Blocking Question

[Jpec07]

Can a critical strike be blocked? I know you can't Parry crits, but I'm curious about blocking. Thanks!

[Legion88]

You can block a critical hit.

[Donjo]

You cannot Block a Critical Hit. Attacks are rolled in the following order:

Critical Hit -> Dodge -> Block -> Parry -> Normal Damage

Crit and Dodge might be swapped in order, but it has been proven by the likes of Raw Intuition and Sheltron that a Critical Hit cannot be Blocked or Parried. This is why people are slightly more amicable toward Awareness these days: it forces Crits off the table and thus slightly raises effective Block/Parry rates.

[Exodus_Kenpachi]

You can block a critical hit.

What? Lol I swear to God people on the OF just make shit up as they go along.

No, you cannot block a crit. This part of the reason why parry and block are meh. The game implements a series of checks when you take damage:

Dodge, Crit, block, parry, regular damage.

Block and parry would become more useful if crit was placed at the bottom of the list. But as it stands now, no you cannot block a crit.

[Jpec07]

This is why people are slightly more amicable toward Awareness these days: it forces Crits off the table and thus slightly raises effective Block/Parry rates.

You read my mind to see where I was going with this. I've got a work in progress examining just how effective Awareness actually is, because a lot of people seem to think it's not all that great (where preliminary results suggest 15% total mitigation against a 30% Crit rate - not sure what actual numbers are, but that doesn't seem to unreasonable to me). I'll be crunching numbers job to job this afternoon, but it looks like it might be one of the better CDs out there--especially (ironically, perhaps) for WAR.

[Exodus_Kenpachi]

Awareness is amazing for WAR for the simple fact of RI.

[Februs]

Awareness is amazing for WAR for the simple fact of RI.

It actually does not too shabby for Drk either. Similar to the way a Pld uses it to proc more Blocks when Bulwark is up, a Drk can use it to proc more Parry's when Dark Dance is up. It's not as effective as using Dark Arts with Dark Dance, but it can be worked in for some extra mitigation. The highest utility for that move, at the moment, is certainly by Warriors though. It pairs beautifully with Raw intuition (with a mere 5 second discrepancy). I'd say it's a must for any Warrior.

[Syzygian]

My biggest problem with Awareness is its duration. 15s is just not long enough to see meaningful returns from avoiding nasty crit RNG from a boss, in spite of its synergy with stuff like Dark Dance, Bulwark, and Raw Intuition. I wish the PLD trait just cut the recast time for PLD but the duration was 25s for all the tanks.

[Februs]

My biggest problem with Awareness is its duration. 15s is just not long enough to see meaningful returns from avoiding nasty crit RNG from a boss, in spite of its synergy with stuff like Dark Dance, Bulwark, and Raw Intuition. I wish the PLD trait just cut the recast time for PLD but the duration was 25s for all the tanks.

I can kind of sympathize with this, but mostly for Pld, not the other two. I mean, for Pld, Awareness couples with Bulwark and is usually only used for improving the efficiency of Bulwark (unless you are expecting a Crit... somehow... psychically...I dunno). Given that Bulwark is a PAINFULLY short buff on a PAINFULLY long timer, Awareness outpaces it by a lot. The cooldown Timers don't even line up, so you end up holding onto Awareness for extra time while you wait for the obstinately long CD of Bulwark.

For War's, Awareness is too short by 5 seconds. At either the beginning or the end of Raw Intuition, they are vulnerable to extra Crits because, despite the CD timers lining up, the buff timers do not.

Dark Knights, actually, seems to get the most balance out of the timing of Awareness, because it is possible for a Drk to time their awareness/Dark Dance combo in such a way that they can pop Awareness with Dark Dance on every second cast of Dark Dance. Meaning they can Dark Arts + Dark Dance > Dark Dance + Awareness > Dark Arts + Dark Dance repeatedly throughout the fight, saving them MP on every second Dark Dance cast by not using Dark Arts but keeping up an (at least better than default) efficiency of mitigation using awareness. The difference is, instead of increasing evasion you're proc'ing more parry's. I haven't done the math on how well it compares to the DA buff, but it seems to be working out pretty well for me so far.

The way I see it, the most essential "fix" for Awareness really only requires adjustments for Pld (which should be priority 1, given it is their move to begin with). Only, you'd be adjusting Bulwark, not Awareness. At the very least, Bulwark's CD timer should be reduced to 120s so that it matches Awareness. It would be nice if they extended its duration to be the same or at least close to Awareness, but I don't want to be greedy (though, to be perfectly honest, I don't think it would be all that greedy. After all, if a Dark Knight's Dark Dance can last for 20s, I don't see a reason why Pld's Bulwark only lasts 15...). In any case, the CD timer should match since, right now, the awkward timing of them both makes for a clunky rotation of buffs.

For War... Ideally it would cover all of Raw Intuition... but I don't really see this as pressing. Asking the War to pay attention for an extra 5 seconds is hardly a problem. They have the most balance out of this move already. It can just stay the way it is.

For Drks.... Could also be left the same, really. They get pretty good efficiency out of it already, so don't change what ain't broke, as far as I'm concerned.

[Jpec07]

Now the real question (since I'm trying to figure out if it's worth it to pair Awareness with DA-DD):

Is Dodge or Crit rolled first?