Block is an inflated Defensive Stat that is way too OP and completely out of Line

they will nerf it, or at least some parts of, 'the block'

first candidate is Azadi Crest - the double lucky shield. i do not care how rare it is or that it is 'almost' not 'strict' immortality - this shield is just dumb. double lucky block on 78% chance is pretty much one hit every 50 or so attempts.

it is unbelievably dumb and it can be done on any ascendancy but glad just happens to be the cheapest option (while offering pretty much nothing else as that ascendancy is pretty sad for non-bleeds and even bleeds can get all it offers elsewhere)


next issue is 'regain 5% on block'. with life it is okish, with ES it is - again - just dumb. these values being % is a mistake. entire CI situation right now is a giant mistake but GGG cannot stop treating CI as the favourite kid, so that wont change


attack block after 3.25 is very, very easy to cap, so easy in fact that playing 2h feels like doing something stupid. adding spell block to the mix requires more effort but it is realistic with good shield, Tempest shield, Blue Nightmare (or is it Green?) + some light res tattoos near the templar area.

it is good to have some solid defensive option for once but the mechanic that is 'ok' at 50% prevention value, stops making sense at preventing 98% of incoming damage. it just doesnt make any sense and is simply bad design (it is in the same line as 'recover life on stun on CWS builds' - like who thinks it is a good design?)

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

Nah. Slayer is still far better, Champion even more so.

Really depends on the build you're going for.

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Lucky Block on Svalinn if you wanna feel truly OP, it's otherwise not even needed to make an OP character. The base Block, while really strong, isn't necessary for easy Block cap.

That's why this node has the highest pick rate for glad and is also one of the most desired forbidden jewel combo for any other duelist build?

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Aggravated Bleeding? Bleed mastery, Bleed notable and glove implicit.

Sure while that works for any other non gladiator bleed build, it's more powerful to fill have other implicit or even items in this slot. The node frees up a lot of space on gear and your passive tree, hence most bleed builds do play as glad to get their dot cap while not going cheap on everything else.

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Explosions? Wow, crazy. A mod found on several unique gloves, body armour, weapon synth implicit, jewel.

You mentioned Aggravated Bleeding on gloves implicit but now we're talking abiout unique gloves in combination with bleed explosions? Try harder

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I have yet to see anyone legit build around Weapon Master.

Ironically it's one of the weaker nodes of the glad, but yet somehow all the builds utilizing it still perform better than any of your non meta builds, despite being also non meta. Guess even as a lower priority pick it still fills it's propose well.

"

War of Attrition is meh, only applies to hits and ailments and has a long ramp time.

well it's a good node for those who prefer to go cheap on items as it's a good amount of power over time, especially for dot builds with little damage. Almost a non negotiable option for budget builds.

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Big yawn of an Ascendancy, and at no point in PoE history have I ever considered Glad to be interesting.

I think that's mostly cause you don't know how to use the ascendancy, hence it's bad. We could even take the currently lowest pick rate ascendancy and try to paint it as a bad class due to it's pick rate, but I could with safe confidence bet money that even the lowest pick rate class has overall a larger range of builds that not only perform well, but also outperform most of what you or some other players play with their budget memes.

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GGG clearly doesn't know what to do with it.

If anything GGG does know better hence they actually turned the old glad from total trash to something good. But you not knowing how to use the class doesn't mean it's bad.

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Even Ascendant makes for a better Glad.

That’s why we see pretty much nobody play iconic Gladiator bleed builds or retaliation setups on a Scion, because it’s just the clearly better glad right? Okay Baumi, please, go on and enlighten us more with your obvious hole of not knowing what you’re talking about.

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Sabranic_SilverDeth#2793 wrote:

Not sure that this is really a problem.

It can take as little as this https://pobb.in/ow2ANkRePkqH

to make a character with capped Block + insane Life on Block + room for Spell Suppression etc. This isn't even the most basic option, just the quickest one that springs to mind.

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

attack block after 3.25 is very, very easy to cap, so easy in fact that playing 2h feels like doing something stupid. adding spell block to the mix requires more effort but it is realistic with good shield, Tempest shield, Blue Nightmare (or is it Green?) + some light res tattoos near the templar area.

I see 21% spell block from a blue nightmare with lighting resist tattoos near the templar. This is costing you 7 nodes, 5 expensive tattoos, a jewel socket, an expensive jewel and and expensive blessing. It also has a pathing opportunity cost attached to it, since you're trekking through the interior of the tree instead of the border.

Tempest shield requires 25% of your mana, and will force investment in premium reservation efficiency jewels or 3-5 nodes + travel to manage with your offensive auras.

It seems to me, for the opportunity and currency cost, 21%/46% spell block is reasonable.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

Mate... how about you actually learn what you are talking about. If you need some help with that:

I think you need the help cause you talked about how useless Jagged technique is due to the part that there is aggravated bleeding on gloves implicits and the passive tree. But at the same time you pull unique gloves into the round, something that totally makes it impossible for you to use the implicit from rare gloves. So enlighten us on how you make use of both rare gloves and unique gloves a the same time.

Also nobody is using a sublime vision with pride on a dot build, only to get explosions while sacrificing damage and defense, same as close to nobody uses Haemophilia on any serious bleed build as it's already cooked into the class that is picked the most for bleed builds for obvious reasons.

Hard to tell if you just try to showcase some weird build concepts that are beyond well optimized or if it's straight up trolling on purpose, or just hinting more at your obvious lack of knowing what you're talking about.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

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Sabranic_SilverDeth#2793 wrote:

Not sure that this is really a problem.

It can take as little as this https://pobb.in/ow2ANkRePkqH

to make a character with capped Block + insane Life on Block + room for Spell Suppression etc. This isn't even the most basic option, just the quickest one that springs to mind.

An expensive shield, an expensive blessing, about 20% of your total skill points to get capped melee block. And that necklace is costing you a lot of damage. Which is why it's rarely used.

And you're still not covering magic attacks?

I'm not seeing the issue in this instance.

How much do you believe it should cost to have a good defense?

OP has consistently considered "investment" a totally unrelated entity when discussing why something should be removed, nerfed, or otherwised changed for being too powerful.

And also gets consistently called out on how wrong that argument is.

Meanwhile, continuing to OVERestimate the actual power of anything he claims is too OP.

It's in all the threads. And its a real problem and roadblock to any actual debate.

He wrote earlier in this thread:
"You can make a character with all the types of mitigation you want, mathematically, it cannot compete with an average damage mitigation of 75%."

He thinks block is a 75% MITIGATION defense............end conversation there. There is no understanding.

"You mean the usual crowd of the same handful of people who come to my threads to talk shit about me and be super unproductive to the discussion? You are right, it would turn into a shit game."
-super unproductive....showing in every which way why the entire thread is wrong and then being treated with that. And "It would turn into a shit game"...when YOU are the one asking for ridiculous unnecessary changes to what exists NOW, wouldn't that mean it already is a shit game to you?

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Pashid#4643 wrote:

Cause being real even t17 maps are getting tackled by some mediocre optimized builds day 3 during a fresh league, and that's a sad state for something that's supposed to act as "aspirational" content.

To be fair, the people doing that are the ones that take holidays for leaguestart and skip sleep while playing specific meta builds to be able to do it AND they rush there skipping lots of stuff in between just to be the first. Even for "normal" good players this isn't achievable using a healthy and realistic amount of playtime.

It's not exactly a valid benchmark, it's just extremists being extreme.

As for 75% block i think it's quite ok. One thing that bothers me - spell evasion is equal to spell block, but it requires 150 spell suppression + Keystone, which is harder to achieve than regular spell block.

Glad Lucky block is OP, but glad was bad ascendancy for so long time, and even now it is on the bottom side of player builds. So why not leave this cool thing to Glad? If people think it still too good, we can split it between two nodes, one gives lucky attack block, other spell block, to stop abusing it via forbidden jewels.

About "gain on block" i agree with sidtherat - % values is mistake. Also agree with him on many other points. Also huge fan of removing CI.

https://pobb.in/cP4D2PA-BFo5

this little is needed for ~73/54 block (you can get 75+ attack block with a T2 block roll on a different base with higher natural block value)

25 passives, 11 ACTUAL passives, rest is travel nodes you take anyway (at worst you tattoo them with something useful) - if you remove 3 RMR passives you ALWAYS take - it is 8 passives + shield + Tempest Shield (25% for spell block AND shock immunity is not that bad)

this is BARE minimum and the shield used is super cheap to self craft as it has just 3 stats

there are numerous ways to get the missing 20 spell block (replica jewels for 6%, regular jewels 3% a pop, chest implicit, Nightmare (that also gives non-insignificant damage), cluster jewels - the list is very long and you just pick one with the lowest cost/highest synergy for your build



with how the game is set up block is extremely cheap for what it gives and gladiator is completely optional (Glad just makes Versatile Combatant better or rather viable because otherwise it is just leaguestart keystone. )


so to sum it up - once you go 1h, you cheap roll your shield, you invest 8 extra passives and you are ALREADY at the point you ignore half of spells and 3/4 of attacks. these that hit patch you up (it is pretty bonkers coupled with mini-Defiance on Berserker actually) so you stay topped for the inevitable hits.

that cost-to-effect ratio is outstanding and whats more - there are no diminishing returns. each 1% is worth more than the previous one - thats why lucky block is such absurdly strong mechanic on its own and downright INSANE when coupled with recover on block

there is definitely a problem here - and it is numerical one. whats ok at 50% is not when at 95%. lucky block is fine addition, makes Gladiator a viable class to pick, but it is dangerous one esp coupled with Azadi shield

+ what should 2h do to actually even pretend to get the same treatment? Dread Banner (Banners in general) are good answer but the experience of using them is.. dreadful