Phew, I’ve been busy. I recently moved from Georgia to Nevada and am in the process of finding a new job, getting settled back into the groove of living with family again and trying to find time to fit WoW into the picture. Lately, I’ve been working as time permits on an Undead Warrior alt, Maritina, who is right around 76 at this point, raiding only in guild scheduled 25 man raids and dealing with my ever changing real life. I’ve had so much going on that I haven’t had time to post much lately. This is actually a revival of an abused “Save Draft” button post that I was working on quite a while ago. I’m terrible about abusing that damn button… Anyway, becoming Blockcapped is something that is still an important part of Paladin tanking and warrants discussion, so I’m resurrecting this topic. I’ll start you off with a lead in from the original post to set the tone and to help convey how powerful Blockcap can be.

My guild now clears content in a night and a half of raiding, and though we’ve started attempts of three drakes on Sartharion, our past two kills have been with only two drakes up, due to our impatience on our first round of attempts and, due to the Superbowl this weekend, our lack of an available third raid night this week. Being that we’ve started these attempts, I’ve been doing more research on a tankadin’s potential role in this fight.

Turns out, being Blockcapped can be a very powerful asset when tasked with the role of drake tank or add tank, making it much easier on your healers in an already healing intensive fight. If you’re Blockcapped as a Drake tank, the damage you take will be much smoother and easier to heal through. If you’re Blockcapped for adds, and have enough Block Value, you can almost be completely untouchable by the whelp adds, as they don’t hit very hard, making it so you essentially turn your block into avoidance and help you take substantially less damage.

What is this “Blockcap?”

Blockcapping, also called “unhittable” by some, refers to attaining 102.4% combined avoidance and mitigation while Holy Shield is active. Sound familiar? It’s probably because 102.4% was the magic number for becoming Uncrushable pre-WotLK. Becoming Uncrushable pushed Crushing Blows, or extra hard boss hits, off the table, making for a much smoother damage intake. When one is Uncrushable, they cannot take an unmitigated hit, and Crushing Blows could only land when a hit wasn’t mitigated. This made tanks easier to heal and vastly reduced the chance of an “instagib” or a one shot. The reason it is now called “Blockcap” is that 102.4% is the point when Block Rating begins to be pushed off the table by avoidance. In the current content, Protection Paladins are the only tanks that can attain this 102.4% combined avoidance and mitigation, making us the smoothest tanks to heal in terms of incoming melee damage. It also allows us to become niche tanks in situations with many light hitting mobs when we pair Blockcapping with Block Value items.

So, how exactly does one “Blockcap?”

Well, in order to Blockcap, you need to attain 102.4% combined avoidance and mitigation. The way you figure out how close to this number (or how far over) you are is fairly simple. First, open up your in-game character sheet and click the “Defenses” tab. Add up your percentages of Dodge, Block and Parry. Now add 30% to that total to account for Holy Shield and add another 10% to that (this is an estimation to account for base miss, which is 5% and the assumed amount of Miss you have from Defense, another 5%). As a note, the Miss percentage displayed on your character sheet when you mouseover the Defense area is not accurate as it doesn’t take into account diminishing returns. All other percentages are accurate. Don’t fret if this total is below the 102.4% threshold. The question now is how much avoidance do you receive from raid buffs? Most tanks in a 25 man raid will receive an extra 2-3% avoidance when fully raid buffed. If you’re right around 102.4%, perfect! Just be mindful of hovering around that percentage raid buffed when you upgrade your gear, re-gem and change enchants.

I’m a bit over Blockcap raid buffed, what should I do?

If you are above 102.4% combined avoidance and mitigation with Holy Shield active, the best thing you can do is shed some Block Rating in favour of avoidance. Dodge and Parry are harder to stack than Block Rating because of the way they are weighted. It takes 39.3 Dodge Rating to equal 1% Dodge, 49.18 Parry Rating to equal 1% Parry and only 16.39% Block Rating to equal 1% Block. However, Block is an inferior stat to Dodge an Parry, so once you are comfortably Blockcapped you should do your best to shed any block being pushed over that cap and replacing it with avoidance.

Okay, I’m not quite there yet, help?

If you are under the Blockcap, the best way to get yourself close is by stacking Defense. Regardless of whether or not you are Crit Capped (535 Defense for heroics, 540 Defense for raids), Defense has benefits beyond this point. One point of Defense skill increases your Dodge, Block, Parry and Miss by 0.04%. It is a complete and well rounded boost to your goal towards Blockcap. Also, keep raiding and upgrading your gear. The better the pieces you get are, the easier it is to hit and maintain Blockcap without sacrificing other important stats like Stamina and Armour.

All of this seems pretty complicated…

Although attaining Blockcap may seem daunting, it’s really an easy way to maximize your potential as a tank. There are a couple of tools and guides to help you on your way. One is a macro that makes the calculation of the 102.4% a piece of cake.

/run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Unhittable at 102.4%% - you have %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + GetBlockChance() + GetParryChance() + 5 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/4.91850*0.04))))

Create this into a macro, pop Holy Shield and hit the macro. It will display in your chat box the goal 102.4% you are striving for and the progress you’ve made towards it in the form of your current percentage of Dodge, Block, Parry and Miss. It’s quick and easy, as well as an accurate way to figure out what percentage you are at while raid buffed.

For those who are newer to tanking and need help choosing gear pieces and enchanting and gemming choices to put themselves closer should check out Eanin’s Failsafe WotLK Gear Guide as well as Petrus’ Guide to WotLK Gear Enchants and Gems. Krazy also has a guide, Krazy’s Block Cap Gear Guide (Pre Naxx), for those pre-Naxxaramas folk, but please realize that this post is geared more toward those who are currently raiding and I don’t advocate sacrificing important stats like Stamina and Armour for the pure Block Rating required to attain Blockcap in a pre-raiding environment.

Okay, you’ve sold me.

I know I’ve just spent this entire post explaining why you should Blockcap, but I do have a few words of caution. Please weigh what sacrifices you are making to attain Blockcap. Losing a few hundred HP for a significant upgrade to your Avoidance is probably more than worth it. Losing a few thousand HP, on the other hand, is probably not a good decision. Use your discretion, resources and general knowledge to guide yourself to an appropriate decision. I also don’t believe it is necessary or practical to Blockcap unbuffed. Take your raid buffs into account when calculating Blockcap so that you’re are not sacrificing important stats for Block that will simply be pushed off the table in a raid environment.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 3:10 am and is filed under Basics, Tankadin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.