3.2 Block changes - indepth research?

Has anyone done any thorough investigation of the changes to block? Will stacking block value be more viable than avoidance? Just doing simple (and I am very simple) math, I figure the average tankadin would receive about a 1% (I am using 10m numbers as that is where I raid mostly) reduction with their current gear sets to physical damage when blocking. The number would be even less in 25m content. I wouldn't even consider this napkin math more just some numbers flying through my head while I am trying to fall asleep.

Enter the experts...

tested same gear on live and ptr, except my tier 7.5 helm because on ptr meta isnt active due to jc gems not working


so put on conq helm on live and ptr, and on ptr i have 440ish more BV


idk anyways it could be good, depending if BV works good with our new AD..


so 2200 in BV gear, and 1050 in main tank gear, is 1150 BV better than 7% or so avoidance?

steadypal wrote:tested same gear on live and ptr, except my tier 7.5 helm because on ptr meta isnt active due to jc gems not working


so put on conq helm on live and ptr, and on ptr i have 440ish more BV


idk anyways it could be good, depending if BV works good with our new AD..


so 2200 in BV gear, and 1050 in main tank gear, is 1150 BV better than 7% or so avoidance?

No, it's not.

The only significant outcomes of the 3.2 block changes are that Heroics and trash will become a lot easier. You also might become more lethal in pvp with a block set, but I don't pvp so I don't even know what prot paladins wear when they do.

Yeah, precisely what others have said...

Doubling BV, yeah!!!

However when you actually read it properly, only BV from items is doubled, and considering half of our BV is from strength it's not such a good change... people who had 2.4k block in those sets before will now have around 3.5k ish... it's not a huge deal tbh since you tend to give up quite a bit of pure avoidance or stamina by going for gear with high BV itemisation.
BV is as poor as ever in ulduar, and most likely beyond.. and will be even more powerful on stuff where it already excels, which is the opposite of what needed to happen.

Well I looked into it, I really only have two pieces of gear that give block value (tier pieces). At the end of the day it looks like I will have about an extra 130ish block value (will be sitting at about 1300ish). This is my base block value I am not sure what the calculation is of 1 BV per damage reduction. Is it 1 to 1?

So my main tanking set for tanking a boss I will see about a .01% reduction in damage (assuming 1 to 1 BV to damage point against a a hit that does about 24k). And from the way it sounds, I really am not going to see much benefit and will be getting up close and personal with the ground.

1 str = 1 bv



IMO get it done...

Last time I did the math, assuming you are block capped, it would have required they triple the block value to make it competitive with dodge against heavy hitters from a pure mitigative standpoint.

At double the block value, it's a very solid dual purpose stat. But if you don't care about threat, it's weaker than dodge/defense/parry/armor.

I would not go out of your way to avoid gear with block value on it. But I would avoid gear with block rating.

steadypal wrote:1 str = 1 bv
IMO get it done...

BV from str is irrelevant when considering the BV on your gear. since the developers are unrestricted in how they change it, all they need is to make the gear with BV more attractive (or rather less crappy). Don't misinterpret the purpose of the block change.

I would also like to point out that block is looking better than parry now. this means that if you are willing to have parry on your gear, you should be willing to have block on it too. It also means that gear with only BR/BV on it is not much better than gear with only parry on it; dodge and armor remain the best ways to reduce incoming melee damage.

to elaborate:

49 parry rating = 1% parry = ~191 BV after patch
on a boss that hits for say, 20,000 damage per hit, 191 BV = 0.955% damage reduction on every hit.
when you consider that block also provides ShoR damage and EH, you have a winner. this is a rough calculation, it could be improved by taking YOUR total avoidance and required parry for the next 1% including DR.

Edit: deleted

Ascendant wrote:

steadypal wrote:1 str = 1 bv
IMO get it done...

BV from str is irrelevant when considering the BV on your gear. since the developers are unrestricted in how they change it, all they need is to make the gear with BV more attractive (or rather less crappy). Don't misinterpret the purpose of the block change.

I would also like to point out that block is looking better than parry now. this means that if you are willing to have parry on your gear, you should be willing to have block on it too. It also means that gear with only BR/BV on it is not much better than gear with only parry on it; dodge and armor remain the best ways to reduce incoming melee damage.

to elaborate:

49 parry rating = 1% parry = ~191 BV after patch
on a boss that hits for say, 20,000 damage per hit, 191 BV = 0.955% damage reduction on every hit.
when you consider that block also provides ShoR damage and EH, you have a winner. this is a rough calculation, it could be improved by taking YOUR total avoidance and required parry for the next 1% including DR.

Well you are forgetting to take into account existing avoidance. If you are at 50% avoidance, then the total percentage of reduction is going to be a bit less, and avoidance provides accelerating returns. Looking at 20k hits with 50% avoidance, 191 BV would cause you take about 10k more damage over 100 swings than 1% more avoidance and that number gets bigger as your avoidance goes up.

I just redid the math.

It takes roughly 76 parry at my gear level to get an additional 1% avoidance. That would be 253 block value in itemization points. With redoubt that would be roughly 329 block value.

We can figure out an equation for comparing block to 1% marginal avoidance:

Hit% x Average Hit = (Hit% + 1)(Average Hit - Block)

Solving for Hit% gives me Hit% = (Average hit - Block)/Block

Plugging in 20K and 329 gets me a hit % of nearly 60%. So it only takes 40% total avoidance for the 1% increase in marginal parry to be superior to block value. Most players are at 55%+ total avoidance against bosses. In the next tier I imagine we'll be pushing 60%, so parry rating looks like it still beats block value in terms of mitigation over time.

But of course 329 block value is a decent chunk of TPS (roughly 150 TPS discounted by your miss %, multiplied by your crit %) and of course some amount of effective health, depending on the mechanics of the encounter.

If I had to guess, going forward block value will never catch parry rating in terms of reducing average damage taken voer time. The sizes of boss hits and the nature of how avoidance based damage reduction works likely counteracts the parry DR until very high levels of parry rating -- levels not likely to be seen in this expansion.

Steve wrote:Hit% x Average Hit = (Hit% + 1)(Average Hit - Block)

Solving for Hit% gives me Hit% = (Average hit - Block)/Block

trying to interpret this, the first line looks to me like it should be (hit - 1) as you are reducing your chance to be hit by 1, or is it that you are gaining 1% chance to be hit in order to increase your block value?

the second line just confuses the crap out of me. It looks like you are calculating your chance to be hit using the damage that a hit does.

Your expected damage for an attack is:

Hit% x Average Hit

Your expected damage for an attack if we reduce your avoidance by 1 but give you additional block value equal to block is:

(Hit% + 1)(Average Hit - Block)

Where the two equal each other is where 1% marginal avoidance is equal to block in terms of mitigation:

Hit% x Average Hit = (Hit % + 1)(Average Hit - Block)

I could have gotten this wrong, however. Do please point out any errors.

Basically I know with the way block and avoidance reduce damage that the higher your avoidance percentage the weaker block is relative to 1% marginal increase in avoidance. I was trying to find what the crossover point would be by figuring out how much block I could get for 1% parry, and where that was in relation to my current avoidance.

looks good to me, thanks.

edit: so your math then implies that if you reduced your total avoidance enough (like replace all your parry with block) then block would be better than parry. It is a shame that gearing option does not exist for us.