Block STR vs Block Rate

[OmegaSinX]

Which is truly better for PLD in your opinion and why? Less mitigation with more frequency or Strong mitigation with less frequency? Has anyone done test on this ?

Trying to decide which route I should persue before I end up regretting the time wasted if I choose the wrong route.

Coil
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...m/75ef29d3f2d/

vs

Tomes Farming
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...m/2b763cb475f/

vs
Extreme Farming
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...m/56ae4ac950f/

[Alwryn]

It depends on the content.

With Twintania, one of the biggest threats is DS. You want to block it, so more block rate be better yo.

With Turn 6 and Raffy, her attacks are general consistent. Bloody is nowhere near as strong as deathsentence and even more predictable. She does however have a pretty strong auto attack that can crit (A use for awareness, finally) but tank burst damage is not a significant factor on this fight. Therefore, a more average shield would be better. This is under the assumption that like the onion shield, a higher block rate shield has less overall mitigation then a kite shield.

For the Block Strength shield. Well, I don't know. We don't really have math on how it performs in theory, or any experience with its practical application in endgame content.

TLDR: Fight with high burst sections where you need to block more. High rate. Otherwise the shield with the best overall mitigation or stat weights.

[SwordCoheir]

Did some experimenting with Block strength using 3 different shields (Onion 92, Holy Shield Zenith 181, and Maelstrom 6) utilizing both a DPS STR (423 STR) setup and a typical Tank setup (358 STR), and no gear aside from an Allagan Sword (233) STR.

In a STR setup the HSZ reduced 28%, Onion 21%, and MS 13%, with Parry negating 25%.

In a Tank Setup the HSZ reduced 27%, Onion 20%, and MS 12%, with Parry negating 23%.

In no gear setup the HSZ reduced 25%, Onion 18%, and MS 10%, with Parry negating 20%.

Firstly STR affecting damage reduced is horrible, at almost 190 STR difference between extremes we saw a partly 3% difference with shields and 5 with Parry. Second since something like the Maelstrom shield with nearly no block strength is still blocking 10% there's probably a natural base reduction (probably between 5-6%) for all shields.

After doing the math I needed about 68 STR (give or take a point or two due to gear constraints) to reduce 1% damage on a shield, being I'm about 224 STR naked with the MS shield divide by the 68 it comes out to about 3.29%, since it's rounded down it will be 3 so it appears my theorycrafting about a absolute minimum negated is true for 7%.

Now onto the Block Strength of the shields, we got a fix on just how much STR affects the damage reduced we can now get a better estimate on how much block strength calculates point-per-point.

For the sake of shortening this discussion 423 STR /68 = 6.2 mitigated from STR, round down 6 + 7 min block value = 13% base mitigation.

28% HSZ - 13 Base/STR mitigation = 15% negated from Block Strength on the HSZ.
21% Onion - 13 Base/STR Mit = 8% negated from Onions Block Strength.
13% Maelstorm - 13 Base/STR Mit = 0% negated from the MS Block Strength.

Now here's where things get a little cloudy, since I don't have slight BS increments to work with I have to rely on some rough calculations.

181 HSZ / 15% = 12
92 Onion / 8% = 11.5

To add to the formulas I'll throw in the regular Holy Shield's Block Strength and Mitigation to help us pinpoint a more accurate number.

167 HS / 14% = 11.9

So it seems our ratio is between 11.5-12 Block Strength per percent mitigated, but since we have the residual output we should be able to reverse engineer a fairly accurate answer.

HS 14% * 11.5 = 161
14% * 11.9 = 166
14% * 12 = 168 (over)

HSZ 15 * 11.5 = 172
15 * 11.9 = 178.5
15 * 12 = 180

Onion 8 * 11.5 = 92
8 * 11.9 = 95.2 (over)
8 * 12 = 96 (over)

Assuming there isn't a scaling value to Block Strength (IE: You need more BS for every % mitigated), 11.5 points per % mitigated appears to be the correct unit of measurement, but I would like to get some more data from more mid-level shields just to be sure.

[Fue]

Well i bought the new ilvl100 shield that has 304 block str and 119 block rate.
It's blocking 38% of the dmg taken with my str being at 363.
Dunno about the rate, but seems to be close to 100% still when using Bulwark.

[SwordCoheir]

[scrapped calculations]

[AlrikRouge]

Haven't played around with this before but thought about it some.

Turn 4 as PLD OT I'd venture with higher block rate. However, with awesome DPS, I'd like to experiment with high block strength and use bulwark to see on P6 how much it helps. On bosses in general I still go for shields that are pretty equal in both since big hits aren't usually blocked but auto attacks are.

[SwordCoheir]

Ok I went back over and double checked everything yields similiar results even with the decimal range added into the math. However, I forked out the gil to do some more rigorous testing (which I should have probably done after figuring out the natural STR/Flat Mitigation Values) to get a precise reading using low/mid shields.

Maelstrom Shield = BS 6 = 13% mitigated
Square Ash Shield = BS 8 = 13% Mitigated
HQ Ironclad Bronze Buckler = BS 11 = 13% Mitigated
Vintage Square Shield = BS 12 = 14% (11.5)
Aubriest's Allegory = BS 22 = 14%
Vintage Hoplon = BS 23 = 15% (11.5)
Darklight Square Shield = BS 24 = 15%

Since my mitigation from STR and the 7% flat rate comes out to 13% I gain nothing from the first three shields block strength. However following the incremental values according to my theory we see that I gain 1% of mitigation at 12 BS and again at 23 (23 / 2 = 11.5) which falls precisely into my hypothesis at 11.5. I wanted to further test my theory on a shield with 34/35/36, BS but no shields are avaliable in close enough increments to properly test, however compared to other shields that were already tested at the higher levels it seems everything has panned out as I had hoped.