So has anyone had a chance to do any parses or even have anecdotal observations on the effectiveness of the Staff Block AA we got with TDS? Can we now really start to benefit from rocking a 2HB like the casters do?
In an expansion or 2 when we get more ranks like pure casters it will be interesting to use. 5 ranks are extremely weak compared to the full potential of the ability. Sorry to not have better information for you at this time.
If you're looking to improve survivability, I can't imagine it comes anywhere near the benefit you get from the uncapped AC from a shield.
Strangely, casters posted about this a year or so ago - and the parsing showed staff block was much better for them. So much so it's why you will see a lot of raid casters without a shield and using 2h weapons instead. No clue if the same gains they get are what priests get.
Don't go by ranks, they give no indication of the power of the ability. This is something that needs to be parsed.
Originally, unless it has changed, the first 3 ranks were the biggest bang for the buck, i believe rank 3 was a total of 20% with the remaining ranks (that casters got) ending somewhere around 27% total. The old staff block thread is here.
Parsed Staff Block 5 (cleric), Shield Block 17 (cleric), Staff Block 9 (mage). Opponent was a musician (lvl 104 Arx Mentis trash). Staff Block 5 is too low to be considered a gain in defensive. It's currently roughly the same % block as Shield Block 17. Shield Block gives you a lower average hit. Overall incoming DPS was lowest for Shield Block. One interesting thing I noticed was the mage took a lot more strikethroughs than the cleric, overall. I have no idea why this would be; I thought strikethrough depended on the NPC and not player. It's possible NPC strikethrough uses player level dodge and defense skill. It's also possible my parse wasn't long enough (~2500 hits each). From a raid perspective, NPC strikethrough negates things like dodge/block and so only the AC from a shield makes a difference. Although, if mobs are going to one round you anyway (may be true for most INT), it might not matter. Personally I would never use a 2H on my cleric, even if I could parse 50%+ block. It simply isn't going to hold up in raid content. It would be worth it for a DRU/SHM to parse staff block as well if they're interested. Going with a 2H is still worth it from a DPS perspective (although not for clerics). 2H weapons have more powerful sympathetic nukes than 1H. The cleric summoned hammer is a lot better for DPS than any dropped 1H/2H, unless you can't melee.
Yep. Reading the caster posts about Staff Block is what convinced me to run with 2HB exclusively on my mage, and now that it's available to priests my curiosity was piqued to see if the benefits were similar even though the ranks are lower. Thank you Sirene. That work is incredibly helpful.
