Nefarian78 wrote: ↑Fri May 08, 2020 5:43 am
I'll just touch the main points.
Everyone has the right to post whatever suggestion or idea they wish to, just like i have the right to debunk them and call ridicolous suggestions ridicolous.
IBs are not an should not be aoe buff class. They have a very specific and single target mechanic which is Oathfriend.
To be honest you haven't debunked much of anything. Most of the suggestions that have been proposed so far are not AOE style buffs. They have to do with fixing primarily the Stone Tree, which is filled with terrible abilities and tactics.
Expecting to see more than 1/2 IBs in a perfectly built warband is futile. It's not going to happen, just like you're not going to see more than 1/2 BG/WE/WH/Engi/Magi/AMs. IBs not being as effective as kotbs when stacked doesn't mean they don't have a role to fulfill or that they are weak. That is not a good balance metric.
City is endgame. Every class should have a role to fill in a city wb. The classes that don't have a role, should be improved within the bounds of their class mechanic to have a viable role. For IB/BG, WH/WE, and SW, I think this is much easier, for Engie/Magus it will be much harder.
Please tell me what "role" IBs fill in city/wb's that SMs or Knights can't already do? IBs literally don't bring anything useful to the table for cities that warrant bringing them over other tanks. Sure they are good guardbots, but a Knight/SM also fill that role pretty well if not better. Knights can literally HTL while their passive buffs effective all of their groupmates... Knights/SMs are effective at guarding any type of dps. IBs are extra bad in 6v6, city, RvR if they are guarding a ranged dps. So again, let's try to come up with ideas that don't encroach on Knight/SM territory but also would give IBs a role that Knights/SMs couldn't necessarily fill.
Percentage armor debuffs are one of the most stupid and overpowered things i've ever read. Between % armor debuff, flat armor debuff, tactic armor debuff and morale armor debuff, it would be easy to reduce a tank's armor by more than 3.5k+, depending on how the % works. You can already debuff someone's armor by 3k with the current debuffs + you have armor pen bonuses and WS, getting a target to 0 armor isn't difficult at all.
You are going to have to show me the math, because I don't see how you are getting to that number. Abilities that have the same buff/debuff don't stack with each other, so I don't understand why you'd think a percentage armor debuff (if given to IB/BG), would stack with the WL/Mara flat debuff. It would take whichever is higher, which will almost always be the WL/Mara debuff. A 25% armor debuff at 100 grudge/hate on a tank with 5.5k armor is 1,375 armor reduction. The same debuff on a squishy that has 2.5k armor is only a 625 armor reduction which is less than the flat value we currently have.
And I also want to make another thing clear. You keep coming at this like this would be OP for order, but Destro can already do everything Order can in this department but better. You mentioned concussive runes in another post. Zealot's have Sweeping Disgorgement which is lower in their tree, is literally the same as the RP armor debuff, and also has a corp debuff on top of that. So not only does it synergize well with Choppas/WEs/Maras, it also works great with Sorcs/SH/BO. Not to mention, the only utility healer we bring in our warbands is a single AM. We've found much more success bringing 2-3 heal focused RPs than 1-2 heal focused RPs and 1 utility RP.
You're underselling how strong 10% crit, 25% parry, str/ini with 100% uptime on a single target is. Having 100% uptime of those buffs on 2+ targets would be absolutely insane, especially in 6v6.
I don't think I am. Yeah it would be incredibly strong for 6v6, but it really isn't in warbands. As I already mentioned, you can have abilities scale based off what weapons you are holding. If you are wearing a shield maybe the buff lasts longer, otherwise it would be the normal 10 seconds it is now. Like I already mentioned, at 10 seconds you can not have 100% uptime in a city on 2 other targets and expect to be doing anything but buffing. If you really think having oathbound/ancestors fury on yourself and 1 slayer is that OP in a city, I don't really know what to tell you. If you want to have 100% up time on 2 slayers/mdps you are literally going to be standing around buffing the entire time and rarely applying a debuff to any target. Even then, 100% uptime on two mdps literally pails in comparison to the wb utility you get in WW + Crushing Advance and Knights Auras.
A perfect warband on Order usually has 2 AMs. One to pump a Kotb with Desolation and Solar Flare and one free to pump whoever. Pumping a second solar flare is not needed now that a Kotb can drain 12 targets of morale on his own. Pumping BWs is not needed since the morale drain nerf and the stopper still doesn't even work. You can either drop the AM entirely or run an Axe Slam IB that brings both buffs but trades earthshatter and always have a 8 to 10k drop with a balanced comp.
Most Order premades only run 1 AM and they are only there for insta res and pumping a BW or Kotbs. There's usually not enough space in a premade for 2 utility healers. Again, I'm not seeing any reason to bring a 2h IB just for axe slam over a 2h knight. Bringing Axe Slam means you lose more than just Earthshatter. You are also losing PK and Runic Shield (your only defense against sorcs 2h). So yeah, you'll get a reliable 3s KD, and a really strong m4 (which chances are you will never use) but you lose out on the most important utility you actually had. Not to mention, if you come up against a group running a lot of sorcs your survivability will take a huge hit as you really don't have any good defenses against a sorc or magus without block or runic shield. 2h Knights on the other hand bring really good utility that they'll be able to use often in Overpowering Swing.
Moving on to the things i suggested.
Oathstone guarantees up to 4 blocked attacks, which in turns means 4 reflects. My idea is to increase that number to 8 and guarantee up to 8 reflects. Making it reflect aoe dmg would be overperforming. It's not uncommon to hit for 300+ on guarded choppas with Oathstone. You make it aoe, you have a SnB tank dealing 300-400 aoe damage every second (assuming it has ICD) 10+ targets at once. Wasn't Dire Shielding op when it covered 10+ people all at once and hit unguarded targets for 77? This is the bugged Dire Shielding but on steroids. If you want to make Oathstone more group based a good solution would be to make your oathfriend also defend the next 4 attacks on them without the reflect part.
I don't understand why I'd spend 14 points into path of stone to get an ability that can reflect back a guaranteed 8 times in 10 seconds on a 30 second cooldown. This still seems like an ability I'd never use. Speccing up to get Oathstone makes the reflect go to 716. A guarded choppa at max with 0% mitigation will take 716/2 = 358. So no you are never going to deal 400 damage unless you go further up the tree (but the morale isn't worth it), probably most of the time you'll be taking somewhere between 250 and 300 damage.
This is not dire shielding on steriods... Firstly Oathstone requires block to reflect anything at all. Dire Shielding just required you to be hit. Secondly, I didn't say there should be a guaranteed blocking rate on Oathstone if it became an AoE reflect. I also didn't say it should do the reflect damage that it is doing currently. The problem with Dire Shielding, particularly in oRvR, was that it covered all allies within 30 feet, which could be as much as 24 people. 10*77 = 770 dmg/sec reflected, 24*77 = 1,848 dmg/sec. Either way that is a ton of damage for a passive skill that had absolutely no range. Engies would respawn in the WC and were still getting hit by Dire Shielding.
So again, I don't know what the numbers should be, but a 10s ability, that reflects 200 damage on block to the 3-5 nearest players in a 20 feet range doesn't sound anything close to what Dire Shielding was doing. Sorry if I didn't explain my thoughts enough, but I generally don't know what the numbers should be as it would require lots of testing. However, you pressing on it has made me provide a bit more clarity.
I do like your idea for making Oathstone work with your oath friend.
Oath of Vengeance reduces only the target's toughness. The tactic is "soft mirrored" to the baseline BO's No Choppin' Me. Difference being that Oath of Vengeance affects ALL allies instead of only groupmates. 114 aoe toughness with 13pts isn't bad.
If it was something other than toughness or the range was increased, I might actually run it. Knights for whatever reason, often run Stand Strong! which is likely going to overwrite your toughness buff on 6 potential people that could be in range. Do BO's actually run No Choppin' me?