By ’unconditional block’ I mean something like Shield Stance, which blocks all attacks for its duration.
They’ve always been powerful - allowing near-invulnerability while still contesting a point, since there are relatively few unblockable skills in the game. Heart of Thorns added many more, contributing significantly to the ridiculous powercreep that Elite Specs brought us.
They’re great in PvE, since they allow devs to design hard-and-fast-hitting mobs whose attacks you can block with your cool new skills.
They’re arguably fair in WvW, since they give folks a fighting chance against the spamfest that is zerg fighting. They can make smaller-scale fights frustrating and dull, but when you’ve got food and ascended stats and access to all the banned-in-PvP stats and runes... I don’t think this matters much.
In PvP, though? Ugh.
Several seconds of pretty much just free point contesting, during which time the caster’s other cooldowns are ticking away. They add little to nothing of interest - yes, a well-timed block is a powerful thing, but a three-second block barely requires any kind of timing to be effective. I don’t think blocks should be removed from play - they’re an important strategic element - but as things are, they just add to the sustain of many builds, particularly those with Elite Specialisations, and remove a lot of the action from fights. I could kind of deal with Engi’s Gear Shield (though not as part of the decap build...) but now it feels like every skirmish includes multiple several-second breathers while players pop their blocks.
There are three main changes I can think of, to reduce the effectiveness of unconditional blocks, that might be reasonable:
1) Add more unblockable skills and traits.
This one is a bit iffy, because it makes conditional blocks (e.g. Aegis or Arcane Shield) significantly weaker. It could be interesting to have a block-hate traitline or two, but it could also become a balance nightmare and be perpetually flipping between OP and useless.
2) Reduce the duration/increase the cooldown of unconditional block skills
Basically... nerf them without changing functionality. A change like this would make players have to think rather harder before popping a block skill, since it wouldn’t be able to nullify as many attacks, or may not be available to negate a bigger hit later.
3) Turn many into conditional blocks.
Obvious enough - only allow these skills to block a limited number of attacks, maybe giving a counterattack or heal effect if enough hits are absorbed. I’d like this best for sPvP, where there are only a limited number of spells in any one area, but of course this would make such skills rather less useful in large-scale WvW.
Are there any other potential solutions I’m missing? Am I in the minority for thinking that unconditional blocks are too widely available?
