Shield Specialization?

We always take Shield Specialization, but is an additional 30% damage absorption from our shield worth it? Or, perhaps the question is more accurately stated - At what shield block value, or for in what scenarios is the 30% additional damage absorption worth the 3 points?

For 5-man boss fights, where I'd expect to be hit for 1-5k, I'd block 260 (with spec) or 200 (without it) of a 2500 point hit.

For AoE grinding, the difference seems to be do I take 1-5 damage per hit, or 0.

Any thoughts from more mature tankadins? As for me, I'm barely 70, and have been specced 12/49/0 (up through +12% healing in Holy so I can swap gear and heal 5-mans). I'm at 505 defense, 89% avoidance (with HS), and have a long way to go before I'm uncrushable for more than 15 seconds (popping Dabiri's Enigma). I'm not sure yet how I'll respec for 2.3. I'm out of solo quests, but have a few group quests and a lot of regular dungeons to finish before I start looking at many heroics, and I doubt I'll ever raid more than to round out a group that needs another warm body.

shield spec is always worth it. Period.

Its one of the "must have" talents similar to imp holy shield. You dont always need the extra charges, but if you do and they aren't there it means trouble.

Scaling after armor direct damage reduction is godly
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Official tankadin of <The Core> Tichondrius

I'm with you, why are we so addicted to shield spec? Especially for 3 talent points for only a 10% increase. It really isn't that much damage reduction. It would be one thing if it was 25% per point.

If your getting hit for 1k and you block for an extra 60-100hp, is it really worth it? I would love for someone to come up with numbers on how many times they block in a 5-man or kara. And then show us how much a 30% increase in block value actually helps.

Sure it would increase our damage taken but it's not going to create any spikes or anything and with the new 10% stam increase it seems like this would be acceptable. My feeling is that blocking is more about stopping crushing blows than actually mitigating damage particularly in end game.

Information about this why I ended up coming across this site, I looked around wowwiki trying to find the specific mechanics of this talent to see how much of a difference it actually makes. I understand that with better gear it will make a bigger difference.

Right now I don't expect to do anything out of 10 mans so my gear will be capped with kara, first few bosses in ZA and heroic badge gear.

Prot paly I am playing with now (I have been making talent adjustments the last few days, more to come)

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Deadlyrabbit

And my old prot paly on crappy server that I haven't played for awhile.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Feathermoon&n=Marnock

When I check the wow web stats of fights and see hits for 2-3k and only seeing around 200-250 blocked it doesn't seem like 3 talent points is worth it to block 60-75 more damage, most heals over heal by 10-15% anyways.

Unless you realize how many times you block in a fight even when getting hit for 2-3K.

Typically if you are alert and keep Holy Shield up every hit will be a block, every 2-3K hit will be reduced by 300*, that is a whopping 10% reduction in damage after armor is applied. It may not seem like much but over the course of the fight, you are increasing your survivability.

Block value is awesome.

Sure a 9k hit minus 300 does not seem like much, but it helps.

* 300 block is pretty easy to come by.
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imo it 100% depends on what your tanking, if like me your built for boss tanking and your mainly tanking bosses, then i say no dont get it. As said already 60-90 extra block is useless vs 4-9k boss hits.

On the other hand if your add tanking all the time or trash tanking, then the hits are lower but more frequant meaning the 60-90 extra block really does stack up
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It gets more and more powerful the better your gear becomes.

And when AoEtanking, block provides a huge amount of mitigation (~70% mitigation for me in Hyjal with 758 block value unbuffed)


Definitively a must have talent.
Redoubt itself is a very good talent anyway for AoEtanking, it's nearly always there when you tank 4+ mobs. And way better than Devo aura. So if u are picking Redoubt there's no way to not pick Shield Spec.
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20% block, 1000 hits, 200 blocks. At 200 block taring thats 40 000 damage you didn't take. +30% block value is 260, that puts it at 52 000 damage absorbed. 200 block value is pitiful.

at say 400 block value, thats 80 000 absorbed base. Shield spec bumps that up to 104 000 damage absorbed.

Many people only bother taking redoubt because shield spec is worthwhile. Take it, its good.
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Ty for the insight and apologies for not searching before posting
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Croiky 70 Tankadin / Dark Iron

i thought shield spec sucked until Hyjal. When you are tanking 6-8 ghouls with only 1 healer so that everyone can down gargoyles and frost wyrms, shield spec is amazing. I've made it through 10-15 secs w/o a heal(due to poor assignments on tanks) and i highly doubt that would happen w/o shield spec. Once you are in Hyjal or even ZA for the bird gauntlet, i would highly recommend shield spec

I did some maths a while ago when I was trying to compare the armor on the Badge cloak to the BV on the Devilshark Cape. I worked out that until I was being hit for over 7K/hit (like Maggy or later Gruul) the Devilshark with Shield spec gave better mitigation.

Until that point, I'd assumed the cut-off for BV's effectiveness vs armor was around the 4-5k mark, and it's caused me to rethink the value of a decent BV set in raiding.

At the moment, Sheild Spec accounts for about 135 BV for me, and as a result, is pretty much indispensable.
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