Block perks are genuinely underrated and nobody builds around them right

[DragonbornVet]

I keep seeing people skip Block entirely or dump a few perks in and move on, but I just finished a run where I actually committed to the tree and it's night and day. Not talking about shield bashing everything - I mean the actual defensive scaling.

The perk that reduces incoming damage while blocking is stupid good if you layer it with Conditioning and heavy armor perks. I was tanking dragon breath at level 35 that should've deleted me. And the one that staggers attackers who hit your shield? Completely changes how you handle groups because enemies actually have to respect your positioning instead of just swarming.

Thing is, you have to build INTO it. If you're just blocking passively while you spam power attacks, yeah it's dead weight. But if you're actually using block as your primary defense mechanic - like, blocking more than attacking - the tree pays for itself stupid fast. Especially on higher difficulties where you can't just out-damage everything.

Anyone else actually invest in Block past the first few perks, or am I the only one who realized it's not a dump stat?

 

[TamrielTactician]

I've done a couple runs where I actually committed to block and yeah, you're onto something. The damage reduction perk stacks way harder than people think, especially once you get the one that boosts it further - suddenly you're not just soaking hits, you're actually mitigating them in a way that lets you play defensively without feeling like you're gimping yourself.

That said, I think the real issue is that Skyrim's combat doesn't really reward pure defense the way you're describing. Like, blocking is good, but it's good as a utility - you use it to reposition, tank a dragon shout, let your stamina regen. The moment you start blocking more than attacking, you're kind of playing a different game than what Skyrim's designed around. On Adept or lower it doesn't matter because nothing hits hard enough to care, and on Legendary... I dunno, I found myself just using block to buy time to land power attacks or bash, not as the primary damage prevention.

The staggers-on-block thing is legit though. That one actually changes enemy behavior in groups, which is cool. But I'd argue that's more about the perks being functional than underrated - people skip block because they're used to just kiting or power attacking through encounters, not because the tree is secretly broken.

What difficulty are you playing on? I'm curious if that's the main difference, because my experience on Legendary felt like block was still support, not the main event.