I wanna explain why blocking is already powerful the way it is right now.
Let’s say, the game didn’t have shields. That means the only way to “negate” attacks is dodging. I fire an my blast spell at the enemy, he dodges, well, it’s my fault cause I didn’t predict that he’d dodge or I gave him enough time to dodge and I deserve to get punished for it.
Now that blocking is in the game, this is sort of how it works: I catch my enemy completely off guard. He missed an attack, he’s now falling from the air and i’m lining up a blast. I shoot it, and I successfully hit him! Great, I did a fantastic job! But, I still don’t get rewarded with the hit. Why? He held G. Is that a problem? Not really, cause I make it sound easier than it is. But if blocking really was “refined”, then it really would be as easy as I just described it. A lot of attacks that you’d normally hit and do well with are now negated.
That’s why I believe that blocking should remain untouched. also, I learned that blocking isn’t an easy mechanic either. I’ve been practicing a lot with it and slowly understanding how it works and I definitely have to say: It really takes getting used to. It’s not as simple of a mechanic as it seems.
Shields are objectively worse than weapons, simply due to the durability stat. If all 40 of your durability gets used up (which is guaranteed to happen in group fights) then your character just lets the block down instead of swapping to a sword for blocking, which ruins the whole point of blocking.
This means that sturdy shields are practically irrelevant because a sword or polearm with the Hard enchant is better in quite literally every way, since swords and polearms have no durability stat.
I don’t agree with buffing block this much, I think block needs to be changed and maybe slightly buffed. I supposed it would be more of a side-grade.
Players that are blocking should no longer defy gravity, and should be able to walk very slowly when they are not being hit with an attack.
You should only float when blocking if you have a spell that allows you to remain in the air, such as the flight and hover spells.
Not sure if this would be fair, but with all the movement and stuff that players have access to maybe it would make sense to disable blocking for players in the air unless they have one of the aforementioned air-mobility spells active? I completely understand if this is too much, but people in the air are much harder to hit and this would discourage or reduce the effectiveness of air camping when you don’t even have air mobility spells.
Block end lag should absolutely be non-existent IF you release block right after blocking a sufficiently weak attack.
Perfect blocking a melee attack should stun the opponent for a second or so on success, to allow counter attacking.
I believe blocking is fine as it is. If you run out of stamina, then you would supplement dodging with magic high jump. PvP is also a test of who can manage their magic energy and stamina better. Also, you should be aiming to perfect block and not just hold down block to stall out the fight.
That is wholly dependent on your internet connection/fps, so there is little that can be done in that regard.
There are plenty of mobility options in the game already. I feel like your suggestion would encourage long period of holding down block, which would make for a very slow and uneventful battle.
You can use macros. I personally use AutoHotKey to rebind block to my mouse thumb buttons.
I honestly would prefer if some of Black Magic II’s blocking system was implemented:
All forms of block have a “durability” meter that is separate from stamina and visible to all players a la SSB’s bubbles. The bar can regenerate faster with successful damage output rather than a static 5 minute timer. If a shield gets to zero durability, the blocker is stunned.
Attacks that have longer windups will guardbreak, ignoring block. (In this case, those attacks may need to be added in because spells have near identical startups for some reason)
Blocking will have a drop endlag if the shield is not hit, otherwise the blocker can move out of block instantly.
Of course, compared to BMII, WoM has the annoying issues of almost zero hitstun, a terrible aiming system, and health regeneration, so damage percentages and perfect blocking have to stay the same.
I dont think adding dodging would be a good idea seeing as how projectiles are already far too hard to land right now, and it would just make placed explosions (the easiest spell type to hit as of now) also hard to hit.