Block strength and block rate.

[Magnedeus]

I have been tanking for quite a bit and having fun with it so far. But sometimes I have felt kinda squishy. Now in terms of shields I have mainly chosen block rate for damage mitigation. But I only seem to block 10% of the time. Now I know block strength increases the damage reduction of block attacks but the block rate is very low. And I am seeing this on a lot of high level gear. For any experienced paladins out there. What is the better option and why?

[Reynhart]

At high level, Block STR and Block rate are the same for every shield, so you won't really have to prirotize one over the other. Once again, the higher ilvl is the best option.

[Lyrai_Celestine]

I have been tanking for quite a bit and having fun with it so far. But sometimes I have felt kinda squishy. Now in terms of shields I have mainly chosen block rate for damage mitigation. But I only seem to block 10% of the time. Now I know block strength increases the damage reduction of block attacks but the block rate is very low. And I am seeing this on a lot of high level gear. For any experienced paladins out there. What is the better option and why?

You shouldn't worry too much about block rate. It will come out spontaneously just like Parry, and also, you have a skill to guarantee block (Sheltron) or block everything in a period of time (Bulwark). Just look at its iLvL and you'll be fine.

[Cabalabob]

Block rate and block strength are one of the things that fell victim to this game getting constantly dumbed down. It was quite important in ARR as strength increased block strength, wearing strength accs and using a small shield like the diamond shield you could get a 100% block rate during bulwark and still block for 25% mitigation or more making bulwark a better, physical only, rampart.

This went away in HW and instead we got sheltron to guarantee blocks, making tower shields the best choice as they had the highest mitigation and you could basically choose when to block. However, kite shields were far more common and had higher ilvl so it was still ideal to go for those for the extra stats rather than tower for the mitigation.

Pretty much every shield since stormblood is a kite shield so block rate and strength are the same on everything so it doesn't even matter anymore.

[Inuk9]

if you had the choice, I think block strength is better since you have cooldowns that improve your block rate.

[D_C]

if you had the choice

Five words what sum up everythin' dissapointin' innis game if I ever heard 'em.

[Sarcatica]

Five words what sum up everythin' dissapointin' innis game if I ever heard 'em.

With the change to block able to mitigate magic damage, I can see why SE decided to stick to it. It will be OP now if you get the choice of higher block str solely due to Sheltron.

[Brannigan]

They changed it in HW after Gordias because everything but tower shields were noob traps due to Sheltron. Ironically, now that shield oath generates Oath through blocking, the "rate vs strength" choice would have actually had some merit for both sides.

Oh they also removed varying sword delays. Lower used to be better because of Sword Oath. Then they normalized Sword Oath, and I think in the same patch they stopped giving out non-standard sword delays. Fastest would have been best in SB again because of gauge generation. Also there was a possibility that Skillspeed might have been kind of interesting for paladin/ninja gauge generation, but speed ended up just increasing auto attack damage and not actually making it faster.

[Reynhart]

Oh they also removed varying sword delays. Lower used to be better because of Sword Oath. Then they normalized Sword Oath, and I think in the same patch they stopped giving out non-standard sword delays. Fastest would have been best in SB again because of gauge generation. Also there was a possibility that Skillspeed might have been kind of interesting for paladin/ninja gauge generation, but speed ended up just increasing auto attack damage and not actually making it faster.

Frankly, with the GCD we have, they shouldn't have bothered to even implement auto-attacks in this game, especially if they decide to twist them that much.