Faster Block Rate value?

Hello knowledgeable people !
I am preparing a variation of my main build (max block Bone necro) to use more summons and poison.

In that context I'll add Trang-Oul's

Belt and Wing for the Poison reduction effect for 3 set pieces.

Up to here, all fine, my good old Homunc is set down. Wing still has decent block so I should still block 60% instead of 75 - still quite ok.
But... there is no faster block rate on Trang Wing so I'll br at 0 fbr instead of 30 with Homunc.

Of course I can

Shael it to get to 20 fbr but an

Um would have served my res much better.

My question :
Is FBR, especially with changes from 2.4 still needed and I need to

Shael Wing not to get Block-locked in case something goes wrong (3 frames won seems a lot) ?

Or shall I just not care about FBR as that seems less important now ( not sure of this ?).

Thanks all !

My enchantress is also running 75% block chance with 0 block rate and haven't run into block locking issues yet, despite melee combat. Seems a rather overrated issue tbh...

Thanks for that clear answer !
Any second advice, just in case, or is just fbr useless ?

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.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year 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.

Thanks a bunch Schnorki !

The issue is that in more than one year since d2r started, I managed to bring one char to level 91 (necro), one to 50 (sin) and one to 30 (zon) (dad's life ^^). So I definitely won't build another necro to be doing summoner / poison part, I need my Bone necro to do also summons / poison to try the feeling without needing a respec, just swapping some gear. My goal for the next 2 years is to bring necro to 93, sin to 90, zon to 80+ and I think that's where I'll stop D2, while most people do that in two weeks (but playing 2 hours a week does not help, even if I spend a lot (too much?) time here To sum up, cannot reduce my dex ! In general, that's what I would have done if I had a full necro buildable from scratch, but honestly, won't happen.

For the skills part, I was already hybrid poison / Bone, so adding a few skellies is not big deal (less optimal for sure, but having lots of fun which is the goal after all). Having Enigma and already liking telestomping I am not too badly placed to use sort of summoner anyway. Have all the material anyway, King Leoric (won't be able to afford Beast), Trang pieces and Roting

Fissure (thanks to you, ready for next NL season ! ). I'll be at 75 fcr instead of 125 as I am as Bone necro, so 10 frames for the casting, 11 frames at 0 fbr for the blocking part.

I do have a tendency to telestomp since got Enigma though so getting in a full pack can happen. Gave me my latest (less than 10 up to now) Death when I tried in the middle of

Lord De Seis pack.

I think I'll give it a try without the

Shael and just an

Um in Trang's Wing. In case of failures, will need to get +22 all res more
Anyway, that's a plan for next 3 months, as I don't have the Sunder as of now, but the planning part is probably the one I prefer !