Find out what's changing for tanks in Cataclysm

UPDATE: Ghostcrawler and Zarhym have posted many more details on the upcoming tanking changes in the thread. Check after the jump for their posts.

In preparation for the impending launch of Cataclysm, Blizzard is currently "assessing and amending" tanking cooldowns, particularly at level 85. While druids and death knights will ultimately see some changes, Nethaera has posted some specific updates that are planned for warriors and paladins regarding block chance:

Paladins - Holy Shield will be changed to increase block value by 10% (40% total) instead of increasing block chance by 15%. Since this will cause Mastery to become more valuable, the amount of block granted by Mastery will be reduced to 2.25% block chance per point of Mastery, down from 3%.

Warriors - At level 85, the value of Shield Block decreases as block value generated by Mastery increases. To remedy this, we will convert overflow of block + avoidance that exceeds 100% into critical block chance instead. Along with that change, Shield Block will be reduced to +25% block chance (down from +100%), but this will still yield a net buff for most warriors. Also in response to this change, the amount of block and critical block provided by Mastery will be equalized. Finally, Mastery will now grant 1.5% block chance per point.

So, what do all you tanking paladins and warriors think about the upcoming changes?

Re: Upcoming Tanking Changes

Here are some additional details based on the questions and feedback we're seeing:

• The new warrior Mastery is 1.5% block and 1.5% critical block per point of mastery.
  
  
• Shield Block will spill over into critical block if any portion of the 25% would have been wasted because your block + dodge + parry is so high already. If you are somehow always over 100% (which will be pretty hard now), you only get the critical block when Shield Block is up. The intent is to make sure Shield Block isn't wasted, not to make sure you have mastery coming out your ears (or any other orifice in the facial region).
  
  
• Shield Block is not intended to be a magic damage cooldown (neither is Blood Shield, which also is physical damage only). We don’t want to duplicate the exact same ability on every tank when we can avoid it. Bosses generally don’t spam out a lot of magic damage on short cooldowns. On the other hand, Shield Block has a much higher up-time than Barkskin. We still believe the Cataclysm raiding environment is going to be a lot less centered around tanks dying to spike damage than players currently experience at level 80. Mitigating a lot of damage to save healer mana can be very valuable in Cataclysm.
  
  
• Savage Defense is massively overpowered on beta and has been dealt with accordingly. Many of the reports of beta raid bosses two-shotting tanks were because that was how much damage the bosses needed to do in order to challenge Feral tanks. With less damage absorbed, the boss damage can be adjusted downwards. We've reduced the multiplier for attack power on the absorption effect (from 65% to 35%, still modified by mastery) and it no longer procs from periodic critical hits.
  
  
• Paladin tanks are not intended to go cap block as fast as they can. It’s fine if you want to do that, but we don’t treat it as “the new defense cap” and we don’t balance paladins assuming they have a 100% block chance. That is something the community identified as being not only possible, but likely, and one of the reasons we changed the way block works for paladins.
  
  
• These changes are all slated for patch 4.0.3a when the shattering of Azeroth takes place, and are not currently implemented on live realms. Some of them may be active in the beta test – the Savage Defense change for example was applied via a hotfix to the beta realms recently.

Re: Upcoming Tanking Changes

Here are a few additional changes we are making which will be applied in patch 4.0.3a:

• Guardian of Ancient Kings -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.
  
  
• Icebound Fortitude -- Damage reduction changed from 30% to 20% (or 60% to 50% talented). Cooldown still 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds.
  
  
• Shield Wall -- Damage reduction changed from 40% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.
  
  
• Glyph of Shield Wall -- Now buffs damage reduction by 10% (to 60%), but only adds 1 minute of cooldown.
  
  
• Survival Instincts -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds.
  
  
• Bear Form -- Stamina bonus lowered from 20% to 10% and Heart of the Wild health bonus from 10% to 6%. Bear health should be close to plate tank health with this change.

Re: Upcoming Tanking Changes

We have a few more changes which have just come through the pipeline we'd like to share. Some of these changes override changes previously announced in this thread.

This is the sort of rapid iteration our development teams excel at, which is why we're sometimes unable to share every single tweak we make with the public. Game balance is an ongoing project, but since we have a good platform in this thread for sharing tanking changes, let us have a look at the latest:

• Guardian of Ancient Kings (talented) – 50% damage reduction, 3 minute cooldown, 12 second duration.
  
  
• Icebound Fortitude (talented) -- 50% damage reduction, 3 minute cooldown, 12 second duration.
  
  
• Survival Instincts -- 50% damage reduction, 3 minute cooldown, 12 second duration.
  
  
• Shield Wall (talented) – 40% damage reduction, 2 minute cooldown, 12 second duration.
  
  
• Shield Wall (talented and glyphed) – 60% damage reduction, 4 minute cooldown, 12 second duration.