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

Flesh/Flame on the other hand made some ascendancies playable - GGG kinda failed making all of them remotely even (they did the very bad thing - some nodes are designed as mandatory tax shielding the uber strong ones) and as expectations from the builds rose, the lesser options became unusable options

F/F combo allows to rescue such weak but otherwise interesting class. i doubt we would have seen any Assassin without an ability to steal one of several broken Trickster nodes

the bigger problem lies in the stratification of nodes - there are few auto-picks, handful of really good, situational nodes and sea of filler that nobody in their right mind would ever pick if not for being a travel node to something good


regarding block and 'oh my this and that character is tanky' - yeah, on 8 passives?

because i think you have all missed that - anyone even remotely nearby bottom-left part of the tree, using rare shield - gets 75/50 block for 8 (EIGHT) passives and 3 rolls on a shield (oh and Tempest shield before the nitpick, but wont count the RMR passives, everyone takes them anyway)
https://pobb.in/cP4D2PA-BFo5

you get mitigation AND recovery in one package. that 'recovery' part is what makes block so much stronger than evasion or dodge or similar. this is why Aegis builds - while not immortal, unlucky streak can and will happen - are generally the coziest builds out there, because most of the time you just cannot die, even if doing something stupid

once you get your rare shield, spend all of 8 passives you can build on that - adding suppression, fortify, minions, damage conversion and whatever floats your boat. if you even decide you need to, 75 real block with 5% life recovery + some incidental leech/recovery is plenty enough on its own

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I played evasion assasin in necropolis league, and it was fine, despite have almost zero block. Able to run t17 without bad mods, simulacrums... And i am not nearly a pro player. So your conclusion about "unplayable" is wrong.

that was before all phys-to-ele damage conversions were nerfed, along with elusive having its withering step tech removed? right? because these two things helped IMMENSELY.



the true horror is playing 2h melee (not VFoS, something point-blank) Armour/max-res/endu charge based - this is imo the weakest archetype of them all and getting suppression is pretty much mandatory.
so you spend several times more resources (remember - 8 passives, 25% reservation and a shield is the baseline) to match what block can offer. and this game is a zero-sum equation. more spent on defences means less on offence

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

the true horror is playing 2h melee (not VFoS, something point-blank) Armour/max-res/endu charge based - this is imo the weakest archetype of them all and getting suppression is pretty much mandatory.
so you spend several times more resources (remember - 8 passives, 25% reservation and a shield is the baseline) to match what block can offer. and this game is a zero-sum equation. more spent on defences means less on offence

I’m genuinely curious where this idea that suppression is mandatory comes from, when plenty of builds across both SC and HC survive just fine without it. It seems like people are conflating build missteps with some imagined design flaw.

And as for the claim that 2H melee is uniquely struggling defensively, that doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny. Block setups, especially the ones leaning on “just 8 passive points and an aura,” aren’t exactly skating by cheap. In reality, those builds often pour way more into their defenses than a 2H build would need to be solid, and yet still end up with worse overall tankiness if block is their only mitigation layer.

It’s ironic how often these “efficient” setups are actually far more bloated defensively than what they criticize, but sure, let’s keep pretending the problem is 2H and not the overinvestment into narrow defenses that crumble the moment something pierces them.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

And as for the claim that 2H melee is uniquely struggling defensively, that doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny. Block setups, especially the ones leaning on “just 8 passive points and an aura,” aren’t exactly skating by cheap.

It looks like you try to deny obvious things. Lets throw shaper recovery on block aside. Then you can get 75%/50% block with just two affixes on shield and some support. Which boosts you ehp to 4x/2x times. It's obviously very strong for the amount of efforts. Trying to deny this is like saying that white is black.

I don't think it is very bad, it is what it is. Just don't understand phrase "aren’t exactly skating by cheap" if it cheapest thing that anybody can do.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

"

sidtherat#1310 wrote:

the true horror is playing 2h melee (not VFoS, something point-blank) Armour/max-res/endu charge based - this is imo the weakest archetype of them all and getting suppression is pretty much mandatory.
so you spend several times more resources (remember - 8 passives, 25% reservation and a shield is the baseline) to match what block can offer. and this game is a zero-sum equation. more spent on defences means less on offence

I’m genuinely curious where this idea that suppression is mandatory comes from, when plenty of builds across both SC and HC survive just fine without it. It seems like people are conflating build missteps with some imagined design flaw.

And as for the claim that 2H melee is uniquely struggling defensively, that doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny. Block setups, especially the ones leaning on “just 8 passive points and an aura,” aren’t exactly skating by cheap. In reality, those builds often pour way more into their defenses than a 2H build would need to be solid, and yet still end up with worse overall tankiness if block is their only mitigation layer.

It’s ironic how often these “efficient” setups are actually far more bloated defensively than what they criticize, but sure, let’s keep pretending the problem is 2H and not the overinvestment into narrow defenses that crumble the moment something pierces them.

I agree, there is a lot of exaggeration going on. Hyperbolae is the native language of the internet.

hyperbole? you both provided nothing but innuendos or personal stories so far

lets start by providing substance to this claim

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And as for the claim that 2H melee is uniquely struggling defensively, that doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny. Block setups, especially the ones leaning on “just 8 passive points and an aura,” aren’t exactly skating by cheap. In reality, those builds often pour way more into their defenses than a 2H build would need to be solid, and yet still end up with worse overall tankiness if block is their only mitigation layer.

It’s ironic how often these “efficient” setups are actually far more bloated defensively than what they criticize, but sure, let’s keep pretending the problem is 2H and not the overinvestment into narrow defenses that crumble the moment something pierces them.

you know what POB is? you know you can export it into pob.in - provide something to the discussion other than word gymnastic without substance

and before you load up T1 bases with tripple T1 armour rolls - block build can do that as well and most often does because why not. so unless an item grants something unique to 2h - you can ignore it, 1h/shield can use exactly the same stuff so you bring nothing new to the discussion

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Block setups, especially the ones leaning on “just 8 passive points and an aura,” aren’t exactly skating by cheap.

after a moment - wtf this even means? you deny it works and is cheap? or what? because if you are denying it - well, waiting for some facts and/or examples maybe i can learn something

I hardly ever build ANY spell suppression on my characters.....and I clear t17s and ubers fully juiced just fine. Hardly notice a difference in tankiness when comparing my SS to non-SS builds.

Spell Suppression is the "best" option for cost, but it is by no means anywhere near mandatory. That's just as bad an argument as this entire thread is.

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

hyperbole? you both provided nothing but innuendos or personal stories so far

This is untrue.

By itself if your only defensive layer was block itd be mid at best.
The value is when you add all of these defensive layers (spell suppress, big effective hit pool, evasion/armour, charges, pdr, res/max res, dmg shifting, leech, regen, block/recover on block) on top of one another, you get a insane value. And to do the really lucrative t17 risk or 16.5 risk strats you need as many layers as you can get.


"THE WHOLE is GREATER than the SUM of its PARTS"

With block is it is pretty hard to balance. It goes from being sketchy to OP in a pretty tight range. This is because on the surface it is an all or nothing defense.

I would say up until recently block has not been super powerful, back until around when SST was released and Glad was strong.

I think it's in a pretty good place at the moment. This talk of it being too strong is probably more to do with Svalinn like mechanics that make it extremely strong.

Let's actually talk about the 'new' block tech that has made it "strong". So many folks are claiming block USED to be worse, and NOW its better.

This is just false. Block functions now the SAME as it always has mechanically. In fact, we were able to get more MAX block in many other older leagues than we are able to now, making it mathematically much more powerful across the board in the past. We also had pre-nerf glancing blows. Recovery on block mechanics are also OLD. Bone was nerfed. All this adds to block being actually less effective for more builds NOW than it has been in the past.

BUT

What we have now that rubs people the wrong way is really only 3 things: Svalinn (OP, as already discussed), Masteries (not really THAT impactful), and Versatile Combatant (without Svalinn, not super powerful). We LOST a ton of ways to increase maximum block. Passive values went up, but that is hardly impactful on its own without Versatile Combatant doing some very heavy lifting, along with significant overcapped block investment involving jewels, skills, auras, and gear mods.



It's actually better to say that there was a time, a short time maybe about a year, where block sucked. Passive values and gear rolls were terrible. There was basically no way to get both types of block except as a necromancer. But before that time (and before spell suppression even existed) it was pretty much the king avoidance defense layer for both the top AND the bottom of the tree. After that short period, aka now, it has finally been actually balanced. With the exception of the existence of Svalinn lucky block.



Regarding block being hard to balance: I disagree. I think avoidance mechanics are the EASIEST thing in the game to balance. You hardly need to mess with any numerical values, because its "all or nothing". Set a maximum limit and stick to not offering items and ways to screw with that limit. That's all the balance there needs to be. Keep the tree completely as-is. Keep the gear rolls completely as-is. Remove any opportunity to functionally go beyond 75/75, except through expensive or ascendancy-specific means.