CenterofBeing Source6

As I promised earlier today I've spent some time today having guild mates attack me in order to test out the effectiveness of block.

My current template is 4-0-04 marksman, master rifleman, 0-0-0-4 brawler, master pikeman (I also have 2-0-4-0 medic & novice scout, but that's not really important to these tests). This provides me with +103 ranged defense, +72 melee defense and +195 block (capped to +125).

I split the tests into 2 sections, with 3 subsections to each:

Rifle vs Rifle
Rifle vs Polearm
Rifle vs Polearm (using CoB)
TK vs Rifle
TK vs Polearm
TK vs Polearm (using CoB)

My opponents for the tests were a master rifleman for the ranged tests and a 2-4-4-3 TK for the melee tests.

On to the results:

Rifle vs Rifle
120 shots fired
Shots Blocked: 11
Shots Missed: 5

Rifle vs Polearm
120 shots fired
Shots Blocked: 16
Shots Missed: 11

Rifle vs Polearm (using CoB)
120 shots fired
Shots Blocked: 56
Shots Missed: 8

TK vs Rifle
120 punches thrown
Punches Blocked: 37
Punches Missed: 0

TK vs Polearm
120 punches thrown
Punches Blocked: 26
Punches Missed: 10

TK vs Polearm
120 punches thrown
Punches Blocked: 70
Punches Missed 9

Thanks to Owem and Yteb for helping me with these tests.

Whilst I did block ranged attacks, at best I blocked only around 9% while holding my rifle going up to 13.3% of them outside of CoB with a polearm equipped and still under 50% of them using CoB.

Against melee attacks I blocked over 30% of the time with my rifle equipped, but only slightly over 20% of the time with a polearm equipped. Using CoB I blocked nearly 60% of the time.

+125 block vs melee while holding a rifle does seem to be pretty effective and does somewhat offset the to-hit modifer although since block allows 50% of the damage through I'd have still taken a lot of damage in any real engagement. I'm slightly disappointed that I blocked less vs melee using a polearm, though thanks to the +26 polearm toughness modifier I would have taken less damage.

+125 block vs ranged is pretty ineffective outside CoB.