Blockable Boss Ability List

[andromalia]

Is there anywhere I can find a nice list of boss abilities and whether or not they are blockable? Right now it seems the only way is to go on wowhead, look at each ability and see if "Cannot be dodged, parried or blocked" or similar wording is on each separate ability. Would be lovely if there were a nice list somewhere so fellow Prot warriors know that things like infernos are blockable and acid torrents are not. I've compiled this from wowhead for BRF, but I do not vouch for its accuracy. I encourage fellow warriors to let me know if something is wrong or is missing. Note that a few of these abilities you *shouldn't* have to worry about as a tank.

Hans and Franz
Aftershock : no
Body slam: no
Shattered Vertebrae: no

Flamebender
na

Kromog
Fists of Stone: yes
Slam: no

Gruul
Inferno Slice: no
Inferno Strike: yes
Overwhelming Blows: yes

Oregorger
Acid Torrent: no
Blackrock Barrage: no
Earthshaking Stomp: no
Rolling Fury: yes

Blast Furnace:
n/a

Beastlord Darmac:
Rend and Tear: no
Heavy Smash: yes
Unsteady: yes

Operator Thogar
n/a

Iron Maidens:
Iron Shot: no
Penetrating Shot: no
Blood Ritual: no
Sanguine Strikes: no (but mitigated by blocking other attacks)
Crystalized Blood: yes
Blade Dash: yes

Blackhand:
Impale: no
Shattering Smash: no
Massive Shattering Smash: no

[rystrave]

One way to look is to look in the dungeon guide (shift+J I believe). If it says physical, you can mitigate it with SBlock/Ravager; if it's magic, you use Sbar.

As for a list, I think doing the homework needed as a tank is what you should do and make note of it. I keep a notebook at my desk at home.

[Valech]

One way to look is to look in the dungeon guide (shift+J I believe). If it says physical, you can mitigate it with SBlock/Ravager; if it's magic, you use Sbar.

As for a list, I think doing the homework needed as a tank is what you should do and make note of it. I keep a notebook at my desk at home.

That is not true and thus leaves OP´s question unanswered. The physical part of Gruul´s Inferni Slice can, for example, be blocked but not parried.

[rystrave]

That is not true and thus leaves OP´s question unanswered. The physical part of Gruul´s Inferni Slice can, for example, be blocked but not parried.

But he asked for blockable abilities, not parriable abilities like Oregorger's roll.

[Valech]

If it says physical, you can mitigate it with SBlock/Ravager.

I was referring to this section. it does say physical for gruuls inferno slice, yet it is not parryable.

[rystrave]

I was referring to this section. it does say physical for gruuls inferno slice, yet it is not parryable.

I see. What I mean by the '/' is either or accordingly, depending on the ability.

[Ssateneth]

Dungeon journal can't help.

Gruul inferno slice physical portion can be blocked.
Oregorger acid torrent physical portion can NOT be blocked.

(Neither can miss, dodge, or parry, FWIW)

[Nega]

Blocks/parries are both quite obvious audibly, other than that MSBT is pretty good for showing your blocks and absorbs.

[andromalia]

I managed to compile this list from wowhead. Not claiming it's accurate though. Some of this stuff wouldn't hit the tanks anyway but is still interesting. Didn't look at Highmaul.

Hans and Franz
Aftershock : no
Body slam: yes
Shattered Vertebrae: no

Flamebender
na

Kromog
Slam: yes

Gruul
Inferno Slice: yes
Inferno Strike: yes
Overwhelming Blows: yes

Oregorger
Acid Torrent: no
Blackrock Barrage: yes
Earthshaking Stomp: yes
Rolling Fury: yes

Blast Furnace:
n/a

Beastlord Darmac:
Rend and Tear: yes

Operator Thogar
n/a

Iron Maidens:
Iron Shot: yes
Penetrating Shot: yes
Blood Ritual: no
Sanguine Strikes: yes

Blackhand:
Impale: no?? Only found the dot, not the actual throw in wowhead
Shattering Smash: yes

[Deleted]

I was myself thinking about compiling a list like this and sharing it with the rest of the warrior community, its awesome you did it. How about you copy that list to the top post for easier finding?

[andromalia]

I was myself thinking about compiling a list like this and sharing it with the rest of the warrior community, its awesome you did it. How about you copy that list to the top post for easier finding?

Done Please let me know if there are errors or omissions.

[Breccia]

I looked through some of my own logs. I put in boldface the ones I (a) could not confirm, and (b) don't think are blockable. Note that I'm talking "proving a negative" here, but my block chance is fairly high. After, say, 6 attacks that aren't blocked, I'm willing to doubt it's blockable.

Hans and Franz
Aftershock : no
Body slam (Crippling Suplex?): yes
Shattered Vertebrae: no

Flamebender
na

Kromog
Fists of Stone: yes confirmed
Slam: yes

Gruul
Inferno Slice: yes
Inferno Strike: yes
Overwhelming Blows: yes

Oregorger
Acid Torrent: no
Blackrock Barrage: yes
Earthshaking Stomp: yes
Rolling Fury: yes confirmed

Blast Furnace:
n/a

Beastlord Darmac:
Rend and Tear: yes

Operator Thogar
n/a

Iron Maidens:
Iron Shot: yes
Penetrating Shot: yes
Blood Ritual: no
Sanguine Strikes: yes
Crystalized Blood: yes confirmed
Blade Dash: yes confirmed

Blackhand:
Impale: no?? Only found the dot, not the actual throw in wowhead
Shattering Smash: yes

Honestly, regardless of what wowdb or whatever say, I would find it surprising if an attack that was not, at least in theory, a melee attack, was blockable. Inferno Slice is based on a melee action, at least themeaticallly. Blackrock Barrage is not.

Simply put, as with most previous raid tiers, most attacks can't be blocked, physical or otherwise. Blocking still works great on heavy melee attacks, such as those caused by a boss hitting stronger and stronger due to things like armor debuffs. Blocking isn't useless. It's just situational, and making it more common would comparitively weaken bears, beerwalkers and DKs.

EDIT: I feel strongly enough about this list that I'm willing to run LFR, use noting but Shield Block, and re-check. I do not expect my findings to change, however, I'll take a look anyhow. Attacks that are based on non-melee are just about never blockable, including most ranged attacks and AoE's.

[andromalia]

-snip-

Updated the OP. Do you have any Blackhand logs? warcraftlogs apparently is really dumb about how blocks are reported and I've put in a feature request to make it cleaner.

[judgementofantonidas]

Is there anywhere I can find a nice list of boss abilities and whether or not they are blockable? Right now it seems the only way is to go on wowhead, look at each ability and see if "Cannot be dodged, parried or blocked" or similar wording is on each separate ability. Would be lovely if there were a nice list somewhere so fellow Prot warriors know that things like infernos are blockable and acid torrents are not. I've compiled this from wowhead for BRF, but I do not vouch for its accuracy. I encourage fellow warriors to let me know if something is wrong or is missing. Note that a few of these abilities you *shouldn't* have to worry about as a tank.

Hans and Franz
Aftershock : no
Body slam: no
Shattered Vertebrae: no

Flamebender
na

Kromog
Fists of Stone: yes
Slam: no

Gruul
Inferno Slice: yes
Inferno Strike: yes
Overwhelming Blows: yes

Oregorger
Acid Torrent: no
Blackrock Barrage: no
Earthshaking Stomp: no
Rolling Fury: yes

Blast Furnace:
n/a

Beastlord Darmac:
Rend and Tear: yes

Operator Thogar
n/a

Iron Maidens:
Iron Shot: no
Penetrating Shot: no
Blood Ritual: no
Sanguine Strikes: no (but mitigated by blocking other attacks)
Crystalized Blood: yes
Blade Dash: yes

Blackhand:
Impale: no (need confirmation)
Shattering Smash: yes

Tell all the stupid melee that just want to tunel on the boss that they should not drop shattered vertibrae on a tank.

[Breccia]

Updated the OP. Do you have any Blackhand logs? warcraftlogs apparently is really dumb about how blocks are reported and I've put in a feature request to make it cleaner.

Working on it. Just did Gruul and Oregorger, intentionally playing poorly to test blocking.
Confirmed: you cannot block Blackrock Barrage or Overhead Smash. You can block Inferno STRIKE but not Inferno SLASH.

EDIT: Also, I'm using worldoflogs.com because it has an excellent log browser for exactly this kind of thing.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay took on Blackhand (twice, actually). Take Shattering Smash and Impaling Throw off the list: they cannot be blocked. Neither can Demolish. "Impaled" is a DoT that, like all DoTs, cannot be blocked.

[Deleted]

I'm going to be spending this raid evening on Hans and Franz, i will try to make observations

Edit: Scratch that raid cancelled

[Gradywhite]

A couple pieces of misinformation here:

Inferno Slice and Rend and Tear are not blockable. For one, Inferno Slice is fire damage; Inferno Strike--the physical portion--is blockable. Rend and Tear is physical, but is simply an applied bleed and is therefore unblockable. I have not yet seen a log of Shattering Smash being blockable, but I would assume if it is, only the Shattering Smashes of Phase 1 & 2 would be blockable, as the Massive Shattering Smash in Phase 3 is fire damage.

Additionally, there are a few more abilities that can be blocked:

Mythic Darmac: Faultline's Heavy Smash and Unsteady can be blocked.

Thogar: The initial damage of Serrated Slash from the Iron Raiders can be blocked, however this is largely negligible.

[andromalia]

Updated OP based on what I could confirm in logs.