The Future of Block??? - Blue Tracker

#0 - July 13, 2009, 8:55 p.m.

For those of us who were smart and didn't look a gift horse and took Block Gear for our "Trash Sets" with the possibility that later on Block might be a stat a tank would want later - there's a lot of silence on it's future - and I am worried about the direction block is going in.

1) PVP changing PVE - NONE of us tanks like it when PVP changes have real world effects in our tanking jobs. With such a small cap on Block value what happens when Block value outscales the content bringing most tanks to the cap??? GC has already said the Block rating cap of 102.4% is something that they do not like and it's something NO paladin likes. Whenever a stat on gear becomes 100% useless it requires a change. Long story short: Have Block value (which is based off Strength and BV) scale from attack power which is also derived off strenghth so will scale with gear each tier level.

2) Prot PVP - So does blizzard want Prot paladins (not with holy gear, real prot) and prot warriors in PVP seriously or do they just want it to be a gimmick "I'm bored" thing for tanks? There isn't a PVP set for Prot - whatever kind of PVP set we could make with PVE gear now just got a nerf because , for paladins at least - Block rating and Block value become 100% useless once each cap is hit. For warriors who hit the RNG lottery - they could hit really hard but it wasn't with ANY reliability.

3) With block being a really mediocre stat to have on gear - not by any fault of our own but a misunderstood design - Instead of Block Rating being the only block stat that becomes useless at a point - having a hard cap (the magic number 102.4%) now block value become 100% useless at a certain point. That worries me because block value meant a few things for paladins - for those of us who have a HOLY offspec or warriors that didn't get duel spec yet - if we weren't tanking a fight we could put on BV gear, Greatness, etc and have a semi-quasi dps set - with a cap on BV now - it's a clear nerf to PVE for those of us who dps prot for certain fights. I really really think they need to move away from hard caps because at a certain point - it makes gear in progression a lot more USELESS - with caps in place you'll see people avoid gear with BV and BR like the plague.

4) It was said that being able to block 100% of the hits that avoidance misses - is not intended anymore. When it is addressed I really hope that it is not a nerf - at most a wash - at best a better system where block actually does block more damage and is an attractive stat. With the doubling of Block value on gear and then OMG BLOCK CAP - it makes NO SENSE - revert the change - and fix block - don't make one silly decision - then cap it making the first decision look really silly. Why buff Block value and then nerf it another way???

TL;DR: PvP is once again affect Tanking - it sucks - and could easily be fixed. Have BV scale off attack power instead of putting a cap on Block value. WE WANT REAL PROT PVP - we don't get a pvp set, we don't get Kirin Torr rings, we don't get Algalon necks - so, please don't overlook Prot PVP. Putting a cap on Block Value will is just a VERY quick bandaid that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Having it scale off attack power keeps it in the realm of sanity - but require a little work. None of us really know the future of block but for Paladins and Warriors - block is looking to be an even worse stat to want - not more appealing. If block is linked not only to our Survivability but our TPS and our DPS - then there will become a point when more problems will arise, not less.

Ghostcrawler

#1 - July 13, 2009, 10:26 p.m.

Q u o t e:
there's a lot of silence on it's future - and I am worried about the direction block is going in.

I feel like we've been pretty candid about its future. You can probably find my previous comments relatively easily. We think block needs to mitigate much more incoming damage per hit, but to make that change we would also need to lower tank avoidance across the board and prevent every hit from being blocked (especially in situations with more than one target beating on you). To make Prot tanking more interesting, we have allowed block to become too much of a dps stat. In retrospect, we'd rather it remained a mitigation stat and that Strength was pushed up as the big warrior and paladin dps stat.

You shouldn't overly worry about outscaling content. We said from the beginning that there would be three major patches to Wrath of the Lich King. We aren't setting up a system that is going to remain on autopilot for 10 more tiers of content without our intervention. It's totally valid for players to worry about scaling, and all things considered, we'd rather have mechanics that scale well. But if those scaling problems aren't going to manifest themselves until you have item level 500 items, then you're worried prematurely.

We would like to get Prot warriors into PvP in a legitimate way, but our first priority is making sure every class has at least one viable PvP spec first. By "legitimate" I do NOT mean that you sometimes can do a 19K Shield Slam when all the stars align. That's not acceptable even if it is rare. Also consider that tanks do have a legit role acting like actual tanks when running flags or tanking AV-style NPCs. That may not be enough of a role, but I did want to point out that emphasizing BGs more and Arenas less also helps to carve out a niche for PvP tanks.

I know there are plenty of Prot warriors out there who couldn't care less about PvP. Sorry. We have to. :(

We want Prot warriors to do decent damage in PvE. We don't want them to do as good damage as actual dps specs -- there needs to be a trade-off for such high survivability. This means we need threat multipliers or you won't be able to actually hold aggro. It's okay if Shield Slam can make big (yet not absurd) numbers, since you don't Shield Slam all that much. That's fun. As I said above though, it would probably work better if Shield Slam hit hard because your Strength was high, not because you built a gimmicky set.

Ghostcrawler

#18 - July 13, 2009, 10:54 p.m.

Q u o t e:
The problem, GC, is that this doesn't scale between 10s and 25s. Damage in 25s is considerably higher than 10s, but amount of damage blocked is not. If block becomes powerful, it could easily dominate 10s and still be weak in 25s.

If only there was a mathematical operation we could perform that would scale the amount blocked to the size of the hit. :)

Ghostcrawler

#66 - July 14, 2009, 12:58 a.m.

Q u o t e:
This is the point GC seems to be ignoring or missing entirely. He takes the community's request for a dps buff and turns it into a "zomg, they want to do 8000 dps! NEHVAR!"

No, I don't miss it. I know some of you just want to do more damage. We don't have a problem with that point of view, and in fact the Devastate buff will help in that regard.

There has been a lot of discussion about +threat moves being a crutch and tanks should just be able to hold aggro based on their dps. But that implies that your dps is as high or higher than a class or spec who can only dps. There will probably be +threat added to stances and abilities for the foreseeable future. That does not mean your dps needs to be 10% of a dps raid member.

It wasn't initially brought up by the OP, which may have confused some people, but usually I am just looking for a relevant thread in which to dump some information, not necessarily waiting for the perfect question before answering.

Ghostcrawler

#192 - July 15, 2009, 6:20 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Q u o t e:

I know there are plenty of Prot warriors out there who couldn't care less about PvP. Sorry. We have to. :(

Why? Surely its only 0.1% who care about PvP? Whilst the rest suffer every time you nerf pve because of pvp

My point was that Prot warriors doing 19K Shield Slams in PvP is unacceptable. Some players are saying "Buff Shield Slam. I don't care if it breaks PvP." We do. If we made Shield Slam overall hit for more damage, we would have to lower its damage but increase its frequency so that it isn't bursty. It needs to be a little bursty to do its job for snap aggro, but it can't be so bursty that it one-shots another player. This is why we keep going back to high threat -- it can help with snap aggro without hitting for silly numbers. Make sense?

Ghostcrawler

#227 - July 15, 2009, 9:23 p.m.

Q u o t e:
It seemed like he was responding to no one at all. I am not here that often, but I have not seen a post asking for a buff specifically to Shield Slam. Lots on not nerfing or capping it just because of PvP, and pointing out that the cap can be reached without stacking SBV, thus gimping tanks.

Responses like this always confuse me. Would you really rather me spend my time pointing out posts to which I was responding rather than talking about the actual issue? Since yours was not the only one, I must assume that it’s a question several of you actually want answered, so allow me to quote just a few posts in this thread (and many of them totally rational) from players asking for Shield Slam to hit harder.

Q u o t e:
They're objecting to threat moves like Shield Slam having higher innate threat as a static value, or lacerate having a high threat component as a static value.

Q u o t e:
2) THEN SCALE SHIELD SLAM WITH AP INSTEAD OF BLOCK VALUE. sorry for the caps, but I can't believe it's this hard for you to see. You even say it RIGHT THERE. Try it on the PTR, tweak the numbers so that it works out without being ridic. And change shield block to increase SS's damage for the duration or something so we don't lose that 12% or whatever it is of SS's sustained dps.

Q u o t e:
We don't want our DPS to be as high or higher than DPSers, we just want our DPS to be in line with the other tanks while doing similar threat. So for example, take away the innate threat bonus of shield slam, and make it hit harder so the resulting threat is similar but damage done is higher.

When I post things, I am often speaking to a larger audience, including discussions on other websites in which I do not post. My advice would be to spend less effort trying to match up what I am saying to a particular poster (but that isn't an invitation to just ignore context either).

Q u o t e:
Not particularly, no, since hitting that high number required damn near the precise alignment of the stars, which means even if it was possible to consistantly hit, it would be extremely rare. Further, creating a spec and gear set that would allow you to hit those kinds of numbers would leave you functionally useless outside of hitting them. You wait for the 'perfect' opportunity, hope you aren't two seconds too slow or too fast, hit your shield slam, and then promptly die -- IF you even survive that long.

It doesn’t matter. As many other players have pointed out in this and other threads “I can one shot other players sometimes if the stars align” is still not acceptable. Hitting for big numbers when all of your cooldowns and trinkets line up is fine. Hitting for 15K or 19K or whatever as a tanking class is not. Other players are worried about that risk and we are worried about that risk. That is why I said we’d like to improve Prot warrior damage, but are unlikely to do it through Shield Slam. We have already increased Prot warrior damage some and we’re waiting for more PTR tests to see if we want to improve it some more.

Q u o t e:
People are just pulling this 19k number out of thin air. Is it possible to create a scenario in which shield slam can hit someone that hard? I'm sure. I wouldn't doubt it's possible to do the same with other abilities.

To be fair, I believe the 19K number was from paladins and the 15K number was from warriors. Some of those were theoretical based on changes that we didn’t actually go through with. There are some controversial videos out there, but my experience with videos tends to be that the ones that get passed around the most are the ones that are amazing because they aren't demonstrating something that is very common. It the results were commonplace, the videos wouldn't be so titillating.

Q u o t e:
Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense to me. People claim that Prot Warrior survivability is too high for them to deal so much damage in PvP, which also boggles my mind. Armor is worthless against spells, and block is only really powerful against dual wielders, one of which has a lovely ability which removes our shield for a period of time.

Your health pool, in tanking gear, is still much higher than most other classes in a PvP setting. That has not mattered much in Arenas so far because the tank has been hard to kill but doesn’t have a lot of damage or crowd control. That has been changed a little in LK and will continue to change. Likewise, if we emphasize BGs more and more, the tank strengths become more valuable. However, I feel like we are having two slightly different conversations here – one on damage done when tanking and one on Prot warriors in PvP. I am probably going to stick with the former topic in this thread from here on out.