Block with or without Glancing Blows?

Guys,
I am wondering about some issue. Currently I play with Glancing Blows which gives me 75% block and 60% spell block. Without Glancing Blows I would have 55% and 33%. And now I wonder which solution is better, in addition I use a 5% es recovery on block.

More Block is better.

With ES on block glancing blows should perform better.

it all depends on how many passive points you want to spend.

as someone said "more block is better"

so either get more passive points invested into block, and drop glancing blows, OR drop down to ~40% chance to block and KEEP glancing blows (so that you arent way above 75% with it)

Glancing blows are borderline useless these days. GGG overnerfed it to a point that only in very special cases you are better off taking it. My guess is that OPs situation would suggest going without Glancing blows would be better solution. If you can get Rumi's Concoction, you will be peachy as it would get your near attack block cap. Your spell block would be lower but still above 40%, which should be good enough.

Glancing Blows (GB)will smooth incoming damage but overall long term numbers will be higher than if you do not take GB. I would only consider taking GB if you are around 38% block chance as at that point you will fully utilize bonus provided by GB. I would also need shield with life or energy shield on block to compensate for increased damage intake from blocked hits.

I saw a thread somewhere on these forums where someone posted some math behind this and it was pretty much always better not to take GB if you are serious about using block as your damage avoidance layer.

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Baron01 wrote:

I saw a thread somewhere on these forums where someone posted some math behind this and it was pretty much always better not to take GB if you are serious about using block as your damage avoidance layer.

It would be interesting to read, having in mind he did it with uncertain variables.

What's certain - there's a block chance threshold which defines the best performance.
IMO 55/30 doesn't cut it, may be wrong though.
Can't do the math as it's too complicated and variables are uncertain, it's just the empirical knowledge of playing with 50-ish block chance and the related ingame perception of damage taken.

When ggg nerfed GB, they did it with eHP recovery on block in mind.
Current GB + eHP recovery + certain amount of eHP = pre-nerfed GB (50%) without recovery.

Let's also have in mind that GB has nothing to do with avoidance, it's mitigation. And if we add even a single variable like fortify, it can make a huge difference compared to identical combination but with low-ish "true" block chance.

OP can eventually show us the char, otherwise we can pull out stuff out of even deeper and darker places.

If there are no additional defensive layers, probably the best advice given was to decrease block chance to meet precisely 75 with GB.
Increasing block chance means to face a dramatic opportunity cost, which only dedicated block builds usually pay.

Theoretical math in very simplistic terms should not be that hard...

Example: 38% chance to block, damage received 100, calculated over 1000 attacks

Results:
A) normal block, 38%: 620 * 100 = 62000 damage received
B) GB block, 75%: 250 * 100 + 750 * 65 = 48750 + 25000 = 73750 damage received

The above is very simplified calculation with no other elements of defenses or sustain. This is ideal scenario for GB as you would be getting as much benefit as possible from taking the node. Even with this in mind, you will receive more damage over counted attacks than natural block at 1/2 chance.

But this way we completely exclude the most important variables, defining the node's effectiveness:

1. Recovery on block.
2. Amount of eHP - in relation to p.1
3. Other sources of damage mitigation as they stack.
4. Opportunity cost.

IMO there's a threshold past which pure block becomes undeniably superior. Can't calculate it myself.

GB is 65% mitigation with 200% chance to block.

So factoring 20 attacks, assume they all hit for 100. And 30% chance to block for the sake of testing.

NO GB:
You block 6/20
Take 14 hits of 100 = 1400

With GB:
You block 12/20
Take 8 hits of 100 and
(65% of 100)x12 = 780 + 800 = 1580

So if you did not have the recovery on block GB now makes your mitigation worse. You need to have the recovery on block to make it worth considering. That way the 200% chance to block is able to be applied in another way to counter the more damage you will ultimately be taking.

I hope this helps!

The math isn't so straightforward. Doubling block chance does not mean doubling your survivability. It could be better than that. For simplicity, consider two builds with NO GB:

1. 50/50 block chance - which means you will get hit 1/2 (i.e. 2/4) times

2. 75/75 block chance - which means you will get hit 1/4 times

Going from 2/4 to 1/4 times getting hit means your chance of surviving doubled (100% increase), despite only increasing your block chance by 50%.

The more block/dodge you have, the less block/dodge additions you need to double your survivability by another factor. In many cases, it is capped at 75 though...

The recent GB nerf made the calculations much harder, especially when we also need to take into account life/ES gained on block.