Block/rating or dodge/parry?

Hi, First post on this forum, I've only just respecced tankadin, after being holy since TBC came out (healing geared as well as I can be now for what we raid, which is pretty much just kara and gruul, altho we're talking about moving on in the 25 man's, so I decided to swap to tanking, as I picked up some tankin bits in kara when warriors didnt need). Had a couple of days practise now, did a few heroics, and had a go at aoe tanking SH (great fun), and Ive decided tanking is definately for me... SO, from having a quick browse thro this forum, would I be right in believing that as a pallytank builds a considerable amount of their aggro from holy shield/being hit, its a better idea to aim for damage mitigation stats, such as stam, armor, shield block, and value, rather than dodge and parry (assuming I maintain uncrittable and uncrushable), as if Im dodging and parrying too much I'm losing a considerable amount of potential aggro?

Thanks for any input on this

Alchy

also with too much dodge/parry you wont get much mana/threat from spiritual attunment.
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Kombo - Dreanor - Respecaholic Priest

490 def at 64, next goal, uncrushable to a 73 before 70

Except for some very hard hitting mobs-bosses (Gruul and Maulgar come to mind) you will want to stack block rating more than parry and dodge.
Also since if you parry and dodge too much, you will find yourself OOM.
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I would suggest reading up on effective health, written by Joanadark, who is also an avid poster on this forum. I think the link is stickied under one of these forums, like the advanced training one.
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Warcrafter - The new CTProfiles.

just wandering, how much dodge and parry is too much? My everyday heroic gear seem to have not enough dodge, about 16.7 dodge, 17.9 parry, i can switch the cloak from spell dmg to devilshark cape then i'm going to about 19 dodge and about 17.6 parry but then i'm over the uncrushable by almost whole 8%. The reason i'm asking this is i've been running heroic mech and shattered hall nonstop for about 3 weeks now. I have no problem with aggro whatsoever, but for heroic shatteredhall group pull..some healer still is not able to heal me and i think it's becuase of my low dodge.

RE: the SH group pull, thats likely down to your (8?) blocks from holy shield getting eaten up real quick by a group of fast hitting mobs? so in that situation I'd guess dodge and parry are more than worthwile

Its a fine line to walk, but youll realize that being a tankadin requires you to walk the line on alot of things
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Kombo - Dreanor - Respecaholic Priest

490 def at 64, next goal, uncrushable to a 73 before 70

A fine level of avoidance is about 20% dodge and 15% parry. More than this might result in you going OOM. Obviously there are exceptions where more avoidance is always good.

Personally, i hate dodge and parry and i like stacking block, as you can see by my stats.
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Go oom on Gruul, then tell me if you like having too much avoidance.

The paladin is a mitigation tank, not a avoidance tank. Warriors are avoidance tanks.
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I do while Main tanking, probably because i quite outgear it.

However, due to how our threat and mana works, we need to be hits. Too many hits avoided mean loss threat and no mana back. Of course, there are exceptions: the harder a boss hits, the more avoiding hits is important. But this counts for only a part of the bosses in the game.
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When raidbuffed in tanking gear I have above 30% dodge and ~21% parry. And yes, you go OOM very fast even on hard hitting BT/Hyjal bosses if you are going full TPS rotations. But it's manageable, downrank here, manapot there.

On farm content it's close to useless to have high avoidance gear but I can see benefits of it during progression fights or when raid is half AFK(almost always)

Problem with mitigation is that it scales horribly. OK, you will get 800block value and 18k armor unbuffed. Now show me some gear upgrades you are going to pick to increase your mitigation by 10% let say(doable for avoidance) if boss hits for 9k

But back to OP. Definitely till Hyjal go ahead and stack block rating+block value right after stamina and spell dmg.
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Blockrating can be hard to find if you are unlucky, I felt my gear scale very badly (for a tankadin) between Gruul and MH/BT, lots of parry and dodge, but not a whole lot of block rating, also there is no gems to increase blockrating, but parry and dodge you can get from gems.
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