Sword Block
| “ | Reduces damage taken. Can be held indefinitely.
— Description
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The Sword Block is a Titan Defensive Ability that appears in Titanfall 2.[1] It is used by the class Ronin.
Ronin holds his sword up to block incoming enemy fire, reducing all incoming damage by 70%, except for melee attacks. The block can be held indefinitely, and can block damage from any direction, even behind the Ronin. This can be useful for crossing hostile terrain, waiting out an enemy's ability, escaping a bad situation, or dashing closer to an enemy.
Strategies
Sword Block is arguably Ronin's most powerful and useful ability. The damage reduction may not sound impressive at first, but reducing damage by 70% almost quadruples Ronin's effective health. Because it has no cooldown and infinite duration, it is often a good idea to hold up Sword Block at all times that Ronin isn't attacking, as doing so will massively increase Ronin's survivability.
Like most of Ronin's abilities, it becomes amped while Sword Core is active, increasing the damage resistance to 85%. This is actually one of Sword Core's most useful traits, as the damage reduction is so insanely high that Ronin is practically impossible to kill while both are active.
If Ronin is holding the Leadwall, if they crouch or un-crouch at the same exact time as Sword Block is activated, the block will be activated much more quickly (by 0.25 seconds). This makes the ability SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful, as makes quickly pulling up and down the sword much quicker.
Sword Block cannot block titan melee attacks, so don't bother using it against an opposing Ronin who's activated Sword Core.
Trivia
- While it absorbs enemy fire, Ronin will change the position of the sword to absorb all shots. This is just an animation though, Sword Block will still block shots from all directions, and block shots even if Ronin is being hit in 2 places at once.
- However, due to a bug, very specific parts of Ronin's body aren't protected. if we set the middle of Ronin's back to be 0 degrees, then from about 10 degrees to the left to 60 degrees to the right, the damage of some weapons has a chance to pierce through. While running away, slightly turning to the left can mitigate this. Additionally, the top of Ronin's toes can also be pierce through the block, as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNYOBooryHw.
- The ability allows Ronin to survive a nuclear ejection, given that they have close to full health.
- While using Phase Dash, exiting the alternate space while inside an enemy titan would normally kill a Ronin, but doing so while using Sword Block will cause the Ronin to take damage equal to about 30% of his current health instead. However, due to a bug, this trait is inconsistent and may still lead to the Ronin dying.
- Hitting Ronin's weak point while Sword Block is active will still deal increased damage when compared to normal hits (but the damage will still be reduced by 70%).
- Monarch's Energy Siphon will give the Monarch the same amount of shield regardless if the Ronin is using Sword Block or not. The extra damage that Energy Siphon deals to shielded targets and it's slowing effect also cannot be blocked by Sword Block.