[Withdrawn] Redirected Force and Crushing Advance swap + KB

[Azarael]

When I originally rearranged the trees for Swordmaster, I felt it was a very sensitive issue to handle, at that time, the problems with moving Crushing Advance to a 13 point ability in exchange for Crashing Wave, because SM was one of the first classes to be addressed and my main class at that time. My original proposal was:

- Move Crushing Advance to 5 points
- Move Crashing Wave to 9 points
- Move Redirected Force to 13 points, change cd appropriately, and change to long knockback

At the moment, knockdown and potentially Perfect Defenses aside, Vaul is quite a dead tree for SM. Absorption mechanics like V'B have their own effectiveness problems in the context of very defensive tanks which I have outlined in the Phantom's Blade topic, I've yet to see anyone make much use of Intimidating Blow's tactic and two of the skills are useless (those being Crushing Advance, which is 13 points now, requires a shield and has its armor effect mostly masked by Armor potions) and Redirected Force, which never had a use outside of PvE anyway.

My proposal would be to resolve a longstanding complaint with SM's group utility by offering it a long single target knockback on a 13pt Redirected Force, with whatever cooldown modification is necessary to balance it.

SM has two knockback effects: the much-maligned Gusting Wind, which is an excellent relief tool when used properly and the bane of the server when it is not, and Forceful Shock, which is worthless because it's using a tactic slot for a medium punt on a focus-firing ability, Blurring Shock, thus breaking the ability. It lacks any appropriate means of trading offensiveness for a single target knockback.

Because the design of the SM's trees is very extreme, with the most worthwhile abilities in Ether Dance and Whispering Wind high up in the trees, I believe this would come with significant opportunity cost to the SM to justify hosting a long knockback at the top of the defensive tree.

An alternative proposal to the above would be to swap the targets of the Forceful Shock and Dampening Talon effects, which target Blurring Shock and Dragon's Talon respectively. Each of these tactics synergizes with the opposite ability, as Blurring Shock benefits from -10% parry and block on the target, while Dragon's Talon is defensive and can justify an additional knockback. While this also grants additional utility to SM because Blurring Shock is enhanced in a manner that others can benefit from, it is risky, because I do not believe SM to be offensively lacking at the present time.

[Penril]

Moving to discussions.

[Penril]

I agree with giving them a long distance punt, however I'm not sure I agree with the way to implement it. Ideally, if they opt for better CC/Utility they should lose some DPS.

1) Redirected Force at 14 points:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sm; ... 0:;0:0:0:0:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sm; ... 4:;0:0:0:0:

In Khaine/Vaul, the SM keeps a very strong Stat steal and all his DPS tactics; he only loses Ether Dance. Yes, ED is pretty good, but the SM will still do very good damage while keeping a ST punt, AoE punt and a ST KD.

In Vaul/Hoeth, his spirit debuff reaches ridiculous levels (stacking WoH + HB) giving him good sustained damage, while keeping the CC I mentioned above AND Whispering Winds.

2) "Dampening Shock": Dragon's Talon has no CD atm. If you give it a punt you would also need to give it a reasonable CD, like 20 seconds. This would be a nerf to a pretty good skill (you can keep an enemy permanently at 80% damage atm with DT) which i'm not sure I like. Also, not sure I like giving them a ST punt tied to a core tactic.

I have no suggestion atm; these are only my concerns about a punt implementation for SM.

[footpatrol2]

Can you change what the tooltip reads?

All these changes are going to get confusing for newer players.

I don't think the SM should get a Long knockback without having to spend a tactic slot.
Make forceful shock tactic be a long punt.
Make lingering intimidation a base tactic.
Move Vaul's buffer to 7 point tactic slot.
Put Forceful shock tactic as the 11 point tactic.

Don't put a cooldown on Forceful shock tactic. Yes it's a massive tradeoff. Blurring shock is great as a assist tool. But you forgo it for a long knockback that doesn't have a cooldown but is tied to a precious tactic slot.

Crushing Wave is retarded good. Knockdown + group CC immunity = dead target in ST groups. It deserved the 13 point slot. That was moved by RoR. Now we are considering what should be in place for the 13 point ability. Redirected force does suck though. Crushing advance is good thou.

Stat/armor potions seriously screw with the game as far as balance is concerned. Crushing Advance is good but the overall effectiveness is outshined by armor pots. This is a separate issue but I'd like to see armor pots either straight taken away or have a 50%/75% reduction in effectiveness or the duration smashed down dramatically. Potentially both. This would fix a lot of issue's on good abilities but are outshined by persistant long duration armor/stat potions.

[TenTonHammer]

Don't put a cooldown on Forceful shock tactic. Yes it's a massive tradeoff. Blurring shock is great as a assist tool. But you forgo it for a long knockback that doesn't have a cooldown but is tied to a precious tactic slot.

I feel having a no CD super punt is too stong

[roadkillrobin]

I would really advice not to add more long range punts into the game. There are plenty of issues with the ones in the game atm wich I have allready adressed. People really don't like being punted into terrain and getting stuck aswell as punted to certain death under other cirumstances. I can also see this turning into gimmick role for tanks. I actually think that only 1 tank class on each realm should have acess to long range punts. And i would use BG and IB for those and scrap the tactics for kotbs/chosen
What the Vaul Mastery actually don't have and need (I'm pretty sure this Mastery was Designed for PVE) Is group buff dmg mitigration. And that is what i would look at when looking at possible Vaul mastery changes,

[Chaoself]

Black Orks would have the same kind of punt,right?

[footpatrol2]

Whatever is done I feel that if a super punt is added to the SM it should be tied to a tactic and not a ability.

Do something else to fix redirected force.

[Eathisword]

I agree with giving them a long distance punt, however I'm not sure I agree with the way to implement it. Ideally, if they opt for better CC/Utility they should lose some DPS.

1) Redirected Force at 14 points:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sm; ... 0:;0:0:0:0:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sm; ... 4:;0:0:0:0:

In Khaine/Vaul, the SM keeps a very strong Stat steal and all his DPS tactics; he only loses Ether Dance. Yes, ED is pretty good, but the SM will still do very good damage while keeping a ST punt, AoE punt and a ST KD.

In Vaul/Hoeth, his spirit debuff reaches ridiculous levels (stacking WoH + HB) giving him good sustained damage, while keeping the CC I mentioned above AND Whispering Winds.

One way I can see to circumvent the SM having too much damage and a superpunt, would be to tie a shield restriction to the ability. Since it would be on top of the defensive mastery tree, it would somewhat make sense. This way, it would defeat the Vaul/Khaine spec altogether (Khaine's ability require 2H) and the sustain damage of a SnB Vaul/Hoeth SM, although decent, isn't over the top at all. This way SM could really chose damage or utility.

As a side note in favor of tying a shield restriction on superpunt, soon-ish, people will have 1 more mastery point than a typical 40/70 had due to the Merc/anni point bonus. So a RR70 SM could potentially have 30 mastery points to spend instead of 29. Making this spec (+balance accuracy or Crashing Waves with the xtra point from gear) a possibility : waronlinebuilder.org - Sword Master build

[Jaycub]

Punts are hand and in hand with guard, super punt's specifically. While not a huge deal in large scale fighting, it has huge implications on the meta for 6v6, scenarios and any small skirmishes in the lakes.

If the current trend continues of guard only being hard countered by super punt, then I'd say every tank should have access to one for sake of diversity. Because Knight/Chosen are atm mandatory for any 2-2-2 group, and knight is mandatory for every group on order. The super punt is covered well, and you are able to choose freely your second tank. If things change as some suggest only have it on IB/BG implications would be huge for pick diversity.

Buffing guard even more, after the CC immunity patch also means we reinforce the burst meta we been in since forever and we will continue to look for more cancerous things like proc groups as a side effect of that (guard becoming stronger due to changes to punts). Crit changes, and knight changes pushes order groups from 10% crit to 15% increased healing also increases TTK and enforces this still.

Personally TTK is way too low for small scale things, this of course my opinion. But the problem is if we unanimously wanted to lower the TTK for that, it has a different most likely negative effect on large scaling fighting. However, as far as single target punts are concerned, I believe it brings a way to lower the TTK or at least more reliably secure kills in small scale without having a drastic or even noticeable effect on larger scale fighting.

In the case of the SM, having the middle tree capstone ability being a super punt, creates a perfect image of what a mastery tree should be, as all 13 point abilities are super desirable, and with the exception of the armor buff in the right tree, and some usueless tactics overall the trees are filled with useful abilities. As it stands now the capstone ability for SM middle tree is actually the 9pt knockdown.

Because of CC immunities, Adding more punt's to the game, even 0 CD ones isn't going to have a negative impact on any kind of chain control combos (that never existed anyways post CC immunity patch). The only problem I see is because of how SM's spec, the full impact of this change won't be seen until RR70 I believe.