Prot @ 80Follow

Fighting a boss (treated as 3 levels higher) your chance to block, be missed, dodge, and parry are all 0.6% lower than something of your level. This is generated from the difference between actual (base) skills (weapon/defense etc etc, NOT ratings -- and NOT with gear/talents added) so the difference is the same at level 80-83 as it was a 70-73 since everything scales evenly with actual skills (again, NOT ratings).

So... in order to push every straight-up hit off of the attack table you'd still need 102.4% combined block+avoidence against a boss. The only damaging hits you'd still take are Blocks at that point, which would be reduced by your Block Value and likely somewhere around 50% (or possibly a fair bit less with huge avoidence gearing) of swings the boss takes would hit as Blocks.

Removing crits from the table requires enough Defense to reduce your chance to be crit by 5.6%, which is an additional 140 Defense SKILL from the 400 you get from being level 80. So you'd need 540 Defense for that.

The benchmarks are mostly the same (Defense is really the same just with the extra 50 points from levelling 10 levels added) because SKILL does not scale by level... RATINGS however do, which means it will require MORE in order to reach the benchmarks than it previously did.

As for gemming.. I'd say it's going to be a lot more of a personal oppinion now that we can put the vast majority of stats available to some use. Gemming for Stamina is also gemming for Spell Damage remember, but the rule has always been to gem for what you need. In TBC, for Paladins that was invariably Stamina.

Remember that 1 Defense Skill = 0.04% Miss, Block, Dodge, and Parry (or 0.16% total block + avoidence) so it's not like you don't get any from stacking mass Defense. But yes, I've noticed this as well. I'd attribute a large part of it to the fact that you don't NEED 102.4% to be viable any more. It's more important to get a nice healthy Dodge % and go to town with that.

You'll also notice that there's no libram like the Libram of Repentance with a Wrath-sized increase to Block Rating for Holy Shield. Instead, the librams are all geared toward threat generation. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what kind of avoidence will be neccessary to push into different levels of content. I really doubt we'll need to push all regular hits off the table entirely for a good portion of it.

Expect a TON more HP in the next couple of levels. You'll probably be sitting at 17.5-18k by 78. There's a LOT of HP to go around at 80 -- makes me wonder just how hard we'll be getting hit :D

Frankly no, mobs in heroics DO hit hard, the instances earlier on may seem easy but don't let that fool you, you'll want defense of 535 for heroic bosses.

There is plenty of gear options available, including the blacksmithing items which will help get you there, in fact I purposely ignored some of the blacksmithing items which have higher defense rating but lower stamina in favour of other gear with more stamina and still made 539 def there are also some great rep items which have equivalents in the 80 dungeons so there are plenty of choices.

I started my heroics with 20.4k health, 20.5k armour, 539 def and 87% avoidance, I'll say right now my 70 gear wasn't that great so I've picked this mostly up from quest rewards and dungeons on the way to 80. It wasn't a cake walk but it's fairly doable with a good team behind you.

I've had some luck with drops tonight, 4 drops (inc 1 epic) passed on a 5th and 13 emblems. That's taken my health to 21.6k def to 541 and armour to 21.7.

My point.. if you have to sacrifice a little health to pick up your defense then do so but I really don't think it will be that necessary.

Edited to add: If you want an idea of how hard you'll get hit without getting defense capped, I sat down during one of the fights with the big guys in Gundrak earlier, he critted me for 15k.

Edited, Nov 22nd 2008 2:27am by Ermpriest