Melee mitigation Melee mitigation is reducing the effectiveness of an attack , and there are specific strategies for mitigating melee attacks . For mitigating magical spell s , see resistance and resistance equipment for more details . Basics . This article summarizes in one place what a tank needs to know about mitigation and gear . The following stats are described as a unit , most of which have their own individual pages for more information : The attack table . To begin , there are several different outcomes of any melee attack . These are miss , dodge , parry , block , hit , critical hit , and crushing blow . When leveling up to 80 , or if you played during the Burning Crusade , you may have seen a crushing blow . Currently in the game , crushing blows are only possible if the mob is 4 levels or more higher than your current level . Effectively once you reach level 80 , you will never have to worry about these again since even raid bosses are only level 83 . Note that glancing blow s only apply to offensive attacks , so they will not be described further in this article . Critical hits . For dungeons and raiding , the first mitigation stat a tank must worry about is hitting the defense cap , which now pushes criticial hits off the combat table . Remember that critical hits are double the amount of a normal hit . For a level 80 , the defense cap for level 83 bosses is 540 defense when unmodified by talent s or glyph s . In a heroic mode dungeon , the bosses will only be level 82 so the cap is 535 defense . Defense at level 80 is acquired at a rate of 4 . 92 defense " rating . " Assuming the level 80 have 400 defense skill , you need a minimum of 689 defense rating contributed from your gear to meet the 540 cap , again only 665 for heroic bosses . Notably , Survival of the Fittest completely eliminates the defense cap for druid tanks . It is very possible to have a high dodge or parry rating and then lose it via a stun and then critted . So having enough defense is vital to a tank ' s survivability . Once a tank becomes dedicated to raiding , any pvp gear will be replaced with proper tanking gear . However new tanks still running heroics , keep in mind that resilience also mitigates critical hits and stacks with defense . If using resilience alone , 460 resilience rating is needed to completely mitigate critical hits from a level 83 raid boss , but only 443 for a level 82 heroic dungeon boss . This is because a raid boss has an 5 . 6 % to critically strike and 5 . 4 % for heroic dungeon bosses . When a tank has a combination of resilience " and " defense rating , sum the amount of crit reduction from both . 123 defense rating ( or 25 defense skill ) is needed to reduce critical hit chance by 1 % . 81 . 96 resilience rating also reduces crit chance by 1 % . Hits . Once a tank has is uncrittable , tanks now try to mitigate regular hits . For tanks that cannot wear shields , these attacks can only be partially mitigated by accumulating a large armor rating and can never be pushed off the combat table . For tanks that can wear a shield , regular hits can be pushed off the combat table with block rating . Block cap . For shield wearers , the next stat they should strive for is the block cap . Much alike the critical hit cap , hitting the block cap will remove regular hits off the combat table altogether ( as defense removed critical hits off the table ) . When block capped , " every " attack you take will be mitigated in " some " way . Fully mitigated hits are misses , parries , and dodges , where the amount of damage taken is reduced all the way to zero . The remainder of blocked hits will be reduced based on armor rating and block value ( not to be confused with block rating and block chance ) . If the tank is level 80 and the mob is level 80 , the playing field is even , and the block cap is 100 % avoidance . But when the boss is level 82 or level 83 , the mob gains an advantage and has an extra chance to land a hit . For each level the mob or boss is above you , he is 0 . 2 % less likely to be dodged , parried , miss , or to be blocked when hitting in melee combat . For a level 82 boss ( in a heroic dungeon ) , the block cap for the tank is 101 . 6 % and for raids ( because bosses are level 83 ) the cap is 102 . 4 % . Avoidance . Especially for tanks that can block , remember that not all mitigation ( block rating , block value , parry rating , dodge rating , armor rating ) is created equal . Even though you must have 102 . 4 % total avoidance or higher to be block capped , the table still only has 100 points . Even at the minimum 102 . 4 % , 2 . 4 % will always be wasted in a sense . This wasted avoidance will always come from your chance to block , never from your chance to miss , parry , or dodge . This is because block is the lowest stat on the table . Stacking block rating is good when leveling to " hit " the cap with less gear . However , as a geared tank , hitting the cap using more miss , parry , and dodge chance is desirable to take less damage overall . Again this is because a regular or blocked hit is only " partially " reduced by armor and block value , but a parried , dodged , or missed hit result in the damage going all the way to " zero " . On the flip side of the coin , in terms of reaching the block cap , chance to block ( from block rating , not block value ) gives the most bang for your buck . For the sake of comparison , we ' ll temporarily ignore diminishing returns . For every 16 . 395 block rating , you gain 1 % avoidance . The same is true for 39 . 348 dodge , 49 . 185 parry , or 122 . 95 defense rating . Defense rating is a little bit special because while doesn ' t provide very much total avoidance per rating point , it ' s the way to increase your chance to miss an incoming hit once you reach level 80 and max out your weapon skill . Parry is also special ( remember that defense rating also increases parry just slightly ) because a parried hit increases your attack speed temporarily , but a dodged hit does not . Diminishing returns . Finally , to explain diminishing returns , commonly referred to as " DR " . You ' ll notice on the character screen in several places there is the remark " before diminishing returns . " What you see is not actually what you get , in particular if you have a lot of any one avoidance stat . For this reason , you may find the best gear balances your avoidance stats somewhat evenly , to avoid the diminishing returns as much as possible . Thankfully , base stats , talents , and racial s are not impacted by DR , only gear is . At first DR has little to no impact on the rate of return , but if you stack ( for example ) dodge and dodge only , you will eventually get very little additional dodge for each additional dodge rating . You would take less damage overall by replacing " some " of the dodge rating with another type of avoidance , defense , block , and parry rating . To calculate DR exactly , you need to use your class specific coefficient for each avoidance stat . When calcuating remember that base stats and talented stats have no DR , agility and defense rating do give additional avoidance , but they are affected by DR as well . Block rating is impacted by DR , but since most tanks replace the majority of their block rating with parry , defense , and dodge , data is not available for the block rating DR coefficients . Shield block value . Lastly for shield wielders , when you have accumulated lots of high quality avoidance from parry , dodge , and miss , you can still reduce your damage taken from stacking shield block value ( and armor of course ) . Block value has no DR , unlike " chance " to block ( from block " rating " ) . Block value is important for new tanks as well , since fewer hits will be missed , dodged , and parried .