Why is block so important?

Has anybody ever wondered what this funny little % sign is?
It's Per Cent
per centum, meaning "by the hundred".

So you NEVER calculate 1 hit, you calculate 100. Because 75% block means you block 75 hits out of 100. So you avoided 75 hits. So you took 75x no damage.
So you have 3/4 more eHP.

Because you have 100hp, take 100 hits with 1 damage with 0% block = you're dead.
Because you have 100hp, take 100 hits with 1 damage with 75% block = you've 75hp.
Surprisingly, your eHP increased for *1,75 vs. blockable attacks.

Because nobody cares about your lack of basic math.

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Rhydm wrote:

I said you can't use it as EHP, so that wasn't my logic; that it can give infinite EHP.
Say hi when a boss one hits you for less than your 4x HP (what you are calling EHP) and it suddenly becomes not so effective.

I bolded the keyword for you.

As a selfcast fireball witch block is the way to mitigate reflect ala spell block. With massive block nerfs and slight aa nerf I wonder how any non top tier build can handle reflect. I should be ok (fingers crossed) with 60% rath 25% rb and +4 block laz and +2 haku additional block on gloves. (Got a feeling haku block mod is going to be very popular post patch)

New players ? got a feeling itll be ohk on reflect ele all day long.

Seems like gggs goal was to slow map clear speed. It def was too fast in high lev groups but hopefully it wont be too slow now...

The debate in this thread reminds my of what I see in a lot of other games. Especially games with PvP tournaments. The debate usually goes something like this:

Player A might get a lot of big piles of gold, and Player B might get a few small piles of worthless ore. So we need to make all kind of rules and balance changes so that can't happen. It should be about the player's knowledge of the game and ability, not about pure random luck. So we have to eliminate the luck factor. That's the basic argument.

So they make a bunch of rules to "equalize" it for fair play.

What they neglect is that the tournament is not just one match up. It's about hundreds of match ups. The top players will win on average over time. The top players know how to deal with the RNG.

When you focus too much on the balance of one specific match up (or mechanic), the result is that the game becomes too predictable. If you make balance changes so that Player A and Player B always get the same amount of gold, what you are doing is turning the game into a highly predictable cookie cutter type of game.

Another name for this is a crappy AI. Once players learn the predictable mechanics it becomes boring.

I totally agree with the arguments that you have to look at an average over time. That allows for balance, but in a way that does not make the game too predictable. It allows the best players to excel over time because they are not cookie cutter builds with repetitious play styles. They are able to deal with a wide variety of unpredictable situations.

You must have a random factor and you must look at the average over time. Otherwise you have a crappy AI that's boring and has no replay value.

There are times you need to look at very specific mechanics and situations. But when you do things like nerf the entire passive tree, and nerf every shield in the game, that's not dealing with a specific situation. When you make sweeping changes like that you MUST look at average over time. You must look at early game, middle game, end game, races, PvP, good players, bad players, white mobs and bosses.

Yes, blocking is RNG bases. Any discussion about it's merits has to be RNG based. That means looking at it over time. It's up to the player to deal with worst case scenarios. If the player wants predictability in every situation, and doesn't account for worst case, they'll probably die if they rely too much on blocking. But if they are able to see it over time, and deal with worst case, then blocking is pretty darn good.

Player can deal with RNG = blocking is good
Player can't deal with RNG = dead, no matter how much blocking they have