block capped overrated?

I see BV/BR at 80 as being a very important (and statistically cheap) way to reduce damage as a paladin, for either hard or soft hitting mobs. The thing about it is... it's ALWAYS there once you've capped BR. And on most bosses now, the ratio of boss hit size to normal block value is much more to our advantage than it was back in BT/SWP (thanks, strength scaling).

I think there is a reason avoidance is being penalized and we are granted tons of block value innately. I think there is a reason that block stats are cheap and are all over our T7. It really does improve our tanking ability with current class/game mechanics. In the future, I see us getting even better block scaling, or warriors getting theirs nerfed... cause it's that good.

BTW, I'm not saying never take any avoidance. Of course it's "better". But we should be getting to 102.4% in whatever way we can. Filling the gap with blocked hits is much much better than filling it with normal hits.

seems like the logical question now is how much avoidance is it worth sacrificing to get block capped? Maybe strive for ~40%ish pure avoidance (dodge/parry/miss) and then fill the rest with block til capped?

Gemming for D plus adding a few sockets with Blacksmithing got me D capped for my first Naxx pull and we flew from there. I think I'm going to float around 540 and just stack stam/str where appropriate. I'd rather be a solid mitigation tank than a slightly more bursty avoidance tank.
_________________
Kynes - The Underbog
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Underbog&n=Kynes

Eversteel used to tank uphill both ways in the snow.
Without heals.

Having MT'd every raid boss accessable right now I would say that high mitigation values are preferable until you get to Malygos.

In all of Naxx and in Obsidian Sanctum nothing hits extremely hard that being block capped and high block values won't overcome a large portion of incoming dmg. I'm not even block capped yet and healers say I'm the easiest tank to heal between myself, 2 druid tanks, and a warrior.

Heroic Malygos, however, is a different story. Every melee hit is 15-16k and every breath he does is 15-16k. With ~32k raid buffed health it's easy to get wtfpwnd very quickly. It reminds me of our first attempts at Brut and getting roflstomped repeatedly, but without the roflstomp. My point is, when getting hit that hard, your best bet is as much avoidance as possible because no attainable amount of BV is going to mitigate enough dmg. Your best bet is avoiding it all together.

My recommendation is if you're not going to see Malygos anytime soon, go ahead and focus on defense first, block cap and high block values second. If you're on your way to Malygos soon, get as much avoidance as you can, even if you have to sacrifice block cap by a few percentages.
_________________

I see block capped as being "our thing" now. Even if it isnt doubtlessly better than stacking other stats, I think improving my stats past that point will be less complicated and more effective: Strength and block value being completely reliable mitigation and EH aswell as a source of threat will be very nice.

Even on 15k melee hits...

Someone will remember brutallus, where blocking that 500 extra damage per hit, on 10k hits, would have made the difference between life or death.
_________________

Uord - Prot Warrior
Darkworldie - Death Knight

Tanking... srs business

I don't quite remember Malygos hitting for that much either, melee that is. His breaths definitely do 16k. I can live through a spark (yeah my raiders get yelled at when that happens) with out much problem too. Just if he gets a spark and I see a cast bar for breath it's time to shield wall lol.

His breath definitely hits for 16k. I am very much about block cap and block value, but that doesn't mean I ignore getting to a comfortable survival level. Just get around 33-34k hp buffed and be good to go for Malygos.

I basically yell at my healers when I get hit/breathed on and I don't get topped. We do it with 5 healers and it really isn't much of an issue. I tell them to treat it like patch, make sure I am always topped after every hit and topped immediately upon landing from vortex.

Not trying to get this thread offtopic, just saying he doesn't hit quite that hard and nothing is really going to help us avoid the biggest burst of dmg in this fight, his 16k breath.

Oh and Malygos is a newb.. his misses breaths from time to time. On the flipside, bastard also crits breaths some times lol. That fight is so buggy, phase2lagfest.

Maybe I'm wrong on his hits, I'll check next week when he resets, ready to get my key quest follow up neck anyway.
_________________
Dork <Audacious> of Magtheridon

its not an absoloute must like it was before..but i think you overrate a goal to the level of a requirement. Which it is not but it is very good and will smooth out the damage incomming by 5-10+% depending on incomming hits and gear.

So its a goal but for the moment you cant really go wrong taking the upgrades you need.
_________________
To face death and glory with an equal smile