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

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Baharoth15#0429 wrote:

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.

Well it's not just a "meta" or lets say most popular build thing. Cause if you look at ssf, ssf cause this way you can guarantee that people didn't just grabbed their items from trade, you can see quite a lot of players with t17 or uber exclusive loot past the day 3 mark while playing some unpopular builds. And the funny thing is that if you take a look at those builds they are not even like crazy well optimized, have absurd amounts of damage or defense, just a quick throw together of what ssf can offer after atlas progression. We both also know that if something is already easy in ssf, it's only going to get even easier in trade.
That alone gives a honest glimpse view on how sad the current endgame state is.

Sure, but you don't really know how those people ran their t17 maps. Or what kind of atlas passive tree they run. If your build is lacking (which is only natural after a mere 3 days in SSF) then i'd say the probability is VERY high that those people went very low on map mod effect and spent quite a few chaos to avoid dangerous map mods. Likely even bisection scarabs and/or domination scarabs to make it easier.

The variance in difficulty between t17 is huge. If you are selective about map mods and use a tame atlas tree then t17s are barely any harder than t16 maps. But that way you aren't really running the hardest content. If you wanna claim you run the hardest content you have to run them with 100% deli, risk and titan scarabs and shit. And i am fairly confident that nobody can pull that off in SSF after 3 days. I guess technically you are still doing "aspirational" content that way but if we are honest with ourselves that's just semantics. If you reduce the difficulty of a t17 map below that of a normal t16 map then yeah, you still run a t17 but it doesn't mean much at that point.

Meanwhile ubers are very much known to be solvable with skill alone.

I want to add my filthy casual 2 cents to this block discussion. Beyond a trivial level of mapping difficulty, endgame POE1 mapping is generally as follows

- zero visual clarity --> every monster/mechanic blends into every environment
- if you stand still you are dead
- if you take your eyes off the screen for 0.1 seconds a monster is already near you and you are dead
- you are repeatedly blasted from offscreen
- in general your character has a million incoming attacks and/or damaging projectiles per second, a handful of which is only required to kill you (unless you are a broken trickster)

Based on this description, block is the king for mapping defense because your only reliable defense in these situations is to simply nullify most of the hits, and a blocked hit does zero damage (except glancing blows which was nerfed from orbit).

Block is "OP" in mapping because everything else is terrible in mapping. Even a character with 100k armor, 90 res, and 10 endurance charges is easily deleted if blocking is not present.

The more I played settlers league, and the more I play now, the more I have come to the conclusion that an endgame mapping-focused character WITHOUT high block is essentially unplayable below the bleeding edge. By bleeding edge I mean you have more gear and funding/currency than god and you are featured on twitch compilation videos.

If I can't feasably get decent block on a prospective new mapping build without absurd currency investment, then I don't even consider it viable because I can literally scratch my nose + blink in a map for 0.5 seconds and already be dead. That's just how the game is.

My previous ramble means nothing in the context of pinnacle bossing where many things are dodgeable and most/all of the dangerous things are purposefully made unblockable.

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mnieradko#6070 wrote:

I have come to the conclusion that an endgame mapping-focused character WITHOUT high block is essentially unplayable below the bleeding edge.

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.

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mnieradko#6070 wrote:

Even a character with 100k armor, 90 res, and 10 endurance charges is easily deleted if blocking is not present.

Overexaggerate much?

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mnieradko#6070 wrote:

Based on this description, block is the king for mapping defense because your only reliable defense in these situations is to simply nullify most of the hits, and a blocked hit does zero damage (except glancing blows which was nerfed from orbit).

Block is "OP" in mapping because everything else is terrible in mapping. Even a character with 100k armor, 90 res, and 10 endurance charges is easily deleted if blocking is not present.

These are untrue statements.

My 9k energy shield necro with a 2h staff and 18% block is capable of handling up to heavily juiced, top-atlas-tree mapping t-16 with zero difficulty.

Her defense is taunt and knockback minion cluster jewels combined with 60 minions. She can't block for beans, and is very easy to two shot. But that's not a problem when everything is taunted and pushed 2 screens away by a horde of skeletons, zombies, specters, carrion golems, Phantasms and raging spirits.

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I have a scion aurabot who, barring a one-shot, regenerates so much thanks to guardian ascendancy + zealot's oath + ghost dance + evade + blind that she's basically untouchable. Block? 28% from Prison Guardian = negligible. I can run with my guildmates all day in the juiciest of T-17's and not get touched all night.

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I have a dual-wield champion using evade + armour, and really stackign the evade part of it - with a defiance of destiny and massive leech, he had to be one shot to be killed.

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I have a lightning strike inquisitor who uses a massive ward pool + crab barriers + frost shield + sigil + steelskin to be nearly impervious. His damage is hurting a bit after the recent nerfs, but he's nigh invulnerable. His block? 34% melee, 29% spell. He's go so much flat out damage absorption that his elemental leech keeps him up pretty much no matter what - again... only one shots can kill him.

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The point of this is, you can make ridiculously difficult to kill characters using things besides block. Regen, ward, leech, life on kill, evade, recoup, blind, dodge, suppression, taunts, CWDT, automation, all of these can make rock solid defenses, and that is part of what makes PoE wonderful - that you have all of these choices.

^well put together.

Block is NOT more or less than any other well put together defense in the game.

Since its been a few pages I'll repeat: the ONLY issue with block that genuinely has me irked is the existence of Svalinn. Lucky block (and lucky anything) is just TOO powerful for summatively zero downside. Mathematically, its just absurdly cost-effective in nearly any investment level.

It's basically a 50% MORE multiplier on anything that gets it, which is even more than Volatility gives you when you HAVE lucky hits lol.




It is acceptable on Gladiator because they nerfed him to hell and this....doesn't make up for that. But it should simply not exist outside of that. Much like elemental immune golems don't exist outside elementalist, or 20% culling doesn't exist outside slayer, etc. I understand that GGG is trying to nullify "unique" passives from ascendancies but I think thats a terrible decision. Ascendancies should exist to BE unique at least in one way, if not more. Forbidden Flesh and Flame jewels are in the top 3 worst items ever added to the game. Svalinn definitely in the top 10, if not top 5

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

Ascendancies should exist to BE unique at least in one way, if not more. Forbidden Flesh and Flame jewels are in the top 3 worst items ever added to the game.

Agree. I was surprised when i understand that via forbidden jewels you can have not only your ascendancy notable, but any ascendancy notable from class.

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felix0808#2550 wrote:

Agree. I was surprised when i understand that via forbidden jewels you can have not only your ascendancy notable, but any ascendancy notable from class.

It's especially a problem with classes like gladiator, where one node is heavily favored over anything else, and the other ascendancies do similar jobs....but better. Duelist I think is the biggest issue with this, Witch is second.

The fact that you can, fairly easily, get all the block of a gladiator, as a non-gladiator is a failure of game design.

Those jewels are indeed very very powerful. I'd have locked them into the specific ascendancy rather than just character class had it been up to me. So a gladiator could grab another gladiator node, a champion another champion node, ect.

The skill interactions seem better balanced at that scale.

The other option would be to make the jewel much much much more rare, to justify the extremes in power it grants.

But I can't argue about its power - it's REALLY strong.