So... how would you fix block?

just have str = 2 or 4 bv, and call it a day..

I really think block needs to do something against magic. In fantasy art the image of the tiny hero holding up his shield to protect himself from the enormous engulfing dragon flames is very iconic. I want to be that little guy.

I also think the issue should be looked at at different way. We say block doesn't do enough against bosses because they hit very hard. Maybe Blizzard designers should find encounter tuning parameters other than bigger hits on the tank.

First .. I'm content with block atm. I tanked Thorim Hard yesterday from 100 to 1 and blocking 2k of each hit makes a big difference. Healers told me after the fight that I was by far easier to heal than Feral or DK.

But since we have a wish-thread here:

Blues are already talking about a new CD for palies to be on par with last stance. I like to see something like:

Like Wariors:
5min CD
trippel/quadruple BV
20 seconds

Like DKs:
1min CD
trippel/quadruple BV (maybe also block magic *cough*)
3 seconds


From my POV this would make BV a first class survivability attribute. I can stack BV raidbuffed to 1.8k without to much sacrifies (without T8 bonus/libram counted in yet) and a BV of 7k for 20sec would result in being very hard to kill even in thight situations.

All palies want a second survivability-CD .. would be nice to have this connected to BV to raise the attributs attractiveness.

I think block value is intended as an option for physical damage mitigation (duh). That puts it in the realm of armor and avoidance, and maybe to a lesser extent stamina.

I don't want to dream up a specific implementation of block, but I'd fix it by restating what it's for:

* Reduce incoming hits by some amount less than total
* Be less consistent than armor but more consistent than avoidance

At first I was thinking that blocking should be what produces the most consistent damage, but that should really be the realm of armor. Blocking should probably provide a medium contribution to damage mitigation, being less consistent than armor but more consistent than avoidance.

That's basically what it is now, but it's annoying in its lack of scaling. It's great for soloing old content, but is going to be weak against things that are dangerous as a result. Generally what I'd like to see is for blocking to provide a small amount of consistent mitigation, but to provide a strong way to mitigate some of a large hit.

Something like a "block pool" that builds up over time and discharges when you do block might be interesting, but I think it goes in the wrong direction. I.e. after you've avoided a bunch of hits, your next block is at its maximum. Something that builds your block value AND chance as you *take* hits would be cool. Every unavoided hit adds to your mitigation against the next hit.

Alternately, it could just be both a fixed amount AND a scaling amount. I don't really want to give up taking 0 damage from old content. DKs and Bears can't, but they have more self-healing and other options to approach things differently. If BV reduced by maybe half of what it is now, but also reduced damage by some % that could work.

How do you translate a BV number into a % though? BV could be reworked to be a rating and translate it into a % that would need to be rebuilt as you level up.

Or if you want it to still be static, a stacking/decaying mechanic might still allow it to scale against heavy hitters. For example, if you gained the entire amount of your BV as a stacking buff every time you took a hit, but lost a charge of it (or all charges) every time you avoided, blocking would be a great defense against a hit string (add a lot to EH) but it wouldn't totally trivialize weaker content because you'd still be avoiding frequently and so you wouldn't be sitting on a ton of static block value. This doesn't really scale it vs. content well, though, it just gives a different way to allow block to contribute more in worst-case scenarios and less otherwise.

Also, Holy shield is one of our biggest advantages vs. other tanks because of guaranteed blocking, but that's exactly the reason they drastically changed Shield Block for warriors. It's not really a choice; we just push it on cooldown to keep our mitigation up because it's easy and available and there's no interesting choice to be made there.

Don't get me wrong, I want short-cooldown mitigation buttons to press. I think the warrior Shield Block at 10 / 40 uptime is pretty cool. "Cooldowns" like DP/SW/IF aside, I'd like to take an active role in my own general mitigation, not just threat. I think this was the intent for DKs, but they went the opposite route of extending their cooldowns instead of reducing their potency. Oh well.

Assuming threat is not a deciding factor on what tank you pick, the stats of interest are mitigation, avoidance, and HP.
I wish they had just made three of the tanks pick two, and one balance all three, and give them cooldowns to bridge the gap.

Druids could be high armor (mitigation) + high HP. (EH tanks)
DKs could be high avoidance + high HP. (Give them CDs to deal with the cases where they take spikes ->reactive CDs would fit this tank better than the proactive ones they have now)
Paladins: high mitigation + high avoidance. (with proactive CDs to make up for the HP difference - where block becomes an effective mitigation stat for Paladins through talents to make them distinct from warriors)
Warriors: balanced between the three.

All tanks would have their proactive CD for casted spike damage, and flavor abilities can fill the gaps (O Sh!t buttons). (...you know, on this spectrum, I may have DKs and Druids flipped... and Paladins and Warriors too, depending as Last Stand and Shield Wall both work better for a low realtive HP tank) I think they could push each of the tanks out a bit more on these extremes and come up with a failry balanced, more diverse tanking spectrum. Another way to make tanking more interesting, is to order the tps spectrum opposite of the passive EH spectrum for the tanks, and have the highest EH tank put out the lowest threat, BUT have CDs that allow them to boost their threat temporarily, at the expense of EH... basically blow threat CDs when you're not expecting spike damage and can warn your healers. The problem is that the amount of further redesign required may be more than Blizzard want to take on at this juncture... and be too outside of existing tank phiolosophy to fit into WoW.

Or, you know... they could just add crushing blows back in. Let Paladins and Warriors be uncrushable again (all the time for Paladins with HS, and Warriors all or most of the time).
And let DKs and Druids eat crushing blows. Just don't let crushes kill in one hit... either passive CDs ala AD or WotN, or by boosting stamina across the board. I think a stamina boost (with a boss damage boost) is the way to go to make mana a resource for healing again.

Frankly with the way they are designing hardmodes there would be no reason not to use a druid under your system. The way they are designing them hp and mitigation is all that matter.

Majiben wrote:Frankly with the way they are designing hardmodes there would be no reason not to use a druid under your system. The way they are designing them hp and mitigation is all that matter.

Isnt that already the case?

They are designing Hard modes around cooldowns currently. I swear they are designing them to be challenging to DKs and forgetting everyone else.

LEt block rating depend on str and agi
LEt block value depend on shield itemization and str. (only if u have a shield you can block ... weird uh?)

This allows to the dk and bears to not be screwed by bad itemization.

Aranbenjo wrote:LEt block rating depend on str and agi
LEt block value depend on shield itemization and str. (only if u have a shield you can block ... weird uh?)

This allows to the dk and bears to not be screwed by bad itemization.

I would absolutely love it if block rating on my gear turned into agility.

I suppose if they made agility contribute to block chance they might want to remove its contribution to dodge... that would be bad.

I had a similar discussion with a few people over at Tankspot a while back. My favorite idea that came up went something like this:

#1: The two stat itemization needs to go. Honestly, it'd be nice to see both stats go. Increase the block contribution from Strength and make block chance scale higher with Defense or something.

#2: Block needs to at least partially scale with incoming damage. At the same time, however, it needs to not just be armor. The idea we had that I liked the most was to have block start at some small percentage (maybe 10%ish), and you add the block value on top of that. The block value number would need to come down for balance reasons, but say you've got 800 bv, and a swing hits you for 10k before the block. You end up blocking 1800 damage. If the swing is only 5k, you block 1300, and so on.

#3: Block capping needs to go, or at least go back to requiring ridiculous gearing. Holy Shield could be reworked to something like +30% block value.

#4: Some sort of spell mitigation would be nice as well, but probably not necessary. If no spell mitigation is added, Paladins would need something somewhere else.

Rasmfrackn wrote:

Aranbenjo wrote:LEt block rating depend on str and agi
LEt block value depend on shield itemization and str. (only if u have a shield you can block ... weird uh?)

This allows to the dk and bears to not be screwed by bad itemization.

I would absolutely love it if block rating on my gear turned into agility.

I suppose if they made agility contribute to block chance they might want to remove its contribution to dodge... that would be bad.

I thought about agi just because... it fits!
I dosent mean to screw it all, just re-module the benefits agi brings to avoidance.
Spellcasters are used to have 3 stat on major upgrades... why not tanks?

I have an idea, but I'm only throwing out ideas here.

Its a combination of what someone else said and more. Scrap BR, making block chance scale with something like stamina, making there a 20% unbuffed cap. Make BV reduce damage from blocked attacks by a %, with a certain amount of points increasing the %. This way, ShotR doesn't need to be changed since you still have block value, along with HS and redoubt due to the cap on BR from scaling. Of course, the % would have to be something significant and worth while for tanks to get, someone suggested earlier at around 10%, this seems reasonable as long as you can't go over it, so perhaps place diminishing returns on BV above a certain figure.

Just an idea of course

Make block a percentage damage reduction, remove the block value stat and make block rating increase chance to block by x% and increase amount blocked by x%

Darus wrote:Make block a percentage damage reduction, remove the block value stat and make block rating increase chance to block by x% and increase amount blocked by x%

That would scale exponentially, probably a bit overpowered.