General
When they think about protecting themselves, people tend to mix defense and block but they have different causes and different effects:
Defense results of points invested in DEF and points invested in defense-boost
If during a fight you fail to hit your opponent and it says "MISS" the reason is his defense and your dex and it has nothing to do with block. When block is involved it says "BLOCK"
During a fight, block can be triggered either by using block, sheildbash or protect
Once block is activated, even a gladiator without a shield can block with a probability of 10% but only shields have defined block rates.
The block rate is the % of hits the shield will block.
When calculating the probability of a block just add 10% to the block rate of the shield.
In olympus shop shields have up to 58 block rate.
The Smith can craft shields up to 72 block rate.
How long is block active for ?
- Protect grants you 1 turn of block
- Sheild bash, grants you 1 to 5 turns of block according to the number of points invested in sheildbash
- Block gives you 1 turn of block per 25 dex you have, rounded to the closest 25 (13 and 37 are both rounded to 25 therefore with 13<your dex<37, you get one turn of block
Strategy
Combined with vitality and cure or cure-all, a high block rate shield offers a great protection
Shields with high block rates are great for protectors, tribids, tank . They also offer high damage value.
On the contrary, Olympus Bladed shields offer weak block rate and damage value but they offer a + 4 speed base bonus which allows you to build a 515 fasdt gladiator