Revisiting the BLOCK stat: do archers & mages (or anyone) need it?

[R238423534]

Some long time ago (1+ years ago), I was being told archers & mages couldn't make full use of BLOCK & could feel free to replace it with some other stats that we need. At that time, I had similar feeling while playing my archer & mage.

Now, after 1+ years, knights can't make full use of it any more (+3k HP buff is just ridiculous & negligible in most cases), everyone gets huge def stats, & RES plays more role than anything else. With BLOCK being a (fairly high) chance to stack another layer of damage reduction, it seems like everyone should have it (up to a certain limit). On the other hand, no one really seems to NEED it since RES is more effective & res gems don't occupy gear & astral slots. We don't have any way to boost block stats, so for equivalent effects, we probably still want more def stats for the sake of ranking & HoF (even archers still get def boosts from dragon soul & wings).

I feel like, since the game has changed so much, maybe it's time to revisit this topic & reconsider this stat? Any thoughts?

For the record, I use block on the knight (my main) & mage (2-year-old camper), but not on the archer.

[R238423534]

right now my archer is at the decision point of deciding pdef/mdef vs. block. should i sacrifice some defense for block? i don't have high def (only 70k each way). but have only 2.3k block (no gem & no astral). it used to be 5k, but 5k block doesn't seem to proc more often than 2.3k so i changed block astral to use crit/pene. she can't do bg (no vip) so penetration doesn't seem at all that useful either. thinking of changing it back. any suggestions?

[R238423534]

If you want to see a joke skill look at archer blessed shot. I wonder if anyone have ever used it lol.

And block is always nice to have. It got nothing to do with resists, completely separate thing.

most advanced skills are a joke any ways.

[R238423534]

Idiots program this game. 3k block heal is trash. It should be percentage based. Also wd build got trashed by dual gems. Where is the dual gem for patk/block?

it WAS 4% no limit before, but at some point they capped it at 3k per trigger. original wartune has any combo of 2 gems including patk/block gems; we only got a subset of it.

[Spawnas]

If you want to see a joke skill look at archer blessed shot. I wonder if anyone have ever used it lol.

And block is always nice to have. It got nothing to do with resists, completely separate thing.

[Astroglide]

Idiots program this game. 3k block heal is trash. It should be percentage based. Also wd build got trashed by dual gems. Where is the dual gem for patk/block?

[P-J-J]

You wrote a 0 too much, you need 75k hp to have the block heal capped not 750k.

Yes, you're right, my mistake, I wrote mine.

75,000 it looks like alt for fun.

[SlowPlay]

OK, now I know that you have 750,000 HP

You wrote a 0 too much, you need 75k hp to have the block heal capped not 750k.

[P-J-J]

That's the 3k heal passive dude.

OK, now I know that you have 750,000 HP

[SlowPlay]

In China, it got un-nerfed to 50k eventually. About the same time people started healing for 2+x that with suntoria.

50k was the new rebound skill, block heal was 30k i think.

[Barraind]

In China, it got un-nerfed to 50k eventually. About the same time people started healing for 2+x that with suntoria.

[SlowPlay]

Or the Enhanced Block one.

That's the 3k heal passive dude.

[P-J-J]

The 3k heal joke? lol yeah.

Or the Enhanced Block one.

Similar jokes has archers and mages, as many skills and talents were constructed before extensions were added, so they are neglecting and funny, only percentage related without cap make sense. I especially like Anthem, capped on 90,000, so less and less important "advanced" skill for mages at the cost of 90 rage.

[SlowPlay]

So block is really another damage reduction favouring knights (they have skill/talents).

The 3k heal joke? lol yeah.

[P-J-J]

Let's tackle the issues separately:

(1) RES and inadequate RES reduction is an issue that affects fights, especially as some people use only dark+electro+water/wind/fire (based on their water/wind/fire sylph) to gain kills. I do not know how they want to nerf it in the next patch (one is the public number changes, the other is the calculation), but I still think that the recent Chinese change (double RES gems) is more fair. Especially after will get the other two fused sylphs (or maybe another ones like water/fire or thunder/wind).

(2) Block and its counter measure penetration has still value after RES issue will be solved while Penetration is bounded (4320 from max astrals, others from refining), the block is not (astral with upgradable slot, gems, refining) and eudemons has some influence here as well. So block is really another damage reduction favouring knights (they have skill/talents).

Archers have criticality (rest can reduce it by Guardian Angel astral), and damage negative buffs (purify rune or skill as counter) and positive buffs (purge rune or ss skill).
Mages have the MATK attack (counter MDEF reduction, if not enough other damage reduction), healing (chaos rune), but usually have mix of criticality/block usage as Will Destroyer does not work well on higher levels and Guardian Angel affects self-healing.

So I think that RES need revision, not block/penetration.