Undocumented 1.11 Changes

[Concillian]

Compare that to an ilvl 67 purple from MC

Drillborer Disc
2539 armor / 46 block / +10 stam / +2% block / +23 block value / 3 damage returned.

Drillborer is only
418 armor more / 1 block value (46+23 = 69; 39 + 29 = 68) / 2% more block

Yes Drillborer is better, but in a DKP or list system who would want to lose a spot/points for that little gain over an easily farmable shield. The 3 damage returned is pretty much wasted item budget in my book. Barrier shield is pretty much a shard on tribute runs now too since 10 stam > 2% block for most situations.

I'm not so sure, I know armor isn't a huge consideration, but 418 armor is a lot...

Consider my gearing choice between Draconian deflector and Immovable Object from a purely armor perspective:

DD is 2153 and with the rest of my tanking gearing and toughness is 56.81% damage reduction
TIO is 2468 (+315 armor) and with the rest of my gear and spec is 57.95% damage reduction

so with DD, 43.19% of damage that isn't avoided gets through and with TIO it's 42.05%

That's almost a 3% reduction in damage from one shield to the next just from 315 armor... 1.14 / 43.19 = 2.6%

I think armor is worth a lot more than most people give it credit for. It not only saves damage on a consistent basis, but it also smooths out spike damage by mitigation.

Plus if the speculation about the shield block skill + high natural block value pushing crushing blows off the table is true, then block% may be a pretty large overall factor in reducing the number of spikes as well.

I think the differences between these shields is larger than you suggest. I think the main reason this shield was itemized was because of the shield slam change, which comes out to be barely different from the old version for a normal blue geared tank because there are no might 3 set bonsuses or other nifty items giving +block for those people. They have the base shield slam plus a whopping high 30s block value. Blizz had to put some stuff in the game to itemize for blue tanks who want to optimize around shield slam damage/threat efficiency.