Today The Care and Feeding of Warriors is confused. Matthew Rossi looks at this week's patch notes and sits there blinking a lot, not entirely sure what to make of them

Another week, another series of patch notes to leave me scratching my head and saying "Seriously? This is what we're doing, nerfing the crap out of agility for tanking? Did dodge rating steal somebody's lunch money as a kid? And Shield Block, I trusted you." It's strange to feel betrayed by a core tanking ability. I get why they're nerfing it, since they're increasing the amount of Block value on gear that has to double it's current values, I've already heard Prot warriors and paladins contemplating putting together BV sets for PvP and this change will keep warriors from using SB to get hideous crits in PvP with Shield Slam. At least I think that's the reasoning: I can't believe that anyone was actually worried about Prot Warriors' DPS while tanking in PvE content being too high after the change for 10 seconds out of every 40. Even if Protection Warriors put on every single piece of Block value gear imaginable, that 10 seconds of double damage with Shield Slam would still leave them at the absolute bottom of the tanking basement in terms of damage dealt while tanking.

The agility change is a near non-issue for almost all Warrior tanks: maybe you had Agility as your cape enchant or a few AGI gems, but for the most part Warriors don't stack Agility as tanks. However, since Dodge is at the moment probably the best stat a warrior can stack, the Dodge rating changes will sting quite a bit. (I am aware they're more like a hammer to the back of the head for Druids, but even so.)

Let us look at the specific changes (both Warrior and general) that stood out to me from the most recent patch notes. First we'll look at the changes from the general items section.

• Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of Dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of Dodge a player has with 0 Agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their Dodge percentage vary a small amount.
• Block Value: The amount of bonus Block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base Block value on shields or Block value derived from Strength.
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to Block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their Block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
• Dodge Rating: The amount of Dodge rating required per percentage of Dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes Dodge rating and Parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.
• Parry Rating: The amount of Parry rating required per percentage of Parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes Dodge rating and Parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more quickly than Dodge.

The Block value changes we were already familiar with, of course. I do get that they want Parry and Dodge to be roughly equivalent in terms of their effectiveness to tanks and they have to take gear inflation into account, but man, I was not expecting it. Perhaps this just shows how out of touch with tanking I actually am. I do find it interesting that Block rating alone escaped being reduced but with them buffing Block value it would be kind of surreal to nerf the least desirable tanking stat. Perhaps it's Block rating's unique status as half a tanking variable (neither Dodge nor Parry have a rating to determine whether or not they happen and then a value to determine how effective they are as Block does) that spared it the chopping block, or perhaps the changes are meant to bring both Dodge and Parry in line with Block's effectiveness or lack thereof.

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