Which attacks can you block?
Melee, Ranged, Spells, Floor AOEs, Dots?
Can you block Crate’s meteors?
I presume it’s just: Melee, Ranged, Spells.
Is this right?
To my knowledge, attacks from these can be blocked.
More awkward but again to my knowledge projectile spells including ones that fall from the sky like Alek’s Meteor can be blocked. Floor AoEs or DoTs cannot.
2 Likes
Worth knowing is that shield block happens before armor (for physical hits) and resistances. Thus if there is 20k fire damage incoming, and your shield blocks say 5k of it and you have 80% resistances, you will take 0.2 * 15 = 3k dmg. Without the shield you would take 4k
3 Likes
So roughly speaking with 5k block you will get 1k less damage from attack, and if your block is lower than 5k the damage difference between using shield or not are even lower.
Say there is an incoming 50k non physical damage, and my block is 5k and resistance is 80%, that means the damage received is 9k, but without 5k block shield it will receive 10k damage.
From here I assume that shield block is more noticeable from low damage source, and each 1000 damage block will actually decrease the damage received by 200. Good to know now that if I want to make a shield character, I’ll search the lowest shield cd than the highest block damage.
1 Like
Yeah getting high % shield block recharge is probably the most important stat, and after that block chance. I see shields as a somewhat worse/better inquisitor seal (but note that inq seal can “block” way more kinds of dmg than shield, and also comes in last in the dmg mitigation order and is therefore way more effective than shields overall imo).
Shield works best imo against physical hits because after shield you have armor. 5k block and 4k armor means you mitigate 9k physical damage. Not bad.
Ok. So flat damage absorption is still rated as fantastic, good to know. 
But, Damage reduction to enemies would work really nicely with block as well, right?
You can block 5k damage.
Enemy normally deals 20k. 30% damage reduction, now they deal ~13k. You block 5. Resists lower it by 80%. You take 1.6k damage.
Is that right?
the big picture yes but the details are wrong
20k -> 30% damage reduction -> 14k -> block 5k -> 9k left -> 80% res -> you take 1.8k
1 Like
Awesome, ty. I knew I was being a bit liberal with the figures, but wanted to check my overall understanding of it.
So then if you had max’d inquisitor seal plus Stone Form for combined 830 damage absorption, plus Phoenix Fire, plus ascension, (etc etc), it could make for a real tanky time?
Yup. But even without stone form and maxed ascension and phoenix fire, you can be very tanky [1.1.8.1] Siegebreaker Paladin: Celestial Killer, Crucible 170ex, SR80 (vid)
2 Likes
Nice! I’m currently working on something like this for damage absorption tankiness
storm spread is way better than chilling rounds for dmg because of its shotgun.
Better for clearing trash? Or better because it has four projectiles at higher ranks?
4 projeclies, it is a shotgun = you blast those 4 projectiles into the face of the boss
Sure. But, at rank 10/10, you get 4x 33% weapon damage, versus Chilling Rounds’ 3x 80% weapon damage, right?
btw the amount of projectiles are doubled if you use rifle or gun+shield.
chilling round has no extra projectiles afaik
1 Like
This and that it fires 2 waves makes it excellent for killing Bosses. Less useful against crowds though when you just scatter some 33% weapon damage shots in random places everywhere versus something like Bursting Round that is a 100+% weapon damage shot in an AoE.
2 Likes
I didn’t realise Storm Spread fired twice 
it does, with rifle and gun+shield. With DW guns both guns fire it (so 8 projectiles there too).
Same goes with jaxxon bullet ring WPS - it reads 4 but fires 8 see video I made https://vimeo.com/497332613 (I wanted to demonstrate that even if you wear one jaxxon ring you get 8 projectiles instead of listed 4)
1 Like
Huh! This is interesting. A while back I theorycrafted this but never tested it:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gA6BgZ
Seems like maybe it’ll actually fire a lot of damn projectiles!
2 Likes