[Implemented] Crimson Death (duration)

[gungnir08]

The only time BG's armor debuff is higher than BO's is at max rage but if your spamming out CD, howl, and other sources of hate to get the crit boost then your not going to be at max hate

Between switching Dark Protector as necessary and Enraged Beating, which will see a +25% crit chance boost from the combination of Filled With Fury and Crimson Death, I am inclined to disagree with your assertion that BGs would have trouble keeping their Hate topped off. Don't get me wrong, I think that playing a DPS BG properly certainly requires more work than would a Chosen or BO, but I think that the reward is there if you perform well.

On another note, anyone that's saying that there is no reason to bring a BG over a BO in a premade has clearly never had to heal against a group with a competent BG, be it S/B or 2h. A single good BG can make healing a nightmare, and any premade that utilizes one well is, in my opinion, better prepared to deal with enemy groups than they would be without it.

It should be changed temporarily and we can then see the outcome. If it needs to be tweaked afterward, so be it, but setting Crimson Death to 100% uptime on a "two-week" trial period couldn't hurt too much.

This is a good suggestion. Even decisions arrived at here can be rolled back if their effects are onerous.

I read the thread up to this point, and I'm still of the same opinion as before. Namely, I still think that the duration of the debuff should be extended to 10 seconds. Even if the debuff itself is not able to be cleansed due to being Damaging as opposed to a Curse, Hex, or Ailment, I think that even this brings a certain level of parity with the Knight's crit chance increasing abilities, both of which have no counterplay. If anything, Crimson Death should also be undefendable, but that change would definitely require its damage output to be adjusted downward.

[Ramasee]

I'm not a big BG player either. But I have looked at the class many times before from a theorycrafting standpoint, and there is no way I would ever tell someone to use a 2h as a BG currently since you give up so much for so little. I have also read most of this thread (I missed one day and it got to ten pages!, awesome lol).

I agree that a 5s increase to Crimson Death duration would bring more usability 2h blackguard. It doesn't imbalance destruction tank core, nor does create a faction conflict, and in fact I agree it will minorly repair one.

I was trying to look for a tactic that could be adjusted to help with rng mitigation but not make it undefendable; but doesnt look like theres an easy change tactic wise. So instead of making it undefendable, is it possible to make it 10% less likely to be defended?

[Shadowgurke]

On another note, anyone that's saying that there is no reason to bring a BG over a BO in a premade has clearly never had to heal against a group with a competent BG, be it S/B or 2h. A single good BG can make healing a nightmare, and any premade that utilizes one well is, in my opinion, better prepared to deal with enemy groups than they would be without it.

By the same token any BG that thinks he will make healing a nightmare probably hasn't played versus competent enemies. Applying the debuff requires
1) the enemy healer to not kite, which is not too hard to do
2) the enemy mdps not recognizing what you are doing. We faced several groups where the IB went to healdebuff our healers and we just bursted their unguarded dps. The tradeoff is usually not worth it

Keep in mind that the healdebuff can be cleansed by WP, meaning you have to bury it deeper.

I am not saying outgoing HD is bad but it is situational and hardly a reason to consider BG over other the other tanks

[gungnir08]

On another note, anyone that's saying that there is no reason to bring a BG over a BO in a premade has clearly never had to heal against a group with a competent BG, be it S/B or 2h. A single good BG can make healing a nightmare, and any premade that utilizes one well is, in my opinion, better prepared to deal with enemy groups than they would be without it.

By the same token any BG that thinks he will make healing a nightmare probably hasn't played versus competent enemies. Applying the debuff requires
1) the enemy healer to not kite, which is not too hard to do
2) the enemy mdps not recognizing what you are doing. We faced several groups where the IB went to healdebuff our healers and we just bursted their unguarded dps. The tradeoff is usually not worth it

Keep in mind that the healdebuff can be cleansed by WP, meaning you have to bury it deeper.

I am not saying outgoing HD is bad but it is situational and hardly a reason to consider BG over other the other tanks

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't try it in a setup with one tank, but if it's a 2-2-2 melee train, even forcing an enemy healer to kite can make enemy DPS respond to you. This can relieve pressure from an endangered teammate, or one whose cooldowns aren't up yet to deal with the aforementioned pressure. If the enemy DPS don't do something about the BG (and ostensibly the immediately threatening DPS that the BG is guarding and is nearby), they risk impaired healing in the short term as their healer kites away, so there's an imperative to respond to threats like that.

And sure, WPs can cleanse Mind Killer, but it has no cooldown and can immediately be reapplied. Also, consider that the BG has a ton of debuffs that can bury it, and that other teammates can also help bury it. WPs don't have the DoK's morale 2 full group cleanse, so even if Mind Killer is removed before it works for the full 20 seconds, you're guaranteed at least some bang for your buck. Even in a group with two WP healers, the cleansing going on wouldn't be enough to outpace the rate with which BGs can refresh debuffs, and since WPs have little in the way of kiting tools, the first point you made wouldn't even apply to such a setup. Even the tankiest healers can be completely ignored if you have the capacity to diminish their healing output enough to get kills, and the BG can help to accomplish this.

The fact of the matter is that, with respect to outgoing heal debuffs, the BG has Destruction's best one. WE's is a proc and lacks the on-demand pressure that comes with being able to hit it at will, and the Choppa's is both a finisher as well as part of a spec that most Choppas probably don't use to begin with. There's no contest.

The problem with the 2h BG build is that its staying power takes a hit due to the loss of its shield, so I think that buffing Crimson Death to allow for 100% debuff uptime is literally the least that can be done to address this disparity. Obviously, more should be done not to make this spec better than the sword and shield build, but rather to make it bring something to the table that would make BG players consider using it in groups, rather than dismissing it out of hand as Zabis did in an earlier post. He's a sufficiently competent BG player that I would consider his opinion to be especially worth listening to.

[Toldavf]

As a left of field sidegrade I wouldnt mind Crimson Death gaining an Earthshatter-esque snare component with duration based off hate.

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=bg; ... ;;0:0:0:0: they already have that an ability that is inexplicably high in a tree. There's actually allot of stuff in the loathing tree that would help a 2handed BG.

[TenTonHammer]

You could always turn blade of ruin into something similar and add a 2h requirement

still wouldnt be as good as BOs big brawlin

[th3gatekeeper]

Spoiler:

SNIP

It still doesnt address the BIGGER issue - which is Mara completely negates almost everything this class brings and in a better package too.

Why bring a 2H BG when you can instead bring a Mara who does all this better and has things like pull.... He also has a heal debuff (when feated), armor, toughness, wounds, slow, and a pull....

Dont get me wrong, CD (IMO) needs to be bumped to 10 seconds from 5.... But there is still something missing in what this class brings to the table.

Looking at Chosen, I think it has a very healthy balance between SnB and 2H that should be looked at as an example. The 2H spec brings Rending Blade + Crip Strikes. You can also build very tanky with suppression that boosts your ability to guard targets. So there is a legitimate place for a 2H chosen in even a 2-2-2 group. I would also rather pair a Mara + Chosen who bring WAY more to the party than a DPS+BG combo.

Dont get me wrong, BG looks like a super fun class to PUG with and would EXCEL in any non-mara group. But anytime a Mara is there, the BG is not gonna really do all that much... its basically a mara wearing armor talis LOL.

This thread is about one thing and one thing only the duration of CD, not Mara, this again has been already pointed out by the moderation team the next offense will result in a temporary ban from the section.

[gungnir08]

Spoiler:

It still doesnt address the BIGGER issue - which is Mara completely negates almost everything this class brings and in a better package too.

But that isn't what this thread is about. I admit that I bear some of the responsibility for the thread's focus drifting to this topic, since my long posts have invited potentially unrelated responses.

Why bring a 2H BG when you can instead bring a Mara who does all this better and has things like pull.... He also has a heal debuff (when feated), armor, toughness, wounds, slow, and a pull....

The Marauder has to run a tactic for its incoming heal debuff to be a 50% one. Perhaps this slot is worth more in terms of raw damage output if something else were to go there. Having a BG for its outgoing heal debuff (which stacks with the Marauder's incoming heal debuff) would perhaps allow the Marauder to favor strict DPS in its tactic loadout, which could be more valuable to a given premade.

I'm not saying it's ideal, but there is certainly a possibility that a BG and Marauder could work together well in the right group, despite the perceived overlap between the two.

Dont get me wrong, CD (IMO) needs to be bumped to 10 seconds from 5.... But there is still something missing in what this class brings to the table.

Agreed. This isn't the only change that needs to be made. It's a good place to start, though.

Looking at Chosen, I think it has a very healthy balance between SnB and 2H that should be looked at as an example. The 2H spec brings Rending Blade + Crip Strikes. You can also build very tanky with suppression that boosts your ability to guard targets. So there is a legitimate place for a 2H chosen in even a 2-2-2 group. I would also rather pair a Mara + Chosen who bring WAY more to the party than a DPS+BG combo.

I thought Crippling Strikes didn't stack with Challenge. Is it as you say? If so, the Chosen's damage mitigating potential, even with a two handed weapon, is far beyond anything a BG or a BO can muster. If not, then it's arguably not worth the risk for Chosen to run two handed either. Suppression can be used with a shield, after all, and Crippling Strikes can always be applied with Blast Wave and single target attacks.

Hell, given Blast Wave's cooldown, a Crippling Strikes Chosen could benefit from the BG's Crimson Death crit chance debuff. The debuff would effectively increase the Chosen's chance of applying Crippling Strikes on every use of Blast Wave, thereby maximizing its efficacy on a per-cooldown basis.

Dont get me wrong, BG looks like a super fun class to PUG with and would EXCEL in any non-mara group. But anytime a Mara is there, the BG is not gonna really do all that much... its basically a mara wearing armor talis LOL.

BGs also bring Guard to the table, as well as the extremely useful tank archetype M3/M4 mitigation tools. I see your point, but your argument is somewhat oversimplified.

Omnislashing you have already been warned the next offense will result in a temporary ban from the section

[TenTonHammer]

BG is the weakest and most underperforming of the Destros tanks

Outgoing healdebuff in of its self is not good enough to justify taking a BG

Shadowgurke already pointed out the flip side to that "healer pressure" argument and any team can apply pressure in such a way that you can draw the enemies attention from your team mates, it's not something unique to BG

You talk about guard from BG but I'm not sure if your still talking 2h or SnB but either way both BO and ch are better guard cause they have access to tactics to inc block and parry chance which Bg really can't get since anger drives me and the middle tree in general is non viable to spec into

Lastly BO and Chosen both have morale builders that let them reach M3/4 faster than BG
And that is at te chore the crux of the issue that BG cannot compete with BO or CH for slots

[gungnir08]

Omnislashing again post deleted in its entirety use a whole quote or do not quote at all.