Disclaimer: All of this is speculation based on information from Worldofraids and Blizzcon.
For Starters
This post is going to be about tanking and Cataclysm. We want to note though that Cataclysm is still far off but, the mechanics behind tanking are starting to come together.Avoidance Nerf
In patch 3.2 Avoidance was nerfed for tanks. I play a Death Knight class so avoidance was a main part of tanking for us, since we don’t have the luxury of shields. But there is a bigger Nerf for avoidance coming Cataclysm.The first way of nerfing is to remove defense rating stats. Another key for DeathKnight Tanks lol. Not only do tanks get reduction in chance to be crit, but you lose all the extra stat points you get from Defense rating stat. Thus loss of avoidance.
The Second way is getting avoidance from talents. Warriors get 5% dodge from talents. There a possibility that these will be removed from the talent trees.
Mastery Becuase of losing passive talents, characters will gain mastery bonus. There are three mastery bonuses. Two of them should be the same for all tanks, a reduction in damage taken and increase in health. Every tank will recieve these.
As for the third mastery bonus. It should vary by class. Because of the different ways different classes tank. So this stat would make gear for specific classes.
Block
Block is a wierd stat as of now. It doesn’t do much against raid bosses, but it prevents all damage from lighter damaging mobs. Blocking will no longer be against light damaging mobs because the fluctuation that will come in cataclysm will make it so that paladins can just block everything and won’t even need a healer. So they are doing it with percentage block even against raid bosses.Itemization
So now that we have the mastery stat. There is some compications. Items that have stats such as+75 Strength
+100 Stamina
Equip: Improves hit rating by 30.
Equip: Improves mastery by 50.This item would be desired by both a DPS class and Tanking class. Because the mastery stat improves both the dps of the dps class and tanking for Tanking class. At the same time though I realized that a tank wouldn’t need to get another item for his dps set because the mastery stat applies to both.
The Final Note
So pretty much in cataclysm tanks will be taking a lot more damage due to reduction of avoidance. This will help balance the need for Stat overflow as you see in WOTLK tanking. We look forward to what is going to brought with Cataclysm. But we did not expect something to this depth at all! =)
Source: Worldofraids, Blizzard
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