[JrK]

I would mainly avoid blocking for the very simple reason that it permanently destroys my hard gotten equipment. That alone annoys me beyond measure. I'm not fond of the acid flask possibly destroying armor either. I'm okay with it getting broken though, it should just be repairable. I hope that will be included in the full game. 

[Bullwinkle]

You forgot to account for armour.

Did I? Who said I was unarmoured?

As for you getting your shield destroyed too often...

I don't recall saying anything about my shield getting destroyed too often, either. My point was addressing whether your skills help or hurt.

[Ackermanus]

You forgot to account for armour.

Did I? Who said I was unarmoured?

As for you getting your shield destroyed too often...

I don't recall saying anything about my shield getting destroyed too often, either. My point was addressing whether your skills help or hurt.

 If your shield doesn't get destroyed often, how exactly does placing points in block hurt you? You block more attacks - good thing. Now, a valid criticism would be to say that your shields get destroyed too often, and I agree that fast attacks do that too much, but aparently that is not the issue?

 Also, I consider improving defense buying progressively better armour. This is not an issue here, but only because the hammer guy acts on a later iniciative than the axe guy. If he didn't, and a dodge character got hit on his turn (meaning that he/she would likely be knocked down), the character would die because, without a decent armour, a round on the floor with 95% to hit chance against you means death. This would never happen with a shield guy, even if a lot of damage was dealt that round he spent on the floor. His investment in defense is a life saver, while a dodger's investment would have been useless. Same if the dodger is hit in the head.

 
 Although not related to the demo, I noticed that tower shields have 40 ranged protection. In the full game, provided there are some good archers around, this would mean another point for the blocker.

[Zomg]

You could just give axes aimed attack:shield, and then have a contest of axe vs. block skill (like roll under axe - block + 50 on 1d100). Block wins, attack is blocked to no effect. Axe wins, shield gone + regular torso power attack damage. Simple, intelligible, and gamey. Since a lot of the weapon specials seem to be under review a novel type of resolution like that might be in order. AI tries aimed:shield when it has, say, a 50% or better chance to succeed.

That would really favor  the player compared to the current version, though.

<wipes design dust off hands, walks away>

[quasimodo]

I still prefer blockers as they get to wear the best looking  armour (great job Oscar).   But all my dodge builds have made it through the inn.  None of my blockers have, but I agree that it is probably due to the axe/shield problem.

[Bullwinkle]

If your shield doesn't get destroyed often, how exactly does placing points in block hurt you? You block more attacks - good thing. Now, a valid criticism would be to say that your shields get destroyed too often, and I agree that fast attacks do that too much, but aparently that is not the issue?

Normally, blocking more attacks = good thing. Except when you're facing a group of enemies that includes an axeman. Then it's bad. Because blocking more axe attacks = more broken shields. Clearly, the rate of shield breaking is an issue, but my point is that the rate of shield breaking is related to my block skill. In this specific situation, being a better blocker makes my life harder.

A couple people have suggested a toggle for 'do not block axes'. That seemingly silly idea--what guy with a shield doesn't want to use it?--actually makes sense with the current mechanics. Against the Triarii, I'd happily let the axeman slice me all day if he wanted. His axe does nothing against my armour.

I acknowledge that we both recognize the current problems with fast attacks. But I'm saying that fast attacks aren't the only problem. Any final solution that still involves shield splitting should take into account higher block skill as reducing the chance of losing the shield, not increasing it, as it currently does (which currently happens regardless of what kind of attack is made).

Also, I consider improving defense buying progressively better armour.

So do I. Even my dodgers were armoured as best as they could be without killing my AP.

If he didn't, and a dodge character got hit on his turn (meaning that he/she would likely be knocked down), the character would die because, without a decent armour, a round on the floor with 95% to hit chance against you means death. This would never happen with a shield guy, even if a lot of damage was dealt that round he spent on the floor. His investment in defense is a life saver, while a dodger's investment would have been useless. Same if the dodger is hit in the head.

Not in my experience. First of all, my dodgers weren't unarmoured, although they were less heavily armoured than my blockers. But getting knocked down in any group was often a death sentence; if not immediately, then within a couple of rounds, because my HP took such a hit. Even my heavily armoured guys. I don't know what your fights were like, but every time I hit the ground it was power attacks and aimed strikes on me. And then armour does relatively little. In the full game, unless I'm in an isolated fight, I'm screwed either way.

[Starwars]

When making my way through the actual arena, I like Block quite a lot actually, probably moreso than Dodge. I haven't found shield splitting to be a huge problem as of yet. It does happen *fairly* often, but if you can manage to take care of the axe guys in a good way and keep spare shields on you, it just works. Maybe I've had luck in this matter but I really don't find it as bad as many others here.

But I must say, for the final fight in the Inn, I find it very tough to use a block character. Now, perhaps I just need to put more skill points into the skill, but at 200, it's very rare that my block actually fires in that fight, even against the crossbow user. Now, there are always the trade-offs vs dodge as it's been discussed before here. A block character can use the absolute heaviest armor there is because he doesn't need to worry about dodging, the shield itself obviously helps vs criticals and so on. But in the final fight, I gotta say that the enemies still punch through that armor quite easily, getting criticals is not real problem for them either, and like I said, my block skill fires very rarely. Rare enough that I cannot rely upon it whatsoever.
Furthermore, if you use a shield you obviously have to settle for a 1-handed weapon. Perhaps I'm just doing it wrong in the final fight, but with both spears and hammers, I find it very hard to punch through the enemy armor in any relevant way, no matter what attack I'm using. The aim vs torso is often a good option it seems but even with that I can't keep up in any way whatsoever with the enemies damage output in this fight.

It's a bit hazy now, but with my first guy who was a sword and shield guy I did beat the fight though.

So yeah, for the actual arena I do prefer block overall. But for the final fight, well... I've not managed to win it with either spear/shield nor hammer/shield, despite quite a lot of reloads.

[Zomg]

You guy know that if you start at or move to the space to the left or right of the captain in the first turn of the inn fight, either the crossbowman or hammerman will move in front of the door and block the rest of the guys, right? I've never had to fight the axe guy until the captain, hammerguy and crossbowguy are dead. With just the easily-avoided spearman and useless sword guy (packing a balanced bronze gladius which he clevarly uses for fast attacks) backing him up, killing the axe guy shouldn't be too taxing.

Edit - Sword and block has a relatively easy inn fight because Dellar's gladius is really good.

[Starwars]

With these builds I've been using, I've been having a really hard time just killing the first 3 guys to tell the truth. Tried every position there is. 2-handed or 1-handed with shields, tried the different materials and versions of the weapons. Tried different attacks, different aiming. Tried taking out crossbow, captain or hammer guy first. Tried using nets.

Perhaps the key really would be to put more points into block vs the main weapon. It's not like I have a problem hitting these guys, whatever I'm aiming for. But I really wanted the bonus from the weapons special abilities.

[Frosty]

I notice some with my blocking build, Shield splits happen when the axe hits you not when you block so if your good at blocking the chances of lossing your shield go way dowen.

edit: Must have been pure luck before soon has I posted this lost 3 shields on block in the same fight

[caster]

With these builds I've been using, I've been having a really hard time just killing the first 3 guys to tell the truth. Tried every position there is. 2-handed or 1-handed with shields, tried the different materials and versions of the weapons. Tried different attacks, different aiming. Tried taking out crossbow, captain or hammer guy first. Tried using nets.

Perhaps the key really would be to put more points into block vs the main weapon. It's not like I have a problem hitting these guys, whatever I'm aiming for. But I really wanted the bonus from the weapons special abilities.

I was doing quite well with my sword-block build and its true, you need a very high block skill , i think i had over 230, the rest in sword. Aiming at the head seemed to give the most damage.
I got the first three and the axeman and then while stupid crossbow guy evaded me fro a turn or two i got killed through the walls! 

[Ackermanus]

I acknowledge that we both recognize the current problems with fast attacks. But I'm saying that fast attacks aren't the only problem. Any final solution that still involves shield splitting should take into account higher block skill as reducing the chance of losing the shield, not increasing it, as it currently does (which currently happens regardless of what kind of attack is made).

 I kind of agree with this, but if the chances to split shields with fast attacks are reduced, I think that in the end axes will be balanced. The problem with block determining your chance to have a shield split is that if not properly applied, axes, which only have an effect against a limited number of opponents (whereas the  hammer/sword are more versatile), have their effect happen so rarely that they become useless.
 
 However, if block only provided a relatively small penalty to shield splitting, so that a good axeman would still likely break the shield very often but a rookie would seldom succeed at doing so, I think I could agree with this idea, even if I prefer simply reducing chance to break based on the speed of the attack and, if needed, shield size, because both my fights against the Triarii weren't that frustrating provided I used the right tactics (I don't mean exploiting their ranged attacks, of course).

If he didn't, and a dodge character got hit on his turn (meaning that he/she would likely be knocked down), the character would die because, without a decent armour, a round on the floor with 95% to hit chance against you means death. This would never happen with a shield guy, even if a lot of damage was dealt that round he spent on the floor. His investment in defense is a life saver, while a dodger's investment would have been useless. Same if the dodger is hit in the head.

Not in my experience. First of all, my dodgers weren't unarmoured, although they were less heavily armoured than my blockers. But getting knocked down in any group was often a death sentence; if not immediately, then within a couple of rounds, because my HP took such a hit. Even my heavily armoured guys. I don't know what your fights were like, but every time I hit the ground it was power attacks and aimed strikes on me. And then armour does relatively little. In the full game, unless I'm in an isolated fight, I'm screwed either way.

 Then I guess we just had different experiences there. Although getting knocked down was definetly bad, it wasn't a death sentence for any of my armoured characters.

When making my way through the actual arena, I like Block quite a lot actually, probably moreso than Dodge. I haven't found shield splitting to be a huge problem as of yet. It does happen *fairly* often, but if you can manage to take care of the axe guys in a good way and keep spare shields on you, it just works. Maybe I've had luck in this matter but I really don't find it as bad as many others here.

But I must say, for the final fight in the Inn, I find it very tough to use a block character. Now, perhaps I just need to put more skill points into the skill, but at 200, it's very rare that my block actually fires in that fight, even against the crossbow user. Now, there are always the trade-offs vs dodge as it's been discussed before here. A block character can use the absolute heaviest armor there is because he doesn't need to worry about dodging, the shield itself obviously helps vs criticals and so on. But in the final fight, I gotta say that the enemies still punch through that armor quite easily, getting criticals is not real problem for them either, and like I said, my block skill fires very rarely. Rare enough that I cannot rely upon it whatsoever.
Furthermore, if you use a shield you obviously have to settle for a 1-handed weapon. Perhaps I'm just doing it wrong in the final fight, but with both spears and hammers, I find it very hard to punch through the enemy armor in any relevant way, no matter what attack I'm using. The aim vs torso is often a good option it seems but even with that I can't keep up in any way whatsoever with the enemies damage output in this fight.

It's a bit hazy now, but with my first guy who was a sword and shield guy I did beat the fight though.

So yeah, for the actual arena I do prefer block overall. But for the final fight, well... I've not managed to win it with either spear/shield nor hammer/shield, despite quite a lot of reloads.

 I've had more or less the same experience. The final fight is particularly hard for blockers because most opponents are armour killers (using two-handed weapons and crossbows). In the end I beat it using a tower shield and using two power attacks with a meteor Pugio: only way I found to deal decent damage. But I had a slightly higher dodge.

[Hazelnut]

I still prefer blockers as they get to wear the best looking  armour (great job Oscar).   But all my dodge builds have made it through the inn.  None of my blockers have, but I agree that it is probably due to the axe/shield problem.

I just tried my first blocker char since the closed ironman beta, and he defeated the inn guards easily. Carbo's armour (9AP build) and meteor fast axe. Had block up to 260 with tower shield, lost both and ended up using centurian shield by the end, but blocking and high DR won the day. Had 15hp left at the end.

I think there's an issue with the medium weapons not having a reason to be used though, now that two handers have been beefed up. I do think the suggestions in other threads that light weapons get less chance to special is a good one - giving a reason to use the medium weapons.

[caster]

http://www.youtube.com/user/casterAoD#p/a/u/0/WMfS6eAda1c

[Starwars]

Nice video there.

I think it definitely showcases that my problem was that I did not have enough points in block. How much is your sword and block skills there? My block didn't trigger *nearly* as many times as you get there, especially vs the first three guys.