Block is useless because of Overhealing

#0 - May 28, 2009, 7:44 a.m.

The problem with block is the amount of over healing that is acceptable. Lets say a warrior blocks a 16000 hit. So the hit is reduced to something like 14000 damage, which isn't too bad. But the holy Paladin is going to cast a holy light on you which will crt for 18k anyway, over healing you by 4000k. If the 16000k hit a DK than then the result is the same. A tank on close to, if not full HP.

The problem is over heals isn't a problem, block isn't helping a healer when mana isn't a problem. The whole time a tank is going to die in 3-4 hits, blocked or unblocked, then block will never be a viable stat, if over healing is viable.

The thing is, DK and Druids get high avoidance, high armour and higher stam, while the other 2 tanks get block.

As a healer, my biggest worry is the rate at which a tank can die, rather than the amount of heals I have to spam into him. At the moment paladins and Druids are more likey to die through burst than a druid or a DK. Block is more mitigation than avoidance, it reduces the damage you take over time, rather than the number of hits you take, and hardly effects the strength of the hits you take. I mean, on ignis or Hodir (I won't say these bosses are hard to heal on normal mode, because they aren't but they are good examples) a warrior or paladin is more likely to die while I'm moving than a DK or Druid because they can both take the same amount of direct hits, yet a druid or a dk are less likely to. Though you might come out of a chain of hits with 3000k hp remaining, the fact is, atm dks and druids have about that much more HP to make up for it. Therefore they would come out of the same chain of hits on a lower% but still the same actual hp. Now a druid or a DK are more likely to avoid one of those hits, making them less likely to die.

Seen as mana isn't a problem for healers. The % of HP you survive with hardly a problem as long as you survive. Mana sponges are easier to heal because they survive longer without heals. As long as I'm over healing, a mana sponge is a better tank.

What needs to be tested, to balance tanks, is simply the average time it takes for a tank to die vs hits (without using cooldowns) without getting heals, this will probably be mostly affected via avoidance and stamina. Then when mana becomes a problem, you can balance around mitigation, which atm involves block, armour and cooldowns (to an extent). Blocking 10% of a bosses hit is hardly avoidance.

Anyway, this is just from a healers PoV

Ghostcrawler

#15 - May 28, 2009, 8:32 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Block used to be good when every encounter didn't try to 2-3 shot the tank and mitigating damage in small chunks over time could be the difference between your healers going oom.

Bliz has painted themself into a corner by making healing more about output than smart healing and tuning the encounters accordingly. The fights are structured so that wether the tank actually needs it or not, a heal needs to be on the way just in case you get hit. In a case like that, block is 99% useless because it's not enough to save you.

Block is simply an outdated mechanic in todays raids, good for tanking adds and little else. One of 2 things needs to happen before block can become relevant again.

1- Block chance is lowered and block amount is increased so that it is powerful enough to actually affect survivability.

2- Boss encounters and mana regen are completely overhauled so that small amounts of mitigation are relevant. This would involve severely nerfing healer mana regen in raids and lowering the burst damage from bosses so that overhealing was not required.

3- Non blocking classes are nerfed to compensate for the uselessness of block.

Personally I would like to see #2 since it would would reward smart playing rather than chaining cd's and spamming heals the entire fight. Although, at the moment, it seems we're headed for option 3.

Quoting this because it's a great summary.

We did recognize that healer mana was too potent in Naxxramas, and we did take some steps to fix it. Unfortunately, nerfing mana regen has two negative effects:

1) Healers feel really singled out. They feel like we are making the encounter tougher merely by making their jobs harder. Now, obviously when we think we need to make a change to the game we'll make it even if it upsets some people. However players having fun in their role definitely factors into that.

2) If raid-buffed mana regen is at acceptable levels, then it tends to be much too low when solo, in 5-player dungones and in Arena. This is not just a Replenishment issue -- there are plenty of stat scaling buffs that may not be present in smaller groups either.

I'll also add that high avoidance plays into this problem too. When tanks can dodge or parry 50% or more of attacks (to pick a random number) then bosses have to hit twice as hard when they do connect.