Block skill and its perks...? : V - Skyrim

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:00 pm

By the way i recommend you using the Lord stone. It's pretty useful in early-mid levels.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:08 pm

If you choose Deflect Arrows it is CURRENTLY BUGGED and it gives you 85 cap block protection, but it also only protects you 85% of arrow damage, meaning you take 15% of arrow damage. Therefore, shield wall is useless because Deflect Arrows brings you up to max protection with just this one perk. Shield Wall is also bugged giving you 10% increases each time instead of 5%

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:15 pm

By the way i recommend you using the Lord stone. It's pretty useful in early-mid levels.

I just checked in game, I already have it from some time. Can't remember when I took it, but both effects are there.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:46 pm

Essential block perks, in my opinion, are Quick Reflexes and Block Runner. Block perks that I find very useless is pretty much the whole right side of the tree. Power Bash is too slow to initiate which means that it's difficult to land without getting hit. Furthermore, if you meditate on Fus the difference between a Power Bash stagger and a normal Bash stagger is negligible. As for Deadly Bash, personally, I find that Bash damage does not really compare to the damage you can inflict with your weapon and thus find the additional damage to be negligible. The Disarm perk is chance based and requires a Power bash, so I'm not a fan of it.

While Shield Charge is useful, I personally find it to trivialize most melee combat in the sense that you can shield charge nearly any enemy in the game, a shield charge that basically acts as a melee Fus Ro Dah, and then just spam the crap out of them. In other words, it's very useful, but I don't find it to be of much fun.

I find Block Runner to be useful because it pretty much eliminates the penalties of blocking. You can now use block without it interfering with your footwork. This goes hand in hand with Quick Reflexes because Quick Reflexes is pretty much there for everything that you normally can't dodge with regular movement (Things like Bear/Sabre Cat/Chaurus/etc. leap attacks, forward humanoid power attacks) and makes some things that you would normally be able to dodge much easier to deal with (Dwarven Sphere blade leap attacks, Dual-wielding power attacks, etc.). In the case of Dual-Wielding power attacks, it will last for quite a while allowing you to quickly dispose of a fair amount of enemies while they're in slow motion and you're not.

As for the Deflect Arrows perk, if it wasn't a pre-requisite for Block Runner, I'm not sure if I'd get it. The area for which a can shield deflect an arrow isn't that big. Also, it seems to be bugged or improperly worded as it does not completely eliminate arrow damage, it just reduces it (By a large amount). I'd have to test if it actually reduces it by the same damage as normally blocking an arrow without the perk or not. Aside from that, the arrows deflect off of your shield and you can pick them up if you want to.

Elemental Protection is good for dealing with things like Dragon breath and magical damage and it stacks with magic and elemental resists. Solid perk to add another layer of defense versus elemental damage.

Just my two cents. o.o

Thanks for the excellent summary and anolysis

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:16 pm

Well said overall on your post but i had to quote this one. Don't forget that the purpose of bash is not the damage it does alone but the interrupt/stagger, which is the bread and butter of a shield warrior :smile:

Do you need power bash for this purpose? I haven't taken the power bash perk yet, but my regular bash seems to do a good job of interrupt/stagger.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:09 pm

Do you need power bash for this purpose? I haven't taken the power bash perk yet, but my regular bash seems to do a good job of interrupt/stagger.

Shield bash works well enough that you don't really need power bash (In my opinion). I personally prefer the regular shield bash over power bash because it's far quicker which means that there are far more situations where you can use it without taking damage. Because a power bash is fairly slow and roots you during it's duration, often times you will either miss a moving target or get hit in the process.

Also, you can make a regular shield bash act like a normal power bash if you time it right after blocking an enemies attack (Shields only because with a weapon you're not capable of bashing immediately after blocking a hit. Keep in mind that the timing is crucial and it may not be easy for some.). And like I said in my other post, when you meditate on the word Fus, the difference between a shield bash stagger and a shield power bash stagger is negligible.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:18 pm

Well Spellbreaker didn't negate the magicka damage I took, although I can't remember if it was a stronger than Spellbreaker enchant, either way it's no biggie, not often I come across people with enchanted weapons. I love fighting mages with spellbreaker, I just block and walk up to em laughing. The visual effect is quite cool too, especially on dragon fire breath attacks. Might have to get a screenshot of it for my avatar or something.

Spellbreaker creates a ward that protects you from ofencive spells/magica (shouts), so the way i see it it protects you from the speel to hit you while in this case the echantement was aplied to a phisical wepon so the ward woun't help much it's like geting poisened i think

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:22 pm

I think the only one I didn't take was the 2nd to last on the right hand side, everything else is good value though...and I've only taken one perk in the first one.

Shields work the same as armour type in relation to the uniform armour or matching set perks in the armour skills.

I'm not sure what the equation is for causing damage with shields is, but if it was tweaked up a bit it would almost be like dual wielding, but that could make that skill superfluous.

» Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:56 pm

A few Block perks are actually quite useful for Two-Handed weapons, too. Or to bash with a Bow in melee situations.