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Welcome to part three of my tanking stats overview for Tanking 101. So far we have covered maxing out our defense and talked a bit about avoidance. So we know how to make critical hits impossible, and we know how to avoid hits altogether. Today let’s talk about how to reduce the damage that actually gets through. There are two basic ways to do this. We can block the attack, or we can reduce the damage with our armor.

Blocking of course is only for the Warrior and Paladin tanks out there, but it is an important and somewhat confusing topic, so here we go!

Block Rating: This stat increases the chance that you will block an incoming attack with your shield. You still take damage, but your shield will stop a good part of that damage. This can almost be classified as an avoidance stat, because you stack it much in the same way that you stack dodge and parry, in fact it all fits into the same equation to figure out your overall avoidance. You will find that this is the easiest to stack in terms of avoidance per point, but it also is the least effective due to the fact you are still taking damage. When it comes to avoidance dodge is still king, but BR is a great stat to stack, particularly if you are a Paladin going for the block cap (102.4 total avoidance)

Block Value: The difference between block rating and block value is a major stumbling block for many up and coming tanks. It is important to note that THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Where block rating determines your chance to block an attack, block value determines how much of the total damage is blocked. Block value basically says how much damage is going to be shaved off the incoming attack when you block it. So in review, Rating = how often, Value = how much.

Armor: Armor can take a giant chunk of the damage we take in. In many cases it can be reduced by 60-70% if you have a lot of armor. Unfortunately there is really very little we can do to affect this. Armor comes with our gear's item level. So as you upgrade your armor will go up, it is not something to pay particular attention to. In my experience special items with extra armor are rarely worth it. Now I must apologize to the bears out there. I know that armor is a whole different game for you guys, I just can’t say I really know the ins and outs.

What is The Real World Raid Application? This one is pretty simple. Ever wonder why mobs can beat on you all day, yet if one gets loose they will once shot a clothie? They hit them a lot harder than they hit you because you have tons of armor to push take a bite out of the damage. After armor takes off its chuck, then you can block and take off even more. It is easy to see how this can really help, especially against multiple mobs. While many people tend to frown on mitigation as compared to avoidance, I remain a big fan. In many situations the difference between life and death can be a few thousand hit points. When that is the case, you are glad you pushed damage off the table to keep you alive.

So there you go! Now we have covered defense, avoidance, and mitigation. We are far from done however, as there are lots of more stats that play into being an effective tank. We will talk about some of those next time!

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