Some questions on tanking hard and soft caps.

[Bughferd]

What is a soft cap? And does the block hard cap of 65% count before or after PoR if it's after that means the "real" hard cap is 85% correct?


Also after hitting the soft cap should I start to prioritize block less and dodge more? As before the patch I wasn't close to these caps at all and was using Radak's stat weights to decide on gear.

[Cordae]

There are (supposed to be) two block caps - one on chance to block, and one on damage reduction from block.

At 721 Block Rating, damage reduction is supposed to soft cap at 50%. Damage reduction hard caps at 1357, or 65%. Unfortunately, the block tooltip does not calculate your damage reduction with the diminishing returns. Either the tooltip is incorrect, or this soft cap DOES NOT ACTUALLY EXIST. I have yet to hear clarification from Trion on the matter, and I haven't checked to see if this was fixed in 1.7.

At 928 Block Rating, you'll hit diminishing returns for chance to block at 45%.

If you check out Radak's spreadsheets, I'm fairly certain he incorporates the diminishing returns into his BiS list. Generally, block will always be your best stat even with diminishing returns. You'll hit the parry hard cap easily, so you want block, then dodge, then parry (At least for avoidance talents).