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Q u o t e:


I think what he means is that block needs to block a percentage of dmg rather than a set amount.

(number made up to highlight point)
Current
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 10000....I take 9000 dmg (10% reduction)
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 100000....I take 99000 dmg (1% reduction)

Scaling BV
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 10000....I take 9000 dmg (10% reduction)
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 100000....I take 90000 dmg (10% reduction)

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While your examples are accurate and to the point, it really doesn't emphasize where the problem lies. You need to take it further to the non "typical raid boss" and look at heroics, raid trash, or even adds. There are all sorts of situations where tanks are taking hits under 10k and even under 5k. The current block changes (as they currently are) will allow paladins at least to acquire near or over 4k block without too much trouble. This could bring block to well over 50% mitigation, and even approaching 100% mitigation in some situations.

The "block doesn't scale" was in reference to the mitigation that block provides not scaling with the incoming dmg. Meaning you either balance it for low dmg hits and it is worthless for high dmg hits, or you balance it high and it is extremely overpowered low. In order to properly balance block, something about the mechanic needs to be changed.

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Q u o t e:


I think what he means is that block needs to block a percentage of dmg rather than a set amount.

(number made up to highlight point)
Current
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 10000....I take 9000 dmg (10% reduction)
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 100000....I take 99000 dmg (1% reduction)

Scaling BV
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 10000....I take 9000 dmg (10% reduction)
If I have 1000BV and get hit for 100000....I take 90000 dmg (10% reduction)

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I agree that this is what the OP seems to mean by "scaling."

I disagree that this is how block should work.

The % of dmg reduced would have to be very small, Block Rating would have to be greatly diminished, or abilities like Shield Block and Holy Shield would have to be reworked, because it would make Warrior/Pally tanks much better than Druid/DK tanks.

Also, this kind of scaling is very narrow in its focus on slow, hard hitting raid bosses. Being able to block 3k of a 30k hit may seem cool, but remember that you will only block 100 of a 1000 hit, or, even more ridiculous, 10 of a 100 hit.

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Q u o t e:


You're going to have to explain this better. Scaling is generally defined as continually improving with gear once you are at max level (because below max level, increasing ranks takes care of it). Does block improve as your gear improves? Well, yes it does. You get more block rating on items and you get more block value on items. Your Strength also improves, which improves your block value. Here is an example of block not scaling: In Naxx 25 gear, you block 25% of the time for 400 damage blocked. In Ulduar 25, you block 25% of the time for 400 damage blocked.

You can argue that block doesn't mitigate enough, which is an argument you could probably justify. I don't understand how it doesn't scale unless you are using a different definition of the word than I am used to.

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Hey can i justify not having a shield in the first place to even have the chance to block? You know, considering we all have the same cd's/avoidance sans block?

That's not necessarily true. Remember that you have a CHANCE to block, it's not a certainty. Say you have 30% block rate and blocked attacks block 10% of the damage, this is effectively in the infinite limit 3% mitigation. However, this would mean that warriors/paladins would have very spiky damage, healers don't like it when your damage is spiky because they have to be pro to account for it.

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Q u o t e:

Also, this kind of scaling is very narrow in its focus on slow, hard hitting raid bosses. Being able to block 3k of a 30k hit may seem cool, but remember that you will only block 100 of a 1000 hit, or, even more ridiculous, 10 of a 100 hit.

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This is how armor works, this is how druids work. Typically, you're not worried about small hits because you need to take lots of them to die and healers can easily tell the amount of HPS they need to keep you up.

Of all the band aid fixes that could have been made, simply doubling block value was probably the smartest.

It doesn't solve the problem going forward, but it wasn't meant to. It was mainly meant to make gear with block value on it reasonably competitive to gear that has avoidance stats on it. I think it does that reasonably well in the case of paladins and gear without block rating.

Pure avoidance is better mitigation over time, but not by a ton. And block value is a pretty powerful threat stat.

It probably isn't enough for warriors. I'm not sure what mechanics you'd need to make it more valuable in that case.

Maybe warrior T9 4 piece is a good way to do it. That was an interesting choice for a set bonus.

If BV was made to scale based on incoming damage then block and BV would have to be redesigned to NOT scale with gear ever, otherwise you would be reducing ridiculous amounts of damage in lower level dungeons.

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Q u o t e:
If BV was made to scale based on incoming damage then block and BV would have to be redesigned to NOT scale with gear ever, otherwise you would be reducing ridiculous amounts of damage in lower level dungeons.

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Easy, block cap.

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Q u o t e:


This was our logic. It doesn't even need to be "reasonably competitive." It just needs to not sit there junking up your gear as if it were Spirit or Spell Pen or something.

As to the original topic, if the issue is that block would probably work better mechanically as a percent of damage blocked, then that is an interesting idea that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago we are exploring. You can probably find the thread. However it is also a very big change with some perhaps unpredictable results. We would have to change block converting from Strength, how Shield Slam does its damage, and possibly lower dodge, parry and miss across the board. It's something we're exploring but it's very dangerous to put in without a whole lot of testing and iteration.

I know it must feel we are very conservative sometimes. That's just kind of a Blizzard thing. We know players tend to respond better to good changes that are slow coming than to half-baked changes that are done quickly. This is why we say things like "When it's ready."

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The bloded line scares me, and some druids I would assume, since non-shield tanks would be penalized (DKs much more, since we have no block mechanic at all) for Block being made better, even past the difference between having the new Block and not having the new Block.

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Q u o t e:

While it remains poor where it was already poor, hard hitting boss tanking. This area is dominated by EH, as shown by players willing to give up mountains of avoidance for molehills of EH. Even with the changes, The best EH peice is still the best peice for the slot. If the best EH peice happens to have SBV on it, then a small buff occurs, but no where near as large a buff as occured in the SBV trash sets.

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Hmm, that is usually the kind of silly statement made by people who have 24 stam gems in every single slot (even ignoring stam socket bonuses). And yet he does not, how strange.

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Q u o t e:


This was our logic. It doesn't even need to be "reasonably competitive." It just needs to not sit there junking up your gear as if it were Spirit or Spell Pen or something.

As to the original topic, if the issue is that block would probably work better mechanically as a percent of damage blocked, then that is an interesting idea that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago we are exploring. You can probably find the thread. However it is also a very big change with some perhaps unpredictable results. We would have to change block converting from Strength, how Shield Slam does its damage, and possibly lower dodge, parry and miss across the board. It's something we're exploring but it's very dangerous to put in without a whole lot of testing and iteration.

I know it must feel we are very conservative sometimes. That's just kind of a Blizzard thing. We know players tend to respond better to good changes that are slow coming than to half-baked changes that are done quickly. This is why we say things like "When it's ready."

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Out of interest have you read Ciderhelm's latest post on tankspot (http://www.tankspot.com/). He brings up a very interesting topic...when is it the right time to do these large changes we keep hearing about (e.g. HS change, rage on avoidance, block revamp, warlock soulshards, hunter ammo)? Yes these big changes are going to be complex to implement and will take extensive testing, but it seems to me as though they keep getting thrown in the too hard basket and left till later, meanwhile the problem grows and the community gets a little upset (as you've no doubt noticed). So when is it a good time to do these big changes?

I hope I don't come off as condesending (certainly not trying to be)...just trying to understand the process from the development point of view.

Block rating is about on par with spell penetration for my class.

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Q u o t e:
Block rating is about on par with spell penetration for my class.

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Funny thing is that this is probably true :P. It's only 'cause they haven't nerfed Holy Shield yet, oops, did I say that out loud?

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Q u o t e:


You're going to have to explain this better. Scaling is generally defined as continually improving with gear once you are at max level (because below max level, increasing ranks takes care of it). Does block improve as your gear improves? Well, yes it does. You get more block rating on items and you get more block value on items. Your Strength also improves, which improves your block value. Here is an example of block not scaling: In Naxx 25 gear, you block 25% of the time for 400 damage blocked. In Ulduar 25, you block 25% of the time for 400 damage blocked.

You can argue that block doesn't mitigate enough, which is an argument you could probably justify. I don't understand how it doesn't scale unless you are using a different definition of the word than I am used to.

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In this case he is using "scaling" as a word that means that block is not "proportionate" in reduction to boss damage done. He is probably using this "term" for block because generally bosses hit harder as they become more difficult (99% of the time) and since block is the only form of defense that does not negate a "proportional" amount of boss damage, it seems like it doesn't scale.

These are your "defensive" statistics.

Miss--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Dodge--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Parry--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Armor--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
"Blanket reductions"--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
"Block/Static damage reductions"--Amount of damage ignore does not change with opponents damage done.

One of these things is not like the other GC!

A more specific defintiion.

20% armor will ignore....20 damage from 100, 200 from 1000.
20 block will ignore......20 damage from 100, 20 from 1000.

Woops, looks like one did not scale!

Notice though, both do get better with gear.

So a blue ring with 300 armor will "scale up" to block the same proportion of damage from the next big mean boss.....But a blue ring with "30 block value"...won't.


So, as you can see.."Scaling", as a word, is very appropriate here.

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Q u o t e:


I agree that this is what the OP seems to mean by "scaling."

I disagree that this is how block should work.

The % of dmg reduced would have to be very small, Block Rating would have to be greatly diminished, or abilities like Shield Block and Holy Shield would have to be reworked, because it would make Warrior/Pally tanks much better than Druid/DK tanks.

Also, this kind of scaling is very narrow in its focus on slow, hard hitting raid bosses. Being able to block 3k of a 30k hit may seem cool, but remember that you will only block 100 of a 1000 hit, or, even more ridiculous, 10 of a 100 hit.

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Agreed.

Perhaps a combination of the two. For example, your block value would block x% dmg +X, where both of these are based on your block value.

So for example (again numbers made up to make a point)

Current
I get hit for 2000 with 1000BV....= 1000 dmg
I get hit for 20000 with 1000BV....= 19000 dmg

Proposed
I get hit for 2000 with 1000BV (gives 10% reduction + 500)....= 1300 dmg (slightly more than current)
I get hit for 20000 with 1000BV (gives 10% reduction + 500)....= 17500 dmg (better than current)

What this would do is make block better for harder hits but slightly worse for smaller hits. Obviously the numbers could be tweaked to balance it, but you get the idea.

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Q u o t e:


In this case he is using "scaling" as a word that means that block is not "proportionate" in reduction to boss damage done. He is probably using this "term" for block because generally bosses hit harder as they become more difficult (99% of the time) and since block is the only form of defense that does not negate a "proportional" amount of boss damage, it seems like it doesn't scale.

These are your "defensive" statistics.

Miss--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Dodge--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Parry--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Armor--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
"Blanket reductions"--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
"Block/Static damage reductions"--Amount of damage ignore does not change with opponents damage done.

One of these things is not like the other GC!

A more specific defintiion.

20% armor will ignore....20 damage from 100, 400 from 1000.
20 block will ignore......20 damage from 100, 20 from 1000.

Woops, looks like one did not scale!

Notice though, both do get better with gear.

So a blue ring with 300 armor will "scale up" to block the same proportion of damage from the next big mean boss.....But a blue ring with "30 block value"...won't.


So, as you can see.."Scaling", as a word, is very appropriate here.

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TL;DR. Oh really, I'm so glad you sorted that out.

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Q u o t e:

TL;DR. Oh really, I'm so glad you sorted that out.

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Thanks for quoting me for more exposure!

You're the best, sister!

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Q u o t e:


This was our logic. It doesn't even need to be "reasonably competitive." It just needs to not sit there junking up your gear as if it were Spirit or Spell Pen or something.

As to the original topic, if the issue is that block would probably work better mechanically as a percent of damage blocked, then that is an interesting idea that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago we are exploring. You can probably find the thread. However it is also a very big change with some perhaps unpredictable results. We would have to change block converting from Strength, how Shield Slam does its damage, and possibly lower dodge, parry and miss across the board. It's something we're exploring but it's very dangerous to put in without a whole lot of testing and iteration.

I know it must feel we are very conservative sometimes. That's just kind of a Blizzard thing. We know players tend to respond better to good changes that are slow coming than to half-baked changes that are done quickly. This is why we say things like "When it's ready."

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Well, if you're not going to "FIX" the problem till Icecrown, and this is just a temporary little "fix", why not at least double block rating as well? Without some incentive to actually use it, it is just sitting there junking up our gear; going from having a single (tier) piece with 77 block value to 154 block value is pretty laughable when we're looking at an average boss hit of 25,000. There's no way we'd put on some gear to get a few hundred more block value points when we'd lose large amounts of avoidance in exchange for a "sometimes mitigate" that can't be relied on.

If we could get the current raiding warrior's gear to ~80% block rating on unavoided hits (currently ~40%), they may actually feel incentive toward putting on a few of those block rating/block value pieces that always get sharded in order to get to 100%. They'd be sacrificing some avoidance to do so, and it might not even be worth doing for bosses, but it'd be an option at least and would allow for some experimenting without being OP.

This change would also not affect Paladin balancing in the slightest since their block is always a de facto 100%.

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Q u o t e:


This was our logic. It doesn't even need to be "reasonably competitive." It just needs to not sit there junking up your gear as if it were Spirit or Spell Pen or something.

As to the original topic, if the issue is that block would probably work better mechanically as a percent of damage blocked, then that is an interesting idea that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago we are exploring. You can probably find the thread. However it is also a very big change with some perhaps unpredictable results. We would have to change block converting from Strength, how Shield Slam does its damage, and possibly lower dodge, parry and miss across the board. It's something we're exploring but it's very dangerous to put in without a whole lot of testing and iteration.

I know it must feel we are very conservative sometimes. That's just kind of a Blizzard thing. We know players tend to respond better to good changes that are slow coming than to half-baked changes that are done quickly. This is why we say things like "When it's ready."

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I hate NP problems. They are not fun.

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Q u o t e:


In this case he is using "scaling" as a word that means that block is not "proportionate" in reduction to boss damage done. He is probably using this "term" for block because generally bosses hit harder as they become more difficult (99% of the time) and since block is the only form of defense that does not negate a "proportional" amount of boss damage, it seems like it doesn't scale.

These are your "defensive" statistics.

Miss--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Dodge--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Parry--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
Armor--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
"Blanket reductions"--Amount of damage ignored "scales" based on opponents damage done.
"Block/Static damage reductions"--Amount of damage ignore does not change with opponents damage done.

One of these things is not like the other GC!

A more specific defintiion.

20% armor will ignore....20 damage from 100, 200 from 1000.
20 block will ignore......20 damage from 100, 20 from 1000.

Woops, looks like one did not scale!

Notice though, both do get better with gear.

So a blue ring with 300 armor will "scale up" to block the same proportion of damage from the next big mean boss.....But a blue ring with "30 block value"...won't.


So, as you can see.."Scaling", as a word, is very appropriate here.

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Has a hint of "snide attitude" to it, but you hit the nail on the head.

And I'm with Prolich, block rating is about on par with armor penetration for my class.