I see two problems, the first being that a combination of block and evasion mechanics makes one pretty much invulnerable and the 2nd being that block alone, especially on sentinels is freaking strong.
I come from the mmorpg genre and I can’t understand why it’s even possible to combine dodge (a mechanic for fast, flexible rogue type characters) and block (a mechanic for sturdy, heavy armored tank like chars).
As first step I’d split those mechanics by adding a heavy negativ stat on dodge to all shields. Like -20 to -50% dodge rating while a shield is equipped.
On a second step I’d rework block in a way that it mitigates a % of damage received with a cap of maybe 75%.
On a third step I’d make sure that it’s not possible to get 100% block rate (cap).
After that you can discuss wether or a not a block should reflect some of damage, since hitting a shield should damage the attacker atleast a bit.
How much dodge, or rather, how many dodge affixes do you need on a Primalist to hit the dodge cap at end game?
But you can say the exact same thing about ward & dodge. Can the Sentinel/Primalist have many thousands of ward?
Which would just make it a different name for Dodge. Very boring (IMO).
That’s probably a better idea, though it does water down block for all classes.
How much ward on hit can the Mage/Acolyte classes generate? That’s not an inconciderable advantage.
It probably should, but it’s difficult to balance different defensive mechanics that are designed to work in different ways.
You have ward that’s always on & protects against all damage until you run out of it (or generate more) & it makes protections irrelevant (since it’s not possible to get enough protections for them to be meaningful or useful).
Dodge is RNG but protects against all hits & gives 100% damage reduction to a dodged hit. Protections are also irrelevant if you dodge & vital if you don’t. Or you can stack ward.
Block buffs your protections so it has diminishing returns build in (perhaps not enough) but it’s also got an RNG element to it. What can we do to make block useful & mechanically different to the other two defences? If it weren’t an RNG you could probably give it a mechanic where it mitigates all damage from a particular direction, but I don’t think that would work in a game with hordes of trash mobs that doesn’t really focus on movement as part of the core gameplay.
Perhaps it could reduce a blocked hit by a flat amount (like Grim Dawn) with higher tier shields being more effective (in terms of block chance & damage reduced)? If it didn’t have a cooldown then it would be effective against lots of small hits but not against bigger hits. Or you could give it a cooldown & the Sentinel passives to reduce that. Then maybe give shields (or the Sentinel) passives that increase protections while a shield is equipped.
Then have him him put on my gear and show us how OP it is. Op gear should make you OP. If he really wanted to illustrate how OP a build is he shouldn’t do it by donning gear that is a product of probably 1000’s of hours of game play. When the top of the ladders are saturated with Forge Gaurds because its OP then maybe I’ll start buying into this.
But as its stands even if he is “nearly unkillable” he also is “nearly unable to kill” And to me that IS the trade off.
Just by population on the ladders alone I’d argue the Forge Gaurd isn’t very popular. Making it less “tanky” is going to do what?
But why isn’t it filled with Sentinels now? I think that’s just the perception problem I mentioned earlier. Right now Liches are the flavour of the month given the bug plus they’ve had several new skills which always attracts people. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sentinels did feature more heavily next patch, because death seal will be fixed (waiting for the threads about how it was nerfed unreasonably just like the threads about ward when that was nerfed).
I’ve had another think about block. What if a shield reduced a blocked hit by a flat amount with a cooldown just like Grim Dawn and block effectiveness was changed to be + to all armour and protections at 1/10 to 1/5 of the amount (so 200-500 which would be a reasonable defensive chunk). It effectively becomes a defensive stat stick all classes can use.
The Sentinel would have passives that boost the blocked damage, block chance and improve the cooldown (because we want the Sentinel to have a better block). Above the 25 point line each mastery would get a passive that changes how block functions.
Forge Guard would get a 100% cooldown reduction (with a reduction to the damage blocked) so it would be very effective against swarms of small mobs but not against big hits.
Void Knight gets something timey-wimey, maybe block procs an echo (of the last skill echoed, just like the bug with instant skills being echoed).
Paladin gets, a burst of Holy Aura? A pool of consecrated ground on block? Something that ties in with the holy warrior archetype.
I pushed Paladin 90% Block to 450, and can do way more.
Due to Paladin passives, Paladin can’t dodge at all, so while its a good idea, the reality is block can already be played at the highest level with 0% dodge
The thing about dodge though, is it has a cap, and it adds no additional armor and protection, while being useless against dots, that is why block on sentinel is a superior defense, then dodge is on a primalist.
Maybe you’re just that awesome!
