Ironbreaker warband improvements

[zakgrin]

Hi all,

Something I've noticed since I started playing RoR is that healers and especially dps are the loudest individuals on the forum. They are constantly advocating for changes to their respective classes, and I don't really see that with tanks. As you all know, IBs are not in a good place and haven't gotten any love in a very long time. IBs still have a place in small scale, but in anything bigger, there are almost always better alternatives. Most Order premades aren't taking anymore than 1 IB into city.

So basically the whole point of this thread is to facilitate discussion on what could be done to improve IBs in warband play, create a well thought out list of potential changes, and then to ship them over to the balance forums. I'm not expecting anything to come of it, but I want to give it a try. As people submit feedback, I will update the OP to reflect that feedback. Our chances of success will go up greatly if we work with fellow BGs to put out our balance proposals in tandem, as buffs/changes should occur on both sides.

My perspective on IBs...
IBs are without a doubt the hardest tank to play effectively in the game. There are a gazillion situational abilities and tons of buttons you are going to be pressing. IBs barely have any AoE. All of their buffs and debuffs are single target and have not been tweaked in a very long time. Some single target buffs are worse or equivalent to Knight Aura's that span the entire party. As far as cities go an S&B IB will have to manage a lot: following dps around so they don't die, smacking dps/healers with debuffs (especially punishing knock + kneecapper) when you have the chance, and constantly spreading oathfriend around the warband to give as many people your buffs as possible (the best buffs only last 10 seconds...). A 2h IB is a blast to play, can do decent damage, and does very well in small scale, but shouldn't see the same numbers as an equivalently geared BO or SM.

Here is my stab at some changes that I think would definitely help.

NOTE: We are in the brainstorming stage. Most of the stuff you will see below will not actually make it into the official proposal.

Problems

• Every buff/debuff is single target. To spread buffs around you must first switch your oathfriend.

• Many of the Knight aura's (if they choose to run them) are basically equivalent to some IB buffs and have greater range. Most IB buffs go over 50 feet, auras are over 100.

• The buffs/debuffs are not strong enough.
  • Oathbound and Ancestory's fury are great but are only up for 10s meaning you can only buff a few at a time
  • Stubborn As Stone (corp), Vengeful Strike (toughness) are no better than Knights aura's which apply to the entire party
  • Guarded Attack (armor buff) isn't better than an armor pot
  • Runic shield is a single target shield with the same cooldown as protection of hoeth (group shield)
  • Stonebreaker (armor debuff) has not kept up with improved gear stats. With no points specced into Vengeance (dps tree) the armor debuff at 100 Grudges is 800, at 5 points (AF) it is 960, at 15 points (full dps) it is 1280. As far as I'm aware, this hasn't changed since Conqueror was the best gear set in the game. This is not good.

• There are a ton of terrible tactics/abilities that most IBs will never use. The Path of Stone tree (Tank tree) is the most heavily impacted tree.
  • Ability: Avenging The Debt
  • Ability: Oathstone
  • Ability: Shield Sweep
  • Ability: Guarded Attack
  • Ability: Vengeful Strike
  • Tactic: Oath of Vengeance
  • Tactic: Told Ya So!
  • Tactic: Overprotective

Potential Improvements
These improvements are in no particular order. Some are marginal improvements, others are bigger buffs. They are categorized based on the ability/tactic/idea they are focused on.

General buff improvements

• Increase the duration of Oathbound and Ancestory's Fury to 20s and the Grudges cost to 25 so we can have it applied on 2-3 targets at a time, and still have time to do other things such as fire off debuffs. - Zakgrin

• Increase the strength of our buffs in general and range through oathfriend to within 100 feet. If they are going to be single target, then they should be substantially better than Knight Aura's that apply to an entire party (and only require you to press W). Strength of a buff can be scaled based on whether or not IB is using 2h or s&b. Buffs performed while wearing a shield should be stronger than 2h buffs. Oathbound and Ancestor's Fury would not be included in this change. - Zakgrin

• Make single target IB buffs stack with potions/knights auras/prayers. Gives IB the opportunity to be tactical with who it gives its single target buffs. - Gryyw

• Increase duration of Oathfriend buffs to 20s. - Gryyw

Avenging The Debt

• Avenging the debt applies a debuff for some duration, and if the player dies while debuffed, restore X amount of health to yourself and oathfriend. Would require timing and decent skill. - jbrutal

• Avenging The Debt changed to having a 25% chance to heal yourself and oathfriend for "X" amount OR tie its buffs to lore. If Avenging the Debt is used on a Greenskin it has a 75% chance to heal yourself and your oathfriend OR apply a debuff and if the enemy is killed while having the debuff, they cannot be ressed for 10s. - Gryyw

• Grants a buff to you and oathfriend for 10 seconds, and any final blow in that time will heal you and your oathfriend for a significantly larger heal than it does now. - Ostabenny

Shield Sweep

• Tie Furious Reprisal tactic to Shield Sweep. This would allow us to hit up to 3 targets with a cooldown increaser, and have it work with our main class mechanic, Grudges. It would also make Shield Sweep useful, as it is an ability that should never be used in its current state. Shield of Reprisal, the current ability it procs off of, requires block. If you are attacking backlines/not in an AoE fire fight, you may not be blocking anything and won't be able to use an ability you wasted a tactic for. Assuming these changes occurred, this tactic should be swapped with Oath of Vengeance. - Zakgrin

• Tie shieldsweep to a tactic that gives us an AoE of one of the following: cooldown increaser, armor debuff, or silence. Furious Reprisal or Oath of Vengeance should be changed to represent this new effect, and should be moved to an appropriate spot in the tree. - Gryyw

• Shield sweep does not restore grudges, applies 5 second dot, increases targets chance to be critically hit. Move it into path of stone tree where Oathstone is. - Ramlaen

Shield of Reprisal

• Shield of Reprisal by default is a cooldown increaser instead of a KD. Furious Reprisal tactic can be freed up for something else. - Ramlaen

Oathstone

• Oathstone is pretty useless at this point. Instead of a damage reflect it could be changed to a status/debuff reflect such as a morale stopper or small damage debuff. - Gryyw

• Change Oathstone so that it is an AOE damage reflect. In a 10 second window, on block, reflects X (based off grudge) amount of to Y nearest players. Would go with lore of IBs being tough, angry dudes that shouldn't be messed with. Depending on how many players it reflected to, consider lowering damage reflected. - Zakgrin

• Reflect damage to offensive target instead of blocked attacker. - Ramlaen

• Extend Oathstones defensive guarantees to your Oath Friend - Nefarian78

Stonebreaker

• Stonebreaker - Reduce armor by a % rather than by a flat value. Increasing the flat value would destroy low geared players and squishes, but it has also not kept up with new gear. Changing it to a percentage based on Grudges would not likely require future balancing as new gear sets are added. - Gryyw

Furious Reprisal

• Now makes shield sweep knock down targets for 3 seconds. Order does not have an AoE knockdown. - Ramlaen

Oath of Vengeance

• Applies to all allies within 50ft - Ostabenny

Told Ya So!

• Change the Told Ya So! tactic to something useful (not really sure what it should be at this point but love to hear ideas). It is the top tactic in the right tree, and is far far worse than Knight's To Glory Aura at the bottom of their left tree... This tactic would be much more useful and would differentiate itself from To Glory if it procc'd off parry and effected all allies in 20+ feet similar to Oath of Vengeance. - Zakgrin

Would love to get feedback as well as hear others' suggestions!

[Charon]

To prove my point (im currently on break but i have long experience with all order tanks - main 83 rr SM, Knight rr 7X, IB rr6x, AoR 97 rr Knight )

Ohhh boy "IB" - its shame, but this class is definitely worst Order and i think ROR tank. Im sure you will find huge amount of people that will argue with that, but (taking into consideration what other tanks can do) whole IB effectiveness ends at 6man format and even there it "special" role is mostly limited to heal debuff and parry buff. In wb you may play as single slayer guard bot nothing more. Even previously strong side so roam and 1v1 currently is questionable (Volgograd time ended long ago).

I think Devs don't fix IB (and his low functionality in wb) bc his small scale role, but this approach is causing problem for whole realm - and is one of reason why "order lack tanks". In my opinion (im sure this perspective is more common) IB is only order tank that is interesting to play from aesthetic and lore perspective. Knight is plain and SM (my main) - ehh as a class is great but ugly like hell so even i "sm fanboy" use female model. This lead to situation where you may find above average number of weak/limited Ibs among even so limited group of order tanks especially on rvr. What is more may quickly cause disappointment and scare away, especially order new players, to try another more useful tank and help balance class distribution.

For long most lacking IB path is Stone. It pvp and rvr functionality ends with oathbound - so there are my propositions how to change that - simply - and increase Ib wb functionality.

Furious Reprisal tc - move to core.
Oath of Vengeance tc - move to 3pt tc slot. Additionally reconsider making it a tactic buff or allow staking with other toughens buffs and limit to shield spec.
Avenging the debt - should be at least 30ft cone with 5s cooldown or block requirement (may additionally gives another short debuff effect).
Shield Mastery tc - move to 9 pt slot.
At 13 pt slot pls reconsider again implementing a old tc that Azrael created years ago for 13 pt Hoeth path for SM (i don't remember correct name) that was giving similar effects like Marauder - Crushing Blows tc. In IB version this morale debuff may be changed to require successful block (for example 15-20% chances to remove 100pt of morale after block).

[jbrutal]

i think the main problem is our buffs should be stacking with other unique ones

but devs couldnt fix this without removing all buff stacking

i remember the early days there was this ''popular IB '' using 2 IB stacking oathfriend and similar buffs on itself and caused a nerf ''tinfoil hat off''. I think this player gave the wrong impression of the class making them look OP hence why we never received any work done

inspiring attack + ancestors fury - these too seem like they should stack

BG can stack a buff mainly terrifying foe tactic 45%+ toughness is huge imo

BG anger drives me 15% parry -shielded by hate 10% block - none shall pass increase block 50% amazing skill
thats 60% block and 15% parry in masterys alone compare to IB oathbound 25% parry 10% block with the 5% dmg taken

ib punt 10secs cd for 40yrds vs BG punt 20sec cd longest punt in game and scales with class resource our does not scale

Bg spamable aoe

BG is far superior by far every skill in BGs mastery tree is great compare to ib some are useless

IB outhbound 25% parry and 50 ini vs bg none shall pass 50%+ block reflect dmg back , BG one seems way better


oath of vengence - buff toughness ''20 feet'' of ur oathfriend - unless u got high points in Path of Stone toughness gets override by buff or kotbs buff

avenged the dept would be good if you didn't have to land the Killing blow with it - hows a tank suppose to do that

oathstone block 4 attacks reflect dmg back really good 1v1 terrible for wb not worth at all

furious reprisal makes cd longer for 5 secs if it was on shield sweep with the affect on aoe would be good

IB powered etchings 8 mastery points small knockback and slow its ok VS BG rank 2 morale away,cretins i much rather have the rank 2 morale personally

this is my opinion on IB WB tank not 2h IB i think 2h ib is fine and on par with Bg althought Bg scaled way better with crit


WTT 5 pc sov IB for vang BO hehehe jk


edit: i think the core design of the ib is to make yourself and oathfriend extremely tanky with our unique core buffs to stack upon others

kotbs buffs are auras ours are not they are for 10secs/20secs that we constantly have to keep applying. More than half our skills get over ridden by other buffs when they are not even the same, potion buffs/60min class buffs/auras compare to 10secs/20secs buff should not be in the same category

[zakgrin]

To prove my point (im currently on break but i have long experience with all order tanks - main 83 rr SM, Knight rr 7X, IB rr6x, AoR 97 rr Knight )

Ohhh boy "IB" - its shame, but this class is definitely worst Order and i think ROR tank. Im sure you will find huge amount of people that will argue with that, but (taking into consideration what other tanks can do) whole IB effectiveness ends at 6man format and even there it "special" role is mostly limited to heal debuff and parry buff. In wb you may play as single slayer guard bot nothing more. Even previously strong side so roam and 1v1 currently is questionable (Volgograd time ended long ago).

I think Devs don't fix IB (and his low functionality in wb) bc his small scale role, but this approach is causing problem for whole realm - and is one of reason why "order lack tanks". In my opinion (im sure this perspective is more common) IB is only order tank that is interesting to play from aesthetic and lore perspective. Knight is plain and SM (my main) - ehh as a class is great but ugly like hell so even i "sm fanboy" use female model. This lead to situation where you may find above average number of weak/limited Ibs among even so limited group of order tanks especially on rvr. What is more may quickly cause disappointment and scare away, especially order new players, to try another more useful tank and help balance class distribution.

For long most lacking IB path is Stone. It pvp and rvr functionality ends with oathbound - so there are my propositions how to change that - simply - and increase Ib wb functionality.

Furious Reprisal tc - move to core.
Oath of Vengeance tc - move to 3pt tc slot. Additionally reconsider making it a tactic buff or allow staking with other toughens buffs and limit to shield spec.
Avenging the debt - should be at least 30ft cone with 5s cooldown or block requirement (may additionally gives another short debuff effect).
Shield Mastery tc - move to 9 pt slot.
At 13 pt slot pls reconsider again implementing a old tc that Azrael created years ago for 13 pt Hoeth path for SM (i don't remember correct name) that was giving similar effects like Marauder - Crushing Blows tc. In IB version this morale debuff may be changed to require successful block (for example 15-20% chances to remove 100pt of morale after block).

Shield Mastery is good for the extra survivability, but you are right, outside of oathbound and shield mastery the rest of the tree is pretty meh. Later this after noon I'll get your suggestions added to the OP. Also want to keep this thread bumped

i think the main problem is our buffs should be stacking with other unique ones

but devs couldnt fix this without removing all buff stacking

i remember the early days there was this ''popular IB '' using 2 IB stacking oathfriend and similar buffs on itself and caused a nerf ''tinfoil hat off''. I think this player gave the wrong impression of the class making them look OP hence why we never received any work done

inspiring attack + ancestors fury - these too seem like they should stack

BG can stack a buff mainly terrifying foe tactic 45%+ toughness is huge imo

BG anger drives me 15% parry -shielded by hate 10% block - none shall pass increase block 50% amazing skill
thats 60% block and 15% parry in masterys alone compare to IB oathbound 25% parry 10% block with the 5% dmg taken

ib punt 10secs cd for 40yrds vs BG punt 20sec cd longest punt in game and scales with class resource our does not scale

Bg spamable aoe

BG is far superior by far every skill in BGs mastery tree is great compare to ib some are useless

IB outhbound 25% parry and 50 ini vs bg none shall pass 50%+ block reflect dmg back , BG one seems way better


oath of vengence - buff toughness ''20 feet'' of ur oathfriend - unless u got high points in Path of Stone toughness gets override by buff or kotbs buff

avenged the dept would be good if you didn't have to land the Killing blow with it - hows a tank suppose to do that

oathstone block 4 attacks reflect dmg back really good 1v1 terrible for wb not worth at all

furious reprisal makes cd longer for 5 secs if it was on shield sweep with the affect on aoe would be good

IB powered etchings 8 mastery points small knockback and slow its ok VS BG rank 2 morale away,cretins i much rather have the rank 2 morale personally

this is my opinion on IB WB tank not 2h IB i think 2h ib is fine and on par with Bg althought Bg scaled way better with crit


WTT 5 pc sov IB for vang BO hehehe jk


edit: i think the core design of the ib is to make yourself and oathfriend extremely tanky with our unique core buffs to stack upon others

kotbs buffs are auras ours are not they are for 10secs/20secs that we constantly have to keep applying. More than half our skills get over ridden by other buffs when they are not even the same, potion buffs/60min class buffs/auras compare to 10secs/20secs buff should not be in the same category

Do you have any thoughts on how you'd improve Avenging the Debt. I'm not sure I'd run it even if the heal procc'd off something else, doesn't seem like it would be too useful. But yes I agree with many of the points you are making. Will see about getting some stuff added to the OP.


I can definitely see how any kind of significant improvement to our single target buffs could make a 2h IB overpowered. So maybe there is a middle ground. Our buffs need to be stronger overall whether you are 2h or s&b. Maybe buffs are marginally stronger while wielding a 2h, and buffs are quite a bit stronger when s&b to the point where it makes sense to use something like guarded attack or vengeful strike. What do you guys think of that?

[jbrutal]

have Avenging the Debt leave a 5sec debuff if they die heal you for x would be good

BG has a similar heal per kill tactic bathing in blood which heals them for 471over 9 secs
for free

to make 2h not op lower the amount our buffs give by like half , then have them scale with mastery points this will make 2h IB less tanky but inspiring attack + ancestors fury also buffs them

move guarded attack to stone path

punishing blow to Path of Vengeance

away with ye to Path of Brotherhood and have it scale with grudge like BG

kneecapper to Path of Brotherhood or stone path

also shield sweep only hits 3 ppl 25ft thats terrible lol

[Ramlaen]

Avenging the Debt (ability)
Now a core ability in Path of Stone, swapped with Shield Sweep.

Shield Sweep (ability)
Now a mastery ability in Path of Stone, swapped with Avenging the Debt. No longer has a cap on the number of targets struck, but also no longer generates 10 grudge per target hit. All targets hit by Shield Sweep no longer generate morale for 5 seconds.

Oath of Vengeance (tactic)
All buffs given to your Oath Friend will effect all allies within 20 feet of your Oath Friend.

[zakgrin]

Avenging the Debt (ability)
Now a core ability in Path of Stone, swapped with Shield Sweep.

Shield Sweep (ability)
Now a mastery ability in Path of Stone, swapped with Avenging the Debt. No longer has a cap on the number of targets struck, but also no longer generates 10 grudge per target hit. All targets hit by Shield Sweep no longer generate morale for 5 seconds.

Oath of Vengeance (tactic)
All buffs given to your Oath Friend will effect all allies within 20 feet of your Oath Friend.

Some interesting thoughts, although the Shield Sweep changes seem like they'd be extremely unlikely. I don't see the devs adding another morale drain like ability to the game. It would probably have to be at where Oathstone is now instead of Avenging the Debt. Where would you propose oath of vengeance go. Probably would need to be moved as that would be strong.

[kmark101]

Thank you for the well thought post Zakgrim and a great initiative to make IB more warband friendly and more dangerous tank. I agree with almost everything you wrote and would like add my extra 2 cents and ideas to the topic.

My goals with the suggestions are the following:
- make IB more warband viable
- resurrect some dead tactics/skills
- give a little bit of flavor for the class

Stonebreaker - an extremely outdated ability as it was mentioned plenty of times already, however increasing the flat value of the armor debuff would be lethal against undergeared players. I'd suggest to turn the flat value to a % armor value debuff, that way it can be balanced all the time.

Shield Sweep - currently a skill that is not on anyone's hotbar for a reason. To increase WB viability, this skill would be a perfect candidate for buffs, such as: AoE armor debuff, CD increaser, AoE silencer (not all together, but one of these). The tactic Furious Reprisal or Oath of Vengeance should be changed to provide these additional effect(s) or for an increased number of targets to the skill.

Avenging the Debt - this skill should provide it's healing effect with 25% of the hits instead of deathblows. For an extra class flavor, maybe it should provide it's healing effects 75% of the time when the Ironbreaker is hitting Greenskins! Now that is a debt avenged! Alternate idea is what if the skill would provide an effect that makes any target impossible to resurrect for 10s, if this skill was the deathblow. Both ideas would fit perfectly for the skill and the class theme.

Oathfriend buffs - the 10s duration buffs should be increased to 20s duration buffs, 10s is just too short time to benefit from them. The "regular" buffs like the toughness and armor buffs should stack on top of knight auras/potions OR provide much higher values. I mean c'mon, they are single target. The whole theme/point of the class would be to have some elite fighter alongside that top character from the warband, buffing it to godlike level while all the peons are watching in ave!

Oathstone - this skill should have a duration based effect, like 10s. As of currently, pets are "using up" its charges in a nanosecond, it's completely useless in any situation. Instead of 4 damage reflect, it should have some special effect on reflect, like a small damage debuff or something that has a lingering effect like a morale stopper, black orks would thing twice to spam big swing on the frontlines (but not something that gives immunity cause then it would be abused). Every tank has a way to go super unkillable for a dureation of time, except the IB. This skill should fill this void.

Itemization - this is not skill related, but top end IB gear should have much more weaponskills, especially the offensive versions. I think a great opportunity for this is the ranked SC gear, one of them should have weaponskills and/or armor penetration as set bonuses. Easy to change and would help tremendously.

[NSKaneda]

i think the main problem is our buffs should be stacking with other unique ones

but devs couldnt fix this without removing all buff stacking

i remember the early days there was this ''popular IB '' using 2 IB stacking oathfriend and similar buffs on itself and caused a nerf ''tinfoil hat off''. I think this player gave the wrong impression of the class making them look OP hence why we never received any work done

inspiring attack + ancestors fury - these too seem like they should stack
-
-
-
edit: i think the core design of the ib is to make yourself and oathfriend extremely tanky with our unique core buffs to stack upon others

kotbs buffs are auras ours are not they are for 10secs/20secs that we constantly have to keep applying. More than half our skills get over ridden by other buffs when they are not even the same, potion buffs/60min class buffs/auras compare to 10secs/20secs buff should not be in the same category

The reason behind them not stacking is that IBs oathfriend and guard mdps while runies infuse all with stats so that IB has to buff only those on front line nearby while kotbs provide with aoe buffs since WPs don't have that ability- that is indeed the core design of the class.
IB buffs used to stack with Runes and other buffs acting as single-target buff bot however it's no longer so in RoR. I think it's fixable with buffs of the same kind not being able to stack but restriction would not apply to buffs from other classes.

[zakgrin]

Thank you for the well thought post Zakgrim and a great initiative to make IB more warband friendly and more dangerous tank. I agree with almost everything you wrote and would like add my extra 2 cents and ideas to the topic.

My goals with the suggestions are the following:
- make IB more warband viable
- resurrect some dead tactics/skills
- give a little bit of flavor for the class

Stonebreaker - an extremely outdated ability as it was mentioned plenty of times already, however increasing the flat value of the armor debuff would be lethal against undergeared players. I'd suggest to turn the flat value to a % armor value debuff, that way it can be balanced all the time.

Shield Sweep - currently a skill that is not on anyone's hotbar for a reason. To increase WB viability, this skill would be a perfect candidate for buffs, such as: AoE armor debuff, CD increaser, AoE silencer (not all together, but one of these). The tactic Furious Reprisal or Oath of Vengeance should be changed to provide these additional effect(s) or for an increased number of targets to the skill.

Avenging the Debt - this skill should provide it's healing effect with 25% of the hits instead of deathblows. For an extra class flavor, maybe it should provide it's healing effects 75% of the time when the Ironbreaker is hitting Greenskins! Now that is a debt avenged! Alternate idea is what if the skill would provide an effect that makes any target impossible to resurrect for 10s, if this skill was the deathblow. Both ideas would fit perfectly for the skill and the class theme.

Oathfriend buffs - the 10s duration buffs should be increased to 20s duration buffs, 10s is just too short time to benefit from them. The "regular" buffs like the toughness and armor buffs should stack on top of knight auras/potions OR provide much higher values. I mean c'mon, they are single target. The whole theme/point of the class would be to have some elite fighter alongside that top character from the warband, buffing it to godlike level while all the peons are watching in ave!

Oathstone - this skill should have a duration based effect, like 10s. As of currently, pets are "using up" its charges in a nanosecond, it's completely useless in any situation. Instead of 4 damage reflect, it should have some special effect on reflect, like a small damage debuff or something that has a lingering effect like a morale stopper, black orks would thing twice to spam big swing on the frontlines (but not something that gives immunity cause then it would be abused). Every tank has a way to go super unkillable for a dureation of time, except the IB. This skill should fill this void.

Itemization - this is not skill related, but top end IB gear should have much more weaponskills, especially the offensive versions. I think a great opportunity for this is the ranked SC gear, one of them should have weaponskills and/or armor penetration as set bonuses. Easy to change and would help tremendously.

I genuinely love all of these ideas and anyone of them in isolation would be huge.

- All of the changes you proposed for Avenging The Debt are awesome, particularly those related to the lore of the game. Right now the skill costs an expensive 20 grudges and is basically useless. Having it proc more often off Greenskins or even the res stopper are really cool and I think fit well with the skill and lore of the class.

- Oathstone is another useless ability waaaay up in the middle tree. Again, I really like tweaks you have proposed for it. I think a slight damage debuff is more likely, as the devs will probably be pretty choosy on who they give a morale stopper.