Faster Block Rate value?

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

Ignoring PvP for a second, block rate is about the same as hit recovery, merely less important. Even more so as a caster.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to "worst case recover" fast enough to get out of

Dodge before getting hit again (i.e. don't get blocklocked out of teleporting). For hit recovery, that's part of what makes Spirit so great for a sorc for example because even when she does accidentally tele straight into a pack of mobs, she (usually) recovers fast enough to move on out before the 2nd wave of hits comes in just from that.

For block, the concept holds but it is generally less important because...
1) You don't block every hit. Hit recovery hits you every time you take enough dmg (which is basically always if you mess up as a non-ES sorc for example). Blocking only happens at most 75% of the time, with your shield "downgrade" likely a fair bit less.

2) You can't block everything. There's a ton of "attacks" that you cannot block (spells and whatnot [generalizing]). Those will hit you and will leave you subject to faster hit rec. But they will never affect you based on block rate because you're never blocking them anyways.

2.5) The above is especially true for ranged characters because you're usually taking all melee attacks out of the equation which are the largest part of blockable pve attacks.

Generally speaking, if you get blocklocked in normal play as a necro, you're doing something (very) wrong. The only time you should run the risk of being blocklocked is the same as the sorc example noted above: you accidentally

Teleport into a pack. If and when that happens, all you need is to get out before you get wrecked so you need to be able to recover from blocking (and/or being hit) and get to your

Teleport AF before you get hit/block again. The final numbers for that vary with the mobs that hit you (specifically their attack speed), your cast rate and your block rate. Some mobs, you will never "outblock" as a necro. Others, you can "outblock" with 0 faster block and only 18 faster cast (I believe that was the slowest successful combination though I may be misremembering the frames by 1). Essentially, the faster your block rate and the faster your cast rate, the more mob types you cannot get locked by. For a sorc, it is again easier because her 0 FBR block is 2 frames faster than a necro and she tends to be faster with the cast on top of that.

If you do

Shael your wing, you get the same rate you had with

Homunculus (assuming that one wasn't

Shael'd). If you combine that with 48 or more FCR, it shaves a fair few frames off your "emergency escape" and opens up a large chunk of mob types out there. Certainly not all..but enough imo. If you can get the

Shael in without wrecking your your resistances (or just get res charms to make up for it), I'd say go for the

Shael. If not...well, just don't

Teleport into faster attacking packs. Though honestly, without a

Shael I for one would prefer to just roll with 0 dex (and hence basically no block) and more vita instead.