I’ve noticed that after getting back into the game, the critical blocked animation is no longer showing, I was helping a friend quest through Avalon, and I was getting Crit on constantly by the mobs and bosses, during that time we were questing, my wizard had around 400 block across all schools, I understand how the new system works because I decided to read up on it and I know it has changed, I can still see that enemies have a chance to block, but wizards don’t? To my understanding, it might just be a visual bug. But I thought I’d post this to see if other people are experiencing the issue.
The current critical system is rather complex and I would be glad to help clarify the way that it functions for you.
The current critical system is designed such that when the caster crits on a target (whether it's wizard versus enemy or enemy vs wizard), they have a high likelihood of the crit "going through," for a lack of a better phrase. As a player, you will notice that when you hover over a damage spell in your hand, you will see critical UI above each enemy that shows your chance to critical, the critical multiplier, and the target's chance to block IF they get crit on. In my experience as a player, I have never seen a target's chance to block IF they get crit on be higher than 8-9%. This is a very small chance.
As wizards, we have a chance to block as well and enemies crit a certain multiplier onto us when we get crit on. We don't know any enemy's critical rating, but, as wizards, we know that having higher block is beneficial because it reduces the multiplier of critical damage dealt on us when enemies crit on us and the crit goes through.
An important thing to note in regards to AoE hits and heals: If the caster crits an AoE hit, this does not necessarily mean that every target got crit on. This could be the case, but it is possible that the caster crit on only one or some targets. This same logic applies to AoE heals.
Hopefully this clarifies some things, however, please feel free to ask additional questions if you need any more clarification.