If I equip a perfectly rolled legendary Bulwark of the Last Abyss with max T7 block chance, equip T7 block gloves and rings and get a block blessing, I can achieve 99% block chance. But there is no way to reach 100% as a non-sentinel non-rogue class. It would be really nice, if 100% block chance would be achievable with the maximum investment.
Also maybe make block dr depend on the angle at which you face the enemy, face the boss for maximum effectiveness or die if you flee cowardly.
And I would like to see a block rework. 99% block chance is infinitely worse, than 100% (100% reliability for some bosses against occasional death). And 98% is twice as worse as 99%. We have armour and dodge cap with the diminishing returns, but block chance is the opposite, such mechanics must be reworked. Not every class should be good at everything, but there are many ways to get armour, dodge, endurance, or even ward with ward retention on any class, yet block chance sources are very scarce. Also low block chance is limiting any shieldâs potential. Right now if a shield is used, itâs either for other stats, or a bastion, or a paladin.
Itâs probably too late for a huge rework, but I would remove the block chance and make it 100% with a shield, but make the dr from the shield a random range, with block effectiveness stat affecting the lower limit, and a new stat âmaximum damage reduction from blockâ replacing the current block chance.
For example instead of block chance each shield gives a maximum block dr, say itâs 35% for the best shield base, and the dr is rolled between 0-35% with 0 block effectiveness, and is about 34-35% dr at 30k block effectiveness. Added block chance stats are replaced with a added max block dr stat thatâs capped at 85% or less.
With this system even non-paladin class can get more reliable defence from the shield with less investment, but paladin can still get similar levels of dr with high investment.
Although all âon blockâ effects must be rebalanced, maybe accordingly to the dr. If itâs 10 health on block now, it will become 10 multiplied by block dr percent. The Slab can stay the same, having itâs block chance dependent on the dr divided by 2.
I ended up writing way more than I intended to.
Eh, I think other classes need less access to block actually.
Dodge is a good example of a defense that for the most part is limited to those who have a way to get it.
Necros wont ever build dodge, they have no source outside of gear to grant it to them, so the values they can obtain will be terrible unless they jump through 10 hoops and gut every other item they could use for dodge based uniques.
Sentinel is considered by many to be extremely weak rn, and thats probably because one of his core defenses that he excels at, and gives up other stats in design for is block. Which everyone can get in decent numbers if they use bastion, bulwark, or the mountain shield etc.
I do think there should be a reworking of block, but it should be capping its block chance and then buffing block effect, which is much more simple then trying to code some direction based rng defense lol.
its not that far fetched, paladin is passable. but VK got hit hard by vit changes, and FG is well you know.
Yes there is builds on all of them that are good, but overall the classes are no where near as good as more updated classes.
They dont have the best arena builds or the best mono builds. in the world of the runemasters or druids, the sentinels are not really represented.
They are atleast to me, really good in the early game. But as soon as you start pushing they lack the scalability that other classes who have unique defense options.
Tbh I blame ward, ward is the go to end game scaling choice currently and sentinel is the worst at doing that.
Some build are stuck with no choice other than wearing a shield, itâs at least something, even if itâs not good. But they will usually end up with a bastion or craddle, because of the block chance problem I described.
Thatâs why I want block to be more universally useful with low investment. Iâm ok if block will become more sentinel specific, but I want more options to improve defense for other classes. Something like a magical shield opposed to physical, with flat/% hit damage reduction, that maybe has recharge time after taking a few hits or after taking certain amount of max health/ward.
Block chance is similar to crit avoidance. Even at 99% avoidance you still will get crit often enough to die occasionally. And some classes got more crit avoidance support, than the others. I love the solution to provide more sources of crit reduction, so that classes without an access to crit avoidance still can protect themselves reliably even with little investment. Block can stay in this form of dodge/armour hybrid, but I still want some universally good defensive offhand option, that can be useful with little investment, whether itâs reworked block or something else.
There is with 2lp Face of the Mountain if you slap exalted endurance and t5 block chance and then stack endurance on bunch of gear and also use the endurance blessing from Spirits of Fire.
TBH, they could put a block cap then allow Sentinels to exceed it and hit 100% while taking advantage of the buffed block effectiveness due to capped block chance.
So compared to 1 Mastery (and 1 brand new, still OP/untuned Mastery), Sentinels are under-represented? Wow⌠and all this time I thought we had 13 Masteries. Must be rough to have 1 a little more powerful. I stand corrected, you have my sympathies. I will not rest until this blasphemy is rectified! What kind of world would it be, if Sentinels were no longer the most OP class in the game!
Sentinel is arguably worse when you get to scaling modifiers. Their floor for defense and damage is pretty good, and they excel at reaching empowered monoliths, but past 250+ corruption the advantages their passives and trees provide significantly fall off.
There are some strategies and builds that can get around the lack of good DR options in the passive tree, but as a class sentinel is pretty lackluster when looking at long-term options.
sentinel has generally been viewed as the weaker class for a while, being wierd because someone says it, more shows what your ratio of forum time to game time has been
