[Review] [Tank] Focused Offense

[7rere7]

FO 15% damage increase all healing received 20%-25% less ?

[Ugle]

FO is supposed to make tanks do mdps role. Loldps tanks miss burst compared to mdps. So +50% critdmg, - 50% armor. I'd use it then.

[GodlessCrom]

FO is supposed to make tanks do mdps role. Loldps tanks miss burst compared to mdps. So +50% critdmg, - 50% armor. I'd use it then.

Hah, and then a plague of black orcs devoured the land...

[Tifereth]

Wouldn't it be better to look at underperforming 2H classes individually?

Agreed, however it won't make FO any more desirable.

That is true. Guess my arguement boils down to "Don't change the tactic, rather change underperforming classes individually",
which I deem fair myself, but goes off topic regarding what to do with the useless tactic, so I'll draw the line here and hope something of worth has been contributed.

I simply don't see any drawback that could be implemented without stripping features that make the classes what they are.
As you mentioned yourself, keeping the same armour values plus a damage buff, and the same utility are overkill. No bold change,
and FO will remain bad. So in my eyes, the solution lies somewhere else.

[GodlessCrom]

Well if we look at FO as the tank equivalent of divine fury, then the point of the tactic is to have a tank fulfill the role of mdps, similar to a dps dok. So the tank will essentially no longer guard someone, just as a a melee dok doesn't really heal anyone. You don't do the exact damage of a true mdps, but you have utility to make up for it in the form of cc and buffs/debuffs.

Of course, if we want FO tanks to still be tanks, then it's a bit harder to balance for all the aforementioned reasons.

[Rebuke]

Well if we look at FO as the tank equivalent of divine fury, then the point of the tactic is to have a tank fulfill the role of mdps, similar to a dps dok. So the tank will essentially no longer guard someone, just as a a melee dok doesn't really heal anyone. You don't do the exact damage of a true mdps, but you have utility to make up for it in the form of cc and buffs/debuffs.

Of course, if we want FO tanks to still be tanks, then it's a bit harder to balance for all the aforementioned reasons.

That last sentence hit the nail on the head my friend.

[BreezeKicker]

Well if we look at FO as the tank equivalent of divine fury, then the point of the tactic is to have a tank fulfill the role of mdps, similar to a dps dok. So the tank will essentially no longer guard someone, just as a a melee dok doesn't really heal anyone. You don't do the exact damage of a true mdps, but you have utility to make up for it in the form of cc and buffs/debuffs.

Of course, if we want FO tanks to still be tanks, then it's a bit harder to balance for all the aforementioned reasons.

While DPS wp/dock don't necessarily focus on the heal part of life taps, they still have the option - def target swap or using the weaker casted heals. So if you want to make it like divine fury you can't outright deny them guard, limit it somehow but don't take it from them completely. You could increase the CD, change the split ration or build in some kindn of disadventage into it when FO is slotted in.

Even if it would buff the DMG up to mdps level, tanks would still lack some of the tools like cc immunity/charge/stealth mdps posses, so it doesn't really make sense to outright take away whole guard mechanicn simply because one decided to slot a single tactic.

[Eathisword]

I simply don't see any drawback that could be implemented without stripping features that make the classes what they are.
As you mentioned yourself, keeping the same armour values plus a damage buff, and the same utility are overkill. No bold change,
and FO will remain bad. So in my eyes, the solution lies somewhere else.

WEll... GWM is +10% damage and +5% parry without drawback. People use it. FO is 15% damage and -33% armor : no one uses it. I seriously doubt a 5% damage increase is worth this kind of drawback. We ought to keep in mind, lots of tank NOW, use +10% damage from GWM and the world hasn't ended.

FO isn't used specifically because the drawback is huge. If we reform FO to, again, 15% damage (even 20% damage) with a massive drawback (like guard reduction, insane armor reduction, etc.), the state of things will remain the same : people will use GWM instead.

So in a sense, I agree: the solution lies somewhere else. How can we make FO different enough from GWM, less good (GWM is a 10 points tactic) but without any major drawbacks that would deny any use compared to GWM ?

#1 - Change the Damage bonus to another bonus, be it crit, stats, strike-through, increased AA speed, etc.
#2 - Change the nature of the tactic to make it a 2H defensive tactic (there are a lot of shield defensive tactic, not many 2H related equivalent, and since GMW exist for flat damage bonus, it would prevent duplication)
#3 - Change the nature of the tactic to make it more utility focused : reduce CD, slight morale gain, AP boost, etc.

[blaqwar]

The problem with 1 and 2 is that tanks function differently, especially from a DPS perspective, as has been pointed out in this thread before. Crit is very desirable for Black Orcs, while it would have a lesser value for most other tanks. AA speed would probably benefit SMs/BOs more than other tanks due to Potent Enchantments/Loudmouth while a strikethrough tactic would be competing with Discerning Offense and would probably be useless for SMs.

Similarly on destro side of things a morale pump tactic would be much less valuable since Chosen/BO already have good ones. An AP boost tactic would really only benefit SM as other tanks have good AP options.

Balancing FO in order to make it as equally desirable by all tanks as possible would be incredibly difficult.

As for your second suggestion, since Focused Offense itself is an offensive tactic by name and purpose and it being the only archetype DPS tactic I couldn't agree with changing it into a defensive/utility one. Not to mention that you're potentially running into even bigger balancing issues there.

While some would argue that tanks' damage is fine as it is and they don't need an archetype damage tactic I disagree, some tanks are fine, while some feel very sub-par when offensively focused. The more I read and think about this topic the more I feel like any archetype tactic balancing can't be tackled before game-wide tank balance is addressed (Knight/Chosen, BG/IB issues in viability in different aspects of the game). Any changes to FO right now would upset the tank balance even further.

[TenTonHammer]

I simply don't see any drawback that could be implemented without stripping features that make the classes what they are.
As you mentioned yourself, keeping the same armour values plus a damage buff, and the same utility are overkill. No bold change,
and FO will remain bad. So in my eyes, the solution lies somewhere else.

One drawback in of its self is the loss of a tactic slot and thus missing out on another strong tactic

take 2H BG for example: Hastened Doom, 15% crit tactic, unstoppable fury, soul killer, 30% parry tactic

all of those 5 are all strong in their own right, by using FO you loose access to another strong tool