[Implementation Feedback] Black Guard Mastery Tree

[tazdingo]

i rellay like it, 2H gets its KD and snb gets a defined role as a bodyguard

[Gerv]

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far. What we really need going forward is answers to the specific questions listed in the original post so that we can tweak if needed and assess the positions of abilities and tactics that we changed.

Where possible list the question you are responding to and leave your answer. The more detail the better and constructive feedback if it's negative and why you think so please.

[boog]

Test Phase Changes - These can be removed or changed without warning at any time.

Malice tree:
1) What is the impact to overall damage dealt by the BG class using the 2hd spec with the removal of Blade of Ruin and the addition of an AoE damaging ability? (Yes Single target damage will be reduced).
2) What impact does the AoE component of damage have on triggering the tactic Hastened Doom on multiple players, do you see it occur more often as a result?
3) How does the cooldown timer of 20 seconds fit in with the rotation of the BG?

Loathing:
1) With None Shall pass moved to the bottom, how is the generation of hate for BG specs of loathing and Anguish?
2) None shall pass should be generating 10 Hate (client side) not 5 as per the tooltip, what return on hate are you seeing?
3) How has the survivability of the Black Guard and it's Dark Protector changed, with the addition of Force of Fury and Elite Training additions?
4) Do the additions to Dark Protector increase the survivability beyond what is required in a group setting, if you believe so, why?

Other comments

Malice Tree:
1) Blade of Ruin was always rather useless so overall I would say regardless it has gotten better.

2) I have not notice it proc more than if I were to use Crimson Death or spam Monstrous Rending. So far I would say it procs on average as I see it from the BGs other AoE abilities.

3) I think 20 seconds is balanced all the other tanks have a 20 sec KD, Cave-In is 20 sec.

**My opinion on KD**
I do not think the AoE DMG is necessary. I think just making it a simple KD like the other tanks have is sufficient. If you are worried about balance issues where the KD may deal to much DMG I would just scale it back. But, that is just my personal opinion on the matter. I love the name, icon, and just the overall fact that 2h BG has a KD now! Great work!

Loathing Tree:

1 & 2) I am only gaining 5 as of last night EST (I know it is supposed to be 10) it is a lack luster hate building ability especially with the AP drain (granted BG can now have NSP and ET together and replenish AP as well as DBH).

3) FoF, ET, and bubble transferring to DP is amazing! I feel like I can actually contribute to my group. I am able to give my DP that last little bit to help either prolong their death by a few moments or let the healers come in with the save. I feel like I am as useful as my IB (which I think are extremely useful)

4) With FoF scaling properly now (thanks to Torq) I do not believe so. To properly utilize all the saves BG has now on to 1 DP they are still restricted by 10 second application of FoF and 20 second CD, 4 Parry/Disrupt for scaled AP regain for 30sec CD, 20 sec CD on KDs and punts (assuming they aren't immune) and weak bubble with 10 sec CD. While the trade off they get for the longer CDs scale properly IMO.

The BG has the capacity to make a difference for a single DP. When compared to the versatility of the IB's OF, one could easily Armor, Toughness, Corp Resist, Parry inc, and Strength (as well as melee crit if specced) and Willpower most of his group by floating OF (I have done it on IB before it is a lot of fun). This is not to bash but to give a contrasting example of the versatility in a class with a similar mechanic.

The buffs a BG can grant with DP, as they are now, scale adequately I say in keeping your DP alive and creates enough impact where you can tell when a BG is properly utilizing DP because it will result in giving your DP the slight boost it needs to either finish the fight or last a moment longer. Any more and I think balance issues would arise.

[Atropik]

Why no Dodge on ET?

[Older]

Just had some thoughts on FoF:

1) as armour pots and armour buffs don't stack, this part of the ability is a bit useless. Can it be changed for toughness or something else (obviously not the same value then!), or otherwise for a 13pt ability it may be a bit meh.

its stacks but not correctly, you lost around of 500-800 armor with that abillity but the crit reduce is worth that point in MT.

had about 1month of break but after new bg changes i could test it. well see ;]

@roadkillrobin thats the thing... i still think its most masophist class for patient and calm ppl with fresh mind when playing. dont make it easymode ****

[zumos2]

Feedback following the format let's go!

Malice tree:
1) What is the impact to overall damage dealt by the BG class using the 2hd spec with the removal of Blade of Ruin and the addition of an AoE damaging ability? (Yes Single target damage will be reduced).

The impact to the overall damage of 2h is very limited. That said the damage of 2h BG was already quite strong and still is absolutely fine and competitive.

2) What impact does the AoE component of damage have on triggering the tactic Hastened Doom on multiple players, do you see it occur more often as a result?

I guess this is more related to large scale which I did not test. There isn’t much reason to want to apply wounds debuff on anyone you are not focusing in small scale. Obviously for large scale it could be nice, though I expect the single target knockdown is rather insignificant in large scale as most you can hit will have immunity from AoE staggers. So just spamming Monstrous Rending and Crimson Death would suffice. Also for large scale Chosen AoE wounds debuff makes the wounds debuff from BG not really needed. Besides defense of 2h BG with Crimson Death against magic damage still is a bit tricky. Though I guess with full conqueror and Deft Defender you can survive. I would say it is good to have 1 2h BG in your warband. But that would be for Crimson Death not so much the wounds debuff.

3) How does the cooldown timer of 20 seconds fit in with the rotation of the BG?

Knockdown isn’t really something that you rotate per se. But 20 seconds is absolutely fine and makes it competitive with the Chosen knockdown (and BO but most BOs don’t use the knockdown). It is overall a very nice addition to the BG.

Loathing:
1) With None Shall pass moved to the bottom, how is the generation of hate for BG specs of loathing and Anguish?

None Shall Pass is not a tool I would use to generate hate. Generation hate on a BG should never be a problem if you just swap the dark protector to whoever is focused, which is spec independent.

2) None shall pass should be generating 10 Hate (client side) not 5 as per the tooltip, what return on hate are you seeing?

Haven’t tested it, but overall I think this ability is very weak due to its 30 second cooldown where the BO and SM version have no cooldown. From playing SM a lot you generally only want to toggle such ability for a couple seconds and then continue casting other abilities. In that playstyle having a long cooldown really hurts a lot.

3) How has the survivability of the Black Guard and it's Dark Protector changed, with the addition of Force of Fury and Elite Training additions?

Putting Enraged Beating lower in the tree allows for more defensive specs that also have some offensive power. All this makes shield BG which still does some damage more survivable. The survivability of 2h BG hasn’t changed much as you could already get the 3% parry/10 hatred tactic in the dps build before.

The survivability of the Dark Protector definitely did increase. Not really a balance thing, but being able to actively defend your dark protector with these additional abilities really made playing a BG more engaging. Balance of this additional survivability discussed below.

4) Do the additions to Dark Protector increase the survivability beyond what is required in a group setting, if you believe so, why?

With FoF being nerfed I do not think that the changes increase the survivability when running 1 BG beyond what is required in a group setting. I have to ask though what would happen when you stack up 3 BGs all using Shield of Rage whenever a target is dying. Of course that would be kind of a weird setup (While they could cycle it one after the other it doesnt stack - Torque)

General comments:

I think having dark protector more as a defensive tool while having most other abilities function more as offensive abilities through debuffs is a really nice idea for the BG. The stuff you could do with dark protector was always very limited compared to IB. Note that this doesn’t really mean much for balance per se. But it does matter for making an engaging mechanic. That is what I like most about the changes: making defending your allies more engaging. Within that concept balance is possible. The debuffs from BG were already very strong as was its damage. Allowing a bit more defensive utility really can bring BG on a level tanks should be on. If they are still not in line with BO/Chosen I would probably start looking slightly nerfing the other tanks than buffing BGs to be as strong as the other two tanks.

[zumos2]

The problem is Guard swap is two clicks and DP another one. (really don't understand why guard needs to be toggled off before reaplying it when skills like OF and DP don't)

I do understand the reason for it, which is to allow to disable guard. Where in no situation ever it would be required to swap off dark protector of anyone, it can be required to turn off guard because you are dying off guard damage. I do agree it is very clumsy though as sometimes I double tap the guard button and it doesn't apply I guess because of slight lag. Then the panic third tap has to come in ><

[sanii]

Malice tree:
1) What is the impact to overall damage dealt by the BG class using the 2hd spec with the removal of Blade of Ruin and the addition of an AoE damaging ability? (Yes Single target damage will be reduced).
It is a minor loss toward's the potential burst when you line all of your CDs , blade of ruin,taunt into Crimson Death+enraged beating combo , but BG still in my eyes remains the highest outputting 2h tank given its individual survivablity.

Loathing:
1) With None Shall pass moved to the bottom, how is the generation of hate for BG specs of loathing and Anguish?
Hate generation is already perfectly fine with proper dark protector swapping , did not notice any significant impact on my play style

3) How has the survivability of the Black Guard and it's Dark Protector changed, with the addition of Force of Fury and Elite Training additions?
Elite Training is not as significan't for the parry bonus as melee will usually chew trough the 4 parries easily with AA's , but it does have some relevance if there is only spellcaster's targeting the dark protector.
The added benefit of being able to pump 120 ap to your whole group, usually on cooldown depending on who it is used on, makes it into quite a versatile ability and very powerful.
Force of Fury in its changed state is a balanced ability now that provide's some decent damage reduction vs high crit stacking classes.

4) Do the additions to Dark Protector increase the survivability beyond what is required in a group setting, if you believe so, why?
The nature of it being only only on a single target , makes it less relevant then morale pump'd m4 or crippling strikes as those can affect your whole group's survivablity vs just a single target. But the addition's at least give you something that you can use to help your protector survive , in particular FoF.

Other Comments:
The problem that plagues black guard isn't so much that it is a bad class , as noted i think it can be the highest outputting tank with very decent survivablity and offensive utility (crimson death and potentially o. healdebuff). Its issue is more that the other 2 tank's just have noticeably broken or OP element's to them that make them just significantly more desirable. Those are crippling strikes ,morale pump's ,group wide buff's and spammable AoE slow's. I appreciate the way in which these buff's were done as apart from the 1st iteration of FoF it did seem balanced , but as a guildie of my pointed out in a different thread , continuing to buff the BG without addressing some overarching tactic's and abilities that are making the BG not be desirable (aoe slow's , crippling strikes, group buff's etc. ) might end up in us power creeping the BG into the meta only to see some of those issues resolved afterwards ; then leaving us with an overpowered tank that needs to be brought down for its own reason's ( like its incredible damage coupled with potential utility gain's )

As far as the Knockdown is concerned i think it is a very powerful tool that the 2h black guard gained , as it is significantly more reliable then KD on block(even tho its a lesser duration) but 10s might be a bit too low of a CD ( i need play around with it more)
I will note that the decision to place FoF so far up was a very good one as it prevent's access to the most powerful defensive utility now and full dps tree benefits.
The decision to place enraged beating so low in the tree , has mostly relevance for solo play as it allow's you access to your highest damaging ability (EB), the self heal and parry tactic all in one.

[roadkillrobin]

Spoiler:

Stating to nerf the other tanks to make room amother one internaly is really really bad for the extrnal ballance of the game. Then you have to do a complete overview of every single class in the game tbh. And at that point you might aswell just redo them all from scratch.

It would be much smoother to do a intrenal realm trade of abillties or tactics then.
For example: Monstrous Ruin moved to a core tactic. Filled with Fury moved to 3 pts into Malice. Hastened Doom moved to 7pts. Chosen trade Crippling Strikes with Crush Vitallity from BG. Criplling Strikes moved to 11 pts in Malice, Crush Vitallity changed to on crit proc and reduce AA haste by 40% instead of 20%, wich it's the averege of the following order tactics, Hastned Divinity, Pack Hunting, Push for More. And then placed into 7 pts in Path of Dread for Chosen

Not relevant, stay on topic - Torque

[zumos2]

Spoiler:

Stating to nerf the other tanks to make room amother one internaly is really really bad for the extrnal ballance of the game. Then you have to do a complete overview of every single class in the game tbh. And at that point you might aswell just redo them all from scratch.

It would be much smoother to do a intrenal realm trade of abillties or tactics then.
For example: Monstrous Ruin moved to a core tactic. Filled with Fury moved to 3 pts into Malice. Hastened Doom moved to 7pts. Chosen trade Crippling Strikes with Crush Vitallity from BG. Criplling Strikes moved to 11 pts in Malice, Crush Vitallity changed to on crit proc and reduce AA haste by 40% instead of 20%, wich it's the averege of the following order tactics, Hastned Divinity, Pack Hunting, Push for More. And then placed into 7 pts in Path of Dread for Chosen

There is two things you need to balance: tanks (and dps/healers) internally and realm vs realm externally. So yes you should slightly nerf BO/Chosen if they are too strong and slightly buff BG to get them on one line and in balance to order.

Not relevant, stay on topic - Torque