on paper these small % points may look better.
But in reality, there are a lot of factors that go into progression raids/kills.
1. In many encounters healers have to move at some point of the encounter. Very rarely will a healer get to stand in one spot and heal/cancel you for the entire duration of the fight. You can bet hands down that uldaar will require healer movement as its not supposed to be a pushover.
2. There has been a history of silence mechanics on raid bosses.
3. Client side lag. FPS lag. And server side lag.
4. Expect progression bosses to melee for 10-25k as most tanks will be going in at over 40k HP buffed. This does not include spell damage.
Pros of being block capped:
1. Never take a unmitigated hit
2. Good for trash. (not really as redoubt is up the most on trash)
3. Generally have more BV on this gear for more TPS. More holy shield charges eaten. (Although threat is pretty much a non issue)
4. On those very RARE circumstancial cases it can save your life.
5. Good for fast melee attacking dual wielding bosses (ie. Mother/Illidan/Brutallus)
6. Less bursty Damage (this is relative)
Cons of being block capped:
1. More overall Damage in majority of cases.
2. Much of the gear has inferior stamina total HP than the avoidance/hit gear
3. Relies too much on your healer not being subject to move.
4. Relies a lot on your healer mana pool to sustain heals through the duration of the fight (aka going oom)
5. Relies on your healer not DCing or dying.
6. Relies on your healer to not get CCed/silenced.
7. Libram of Obstruction only lasts 5secs. Giving you a 3 second window w/o block buff of 457.6 BV. So only blocking for about 1000-1300 depending upon gear in that 3 second window.
8. Redoubt is nearly wasted when it procs causing an overitemization of attributes when these things could be allocated elsewhere.
Pros of being avoidance + stam heavy
1. Less Damage
2. Requires less mana and often lower HPS
3. Reactive healing (gheal canceling/global buffs/etc) vs sustaining HPS/endurance healing
4. If a healer dies/dcs/lags, there is enough time to switch a healer over
5. Redoubt covers the gaps and i used for its full itemization.
6. High HP for incoming spell damage.
7. Ardent defender will mitigate more damage at lower HP danger zones. So its imperative that you maximize the threshold of when ardent defender is activated.
Summary:
This is how i've been successful in progression raids. I'm making the assumption that uldaar bosses will come hit like a truck ie felmyst enrage/brutallus/felmyst+corrosion back in the day).
Granted if the bosses hit for like 5-8k and u were mitigated 1500-1800 per hit that would result in a 25% reduction per hit would be pretty significant. But i've already made the assumption that its not going to hit like a pansy in uldaar so lets assume it hits for 20k resulting in a ~8% mit. Avoiding a 20k hit you would have to block ~12 times to equal the amount mitigated in that one hit. In this case avoidance is a clear cut winner. This is not to say you wont already block the attack anyway. Even in avoidance gear/holy shield you already have a very high chance of blocking it and a 100% to block chance with redoubt.
This is why we have tools at our aid. We have pots/healthstones/shield wall/trinkets/loh for those sticky situations if you do take those unlucky strings with unmitigated hits. Hell, healers even have cooldowns that they can use on you for these sticky situations. Expect a lot of spell damage/bleeds added on to hard hitting melee hits when uldaar hits live.
Stam > Avoidance >Expertise > Block Value > Block Rating > Armor in my book. If a block piece has considerably higher stamina than an avoidance piece i would strongly consider using it. If it has inferior stamina, I will most likely put it aside. 1 HP differential could result in the activation of Ardent Defender. This is my clearcut reason that I stack stamina. The spell damage conversion component is all bonus.
You don't have to agree with what I've just said. I'm just telling the people who want to know what has worked for me and other tanks in progression raids.
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