There are a lot of similarities and differences between warriors and paladins. As tanks, we both use shields, both tend to have similar functioning cooldowns, but one uses the powers of the Light and the other does not. The battle between which class is better has been in debate for a long time, and really, I'm not here to add to either argument. I have both classes, and I am better at my warrior than my paladin, thus, I write about my warrior.
Today I'd like to talk about block and mastery, and how it differs between warriors and paladins. It occurred to me that a lot of tanks compare their stats to each other, and will often base their (sometimes massive) e-peens on who has more hit off the attack table. I'm clarifying how both are different, and why comparing oneself to another class is usually futile.
First, we'll take a look at the protection paladin mastery, Divine Bulwark. It's a pretty solid mastery, and one that makes it quite easy to gear up and reach unhittable status. Compare it to the protection warrior mastery, Critical Block. At first glance it seems that warriors got the shaft. Divine Bulwark not only starts at a 6% higher base, but each mastery point gives 1.5 times more block than warriors get! Early in the gearing process, this can seem daunting. Paladins without argument have an easier time launching off. This is one reason why one might have heard that paladins are easy to learn how to tank with. I found this to be the case myself, and I can urge beginning tanks to learn how to tank on a paladin.
However, there is more to Critical Block than what I just mentioned. There is of course the idea of critical blocks. Blocks which will block not for 30% of a hit, but 60%. What happens is, when an attack happens, the normal attack table is checked, and if it is blocked, a separate roll is made that checks to see if it's a normal block or a critical block. Essentially, what this means is, the more warriors stack mastery, the higher chance we have of critically blocking. The changes made a few months back to the ability Shield Block allow us to reach unhittable when it's popped at 77.4% unhittable. If you remember from a few entries ago, unhittable is dodge + parry + block + 5 = 102.4%. What's interesting to note about Shield Block is that it says when you reach 100% the excess is turned into critical block chance. So even at 77.4% unhittable, warriors will still be getting 2.4% extra chance to critical block! This means that with even higher levels of unhittable status, every excess is going to block. For example, at 82.6% unhittable (57.49% of which is block), popping Shield Block for 25% more block would give a total of 107.6% unhittable, which would convert the remaining 7.6% into extra critical block, which stacks on to the 57.49% for a total of 65.09% chance to critical block when I roll a chance to block with Shield Block up.
This is where the warrior mastery excels. Until reaching a point where unhittable is possible, paladins have a distinct advantage, they require less gear to get better attack tables. The warrior's path is a bit more difficult, however, eventually it pays off exponentially. They stack mastery as high as possible and it has no real ceiling on it's usefulness. Even beyond 102.4% unhittable base (which is impossible in this tier), we are still stacking mastery for the extra critical block chance. The only time it becomes useless is if our block chance alone eventually reaches 100%, which is a ceiling Blizzard will never allow us to reach, as it would also make our critical blocks reach 100% as well, allowing us to never take a hit for more than 40% of it's normal damage. That would be too overpowered, by anyone's count.
Coming back to paladins, they do have a ceiling to reach on their mastery. Once they are able to reach 102.4% unhittable, they can stop, as it has no additional benefit to them. If they're able to, they can put some stats into stamina. Anything else but mastery, really. This is perhaps why they are able to accrue block at such a rapid pace compared to warriors. They don't want or need as much. Don't take that the wrong way though. Until they reach that cap, they still want to be stacking mastery as much as they can. We are alike in that regard.
In the end, you can see how mastery is a fantastic stat for both classes. But they use it in very different ways. Before warriors get too full of themselves bragging about how their mastery is "better", keep in mind a lot of people still gauge their tanks by how many hit points they have. The paladin's mastery cap allows him to eventually get some other stat. As warriors, mastery is literally all we want this tier, which will often put high end paladins at a higher hit point total, assuming they are gearing correctly. Make sure your guild and raid know the facts before choosing which tank for which role, and your raid will do a lot better.
Thanks for reading, and if you liked the entry or found it helpful, leave a comment!
