Protectin Warrior Shield Block

[Xaikar]

"Shield Block (Passive) now increases your chance to block by 25%, down from 100%. In addition, if your total chance to block or avoid an attack exceeds 100%, your chance to critically block is increased by the excess."

Wow really? I hated the change from BC to Wrath it felt like warriors got knocked down a peg when we only had to press it once every 30 seconds. I feel like as the warrior class Blizzard is taking away our situational ability to block like warriors with SHIELDS should have. I feel like the original design was great this new passive design just too away a fun mechanic of warrior tanking no to mention a situational one. Now we have one less button to push I feel like we are getting punished this expansion.... Why do Paladins get to keep their ability to increases block chance while ours is moved into a passive ability?... Rant over

/Discuss

[Deleted]

Dude, did you notice the extreme buff given to Block? Did you notice that we have shitloads more of it passively? Did you also notice we have a decent chance to also critically block?

That, plus, this change will be a buff for the mid/later tiers of gear in Cataclysm.

[sixx]

This is one of those moments where reading data-mined material can be sorely misleading. I talked a bit about these changes yesterday here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...eNo=1&sid=1#14

Most of these abilities have not changed for level 80+, however, they've been changed to scale from 1-79. As an example, Ambush deals a flat 190% weapon damage on live realms. With these changes, it now deals 90% weapon damage when first learned, and increases up to 190% again by the time you hit level 80.

We made these adjustments because healing and damage-dealing at low levels has been way too powerful. These changes will make more sense when you get into the game and see for yourself.

Zarhym said that and

Yep! Our fault! Not Blizzard's! Working on a fix. (Personal message to Blizzard's CMs and Ghostcrawler: Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry.)

That was Bibi

[Eldar45]

Re-read the post, Shield Block has nothing to do with the ability changes.

Its a buff though. There was a post a while back that said we would be unhittable after the first tier of content, so this is basically a 25% increase in our critical block chance past the first tier.

[Netram]

I'm kinda on the fence here.

On one hand, Shield Block was another button to press which made tanking a little more interesting.

On the other, it wasn't an exciting button to press, and having it spike on and off was dumb.

Perhaps rework it into something a little more cool? I don't have any ideas, but I'd like to see more action coming from the shield as a prot warrior. Shield Slam and Spell reflect are the only ability benefits of a shield now.

[blackbert]

I'm not going to lie. I like hitting my block button. It is what makes the difference from the good warriors and the bad ones. I know a lot of warriors who don't use it. They didn't even heroic strike when it was spam. I like laughing at people like that I guess lol.

[JustintimeSS]

If people still think this change is a nerf, they need to reconsider playing a different class that isn't so "complicated".

[Deleted]

Are we absolutely positive Shield Block has been turned into a passive ability? The tooltip in http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/2565/ doesn't suggest it's a passive. Also, I've never read a blue post suggesting SB would be passive, every blue post I've read so far talks about SB as if it is still a cooldown.

[JustintimeSS]

Are we absolutely positive Shield Block has been turned into a passive ability? The tooltip in http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/2565/ doesn't suggest it's a passive. Also, I've never read a blue post suggesting SB would be passive, every blue post I've read so far talks about SB as if it is still a cooldown.

Yeah I think some people are misunderstanding the word passive in parenthesis. I don't read it as the ability is now passive but I suppose I could be wrong.

If it was supposed to be passive then they could just say something to the effect of "25% chance to block blah blah blah" listed under the baseline ability called block instead of having some other ability say some big thing.

[lousysuxor]

I believe when he said passive he meant our passive blocking, not talented or using any abilities.

[Torture]

Don't know what the (passive) refers to, potential typo? If you mouse over it it's still an activated ability, the change being that it increases block chance by 25% for the duration instead of 100%

[Deleted]

This is how Shieldblock will work:

30Sec CD that grants 25% additional Blockchance. Overall any blockchance that goes over 100% avoid (102.4% or whatever it will be) gets converted to Criticalblockchance.

The last part is "the passive part" as you dont have to pop shieldblock if you want that extra critblock chance! Otherwise we would always hit for double damage due to talents ;p
So there is a passive buff from an ability. Blizzard should make this into a passive from Defstance or prot-tree for clairification. seems strange to have a passive component on a SKILL that isnt talented

If true that t11 gives us pretty much the 100% avoid we have a CD that increases our critblock chance by 25%. chance being roughly 20-40% without it due to mastery.
It will be good for pve tanks against melee heavy mobs (as it was before)

however this is a nerf for the pvp aspect of it, since you wont be running around in protgear. not if you arms/fury pvp nor if you prot pvp, so your avoid will be far less than 100%. due to the buff of block I consider this as ballenced. Now you can basicly cut 30% of damage incoming (less for rogues as you used to block more than their autoattacks hit for ;D )

[Deleted]

If true that t11 gives us pretty much the 100% avoid we have a CD that increases our critblock chance by 25%. chance being roughly 20-40% without it due to mastery.

Probably not with T11, but since Blizzard takes into account that players will exceed 75% passive unhittable we know it will happen sometime during the Cataclysm.

[Deleted]

Probably not with T11, but since Blizzard takes into account that players will exceed 75% passive unhittable we know it will happen sometime during the Cataclysm.

depends where the DR starts for dodge and parry and how much we will go for mastery. if there is a trinket (even DD) that has loads of mastery on it and gets to to "unhittable" you might want to pick that one up, no?

[Deleted]

depends where the DR starts for dodge and parry and how much we will go for mastery. if there is a trinket (even DD) that has loads of mastery on it and gets to to "unhittable" you might want to pick that one up, no?

I doubt Blizzard would give players enough stats to reach such an interesting cap during the first tier because that would just be a bad/uninteresting design, that's what I meant.

[Deleted]

I only have 1 question about this..the 100%..does this mean we're gonna be unable to reach unhittable? or do they intend to let us reach 102.4% and then, everythign exceeding THAT will be converted?

[Deleted]

I only have 1 question about this..the 100%..does this mean we're gonna be unable to reach unhittable? or do they intend to let us reach 102.4% and then, everythign exceeding THAT will be converted?

A boss is three levels over you, so currently bosses are considered level 83. For every extra level, a boss basically has an extra 0.8% chance to hit you, which means that if you have 100% unhittable then that'd only count as 97,6% when a raid boss is attacking you.

So when we say 102,4%, we mean 100% vs a raid boss. That is also what Blizzard means. Pretend you have 77% unhittable in Cataclysm. You tank a level 88 boss and a level 85 mob. You then use Shield Block.

When the level 85 mob attacks you while Shield Block is up, he's got a -2% chance to hit you. These -2% are now transformed into an extra 2% chance to critically block. When the level 88 boss attacks you while Shield Block us up, he's got a 0,4% to hit you. Since he hasn't got a negative value to hit you, you gain no extra chance to critically block his attack.

Did I make it more clear?