Talk:Block

Based on strength
how much damage do you block exactly. ? based on strength,. CJ 06:04, 27 Feb 2006 (EST)

Not sure this is accurate...
"Blocked attacks cannot be criticals and cannot be crushing blows, which further decreases average rate of damage recieved by classes using a shield."

Because of the table-based way WoW does combat, the percentage of attacks that is blocked shouldn't actually affect the chance of having a crit land on you -- If a mob has a 5% chance to crit you, equipping a shield that gives you a 3% chance to block still gives the mob a 5% chance to crit you. So goes my understanding, anyhow.

(I can't say for crushing blows.) --Elfchief 13:25, 14 July 2006


 * If you have a 20% chance to crit, and I have a 20% chance to block it implies that you only have a chance to get a critical on me 80% of the time -- your effective crit would be 16%. However, this benefit is largely random -- by chance I could prevent every critical (your 20% to crit could happen on only the 20% that I block) or none (my 20% of blocks only affect normal strikes and all 20% of your crits aren't blocked). Regardless, damage is mitigated, but how much varies wildly. The most likely scenario though is that in a battle of 100 strikes, you would land 16 crits and I would prevent 4 (and block some or all of the damage from those 4 and 16 other normal strikes). --Drolfeir 01:27, 18 July 2006 (EDT)
 * I'll add to myself here that with the 2.0 addition of resilience that determing how effective +defense and blocking are at mitigating critical hits is going to be even harder! So, in the above example, add the caveat 'ignore the effects of increased defense and resilience'. --Drolfeir 02:00, 21 January 2007 (EST)


 * Yes, it's the same code for monsters and players. The programmer who wrote it says so. A monster's crit is the result of it not being any other result from the table, so a crit cannot be blocked becuase block is a different table entry. This works both ways.
 * --Beaza 10:16, 31 January 2007 (PST)

Ranged attacks?
I've noticed with my Hunter and my Warrior that ranged attacks can in fact be blocked, either by mobs and by players, with my Hunter I sometimes noticed that my combat log said something like "Mob takes X damage (X blocked)" on auto shot attacks (ranged), and on my Warrior I had a ranged NPC to attack me and I used Shield Block and I partially blocked the attack (for 86 I think, which was my max block damage at the time), would be nice if some more people could confirm this. --Ner'Arth 15:08, 9 May 2008 (GMT+0)


 * A bit of a late response, granted, but yes: Ranged attacks can be blocked. Compared with normal melee attacks, you're unlikely to notice ranged blocking very often unless actually looking for it, as (last time I checked) the "block" message only shows up in the combat log (rather than as a hovering message). As a sidenote, Holy Shield (and similar abilities, disregarding Damage Shield) will deal damage to a ranged attacker upon blocking, making it probably one of the most efficient forms of ranged avoidance there is (next to a talented Shield Block). --Cormorra (talk) 09:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Firefox
For Firefox, can you offer us a source link for your change please?
 * Stilpu 03:51, 22 Dec 2005 (EST)

block
Hard cap?

Some say there is a hard cap on a combined value of: dodge / parry / block... and since block is only partial damage, block is an inferior skill. was it 60% total? could someone verify this. CJ 06:00, 27 Feb 2006 (EST)

There is no hard cap on avoidance. Level 9 boars can't hit a 60 warrior with sufficent stacked miss/dodge/parry/block. I've stood there and let one hit me for about 30 minutes until someone got off the zep and onehit it.--Awkram 13:35, 15 October 2006 (EDT)

formulas
It has been verified by Blizzard that there is no hard cap on combined avoidance. Unfortunately I don't have a link for that, however it's pretty simple to test if you're a level 60 Warrior or Rogue. Just walk outside a city, aggro a low level mob, and let it hit you for a while. The difference in your defense skill to it's attack rating combined with the naturally high avoidance those classes enjoy will result in the mob rarely if ever hitting you. With a Drillborer Disk equipped, I've literally killed a level 8 mob with the shield's proc before it dealt damage to me. Drillborer deals 3 damage to anything which strikes you in melee, with a full block counting as a strike for this purpose, but not a miss, parry, or dodge. Mobs of that level have around 200 hp, so I blocked somewhere around 60 attacks, and avoided many more, without getting hit.

I also changed the strength to block value conversion. I assume the popular figure of 22 came from someone doing limited testing with strength values near 220, but it is slightly off. I've tested from strength values of about 240 - 310, in increments of 1-2 strength.
 * 240-259: 11 block added
 * 260-279: 12 block added
 * 280-299: 13 block added
 * 300+: 14 block added

It's pretty clear from this the correct forumla is ((Strength - 20) / 20), or simplified, ((Strength / 20) - 1).

Macavenger 16:52, 12 May 2006 (PDT)

The formula is now Strength / 20. I've checked this over the range given above as well as higher and lower values.

--SeerBlade (talk) 00:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Crit vs. Block
I have a feeling I'd know this if I played a warrior, but I'm a rogue and so was curious: Can a crit be blocked?

I understand the combat table system, so I don't want to go into that. But, if your avoidance + your opponent's crit rate are sufficiently high that your chance to get a normal hit is lower than your block chance, would crits start to have some of the damage blocked? Or would the extra block be lost?

Tables for clarity:

Normal player's attack table against me:

.0001-.0500 miss

.0501-.1500-parry

.1501-.5000-dodge

.5001-.6500-block (mmm don't I wish)

.6501-.7500-hit

.7501-.1000-crit

Now for the sake of argument, what if it looked like this, as I believe hit is replaced by block like another form of avoidance:

.0001-.0500 miss

.0501-.1500-parry

.1501-.5500-dodge

.5501-.7500-block (mmm don't I wish even more)

.7501-.1000-crit

Now say I get one more point of block. Does a new category called "crit block" appear, is crit replaced straight up by the block, or is the block lost?

Has anyone ever seen a combat log that looks like, "Mr. T Crits you for 20,000 (2300 blocked)"? This would prove the dubious first possibility.

I think the crit starts to be replaced like it would for parry or dodge, and that the block is not lost. Can anyone confirm this?

Also, can someone please edit some tables into my tables? I'm a wiki newbie.

To my knowledge this is to a certain extent an open question right now. It seems that in PvE, chance to Block pushes crit (and Crushing Blow, when applicable) off the combat table, so for example a Warrior with the Shield Block skill active seems to not take any critical hits, as they are all converted to blocks instead.

In PvP, this works somewhat differently, and blocked crits can definitely occur. I don't know if this can happen naturally, or only in the case of something forced to be both a crit and a block, such as a Rogue using a Cold Blood Evis on a Warrior with Shield Block active.

Macavenger, 25 May 2006

block vs. chance to block
Does anybody know what's the difference between "block" and "chance to block", since some items give both. Could it be, that block, i.e. the shields block value, reduces the damage dealt to you by a constant ammount/factor? And chance to block give you an additional chance to completely evade damage, like parry?

Thanks in advance,

Benhoof, May 18th 2006

Things that "Increase the block value of your shield" cause you to take less damage each time you block. Things that "Increase your chance to block attacks with a shield" Increase the likelyhood of that damage reduction occurring.

Macavenger, 25 May 2006

Crits Blocked and Some
Yes Crits can be blocked. I've seen both: [You crit Noob for 20 Damage (1400 Blocked)] and [Noob Blocked] (this is when "Coldblood" (100%crit) was activated) and also during a "Felstriker" dagger proc.

From what i can tell since crit does not override block i'm figuring that Block is figured in after a hit is determined just like damage mitigation; i mean that is what it actually is afterall

So your block% is the chance that the damage you recieve will be blocked and your block is how much of the damage you will block.

The one thing i'm not certain on is if your armor's damage mitigation would figure into the damage your block is blocking or not.

Can anyone else confirm that Block is calculated after the fact that a hit or crit is made like damage mitigation is.

The theory i've heard and found no counter evidence for in testing is that blocks and crits are mutually exclusive for white damage but not special attacks. The classic test is to have a warrior use recklessness with a slow weapon vs another warrior in defensive stance (with rage built up) spaming shield block. You should see 0% crits if the weapon is slow enough for shield block to be up constantly. I haven't personally run this test though. I have seen a clear decrease in crits in pve vs raid bosses that i spam shield block on compared to those I do not. Broodlord vs Barron Geddon for example. Also I've seen reports of testing with recklessness vs a mob in uldaman that spams shield block. Again I have not personally tested on this mob

What's puzzleing is how blocking works vs special attacks. Blocked specials can crit (and do regularly in pvp) but because mob's have much lower crit/block rate in pve, its rare to see a blocked special crit. I'm running a mob that displays the combat log entry on the screen and plays a loud noise when a crit is blocked, and i do very rarely see blocked crits in pve. I do not know how the special attack calculatons are different, or what happens with say miss + dodge + parry >100% vs coldblood evis. My best guess is that block and crit are independent for special attacks only. I suspect that the combat table is still used for dodge/miss/parry, but block is clearly treated differently on specials.--Awkram 13:35, 15 October 2006 (EDT)


 * My understanding is that it is not that blocks are handled differently for special attacks, but that crits are. That is, whether or not an attack crits is checked only on special attacks that hit (and a block counts as a hit). Flowers 19:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Block vs Ranged Attacks
I'm yet to do extensive testing with blocking vs ranged attacks. I was very suprised to learn that you can block ranged attacks, and that both auto shoot and special attacks can be crits and blocked independently in pvp. More information about how block mechanics work with ranged attacks would be a valuable addition to the block article.--Awkram 13:35, 15 October 2006 (EDT)

The formula is off!!
I just had to test it in bc, and with a lvl 70 warrior with 112 block value (14 from str, 83 from shield, 15 from zg enchant) I only got results where I blocked for 50 damage...any theories?

My guess is that elemental damage isn't reduced the normal way (it was a lvl 71 elite I fought) also the lvl of the mob (70+ at least seems to be of importance as well - just a theory though and needs to be tested (againt nprmal non elementals at lvl 71 and up)


 * My understanding is that you cannot block elemental damage - I would guess you resisted 50 damage, rather than blocked it. Flowers 19:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Block chance per rating
I don't have a 70 Warrior of my own, so this data is limited, but this is what I've got. The first column comes directly from the character sheet, and the second comes from the "GetCombatRatingBonus(5)" API function in-game.

Rating		Bonus Block		Bonus/Block		Block/Bonus 15		1.9024391305936		0.126829275372907	7.88461494445801 19		2.4097562320852		0.126829275372905	7.88461494445810

On the main page, I extended the "7.9 rating per 1% block" to "7.884614944458", as the data indicates.

--Taleden 16:37, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I've changed it to 5*82/52, to match the expected value from other combat ratings. (This is very close to Talenden's number above.) Flowers 19:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Blocks Against NPCs vs Players
A while ago I heard that blocking against a NPC was different in some aspect than blocking against a player. Is this true? If so, how is it different?

Shield Mastery and Strength
The equation on the main page was: X = [(Shield block value)*1.3 + (Strength / 2) ]

In game I tried this and I found that this formula was wrong per 3.0.9. I changed the formula to the correct formula: X = [(Shield block value) + (Strength / 2) ] * 1.3

Shield Mastery applies to Shield Block Value from strength.

-Sooth 23:05, 12 February 2009 (EDT)

Diminishing returns
The tooltip seems to suggest that block chance (like dodge and parry) suffers from diminishing returns. I'm not talking about base dodge but block rating that you pick up from equipment, like with Nexus War Champion Beads. Yet all the "famous" posts on tankspot, maintankadin, EJ, all seem to suggest (but don't say outright) anything about DR in relation to block chance. Any help? I really want to clarify it in the article, but not until I can get confirmation.

Related note - is the amount you see on the tooltip before or after DR? I found forum threads saying it way after, but I always believed it was before DR.

Thanks! -Howbizr (talk) 18:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)