I'm trying to fill out my Steam achievements, so I needed a character who would take the entire Shield Bearer tree. I decided to go super block-heavy and here's where I am by character lvl 9: 84 block? Not to shabby. 26 armor is also pretty great - but I think I'm basically capped at useful armor for the time being. One of my shields is Heroic, the other is just a Bronze Aspis - I need some gold to finish upgrading my armor and second shield. Just after I took this snapshot, I actually replaced my upper ring with an overclocked Power Limb - the melee bonus and +4 block look better to me than a second ring of iron thorns (I need another pyrite sun to make a second one, anyway). Skills are: Unarmed, Shield Bearer, Master of Arms, Berserker, Deadshot, Fleshsmithing, Smithing. With Duck & Cover on, Turtle Manuver, and Flesh Shield up, I have +12 health regen. Once I get Walk it Off I should be able to heal pretty well. Throwing weapons are being pretty good to me - I have enough Iron to keep me stocked with 30+ throwing axes. If I find a Hefty Stick I get 7 spears (they crit for almost 40 damage already!) and the occasional molotov is nice for the fire it lays down. Funny that this character is doing more Throwing than my Throw-master character I tried to play a week or two back... Anyway, in about 3-4 levels I should be able to keep my block percent at or near 100% all the time. I don't quite understand how "break on X hits" skills work - sometimes blocked hits still decrease the counter, and sometimes they don't. I'm disappointed that Defensive Bash apparently deals damage in proportion to Magic Power - the knockback and stun are good, but the damage is pretty pathetic. I've had a few close calls with masses of elemental enemies (any physical enemies I can pretty much laugh off) - Hyborean potions have been really helping me vs. Djinns. Two other good pieces of luck - got a +1 Trap blessing on my shield, and found a Steel Cuirass for sale on level 1. Do you like to hear the block sound? Because I'm getting just a bit sick of it...
Deadshot and Fleshsmithing are the oddball skills in this build. Fleshsmithing was taken mostly for the regen bonus and thematic elements (smithing / shield). Deadshot was taken because it's a Warrior skill, and because I was afraid that I might not be hitting frequently enough - which hasn't really been a problem thus far. It also gives me some more damage at range, via debuffs.
Hmmm - I thought block reduced damage to 1 point, but maybe it's something like 10% round down? Anyone know the formula for blocked damage offhand?
Blocking also applies before Absorb, so if your character above gets attacked for anything less than 104 physical damage and blocks, he'll take nothing. Upload Bushido and level it up to Jaws of Death, and you'll be pretty much immortal.
Update! Character level 12, working on dungeon floor 6, and was able to easily wade through an entire monster zoo, without any special tricks, thanks mostly to my rating of 107 block and 30 armor. Whee! I'll also point out my +13 health regen - which pretty much makes Going Rogue difficulty feel like Easy. I don't keep Flesh shield up much these days - I just put it up for this screen shot, pretty much. I don't have any Defense bonuses on any of my equipment - this is all just pure skills and base stats. I can get my block even higher sometimes when Beserker is really going off. Funny story - I haven't found any decent amulets (or crossbows!) yet in the game, so I was wearing an amulet which gave me +2 vision range. Then I found an amulet which gave +6 block, and cost 8k. I was so excited, I sold almost everything I had to get the cash together right away, and buy it.... Unfortunately, once I had it I realized that it was, in fact, and invisible shield. Not an amulet. The "invisible" graphics looked so much like a string of pearls that I didn't look further than the defense stats. I've got 2 Heroic Bronze Aspis now, so I just sold the thing back and took the huge loss of cash. Sigh.
This has happened to me before. I hate that item! >:O I tried to do my own defense heavy build today, but I think i am missing something. It was really hard just to get past the first floor. I'll try it with Unarmed or Throwing next time.
Yes.. and as soon as you hit DL 10-11 or so your build will disintegrate since you can't block crits. I had a mace/shield/heavy armor character that cakewalked Dwarven Moderation down 'till lvl 9, got through lvl 10 and was useless at lvl 11 since everything down there crits like 90+% of the time. (even just one shield and mastery of arms you can easily get just under 100% block by DL 10-11 or so through gear)
100% Block is great, but it isn't the only thing going for me in this build. 30 Armor is Heavy Defense, and works fine against crits. But it's really the 13 Regen which makes the build work so well - on Going Rogue you need huge regen to keep fighting, and these skills are selected to maximize that.
FYI, you can craft Emerald Encrusted Gold Rings ( 15 2 each) to have an even easier time getting the 12 you need for 1hp/turn. Add Celestial Circle (from Demonology) for another 5 and you'll be perma-healing at every zoo.
