Not understanding a certain build...

[Ept]

So for the past few months I have been gearing myself through what I thought were logical paladin tank stats. Easy to tell from my armory where I was going with gear:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... ygos&n=Ept

(if burning skull pendant is still equipped it hasn't updated yet, sorry)

First of all let's address the obvious. No, i'm not hit or exp capped and quite frankly I have considered the tanking stats to be important

ie. dodge, parry, block, defense, and stam.

So any exp and hit i have is purely from coming with gear I wanted to equip. HOWEVER, lately I have apped to a couple guilds and caught major flack for not being capped in the exp and hit departments. Im aware they are good stats to have but I just don't understand why people would value them so highly. I have read many forums here to try to figure it out and it seems to go in one ear and out the other as to why people would rather have me expertise capped than block capped.

secondly, in my new guild the leader is a prot pally and he seems to have a VERY different approach to gearing than I do which I dont fully understand. He's tried to explain but perhaps someone here can do it in a way that I will understand.

His armory:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... os&n=Veiss

Basically he has completely neglected block in favor of pure defense(582) which to me seems like going against the grain of the paladin tank and gearing similairly to a DK. He's quite insistant that his approach is best for tanking but I can't seem to understand why so hopefully someone here can enlighten me

Thanks in advance

[kenshin648]

Hit and expertise, currently, are not a stat we need to worry about all that much. Warriors do, however, and DK's might. Your new guild leader is probably one that likes pure avoidance more than just mitigation.

[Ept]

Hit and expertise, currently, are not a stat we need to worry about all that much. Warriors do, however, and DK's might. Your new guild leader is probably one that likes pure avoidance more than just mitigation.

I see, does that mean his build is quite viable or simply the content in game currently isn't challenging enough to make his build not viable?

[fuzzygeek]

Some people stress Block Rating over pure avoidance a little too much. Our class can be block capped fairly easily because of 30% block rating from holy shield, but it's not absolutely required.

Pure avoidance -- avoiding half of incoming 10k hits -- is usually better than mitigation -- taking 2k off every incoming 10k hit -- but there's a balance.

Depending on the content and progression level, you'll want to vary your approach. High block rating and block value trivialize, say, loatheb, while high avoidance is better for patchwerk soaking.

But honestly, either approach works well for all current content, assuming you have enough EH for the fight.

Also: hit and exp is not required for paladin tanks. It helps with our dps and tps, but not significantly. If a guild is giving you flack for not being hit/exp capped, that guild may be ... misunderstanding ... the paladin tank.

[phaqueue]

His build is fine for current content... as is one stressing block capping...

they'll both work just fine... certain ones may be more suited to certain fights... but they will both work well enough...

block capping will generally cause you to take less damage on fight where the boss hits faster but for less such as Patchwerk main tank or loatheb

running more avoidance will generally cause you to take less damage on slow, hard-hitting bosses such as thaddius or faerlina (esp if going for "momma said knock you out" on faerlina)

either one works for the content -some will generally take less damage on certain fights...

if guilds you are apping to are giving you shit about not being hit/exp capped... challenge them to find a top raiding prot pally who is hit/expertise capped... they should have a hard time...

you should be sitting in the 19 exp range with Vengeance up and talents, and hit really isn't a big enough boost to threat to bother gemming/enchanting for...

if they can't take that explanation and realize that different tanks need different things... it's probably not a good guild to get into as a pally tank anyways... I could see guilds like that passing you up for gear because "it's not as good for your class" or "you need this type of gear" sheerly out of ignorance