[Ironbreaker] The Crucible: Class discussion and guides

[GodlessCrom]

Cool beans.

[Darosh]

Cool beans.

Might be worthy of a balance proposal; changing it so that the damage defaults to one's offensive target, or spread in one form or another to the Oathfriend (the way the BG parry buff does) - given it being a rather expensive ability (mastery, CD, application, ...), you'd not tamper with balance too much. Would make for a fancy burst-assist tool ~

[GodlessCrom]

Hm, perhaps. Most IB seem pretty fond of 2h these days. Making Oathstone more attractive would be cool. Also wouldnt mind seeing people discuss Avenging the Debt, which is just awful. Its meant to be an execute, it looks like, or perhaps a heal? But is bad at both. Giving IB an execute, or a lifetap heal, in the form of Avenging the Debt would be cool. Though perhaps too powerful.

[CountTalabecland]

Hm, perhaps. Most IB seem pretty fond of 2h these days. Making Oathstone more attractive would be cool. Also wouldnt mind seeing people discuss Avenging the Debt, which is just awful. Its meant to be an execute, it looks like, or perhaps a heal? But is bad at both. Giving IB an execute, or a lifetap heal, in the form of Avenging the Debt would be cool. Though perhaps too powerful.

Maybe they could do that and then switch its place with shield mastery. IB has no other way to buff block% like Knight and I feel like more ppl would go SnB if they could more easily get that 10% buff and have some points left over to get some other abilities in either tree. Currently, if you want shield mastery and the self-heal, you need rr 60 or set bonuses before you can get much else. Where as self-heal plus 2h tree crit + cave in seems to be much more popular and easier to get to. I think more ppl would go SnB if they could also have the self-heal at three points sooner.

[Darosh]

Hm, perhaps. Most IB seem pretty fond of 2h these days. Making Oathstone more attractive would be cool. Also wouldnt mind seeing people discuss Avenging the Debt, which is just awful. Its meant to be an execute, it looks like, or perhaps a heal? But is bad at both. Giving IB an execute, or a lifetap heal, in the form of Avenging the Debt would be cool. Though perhaps too powerful.

Avenging the Debt is dps-wise pretty fancy - if you run a decent group you'll sit at 100 grudge 24/7 in engagements, even whilst spending some on buffs, in which case spamming away AtD within buffing/debuffing/HtL offtime is quite hilarious.
Probably the best tool for sustained dps/filler an IB has (given the lack of AP cost + decent bas), however spending mastery points on it whilst running a guardbot is rather counterproductive, all things considered.

The healportion should however be turned into a debuff that lasts for 5s and grants the heal on the death of the target, maybe even to the entire not just the Oathfriend (we'd come full circle with that, as far as support/buffbotting on an IB is concerned) ~ it is nigh impossible to actually get a DB with it, if you run with decent deeps. The heal portion is scaling with willpower pretty well, iirc, so upping it won't be necessary (cue wp buff) -, but a 5-10s CD to prevent potentially gamebreaking setups (with an iteration like the above) might be...
INB4 Volgo solo healing, tanking and dpsing for a group ~

Turning it into a CtW/FS-esque finisher might be a tad too much.

[GodlessCrom]

I think IB is also much more popular in roaming and sc groups, where you are less likely to see rdps. And with the willpower buff now adding to disrupt, and runic shield helping against magic damage, 2h IB is relatively tanky against the typical bane of 2h tanks, magic based rdps. At least better off than it was last year, when I last played my IB. Also all the utility for IB is in Brotherhood tree, so you can spec for on tap CC with cave in and then grab the heal debuff, snare, self heal and crit buff easily.

I am interested in speccing for snb as I have been 2h forever, but it does feel like IB doesnt gain much as SNB. HtL is awesome, and lack of ontap KD hurts so much. Feels tanky as hell, but 2h IB was already a tanky bastard.

@Darosh: I just feel like IB already spends Grudge quite often, with Runic Shield, Oathbound, etc. Having never specced for Avenging the Debt, cant say how good it does for damage but I feel like its just a weird skill that could do with being more specialized. What if you made its crit damage scale with grudge? I dunno. Earthshatter already hits hard and snares entire group, so even if it did more damage it might not be worth taking.

[nocturnalguest]

Have been thinking of proposals for tweaks on Stone tree too, but havent come to any proper idea. You cant switch ability slot for tactic slot, would ruin all "plan". And none of tactics/abilities on Stone tree in current state can go upper without a significant buff. So i see two paths: a) complete rework with changing abitities (client control) or b) some small buffs to current abilities.
AtD is very nice damage wise, Darosh is right. Tho AtD like all stuff on IB scales very bad with STR and it hurts.
I'd support a debuff idea on AtD, cause even taking into account its spammable ability with okaish dmg - getting a kill with it is more like an accident.

[GodlessCrom]

In a way, poor scaling with strength is a mixed bag. On one hand, you see low return for investment. On the other hand, means you can just focus on other stats once you get strength to about 500ish IMO. Stuff like Ini or toughness or ini or wounds or perhaps some ini.

[nocturnalguest]

Yeah, you are absolutly right, thats why you can sky rocket toughness, ini or anything else. Plus easy WS buff and even 350 is ok to hit something (with a wet noodle tho) but not tank.
To continue about putting some more luv into SnB - forgot to mention another idea for AtD. What if make it undefendable attack?

[Darosh]

@Darosh: I just feel like IB already spends Grudge quite often, with Runic Shield, Oathbound, etc. Having never specced for Avenging the Debt, cant say how good it does for damage but I feel like its just a weird skill that could do with being more specialized. What if you made its crit damage scale with grudge? I dunno. Earthshatter already hits hard and snares entire group, so even if it did more damage it might not be worth taking.

I run AtD whenever I have to grind mats/gold - queued with it by accident... I don't know why it is (probably a weird coefficient, some weird exception or just proper base damage), but it tends to hit rather high for how much I invest into offensive stats (=zero, atm), and my current sub40 trashgear. It might be worth testing the skill with a proper gear setup, but again mainly as deeps tool as the healing trait is garbage in its current iteration.
As to the grudge-management, I have yet to run into issues outside of 1vX (which I am not setup and looking for anyways) and super smallscale in which there simply isn't enough cannonfodder to fire up the grudge oven via pummeling of my Oathfriendo(s), so I can't comment on that.
Note: All of what I am writing is from a S&B-guardbot PoV, it most certainly does not match what roamers experience.

The issue with a critmultiplier (i.e. CtW/FS-esque tuning) is that it might end up completly gamebreaking, as you mentioned due to the very way most of IB's skills interact with mainstat, mitigation and all that yazz; an IB is already extremely potent whilst having A-tier sustain, an aweasome CC toolkit and the other shinies that come with the archetype.
Someone setup like Volgo would have a field day with a proper finisher, especially due to the critchance you can reach on IB with little to no effort - you should generally think of what a BiS geared and competent player could do with a tool, luckily in IB's case we don't have too search long for a good test subject.
Consider Volgo your very own laboratory rabbit as it comes to theorycrafting and such, I am sure he'd be willing to not just aid you theoretically in that regard.

I'd vouch for either some buff being linked to it (avoidance, or w/e), debuff (initiative, AP regen, whatever fancy there is), or as stated earlier the healing trait to be reworked ~ if not only for the sake of balance; I sure would like having another tool that I could properly assist with, but I personally just can't see it work it a non-gamebreaking manner.

Abbd.: Slightly offtopic:

Spoiler:

I am interested in speccing for snb as I have been 2h forever, but it does feel like IB doesnt gain much as SNB. HtL is awesome, and lack of ontap KD hurts so much. Feels tanky as hell, but 2h IB was already a tanky bastard.

In my honest opinion: S&B IB is the most fun guardbot to play. I'd go so far as to say that its the most fun I had since launch of this game, I should have picked up the class earlier. I however can't see myself sacrificing HtL anytime soon, 2h doesn't appeal to me at all - even in spite of watching of Volgo volgo'ing about.
You should certainly try it out, but adjust your expectations (and your general mindset) beforehand; coming from 2h it might feel underwhelming at first, but it'll invetiably kick your parental instincts into overdrive ~ it comes with the amazing toolkit. There is nothing more satisfying than successfully floating guard and oathfriend (= all dem juicy buffs) while HtL-raving away (I really adore the fistpumping-animations on S&B IB's).