Can Physical Spell Damage be Blocked?

Is the damage from physical spell damage blocked to some degree with a shield?

If not... then it probably should be...

Death prophets ulti for example, glass cannon types of heroes whether nukers or right click carries need some way to block that damage because percentage based methods of defending against it make no sense when you have a lower life pool....

Sure, there is an option against DP's ulti and that is blade mail...

But that option might not work against a hero like witch doctor whos physical spell damage is being sprayed by an entity that is apparently separate from himself and therefor not even a blade mail would work.

Therefor, a crimson guard cast to protect glass cannons or nukers would be the proper counter to an ulti, particularly someone like witch doctor

From the Wiki

You can avoid the damage completely with Ghost Scepter.

Just make Witch Doctor's ult reflected by Blade Mail (both initial damage and bounces). There's no reason at all for it not to be. It's nothing like Shadow Shaman's wards, Nether Ward or Techies' mines, where the damage is done by a separate entity independent from the hero - WD is completely tied to his ward and it can't exist without him nearby channeling, so it's actually the hero who's dealing the damage not some external unit. Besides the hero needs a nerf, badly - he was buffed for no reason at all despite being a tier A pick already. A BKB-piercing massive damage ult with no cooldown and no counters is way too strong anyways.

No counters except, y'know, one of the many many stuns in Dota, or moving away from it, or getting an armour aura, or killing the bastard cause he's really squishy. **** the cask though.

Amen my friend. Too many times I have played TB and was forced to buy a BKB coz the cask would **** me and my illusions.

Now it just ****s my illusions.


NERF CASK VOLVO.

Actually, my bad, Death Ward was actually nerfed this patch. I noticed it when reading the wiki, in fact his Aghanim's Scepter deals significantly less damage at levels 1 and 2, while his ult at level 2 without Aghs deals a bit more damage. At level 3 without aghs it's actually worse (deals a bit more damage but no longer bounces twice), but at level 3 with aghs it's exactly the same.
So essentially people who rush aghs deal less damage before they hit level 16, and people who don't rush aghs and go glimmer, BKB or something deal more damage at level 11 but no longer have the bouncing attack at level 16.
(the 6.85 update page was pretty unclear)

But no, WD ult doesn't have "easy" counters, if you go stun him then sure you can interrupt it but you'll still need a few seconds to do that, because obviously he's hiding in the trees or hiding under his imba cape. And then you just used massive efforts to focus a support first, still took damage from his ult, while making light years of space for the carries to wreck your face (which is what WD does at his best, making space...his laning stage is insanely good for example). Moving away from it, sure if you can coordinate your pub team (lol), but then you'll still have 'lost' the fight, besides that thing has no cooldown so unlike what you do to disengage from Exorcism or Guardian Angel...you can't do this every engagement (even for those ults it's pretty costly to kite them because you have to commit the entire team to do it). Armor auras reduce the damage by ~10% tops...the only real reduction you have is with Butterfly, Ghost Scepter or Solar Crest.
It's just, considering the laning stage the hero has (infinite heal + highest base damage ever + cask being stupid), and his roaming potential once he hits 6...when you compare what WD does in a teamfight and what Silencer does in a teamfight, you see there's some kind of major problem with the cooldown on his ult :)
I mean seriously just look at Zaop in inhouses. Or at any decent support player in competitive carrying his feeding carry and mid with his position 4/5 WD. No the real way to counter him reliably is to counterpick with Silencer, Omniknight, Faceless Void or something...and then your ult still has almost twice the cooldown of his.
And yes cask is completely unfair, screw this skill.

Ghost scepter would be the best trick In my opinion.