I am asking only for one small change of mechanic of one skill and hope its gonna change SM defensive tank game play up to Black Orc lvl.
Please dont judge me too hard but i gonna talk about problems of "DEFENSIVE" Sword Master as he is (because as damage dealer SM is O.K. for me at least)
1. Identify the issue. Lack of diversity in Blade Enchantments (HB)
1.1Sword Master almost forced to use great sword, becouse the best defense of (SM) its offense -> to be alive in mass AOE fight you need spam these 2 skills
(
)one skill that works only with 2-hand swordother one with ridiculous duration because to use it you need waste 2GCD and after its left duration gonna be only 2 sec left to start Doom-pain-finger combo once again and be sure
that isnt easy work for Sword Master players ->SM didn't have AP regen tactics like BO, none of Blade Enchantments cant be activated from range more than 30-50+ feet while ALL BO War Bellows is can be:
Neither of Blade Enchantments didn't proc from incoming damage, to sustain party HOT tactic and be counted as support/tank.
Spoiler:
to live long enough.
Spoiler:
2.Heaven's Blade very poor ability
Other two of blade enchantments pretty good and balanced (for dps purpose), but when we talk about Heaven's Blade, its pretty much weak skill for SM himself only way for this ability to be useful its debuff resistances so other mates of WB would do more damage with SMs help (BWs,Engi ect) - but here we met with other problem any other resistance-debuff from other classes much powerful and covers up Heaven's Blade.
2.1Very hard to manage to Heaven's Blade
Not so easy to keep multiple targets under effect of Heaven's Blade, to do this you (SM) must have good addons, very good eyes to keep tracking of time left to wear off De buff from enemies. And to have very-very good gear to apply Heaven's Blade (25% on hit... and what if miss?) while KOBtS\CHOSEN doing same job but even better with 100% chance without fails.
2.21Its time for me to get closer to issue that i wanna show.5 out of 6 tanks in game have theirs "Thorn mail" skills - to keep pressure from mindless zerg in green zone of danger to his hp and others members of wb.
Lets say that you are tank in RvR lake fight 1-2 wbs massive fights its okay if you were run over by organized wb-party-zerg (people know what to push, debuffs-heals-aoe-punts) BUT if you ever met with mindless non-party zerg without healers and all they have its numbers 20-30 people spamming skills at you some of them even using clicker program that press 1-2-1-2-1-2 rotation for them all they need its hold mouse and press TAB. Purely for this purpose "BACKLASH" skills shine the most that felling when you see how (party less CHOPPA or BW jumps on you while he didn't have no healer nor guard) and dying with you getting assist or kill (backlash skills usually doing 100-300 damage) so to get kills with them pretty hard but still enjoyable.And next time mindless zerg would think 1-2 times before focusing tank, or they will group up to not die so pointless. So my main point when 20-30 fellas of mindless zerg attacks SM they do not care about consequence because they not taking a single attack or hit, yeah 3 - morale of SM have similar effect but gosh its doing 2 hits and wears off not much to talk about.
2.3 As my main point of view its SnB SM, to be useful tank and defend my team (dd+healers) for now i can only hope to survive long enough for melee encounter and start debuffing enemy, in "Hold The lane" phase SM almost defencless(tank out of 6) versus Mindless zerg easy going focus him all day long.
.3. Propose a viable solution to the problem. One-Two Small changes
3.1 Major change to Heaven's Blade
:original "Heaven's Blade" - you enchant your blade with the spirit of heavens. All your melee attacks gain a 25% chance to reduce
all of your targets resistances by xxx for 10 seconds.
to new version:
new "Heaven's Blade" - you enchant your blade with the spirit of heavens. Incoming attacks have a 25% chance to reduce
all of your attacker resistances by xxx for 5 seconds.
Power of effect still little lower than KOBtS\Chosen counter-part but like this Sms life as debuffer gona be esier, and enemy (hope gonna think couple of times before focusing SM) bonus this effect with tactic "Potent Enchantments" will fill "BACKLASH" storage for SM to make his SnB game play more similar with other tanks.
3.2 Small change to Eagle Flight
:original "Eagle Flight" - A guarded strike that deals xxx damage and improves your chance to parry by 25% for 5 seconds CD=0 seconds
to new version:
new "Eagle Flight" -A guarded strike that deals xxx damage and improves your chance to parry by 25% for 10 seconds CD=10 seconds (mindless spam of skill gonna be punished if attack miss\or blocked
10 seconds without parry buffs, in waiting for skills comes off cool down).
3.3 small change please allow Blade Enchantments proc form "Wall of Darting Steel"
, as its already works for Black orc War Bellows with his "Can't Hit Me!"
