Character animations and locking after the changes to block

Prior to patch 2.4, blocking an attack would result in an 11 frame grace period where any additional blocks would take effect without triggering an animation. After those 11 frames, if your character blocked again, the block animation would result in your action/cast being interrupted.

This meant that the total count of frames between block animation and the action frame of the action taken would need to be equal or less than the block grace period. Here's a table showing the relationship between FCR and Action Frame.

For example: A sorceress with 27% faster block rate (6 frame animation), would need a faster cast rate of 63% (action frame = 5) or higher to ensure the ability to

Teleport out of a bad situation after blocking.

In the 2.4 patch notes, the following is included:

"Character hit block will no longer apply while your character is playing a skill pre-cast animation (Block will still trigger for the skill's post-cast animation)."

The way I read this is:

Once a character begins casting and until the action frame is reached, a character's chance of blocking is 0%.

So let's take the example of a Necro with 20% faster block rate and 75% faster cast rate. The block animation takes 8 frames and the action frame of a spell casted is 6.

This means that after block starts, it takes 14 frames for your character to move, if you're holding down

Teleport.

That means that there's a 3 (14-11) frame gap where your block chance is 0%. During this period, your character is open to being interrupted by hit recovery, which you can still be locked into since it interrupts pre-cast animations.

This obviously affects characters who cast a lot while taking continuous hits like hammerdins, winddruids and novasorcs, although sorcs have fast animations to prevent it. It also is bad for any teleports that put you in a bad spot.

Have I understood the changes correctly?

This could be poor wording on the dev's part. They don't explicitly state that your block chance is reduced to zero, so I suppose the difference is that there's no hit block interruption before the action flag is reached for the skill in question.

Khegan wrote: 2 years ago

This could be poor wording on the dev's part. They don't explicitly state that your block chance is reduced to zero, so I suppose the difference is that there's no hit block interruption before the action flag is reached for the skill in question.

Sorry could you elaborate? Does this mean that your gut feeling is that we continue to get block without animation until the action flag of the casting spell is reached?

Yeah, that's what I think they're trying to say. It would be counterproductive for them to "nerf" builds that utilize block and then say they want to limit player action lockouts when hit recovery is still at play. Of course, I could have misinterpreted what they wrote and it's the way you're thinking.

Khegan wrote: 2 years ago

Yeah, that's what I think they're trying to say. It would be counterproductive for them to "nerf" builds that utilize block and then say they want to limit player action lockouts when hit recovery is still at play. Of course, I could have misinterpreted what they wrote and it's the way you're thinking.

I do hope your interpretation is the correct one. It would change how players value FBR, FCR and FHR from a point of survival. It won't be all or nothing when it comes to block anymore.

Any chance to block will be a good thing and block for any character constantly using animations with long precasts will be buffed considerably.

Big buff to block in general. Fingers crossed!

A bit of a regretful necro, but Blizzard has provided clarification in their latest blog post:

Blizzard wrote:

Blocking will no longer interrupt a player while performing a skill or attack. If a player character triggers a block during this time, the damage will still be negated, but the animation will not play