- Author: Kurathis
- Date: April 2, 2021
- Updated: October 16, 2021
- Expansion: TBC Classic
- Defense Cap (490)
- Stamina
- Hit Rating
- Expertise
- Block Value
- Mitigation
Defense Rating – Warriors require a total of 490 defense skill, which equates to roughly 332 defense rating, combined with our default 350 defense skill we should have at level 70. It is not always necessary to pick up Anticipation in the Protection tree. If you do choose this talent, your required defense rating would drop to roughly 285 to reach “crit immunity” against raid bosses.
Stamina – Stamina should NOT be stacked completely but it should be the main priority in terms of the enchants available to most pieces of gear since higher stamina allows you to potentially survive through more dangerous attacks (For example, enraged attacks)
Hit Rating – Melee attacks provide our threat generation. By prioritizing Hit Rating, we’re able to reduce the chances of our attacks not landing by eliminating the chance for them to “miss” our target.
Expertise – Similar to Hit Rating, Expertise reduces (or eliminates, when capped) the chances our attacks not landing on our targets. The difference is that Expertise affects the chance the target will either dodge or parry our attack. Expertise affects threat generation in this manner. It also affects survivability through the reduction in “parry haste.”
Block Value – Block Value provides Warriors two benefits: Damage Mitigation through damage blocked, and threat generation by increasing the damage we cause with Shield Slam.
Mitigation – Thanks to Deflection and Shield Specialization, Warriors are often ahead of the game in terms of mitigation right off the bat. The goal is to reach a combined total of 102.4% avoidance – Dodge, Parry, Block, and Miss. This total allows the Warrior to eliminate the chance of being the victim of a crushing blow. Warriors have access to Shield Block, which covers them for 75% of this expected total, leaving only 27.4% necessary. With a 5-second cooldown, most bosses will only hit you twice before you’re able to use Shield Block again, effectively leaving you immune to crushing blows consistently. Increasing your default defensive stats is always a good idea, but it will happen naturally by equipping tanking gear.
About the Author
What is the Hit cap and expertise cap?
The Hit Cap is 9% (142 Hit Rating)
The Expertise Soft Cap (Dodges) is 26 Expertise
The Expertise Hard Cap (Parries) is 56 Expertise
The Expertise numbers can vary depending on your race and weapon choice (Sword Specialization for humans, for example)
Hi. Thanks for the guide. Can you elaborate on why you think block value comes before, say, hit?
Block value gives 1 * 1/6 * hit% threat per second. Let’s take a standard T4 tank and say he has 5% hit and 11 expertise (2.75). that means his chance to hit the boss is 78.75%
That means that 1 block value results in:
1 * 1/6 * 0.7875 = 0.13 TPS
Now 1% hit equals 1% TPS on average, which means that 1 hit rating yields:
1/18 * (800 * 0.01) = 0.44 TPS
As long as you’re not soft capped on expertise, it actually gives double the yield hit does, since it reduces the boss’ chance to dodge and parry at the same time, and you only need 16 rating per 1% reduction.
1/16 * (800 * 0.02) = 1 TPS per expertise rating.
Please let me know if my calculations are correct.
I should elaborate that I used 800 as a baseline for threat produced by a T4 warrior. The same number can be seen in the tank rankings on this website.
The question that comes up when determining a stat priority list for tanks (of any class, really) is, “What will benefit them most?”
There’s a couple reasons why Block Value is valued higher than Hit Rating:
So, by default, you could have 4.26% Hit Chance as Horde, and 5.26% Hit Chance as Alliance on each encounter
As far as comparing Block Value and Expertise…
Because of RNG, unless you’re both Hit and Expertise capped, there is no way of telling what TPS increase per point of either will generate. Will you see a threat increase? Potentially. Are you guaranteed to see that increase? No.
Now, using your numbers (Admittedly, I didn’t check the math) of 0.13 TPS per point of Block Value compared to 0.44 TPS per point of Hit Rating…
You seem to be zeroed in on the TPS differences which as we can see now are very minute when compared, and skipping over the damage mitigation benefit of Block Value.
how can i calculate my total avoidance? ive searched online a little and found some confusing answers. i heard there was some addons that can do it for me. is it worth having an addon? or is it something i can calculate without
Unfortunately, within the default in-game interface, we are unable to completely calculate our total avoidance since our Miss Chance is not posted unlike Dodge, Parry, and Block.
I found Uncrush through Curseforge which should tell you your total avoidance.
If you would rather not use an addon, you can visit Seventyupgrades, enter your current gear, and select “Defense” in one of the four dropdown menus and you should find “Total Avoidance” at the bottom of that list. You can create an account for the site to save your character, so any time you upgrade your gear, you can update it there, too, and see your avoidance.
so this reads 59% Avoidance out of 102.4% is that good or do i need more
Did you put in your talents, enchants, and gems? (Through SeventyUpgrades) or were you using an addon?
this was through the uncrush addon
and without shield block active
is there a block, dodge and parry cap? and is it worth trying to hit any thing of the sort. what should i be aiming for stat wise for mitigation? i see to aim for 9% hit which ive achieved…everywhere says at least 11k hp unbuffed and ive reached 12.5k with only 4 stamina gems. but i still feel like i just get hit harder than id like to. what can i do to help with this. what information should i be looking at to better understand these stats and how they take play in a boss fight scenario. i will list my character
*layout*
1.Gear
2.Enchant
3.Gems
Head
1. Eternium Greathelm
2. +16 Defense Rating and +17 Dodge Rating
3. +4 Hit Rating and +4 Agility, +8 hit, +12 Stamina
Neck
1. Strength of the Untamed
Shoulder
1. Ragesteel Shoulders
2. +15 Defense Rating and +10 Dodge Rating
3. +8 Hit Rating x2
Back
1.Gilded Thorium Cloak
2. +12 Agility
Chest
1.Breastplate of the Warbringer
2. +150 Health
Wrist
1.Vambraces of Courage
2. +12 Stamina
3. +8 Hit Rating
Hands
1. Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden
2 +2% Threat
3. +5 Dodge Rating and +4 Hit Rating, +8 Hit Rating
Waist
1.Sha’tari Vindicator’s Waistguard
Legs
1. Timewarden’s Leggings
2 +30 Stamina and +10 Agility
3. +4 Hit Rating, +8 Hit Rating, +12 Stamina
Feet
1. Boots of Elusion
2. +12 Stamina
Weapon
1. Fireguard
2. Mongoose
Shield
1.Crest of the Sha’tar
2. +18 Stamina
3. +12 Stamina x2
Rings
1.Band of Impenetrable Defenses
1. Violet Signet at Revered reputation
Trinkets
1. Goblin Rocket Launcher
1. Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600
*Unbuffed*
Armor-14076
Defense-491
Dodge-16.97%
Parry-15.64%
Block-21.35%
Resilience-0
Hit Rating-7.74% (Spicy Talbuk to 9%)
Crit Chance-11.47%
Expertise-6
Strenght-232
Agility-146
Stamina-821
and i use Elixir of Major Defense, Elixir of Major Agility, Scroll of Protection V, Scroll of Strength V, Scroll of Agility V, Spicy Hot Talbuk and Ironshield Potions since we have a warlock and i have healthstones
im currently using your 8/6/47 TPS Talent build with points into thunderclap instead of heroic strike due to me sometimes having to offtank and do dungeons…..
sorry for the long post, im trying my best to become a better warrior for my guild and am reaching out to what i consider to be the warrior pros for help
Hey!
My response to you is about 4 pages long in Word, so if you’d like, you can add me on Discord and I can send it to you that way!
Kurathis#1765
i sent an add its larry on discord
These stat priorities are all sorts of questionable. Stamina is awful to stack in TBC because you just become a mana sponge and cause your healers to go OOM. TBC was a golden age for tanks that knew how to gear/stat because it’s the first time we’re able to really hit total coverage on the avoidance table. It didn’t happen until BT, but you can eventually hit 102.5% additive avoidance.
I should correct slightly that Stamina isn’t AWFUL… it’s just like 3rd on the list of what you want to stack. You’re happy to see it, but it’s by no means a focus.
Stamina is always a focus for tanks of any class. If you don’t focus on your stats simultaneously, and just mitigation (as I gather from you) you’re still going to get hit, and a LOT harder than we will – thus, causing your healers to go OOM a lot faster.
Both Warriors and Paladins were capable of reaching crush immunity in Vanilla – the Paladin needed a specific set of gear, sure, but it was possible. In TBC, this is made a thousand times easier. Because of Shield Block, Warriors only need a combined total of 27.4% avoidance which is almost impossible NOT to have at level 70 in just basic gear. Because of this, mitigation becomes a low priority for Warriors since…
Warriors are not crush immune ever once their shield blocks are consumed lol, so saying they are immune to crush because of shield block is a joke idk why the “guides” do it. Our prot warrior was 58% crushed by Gruul using his shield block to over 104% avoidance on cd, so yeah warriors are not immune to crush unless the boss hits slower than 2x per 5 secs which is NO BOSS in game I know big brain is hard
I’m not sure what you mean by, “Our prot warrior was 58% crushed by Gruul…,” but I’ll respond to the other parts of your comment.
Warriors ARE, in fact, immune to crushing blows for the duration of Shield Block – with two charges, sitting on a 5-second cooldown. Most bosses have a swing timer of roughly two seconds. Now, the thing to remember is that Block comes AFTER Miss, Dodge, and Parry – which means that even with Shield Block active, it doesn’t mean that either charge will be used up.
I mean you can sit here with nerd glasses on all night and talk about probability until you’re blue in the face but as a prot war who had over 65% avoidances standing still and used SB on CD and still got double crushed and wiped on a gruul attempt I can assure you that rng will fuck you if it feels like it. Saying we are crush immune it like saying some one wearing kevlar is bullet immune. This type of shit is exactly why I normally don’t go looking for information online, the goddamn “meta nerd” community honestly think they can math everything out and tell the entire world how to gear and play. Meanwhile all you smart fuckers seem to forget that rng is a cunt and every aspect of the game we play is entirely comprised of RNG. Our beloved prot pally tried to tank mag and no one could figure out why he kept just disappearing. The guy had 17k hp and with abilites active could reach 102 avoidance. Problem is that nothing stops the boss from getting 3 full blocked swings in a row with parry haste in between causing dmg that is near unhealable and killing the tank before healers can react.
The reality of this stam stacking bullshit is that people only care about logs and parses. A tank that takes huge dmg but has the hp pool to soak it can be spam-healed like crazy resulting in massive healing parses and as long as your dps are sweaty enough and the healers are gods and blow thru consumes like candy then the dynamic results in max parses all around and everyone can flex their e-peens and hide their tiny little nerd dicks. Change any one factor in that dynamic though and have fun wiping all night.
I personally prefer to think for myself and build a balanced gear set. As long as you have enough HP to take 1.5 full swings from a boss (about 11k unbuffed in plate atm if gearing correctly) then you can stop stacking stam and stack avoidances instead with threat coming when possible (like that sexy AF lower city ring with 20 expertise rating). The end result is a tank that just plain takes less dmg and requires less healing. That then allows healers to waste less mana and fights can last longer without them going Oom which allows a raid team to compensate for less than sweaty dps. The fastest way to kill a boss should not be what every raid team strives toward, most teams should be focused on the most controlled and sustainable method to allow wiggle room for error. For a tank that means gearing to TAKE less dmg, not to soak more.
*Mic Drop*
>Now, the thing to remember is that Block comes AFTER Miss, Dodge, and Parry
What leads you to this conclusion?
The attack table in TBC.
Thanks! Didn’t know about that.
Crushing blow is a 15% chance on the boss’ attack table. The chance for a druid to be crushed that much over the course of a Mag fight is so astronomically low it may as well be literally impossible, let alone if you have a warrior pressing shield block on cooldown.