Parallels66 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:20 pm
Hello, from playing an IB and feedback from other notable IBs, ive put together a few things together in the hopes the class can get some changes and fixes to help with how they perform compared to other classes. as it is right now, there isnt really a reason to take a IB over a SM or KotBS in larger group play unless slayer stacking, smaller scale (6 or less) you can still possible find a roll for IB. but these are the changes i propose. feedback/comments obviously welcome!
1- currently blackguard can gain their equal of grudge through basic attacks while ironbreakers cannot. first change i propose is to change them to be equal, remove the tactic to gain grudge on attack and make it baseline for ironbreakers aswell. there doesnt seem to be a real reason to me as to why blackguard gets it baseline and ironbreaker doesnt, even if BG has more spenders its still incredibly easy to stay at 100 for them compared to IB, in some smaller situations where more magic users are involved, you cant even buff due to the spellcasts not generating grudge, even if its not as strong as BGs 5 per hit, maybe something like 3 per hit would be gamechanging to IBs so this would just be a standard quality of life change for solo/small scale IBs.
2- Currently ironbreakers knockdown requires a block/parry to use shield of reprisal, my proposal would be remove the parry/block requirement on the knockdown and increase the cooldown from 10 to 13 seconds. with how organised content can be, there is sometimes a chance that your guard may be targeted and you getting ignored/dps calling on a target on a healer and you may need to assist, having a on demand knockdown would GREATLY help SnB ironbreakers utility in larger group content.
3- Blackguards currently have a "spammable" AoE with monstrous rending, my idea would be up the cost of shield sweep from 10 to 20 grudge, remove the cooldown of 10seconds and remove the grudge building on it and make it do some form of magic damage. if the on hit grudge building was added to IB aswell, i think this would be a nice change to try and make the IBs AoE damage better, pretty much every other tank in the game does some form of magic damage, be it elemental or spirit etc while IB/BG doesnt have any, so this may be a nice Quality of life change to help with AoE damage output.
4- currently, IB has the *worst* punt out of any tank in the game, blackguards have a insane golfswing punt, BO/SM have AoE, chosen and kotbs have the huge airtime/length punt when tacticed while IBs is very very lacking. currently the IB punt doesnt even punt a target out of guard range half the time due to the low air height of the punt meaning the IB has to position more to use its punt effectively compared to other tanks who can just punt when needed due to the terrain and landscape and height defaults of their punt. a simple fix to this would be to make it more similar to the chosen/kotbs punts, give the IB punt more air time so they can punt targets out of guard range more consistantly even if for a moment.
5- An idea i had was to maybe make the IB buffs AoE around your oath friend something like 50yard range around your oath friend allied party members would also get the buffs, maybe at a slighly reduced quality? currently kotbs/chosen give buffs with higher numbers in an AoE while debuffing aswell compared to IBs single target buffs, a change like this would still keep the skill cap of maintaining buffs and keep oath friend swapping to maintain stronger buffs upon a target.
6- IB buffs currently do not stack with pots meaning alot of IBs effectiveness is greatly reduced/replaced by basic pots/linements, the engineers armor buff which stacks with pots currently due to it being a enchantment, with this i came up with the idea of making *some* of the IBs buffs into enchantments to increase the overall effectiveness of the buffs, making them more wanted/needed in a larger group enviroment rather than just being replaced by basic consumables.
7- Turn some of IBs damaging spells into some form of magic damage, currently IB/BG are the only tanks in the game which do 0 magic damage, with RoR compared to live the armor creep is much greater here due to armor pots not existing on live or armor talis not being as valued, so the combination of both makes it so anything doing pure physical damage is massively left behind due to reduction cap for physical being 75% reduction and magic being only 45%, so any tank doing some form of magic damage massively outscales pure physical damage tanks in a larger enviroment when fluff damage pressure is needed to hit that critical mass to get kills. even from a lore perspective it doesnt really make much sense IBs not having some form of magic damage due to them suppost to be using rune engraved and forged weapons and gromril armor.
8- Currently IB is the only tank in the game without proper debuffing tools, the only debuffs IBs have currently are the baseline tank armor debuff (which unless 100 grudge is negated by a basic armor pot) and a heal debuff which is talented, kotbs/chosen debuff just by existing, SM debuffs a flat % damage etc etc, it might be worth turning some of our buff tools into slight debuff tools aswell, as an example, vengeful strike buffs the IB and oath friends toughness by 75 default, why not add another element to it by debuffing the targets toughness by the same amount aswell. (just a quick off the top of head idea)
this is whats ive come up with so far for some basic fixes/changes for IB to help improve their abilities in larger scale content where they currently get left behind massively compared to SM/KotBS. Any comments/feedback on the changes above/ideas are obviously welcome. lets hope we can get some well needed changes inplace.