PLD Gear?

[Stufoo]

On trash mobs, you would be better to stack Dex (Block Rate) and wear a high Block Rate Shield.
It would be better to block 36% of damage 87% of the time, than 50% of damage 42% of the time.

(Divine Veil @ 100% Block Rate + 75% Block Rate VS. Divine Veil @ 100% Block Rate + 30% Block Rate)

Hey Judge, just wanted to clarify on this and how strange your block rate difference estimates are. The logic is sound if there weren't abilities such as sentinel, divine veil, and other mitigators that completely trump the incentive to mitigate trash pulls in the first place. Like, of course you want to block more, but the difference isn't large enough to care. The logic just doesn't fit into the game's situations, but for clarification, you can't make this large of an improvement on block rate in the game at all.

For a Holy Shield 110 block rate + standard HDL 206 dex build to have a 30% block rate, the floor for that monster would have to be -12.6%. I don't think this is likely to happen on "trash monsters" but I have no idea, let's roll with it.

Floor + (Block Rate x (.2)) + (DEX x (.1)) = block rate ≤ 75%

so

30% - (110x(.2)) - (206x(.1)) = -12.6% floor

Likewise, considering you were talking about the same scenario when comparing (trash monsters, standard vs. high block rate + dex stack), let's see how much you'd need to reach 75% standard block rate on a -12.6% floor.

The increase from -12.6% to 75% is 87.6%, so you'd need around 438 block rate, or 876 dex, or some combination of the two. As you can see the numbers for this increase are just unreachable in any sense. Realistically, you could have... 196 maximum possible block rate from gear and traits. You'd still need 484 dex total.

I want to put up the math for the block power differences too, but it's pretty safe to say that to gain that 45% block rate, you'd be giving up 43~45% mitigation in block as well in the shield alone, not 14% as in your example. So basically, there's a reason we use Kite and Tower shields. Our abilities override the need for block rate. Nothing overrides the need for block power.

A more reasonable comparison would be Holy shield 110 vs. Gridanian Buckler 178. In the above example, simple switching to the gridanian buckler alone would net you a +13.6% increase in block rate (30->43.6). However, you are trading +13.6% block rate for -13.4% mitigation (Holy shield +27.6% -> Gridanian Buckler +14.2%). Numbers like these are just too small to care about for trash monsters in the game's current scenarios and ability design (divine veil).

Comparing individual things like HDL gauntlets vs. Sentinel's Gauntlets shows a clear winner (12 VIT = 6 Block Power = 1.2% mitigation vs. 5 Block Rate = 1.0% block rate), then when you meld DEX onto the sentinel's gauntlets you are just trading block rate for defense, and non-mitigation stats like HP, Enmity, and Mind, for very, very little gain.

[SwordCoheir]

The increase from -12.6% to 75% is 87.6%, so you'd need around 438 block rate, or 876 dex, or some combination of the two. As you can see the numbers for this increase are just unreachable in any sense. Realistically, you could have... 196 maximum possible block rate from gear and traits. You'd still need 484 dex total.

Aye that's a good assertion, don't forget that the bonus from block rate from the +block gear caps out at 20% though.

[Judge_Xero]

Hey Judge, just wanted to clarify on this and how strange your block rate difference estimates are....

I agree that my block rate estimates were a bit high @ 75%

A better comparison (in my case) would be like:
Max 60% Block rate on lvl 52 Mobs, with a Block Value of around 35% (Gridanian Buckler)(Garuda's Gaze)(300 Dex)
Max 32% Block rate on lvl 52 Mobs, with a Block Value of around 55% (Holy Shield)(350 VIT)

Nothing overrides the need for block power.

This is correct. So for anything important, you will be better off with Block, since your Sentinel or Divine Veil willl be off cooldown.

With the limited gains on Block Rate and Block. It almost seems like it's useless to add it anywhere you could put accuracy, damage or enmity.

Edit: Sweet. In before thread lock.