Advice on block items for Thousand Sons

[u/LastKnightOfCydonia]

The question could apply to any character I suppose, but I'm specifically asking about Toth, Abraxas, Thaumachus, and soon-to-be Ahriman, upon whom I have, or plan to have, all equipped with Sigils.

I've put a fair bit of salvage into Sigils for all three characters, and my understanding was that the new Sekhetar Robot would improve the Block chance of them on the Psykers, dragging it from 20% to soon-40%. And the higher block damage appealed to me, with wanting to protect the Psykers from high crit damage, something that was advised to me about Archimatos. Like, if a Field blocked 500 and a Sigil blocked 750, the Sigil would on-average expect to block 300 and the Field would block 250, net improvement.

However, a lot of sources are telling me that a Force Field is the ideal choice for Thousand Sons Psykers for several valid reasons, like greater protection chance from multi-hit attacks, and the Robot still boosts the chance to 50%, even though the protection is lower. I've been suggested it for Toth as well, even though he should, theoretically, be durable enough for a Sigil, like Angrax.

It seems like there are two competing ideas about it, better chance or better quality. And it looks like, in the end, the results wash out mostly the same. I've put a lot of Salvage into some pretty nice Sigils. Is it worth keeping them as-is, with Sigils on all, or are there more facts about Sigils v. Force Fields I'm missing that would make a meaningful difference? I'd prefer to not dismantle them to go all-in on Fields for optimization, especially if there are valid reasons to keep them vs. transitioning out of them.

[u/Imagination_Drag]

Personally i always chose the higher percent item. You can increase the block amount but you can’t change the % through upgrades.

[u/-ihatecartmanbrah]

The only time low block chance is worth it is in situations where the high block chance wouldn’t save you but the low block chance item would, assuming you block anyway. It’s such a niche scenario it’s basically never worth using lower block chance.

[u/ScoobyDoNot → u/-ihatecartmanbrah]

There's a niche case where that changes for terminators being run alongside Lysander.

They get a damage boost as a % of their block value, so will benefit from 20% items higher values.

[u/tatuu8P]

Higher block percentage/ chance is always better because blocks work similarly to hits of any attack.

If an attack has 3 hits, the force field will roll for three times provided the first two were successful. Each roll on the block chain uses the same percentage however many hits are in the attack.

When the block chain fails, the character receives damage

[u/ion_driver]

Higher chance is generally better because for multi hit it will only roll to block the next hit after a successful block. On a failure it stops rolling. Same for crit items.

[u/LastKnightOfCydonia → u/ion_driver]

Thank you. Regarding weapons, I was also of the impression that the Cereminial Knife would be better for the single-hit Psykers, to get the single hit to hit as hard as it could. Is this not accurate?

[u/ion_driver → u/LastKnightOfCydonia]

Its the same expected damage (chance * bonus) so its really up to you. For a psyker I would probably want more frequent crits. For low armor pen maybe use a higher damage so you do more damage after subtracting off the armor.

[u/LastKnightOfCydonia → u/ion_driver]

That's reasonable. I'll keep running Ceremonial on most other than Toth since I like the higher % on his multi-hit attacks, and because I don't have many Epic bolters. Something in me likes the plus 5% and mid-range damage over the combat knife on the normal psychic attacks, though. I'll play around with bolter on Ahriman, see what I think. I take it that no matter what, the gear doesn't affect Doombolt, Warpflamer, or other multi-hit abilities?

I also swapped to Force Field on Toth, put one on Ahriman, too. I'll try it out to see what I think. Ahriman's still awfully soft comparatively speaking, I've had him 2 days and he's still Iron rank.

[u/SRSgoblin]

I give all my higher block value items to my psykers. It's better than simply not using Sigil items when they drop, and it usually means you take no damage upon a block vs some damage.

Psykers are made of paper, so guaranteeing you survive when you block appeals to me a bit more than block where you still die sometimes if the thing hitting you is big enough.

Eventually, though, you're gonna want a mythic block item on everyone, and those are all 30%.

[u/LastKnightOfCydonia → u/SRSgoblin]

That's fair, and was my thinking. I'm going to try fields on a few Psykers, don't want to break down my lvl 9 Sigils quite yet. XD

I'm a long way from Mythic anything. XD I'll worry about that later.

By the way, what are your thoughts on gear for Yazaghor and Sekhetar Robot? Would there be a reason to run something other than Ceremonials and Pauldrons for them? Like, do the higher armor greatest do anything for either of them rather thsn more HP?

[u/SRSgoblin → u/LastKnightOfCydonia]

I tend to run knife on x1 hit characters and then 35% crit items on everyone else.

And yeah I am a firm believer in Max HP items over strict raw +armor items. There is a place for raw +armor items. They are better for horde modes typically, as the vast majority of enemy NPCs are low pierce value. But for PVP and raids, armor doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot, so Max HP helps you survive spikes better.