[Declined] Black Guard Fixes

[Ninepaces]

Why is it an issue?
The current state of destro tanks is such that BG never sees play unless the leader cant find chosen/BO online.

The Issue:
The core issue is that BG doesnt interact well with either of the other tanks and maurader. What the other tanks bring has been talked about extensively but I will rewrite everything fast for the sake of completeness. Consider:

Chosen provides auras, reliable knock, reliable punt (due to its angle and hangtime), aoe stagger (which helps in a disengagement situation), fast m4.

BO provides aoe snare spammable (which also disorients and provides good support damage via loudmouth), init steal, silence, cooldown increaser, morale drain, morale pump, ap drain, dmg multiplier (skull thumper), excellent m3 that can be used for both dmg burst and utility. All of that in the same build

Black Guard provides unreliable knock, unreliable punt (due to angle... cant punt uphill far + harder to punt over obstacles, hate generation), armor debuff, 2 ap drains, outgoing healdebuff, block/parry reduction, EITHER crit% increase+wounds debuff OR aoe snare. I assume everyone skills the right tree up to healdebuff and choking fury.

Chosen + BG in group is in theory supposed to work, as chosen provides the defensive tank role with the ccs and BG provides the support damage and some nice offensive buffs. However in practise, lack of aoe snare vs kobs multisnare bonanza means the destro melee train cant really every engage on their terms. Its very difficult to kill anything, as a properly tanky built slayer with double guard is close to unkillable and prime squishy targets like BW/AM/SW are in the backlines that are difficult to get to. There are ways around it like group pop resolute defense or maura cage or maura pull (disruptable) but realistically these high cooldown abilities are nowhere close to as reliable as simply booting the BG and getting BO in there with aoe snare on command to at least even the playing field in terms of melee mobility. Only the healdebuff would be lost as any offensive upside from the BG is made up for BO. Even crimson death is partially covered by (unreliable) initiative stealing. Defensively this setup is also very difficult as the order train can literally just run past the melee into the backlines either by running around tanks or running through with snare immunities. Destro backlines either die or maybe manage to kite back to guards. The destro tanks can never gain proper body position because of permasnare and they have to start exposing their backs to kobs and either get punted or just snared forever. Its a very difficult setup to play when playing against an organized group. Of course vs pugs you dont see these problems as they lack the voice chat to organize these simple things but it has become very evident to me in my time in this setup when my team gets pushed uncontrollably and I break down what went wrong after the sc. It is part of the reason why I have been so stubborn until recently in skilling the aoe snare in a s/b offensive geared setup. First of all the problem with aoe snare is that with the 20s cooldown its nowhere near as good or reliable as the BOs snare. Second, you give up most of what would make a BG attractive for a group in first place, in particular crimson death and the very nice 120 wounds debuff which are both unique tools for destro tanks. For this work the very least required is a reliable aoe snare


BO + BG. Not having a chosen in the party poses a few problems. First, there is no reliable knockdown as the BG needs the proc and BO dont usually run the knockdown. Second, no auras. The stats might be able to be covered through BO/BG buffs but the loss of resistance aura means a zealot is required to compensate which means not having double dok. As I stated above, the angle, hang time, and no-hate-needed of the chosen punt makes it superior to the BG one. I havent played this setup enough to comment further, and maybe it can work but I havent really met any premade leader who has been willing to drop chosen for bg in any kind of remotely serious group. In fact I havent met any premade leader who is willing to take BG in a serious group at all. Even magus sees more play. For this setup to work the kd needs to be reliable, and the auras of the chosen need to be made up for somehow.


Solutions:
1) Monstrous Rending: AOE snare 40% 5s. Like big swing it wouldnt have a cooldown but limited by career mechanic. The hatred cost means its difficult to maintain 100% snare and is more of an emergency aoe snare. It would make wave of scorn redundant but perhaps that can be changed in some way too. Not that its important as its so high up the mid tree its not going to see much play anyways.

2) Remove any kind of proc from the kd (or at the very least requiring a defense of any kind), keeping the 5s duration at max hate. At first glance this may seem op, but remember there should be some incentive for taking a BG over the the wide range of utility bo/chosen provide. BG should have something good.

3) Some upside to the basic single target buffs/debuffs. (Feeding on Weekness, Brutal Smash, Pitiless Strike). Either let them stack with other buffs/debuffs of the same kind OR increase their values by about double their current values.


I think between these changes BG might see some play with a chosen as it brings a different set of tools as a BO. I cant stress how crucial the aoe snare would be. There has been talk of readjusting the mid tree and on principle I'd support any sort of buff to BG but thinking logically it wouldnt make much difference. The unique strengths of BG are really crimson death, wounds debuff, heal debuff. Going up a readjusted mid tree means that you might be tanky but you wouldnt provide enough utility to compete with BO.

Edit Oct 26: Just in case I wasnt clear, the above suggestions are what I think are the bare minimum to just get the BG to a level to actually start testing it in a competitive setting. Further buffs would be required.

[Penril]

Declined; giving a tank a spammable Core AoE snare is a terrible idea. However, feel free to give feedback about swapping Wave of Scorn here:

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