I said no block.

Wouldnt bother with half block. in my opinion its all block or no block.

I did not know that vampires walk or run at the same speed, that makes the block seem way more worth it. Are you sure about the fbr? I’ll look it up as well. Those two points make block seem totally worth it for trangs

Agreed

Additional question: Does the Fire Mastery from Trang's effect the fire damage in Corpse Explosion? After a short search I only found a bunch of conflicting answers so I thought I'd ask here, but I will also research it more heavily later tonight.

And about Vampires not having block frames, it looks like this info is true. Since they do not have a block animation, they use FHR breakpoints as their block animation. The breakpoints look like this, starting at 15 frames with 0% fhr, ending at 6 frames with 117% fhr:
Vampire 0 2 6 10 16 24 34 48 72 117


So stacking FHR on a Trang's nec has double benefits. Also it means that between blocking at 75%, and having a smaller life pool when I don't block, I'd be in FHR animation quite a lot if I planned to get into the thick of things.

I'm really enjoying the fact that Trang's necros have the exact same FRW speed while either walking or running, and that they use FHR as FBR. Those both make me really want to go full block. The only thing is, to avoid going into FHR animation all the time, I'd have to hide behind my minions... and if I was doing that, I may as well have no block anyways? But the block is certainly added safety, it could be seen as like an insurance policy in longevity. Considering I'm going to be doing an absolute shitload of Pit runs to find a Dweb, I guess the chances of accidentally walking around the corner into a Mighted archer pack at some point are pretty high. I'm really leaning towards max block at this point, but at the same time I will have to wait and see my life values when I have my gear. If going max block means I have like 900 life or something, definitely not going to do it. We shall see!!

Thanks for info and opinions everyone.

Walking with max movement speed op stuff. FHR doubledip also very nice, but I wouldn't go block still. Walking around the corner and getting rekt by archers scenario wont really happen as a necro, especially with revive + golem + merc.

Have you ever MF'd for 6+ hours straight? I'm sure you have, so you probably know that after the first 3-4 hours we aren't always our most "alert" ... at least I'm not haha ... After a certain point, I'm pretty much just running and spamming skills with glazed over eyes/zoned-out stare into the abyss. This is why, for me at least, I'm sure that eventually I would run right into a barrage of arrows. I feel like with 100% alert/cautious play the block is completely not needed. But being realistic about my gameplay faults and tendencies, I may need it.

Yeah I know what you mean, but with summons you really have to zone out for like 1 year without reacting.

Yeah I think I would have about 10 revives (but no skellies) assuming I actually keep them up. Never underestimate my laziness.

Definitely going to have to think about it. I feel it's crazy not to take advantage of the FRW thing and the FHR/FBR thing! I'm only in A1 NM with no Trang's parts at all, so I have quite some time to decide, thanks for your input

haha yeah, the FHR and FRW stuff is actually amazing.

To answer my own question, although I have found a ton of conflicting opinions/comments throughout a few forums, with the consensus being that FM does help CE.... I found this one the Amazon Basin Wiki, which I consider to be practically the best source of knowledge for D2 after Quorra (d2jsp user):
-Considered a Fire Skill, but +% Fire Skill Damage from items and Fire Mastery does not apply to its fire damage. [3] [4]

So I'm going to go ahead and take the Amazon Basins thoughts on the matter. Not like it changes my build at all anyways, I was just curious.

This post was edited by Belarathon on Apr 17 2018 11:28pm