Blocking

What you block with

Every weapon carries its own block value and its own stamina cost, both listed on the weapon tables. The game picks between them like this:

• A shield always winsIf a shield is anywhere in your equipped weapons, it is what blocks — its damage reduction and its stamina price are the ones used, whichever hand it sits in.
• One weapon blocks on its own numbersNo shield, one weapon: that weapon's block value and stamina cost, as printed on the table.
• Dual wielding adds both, then divides by 1.5Both weapons contribute their block value and their stamina cost, and the total of each is divided by 1.5. Two weapons therefore block more than one, but for less than double the stamina.
• Bare hands block nothingWith no weapon equipped the guard still plays and still costs 10 stamina, but nothing is subtracted from the damage.

Stamina, durability and the counter-attack

Each blocked attack takes its stamina price once, and wears down the weapon or shield that blocked it. Below 30% durability a weapon blocks at 70% of its printed value; at zero, 30%.

Running out of stamina does not drop your guard: the damage reduction still applies. What you lose is the footing — you are staggered instead of holding firm, the attacker takes no recoil from the block, and no counter-attack opens up.

With stamina left, a clean block does open a counter-attack window immediately afterwards.

What goes through a raised guard

Blocking is not a wall. These ignore it:

• Anything behind youThe attacker has to be in your forward half. A hit from behind is never blocked, no matter what you are holding.
• Kick attacksKicks exist to open guards. Blocking one breaks the block outright — the guard shatters, you are knocked back, and Auto Block never triggers on them.
• Damage over timeBurning, poison and the rest keep ticking through a block. Those are a job for resistances, not for your shield.
• Fatal attacksThey cannot be blocked at all, and armour counts for only a fifth against them.
• Arrows and thrown weapons, if you have no shieldWithout a shield, projectiles cannot be blocked. With one, a projectile that strikes the shield is stopped whether or not you were even holding block.
• Anything at all while frozen, petrified, stunned, carrying or pullingIn each of those states the guard cannot be raised.

Auto Block

A Defense mastery that blocks for you when your finger is nowhere near the button. It needs a shield in an active slot, and it never fires against kicks. Five levels:

Perfect Block

Perfect Block is an activated skill rather than a timing window, and it requires a shield — try it bare-handed and the game refuses. It sits early in the Defense tree and comes back every 20 seconds.

While it is up, every attack that reaches you is blocked regardless of which way you are facing, and none of it costs stamina. That is the whole skill on its own; three further masteries hang off it.

• ElementalNo elemental status can start on you while Perfect Block is up — burning, wet, shocked, frozen, wind, root and poison all fail to take hold. Petrification is not on that list.
• Health restoreEach attack caught by Perfect Block heals 1% to 5% of your maximum health, by level.
• Mana restoreEach attack caught by Perfect Block returns 3 to 7 mana, by level.