I was going to post a Question about this, based on this entire discussion I was about to ask...

"Does this thread not imply that you only need 25% PASSIVE avoidance to eliminate crits and crushes using Shield Block?"

Its all rather fascinating and the wntire vehement desire to reach the "magical" 25% passive block figure is all a bit futile?

By the way, how would you modify your spellbook values to obtain your percentages against a level 63 mob?

I did some limited testing on BWL runs for 3 weeks, MTing every boss there with 20% base block chance. The combatlog is very inaccurate, often lagging behind. My favorite was a Shield Block fading after 0.7 seconds with no hits taken in between.
Anyways, it did show very few Crushing Blows with Shield Block up, but those were all within less than a second after gaining SB. That can surely be blamed on lag. It didn't show a single crit/crush with SB up after that first second.
I'm pretty certain you don't need 25+% base block to prevent Crushing Blows, avoidance adds on top of your block chance.

If this s indeed the case it totally devalues +Block % on itemisation cos basically its totally shit in comparison to Dodge/Parry.

I have a question which isn't on the same topic as block% but falls under "Combat Mechanics". I commonly see that you need 5% hit with a 2h weapon to not miss 60s. Due to how people think defense/weaponskill works, this means you need 5.6% hit to not miss a boss (level 63). I hope this statistic is something of an old wive's tale since I've been missing bosses with 7% and 8% hit.

So, is it still commonly held that 5.6% hit is all that's needed for 63s, or have I been out of the loop?

I seem to recall countless threads on countless forums using parsed combat log data to show that with 8% hit their mis rate was insignificantly low (ie capped)

This seems to make sense with regards to mob levels.

Simple example is whilst you are levelling, attacking a mob 3+ levels above you even with 6% hit you will see LOADS of misses, shopwing that the miss rate relationship with mob level is NOT linear.

out of the loop. with one weapon (either 1h or 2h) 8% = small number of misses, 9% = no misses.

I find some of the comments in this thread very interesting. I made the last iteration of my Combat Mechanics thread right when the "hit table" idea was first becoming widespread (which was right when the importance of Shield Block on Emps brought the idea to light).

After reading about how it works, I came to the conclusion (based on the assumption that things would work in a consistent way) that some people on this thread have reached: that Miss+Dodge+Parry+Block has to be greater than 1. But nobody supported that claim. The common wisdom, even from Gurgthock, was that 25% base block was an important plateau. And there was a ton of discussion, much like the front part of this thread, about how it doesn't fit the model that works so well everywhere else. And, whenever somebody references my thread, I disclaim it with the fact that "it doesn't explain why you need 100% block to avoid crit/crush."

So, can someone test this once and for all? (Or clearly post here if you have information that's taken a reasonably scientific manner):

Can a naked Warrior with a shield (4.4% Miss + 9.4% Block + 9.4% Parry + 4.4% Dodge + 75% Shield Block = 102.6%) be critted or crushed with Shield Block up?

That should be easy. Take a low level warrior and set him up like that, making sure that defense is capped for his level, and go fight +4 and +5 mobs out in the world. Volunteers?

Post #69 is just trying to derail the discussion. He parried a Scarlet Cavalier so odds are he is not facing Fodring. You can't block a mob that you are not facing.

How does parrying a scarlet cavalier have anything to do with his facing on Fordring?

What he is saying, we have no proof that the warrior did not have his back towards fordring, thus the screenshot provides no solid evidence. Basically, this means we either have to trust one person or get a fraps of it happening. I have myself been hit by razuvious with over 100% evasion because of server/client lag while I appeared on my screen to be facing him at all times, so I would bet a lot of the reports that "debunk" the simple hit table are due to something like this.

It's a true miss, on both white and yellow damage. I have combat logs with it, and screens of CombatStats tallying the number of misses.
This number fits more with what I've observed. Thanks for the information.

You realize in the screenshot the attack that happened immediately following that parry, was a Block from Fodring? If I wasn't facing Fodring, how could I have blocked that attack... ?

You also realize you can't dodge an attack from behind either? The only way to have produced a screenshot with that combat log is to have been facing both mobs the entire time.

In order to "fake" it, you would have to have both mobs on opposite sides, and constantly changing direction so that you're always facing the mob that is attacking you. Producing that exact sequence of events is nearly impossible to duplicate if you wanted to "fake" it because what happens if both mobs attack you at the same time, you're screwed.

Not only is it nearly impossible to duplicate, you also need the one attack going through specifically to be a crushing blow, while shield block is active.

Considering you yourself stated those 3 or 4 attacks represent 5.5 seconds worth of time, is it so hard to believe you might have turned?

Again, you're trusting the combat log to be in order, and providing it without timestamps, whereas experience has shown repeatedly that it isn't in order, and that even timestamps aren't trustworthy in seperating events within a certain duration. How many times have you seen a log where the heal supposedly landed after death, or where the heal landed and yet they died anyway?

I don't think you're maliciously trying to fake this, I just think you're going out of your way to try to prove an idea that makes no real sense. If you want to prove it, go perform Gurgthock's suggested test (naked warrior with grey shield and ISB) and make sure that you get a clearcut example and a timestamped combatlog (/combatlog is your friend).

Out of my way would be sitting there for hours upon hours waiting for it to occur. That's not what happened, the event occured in minutes. I've personally seen it happen in the past which is why I was posting as if it were fact. You disagreed with me, and said it's impossible and yet, in 3 minutes I was able to go to the NPC and produce an event that you believe should never occur.

You can only backtrack and now argue the validity of the event. I was there, I know I was facing the mob, I know my weapons were not sheathed and I was eligible to block, I know that Shield Block was active, and I still got hit by a Crushing Blow.

Whether or not the event was lag related, my question to you is, how come I have seen this event, and produced a screenshot of it occuring for you, yet have NEVER seen the same event occur with a critical hit?

I was parsing naked with a grey Shield yesterday against level 60 mobs and while I took a good bit of Critical hits, one never occured while Shield Block was up, not even "lagged".

My question is, and has been, how do you explain that? If this freak accident where a Crushing Blow occurs is caused by lag, how come the same accident does not occur with Critical Hits? I don't see why it wouldn't. I've seen many occasions where a Crushing Blow landed through Shield Block, which you chalk up to lag, but I haven't seen any similar screenshots with a Critical hit landing through Shield Block.

I don't see why it wouldn't happen both ways. If i'm getting hit by Crushing Blows through Shield Block due to lag, how come I don't get hit by a Critical Hit through Shield Block due to lag?

I would be interested in seeing a screenshot of that happening to be honest.

As for the "logic" behind each scenario.... If the abilities do in fact add, you realize that a level 60 with talents already has 25% Dodge / Parry / Block without any gear on. It would make raising your Block % really weak in comparison to raising other tanking stats since no matter what % you have, Shield Block will knock everything off. I don't doubt Blizzard would do something like that, but I don't consider it very logical to design it in that way.

So what you are saying is that almost two years of mechanics discussions and experimentation by the community are negated by your extensive 3 minutes of testing.

Considering that % block is half to one third as expensive as dodge/parry are, yes, I do assume it's supposed to be significantly inferior.

You're not getting hit by crush through shield block due to lag - you're getting crushed before shield block is applied due to lag. (Or, potentially, after it has faded, but the messages appear out of order in your log.) Why don't you get crit? Well, two possible reasons:

1 - You are getting critted, you just didn't run long enough to get a sample. Considering crush is 3x as likely as crit (15% vs 5%), potentially much more so depending on +defense, you may need to run a while to get your shot of crit by block.

2 - You're wearing defense gear.

Pretty much what I was thinking.

This seem to always creep up, same with the 8.6% miss rate on 1-h and 2-h versus level 63.

I use a 2-h to dps with exactly 6% to hit gear. That would give me a 2.6% miss rate on a level 63 mobs. 2.6% miss rate is huge and would be easily noticeable. I have gone weeks not missing while wearing 6% to hit gear.

I currently have 17% block rate before shield block. Since 17 + 75 = 92%, that would mean that at best, with shield block on, I would get a crush 8% of the time. 8% crush after shield block is huge and this is clearly not happening.

It's possible that "something strange" happen, lag, some special mechanics, some 1/1000 occurance that can always crit, etc. It's also possible for the miss thing that a "failed" attack be converted as a miss for the engine. Failing an attack could be due to lag, a client/server sync problem, etc.

But the simple explanation of 8.6% miss rate versus 63 or need 25% base block rate to avoid crushing simply can't be true and it's trivial to disprove those.

Thorb: the 8.6% vs. 63s is presumably only for instant attacks. For autoattacks, it would be 5.6%. While this seems counter-intuitive, there's a fair amount of evidence to suggest it might be true (that instants, although they don't suffer glancing, suffer an additional 1% per level). Parsing of hunter shots has supported an 8.6% miss rate there, and it explains the "I never miss" and "I miss rarely" camps of 9%+ and 7-8% in +hit gear.

So I went over to Hearthglenn with a Paladin , and I put on my DPS gear and threw on a shield, my stats were:

15.48% dodge
11.68% parry
11.68% block
342 def.
1/3 Improved Shield Block

We cleared the 4 adds surrounding Fording, and I let him "wail" on me over and over and over again, I was unable to replicate getting crushed/crit while Shield Block was up, and I was facing Fording(it's easy tnough to do if you turn your back though hehe).

Others are welcome to try. He has an extremely slow attack it's very easy to almost totally phase out crits/crushes alltogether with 1/3 improve shield block alone.

Note: he does this attack called Holy Strike occasionally and that eats up a shield block charge, so watch for that.

My own research does not support this. This is my autoattack data vs Taelan Fordring, 1 hand weapon + shield, no +hit gear, 300 skill.
Assuming the miss rate were 5.6%, the likelihood of achieving 29 misses or more out of 329 hits is 1.1%. I can't comment on specials except to say that they don't glance, so certainly have a different hit table. But generally it's not helpful to say "i wear x% hit gear and i just neeeeeeever get a miss" without having hard data to back it up.