Warrior General Games

I think it is pointless to make a pancaking FB with tons of strength as most would agree, but do you think going with like 70str/65agil/80block would be more effective in terms of all the FB really needs to do it get to the second level and hold his block.

Does blocking contribute more to holding a block than his str/agi versus the opponents str/agil?

That build is fail, for a blocking FB.

The game has evolved. In order of importance...

#1 Agility
#2 Speed
#3 Strength
#4 Blocking
#5 Vision

You only need a decent level of strength and blocking. Agility is your most important attribute as a blocking FB, speed/strength/blocking is close behind.

A perfect blocking FB build IMHO is...

73 agility
68 speed
68 strength
68 blocking
60 vision
49 stamina
49 confidence

With EQ and leveling increases...

90 agility
80 speed
82 strength
70 blocking
60 vision
50 stamina
50 confidence

These numbers are what you'd aim for, probably attaining most of them by level 50. You'd still be training confidence and stamina, they'd probably be in the high 30's or low 40's. Then you round out your SAs and VAs and you have a blocking beast.

Neg. If you know how to build, you can build a STRONG and AGILE FB with plenty of speed by the late 20's early 30's. I'm proving that right now with my current build. Does it have vision? No. But that is the final addition. By the time you can even work on vision, the auto level gains are so minute you're better off just going onto speed.

My guy currenty has 90 str/63 blk/50agi @ lvl 20.

Originally posted by Warlock
That build is fail, for a blocking FB.

The game has evolved. In order of importance...

#1 Agility
#2 Speed
#3 Strength
#4 Blocking
#5 Vision

You only need a decent level of strength and blocking. Agility is your most important attribute as a blocking FB, speed/strength/blocking is close behind.

A perfect blocking FB build IMHO is...

73 agility
68 speed
68 strength
68 blocking
60 vision
49 stamina
49 confidence

With EQ and leveling increases...

90 agility
80 speed
82 strength
70 blocking
60 vision
50 stamina
50 confidence

These numbers are what you'd aim for, probably attaining most of them by level 50. You'd still be training confidence and stamina, they'd probably be in the high 30's or low 40's. Then you round out your SAs and VAs and you have a blocking beast.

I agree with most of those points...but just want to say, that's a high 40s build, if not 50.

Yeah, I somehow skipped the middle of that and somehow thought it was "probably attaining in the high 30s or low 40s", not "that's where stamina and confidence are".

Originally posted by misled
Neg. If you know how to build, you can build a STRONG and AGILE FB with plenty of speed by the late 20's early 30's. I'm proving that right now with my current build. Does it have vision? No. But that is the final addition. By the time you can even work on vision, the auto level gains are so minute you're better off just going onto speed.

My guy currenty has 90 str/63 blk/50agi @ lvl 20.

Meh. This is fail, imo. Speed for a FB gets a big fat ZERO in terms of natural gains. Therefore, it should be the last attribute that a blocking FB builds up, so as to get as much out of the natural gains on the other attributes as possible.

And for a blocking FB, speed is absolutely NOT more important than strength.

There is a TON of bad advice floating around about blocking FBs. And people wonder why there's no good ones out there. Because knuckleheads are telling people that speed > strength for a pure blocking FB.

Originally posted by YOM77
Meh. This is fail, imo. Speed for a FB gets a big fat ZERO in terms of natural gains. Therefore, it should be the last attribute that a blocking FB builds up, so as to get as much out of the natural gains on the other attributes as possible.

And for a blocking FB, speed is absolutely NOT more important than strength.

There is a TON of bad advice floating around about blocking FBs. And people wonder why there's no good ones out there. Because knuckleheads are telling people that speed > strength for a pure blocking FB.

A blocking FB needs speed, agility, strength and blocking (vision is in the equation, but it doesn't need to be super high). All are very important, but agility is slightly more important than the rest. If speed isn't adequate, you can forget outside runs... agility only does so much.

The trick to a well built blocking FB, is a nice balance of their key attributes. You want agility as high as possible without hurting your other attributes. You want strength, blocking and speed all relatively high. Lastly you want a decent level of vision and the right hodge-podge of SAs/VAs. Tah-dah, you now have a very good blocking FB.

You want to build a blocking FB almost like you would a pulling G or pass blocking OT... which is great maneuverability with good blocking ability.

Originally posted by Warlock
Originally posted by YOM77

Meh. This is fail, imo. Speed for a FB gets a big fat ZERO in terms of natural gains. Therefore, it should be the last attribute that a blocking FB builds up, so as to get as much out of the natural gains on the other attributes as possible.

And for a blocking FB, speed is absolutely NOT more important than strength.

There is a TON of bad advice floating around about blocking FBs. And people wonder why there's no good ones out there. Because knuckleheads are telling people that speed > strength for a pure blocking FB.

A blocking FB needs speed, agility, strength and blocking (vision is in the equation, but it doesn't need to be super high). All are very important, but agility is slightly more important than the rest. If speed isn't adequate, you can forget outside runs... agility only does so much.

The trick to a well built blocking FB, is a nice balance of their key attributes. You want agility as high as possible without hurting your other attributes. You want strength, blocking and speed all relatively high. Lastly you want a decent level of vision and the right hodge-podge of SAs/VAs. Tah-dah, you now have a very good blocking FB.

You want to build a blocking FB almost like you would a pulling G or pass blocking OT... which is great maneuverability with good blocking ability.

For the most part, I concur with your post. Agility is VERY important, and I'd never suggest otherwise. Once I triple capped strength and blocking, I went to agility, which is currently 1 point away from being triple capped itself. Then I went vision to soft cap. The reason I did all of this before speed is because of the natural gains. You simply MUST cap your attributes that get natural gains before anything else, or your build will fail. For whatever reason, FB's get zero gains on speed with leveling, therefore it simply MUST be the last thing you touch.

And, even with speed being the LAST thing I touched on my build, I still have it over 50 and climbing, which isn't terrible at my level, considering how I've built up the other attributes.

In conclusion, here's my matrix of important attributes for FB building, primarily slow-building:

Strength>Blocking>Agility>Vision>Speed>Confidence>Stamina

SA's: Lead Block to the max

I also have Get Low and Run Block AEQ SA's, fully upgraded.

Originally posted by YOM77
For the most part, I concur with your post. Agility is VERY important, and I'd never suggest otherwise. Once I triple capped strength and blocking, I went to agility, which is currently 1 point away from being triple capped itself. Then I went vision to soft cap. The reason I did all of this before speed is because of the natural gains. You simply MUST cap your attributes that get natural gains before anything else, or your build will fail. For whatever reason, FB's get zero gains on speed with leveling, therefore it simply MUST be the last thing you touch.

And, even with speed being the LAST thing I touched on my build, I still have it over 50 and climbing, which isn't terrible at my level, considering how I've built up the other attributes.

In conclusion, here's my matrix of important attributes for FB building, primarily slow-building:

Strength>Blocking>Agility>Vision>Speed>Confidence>Stamina

SA's: Lead Block to the max

I also have Get Low and Run Block AEQ SA's, fully upgraded.

Well that's a build philosophy, not so much a FB philosophy. The longer you wait on speed, the longer it takes to peak and be a good player... thus it's a preference thing. Personally, I would build almost exactly like you would, but in terms of usefulness... speed is probably the 2nd most important attribute for a blocking FB (not much more important than strength or blocking but slightly).

Strength doesn't need to be super high, because you rarely have to block high strength players. Blocking doesn't have to be super high, because you rarely have to block for a long period of time. There is no block, if you cannot get into position in time... God forbid you are blocking for a speed/elusive back... you'll need speed over 80 at a minimum.

Originally posted by Warlock

Strength doesn't need to be super high, because you rarely have to block high strength players. Blocking doesn't have to be super high, because you rarely have to block for a long period of time. There is no block, if you cannot get into position in time... God forbid you are blocking for a speed/elusive back... you'll need speed over 80 at a minimum.

this is truth. speed back on my team. hard to stay in front of.

Originally posted by blocktoberfest
Originally posted by Warlock


Strength doesn't need to be super high, because you rarely have to block high strength players. Blocking doesn't have to be super high, because you rarely have to block for a long period of time. There is no block, if you cannot get into position in time... God forbid you are blocking for a speed/elusive back... you'll need speed over 80 at a minimum.

this is truth. speed back on my team. hard to stay in front of.



Definitely. A speed back running inside means that even an 80ish speed fullback is useless. A speed back running outside, you should have outside blocker, and you're good.
High strength is very useful on the rare occaision that the NT breaks through and you have to pick him up. But when its rare to find a linebacker with strength over 70, why do you need strength at 90?

Speed is what equipment is for.

Originally posted by pottsman
Originally posted by blocktoberfest

Originally posted by Warlock



Strength doesn't need to be super high, because you rarely have to block high strength players. Blocking doesn't have to be super high, because you rarely have to block for a long period of time. There is no block, if you cannot get into position in time... God forbid you are blocking for a speed/elusive back... you'll need speed over 80 at a minimum.

this is truth. speed back on my team. hard to stay in front of.



Definitely. A speed back running inside means that even an 80ish speed fullback is useless. A speed back running outside, you should have outside blocker, and you're good.
High strength is very useful on the rare occaision that the NT breaks through and you have to pick him up. But when its rare to find a linebacker with strength over 70, why do you need strength at 90?

I raise the BS flag on this one.

It USED to be rare to find a LB with 70 strength. But since the Power Back fiasco, LB's are pumping strength with tenacity. LB's are packing 70 strength now.

Originally posted by pottsman
Definitely. A speed back running inside means that even an 80ish speed fullback is useless. A speed back running outside, you should have outside blocker, and you're good.
High strength is very useful on the rare occaision that the NT breaks through and you have to pick him up. But when its rare to find a linebacker with strength over 70, why do you need strength at 90?

Agility (acceleration) is more important when lead blocking on inside runs, but you need some speed still. "Outside Blocker" isn't going to save a slow FB on outside runs. Blocking is all about positioning, positioning is all about maneuverability and maneuverability is all about speed/agility.

Most everything in this game is based on contested rolls. This means that there is no magic number to handle every situation. Some people like to go extreme builds to dominate one particular facet of the game, this works well as long as the game planning can put them in that particular situation more often than not.

My FB could be a break tackle God, but what good does a broken tackle do me if I'm not fast enough to gain any yardage before eventually being overwhelmed? Same logic applies to pancakes... the trick is to find that balance where you can perform your primary job and occasionally do something special given the right circumstances (I.E. execute a pancake block and pick up a second defender or break a tackle for a big gain). I'd rather consistently perform than show flashes of brilliance on occasion.