So... how would you fix block?

I'm sure it's apparent that the current block situation is horrible for all plate-wearing tanks. There's a ton of BR and BV gear in ulduar, and most of the bosses hit like a truck making it useless, I have resorted to going for avoidance gear.
Since warriors are in a similar boat it's forcing us all into grabbing as much pure avoidance gear as possible, which makes it a lot harder for our DK tanks to gear up due to the increased competition.

The way I would fix it, is to halve the BR conversion, or perhaps somewhere between dodge and parry.
I would then do the following: When a block occurs, your armour is increased by 200% of your BV for that hit.
I would have Holy shield last for 4 seconds but double BV in addition to what it does now.

Essentially what we want is block to be a mechanic that changes with the incoming damage otherwise against hard hits it is effectively useless. Conversely, if block is kept static and absorbs a lot of damage it would make non-hard hitting bosses pretty trivial.

What would you guys do?

Make block value reduce spell damage.

I think the problem lies more in that block doesnt stop enough damage to be worthwhile, simply reducign spell damage by 1-2k isn't going to help that much.. and you cannot dodge/parry spells either so the block would only be for a small % of the time without tweaking.

Make it from flat value to percentage. It's already armor in disguise, it shouldn't hurt to make it scale.

Of course something else needs to be balanced out to not make warriors/paladins superior to dk's and druids.

I'd add a talented, one minute cool down that gives an additional shield with 12 seconds of 20% base magic damage reduction and an additional reduction that scales with some function of block rating and block value. This would be similar to IBF and its relation to defense skill.

This would be exceptionally useful in situations such as Steelbreaker's Fusion Punch, Mimiron's Plasma Blast, exploding Guardians during P1 Yogg, and Hodir's Frozen Blows.

I mentioned this idea on Tankspot a shile back, but since it is the topic dujour, how about this:

Why not make block a percentage (say 20% -- the percentage could be tweaked) or your block value, whichever is higher.

Example. Paladin with 1200 BV gets hit by boss in Ulduar for 20,000. He would block 4000 (20%). But if he gets hit by trash for 3000, he would block 1200 (because 20% would only be 600).

This idea leaves block effectively the same against non-bosses (which is how it is balanced now), but makes it effective against bosses as well.

You could further balance it by making the percentage reduction be determined by the amount of BV you have.

For example...1% on block for every 80 BV (that would make our 1200 BV warrior get 15% on block vs. a boss). That means that at 1600 BV, you could get 20% on block. If those numbers are too high, just tweak the percentage. Maybe 1% block per every 100 BV.

Then just cap it at 20%-25% and call it a day.

No block solution will include still having both block value and block rating on gear. It's just too many extra stats that other tanks (DKs and Druids) don't need, and are therefore stacking something else. Besides, it's not really cohesive to have two different stats that are named similarly and confuse newbies. Also it's dumb that stacking these stats leads to invulnerability versus easy hitters.

Whoever said that any fix would mean that no tank can be "block capped" is probably right. Once it becomes a reasonable stat, it'll be too powerful to be reducing every hit by a good amount. Therefore, Holy Shield will have to be changed. 30% to block is too strong if blocking is something that's powerful.

It'll have to scale with incoming hits. Period. Nothing will work if it doesn't. It'd also be cool if this fix could also help with Ardent Defender's lack of scaling well with bigger hits (as that's the last thing Paladins have that pidgeonholes us as trash tanks).

How would I fix block? Well, I'll think about it. But if it doesn't do all those things, I don't think it'll be enough.

moduspwnens wrote:No block solution will include still having both block value and block rating on gear. .

I'm pretty much on this boat. I always thought if they were going to fix it they'd remove block rating from *all* gear, reduce the ilevel cost of Block Value, increase the str--> BV conversion and toss a butt load of BV on gear. Block would end up scaling with our gear instead of incoming hits, which leads to trivializing old content, but really who cares about cold content >.>

They'd have to change the way Shotr scales because they can't have us slamming for 20k, and as far as holy shield goes they could remove it and make it an awesome cd. Something like you absorb the next X damage where X=your hp. But then that makes holy OP in arenas . Stupid arenadins ruining our fun...

Oh! would any prot paladins really care if being spec'd into DP reduced healing done by 100%? I know I wouldn't.

My idea:
1. Remove block value and set a fix %-age of blocked damage (which have to be balanced of course) and allow for critical blocks for double %-age.
2. Put diminishing returns on block rating.
3. Make Holy Shield a reflective shield, as in it just damage mobs on any nonavoided hit (blocked or nonblocked).
4. Perhaps a bit overpowered: merge holy shield with sacred shield via a prot talent for an absorption effect on holy shield.
5. Remake ShoR to scale with something else and remake the BV librams.

Double the amount of BV we get. Cap the amount blocked at 50% per hit. This gets it to meaningful levels on bosses but keeps it from being OP for trash/PVP. Hopefully they'd forget to re-adjust SotR ).

Scrap the stats BV and BV.

Your hit rating now increases your block chance as well. (At twice the rate of spell hit?)

Str produces slightly more BV per point than at present.

Keep block being "unimportant" vs heavy hitters, since 3 tanks have block mechanics.

Change deathknights to have a block mechanic! :- number of unspent runes*20% chance of lowering damage done to you by your weapon damage. (A little bit savage defence style)

Would mean DKs could sit on their runes and have 100% block rate, or keep generating threat and not block as often.

imo:

add diminishing returns to Block Rating
then use the +bv talent to tune BV to the right level
then make holy shield and redoubt add +BR not +Block % so that it suffers from diminishing returns aswell
SotR / Shield Slam could then have their dmg modifiers changed

Also maybe make redoubt +BR & +BV since it would potentially be too nerfed due to diminishing returns otherwise. Or perhaps make it a proc which allowed you to use a new ability to make tanking less of a rotation and more fun (Sorta like warriors revenge etc)




This would increase the effectiveness of block value without requiring Bliz to change the stats on 100s of items throughout the game

Likewise it would decrease the potential for stacking huge BV then going and soloing heroics / naxx (Although you could prob do some heroics without heals (Or maybe a ret healing you with instant casts) now in a high BV set)

It would still make warriors stacking block rating viable without nerfing them

It wouldn't make 20k+ sotr crits in pvp

Tuneable, so each of the changes are to talents etc and so can be tuned higher or lower depending on what Bliz sees as being balanced based on PTR performance

I'm not too creative with as to how to solve the current problem, but I do agree that BR and BV should be merged into a single stat rather than 2 separate stats. Well thats assume they even decide to the block stat altogether.

I do have an idea, not too sure if it's optimal or it even works.
If blizzard decides the new block system to not work with magic damage as it is currently, they can make it so a successful block adds armour equal (or a percentage) to the armour value on your current equipped shield, modified by a percentage of the new block stat mentioned above. The current passive armour gain from just equiping your shield isn't affected.

Think Tank has a great series of articles on the future of block. It's a good read.

http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... art-1.html

Making block work like physical damage resistance seems a good option imo. Make current BV numbers translate to a certain amount of resistance, and then use normal resistance mechanics when you block. BV numbers would stay the same so shield slam and ShoR don't have to be changed, but your BV is no longer the static amount you reduce the incoming attacks by.
And for blocking magic attacks, it would just use your resistance to the corresponding school instead of the number derived from your BV, or maybe a combination of both.