Why is block so important?

I'm trying to learn here. Genuinely interested on your answers guys, so thanks.

But concerning the "Hit points scaling" concept, I believe H4NS is right: Block doesn't equates in more HP, by any means. It's a chance based skill - you either get hit by the full blow, or nothing. As Saltychipmunk said, it seems that it's block's best attribute is to work upon every other defense system, adding small windows of time to regen and finish foes.

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junaum wrote:

Block doesn't equates in more HP, by any means. It's a chance based skill - you either get hit by the full blow, or nothing.

Exactly

Block is pure RNG, and you can't convert such thing into eHP.

Resistances or Physical Damage Reduction (Endurance Charges) however DO act like an increase to eHP. A character with 50% fire resistance has twice the eHP against fire damage a character with 0% fire resistance would have. It is not an RNG mechanism.

Anyone arguing against this failed mathematics in school.

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raics wrote:

That kind of calculation is not done assuming a one hit kill. If we worked with 10k hits the only viable defense in the game would be immortal call. It's assumed you take a number of non-lethal hits over time large enough to give you a good sample.

You can't work out this kind of calculation with a defined range, you have to take ALL possible case scenarios. If you don't, it will eventually fail.

It's also not just against one-hit kills, or relatively big (or even mid) hits... you can't block degens either.

This "calculation" is only close its claim when every hit to the player does 1 unit of damage AND when degens are non-existant.

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H4NS wrote:

You can't work out this kind of calculation with a defined range, you have to take ALL possible case scenarios. If you don't, it will eventually fail.

Actually, you don't, because you can't, no matter what you do some attacks will still kill you. So, players eventually got that it's impossible to tank everything and we got even HC players these days relying on evasion with ondar, dodge and block, avoiding one-hit-kills and relying on immortal call to interrupt unlucky dodge/block streaks.

So, in an actual scenario you get a number N of X strength attacks every T seconds. If we imagine a simplified model where you got 5K life, leech 1K of life per second, take 2K hits every, say, 0,5 seconds, and use streak breakers there is effectively no difference in your eHP between 75% mitigation and 75% block.

Now, if we compared isolated cases of 75% block and 75% mitigation, mitigation would be far superior, and that's why you don't see people running around with veil of the night and 75% block. Elemental damage is balanced to oneshot you several times over, 99% of physical attacks can't. That's why the non-lethal damage estimation model works in reality, even if it theoretically shouldn't.

>Anyone arguing against this failed mathematics in school.
And anyone believing in this sentence has stopped at school-level math.

>You can't work out this kind of calculation with a defined range, you have to take ALL possible case scenarios. If you don't, it will eventually fail.
Eventually anything will fail. But ok, let's think about 10k vaal smashes. So yeah, block can't protect you from all of them. Then what? Get rid of block just because it doesn't block 100% of incoming damage? lel.

>It's also not just against one-hit kills, or relatively big (or even mid) hits... you can't block degens either.
You can't dodge/evade them either, you can only resist them, yes. What is your point?


One more thing: you are telling that EC can save you against 10k vaalsmash. Mmmkay, let's look at 20k vaalsmash instead. What's better in this situation, EC or block? :)

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silumit wrote:

>Anyone arguing against this failed mathematics in school.
And anyone believing in this sentence has stopped at school-level math.

Was thinking the same.

Block is "random", yes, but it is a very reliable "random" when you have a 75% chance to neglect incoming damage.

Your argumentation is like "I'd rather have 1000$ a day than 1$ on the first, 2$ on the second, 4$ on the third,..."

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silumit wrote:

>Anyone arguing against this failed mathematics in school.
And anyone believing in this sentence has stopped at school-level math.

>You can't work out this kind of calculation with a defined range, you have to take ALL possible case scenarios. If you don't, it will eventually fail.
Eventually anything will fail. But ok, let's think about 10k vaal smashes. So yeah, block can't protect you from all of them. Then what? Get rid of block just because it doesn't block 100% of incoming damage? lel.

>It's also not just against one-hit kills, or relatively big (or even mid) hits... you can't block degens either.
You can't dodge/evade them either, you can only resist them, yes. What is your point?


One more thing: you are telling that EC can save you against 10k vaalsmash. Mmmkay, let's look at 20k vaalsmash instead. What's better in this situation, EC or block? :)

>Eventually anything will fail
Elemental resistances will never fail. 75% of mob elemental damage will never damage you. Infallible

>You can't dodge/evade them either, you can only resist them, yes. What is your point?
That resistances/phys.dam.red. are the only way to raise eHP against damage

>you are telling that EC can save you against 10k vaalsmash
I never said this

edit: checked your account, and you have been a member for two years without a single character above 90. The same goes for raics below. I am taking the bait here.

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raics wrote:

Actually, you don't, because you can't, no matter what you do some attacks will still kill you.

So, in an actual scenario you get a number N of X strength attacks every T seconds. If we imagine a simplified model where you got 5K life, leech 1K of life per second, take 2K hits every, say, 0,5 seconds, and use streak breakers there is effectively no difference in your eHP between 75% mitigation and 75% block.

The point is that (max)block will fail 25% of the time.

Resistances will never fail, neither will Physical Damage Reduction through endurance charges, that's why they can be for all intents and purposes eHP increases.

To your example: if you don't block the first three hits, you are dead. This can happen and this is the reason why Block can never be considered a eHP increase.

When I am standing around with 5k life and 75% block and am hit with a lot of 500-1000 damage hits, I will most likely block around 75% of them.
I will therefor live 3-5 times as long as someone who doesn't have block (depending on my block luck).

When I am hit with a single 10k physical damage hit that I voluntarily did not choose to evade for whatever reason (science?), I have 75% chance to block it.
Over the long run, a character with no block will loose 4 times as much xp as I do (softcore).
I have 75% block, I have 75% chance to survive, a character with no block has nothing to answer, he just dies (in hardcore).

How do we translate this into "effective HP"?
Using statistics. Very simple statistics.

Of course you can create scenarios in which all block fails.
But that's balanced out with the scenarios in which block is 100% successful.

Overall, you are gaining a fuckton of survivability against physical damage.
And I call this more "effective HP".

A rare Avian Retch hit me for 6000 last week in the Courtyard map...

My character has 75% block.

From a practical perspective, he took 6000 damage.

From a theoretical perspective, he took 1500 damage.

The situation with block is somewhat analogous to poker. A poker player does not care about the result of an individual hand. What is important is the average of all hands played.

If you run a map consisting of 1500 monsters who deal a total of 200,000 damage through attacks, and you have 75% block, you will find that the total damage you took from those attacks will be very close to 50,000.

If you had 5000 HP and 75% block at the start of the map, you would on average need to recover at least 45,001 HP in order to survive those attacks.

If you had 0% block, you would on average need to recover at least 195,001 HP.

Therefore, block translates into Effective HP.

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MasterFreemason wrote:

From a theoretical perspective, he took 1500 damage.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I am done with you all.

I'm not really arguing the theory of block as sole damage avoidance method. I'm arguing the practical application where block is one of many layers of defense. And that layer of defense is able to provide a 400% eHP multiplier versus all damage forms and is not exclusive with any other defense layer. That's what makes it good.