Permablocking and block cost calculations analysis

Asmael · June 2017

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Developer Comments:
Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster. In PvE encounters, this will encourage tanks to use Block more tactically for the larger, more deadly hits.

We wanted to nerf permablock, but mostly ended up nerfing everything else is how you should read the above change, so let's see why that's the case.

The math behind permablocking

To first understand what enables permablocking or not, we must take a look at the formula itself, which can be found on Woeler's website if you're interested. You can also find the full video in the spoiler below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6N6AsJGDk

What we'll be looking at are a few reference values which affect block cost reduction:

Block cost formula
( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

Passives
Fortress passive (s/b): 36%

Skills
Defensive Posture + Morphs (s/b): 8%

Sturdy
[...]
Sturdy (gold quality): 4%

Enchants
Shieldplay enchant (CP160 gold): Reduce block cost by 203 (per enchant)

First note to be taken is the base cost of blocking: 2160.

We'll work on 3 different examples for this thread, all considered in a CP environment:

A build who doesn't invest in blocking outside a few CPs in Shadow Ward, since the front loading make it pretty accessible: 10%. That's usually what's going to look like for any build that doesn't use a frost staff or SnB.
A Sword n' board (SnB) build, without a particular investment in blocking, he doesn't have Defensive posture slotted, but a tad more in Shadow Ward and no Block cost reduction glyph. 16% from Shadow Ward
A build aiming at permablocking, with 20% in Shadow Ward, but also 7 gold armor pieces with Sturdy (for a total of 8 * 4% = 32%, since there also is the shield) and 3 gold block cost reduction glyphs. We will not slot Defensive Posture, you will see why later in this thread.

Taking those scenarios into account, we'll get the following block cost values for each (same order as above):

1944
1161
143

Wow, 143 for the permablocking build? No wonder it's so easy to permablock! In fact, the resource return from Heavy armor, even after the nerf, largely covers it. To a larger extent, just about anything that returns flat resources without asking you to drop block will be enough - which is easily doable with Battle roar and Helping hands, hence why most permablock builds are DKs (Dark Deal requires you to drop block, just like heavy attacks. A netch for the Warden can do, it was also possible for a nightblade before the changes to Siphoning / Leeching strikes, since it now requires light attacks.

In fact, in this last case, adding Defensive Posture would only drop our block cost to 131, asking us to slot an ability only to save 12 stamina per block, which is why it's not needed.

Now let's get back to our change:

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Previously, that would mean that you would have to pay, in the order:

1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second
1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second
143 * 2 = 286 stamina to block per second

With the changes, it now costs:

1944 * 4 = 7776 stamina to block per second
1161 * 4 = 4644 stamina to block per second
143 * 4 = 572 stamina to block per second

Using potions and the Constitution passive from the heavy armor skill line is enough to make this last build block literally all attacks, without outside help required. Adding in abilities and passives make it even easier - overkill even, it has become a lot harder for the two other specs. Blocking for only 1 second without a specialized block build will burn your entire stamina pool.

Back to the original intent of the devs:

Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster.

But the problem, as we've seen above, is that this doesn't do anything to actually solve the permablocking problem, in fact, it just made it a lot harder to block for everyone else, except people who were already permablocking!

The issue doesn't lie with how many times block is charged, but how block cost is calculated, back to it:

( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

The issue here is that the enchants will reduce the values after the % multipliers have been taken into account, which means the value you get from the enchants exponentially increases as you stack more and more % based block cost reduction. Let's keep the multipliers and remove the enchants on this last permablocking build, we then get a block of 663 stamina.

This means that, after applying the other block reduction sources, the 3 glyphs are equivalent to about 90% block cost reduction.

What solutions?

The problem comes from the formula, as such, I would instead suggest to change it so that enchants are taken into account at the beginning: flat values are substracted from the base cost, and the rest is then reduced by the different multipliers, we would then get the following formula:

( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

if we consider the same builds as before, we obtain the following block costs:

( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.1 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1944 (previously 1944)
( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.16 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1161 (previously 1161)
( 2160 - 609 ) ( 1 - 0.20 ) ( 1 - 0.4 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 476 (previously 143)

As such, stacking both flat values adds a natural soft cap to block cost reduction, which slowly diminishes the benefits from using flat values for each added multiplier, leaving non-extreme builds untouched while actually solving the block problem.

Since the original change also drastically changed blocking for any non-permablock build, we'd be better off reverting it as well, so, let's add the 2 following changes:

Block cost is charged every 0.5 second.
Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

In an actual scenario where you have to block for 1 second straight, it would cost:

1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second
1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second
476 * 2 = 953 stamina to block per second (120 stamina before Morrowind, 240 after Morrowind)

There goes. If you want to reward reactive play, you can even do the following:

Base cost of blocking is reduced to 1080 (2160 previously)
Block cost is charged every 0.25 second.
Block cost reduction enchants now reduce the cost of block by 102 per enchant (previously 203).
Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

Now, depending on what you're looking for, you can adjust the flat value of glyphs or the base cost to modify the final value for either tanks or non-block builds. Modifying the value of glyphs will affect block builds more, while changing the base cost will affect everyone.

EDIT 2:

Since it seems to confuse people: I made this thread to offer a solution to keep permablock tanks in a similar way they currently are, hence the opened final statement about adjustments being possible, as I am well aware that it could hurt PvE tanks in some cases (altho this is revealing a much larger issue), as the initial goal is to stop nerfing people (the majority in fact) who weren't supposed to be nerfed in the first place.

I don't mind permablock tanks, there are tools available to deal with them in PvP and are a non-issue in PvE, what I mind, however, is that everything that is not a permablock tank got a kick in the nuts anytime they intend to block for extremely bad reasons.

EDIT 1: slight miscalculation, corrected

HiImRex · June 2017

bravo *** bravo *pops champagne*

I expect to see a link to this post in the next patch notes @ZOS_GinaBruno

Dubhliam · June 2017

Good maths, I like your effort.

However, I actually like the changes they made with Morrowind.

Yes, permablocking is still a thing.
It always was in PvE, there was never any balance problems with PvE. This "nerf" was solely aimed at PvP.

And when it comes to PvP, if you slot three block cost enchants on your jewelry, you are pretty much useless outside of an organised group.

If you take a closer look at jewelry enchantments, they are by far the best bonuses you can get.
Enchanting block cost reduction is a clear choice of survivability over power.
You lose 174 Weapon or Spell damage for each piece. for a total of 522 This is more than the proc of Scathing Mage fifth bonus.

incite · June 2017

Berenhir · June 2017

Awesome suggestions but seeing the blanket nerf approaches, I don't think anyone at ZOS will be able to grasp the math in your post.

I mean, suggesting to stop attacking a target to disable their wrath buff was all that was needed for me to realize that the tree of knowledge is not growing in Hunt Valley, Maryland. That's for sure.

raasdal · June 2017

Where do you get the 60 Block Cost from ?

According to the calculator, if you have 20% Shadow, 8 Gold Sturdy, SnB passive and Skill Slotted and 3 x Enchants, puts you at 142 Block Cost.

I do not see how to get it lower from there?

SilverWF · June 2017

Not specialized into tanking builds must not have perma- or even half-perma-blocks.
You can block 1 strike, but that's it. Especially in PVP.

What is your goal with this post?
With your changes everything remained the same as before (especially DDs with shield), but "permablockers" (obviously, PVE-tanks) got punished.
Extremely good, bravo!

No.

Asmael · June 2017

raasdal wrote: »

Where do you get the 60 Block Cost from ?

According to the calculator, if you have 20% Shadow, 8 Gold Sturdy, SnB passive and Skill Slotted and 3 x Enchants, puts you at 142 Block Cost.

I do not see how to get it lower from there?

I hate you, you just made me realize that I'm missing 6 cost reduction, because I entered 603 instead of 609 for glyphs. Now I have to redo some math >.> End result is similar at least.

Check this link for the data I entered.

And corrected another issue, changed the OP.

Anne_Firehawk · June 2017

You get an Awesome for the maths, nice job.

But lets be honest, from a PVP Perspective, if someone invests THAT much into block cost reduction, that player won't have any sustain to do damage nor damage in the first place -> NO Issue
Some classes can't be played without investing SOMETHING into blockcost *cough MagDK cough* at cost of damage/sustain unless you play against full ***, where you can run pretty much anything you want.

Dubhliam wrote: »

And when it comes to PvP, if you slot three block cost enchants on your jewelry, you are pretty much useless outside of an organised group.

If you take a closer look at jewelry enchantments, they are by far the best bonuses you can get.
Enchanting block cost reduction is a clear choice of survivability over power.
You lose 174 Weapon or Spell damage for each piece. for a total of 522 This is more than the proc of Scathing Mage fifth bonus.

From a PVE Perspective, who cares if you can permablock, most of the stuff in vHoF has to be dodged anyways because it is way too much damage to block unless you got a Magma up and running -> NO Issue

Oh and please, can we not lower the basecost of block please? Don't really want to see even tankier healbots nor do I wanna see Sorcs being able to block on a staffbar due to low block cost.

Dubhliam · June 2017

raasdal wrote: »

Where do you get the 60 Block Cost from ?

According to the calculator, if you have 20% Shadow, 8 Gold Sturdy, SnB passive and Skill Slotted and 3 x Enchants, puts you at 142 Block Cost.

I do not see how to get it lower from there?

At Woeler's website, the lowest calculated block cost is 88 48 stamina.
You would have to have:
100 CP into Shadow Ward (25%)
8 Sturdy in gold (32%)
Fortress (36%)
Robes of Alteration (6%)
Defensive Posture slotted (8%)
3x Shieldplay enchants (609 flat reduction)

Obviously there was a miscalculation in the OP's initial math.

EDITed for Alteration set.

raasdal · June 2017

Asmael wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

Where do you get the 60 Block Cost from ?

According to the calculator, if you have 20% Shadow, 8 Gold Sturdy, SnB passive and Skill Slotted and 3 x Enchants, puts you at 142 Block Cost.

I do not see how to get it lower from there?

I hate you, you just made me realize that I'm missing 6 cost reduction, because I entered 603 instead of 609 for glyphs. Now I have to redo some math >.> End result is similar at least.

Check this link for the data I entered.

Hey,

But your inputs are wrong? You have 40% from Sturdy? 8 x 4 = 32 ?

Dubhliam · June 2017

Asmael wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

Where do you get the 60 Block Cost from ?

According to the calculator, if you have 20% Shadow, 8 Gold Sturdy, SnB passive and Skill Slotted and 3 x Enchants, puts you at 142 Block Cost.

I do not see how to get it lower from there?

I hate you, you just made me realize that I'm missing 6 cost reduction, because I entered 603 instead of 609 for glyphs. Now I have to redo some math >.> End result is similar at least.

Check this link for the data I entered.

And corrected another issue, changed the OP.

You put 40% into Sturdy, which is impossible.

laksikus · June 2017

Nice.
Dont forget alteration. For another op 6% cost reduction

Asmael · June 2017

@raasdal @Dubhliam corrected in the OP, thanks for pointing this one out.

Dubhliam · June 2017

laksikus wrote: »

Nice.
Dont forget alteration. For another op 6% cost reduction

I am curious as to where the alteration passive would fit into the formula.

Would it be passives?

Valencer · June 2017

PvP
Block is now a death sentence for everyone who is not running lots of sturdy + lots of CP into shadow ward + wearing heavy armour. But changing gear to sturdy traits and investing more CP into shadow ward is very very easy to do, especially with the CP changes. Great way to promote reactive gameplay... not

Imo, the problem still started with the heavy armour buffs of Dark Brotherhood. People fail to realise that armour giving you reduced damage taken and more healing received is a form of sustain on its' own - you need to spend less resources staying on the defensive and healing up. Greatly buffing the passive resource returns of Constitution (that proc through block and mist form) on top of that is absolute madness. That being said, obviously certain classes in PvP now rely on heavy armour for surviving at all, which seems like an even bigger issue.

PvE
A class' effectiveness at tanking is mostly still defined by how well you can sustain stamina while blocking. The developers just don't seem to get that. It's why DK is king - you've got helping hands and battle roar. There's some hype about warden tanks spamming the cheap healing ulti with War Machine for high Major Slayer uptime, but that's mostly very gimmicky.

The problem is that the devs seem to want to encourage more reactive blocking while 1) with full sturdy I can permablock for days and 2) there's content out there that requires permablocking. They can't just take away our low block cost by nerfing sturdy because having a low block cost is basically mandatory for (for instance) tanking the axes in vAA. Either way, at the moment Ive mostly got my block button taped down on my DK tank in PvE and have 0 issues sustaining my stamina.

Calling it now - theyll just nerf Sturdy at some point and call it a day. Band-aid fix.

Zer0oo · June 2017

The problem is that it cost way too much stam for normal builds in pvp to block(blocking a soul assault cost ~16k stam) and not enough stam for builds who are investing in block cost reduction. The s&b ulti did made it just even worse.

Dubhliam · June 2017

Zer0oo wrote: »

The problem is that it cost way too much stam for normal builds in pvp to block(blocking a soul assault cost ~16k stam) and not enough stam for builds who are investing in block cost reduction. The s&b ulti did made it just even worse.

This is a Soul Assault problem, not block cost problem.

You are taking one powerful Ultimate (something that can't be cast all the time) and making it an example of broken blocking costs.

There are so many variables in PvP than just being able to block a Soul Assault.
If someone CAN block a Soul Assault with no effort, you might as well start dancing in front of him.
He can't hurt you.

Personofsecrets · June 2017

People upset about blocking again, what do you know?

Lord_Eomer · June 2017

Asmael wrote: »

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Developer Comments:
Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster. In PvE encounters, this will encourage tanks to use Block more tactically for the larger, more deadly hits.

We wanted to nerf permablock, but mostly ended up nerfing everything else is how you should read the above change, so let's see why that's the case.

The math behind permablocking

To first understand what enables permablocking or not, we must take a look at the formula itself, which can be found on Woeler's website if you're interested. You can also find the full video in the spoiler below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6N6AsJGDk

What we'll be looking at are a few reference values which affect block cost reduction:

Block cost formula
( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

Passives
Fortress passive (s/b): 36%

Skills
Defensive Posture + Morphs (s/b): 8%

Sturdy
[...]
Sturdy (gold quality): 4%

Enchants
Shieldplay enchant (CP160 gold): Reduce block cost by 203 (per enchant)

First note to be taken is the base cost of blocking: 2160.

We'll work on 3 different examples for this thread, all considered in a CP environment:
A build who doesn't invest in blocking outside a few CPs in Shadow Ward, since the front loading make it pretty accessible: 10%. That's usually what's going to look like for any build that doesn't use a frost staff or SnB.

A Sword n' board (SnB) build, without a particular investment in blocking, he doesn't have Defensive posture slotted, but a tad more in Shadow Ward and no Block cost reduction glyph. 16% from Shadow Ward

A build aiming at permablocking, with 20% in Shadow Ward, but also 7 gold armor pieces with Sturdy (for a total of 8 * 4% = 32%, since there also is the shield) and 3 gold block cost reduction glyphs. We will not slot Defensive Posture, you will see why later in this thread.

Taking those scenarios into account, we'll get the following block cost values for each (same order as above):
1944

1161

143

Wow, 143 for the permablocking build? No wonder it's so easy to permablock! In fact, the resource return from Heavy armor, even after the nerf, largely covers it. To a larger extent, just about anything that returns flat resources without asking you to drop block will be enough - which is easily doable with Battle roar and Helping hands, hence why most permablock builds are DKs (Dark Deal requires you to drop block, just like heavy attacks. A netch for the Warden can do, it was also possible for a nightblade before the changes to Siphoning / Leeching strikes, since it now requires light attacks.

In fact, in this last case, adding Defensive Posture would only drop our block cost to 131, asking us to slot an ability only to save 12 stamina per block, which is why it's not needed.

Now let's get back to our change:

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Previously, that would mean that you would have to pay, in the order:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

143 * 2 = 286 stamina to block per second

With the changes, it now costs:
1944 * 4 = 7776 stamina to block per second

1161 * 4 = 4644 stamina to block per second

143 * 4 = 572 stamina to block per second

Using potions and the Constitution passive from the heavy armor skill line is enough to make this last build block literally all attacks, without outside help required. Adding in abilities and passives make it even easier - overkill even, it has become a lot harder for the two other specs. Blocking for only 1 second without a specialized block build will burn your entire stamina pool.

Back to the original intent of the devs:

Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster.

But the problem, as we've seen above, is that this doesn't do anything to actually solve the permablocking problem, in fact, it just made it a lot harder to block for everyone else, except people who were already permablocking!

The issue doesn't lie with how many times block is charged, but how block cost is calculated, back to it:

( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

The issue here is that the enchants will reduce the values after the % multipliers have been taken into account, which means the value you get from the enchants exponentially increases as you stack more and more % based block cost reduction. Let's keep the multipliers and remove the enchants on this last permablocking build, we then get a block of 663 stamina.

This means that, after applying the other block reduction sources, the 3 glyphs are equivalent to about 90% block cost reduction.

What solutions?

The problem comes from the formula, as such, I would instead suggest to change it so that enchants are taken into account at the beginning: flat values are substracted from the base cost, and the rest is then reduced by the different multipliers, we would then get the following formula:

( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

if we consider the same builds as before, we obtain the following block costs:
( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.1 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1944 (previously 1944)

( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.16 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1161 (previously 1161)

( 2160 - 609 ) ( 1 - 0.20 ) ( 1 - 0.4 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 476 (previously 143)

As such, stacking both flat values adds a natural soft cap to block cost reduction, which slowly diminishes the benefits from using flat values for each added multiplier, leaving non-extreme builds untouched while actually solving the block problem.

Since the original change also drastically changed blocking for any non-permablock build, we'd be better off reverting it as well, so, let's add the 2 following changes:
Block cost is charged every 0.5 second.

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

In an actual scenario where you have to block for 1 second straight, it would cost:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

476 * 2 = 953 stamina to block per second (120 stamina before Morrowind, 240 after Morrowind)

There goes. If you want to reward reactive play, you can even do the following:
Base cost of blocking is reduced to 1080 (2160 previously)

Block cost is charged every 0.25 second.

Block cost reduction enchants now reduce the cost of block by 102 per enchant (previously 203).

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

Now, depending on what you're looking for, you can adjust the flat value of glyphs or the base cost to modify the final value for either tanks or non-block builds. Modifying the value of glyphs will affect block builds more, while changing the base cost will affect everyone.

EDIT: slight miscalculation, corrected

Good post.

If tanking a.k.a permablock in PVP is an issue then why not ( @ZOS_GinaBruno ) put something under battlespirit and leave PVE with block cost charging every 0.5 as was previously.

I suggest no change to cost reduction glyph as it will be useless in PVE too.

Zer0oo · June 2017

Dubhliam wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

The problem is that it cost way too much stam for normal builds in pvp to block(blocking a soul assault cost ~16k stam) and not enough stam for builds who are investing in block cost reduction. The s&b ulti did made it just even worse.

This is a Soul Assault problem, not block cost problem.

You are taking one powerful Ultimate (something that can't be cast all the time) and making it an example of broken blocking costs.

There are so many variables in PvP than just being able to block a Soul Assault.
If someone CAN block a Soul Assault with no effort, you might as well start dancing in front of him.
He can't hurt you.

The soul assault was just an example of how much it will cost a normal build to block a few sec(4k stam/sec).

Lord_Eomer · June 2017

Zer0oo wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

The problem is that it cost way too much stam for normal builds in pvp to block(blocking a soul assault cost ~16k stam) and not enough stam for builds who are investing in block cost reduction. The s&b ulti did made it just even worse.

This is a Soul Assault problem, not block cost problem.

You are taking one powerful Ultimate (something that can't be cast all the time) and making it an example of broken blocking costs.

There are so many variables in PvP than just being able to block a Soul Assault.
If someone CAN block a Soul Assault with no effort, you might as well start dancing in front of him.
He can't hurt you.

The soul assault was just an example of how much it will cost a normal build to block a few sec(4k stam/sec).

Problem is block cost charge changes to 0.25 sec from 0.5 sec thats why non tanks mag dps can not hold block more than a half sec.

Most_Awesome · June 2017

Someone's proc build didn't kill a Tank RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

Magdalina · June 2017

Zer0oo wrote: »

Dubhliam wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

The problem is that it cost way too much stam for normal builds in pvp to block(blocking a soul assault cost ~16k stam) and not enough stam for builds who are investing in block cost reduction. The s&b ulti did made it just even worse.

This is a Soul Assault problem, not block cost problem.

You are taking one powerful Ultimate (something that can't be cast all the time) and making it an example of broken blocking costs.

There are so many variables in PvP than just being able to block a Soul Assault.
If someone CAN block a Soul Assault with no effort, you might as well start dancing in front of him.
He can't hurt you.

The soul assault was just an example of how much it will cost a normal build to block a few sec(4k stam/sec).

Question. Is that actually how it works? How often does SA tick, every second? I assumed that what the changes meant is more in regards to several people attacking you, so blocking a channel that ticks once a second will still only charge you stamina once a second but if you're also getting hit by other stuff literally non stop then it can charge you up to 4 times a second. Is that not the case?

Edit: now I'm doubting how often it actually ticks...I should PvP more often

Doctordarkspawn · June 2017

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Developer Comments:
Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster. In PvE encounters, this will encourage tanks to use Block more tactically for the larger, more deadly hits.

We wanted to nerf permablock, but mostly ended up nerfing everything else is how you should read the above change, so let's see why that's the case.

The math behind permablocking

To first understand what enables permablocking or not, we must take a look at the formula itself, which can be found on Woeler's website if you're interested. You can also find the full video in the spoiler below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6N6AsJGDk

What we'll be looking at are a few reference values which affect block cost reduction:

Block cost formula
( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

Passives
Fortress passive (s/b): 36%

Skills
Defensive Posture + Morphs (s/b): 8%

Sturdy
[...]
Sturdy (gold quality): 4%

Enchants
Shieldplay enchant (CP160 gold): Reduce block cost by 203 (per enchant)

First note to be taken is the base cost of blocking: 2160.

We'll work on 3 different examples for this thread, all considered in a CP environment:
A build who doesn't invest in blocking outside a few CPs in Shadow Ward, since the front loading make it pretty accessible: 10%. That's usually what's going to look like for any build that doesn't use a frost staff or SnB.

A Sword n' board (SnB) build, without a particular investment in blocking, he doesn't have Defensive posture slotted, but a tad more in Shadow Ward and no Block cost reduction glyph. 16% from Shadow Ward

A build aiming at permablocking, with 20% in Shadow Ward, but also 7 gold armor pieces with Sturdy (for a total of 8 * 4% = 32%, since there also is the shield) and 3 gold block cost reduction glyphs. We will not slot Defensive Posture, you will see why later in this thread.

Taking those scenarios into account, we'll get the following block cost values for each (same order as above):
1944

1161

143

Wow, 143 for the permablocking build? No wonder it's so easy to permablock! In fact, the resource return from Heavy armor, even after the nerf, largely covers it. To a larger extent, just about anything that returns flat resources without asking you to drop block will be enough - which is easily doable with Battle roar and Helping hands, hence why most permablock builds are DKs (Dark Deal requires you to drop block, just like heavy attacks. A netch for the Warden can do, it was also possible for a nightblade before the changes to Siphoning / Leeching strikes, since it now requires light attacks.

In fact, in this last case, adding Defensive Posture would only drop our block cost to 131, asking us to slot an ability only to save 12 stamina per block, which is why it's not needed.

Now let's get back to our change:

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Previously, that would mean that you would have to pay, in the order:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

143 * 2 = 286 stamina to block per second

With the changes, it now costs:
1944 * 4 = 7776 stamina to block per second

1161 * 4 = 4644 stamina to block per second

143 * 4 = 572 stamina to block per second

Using potions and the Constitution passive from the heavy armor skill line is enough to make this last build block literally all attacks, without outside help required. Adding in abilities and passives make it even easier - overkill even, it has become a lot harder for the two other specs. Blocking for only 1 second without a specialized block build will burn your entire stamina pool.

Back to the original intent of the devs:

Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster.

But the problem, as we've seen above, is that this doesn't do anything to actually solve the permablocking problem, in fact, it just made it a lot harder to block for everyone else, except people who were already permablocking!

The issue doesn't lie with how many times block is charged, but how block cost is calculated, back to it:

( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

The issue here is that the enchants will reduce the values after the % multipliers have been taken into account, which means the value you get from the enchants exponentially increases as you stack more and more % based block cost reduction. Let's keep the multipliers and remove the enchants on this last permablocking build, we then get a block of 663 stamina.

This means that, after applying the other block reduction sources, the 3 glyphs are equivalent to about 90% block cost reduction.

What solutions?

The problem comes from the formula, as such, I would instead suggest to change it so that enchants are taken into account at the beginning: flat values are substracted from the base cost, and the rest is then reduced by the different multipliers, we would then get the following formula:

( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

if we consider the same builds as before, we obtain the following block costs:
( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.1 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1944 (previously 1944)

( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.16 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1161 (previously 1161)

( 2160 - 609 ) ( 1 - 0.20 ) ( 1 - 0.4 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 476 (previously 143)

As such, stacking both flat values adds a natural soft cap to block cost reduction, which slowly diminishes the benefits from using flat values for each added multiplier, leaving non-extreme builds untouched while actually solving the block problem.

Since the original change also drastically changed blocking for any non-permablock build, we'd be better off reverting it as well, so, let's add the 2 following changes:
Block cost is charged every 0.5 second.

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

In an actual scenario where you have to block for 1 second straight, it would cost:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

476 * 2 = 953 stamina to block per second (120 stamina before Morrowind, 240 after Morrowind)

There goes. If you want to reward reactive play, you can even do the following:
Base cost of blocking is reduced to 1080 (2160 previously)

Block cost is charged every 0.25 second.

Block cost reduction enchants now reduce the cost of block by 102 per enchant (previously 203).

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

Now, depending on what you're looking for, you can adjust the flat value of glyphs or the base cost to modify the final value for either tanks or non-block builds. Modifying the value of glyphs will affect block builds more, while changing the base cost will affect everyone.

EDIT: slight miscalculation, corrected

Good post.

If tanking a.k.a permablock in PVP is an issue then why not ( @ZOS_GinaBruno ) put something under battlespirit and leave PVE with block cost charging every 0.5 as was previously.

I suggest no change to cost reduction glyph as it will be useless in PVE too.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression ZOS will ever try to balance the two seperate or lisen to you.

Your a PVE player! It's your -duty- to get nerfed and beaten up for the sake of the PVPers fun. Dont you know this by now?

raasdal · June 2017

To be honest, i dont find this to be a problem at all. I think blocking is perfectly balanced in PvP.

If you want to permablock, you can. Sure. But you will not be able to kill anything with a brain, because you will be forced to have reduce block cost glyphs. If you want to also sustain resources, you will not have room for ANY damage.

Also, There are so many counters to blocking, which do NOT include draining stamina. There are a ton of damage types that are UN-blockable - even this patch more were added - like Knightslayer etc. I am having immense fun with my Nightslayer+Oblivion enchant on my Magicka Templar. The permablocking DK's panicks into Mist Form, just to get hammered through that as well

Then you have all the CC's that also go through block.

So all in all, i am not finding my PvP experience being broken by permablockers at all. The ones that i cannot kill, are also the ones that are utterly unable to do a dent to my health as well. For those who would actually be able to kill me, i am also able to find gaps in their defenses, since they cannot block forever.

But i guess this might be a matter of perspective. In my opinion, it should be possible to make an "unkillable" build, that could take on 2-3 ppl without dying, even in NO CP. As long as that person has to sacrifice everything else, to obtain that. Same goes for the other end of the scale. I am all for insta-death builds with little to no counter, as long as that requires the person to sacrifice everything else for that. But that's just me. I know that to most people, balance means that everyone can kill everyone evenly, and that everyone should be able to counter everything. To me, it does not mean that at all.

FYI - This is from NO CP perspective. I don't do CP, so i have no clue about your world over there.

Asmael · June 2017

Personofsecrets wrote: »

People upset about blocking again, what do you know?

The end result would end up reduce the cost of blocking by 50% for most people, and aims at making it a valid option for people not investing everything into it, I also added specifically that values could be adjusted, seeing asI would consider the final cost of blocking to high for PvE tanks as well.

I've seen worse in terms of being upset about blocking.

Most_Awesome wrote: »

Someone's proc build didn't kill a Tank RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

@Most_Awesome Check my OP proc set build in the spoiler below:

@raasdal While this might look like a request to nerf permablocking, I'm more looking as a replacement to an existing change, to allow people who didn't sacrifice nearly everything into blocking to... block for more than 0.5s without being completely dry on stamina. If the values have to be adjusted so that the extreme blocking side of the spectrum remains the same while those who shouldn't have been nerfed in the first place stay as they were, I'm all for it.

I doubt Zos will ever revert the block cost being charged twice as often without adjusting something else, and I'd rather see the change introduced in the thread than the current state we got. Hopefully, permablocking would be made not mandatory in PvE, opening more options, but I doubt it'll ever happen.

paulsimonps · June 2017

paulsimonps wrote: »
OK so a lot of things have changed for the sustainability of blocking for a prolonged period.

Now the first big thing we need to address is the obvious one that blocking can now drain stamina or magicka every 0.25s instead of every 0.5s. With that we need to check what is the lowest possible block cost. It used to be 88 or so I thought, according to the patch notes Alteration mastery was always suppose to reduce sprint cost, bash cost and block cost but for some reason it never did. Either way it now does. I check it out to see what the lowest possible cost was and this is what I found.

The calculation is roughly:
BLOCK COST=(Base*((100-CP)/100)*((100-#Sturdy*Strength of Sturdy)/100)*((100-Fortress)/100)*((100-Alteration Mastery)/100)-(#Enchants*Strength of Enchants))*((100-Defensive Posture)/100)
aka
(2160*((100-25)/100)*((100-8*4)/100)*((100-36)/100)*((100-6)/100)-(203*3))*((100-8))/100)=49.4247552
But for some reason the end result is actually that the lowest possible is 48 stamina per 0.25s. I don't know why that is cause the calculations were accurate when using fewer Sturdy pieces but using all 8 plus everything else made it be slightly off. But that goes with all calculations since ZOS doesn't play around with decimals in their calculations so its always slightly off. Anyway, lowest possible cost is 48 per 0.25s.

Now to check if we can perma block in this we need to check how we can regain that stamina. My idea with this is how can we get this stamina back without using outside help, so no Shards or Orbs and no undaunted command.

The heavy armor passive constitution was nerfed from giving 1302 per 4s at 7 heavy down to 757 per 4s at 7 heavy pieces. So lets divide 757 by 16 cause there are 16 quarter seconds in four seconds to see how much it would help with the blocking. 757/16=47 So even at its nerfed form constitution is giving us almost all we need to perma block. Which means that at lowest possible block cost with 7 heavy the only thing a Dragonknight would have to do is use one Igneous Shield every 247th second to perma block. Cause again for most Stamina users and Tanks Helping Hand was nerfed, for magicka users and some tanks it was a buff. It now gives the flat value of 990 stamina per Earthen Heart ability use. And you only need 1 extra stamina per 0.25s to keep up perma block so divide 990 by 4 to get how many seconds of extra block you would get from it when used in combination with 7 heavy constitution.

A warden can do this too with their netch. The netch gives 79 stamina or magicka per 0.5s for 25.5s. I know the tooltip says 25s but it also says it gives us a total of 4029 which when divided by 79 is 51. So that's 51 half seconds aka 25.5s. So 79 per 0.5s is 39.5 every 0.25s. So keeping the netch up with 7 heavy will give you roughly 73 stamina every 0.25s. Not just giving you what you need to perma block but actually increasing your stamina while blocking. This is something we can currently do on live with any class but with the next update it much harder to do.

So yea, not the most well written thread I know but just wanted to share my test results with people. Perma blocking is still a thing

The quote above is from a thread I made during the PTS, its all Live now and should not matter if I post this cause nothing of this was changed from live.

One of the main things I said in this Quote is that its only possible to permablock in CP PvP not in No CP PvP which is what a majority of campaigns now are and what Battlegrounds are. I myself think that blocking is really well balanced right now. You have to put so much into it for it to be worth it and your are nerfing yourself in everything else to gain this. And a permablocker can in most situations, when pressed NOT fight back, cause if they use even 1 stamina ability or too many magicka attacks then they lose their sustain and die. What people are most afraid of are the people that seem to block all the time but really aren't, they heavy attack and drop block when its needed, for defensive and offensive purposes.

In CP PvP there is enough ways too boost attack and sustain that you can bring down the permablockers anyway if you try, they are not unkillable, and some might seem like perma blockers but they have a limit. In no CP PvP they don't exist, they are not an issue. And what else that needs to be considered is PvE, you can't mess with blocking too much or you will make it harder or a lot of tanks, and the new trial is more lenient towards dropping block the other trials are not always so, see Axes and the Warrior for examples. I would vote for it to stay as is.

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Developer Comments:
Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster. In PvE encounters, this will encourage tanks to use Block more tactically for the larger, more deadly hits.

We wanted to nerf permablock, but mostly ended up nerfing everything else is how you should read the above change, so let's see why that's the case.

The math behind permablocking

To first understand what enables permablocking or not, we must take a look at the formula itself, which can be found on Woeler's website if you're interested. You can also find the full video in the spoiler below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6N6AsJGDk

What we'll be looking at are a few reference values which affect block cost reduction:

Block cost formula
( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

Passives
Fortress passive (s/b): 36%

Skills
Defensive Posture + Morphs (s/b): 8%

Sturdy
[...]
Sturdy (gold quality): 4%

Enchants
Shieldplay enchant (CP160 gold): Reduce block cost by 203 (per enchant)

First note to be taken is the base cost of blocking: 2160.

We'll work on 3 different examples for this thread, all considered in a CP environment:
A build who doesn't invest in blocking outside a few CPs in Shadow Ward, since the front loading make it pretty accessible: 10%. That's usually what's going to look like for any build that doesn't use a frost staff or SnB.

A Sword n' board (SnB) build, without a particular investment in blocking, he doesn't have Defensive posture slotted, but a tad more in Shadow Ward and no Block cost reduction glyph. 16% from Shadow Ward

A build aiming at permablocking, with 20% in Shadow Ward, but also 7 gold armor pieces with Sturdy (for a total of 8 * 4% = 32%, since there also is the shield) and 3 gold block cost reduction glyphs. We will not slot Defensive Posture, you will see why later in this thread.

Taking those scenarios into account, we'll get the following block cost values for each (same order as above):
1944

1161

143

Wow, 143 for the permablocking build? No wonder it's so easy to permablock! In fact, the resource return from Heavy armor, even after the nerf, largely covers it. To a larger extent, just about anything that returns flat resources without asking you to drop block will be enough - which is easily doable with Battle roar and Helping hands, hence why most permablock builds are DKs (Dark Deal requires you to drop block, just like heavy attacks. A netch for the Warden can do, it was also possible for a nightblade before the changes to Siphoning / Leeching strikes, since it now requires light attacks.

In fact, in this last case, adding Defensive Posture would only drop our block cost to 131, asking us to slot an ability only to save 12 stamina per block, which is why it's not needed.

Now let's get back to our change:

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Previously, that would mean that you would have to pay, in the order:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

143 * 2 = 286 stamina to block per second

With the changes, it now costs:
1944 * 4 = 7776 stamina to block per second

1161 * 4 = 4644 stamina to block per second

143 * 4 = 572 stamina to block per second

Using potions and the Constitution passive from the heavy armor skill line is enough to make this last build block literally all attacks, without outside help required. Adding in abilities and passives make it even easier - overkill even, it has become a lot harder for the two other specs. Blocking for only 1 second without a specialized block build will burn your entire stamina pool.

Back to the original intent of the devs:

Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster.

But the problem, as we've seen above, is that this doesn't do anything to actually solve the permablocking problem, in fact, it just made it a lot harder to block for everyone else, except people who were already permablocking!

The issue doesn't lie with how many times block is charged, but how block cost is calculated, back to it:

( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

The issue here is that the enchants will reduce the values after the % multipliers have been taken into account, which means the value you get from the enchants exponentially increases as you stack more and more % based block cost reduction. Let's keep the multipliers and remove the enchants on this last permablocking build, we then get a block of 663 stamina.

This means that, after applying the other block reduction sources, the 3 glyphs are equivalent to about 90% block cost reduction.

What solutions?

The problem comes from the formula, as such, I would instead suggest to change it so that enchants are taken into account at the beginning: flat values are substracted from the base cost, and the rest is then reduced by the different multipliers, we would then get the following formula:

( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

if we consider the same builds as before, we obtain the following block costs:
( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.1 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1944 (previously 1944)

( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.16 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1161 (previously 1161)

( 2160 - 609 ) ( 1 - 0.20 ) ( 1 - 0.4 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 476 (previously 143)

As such, stacking both flat values adds a natural soft cap to block cost reduction, which slowly diminishes the benefits from using flat values for each added multiplier, leaving non-extreme builds untouched while actually solving the block problem.

Since the original change also drastically changed blocking for any non-permablock build, we'd be better off reverting it as well, so, let's add the 2 following changes:
Block cost is charged every 0.5 second.

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

In an actual scenario where you have to block for 1 second straight, it would cost:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

476 * 2 = 953 stamina to block per second (120 stamina before Morrowind, 240 after Morrowind)

There goes. If you want to reward reactive play, you can even do the following:
Base cost of blocking is reduced to 1080 (2160 previously)

Block cost is charged every 0.25 second.

Block cost reduction enchants now reduce the cost of block by 102 per enchant (previously 203).

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

Now, depending on what you're looking for, you can adjust the flat value of glyphs or the base cost to modify the final value for either tanks or non-block builds. Modifying the value of glyphs will affect block builds more, while changing the base cost will affect everyone.

EDIT: slight miscalculation, corrected

Good post.

If tanking a.k.a permablock in PVP is an issue then why not ( @ZOS_GinaBruno ) put something under battlespirit and leave PVE with block cost charging every 0.5 as was previously.

I suggest no change to cost reduction glyph as it will be useless in PVE too.

I've said it before and I will say it again, the devs have made it perfectly clear they want as little as possible in the battlespirit buff/debuff, stop using it as a suggestion for how to balance both PvP and PvE. The devs don't want that so if you want to make suggestions make something that does not involve that, but instead take both PvP and PvE into consideration, and that such a suggestion would include the same thing for both.

Joy_Division · June 2017

This is a very insightful post and correctly points out a fundamental problem with ZoS's approach when it comes to balancing: in their attempt to nerf abusers, it is the people who are not abusing mechanics that are being overly punished.

As far as blocking, I do agree that the cost for blocking for non "permablock" builds is prohibitively high.

But, and I know I am in the minority here, I do not and have not had a problem with "permablock" builds ever since ZoS made their first block-cost changes.

I know these builds frustrate many DPS specs because their defense is so powerful, but these builds are incapable of killing even squishy players. In fact, they are usually incapable of doing anything but holding block. There is a real opportunity cost there. I'm totally fine with this because the game does not force me to engage, attack, or even pay attention to these builds.

As much as 1vXers, streamers, and the vast majority of the PvP community complain about "permablocking," very, very few of them opt for block as their primary form of defense. Blocking requires them to sacrifice offense and that's something they do not want to do. Not when dodge, shielding, and healing remain strong alternatives to dodge - and all are - and allow skilled and experienced players to avoid/mitigates the majority of incoming damage and belie the "glass cannon" archetype.

I only had an issue with "pernablocking" back before the 1.6 patch when DK DPS builds could successfully tape down the right mouse button. As long as "permablockers" hit like wet noodles, I'm fine.

Though I do agree that blocking currently is too expensive for non block builds, especially in no CP.

Lord_Eomer · June 2017

paulsimonps wrote: »
paulsimonps wrote: »
OK so a lot of things have changed for the sustainability of blocking for a prolonged period.

Now the first big thing we need to address is the obvious one that blocking can now drain stamina or magicka every 0.25s instead of every 0.5s. With that we need to check what is the lowest possible block cost. It used to be 88 or so I thought, according to the patch notes Alteration mastery was always suppose to reduce sprint cost, bash cost and block cost but for some reason it never did. Either way it now does. I check it out to see what the lowest possible cost was and this is what I found.

The calculation is roughly:
BLOCK COST=(Base*((100-CP)/100)*((100-#Sturdy*Strength of Sturdy)/100)*((100-Fortress)/100)*((100-Alteration Mastery)/100)-(#Enchants*Strength of Enchants))*((100-Defensive Posture)/100)
aka
(2160*((100-25)/100)*((100-8*4)/100)*((100-36)/100)*((100-6)/100)-(203*3))*((100-8))/100)=49.4247552
But for some reason the end result is actually that the lowest possible is 48 stamina per 0.25s. I don't know why that is cause the calculations were accurate when using fewer Sturdy pieces but using all 8 plus everything else made it be slightly off. But that goes with all calculations since ZOS doesn't play around with decimals in their calculations so its always slightly off. Anyway, lowest possible cost is 48 per 0.25s.

Now to check if we can perma block in this we need to check how we can regain that stamina. My idea with this is how can we get this stamina back without using outside help, so no Shards or Orbs and no undaunted command.

The heavy armor passive constitution was nerfed from giving 1302 per 4s at 7 heavy down to 757 per 4s at 7 heavy pieces. So lets divide 757 by 16 cause there are 16 quarter seconds in four seconds to see how much it would help with the blocking. 757/16=47 So even at its nerfed form constitution is giving us almost all we need to perma block. Which means that at lowest possible block cost with 7 heavy the only thing a Dragonknight would have to do is use one Igneous Shield every 247th second to perma block. Cause again for most Stamina users and Tanks Helping Hand was nerfed, for magicka users and some tanks it was a buff. It now gives the flat value of 990 stamina per Earthen Heart ability use. And you only need 1 extra stamina per 0.25s to keep up perma block so divide 990 by 4 to get how many seconds of extra block you would get from it when used in combination with 7 heavy constitution.

A warden can do this too with their netch. The netch gives 79 stamina or magicka per 0.5s for 25.5s. I know the tooltip says 25s but it also says it gives us a total of 4029 which when divided by 79 is 51. So that's 51 half seconds aka 25.5s. So 79 per 0.5s is 39.5 every 0.25s. So keeping the netch up with 7 heavy will give you roughly 73 stamina every 0.25s. Not just giving you what you need to perma block but actually increasing your stamina while blocking. This is something we can currently do on live with any class but with the next update it much harder to do.

So yea, not the most well written thread I know but just wanted to share my test results with people. Perma blocking is still a thing
The quote above is from a thread I made during the PTS, its all Live now and should not matter if I post this cause nothing of this was changed from live.

One of the main things I said in this Quote is that its only possible to permablock in CP PvP not in No CP PvP which is what a majority of campaigns now are and what Battlegrounds are. I myself think that blocking is really well balanced right now. You have to put so much into it for it to be worth it and your are nerfing yourself in everything else to gain this. And a permablocker can in most situations, when pressed NOT fight back, cause if they use even 1 stamina ability or too many magicka attacks then they lose their sustain and die. What people are most afraid of are the people that seem to block all the time but really aren't, they heavy attack and drop block when its needed, for defensive and offensive purposes.

In CP PvP there is enough ways too boost attack and sustain that you can bring down the permablockers anyway if you try, they are not unkillable, and some might seem like perma blockers but they have a limit. In no CP PvP they don't exist, they are not an issue. And what else that needs to be considered is PvE, you can't mess with blocking too much or you will make it harder or a lot of tanks, and the new trial is more lenient towards dropping block the other trials are not always so, see Axes and the Warrior for examples. I would vote for it to stay as is.

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Developer Comments:
Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster. In PvE encounters, this will encourage tanks to use Block more tactically for the larger, more deadly hits.

We wanted to nerf permablock, but mostly ended up nerfing everything else is how you should read the above change, so let's see why that's the case.

The math behind permablocking

To first understand what enables permablocking or not, we must take a look at the formula itself, which can be found on Woeler's website if you're interested. You can also find the full video in the spoiler below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6N6AsJGDk

What we'll be looking at are a few reference values which affect block cost reduction:

Block cost formula
( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

Passives
Fortress passive (s/b): 36%

Skills
Defensive Posture + Morphs (s/b): 8%

Sturdy
[...]
Sturdy (gold quality): 4%

Enchants
Shieldplay enchant (CP160 gold): Reduce block cost by 203 (per enchant)

First note to be taken is the base cost of blocking: 2160.

We'll work on 3 different examples for this thread, all considered in a CP environment:
A build who doesn't invest in blocking outside a few CPs in Shadow Ward, since the front loading make it pretty accessible: 10%. That's usually what's going to look like for any build that doesn't use a frost staff or SnB.

A Sword n' board (SnB) build, without a particular investment in blocking, he doesn't have Defensive posture slotted, but a tad more in Shadow Ward and no Block cost reduction glyph. 16% from Shadow Ward

A build aiming at permablocking, with 20% in Shadow Ward, but also 7 gold armor pieces with Sturdy (for a total of 8 * 4% = 32%, since there also is the shield) and 3 gold block cost reduction glyphs. We will not slot Defensive Posture, you will see why later in this thread.

Taking those scenarios into account, we'll get the following block cost values for each (same order as above):
1944

1161

143

Wow, 143 for the permablocking build? No wonder it's so easy to permablock! In fact, the resource return from Heavy armor, even after the nerf, largely covers it. To a larger extent, just about anything that returns flat resources without asking you to drop block will be enough - which is easily doable with Battle roar and Helping hands, hence why most permablock builds are DKs (Dark Deal requires you to drop block, just like heavy attacks. A netch for the Warden can do, it was also possible for a nightblade before the changes to Siphoning / Leeching strikes, since it now requires light attacks.

In fact, in this last case, adding Defensive Posture would only drop our block cost to 131, asking us to slot an ability only to save 12 stamina per block, which is why it's not needed.

Now let's get back to our change:

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Previously, that would mean that you would have to pay, in the order:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

143 * 2 = 286 stamina to block per second

With the changes, it now costs:
1944 * 4 = 7776 stamina to block per second

1161 * 4 = 4644 stamina to block per second

143 * 4 = 572 stamina to block per second

Using potions and the Constitution passive from the heavy armor skill line is enough to make this last build block literally all attacks, without outside help required. Adding in abilities and passives make it even easier - overkill even, it has become a lot harder for the two other specs. Blocking for only 1 second without a specialized block build will burn your entire stamina pool.

Back to the original intent of the devs:

Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster.

But the problem, as we've seen above, is that this doesn't do anything to actually solve the permablocking problem, in fact, it just made it a lot harder to block for everyone else, except people who were already permablocking!

The issue doesn't lie with how many times block is charged, but how block cost is calculated, back to it:

( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

The issue here is that the enchants will reduce the values after the % multipliers have been taken into account, which means the value you get from the enchants exponentially increases as you stack more and more % based block cost reduction. Let's keep the multipliers and remove the enchants on this last permablocking build, we then get a block of 663 stamina.

This means that, after applying the other block reduction sources, the 3 glyphs are equivalent to about 90% block cost reduction.

What solutions?

The problem comes from the formula, as such, I would instead suggest to change it so that enchants are taken into account at the beginning: flat values are substracted from the base cost, and the rest is then reduced by the different multipliers, we would then get the following formula:

( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

if we consider the same builds as before, we obtain the following block costs:
( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.1 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1944 (previously 1944)

( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.16 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1161 (previously 1161)

( 2160 - 609 ) ( 1 - 0.20 ) ( 1 - 0.4 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 476 (previously 143)

As such, stacking both flat values adds a natural soft cap to block cost reduction, which slowly diminishes the benefits from using flat values for each added multiplier, leaving non-extreme builds untouched while actually solving the block problem.

Since the original change also drastically changed blocking for any non-permablock build, we'd be better off reverting it as well, so, let's add the 2 following changes:
Block cost is charged every 0.5 second.

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

In an actual scenario where you have to block for 1 second straight, it would cost:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

476 * 2 = 953 stamina to block per second (120 stamina before Morrowind, 240 after Morrowind)

There goes. If you want to reward reactive play, you can even do the following:
Base cost of blocking is reduced to 1080 (2160 previously)

Block cost is charged every 0.25 second.

Block cost reduction enchants now reduce the cost of block by 102 per enchant (previously 203).

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

Now, depending on what you're looking for, you can adjust the flat value of glyphs or the base cost to modify the final value for either tanks or non-block builds. Modifying the value of glyphs will affect block builds more, while changing the base cost will affect everyone.

EDIT: slight miscalculation, corrected

Good post.

If tanking a.k.a permablock in PVP is an issue then why not ( @ZOS_GinaBruno ) put something under battlespirit and leave PVE with block cost charging every 0.5 as was previously.

I suggest no change to cost reduction glyph as it will be useless in PVE too.

I've said it before and I will say it again, the devs have made it perfectly clear they want as little as possible in the battlespirit buff/debuff, stop using it as a suggestion for how to balance both PvP and PvE. The devs don't want that so if you want to make suggestions make something that does not involve that, but instead take both PvP and PvE into consideration, and that such a suggestion would include the same thing for both.

The solution you have proposed will lost importance of cost reduction glpyh and no one will bother!

Another possible option could be having new sets or buff existing set specifically target PVE/dungeon/trials to boost stamina generation or reduce cost while blocking!

paulsimonps · June 2017

Lord_Dexter wrote: »
paulsimonps wrote: »
paulsimonps wrote: »
OK so a lot of things have changed for the sustainability of blocking for a prolonged period.

Now the first big thing we need to address is the obvious one that blocking can now drain stamina or magicka every 0.25s instead of every 0.5s. With that we need to check what is the lowest possible block cost. It used to be 88 or so I thought, according to the patch notes Alteration mastery was always suppose to reduce sprint cost, bash cost and block cost but for some reason it never did. Either way it now does. I check it out to see what the lowest possible cost was and this is what I found.

The calculation is roughly:
BLOCK COST=(Base*((100-CP)/100)*((100-#Sturdy*Strength of Sturdy)/100)*((100-Fortress)/100)*((100-Alteration Mastery)/100)-(#Enchants*Strength of Enchants))*((100-Defensive Posture)/100)
aka
(2160*((100-25)/100)*((100-8*4)/100)*((100-36)/100)*((100-6)/100)-(203*3))*((100-8))/100)=49.4247552
But for some reason the end result is actually that the lowest possible is 48 stamina per 0.25s. I don't know why that is cause the calculations were accurate when using fewer Sturdy pieces but using all 8 plus everything else made it be slightly off. But that goes with all calculations since ZOS doesn't play around with decimals in their calculations so its always slightly off. Anyway, lowest possible cost is 48 per 0.25s.

Now to check if we can perma block in this we need to check how we can regain that stamina. My idea with this is how can we get this stamina back without using outside help, so no Shards or Orbs and no undaunted command.

The heavy armor passive constitution was nerfed from giving 1302 per 4s at 7 heavy down to 757 per 4s at 7 heavy pieces. So lets divide 757 by 16 cause there are 16 quarter seconds in four seconds to see how much it would help with the blocking. 757/16=47 So even at its nerfed form constitution is giving us almost all we need to perma block. Which means that at lowest possible block cost with 7 heavy the only thing a Dragonknight would have to do is use one Igneous Shield every 247th second to perma block. Cause again for most Stamina users and Tanks Helping Hand was nerfed, for magicka users and some tanks it was a buff. It now gives the flat value of 990 stamina per Earthen Heart ability use. And you only need 1 extra stamina per 0.25s to keep up perma block so divide 990 by 4 to get how many seconds of extra block you would get from it when used in combination with 7 heavy constitution.

A warden can do this too with their netch. The netch gives 79 stamina or magicka per 0.5s for 25.5s. I know the tooltip says 25s but it also says it gives us a total of 4029 which when divided by 79 is 51. So that's 51 half seconds aka 25.5s. So 79 per 0.5s is 39.5 every 0.25s. So keeping the netch up with 7 heavy will give you roughly 73 stamina every 0.25s. Not just giving you what you need to perma block but actually increasing your stamina while blocking. This is something we can currently do on live with any class but with the next update it much harder to do.

So yea, not the most well written thread I know but just wanted to share my test results with people. Perma blocking is still a thing
The quote above is from a thread I made during the PTS, its all Live now and should not matter if I post this cause nothing of this was changed from live.

One of the main things I said in this Quote is that its only possible to permablock in CP PvP not in No CP PvP which is what a majority of campaigns now are and what Battlegrounds are. I myself think that blocking is really well balanced right now. You have to put so much into it for it to be worth it and your are nerfing yourself in everything else to gain this. And a permablocker can in most situations, when pressed NOT fight back, cause if they use even 1 stamina ability or too many magicka attacks then they lose their sustain and die. What people are most afraid of are the people that seem to block all the time but really aren't, they heavy attack and drop block when its needed, for defensive and offensive purposes.

In CP PvP there is enough ways too boost attack and sustain that you can bring down the permablockers anyway if you try, they are not unkillable, and some might seem like perma blockers but they have a limit. In no CP PvP they don't exist, they are not an issue. And what else that needs to be considered is PvE, you can't mess with blocking too much or you will make it harder or a lot of tanks, and the new trial is more lenient towards dropping block the other trials are not always so, see Axes and the Warrior for examples. I would vote for it to stay as is.

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Developer Comments:
Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster. In PvE encounters, this will encourage tanks to use Block more tactically for the larger, more deadly hits.

We wanted to nerf permablock, but mostly ended up nerfing everything else is how you should read the above change, so let's see why that's the case.

The math behind permablocking

To first understand what enables permablocking or not, we must take a look at the formula itself, which can be found on Woeler's website if you're interested. You can also find the full video in the spoiler below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6N6AsJGDk

What we'll be looking at are a few reference values which affect block cost reduction:

Block cost formula
( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

Passives
Fortress passive (s/b): 36%

Skills
Defensive Posture + Morphs (s/b): 8%

Sturdy
[...]
Sturdy (gold quality): 4%

Enchants
Shieldplay enchant (CP160 gold): Reduce block cost by 203 (per enchant)

First note to be taken is the base cost of blocking: 2160.

We'll work on 3 different examples for this thread, all considered in a CP environment:
A build who doesn't invest in blocking outside a few CPs in Shadow Ward, since the front loading make it pretty accessible: 10%. That's usually what's going to look like for any build that doesn't use a frost staff or SnB.

A Sword n' board (SnB) build, without a particular investment in blocking, he doesn't have Defensive posture slotted, but a tad more in Shadow Ward and no Block cost reduction glyph. 16% from Shadow Ward

A build aiming at permablocking, with 20% in Shadow Ward, but also 7 gold armor pieces with Sturdy (for a total of 8 * 4% = 32%, since there also is the shield) and 3 gold block cost reduction glyphs. We will not slot Defensive Posture, you will see why later in this thread.

Taking those scenarios into account, we'll get the following block cost values for each (same order as above):
1944

1161

143

Wow, 143 for the permablocking build? No wonder it's so easy to permablock! In fact, the resource return from Heavy armor, even after the nerf, largely covers it. To a larger extent, just about anything that returns flat resources without asking you to drop block will be enough - which is easily doable with Battle roar and Helping hands, hence why most permablock builds are DKs (Dark Deal requires you to drop block, just like heavy attacks. A netch for the Warden can do, it was also possible for a nightblade before the changes to Siphoning / Leeching strikes, since it now requires light attacks.

In fact, in this last case, adding Defensive Posture would only drop our block cost to 131, asking us to slot an ability only to save 12 stamina per block, which is why it's not needed.

Now let's get back to our change:

Reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Previously, that would mean that you would have to pay, in the order:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

143 * 2 = 286 stamina to block per second

With the changes, it now costs:
1944 * 4 = 7776 stamina to block per second

1161 * 4 = 4644 stamina to block per second

143 * 4 = 572 stamina to block per second

Using potions and the Constitution passive from the heavy armor skill line is enough to make this last build block literally all attacks, without outside help required. Adding in abilities and passives make it even easier - overkill even, it has become a lot harder for the two other specs. Blocking for only 1 second without a specialized block build will burn your entire stamina pool.

Back to the original intent of the devs:

Due to how powerful Block is, being able to near-permanently block numerous attacks was posing significant balance issues. In PvP situations, this change will provide more counterplay against targets trying to block all of your attacks – you can rapidly attack them in order to drain their Stamina faster.

But the problem, as we've seen above, is that this doesn't do anything to actually solve the permablocking problem, in fact, it just made it a lot harder to block for everyone else, except people who were already permablocking!

The issue doesn't lie with how many times block is charged, but how block cost is calculated, back to it:

( 2160 ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) - enchants ) ( 1 - abilities )

The issue here is that the enchants will reduce the values after the % multipliers have been taken into account, which means the value you get from the enchants exponentially increases as you stack more and more % based block cost reduction. Let's keep the multipliers and remove the enchants on this last permablocking build, we then get a block of 663 stamina.

This means that, after applying the other block reduction sources, the 3 glyphs are equivalent to about 90% block cost reduction.

What solutions?

The problem comes from the formula, as such, I would instead suggest to change it so that enchants are taken into account at the beginning: flat values are substracted from the base cost, and the rest is then reduced by the different multipliers, we would then get the following formula:

( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

if we consider the same builds as before, we obtain the following block costs:
( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.1 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1944 (previously 1944)

( 2160 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.16 ) ( 1 - 0 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 1161 (previously 1161)

( 2160 - 609 ) ( 1 - 0.20 ) ( 1 - 0.4 ) ( 1 - 0.36 ) ( 1 - 0 ) = 476 (previously 143)

As such, stacking both flat values adds a natural soft cap to block cost reduction, which slowly diminishes the benefits from using flat values for each added multiplier, leaving non-extreme builds untouched while actually solving the block problem.

Since the original change also drastically changed blocking for any non-permablock build, we'd be better off reverting it as well, so, let's add the 2 following changes:
Block cost is charged every 0.5 second.

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

In an actual scenario where you have to block for 1 second straight, it would cost:
1944 * 2 = 3888 stamina to block per second

1161 * 2 = 2322 stamina to block per second

476 * 2 = 953 stamina to block per second (120 stamina before Morrowind, 240 after Morrowind)

There goes. If you want to reward reactive play, you can even do the following:
Base cost of blocking is reduced to 1080 (2160 previously)

Block cost is charged every 0.25 second.

Block cost reduction enchants now reduce the cost of block by 102 per enchant (previously 203).

Block cost is now calculated as follows: block cost = ( 2160 - enchants) ( 1 - Shadow Ward ) ( 1 - Sturdy ) ( 1 - passives ) ( 1 - abilities )

Now, depending on what you're looking for, you can adjust the flat value of glyphs or the base cost to modify the final value for either tanks or non-block builds. Modifying the value of glyphs will affect block builds more, while changing the base cost will affect everyone.

EDIT: slight miscalculation, corrected

Good post.

If tanking a.k.a permablock in PVP is an issue then why not ( @ZOS_GinaBruno ) put something under battlespirit and leave PVE with block cost charging every 0.5 as was previously.

I suggest no change to cost reduction glyph as it will be useless in PVE too.

I've said it before and I will say it again, the devs have made it perfectly clear they want as little as possible in the battlespirit buff/debuff, stop using it as a suggestion for how to balance both PvP and PvE. The devs don't want that so if you want to make suggestions make something that does not involve that, but instead take both PvP and PvE into consideration, and that such a suggestion would include the same thing for both.
The solution you have proposed will lost importance of cost reduction glpyh and no one will bother!

Another possible option could be having new sets or buff existing set specifically target PVE/dungeon/trials to boost stamina generation or reduce cost while blocking!

Um I never proposed a solution......... So not sure what you are referring to, I just showed my testing results for how things are, I never said how to change them since I don't think they need changing.