Phalanx And Shield

Does anybody know the order that these are calculated? Is phalanx figured before a shield block or after the block?

Doesn't make a huge difference but i wanna know if blocks actually reduce the dmg mitigation properties of the spell.

Pretty sure they are calculated side-by-side, however most Phalanx + Shield Blocks result in a 0 anyways in my experience, so it might be hard to test.

Pretty sure phalanx is after as blocks are sorta like pdt except it is factored seperately to pdt

I'd assume Phalanx is factored last. You block the hit, take reduced damage, and Phalanx lowers the damage you take. Plus shields don't give 100% reduction, so deducting 28 from a number, and blocking 50% of it, still wouldnt be 0. Unless it was really low. I think I made that sound confusing.

Actually not only would that make it easier to test it in itself would be proof.

If phalanx without shield block would do dmg and then unless the dmg mitigitation would make it less than 1 you won't get 0 if shield was after.

Which pretty much means if you take more than say 7-8 dmg without block depending on shield and take 0 with block phalanx has to be after.

While if it was before say if you were taking 40 dmg before block and phalanx... no block with phalanx would be around 12 dmg. But say 50% dmg block first would reduce it to 20 then phalanx would take care of that and then some if it was later

Yeah on low stuff like campaign you may even need to cancel phalanx sometimes because anything that hits for 19 (say 19 dmg for pld 75s 210 enhnacing skill) or less will become 0 so you will get no tp from shield mastery.

Mnk type mobs attack less per hit so you are most likely to see 0 dmg on them.

Untrue. That applies if you have Stoneskin up, not Phalanx alone.

I can hit 0 dmg in campaign on rdm without stoneskin on alot of the mobs easy (especially mnk brd or pld types etc). Should be about as hard with pld even easier on blocks

i agree with this . My RDM with Genbu's and 300 Skill Phalanx /PLD will get 0 DMG blocks w/o SS .
I would think tho Phalanx is factored First since when fighting DC and EM MNK type mobs with Phalanx up and Genbu's (possibly a factor ) they regularly hit for 0 dmg . Casting SS on same mobs , i have seen SS time out before being used up (its kinda hard to tell tho), which lead me to believe that Phalanx DMG redux is factored first before SS or Shield Blocks .

All that proves is that it is before stoneskin which is 100% true. Only thing that seems to come after stoneskin is manawall. It proves nothing about it being before or after blocking

I'm just saying that if the DMG Redux from Phalanx is factored before SS , if it can be proven that Shield blocks are also facotred before SS , then its probable that Phalanx comes before Shield . Would seem kinda hard tho lol .
IMHO , if you have Phalanx up and block with your shield which negates DMG that otherwise would be 1+ dmg w/o SS then what difference does it make what get factored first . DMG negation w/o the use of SS is pretty pimp . thats just me tho lol .

Shield is before stoneskin. Stoneskin is last unless you have manawall. But yeah just proving shield is before phalanx again doesn't say anything about about the relationship between shield and phalanx other then they are both before stoneskin.

The best and probably only way to test phalanx and shield is to get your dmg without shield blocks but with phalanx to say at least 10 but usually less than say 30ish. Or you could calculate dmg and such

If shield blocks get you to 0s then phalanx is after shield. If you still take dmg then phalanx is before shield.

cool, thanks alot guys for sating my cuiriosity. :D

Shield > phalanx > stoneskin (> manawall). If shield and phalanx were the other way around, then phalanx would make next to no difference on shield blocks. It would be the difference between blocking an attack that would normally do 100, or reducing that initial attack to 81.

If I'm reading wiki right, shields alone cannot drop an attack to 0 (unless, perhaps, the attack is already in single figures) as it blocks a PERCENT of the total damage you would have received, not a fixed number. So even if you can reduce the damage of the attack to 10 before calculating shield block, and even if your shield blocks 90% of the damage, the mob would still hit you for 1.

What I would like to know now though, is where in the equation pdt-% gear comes in. At a guess, I'd say it's before shield, because again, it's a percent based amount rather than a fixed number, putting it in after the shield would not give a true value, as the amount of damage you're taking would be calculated before shield/phalanx/stoneskin are applied.

So, I'd say it's DEF > pdt-% > shield > phalanx > stoneskin.

I'm not sure it's even possible to prove if pdt is before or after shield if they are right next to each other like they most likely are.

I mean pdt and shield more or less do the same thing.

Actually it would be quite simple to test. Since shield is %age based, and pdt- is also obviously %age based, they will only be able to reduce an attack to 0 if working "side-by-side" as you suggested.

So, if one is applied before the other, an attack of 100, with -90% in pdt gear would reduce it to 10, and then a shield block that reduces damage by 90% would reduce it to 1. However, if the two are simply added together, as wiki suggests that shield blocks work very similarly to pdt, then they could easily add up to over 100%, which would reduce the attack to 0.

Oh I meant like proving which is applied first not if they are at the same time.

But yeah they definitely aren't at the same time. Otherwise it you could get 100% dmg reduction with most shields including ones that have really high block rates. And well you don't see people blood tanking everything

Well, this is where I can't comment any more, my PLD is level 37. I'd assume the major flaw in the blood tanking plan is the block rate on shields, which supposedly caps at 65%. Even with an Aegis and capped (including gear) shield skill, I don't think you're going to get anywhere near that number on NM's or IT mobs. So even if pdt+shield blocks DOES reduce damage to 0 (which, I think you're right, and it doesn't), you're still going to get hit a whole bunch of times where shield block doesn't proc.

I'd assume they're simultaneous. Using regular sentinel will show zero damage when you block (at least what I recall). They're both percentiles on the final damage you take, would be odd to calculate them seperate when the result will always be the same.

Shield procs are a myth.

Sentinel can get you 0s by itself. And sentinel is factored seperately from pdt.

It is PDT though. It's only 100% with AF2 feet, 90% otherwise (drops % every few seconds). So without PDT gear, and blocking, I'd figure it'd be the same calculation.