed when the boss rolls a crush, due to the way crushing blows fall in the hit table.

Miss
Dodge
Parry
Block
Crushing Blow
Hit

If a boss rolls a crushing blow, and you still have crushing blow remaining on your combat table for the boss, it will always crush you. There's a guide about it, most notably by Satrina and mirrored in many places, that lays this out. You can test it pretty easily as well, I've seen it in person wearing a halfass uncrushable set while soloing Garr, and always getting crushed by him, and then avoiding absolutely everything else for the rest of the duration. It was no damage for a long time, and then a crush.

Uncrushable - TheorySpot

 

suicuique

Sigh, I know how the combat table works. Thank you very much.
If I am cutting 5% into the last 15% of the combat table, I will get crushed 10% of the swings.
That is in contrast of being crushed 15% in the other case.

What's this anecdotal telling for? That someone who is not bing crush immune is crushable? I would have guessed so.
You have missed my point completely, if you think that tank A in a half crush immune set (avoidance at 92.5%) will get crushed as many time as tank B wearing a set which does not cut into the last 15% of the combat table.

 

suicuique

Besides, you wrote

This goes against all that I know of the combat mechanics. A boss does not "roll a crushing blow", the same like he doesn't roll a critical hit. He just rolls a number, which is looked up in your current combat table (being up to date to your stats and the stats of the mob). This process decides if it is miss, dodge, parry, crushing blow, a crit or a simple hit.

Either you or me are horrible wrong.

 

Dots

That is indeed crap, your chance to be crushed is simply the % that you did not cover with miss, dodge, parry or block.
Oh and there are sadly still two items left with shield block rating on them; the Sunwell shield and shoulders.

 

Xav

Yeah, sorry, I just worded some stuff rather poorly. I just meant you're going to still get crushed, even if it's 5% vs 15%, either way, it's itemization points spent on reducing something that is almost always nullified via shield block. Rather than using it on a better stat.

Cutting into the crush chance you have isn't really a great use of your itemization points until the potential is gone completely, in my opinion. Statistically sure you're going to take less damage if you cut into that last 15%, but it's very minor. When shield block is down and a boss gets some attacks by, you're still going to have a chance of getting crushed. Gorefiend is a decent example, cutting into the 15% is great, and may leave you with 5% - but that's still a 5% chance he's going to land a, say, 10-15k crushing on you depending on buffs & debuffs. All that gearing towards block rating hasn't actually reduced the chance to take a huge damage spike by much. I'm sure if it was modeled, we might be able to see that converting block rating points into dodge rating would increase life expectancy even in burst situations.

To me it's like the poor itemizing of some other classes; Agility on Enhancement Shaman gear, sure it gives them crit, but the rest of the stat is mostly wasted.

They could simply use the block rating points on dodge rating, for example, and cut into that same 15% by a lesser amount, but also make you take far less damage overall in the long run by having it affect all other attacks as well. That's why I find it to be almost entirely a waste unless you're taking crushing blows out completely for some reason.

 

Moogul

Just because there's a better way to spend item budget doesn't mean that one way is a waste. Sure, I'd much rather have crit rating over agility on my dps gear, but that still doesn't make agi a 'wasted' stat.

I turned fury a while back as my main roll, so I'm not a cutting-edge tank anymore, but from everything I've seen and read, T6 tanks are pushing pretty high levels of avoidance these days. It doesn't seem that farfetched to me for tanks to start eating into crushing blows passively without particularly gearing for it.

Add in our new friend [Commendation of Kael'thas] and you could be cancelling all crushing blows below 35% whilst only having to get about 94% total avoidance.

Is this necessarily optimal? Perhaps not. I generally don't like block rating, I'd agree that it is *near* useless, but I wouldn't go so far as to say completely useless - that would just be hyperbole.

 

Lambach

You guys arguing for block rating are completely ridiculous. Of course it isnt useless, its not like its int. But its a poor expenditure of ilevel, whicih makes items of lower ilvl superior, and thus makes items that are poorly itemized(such as block rating or agility for enh shamans) inferior. Its not about what is on the item, but what should have been on the item instead to make it a proper placement item for the content.

 

◊ Quigon

Why are we arguing that shield block rating is useful? I guess its useful - so is uh, spirit. It helps my downtime regen!

Shield block rating does NOTHING to lower your crushing blows - except under rather silly circumstances. Even by the numbers it is a terrible cost expenditure on mitigation as most of the gains are pseudo - you have a guaranteed block up anyway most of the time... people fail to neglect that calculation: even above 85% avoidance, hitting shield block will cut into the "effective" usefulness of shield block rating beyond 85% the vast, vast majority of the time. Whereas, raw avoidance will likely not. This simple fact in and of itself usurps the entire ridiculous argument above. I have to agree strongly with Xaviera et al here.

In order for block rating to be better than dodge rating: you would have to have greater than 85% block+raw avoidance, and then somehow STILL have 41.7% of all incoming attacks by the boss come when you do not have shield block buff protection up (which means that more than a third of the time you don't have shield block up at all... in which case you probably are asking - why do they let me tank?) Further, the odds of a boss cutting through both of your blocks in 5 seconds with that high of a level of avoidance is fairly minimal. And which difficult bosses crush exactly? You're better off with expertise, dodge, parry, stamina, agi, etc for mitigation - even at the endpoints.

Basically, if you're wearing gear where you're cutting into the boss's chance to crush you, even with modern gear, you're probably not making the best gear choices. Anyway, I know this post will be followed up with some rad specs and gear load-outs to "prove me wrong". Whatever...

Bottom line on shield block rating: If I have to take it, I will. It isn't "useless" but it isn't better than anything else we could get - defense, stamina, dodge, etc etc etc. Blocking on regular attacks is great mitigation, but it doesn't add up in this case. If you're choosing 25 block rating over 25 dodge rating (or almost any rating) though, I think you need to seriously reevaluate your WWS reports (that was edited for niceness).

As Lambach says - arguing this point is utterly ridiculous. In fact his post is just a shorter version of this one, eh?

 

Dots

Not sure why you would say that, standard t6 avoidance gear cuts pretty far into the crush %, almost to the point of being passively uncrushable with normal raid buffs (about 2% or so left). That is without using any special block rating gear or avoidance gems etc.

 

◊ Quigon

It'll basically get you beyond 85%, but you shouldn't be (much) going over. You need to actually get to 87.4% avoidance I believe. Anyway, your point is certainly valid, even if slightly overstated (as my own was). But the fact remains that the rating itself is partially negated by the ability of shield block. If you want to be passively immune you're still making sacrifices pre-2.4, so you'll be blocking regardless. In which case, other ratings become superior.

 

suicuique

I still don't get it. Perhaps I am a bit dense or something, and someone can persuade me that at this point of the game block rating is a way worse stat than other stats to me. (That said I am still an avid supporter vor avoidance tanking where it is usefull .. I usually tank Shahraz with more 58% dodge+parry)

But let me explain. In an upper post of mine I had a severe miscalculation (quickly done and promptly failed), so these would be my correct stats in "crush gear:"

17054 HP
22 expertise (Defiance, Brutalizer, Heroic Badge neck and wrist), 64 hit rating, ca 14% crit
97.6% of 102.4% to being passively crush immune
all completely unbuffed

With an agility potion that would be 98.77% (49.8% would be combined dodge+parry).
Without MotW, BoK, Insect Swarm, ...
Heck just eating some agi food would bring that to 99.44%

To get to this the only concession I had to do to my "optimal tanking aggro gear" would be T6 gloves instead of Terons, the Tirisfalen random ring from TK instead of Supremus ring, and good old Styleens instead of whatever (Darkmoon Card, Moroes Watch, ...). I did not gem for that explicitely. In fact I use Sapphirons shoulder enchant and the ZG enchant on the head slot. Else I use 15 STA gems exlusively.

As far as I can tell, aggro in this (non passive crush immune yet) set is good. Block rating at this level is almost as good as a pure avoidance stat ... gives steady rage generation, steady damage, prevents crushings the same as avoidance. And getting the last or so needed % would free me up from shield block duty. Not that this is difficult to do, but this would save at most 120 rage a minute.

Bossdesign at the moment does certainly not call for being crush immune (I suppose because of letting ferals be viable) at the moment, and perhaps I am misguided or blind, but I just don't see how I misspent useful stats to get to this point or how block rating is useless to me.

YMMV

 

Edgewalker

Because, simply put, if it is going to hit hard enough to kill you, it isn't a boss that crushes you.
There is nothing in the game currently that a tank has a chance of dying on that crushes (end game content wise, before Karazhan/T4-5 tanks complain about Tidewalker). Period.

Crush immune sets are possible to get without sacrificing all that much, but at the end of the day, there is absolutely 100% zero point in ever making a crush immunity set.

Also, I can't be the only one that allows controlled crushes through for rage? I know Marauder did occasionally, you absolutely have to love them for easy mode tanking sometimes...

 

suicuique

As I too already have stated bossdesign at the moment does not need "uncrushability". I agree.
And yes, I do neglect shield blocking sometimes if I need rage and I am nowhere near dying. Just to get rage.
But would I need other tanking stats in these cases? Certainly no dodge or parry or def or STA.

If people want to derive from these points that shield block as a stat per se is worthless, so be it.

 

• Jamor

I would think most tanks in T6 don't shield block for threat a lot of the time.

 

◊ Quigon

Agility elixirs, foods, and even insect swarm are not considered standard raid buffs/debuffs. They may be for one guild, but not for most.
Scorpid sting on the other hand is commonly used.

You can modify ideal gear as edgewalker said, without too much hassle. But there are a lot of points here. One is simply that shield block rating is not as good as it sounds on first glance, UNLESS you never press the shield block ability. Usually this makes raw avoidance better. The second issue is hard bosses don't typically crush. And a third is typically a sacrifice - gear or buff/debuff choice. An agility elixir for a flask and/or food? 750 hp for a bit more avoidance? This stuff adds up - fast too if you're not already done with the game. And at which point if you ARE done with the game, who gives a shit.

If you're progressing on Teron (or far worse: anything in tier 5) and trying to make a crush immune set I think you'll have to sacrifice far more than someone who has farmed everything and could probably kill most bosses without any talent points allocated.

 

Arko

Not necessarily. If want to socket your t6 level gear for avoidance anyways, passive crush immunity will just come naturally as an added bonus. I more or less discovered "oh look, I'm already immune" without even trying.

The question comes down to whether you consider an avoidance set in itself a sacrifice. That really depends more on swing timers, threat and elemental damage than on crushing blows.

 

MeCh

Are you saying that you want to socket t6 level gear with avoidance? Because if you are, you completely ignored everything Quigon was advocating in his OP, and the numerous reasons why you don't socket for avoidance. There are sacrifices made by gemming a certain way.

 

mercedes

Putting the merits of using dodge spinels aside, I'm just amazed you guys had enough spare spinels for you to get 3 for your tanking gear. Our wait list for spinels is like 15+ long.