Max Block or More Life?

[judgetommy]

Hi, everyone. I have a sword/shield PvM Conc barb and I'm following Hal's great guide. I was thinking about the possibility of maybe using more of my stat points on vitality (to boost life) instead of dexterity (to achieve maximum blocking) and wanted to see what you all think.

What I started realizing when I entered Hell difficulty is that the most dangerous monsters were the elemental damage ones. If I continued pumping stat points into dexterity in order to achieve max block, this would only be protecting me from physical damage. Whereas if I used those stat points for vitality, I would be increasing life, which would aid me against both types of attacks. Especially since any increase in life would basically be doubled, due to Battle Orders. Although my Attack Rating would be lower with this approach. What I'm basically saying is that maybe the loss of blocking is made up for with more life, especially against these tough elemental damage monsters, where blocking doesn't come into play as much. Along with the fact that a Conc barb already has decent physical damage defense due to Shout and Concentrate.

You know, as I'm writing this message, I'm starting to realize something. I guess this approach of pumping vitality and ignoring blocking is more in line with a dual-weapon barbarian. Maybe my question should have been whether a dual-weapon barb is generally more effective than a sword/shield barb, especially since you typically get more damage from two weapons.

I'd love to hear any comments. Thanks in advance.

[Ed from Russia]

The eternal question. For a Conc barb I'd stick with max block, certainly if you have already invested in dex.

The Vita build is (as you say) for dual-wielding and 2-handed characters. Since you get the ultimate bonus (4 hit point for 1 vitality) your life (with BO) will be enormous.

As far as effectiveness of different types of build concerns:
- WW barbs are normally with shield. They are very strong
- Frenzy barbs (obviously) use 2 weapons, and can be pretty effective as well
- 2-handed weapon are rarer, especially SP. But it can be done.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

I'd agree with Ed. If you've already invested heavily into dexterity, you may as well stay on that path. I should point out that the higher the base % chance to block is on your shield, the less dexterity you need to acheive max block. Thus, getting a shield with a mod "of deflecting" should be a top priority.

The biggest %chance to block a barb can get from the non-unique shields is 69%. The options for this are the tower shield (and its exceptional and elite variants, the pavise and aegis), the elilte large shield (hyperion) and the elite gothic shield (ward). Any of those shield with the "of deflecting" mod will get the 69% base chance. One step down from those would be the elite buckler (heater) and the elite kite shield (monarch). Both of them would get 67% with the "of deflecting" modifier. The elite spiked shield (blade barrier), the elite small shield (luna) and bone shields (including the exceptional and elite variants, grim and troll nest) can acheive 65% max block with the "of deflecting" mod. If you aren't using one of them on this list, then a switch is definitely in order to save you some dex points.