Reforging/Mastery/Block Cap Compilation Guide (4.0.X)

[Akeber]

When reforging and checking your numbers make sure you are buffed with both kings and BS/HoW/SoE. The agility/strenght from the latter is necessary, and will account for a few % of avoidance. There is no "magic" number of dodge/parry you should be trying to stay above, reforge whatever stat is currently seeing the most DR.

[Zabkorili]

When trying to reach the block cap, your general reforging strategy should be to keep your dodge just above 21.6% and parry just above 21.44%. This will ensure that all dodge/parry rating that is reforged to mastery will be converted at a rate that is favorable to your overall avoidance. In most cases you will be reforging a lot of dodge to mastery, while minimally changing parry on your gear. This will of course depend on your gear itemization.

With a mix of ICC25, ICC25 heroic, and ICC10 heroic gear (previously with a focus on Armor), I'm only sitting at 93.91 avoidance with BoK and Holy Shield. Six pieces of gear have been reforged into Mastery by dropping my Dodge and Parry down to the recommended limits quoted above. My Hit Chance is sitting just above cap, and EXP is a little low at 21 with Glyph of Seal of Truth active. I've often nit picked at stats and followed much of the old advance theory crafting, but now I'm finding myself at a bit of a loss. With the recent concerns several people have expressed on threat issues I don't want to drop Hit / EXP any lower. Most of my gems are still stacked in favor of STA. Any assistance on why I'm still 8.5 points away from Block Cap would be helpful. Granted I'm missing raid buffs, but I'd still be short. Much appreciated, thanks! <3

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... =Zabkorili - Edit: Not sure if Armory has updated Reforged items and other changes yet.

[agetro]

Ah I understand the confusion now. Having Dodge at 21.6% Parry at 21.44% is not a requirement.

technically no, but if your dodge is at 21.6%, and you reforge dodge rating to mastery, you might gain avoidance percentage but the theoretical damage you take will be more. The avoidance you'd lose by reforging that dodge is more than 0.3 * block% gained from the subsequent mastery. So no, it's not a "requirement," per se, but if you're trying to min/max for survivability it's not good to reforge below those percentages.

So once we get our stats to 21.6 and 21.44 we should stop putting into mastery? Even if we're below the 102.4%?

[exiledknight]

Ah I understand the confusion now. Having Dodge at 21.6% Parry at 21.44% is not a requirement.

technically no, but if your dodge is at 21.6%, and you reforge dodge rating to mastery, you might gain avoidance percentage but the theoretical damage you take will be more. The avoidance you'd lose by reforging that dodge is more than 0.3 * block% gained from the subsequent mastery. So no, it's not a "requirement," per se, but if you're trying to min/max for survivability it's not good to reforge below those percentages.

So once we get our stats to 21.6 and 21.44 we should stop putting into mastery? Even if we're below the 102.4%?

No, getting to 102.4 is the requirement, those were just a guideline. Getting block capped is the most important thing you need to do to equalize the physical dmg you take to 3.3.5 levels

[Awyndel]

Yes, the block cap is more important then any other stats atm.

[Fayia]

With a mix of ICC25, ICC25 heroic, and ICC10 heroic gear (previously with a focus on Armor), I'm only sitting at 93.91 avoidance with BoK and Holy Shield. Six pieces of gear have been reforged into Mastery by dropping my Dodge and Parry down to the recommended limits quoted above. My Hit Chance is sitting just above cap, and EXP is a little low at 21 with Glyph of Seal of Truth active. I've often nit picked at stats and followed much of the old advance theory crafting, but now I'm finding myself at a bit of a loss. With the recent concerns several people have expressed on threat issues I don't want to drop Hit / EXP any lower. Most of my gems are still stacked in favor of STA. Any assistance on why I'm still 8.5 points away from Block Cap would be helpful. Granted I'm missing raid buffs, but I'd still be short. Much appreciated, thanks! <3

I was in that situation and had a guildie HoW me while I was at the reforging guy. Reforged to the required dodge and parry WITH BoK and HoW up and pretty easily reached the blockcap. Basically reforged 12 items I think.... (dodge is at 19.6, parry at 20.6..or very close to that...the buffs bing me to the required number)

[sculder]

So once we get our stats to 21.6 and 21.44 we should stop putting into mastery? Even if we're below the 102.4%?

Not exactly. Those percentages are the DR points of their respective ratings, meaning that when you have 21.2% parry (931 rating), adding 10 more parry rating will net you 0.1307% parry, where an equal amount of mastery (10) will give you 0.43567% block. And if your parry rating is above 931 (21.21%), the amount of parry percentage you gain will be less than 0.1307%, which is less than (0.3)*(%block gained from 10 mastery).

To put it more simply, if your parry is below 21.2%, 10 parry rating is technically more damage avoidance, in terms of damage taken (see theck's data for the numbers). That's not to say you'll get more avoidance percentage out of parry below the DR point, because mastery will definitely give you a bigger boost towards the block cap.

So if you're struggling for avoidance percentage, it's acceptable to bring your parry/dodge below their respective DR points to pick up more mastery. The only downside is that your theoretical damage taken will be more. The upside is that (as long as you actually get block capped) your damage input will be more stable when you're block capped even if you drop parry/dodge below the DR points, because you will be blocking every attack you don't avoid.

Hope this helps to clear the water a little bit. I'll be doing some editing of the first post to reflect these issues.

[Behalter]

So my question to this thread:

After reforging for Mastery and Hit, has anyone been able to hit Expertise hard cap?

Currently I've sitting at 103.9% avoidance (the mastery numbers won't let me rework my gear to get lower than that and still be over avoidance cap) 8.23% Hit and 37 expertise (3 Stam/Exp gems in socket bonus related gear and SoT glyphed). I'm close but now I'm looking at other available pieces that would let me get to cap.

And a related question to this:

Does anyone know if 56 still IS the expertise hard cap?

When looking at my expertise the other night I realized that the rating went down to 24 from 26 where it always had been. So I did some dummy tests and even though the character sheet says otherwise, I was getting no dodges when I went as low as 22 expertise. I've confirmed from other posts around that 22 looks to be the new low end (if this is intended or not is still in question)... but the question remains, did this drop the high end of expertise down as well, possibly to 52?

[Awyndel]

I haven't been able to get exp hard cap and maintain the block cap.

On another note. I did just have a thought about the parry/dodge balance issue. I moved some of my mastery away from dodge only items, in order to reforge the dodge on there into parry. You can't do this with dodge/parry items ofc, so they are good places to get mastery. Dodge only items are good places to get parry, and vice versa ( if anybody is even in a scenario where that applies ) . Reforging threat stats into each other seems to work nicely too, since it doesn't affect the math for your block cap. Ofc make sure you cap in the first place.

[sculder]

After reforging for Mastery and Hit, has anyone been able to hit Expertise hard cap?

No, and the reason is because there's not much tank gear with expertise on it. If you can get your hands on the high hit items (chest, helm, etc), you will end up with a lot of hit rating you can reforge to expertise.

[Anubisknight]

So, if I am not at the hit cap, whats the order in which we should reforge stats to mastery rating? Currently I am at 25+% dodge and 21% parry.

Hit-->Expertise-->Dodge-->Parry?

[sculder]

So, if I am not at the hit cap, whats the order in which we should reforge stats to mastery rating? Currently I am at 25+% dodge and 21% parry.

Hit-->Expertise-->Dodge-->Parry?

If you're not block capped, you should see if you can get there by swapping out dodge/parry first. This might leave you under hit/exp cap depending on your gear setup. To answer your question, either dodge or parry, whichever is higher.

[fuzzygeek]

If you're not block capped, you should see if you can get there by swapping out dodge/parry first. This might leave you under hit/exp cap depending on your gear setup. To answer your question, either dodge or parry, whichever is higher.

You know, I'm kind of torn on this. I personally think it depends on your raid and the content you're tanking.

I will always always always sacrifice threat for survivability for progression tanking, unless absolutely necessary. With that mindset, it makes sense to give up hit and expertise before an avoidance stat for the sake of block capping.

That being said, I did exactly what sculder advocates, and didn't even think about taking hit/exp off my gear when I was reforging -- I went straight to the dodge, so I'm block capped, over 21% dodge/parry, 8% hit and 30 expertise. But I've also got the luxury of gear.

Or is it just more efficient to trade avoidance stats for mastery vs hit/expertise?

[sculder]

I did the same, and have roughly the same stats, but if you don't have the right gear with the right stats it can be tough to hit 102.4%. You could sacrifice hit/exp for avoidance, but my point in the last post was to see if he could reach 102.4% without trading hit or exp. If not, then he might have to sacrifice some threat stats.

[fuzzygeek]

If not, then he might have to sacrifice some threat stats.

That's my point -- shouldn't threat stats be the first to go for progression tanking?