Thread: Shields & Parrying in 1.19

Originally Posted by Alderton

At least on harder mobs, the shield makes nearly no difference whatsoever. It's practically pointless now.

I use a shield for one reason

Its one more spot to add:

Bloodthirst
lifethirst
bloodwall
fire veil
ice veil
water veil
wind veil
lightening veil
earth veil

Originally Posted by Bayohne

We hear you guys on the block rate and we'll look into making adjustments based upon your feedback - so please keep it coming!

Thats good, because right now with the terrible block rate MRD is better at nearly everything GLA can do making the class nearly useless besides to level for Sentinel.

It doesn't matter whether you fight a higher level mob or a lower level mob. On lower level mobs, all you will see is more misses against you, so will barely be able to tell if your block rate is broken against them or not. Ive fought some monsters considerably lower level than me, and when I did get hit, it wasn't always a block, even tho my stats are far above some level 20 monster. IF Dex truely governed block rate, I should never see a block fail on something 30 levels below me at Level 50 with a Kite Shield +1 (94), Self Preservation (+5) and Sentinels Gauntlets (+5).

The thing they must do is make the block rate listed on the shield the block rate. Skills, equipment, and shield quality increase it. Good thing to do would be to set the 'tanking' shield to 75-80% for NQ, then the player would have to actually use skills, other equipment, or HQ shield to make it better. If only gladiator can use it, it should block more than a shield a conj or thm can use as well, to put it that way. It would give people a reason to use Ambidexterity after the change. Speaking of which... 3Min recast is too long for that skill now. The actual Level of the shield should have more influence on amount blocked rather than block rate. Also, when we scroll or select a shield, it should tell us OUR block rate with that shield, not some set number that means nothing, since dex, equipment, and skills can increase it. There should also be a stat in our Status window to show Parry and Block Rate.

However as said, making GLD block normally wont fix the gladiators current usefulness. Once, Storm's Path was cross-classable, and it was a good AOE enmity generating damage attack that classes that could tank could use. Now that it is just MRD, something has to be done with Gladiator. I suggest either Making Riot Blade AOE, or adding slightly more potency and increased enmity to Circle Slash, or both would be better since Riot Blade Depletes all TP and pacifies. The point wouldn't be to do more damage than MRD in AOE, it would be to hold ENMITY in AOE against other peoples' AOE damage or heals. Even a wide-volley can take enmity away from a Gladiator against multiple targets. ALSO.... I don't think it has been considered at all, but War Drums Is a pretty useless skill for 5 ac and 40s Recast. It too can not generate enough enmity to keep hate off of a healer or aoe damager. Suggest its recast be reduced to 20s and slight increase in enmity, or greatly increase its enmity generation. Another silly skill, Cadence, Should Increase Enmity generation for not one attack, but for a set duration.

Moved the last part to a different thread, since this one is about block and parry :P