For those of us who were smart and didn't look a gift horse and took Block Gear for our "Trash Sets" with the possibility that later on Block might be a stat a tank would want later - there's a lot of silence on it's future - and I am worried about the direction block is going in.

1) PVP changing PVE - NONE of us tanks like it when PVP changes have real world effects in our tanking jobs. With such a small cap on Block value what happens when Block value outscales the content bringing most tanks to the cap??? GC has already said the Block rating cap of 102.4% is something that they do not like and it's something NO paladin likes. Whenever a stat on gear becomes 100% useless it requires a change. Long story short: Have Block value (which is based off Strength and BV) scale from attack power which is also derived off strenghth so will scale with gear each tier level.

2) Prot PVP - So does blizzard want Prot paladins (not with holy gear, real prot) and prot warriors in PVP seriously or do they just want it to be a gimmick "I'm bored" thing for tanks? There isn't a PVP set for Prot - whatever kind of PVP set we could make with PVE gear now just got a nerf because , for paladins at least - Block rating and Block value become 100% useless once each cap is hit. For warriors who hit the RNG lottery - they could hit really hard but it wasn't with ANY reliability.

3) With block being a really mediocre stat to have on gear - not by any fault of our own but a misunderstood design - Instead of Block Rating being the only block stat that becomes useless at a point - having a hard cap (the magic number 102.4%) now block value become 100% useless at a certain point. That worries me because block value meant a few things for paladins - for those of us who have a HOLY offspec or warriors that didn't get duel spec yet - if we weren't tanking a fight we could put on BV gear, Greatness, etc and have a semi-quasi dps set - with a cap on BV now - it's a clear nerf to PVE for those of us who dps prot for certain fights. I really really think they need to move away from hard caps because at a certain point - it makes gear in progression a lot more USELESS - with caps in place you'll see people avoid gear with BV and BR like the plague.

4) It was said that being able to block 100% of the hits that avoidance misses - is not intended anymore. When it is addressed I really hope that it is not a nerf - at most a wash - at best a better system where block actually does block more damage and is an attractive stat. With the doubling of Block value on gear and then OMG BLOCK CAP - it makes NO SENSE - revert the change - and fix block - don't make one silly decision - then cap it making the first decision look really silly. Why buff Block value and then nerf it another way???

TL;DR: PvP is once again affect Tanking - it sucks - and could easily be fixed. Have BV scale off attack power instead of putting a cap on Block value. WE WANT REAL PROT PVP - we don't get a pvp set, we don't get Kirin Torr rings, we don't get Algalon necks - so, please don't overlook Prot PVP. Putting a cap on Block Value will is just a VERY quick bandaid that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Having it scale off attack power keeps it in the realm of sanity - but require a little work. None of us really know the future of block but for Paladins and Warriors - block is looking to be an even worse stat to want - not more appealing. If block is linked not only to our Survivability but our TPS and our DPS - then there will become a point when more problems will arise, not less.

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But if those scaling problems aren't going to manifest themselves until you have item level 200 items, then you're worried prematurely.

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>.>

quoting GC in a mental typo (or perhaps a physical one, if he meant 2000).

Welcome back.

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>.>

quoting GC in a mental typo (or perhaps a physical one, if he meant 2000).

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I am sure he meant over 9000.

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We think block needs to mitigate much more incoming damage per hit

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The problem, GC, is that this doesn't scale between 10s and 25s. Damage in 25s is considerably higher than 10s, but amount of damage blocked is not. If block becomes powerful, it could easily dominate 10s and still be weak in 25s.

Looking at it right now, I would revert the block changes. They're a band-aid approaches that just annoys everyone and leads to silly things like the immediately nerfed shield slammer in pvp.

Block either needs to scale with the encounter, not just gear level, or be kept so weak that it is not a balancing factor.

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I am sure he meant over 9000.

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COMMUNISM! What does the scouter say about his item level??!?

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Q u o t e:
over 9000

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WHAT NINE THOUSAND!

(yes, this post is solely an excuse to post on Capitalism).

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We think block needs to mitigate much more incoming damage per hit, but to make that change we would also need to lower tank avoidance across the board and prevent every hit from being blocked (especially in situations with more than one target beating on you).

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Its probably low on your priorities, but should Tankadins expect some changes to Holy Shield then? I'll admit, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten a similar treatment to Shield Block, lengthening the cooldown but also increasing the power.

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Q u o t e:
The problem, GC, is that this doesn't scale between 10s and 25s. Damage in 25s is considerably higher than 10s, but amount of damage blocked is not. If block becomes powerful, it could easily dominate 10s and still be weak in 25s.

Looking at it right now, I would revert the block changes. They're a band-aid approaches that just annoys everyone and leads to silly things like the immediately nerfed shield slammer in pvp.

Block either needs to scale with the encounter, not just gear level, or be kept so weak that it is not a balancing factor.

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I have to actually agree with this because if you are balancing around ilvl gear for 2 different item level sets block will be much more useful in one then the other.

There needs to be some way to reconcile the differences, or blizzard has to be ok with 10 mans being trivial for people in 25 man gear, which will probably still devalue the value of block in 25 man encounters.

See, I said this a while ago but my thread then got infected by trolls.

The reason block sucks is because bosses hit like trucks, slowly. The fewer times a boss hits, thats less chances for mitigation and avoidance. A boss hit is on 2 extremes. Either you avoid it and prevent a butt load of damage, or take a huge hit. There is no middle ground.

Whereas if bosses hit for half as much, but twice as often, that increases the chances of avoidance and mitgation. For example, if a boss hits for 30k every 3 seconds. You have one chance to avoid damage. And block maybe......2500 of that damage. But if a boss hit for 15k every 1.5 seconds. You have a chance to avoid twice. Maybe dodgeing one attack, and getting hit with the other, cutting the damage in half. or if you get hit with both(and block both). Suddenly you are blocking 5k instead of just 2500.

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I feel like we've been pretty candid about its future. You can probably find my previous comments relatively easily. We think block needs to mitigate much more incoming damage per hit, but to make that change we would also need to lower tank avoidance across the board and prevent every hit from being blocked (especially in situations with more than one target beating on you). To make Prot tanking more interesting, we have allowed block to become too much of a dps stat. In retrospect, we'd rather it remained a mitigation stat and that Strength was pushed up as the big warrior and paladin dps stat.

You shouldn't overly worry about outscaling content. We said from the beginning that there would be three major patches to Wrath of the Lich King. We aren't setting up a system that is going to remain on autopilot for 10 more tiers of content without our intervention. It's totally valid for players to worry about scaling, and all things considered, we'd rather have mechanics that scale well. But if those scaling problems aren't going to manifest themselves until you have item level 200 items, then you're worried prematurely.

We would like to get Prot warriors into PvP in a legitimate way, but our first priority is making sure every class has at least one viable PvP spec first. By "legitimate" I do NOT mean that you sometimes can do a 19K Shield Slam when all the stars align. That's not acceptable even if it is rare. Also consider that tanks do have a legit role acting like actual tanks when running flags or tanking AV-style NPCs. That may not be enough of a role, but I did want to point out that emphasizing BGs more and Arenas less also helps to carve out a niche for PvP tanks.

I know there are plenty of Prot warriors out there who couldn't care less about PvP. Sorry. We have to. :(

We want Prot warriors to do decent damage in PvE. We don't want them to do as good damage as actual dps specs -- there needs to be a trade-off for such high survivability. This means we need threat multipliers or you won't be able to actually hold aggro. It's okay if Shield Slam can make big (yet not absurd) numbers, since you don't Shield Slam all that much. That's fun. As I said above though, it would probably work better if Shield Slam hit hard because your Strength was high, not because you built a gimmicky set.

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Then why dont you make SS scale with attack power rather than block value? a block stat shouldnt be offensive, its a defensive stat and it should remain that way. I dont understand why blizzard first doubles BV then nerfs a ability instead of thinking about making a OFFENSIVE ability scale with OFFENSIVE stat rather than a defensive one, specialy when the defensive stat was doubled in most gear. It would make block value decent to have still for the mitigation and it wouldnt put a cap on the players damage while tanking. Plus it would make str a way more appealing stat than it is now since it would affect our biggest threat move.

There isn't a single Warrior tank asking to do as much DPS as the DPS, we're asking to do similar damage as the other TANKS.

As it is now we do FAR less DPS than them.

I don't care what you do to Block Value as far as PvP is concerned as long as it isn't nerfing our already pitiful DPS.

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Q u o t e:

We want Prot warriors to do decent damage in PvE. We don't want them to do as good damage as actual dps specs -- there needs to be a trade-off for such high survivability. This means we need threat multipliers or you won't be able to actually hold aggro. It's okay if Shield Slam can make big (yet not absurd) numbers, since you don't Shield Slam all that much. That's fun. As I said above though, it would probably work better if Shield Slam hit hard because your Strength was high, not because you built a gimmicky set.

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Im sorry but no way you will have warrior tanks doing decent dps while tanking if you keep adding innate threat to our abilities, And vigilance is one big block that keeps warrior dps from being up to par.

Vigilance, Heroic strike, Shield slam, heroic throw, and thunderclap but im not sure since it says causes additional threat.

All these have innate threat in them, all these cause a prot warrior dps to suffer because its threat that is not coming from our damage.

GC: VIGILANCE is a BIG problem.

As long as we are getting such a huge amount of DPSless threat from that ability we can't have our DPS adjusted up to be on par with the other tanks.

Vigilance is very nice but will forever keep us broken in threat and in DPS.

Why not remove it or rework it into something that isn't an anchor around our necks?

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GC: VIGILANCE is a BIG problem.

As long as we are getting such a huge amount of DPSless threat from that ability we can't have our DPS adjusted up to be on par with the other tanks.

Vigilance is very nice but will forever keep us broken in threat and in DPS.

Why not remove it or rework it into something that isn't an anchor around our necks?

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vigilance has 2 major issues, first its not stable threat, threat from it can be decent or just crap depending on the player its on, and second, its not threat caused by US, why should a tank rely on OTHER people to cause threat for them? doesnt make sense.

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>.>

quoting GC in a mental typo (or perhaps a physical one, if he meant 2000).

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Proof that GC doesn't play this game!!!


Just kidding. Welcome back GC. Haven't seen you post in awhile.

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If only there was a mathematical operation we could perform that would scale the amount blocked to the size of the hit. :)

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Scaling in todays raiding between 10 and 25s since it is technicly the same tier level, a % would be the best solution, a set amount of block is always going to scale poorly, it can be OP for one side of raiding but completely useless in another.