Err, yes, this is very much intentional, and regularly addressed by people doing tank builds.
There are ways to work around the issue, and they're one of the things to keep in mind when building a tank.
(For instance, abilities or skills that give stamina back while doing something else, are still working when blocking.)

you also have 0 stamina recov while sneaking (0 magicka if you use stormweavers cavort mythic)

i played since launch, and way way back in the day you could regen stamina through block, you think unkillable tanks in cyro are bad now, imagine a true permablock tank that had 2000 stam recov active while they were blocking, it was literally impossible to make them drop block

in pve its mostly about resource management without just literally being perma block all the time

Blocking zeroing out recovery happened way back in 2015.

Look up Hyperioxes on YouTube. He's one of the best tanks in the game and makes guides, including how to improve sustain.

Every class has a skill that gives stamina over time through block. You're on a DK, so that skill is actually anything from earthen heart that costs mag giving you stam back on cast. Every other class actually just has a "cast once every 20s for free stamina" skill.

CrashTest wrote: »

Look up Hyperioxes on YouTube. He's one of the best tanks in the game and makes guides, including how to improve sustain.

While also running some of the highest tank block cost possible

There are a LOT of easy ways around this --- one that I use on my tank -
Dragon Knight with Ash Cloud - jewelry with reduce cost to get it down to about 25 magicka per second to use it
Passive, Helping Hands, in the same line

I drop it at the start, and hit it occasionally during the fight -- doesn't really matter if you use the healing or damaging version of Ash Cloud - it still regens your stamina because it counts as a magicka cast every second.

Auldwulfe

Billium813 wrote: »

Auldwulfe wrote: »

There are a LOT of easy ways around this --- one that I use on my tank -
Dragon Knight with Ash Cloud - jewelry with reduce cost to get it down to about 25 magicka per second to use it
Passive, Helping Hands, in the same line

I drop it at the start, and hit it occasionally during the fight -- doesn't really matter if you use the healing or damaging version of Ash Cloud - it still regens your stamina because it counts as a magicka cast every second.

Auldwulfe

I personally view Ash Cloud + Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost + Helping Hands = Infinite Stamina, as a bug. They should fix this someday, but I doubt it consider how long it has existed

I'll be honest, I did, initially, as well ... and my Templar Tank, Warden Tank, and even attempts at a Sorc Tank and NB Tank all had to acknowledge that they were NOT keeping up with the DK Tanks out there.

Unfortunately, we have a shortage of tanks in the game, as there is an incentive to build glass canon DPS -- and therefore, your tanks have to work at it....

Auldwulfe

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

Auldwulfe wrote: »

There are a LOT of easy ways around this --- one that I use on my tank -
Dragon Knight with Ash Cloud - jewelry with reduce cost to get it down to about 25 magicka per second to use it
Passive, Helping Hands, in the same line

I drop it at the start, and hit it occasionally during the fight -- doesn't really matter if you use the healing or damaging version of Ash Cloud - it still regens your stamina because it counts as a magicka cast every second.

Auldwulfe

I personally view Ash Cloud + Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost + Helping Hands = Infinite Stamina, as a bug. They should fix this someday, but I doubt it consider how long it has existed

i honestly think they balanced it that way because other classes have free or nearly free cost skills that trickle in resources

• warden netch is free cast, restores either mag or stam (depending on morph), and has the purge effect
• necromancer has a tether which is free to cast as long as there is a corpse that directly restores mag and stam
• templars rune has a pretty low activation cost and gives mag or stam (depending on morph) for 20 sec regardless if your in the area
• sorcs have dark conversion to basically change one resource into another (depending on morph)
• NB has siphon strikes to restore mag or stam depending on morph for fairly low cost (this is arguably one of the more expensive of the classes)

so pretty much all of the classes have some form of cheap or free direct stat restore over time, the DKs is a little more bursty

I mean... none of those are as straight forward as: spam Ash Cloud => free Stamina.

A skill that consumes corpses, or gives some "cheap" stamina regen, or transmutes resources, is not even close to the same as: spam 1 skill on repeat => free Stamina. Imagine if Templar Repentance didn't require corpse; imagine if it just automatically restored 1k Stamina when you pressed it... that's LITERALLY what this is. There is no comparison.

Billium813 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

Auldwulfe wrote: »

There are a LOT of easy ways around this --- one that I use on my tank -
Dragon Knight with Ash Cloud - jewelry with reduce cost to get it down to about 25 magicka per second to use it
Passive, Helping Hands, in the same line

I drop it at the start, and hit it occasionally during the fight -- doesn't really matter if you use the healing or damaging version of Ash Cloud - it still regens your stamina because it counts as a magicka cast every second.

Auldwulfe

I personally view Ash Cloud + Glyph of Reduce Spell Cost + Helping Hands = Infinite Stamina, as a bug. They should fix this someday, but I doubt it consider how long it has existed

i honestly think they balanced it that way because other classes have free or nearly free cost skills that trickle in resources

• warden netch is free cast, restores either mag or stam (depending on morph), and has the purge effect
• necromancer has a tether which is free to cast as long as there is a corpse that directly restores mag and stam
• templars rune has a pretty low activation cost and gives mag or stam (depending on morph) for 20 sec regardless if your in the area
• sorcs have dark conversion to basically change one resource into another (depending on morph)
• NB has siphon strikes to restore mag or stam depending on morph for fairly low cost (this is arguably one of the more expensive of the classes)

so pretty much all of the classes have some form of cheap or free direct stat restore over time, the DKs is a little more bursty

I mean... none of those are as straight forward as: spam Ash Cloud => free Stamina.

A skill that consumes corpses, or gives some "cheap" stamina regen, or transmutes resources, is not even close to the same as: spam 1 skill on repeat => free Stamina. Imagine if Templar Repentance didn't require corpse; imagine if it just automatically restored 1k Stamina when you pressed it... that's LITERALLY what this is. There is no comparison.

spamming that only really makes sense if your a full tank, because that eats your GCD, so unless your mostly blocking i see that as the drawback

so a similar case, dark conversion, while it has a cost, restores far more resources in that 1 GCD use, and provides 20 sec of resources over time

the necromancer tether restores 170 mag and stam every 2 sec, for 1 GCD cost every 12 sec, so while its not bursty, its still counted as free recovery and restores both resources at the same time