Block and aoe, whats the actual intention

Block is in an odd state here in early access.

Given the introduction of shield skills, which allow the player to block 100% while shield is raised. Block obviously needed to be nerfed to compensate.

As a result, some boss attacks cannot be blocked(sound que and red glow indicator),
a raised shield can get broken via the stun meter bar thing, and various ground area of effects from mob also cannot be blocked.

The boss attacks which cannot be blocked, is the only one of the 3 adjustments which works well. Given the clear indicator, you as the player, get a reasonable chance to react to the attack and get out of the way of them.

The same cannot be said for stun meter on while the shield is raised. While this clearly is intended to allow the player to block singular boss attacks, and not be able to hold down the button forever.
The meter and its buildup rate is redudant, simply due to the fact the bosses have unblockable attacks. Additionally, this meter can instantly be filled if you dare to use it while mapping.
Take it from a souls player with too many hours in ds1. You cannot have a stamina like system, if the rate of incomming attacks isnt limited. The very nature of poe and its randomness works against this type of design.

Worst of the three, and the reason I figured to add this feedback, is the inability to block area of effects from mobs.

This is handsdown the only thing that kills my character with 69% block chance. An excellent example is our very own Mr Quin69 dying to "white mob".
That particular mob, a fiery zealot, can spawn 3 aoe ground effects the moment its on screen, and 2 of these can overlap(maybe all 3 with bad luck).

So when 4 of these mobs, spawn 12 of these areas, and about 8 of those overlap under your character, with less than 1 second detonation time.

Then you simply die, instantly, to a shotgunning effect, which does more dmg and is faster than a boss attack without any telegraffing.

Given that block is one of the main ways to avoid getting shotgunned by mobs, it feel especially bad when it randomly stops working out of nowhere, all because a sepcific mob type enters the screen.

Warbringer or the wailing wall, can resolve this issue, however suddenly the choice of ascendency or shield becomes mandatory, which also just feels bad.

Please give block another round in the design chamber, and revise the three things. Bosses should keep their unblockable attacks, stun meter should be removed entirely, and generic mobs should loose the ability to bipass block using aoe.

Lastly im sure everything mentioned here also partly applies for evasion.

TLDR, block and evasions are too unreliable when they cannot block or evade area of effects from generic mobs.