Resolute Technique, Accuracy, Blocking

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1) Avoiding the hit:
- At this stage there is a chance to evade attacks (accuracy vs evasion)
- Any chance to dodge from acrobatics or phase acrobatics is also checked here

2) Avoiding the damage:
- Blocking is checked

3) Mitigating the damage:
- Physical damage reduction and resitances are applied

4) Taking the damage:
- Non-chaos damage is removed from energy shield until it's depleted.
- Any remaining damage (including all chaos) is removed from life.

Resolute Technique reads:
* Your hits can't be Evaded
* Never get Critical Strikes

My questions:

1) Does Accuracy only factor up against Evasion? That is, is there no accuracy check against block chance, balancing thereof, or any other interaction between the two?

If I'm to interpret this correctly, would taking Resolute Technique guarantee me the hit, but play no factor against block chance?

2) Is there any way to reduce an opponents block chance?

3) Is block a flat-rate additive stat? Eg., if I have 35% CTB, will that be 35% all of the time, or 35% x :baseblockrate:, similar to critical strike?

4) Block vs Spell Block: what stat is responsible for mitigating which damage types?
If I'm using Viper Strike (chaos dmg dot, stacking), and the attack is blocked, which will be true?

* (i) The physical damage from the weapon swing is blocked, but the (magical) chaos dot is applied
* (ii) Both the physical weapon damage and chaos dot are blocked, as VS is an "Attack" type skill.

If Lightning Strike, would it be treated similarly? While the projectiles cannot miss if the initial melee hit hits, they can still be blocked I assume? If so, as they're still generated by LS, "Attack" type, it would be regular block, and not spell block? That is, unless the skill being used explicitly says Spell, Spell block would not apply?

Are the LS projectiles generated once the attack hits, or must the attack hit & go unblocked? That is, would Resolute Technique guarantee LS projectiles all the time, or would it still be dependent on an opponent's block %?

Ok, you have some pretty interesting questions there. Let's see:

Non-spell blocking will negate all the damage that you would have taken, but you still take the effects of that attack. VS, LS, are attacks, therefore, if it "hits" and you block, you still get poison counters and lightning projectiles. The same can be said for Burning, Frozen, and Shocked.

Spells are non-weapon dependent skills. So no matter what weapon you wear, you can still cast them.

Block rate is WYSIWYG. (35% chance is 35%)

There are a few sword passives in the Duelist area that reduces sword blocking.

Okay, hm. That clears up Spell blocking & CTB%, thanks.

But for

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Non-spell blocking will negate all the damage that you would have taken, but you still take the effects of that attack. VS, LS, are attacks, therefore, if it "hits" and you block, you still get poison counters and lightning projectiles. The same can be said for Burning, Frozen, and Shocked.

PoE wiki reads:

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Blocking an attack prevents all damage and harmful effects including status ailments.
...
Ignite, Chill, Freeze, and Shock are collectively known as Status Ailments.

Is the wiki outdated?
It didn't make mention of VS/LS, which is why I was wondering about them specifically, as the mechanics thread specified <landing the hit> as something separate from the <attack making it through block>.

hmm. It seems my knowledge is outdated. The mechanics thread says:

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mechanics wrote:

Blocking
Blocking an attack prevents all damage and other harmful effects from the attack. Usually, only attacks and attack skills can be blocked, but there are some passive skills that allow you to block spells.

Chance to block is capped at 75%.

When an attack is blocked, the game first calculates if the attack would have caused a stun were it not blocked. If it would have caused a stun, the blocking animation is played, stunning you briefly. If it would not have caused a stun, then you get a "free" block with no animation. Faster Block and Stun Recovery and Increased Block Recovery modifiers reduce the length of the blocking animation.

It seems block is stronger now :D Now you only have to worry about stun duration. This means VS and LS will never trigger when blocked.