Does anyone know how block rate works?

[RLofOBFL]

I want to buy the best upgrade possible to help my static and since I am PLD and only need 2 weeks for my main hand, I basically have 1 free week to either spend on a shield, accessories, or arms/head.

I have around 1060 block rate and it will go up to 1110ish, as well as 4 str and 5 vit. Or I can get head/arms that add 9 str, 11 vit and 18 defense, BUT O2s drops better arms/head so I could potentially waste my creation on it just to replace it instantly.

So knowing this, Is it worth getting the shield now? And does block rate do much of anything? Also if anyone knows the passive block rate, that's be helpful too xD

[Furiea]

block is ruined by parry. don't bother.

block used to block 36% dmg in 2.0... that's when you should care.

[Starkbeaumont]

The blockrate won't change much at all. you just get the best shield available.
personally i felt SE changed something anyway regarding block rates. I feel passive blocks happened more often in the past, even at the beginning of an expension

[Thela]

The blockrate won't change much at all. you just get the best shield available.
personally i felt SE changed something anyway regarding block rates. I feel passive blocks happened more often in the past, even at the beginning of an expension

They probably did, because you can now block magic damage. If you blocked as often as before it would make PLD even better than the other tanks.

[Phoenicia]

With Sheltron now, "rate" doesn't matter. What matters is block power, the way to increase that is to get the highest item level shield available to you. Period.

[finders]

blockrate used to scale with str. dunno if it still does.

[Shurrikhan]

blockrate used to scale with str. dunno if it still does.

It does not. Parry and Block percentiles were both decoupled from Strength at the start of Heavensward.

Addtionally, shield block vs. strength balance has been equalized across all Stormblood shields. There is no longer a reason or way to choose between block frequency and Shelltron strength.

Rather, the chance rating and resultant block percentage has simply tapered over the course of 61-70. Unless PLD is slated to gain relative power over time, it's quite possible that each is also capped to a fixed percentage by 70, and will not improve over the course of additional tiers.

[RLofOBFL]

I just ended up getting a helmet. The 18 defense from it was roughly a 10 damage decrease on every hit. I never really thought about it but I guess shields prolly aren't very useful and should be the last piece of armor you get outside of accessories.

[DWolfwood]

Do we know if Blockstrength even increases the mitigation? If so, we're gonna see PLD get stronger and stronger unless it's a number that checks against current target's strength or something. In which case, PLD will only get stronger and stronger for old content.

[Cabalabob]

Do we know if Blockstrength even increases the mitigation? If so, we're gonna see PLD get stronger and stronger unless it's a number that checks against current target's strength or something. In which case, PLD will only get stronger and stronger for old content.

It has some kind of scaling based on level or something, for example at the beginning of HW the aegis shield was blocking for about 21%, by the time you got to ravana hard it had gone down to 19%, you needed to upgrade your ilvl to get back to 20%