Return of Reckoning

What makes you think going full investment for ether dance should reward you with utility? You dont have to go for ether dance you know. Theres plenty of utility available to 2h or s&b, why should you get it all?

Because all the other tanks retain huge amounts of CC and utility when offensively specced, why should the SM have nothing? IB for example has all the useful buffs (crit, parry), armour debuff, knockdown, ST punt and aoe snare all in a 2hander offensive spec, that is only marginally less damage than an ED SM. The SM has to sacrifice both survivability and utility to spec offensively, the other tanks only have to sacrifice survivability.

We have (should have) at 13 - Ether dance - good ability, Crashing wave - good ability, whispering winds - good ability

Just because an ability is good doesn't mean it has to occupy the 13th spot (cull the weak, pounce, shatter limbs etc etc etc) The ability effect itself self isn't what makes it a good ability, its how the ability effect interacts and synergizes with the spec, resulting rotations, class mechanics and group setup

and what makes you think BO should have a KD, WITH utility at 13 while SM have a KD WITH utility at 9? No other tank KD at 9 has utility built into it, its only the 13 pointers.

Are you saying 4 seconds of KD/silence immunity justifies an ability to be at the 13 spot and thus should be prevented from being used in any spec with ED or WW in it? If so, then it would be preferable to remove the 4 seconds of unstoppable, and keep it at 9


I appreciate this is your game, and you're free to do what you like with it. My concern is that unless there are changes the SM will be dead after a few more gear sets are released, just like live - due to the poor scaling of tactics and blurring shock, increases in resistances/wounds.

(Edited the quotes as I guess my formatting wasnt inline with forum ettiquette)

SM mid tree is certainly meh. Regarding the OP suggestion, I'd say increase the block to 15%, armor doesnt matter because armor pot anyway - so could remove that altogether; change effect duration to 10 sec.
However I'd also suggest adding extra juicy benefit to the ability: Party members within 20 feet gain 200 moral. (or 150 if too much? )
I'd keep Shield requirement for the ability, and then increase ability CD from 10s to 15sec so it might not be too easy to pump a party full of moral.

It would help SM get some utility apart from being just a WWspambot or 3rd mdps in party.
The moral pump would be hard to minmax due to close range requirement, but also because SM needs shield, and increased CD to 15 sec makes it still harder to reach the most desired morals. Possibly also consider that WW doesnt affect the CD of this ability so you can get max 800 moral per min from SM out.


edit: not sure if the interrupt matters so if it should stay or not. you can always taunt interrupt so don't see reason for this ability to keep it in case it gets buffed otherwise.

You pick up CA for the interrupt. Everything else is secondary/flash.

The interrupt component is not worth, IMHO u need to Sudden shift first and if is on cd u need a gcd making very hard to use it on right time, and of course u have to be in melee so u can't really use it to interrupt the good stuff.

The interrupt is worth it, IF your specc'd for deft tard. If your not deft tard, obviously the interrupt isn't worth it.

If your going deft tard, likely your going to pick up Vaul's buffer tactic. Which means CA is only a single spec point to your build... Your not going into vaul for CA. Your going into vaul for other reason's and you'll have even more reason's to go deep into vaul if CW is moved back to 13 point.

RoR's community got used to CW being 9 point when it probably should have never been moved down to 9 point. CW being 13 point and CA being 9 point is correct due to the power level of those abilities.

footpatrol2 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:15 pm CW being 13 point and CA being 9 point is correct due to the power level of those abilities.

Abilities are not, and should not, be placed in the trees based on their individual strength alone. Their position should be based on what other mastery abilities or tactics they can take with it, and have access to in one particular spec.

Pounce and Forced Opportunity are below Whirling Axe. Impending Doom is below Shades of Death etc etc etc etc

Technically CW and CA are out of sync in a couple of ways. Look at Khaine: speccable abilities normal balance --> improved balance --> perfect balance. Hoeth: normal balance --> perfect balance. And to Torque's point, all of the tank knockdowns that have no utility are placed at 9pts on the tree; the ones with utility were/are at 13 points: Cave-In (IB) = 9pt, Smashing Counter (kotbs) = 9pt, Downfall (cho) = 9pt, Get Down (BG) = 9pt, Down Ya Go (BO) = 13pt (grants cd decreaser for group). SM is the exception to this standard, as it stands currently.

What about making CA into a group wide buff (30 feet range or something because tanks not a ranged buffer) - but instead of silly armor buff that doesnt matter because pots it becomes a Fortitude buff for nearby party members. Say 120-180 range or something? 10 sec duration, 20 sec CD? And maybe buff self Block or not, not sure. (but 5% is laughable, should be 10% at least)
Midtree is supposed to be some sort of "tanky" tree but its overall meh-tier. Apart from eternal WWspam, SM has limited group utility still.

Fortitude because you already get toughness from knight or from IB, so SM becomes something that can give extra survival via different skill that still serves same purpose.

The interrupt hardly matters. You have Taunt for that without melee range requirement nor stance shifting need.