Block set or Avoidance for 5 man Heroics?

Lets say all you planned on running was 5 mans and the occasional 10 man Naxx here and there. Would you go with Block value and even block rating or would you still go avoidance over Block?

Thanks for the help in advance.

<3 block value in heroics. I ran H HoL with 4 dps the other day, taking an offspec heal here and there

Trash = BV, boss = avoidance. Heroic bosses = raid trash.

For heroics, BV, by far. If you can get to 2k BV, you will fully block large portions of most hits. Now, if you're working on tanking heroics and N10 as progression, you probably don't have the EH and base avoidance from other gear to make it as viable, so you should probably do whatever reduces your total damage taken the best. Get (and stay) uncrittable, wear gear with good avoidance and/or BV, etc. Most slots don't have a lot of choice, though you can now buy bunches with Emblems of Conquest. Some have BV, some have avoidance. It's all good.

edit:
I was originally going to say, "by the time you have enough BV gear to HAVE a dedicated BV set, it's a moot point", but the new BV buff on gear itemization makes that less true. You can probably get to 1500-2k BV via badge gear and BOEs (like the cloak, which I still use).

I'm not doing the progression thing. My intent is to make this guy the ultimate at heroic 5 man and 10 man nax tanking. So I'm not interested in progressing past the 5 man heroic and 10 man nax.

Wish there was a gearing guide for block value

Here's where I'm at right now. A link to my Armory and I have 1642 BV unbuffed. I wonder if I should ditch some of the higher end gear like the Spiked DeathDealers for stuff like Inexorable Sabatons.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... hockazuluu

msuguy wrote:Wish there was a gearing guide for block value

There was a list floating around in this forum, you might have to search a way back. Failing that there is nothing to stop you writing one yourself?

Barathorn

I have a BV set with ~2.65k unbuff BV, with libram up it goes to around 3.1k. Basically I just had wowhead show me items with highest BV per slot and tried to aquire as many of them as possible. All the pieces that are not in part of my real tanking set I gemmed and enchanted for str or anything else that increased my DPS. I'm around 545 def with def trinket and ~29k hp unbuffed. Tanking heroics I pull around 2.5k-3.5k dps easily. I'll try to get a snapshot of my gear when I get home. It'll be interesting for sure, I'm actually surprised noone has called me a tard for wearing that stuff

I recently got the T8 shoulders.


So horrible with itemization. Block RATING is the devil.


For heroics, Nax, and other lower content, I use what I call a "well-balanced" set. I bag my Titanguard and use Broken Promise. My set has 2500-2600-ish unbuffed block value. I also have 26% dodge, 18% parry, and unfortunately 26% block chance. I also use as much bonus armor as I can, in the form of Leviathan's Coil, Defender's Code, etc.

The damage reduction interaction of block and armor works very well.

You just need to get it into your head that we're talking about trivial content, and not tanking Ulduar hard-modes. People seem to have a stick up their ass about that.

In that above set, I gem heavily with Sovereign Twilight Opals, because I'm not going to dump cash on an "offset" to get epic gems. Yes, that is str/stam gems.

By the time we get to the end of a heroic, I'm either 1 or 2 on DPS, no matter who I bring to dps, due in part to the way I pull instances, and also due in part to the way I gear. Hence the switch to Broken Promise.

With a minimum level of coordination from your DPS, you can pull most instances without refreshing Divine Plea.

Last night I ran Heroic HoL and it did fall off in the stupid lightning guy fight, but I went from the zone-in to him without having to refresh it.

I also drag the first boss to more packs so we're clearing trash while clearing him. I had sustained 3500 dps (hugely inflated by rarely having less than 4 mobs).

Get uncrittable, then get to the block cap (101.8% for heroics, buffed with the buffs you expect to get), then stack as much block value and stamina as you can. That's about it for a heroics gearing guide.

You probably don't even need the stamina, but high stamina will help if you have a bad healer (who might not react quickly) or a bad group leader (who wants to check your stamina before you get the spot).

Those Sovereign gems do wonders to up your BV by a little bit, up your overall threat and damage, plus give a bit of stamina per socket.

I'm definitely loving block value in heroics. With the 4-pc T8 bonus and Libram of Obstruction I'm easily over 3k block most of the instance. It's fun to see so many "Blocked" messages on my screen, and physical mobs barely touch me. Of course, then the healer freaks out when we get some heavy magic damage and they actually have to heal.

Yeah, but you're looking at 34-35k health with priest buffs and Sanctuary. Magic damage be damned.

Block set.

I've healed plenty of full T8+ Paladins in heroics because their 'gear was better'.

Though it doesn't matter in the end. I've healed Pally tanks through heroics because they had 'better gear' (even though they were comparing to my block/heroic farming gear. Whereas they would have done more dps as ret than the healer using his off-spec and I would have tanked it just fine and done decent dps as well.

But a block/strength set with 435 defense is a nice thing to have for heroic farming. In my set I do really nice dps AND usually get compliments from the healers (who get bored and start casting damage spells).

Isetnefret wrote:Yeah, but you're looking at 34-35k health with priest buffs and Sanctuary. Magic damage be damned.

Oh, it's more of a freaking out when they realize I might not last the whole boss fight without a heal while they were browsing the web and picking their nose.

I've had healers start to get DPS tunnel-vision on some of our heroic runs.

In my BV set (armory shows it as of 27/08/2009), I took a PuG group through HoL that was total fail.

They did fine by the time we got to Loken, but I was on top of DPS/Total damage by a metric assload. (Because who uses standard these days?)

All of them died to Loken's first blast, and I had to solo him down after that....it was still a win.

Once you start getting a decent gearset, work on a dedicated blockset.
its UBER for 5man heroics.

My blockset is 41.7% unbuffed block, 2.6k block, 3k with libram up, 3.4k with lavanthors trinket up too - and that lasts a whopping 40seconds.
My Disc priest GF healer can keep alive with bubbles & renews.

Once, some time ago now, i did 10man Naxx. (with a far less uber blockset compared to now).
On lotheb was tanking and i took 11% of total party damage. Most others were in the 9-10% range.

Thats the power of a blockset.
That, and 7-8k SoR crits