It's very frustrating for many of us that understand the mechanics of crushing blows to see false information constantly posted on the warrior forums and consequently 'guiding' new warriors in the wrong direction. Hopefully this post will clear up some confusion on crushing blows and crits. I dunno, maybe a sticky? Regardless, for a complete detailed explanation on these mechanics, please visit Satrina's work at http://www.evilempireguild.org/guides/block.php - Everything you need to know is right there.

This post is mostly a 'sum-up', and does not touch on the finer details of the hit table, and other such mechanics. But for beginner warriors that don't understand the basic rules of crushing blows, and block, this might be helpful.

By all means, if you notice an error, please let me know, and I will correct it.

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Crushing Blows and Crits are not the same!

First of all, assuming your defense skill is at 350 at level 70, only mobs 3 levels or higher can land crushing blows. However, any mob can crit.

Crits: Can mostly be eliminated by gear. Each point of defense decreases your chance to be crit by 0.04%. For a level 73 mob (ie. most bosses), you need 490 defense to eliminate crits entirely. Actually, complete immunity has been suggested to be impossible, but having 490 defense is as close to crit immune as you can get. They're a statistical freak occurance at this point. (There are still reports of very infrequent crits at 490, however they seem to be based on bosses having different offensive stats, or they may simply just be a statistical freak occurance. Either way, they're so incredibly infrequent, that it's not really worth worrying about.)

Crushing Blows: These cannot be reduced in any way through normal gearing. (ie. Defense does not reduce them.) They'll hit you 15% of the time no matter what gear you have. The only exception to this rule is this:

On the hit table, everytime a mob swings at you - misses, blocks, parries, and dodges are all listed on the combat table before crushing blows. Therefore if you can push your combined chance to be missed, block, dodge, and parry to 102.4%, there's no room left for a crushing blow.

Why 102.4%? Short answer would be because level 73 mobs have an extra 2.4% chance to hit you that you need to make up for. This magical number is typically achieved by using shield block. (an extra 75% chance to block when it's activated). Therefore assuming you have 27.4% chance to dodge, parry, and block normally (hardly difficult), you will not receive crushing blows while shield block is up. (It should be noted that some bosses have skills that reduce your avoidance etc... but through normal game mechanics, this rule is fact.)

Therefore despite what you may hear some warriors claim, you do NOT need 25% block rating to prevent crushing blows. First of all, it's 27.4% on 73 mobs, and secondly, it's 27.4% combined chance to dodge, parry, block, and be missed. So actually, as an example, as long as your parry and dodge add up to 27.4%, you don't need any block rating at all.




Block Value vs. Rating

Block Rating - This converts into a percentage that represents your CHANCE to block.

Block Value - This represents the solid amount of damage that's mitigated each time you block. More importantly, it also increases your shield slam damage by 1 for each extra point of block value.

Unless you have a mod that adds it up for you, you can find out your block value by simply adding the block on your shield, with all your +block value items in your gear........ Roughly 20 Strength also converts to 1 block value. The actual formula is ((Str / 20) - 1).

It should also be noted that 1H Weapon Specialization and Shield Mastery both increase shield slam damage as well.




Why is block rating (not value) a mostly useless stat?

Because dodge and parry are listed on the hit table before block. (easily tested by using shield block, and then watching yourself still dodge and parry attacks before the shield block charges are used). This means that by increasing stats like dodge and parry, it pushes off other stats that appear later on the hit table. (This is the same concept as using your 75% extra block from shield block to push crushing blows off the table.)

Most warriors will easily have around 40-50% combined chance to block, dodge, and parry right? So when you use shield block, this will push you to 115-125% chance overall. Since we know that dodge and parry appear first on the hit table, and thus will still get used to their full statistical potential while shield block is up, that extra 15%-25% (minus 2.4% of course) is the rest of your block. Therefore whenever you have shield block active (ie. hopefully all the time), any amount of extra block rating is in fact doing nothing. If you're still confused about this concept, you can find a much more detailed explanation at http://www.evilempireguild.org/guides/block.php

Block VALUE however is amazing. Forget the amount of damage you mitigate each time you block for a moment. That's nice to have, and can potentially make a huge difference in large numbers, but as far as threat is concerned, block value can be ridiculously valuable. Since your block value equates to extra shield slam damage (at a ratio of 1:1), this becomes extremely important for maximizing threat. Since threat values are static for most of our abilities, this becomes arguably one of the most effective ways to scale it. Block value becomes sorta like our +dmg or +healing for our threat in a sense.

It's a mostly overview picture of how these mechanics work, but hopefully that clears it up for some people.

This is information that every tank should know, and it is amazingly frustrating reading posts from well meaning but poorly informed tanks on these issues. Thank you very much for this post. I've reported this for a sticky and hope that all the other tanks reading this post do the same!

How do you report for sticky?

Yes, this about sums it up. So frustrating that in every single constructive conversation about tanking, some ignorant tank pops in and says "You need to get your Block Value up to 25%! so you won't be crushed!" *sigh*

REPORTED!

And also to the guy above me, you click the Biohazard symbol next to the OP's name.

Also some great information on tanking as a warrior and specifically on the subject of Crushing Blows, Defense, Block Rating and Block Value here:

http://evilempireguild.org/guides/crushing.php

having just read:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=110561709&sid=1
i put this one up as a sticky too... just some concise, basic information that every warrior needs to know and half of them seem not to

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Q u o t e:

Why is block rating (not value) a mostly useless stat?

Because dodge and parry are calculated before block on the hit table. (easily tested by using shield block, and then watching yourself still dodge and parry attacks before the shield block charges are used).

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Sorry but dodge parry and block are all calculated at the same time they just function differently. My chance to dodge and parry will reduce a mobs chance to hit me. Block consumes that mobs chance to hit me. Meaning that block does not push off my own chance to dodge and parry but rather it pushes off a mob's hit, crit, and crush replacing it with a blocked hit.

So if we look at the table a mob has when he attacks.

Dodge
Parry
Miss
Blocked hit
Hit
Crit
Crush

Now the mob rolls a number and wherever that falls that's the action that's preformed. But if i pop shield block.

Dodge
Parry
Miss
Blocked Hit

Block just fills in where the hit values were. The mob still only rolls once, and the chance to dodge parry and miss are all still there.

Not saying your incorrect about shield block ratings value to a tanking warrior, but you were going for accuracy.

Thanks very much for the feedback. :)

I'll take a specific look at possibly re-wording things when I get home from work. Hehe... I've wasted enough company time as it is :P

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Q u o t e:
It's very frustrating for many of us that understand the mechanics of crushing blows to see misinformation constantly posted on the warrior forums and consequently 'guiding' new warriors in the wrong direction. Hopefully this post will clear up some confusion on crushing blows and crits. I dunno, maybe a sticky? Regardless, for a complete detailed explanation on these mechanics, please visit Satrina's work at www.evilempireguild.org. There is some out-dated information on the site nowadays, but the mechanics of block and crushing blows are still accurate.

This post is mostly a 'sum-up', and does not touch on the finer details of the hit table, and other such mechanics. But for beginner warriors that don't understand the basic rules of crushing blows, and block, this may be helpful.

By all means, if you notice an error, please let me know, and I will correct it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crushing Blows and Crits are not the same!

Crits: Can mostly be eliminated by gear. Each point of defense decreases your chance to be crit by 0.04%. For a level 73 mob (ie. most bosses), you need 490 defense to eliminate crits entirely. Actually, complete immunity has been suggested to be impossible, but having 490 defense is as close to crit immune as you can get. They're a statistical freak occurance at this point. (There are still reports of very infrequent crits at 490, however they seem to be based on bosses having different offensive stats, or they may simply just be a statistical freak occurance. Either way, they're so incredibly infrequent, that it's not really worth worrying about.)

Crushing Blows:These cannot be reduced in any way through normal gearing. (ie. Defense does not reduce them.) They'll hit you 15% of the time no matter what gear you have. The only exception to this rule is this:
On the hit table, everytime a mob swings at you - misses, blocks, parries, and dodges are all calculated before crushing blows. Therefore if you can push your combined chance to be missed, block, dodge, and parry to 102.4%, there's no room left for a crushing blow. Why 102.4%? Short answer would be because Lvl 73 mobs have an extra 2.4% chance to hit you that you need to make up for. This magical number is typically achieved by using shield block. (an extra 75% chance to block when it's activated). Therefore assuming you have 27.4% chance to dodge, parry, and block normally (hardly difficult), you will not receive crushing blows while shield block is up. (It should be noted that some bosses have skills that reduce your avoidance etc... but through normal game mechanics, this rule is fact.)

Therefore as stated above, you do NOT need 25% block rating to prevent crushing blows. First of all, it's 27.4% on 73 mobs, and secondly, it's 27.4% combined chance to dodge, parry, block, and be missed. So actually, as long as your parry and dodge add up to 27.4%, you don't need any block rating at all really.



Block Value vs. Rating

Block Rating - This converts into a percentage that represents your CHANCE to block.

Block Value - This represents the solid amount of damage that's mitigated each time you block. More importantly, it also increases your shield slam damage by 1 for each extra point of block value.

Unless you have a mod that adds it up for you, you can find out your block value by simply adding the block on your shield, with all your +block value items in your gear........ Roughly 20 Strength also converts to 1 block value. I beleive the actual formula is ((Str / 20) - 1).

Why is block rating (not value) a mostly useless stat?

Because dodge and parry are calculated before block on the hit table. (easily tested by using shield block, and then watching yourself still dodge and parry attacks before the shield block charges are used). Most warriors will easily have around 40-50% combined chance to block, dodge, and parry right? So when you use shield block, this will push you to 115-125% chance overall. Since we know that dodge and parry will still get used to their full statistical potential while shield block is up, that extra 15%-25% (minus 2.4% of course) is the rest of your block. Therefore whenever you have shield block active (ie. hopefully all the time), any amount of extra block rating is in fact doing nothing.

Block VALUE however is amazing. Forget the amount of damage you mitigate each time you block. That's nice to have, but it's not going to make or break a fight. However, since your block value equates to extra shield slam damage (at a ratio of 1:1), this becomes extremely important for maximizing threat. Since threat values are static for all of our abilities, this becomes our only way we can scale our threat! So block value becomes sorta like our +dmg or +healing for our threat in a sense.

It's a mostly overview picture of how these mechanics work, but hopefully that clears it up for some people.

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Great information. Thanks.

why not just link here?
http://evilempireguild.org/guides/

no offense, but people always try to create thier own explanation and almost always end up either getting part of it wrong, leave parts out, or they word it in confusing/incorrect ways.

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Q u o t e:
why not just link here?
http://evilempireguild.org/guides/

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Satrina's guide was one of the first things I mentioned. However, it didn't actually show up as a link initially. That's fixed now.

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Q u o t e:
Sorry but dodge parry and block are all calculated at the same time.

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See, you say this, but then...

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Q u o t e:
So if we look at the table a mob has when he attacks.

Dodge
Parry
Miss
Blocked hit
Hit
Crit
Crush

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Low and behold, there are Dodge and Parry before Block on the table.

I think you misunderstood the OP. What he was saying was that because Dodge and Parry are on the table before Block, when you hit shield block and pop your block chance up above 100%, it doesn't push Dodge and Parry off of the table and make the next two attacks automatic blocks. It means that the next two attacks, if they aren't dodged or parried or misses, will be blocked.

In context, this means that stacking block percentage is pretty much pointless, because if your Dodge + Parry + Block = 25%, which they pretty much do for sure if you've got 490 Def, hitting Shield Block makes you uncrushable, and you're better off stacking Dodge/Parry to make your Shield Block procs last longer on fast-hitting bosses (ala Moroes).

Great post and reported for sticky. Useful since it is a condensed version of the original site (which is also excellent). Some stuff I knew and most stuff I didn't, but I never really understood the reasoning behind any of those numbers.

Thank you. Now I know, and...whats that thing they say about half the battle?

Good writeup, definitely useful if it gets a sticky. A couple of things that could be improved:

• Some of the wording on the hit table priority is a little misleading, even though you obviously understand the concepts. Saying Dodge and Parry are checked "before" Block makes it sound like multiple rolls are taking place, which is not the case. The term "priority" would probably be better.

• Chance to be missed also counts towards reaching the 27.4% avoidance minimum. At exactly 490 Defense skill, a level 70 warrior has a 10% chance to be missed by a level 73 mob or boss.

• Shield Block Value is the best way to increase threat generation with pre-Karazhan and early raid gear, but it it isn't the only way to increase threat generation. Attack Power remains a very important aspect of warrior threat, as it increases white damage, and as an effect of that, increases rage generation. Devastate also scales with AP. AP can also be increased via buffs and enchants much more easily than Shield Block Value.
  
  Increasing chance to Hit is another great way to increase threat. Every added 1% to hit basically increases your threat generation by 1%. Chance to hit can be usefully stacked up to 5.6% vs lvl 73s.
  
  Lastly, Crits also contribute a certain amount of threat scaling, if not quite as much as SBV, AP or Hit Rating do.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I clarified the wording in the original post as best as I could to make it more clear. Specifically in regard to the wording related to the hit table, and I provided a link to a more detailed explanation since I want to try to keep the post as mostly a 'sum-up'.

Also changed some wording about shield block value as per Armstrong's suggestion.

I think its worth noting that crushing blows only occur on L73 mobs, therefore it only applies to raid bosses in Karazhan and above (as well as WoW Classic bosses)

This means that Shield Block is often a waste of rage in regular and heroic instances as well as on any trash in any instance (I dont have experience past Gruul) however Block RATING can increase rage generation with shield spec, and give free mitigation.

Different Gear for different situations.

Edit: Also I believe people should include miss when talking about dodge/parry and include it in their avoidance value. at 490defense its about 10%.

I'd like to point something out about the OP's post.

It is true that Block Rating means dinky do when Shield Block is ACTIVE, but when it is not, it DOES mean something.

There are two types of over all tanking scenarios:
Scenario 1 -Tanking ONLY 1 target.
Scenario 2 -Tanking 2 OR MORE targets.


When tanking just 1 mob, boss or not, a high Shield Block Rating, as pointed out here, is not necessary because of our shield block ability.

When tanking 2 mobs or more, a higher Shield Block Rating is desireable because your shield block ability can only stop 2 attacks for the duration it is up (if you improved it).

I have two sets of melee tanking gear. One for tanking trash in normal instances with a high shield block rating, and one with a lower shield block rating, and higher dodge/parry rating for bosses and heavy cc'd heroics (where you pretty much only tank one mob at a time). I have it this way because I noticed a SIGNIFICANT difference in the dmg I would take (because of auto blocks) when tanking multiple mobs with a higher as compared to a lower Shield Block Rating.


Summary:

Tanking 1 mob (Bosses/Heroics), don't need high Shield Block Rating, it is useless.
Tanking 2 or more mobs (normal instance), the higher your Shield Block Rating the better.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=75381044&postId=751746224&sid=1#17

I have posted this thread directly into the current sticky with proper credit. Semantic arguments aside, your information is correct.

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Q u o t e:


Tanking 1 mob (Bosses/Heroics), don't need high Shield Block Rating, it is useless.
Tanking 2 or more mobs (normal instance), the higher your Shield Block Rating the better.

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Or... You could tank normal instances half naked with a Deepdive helmed and actually generate some rage.

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Q u o t e:
There is some out-dated information on the site nowadays

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I'd appreciate if you could point out anything I have missed updating so I can get it updated. Thanks!
(nice summary, by the way!)