How beefy is your tank? (non-bear)

[Bigfish]

Takes more points of parry to equal one percent compared to 1% dodge.. ie like lets say to get 16-17% parry you need 60 parry rating, dodge 16-17% may only take like 40 dodge rating.

/sigh, right, but that wasn't the issue. 39 points in dodge increases your dodge by 1%. 41 points in Defense increases Dodge/Parry/Miss by 1%. Hachoo was saying 1% dodge is fundamentaly better than 1% Dodge/Parry/Miss. I don't see why dodge is any more or less prefferable than miss or parry.

[Iceorbz]

defense is on diminishing returns, he might have mispoken.. once defense capped your better off shooting for single stats, as you already have a huge DR on defense, it helps but not all that much.

Dodge is not preferable, just on the diminishing return scales it gives the best gain per point once defense capped, up to a certain percentage. People that have shields should be stacking block rating anyways.

[Bigfish]

Great. Well, I guess it doesn't matter, since you can't really be selective with gear anyway. Guess its good to know the curves are so screwed it doesn't really matter what you gear for. Just slap on more item points and don't dump everything in to one. Lovely. So much for dynamic gear appropriation. Wonder how long before everything gets reduced to Tank/DPS/Healer rating.

[puppychow]

Are you sure defense is on diminishing returns? My understanding is that it is not, and neither is block rating. Dodge and parry both are however, but you need to start hitting 40% or so in either before the DR really kicks in hard (ie takes a ton of points to move up 1%)

Either way stacking up too much avoidance/mitigation is bad, a tank with 20k hp and 80% avoidance is still going to die on bad luck streaks. Once I'm past 20/20/20 dodge/parry/block, and obviously 540 defense, I like to focus mostly on HP. I'll still gem dodge/stam to match colors if the bonus is great, but generally gem and enchant for stam/defense combos. I'm currently at 29.2k hp, 25.5k AC, 22.5% dodge, 20% parry, 19% block on my prot pally, unbuffed - its nice hitting 36k or so raid buffed

A feral druid I pug'd 2 drake OS with had 54k hp buffed, omg! You pretty much need a feral MT for 3 drakes I've heard. Really suprised you don't see more feral druid tanks, they seem the beefiest - maybe AOE tanking issues?

[Iceorbz]

defense is most certainly on DR, only block rating is not.. Hence alot of guys will stack BR vs. other stats

[Hachoo]

Takes more points of parry to equal one percent compared to 1% dodge.. ie like lets say to get 16-17% parry you need 60 parry rating, dodge 16-17% may only take like 40 dodge rating.

/sigh, right, but that wasn't the issue. 39 points in dodge increases your dodge by 1%. 41 points in Defense increases Dodge/Parry/Miss by 1%. Hachoo was saying 1% dodge is fundamentaly better than 1% Dodge/Parry/Miss. I don't see why dodge is any more or less prefferable than miss or parry.

Its more preferable right now because of parry haste. Also I remember reading in multiple places that you can dodge attacks that aren't made with a weapon, but you can't parry attacks that aren't made with a weapon, though I'm not entirely sure what that might pertain to in-game.

[Los]

defense is most certainly on DR, only block rating is not.. Hence alot of guys will stack BR vs. other stats

Block rating is cheap stats wise, but it also has its limitations because it gets pushed of the table before the other. For an interesting read;

http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2008/...k-hit-and.html

Block Cap

After you are Uncrittable, you should start working towards the The Block Cap. This may be a new concept for Paladin tanks, but it really isn't. The Block Cap is what used to be known as Uncrushable, i.e. a combined Miss, Parry, Dodge, and Block of 102.5%. Once you reach that point, any additional Block Rating falls off the table. You are 'capped' on the amount of Block you can have. It should be noted that since Holy Shield was changed to have its duration be longer than it's cooldown, it is now safe to assume 100% uptime on Holy Shield when calculating your Block Cap, however, don't make the mistake a certain Paladin I know (who shall remain nameless) made and continue to count Holy Shield at 35% unless you plan on continuing to wear the Libram of Repentance. Holy Shield is only 30%.

Being at the Block Cap is very helpful because it means that every unavoided attack from the Boss will be a Block. Paladins are the only class now that can stay Block Capped 100% of the time. Each Block takes off damage equal to your Block Value. If the Boss hits for 9000, and you have 900 Block Value (not unreasonable), you effectively shave off 10% of the damage each and every hit. That can add up to a huge amount of damage reduction over the course of the fight.

It also provides Paladins with the most predictable damage intake, and makes Paladins the easiest tank to heal.

So you can't be Crit, and every incoming attack is a Block at the worse case, what's next?