Tank question

[tazdingo]

the issues of shields and absorbs not scaling well is at the front of balance discussion though. def SM could be pretty good soon

by pretty good i mean for theorycraft and fun. it'd be like the tank entire WBs BG build, but with better self heals and no annoying mechanic

[blaqwar]

A defensive SM is already pretty good and fun unless the enemy has a healer. So pretty much only good for soloing (so I guess it's garbage)

The two healing tactics (Bolstering Enchantments and Blessing of Heaven) and all the bubbles SM has (Phantom's Blade, Protection of Hoeth, Vaul's Buffer) along with the static value of the shock on Blurring Shock scale only with mastery points. Right now the SM is in a decent spot, the most selfish of tanks (apart from maybe the BG which has a lot of issues) but also one of the best offensive tanks. It remains to be seen if it remains in a good spot if/when the gear scales up, hopefully it will since the dev team want to keep the scaling minimal to preserve the balance.

[tazdingo]

really? even going full selfish i found it quite poor - granted i gave up in t3 before having all the tools

as someone with a real hard on for avoidance, def SM seemed awesome. i just love seeing those little block/parry ect. notes (pity the elves lack animations for them...) it just seemed bad in practice, so so weak by default compared to the other races, with all of the def tools just barely making them able to take a beating like a hybrid chosen/BO/IB can

granted i had the same issue with BG but it became a complete non issue once i got terrifying foe. does it get better for SM in t4?

i don't think brick walls on legs are ever useless, order could certainly use more staying power

[Aethilmar]

Defensive SM is amusing (not as amusing as defensive BG) but not particularly useful. I've been playing with a bunch of defensively oriented builds and tactics (though still with DPS gear) including a healing build and while it can be fun to pull 60k damage/40k healing in a SC it is mostly fluff (by way of comparison the DPS classes pull close to 100k in that SC and healers heal for 100-120k). Survival is fine, but can't pressure worth beans.

Meanwhile, a more DPS oriented 2H Khaine/Vaul build with renown in parry and dodge/disrupt can almost kill a good healer solo (and coordinating with a proper DPS class will destroy them) while WoDS gives you very good survivability under focus especially if you AP pot to keep it up.

Oh, and they are extremely vulnerable to AP drains.

Anyway, that's SM in a nutshell. But now I want to go roll a BO to see the differences. Hate green skins though. Maybe I just need to pretend they are a giant green elf with a speech impediment and power on through ...

[blaqwar]

really? even going full selfish i found it quite poor - granted i gave up in t3 before having all the tools

as someone with a real hard on for avoidance, def SM seemed awesome. i just love seeing those little block/parry ect. notes (pity the elves lack animations for them...) it just seemed bad in practice, so so weak by default compared to the other races, with all of the def tools just barely making them able to take a beating like a hybrid chosen/BO/IB can

granted i had the same issue with BG but it became a complete non issue once i got terrifying foe. does it get better for SM in t4?

i don't think brick walls on legs are ever useless, order could certainly use more staying power

Yeah as outlined above and in my previous post, the staying power can be quite high but it's not passive avoidance/mitigation like a BG or a Chosen/Knight with raw stats, you need to be hitting things to proc the absorbs and healing. That's why a defensive SM is really weak to kiting in addition to being a wasted spot in a group if there's healers around because they have very little group utility. So definitely not as tanky as a BG/Chosen/Knight/even BO.

As I said, mostly a lolbubble spec for wearing down MDPS, tanks and melee DoKs 1on1.

As for the missing animations let's hope Torqe can fix that with client control.

Oh and AP management is the SM's weakpoint, agreed, but for a career that's lacking decent counters it definitely needs to be present. I'd just like to see the one AP tactic we have reworked into something usable so at least we have something to work with should we choose to. So I can kill those damn Shaman running around pressing 1 button and autoattacking me to death...

[Bozzax]

did I just agree with Jaycub.. I feel dirty.

A new low water mark as Jaycub just repeats his morale pump mantra and dont have a clue

[Bozzax]

Bo is a good dest tank though 2h is inferior tho

[tazdingo]

really? even going full selfish i found it quite poor - granted i gave up in t3 before having all the tools

as someone with a real hard on for avoidance, def SM seemed awesome. i just love seeing those little block/parry ect. notes (pity the elves lack animations for them...) it just seemed bad in practice, so so weak by default compared to the other races, with all of the def tools just barely making them able to take a beating like a hybrid chosen/BO/IB can

granted i had the same issue with BG but it became a complete non issue once i got terrifying foe. does it get better for SM in t4?

i don't think brick walls on legs are ever useless, order could certainly use more staying power

Yeah as outlined above and in my previous post, the staying power can be quite high but it's not passive avoidance/mitigation like a BG or a Chosen/Knight with raw stats, you need to be hitting things to proc the absorbs and healing. That's why a defensive SM is really weak to kiting in addition to being a wasted spot in a group if there's healers around because they have very little group utility. So definitely not as tanky as a BG/Chosen/Knight/even BO.

As I said, mostly a lolbubble spec for wearing down MDPS, tanks and melee DoKs 1on1.

As for the missing animations let's hope Torqe can fix that with client control.

Oh and AP management is the SM's weakpoint, agreed, but for a career that's lacking decent counters it definitely needs to be present. I'd just like to see the one AP tactic we have reworked into something usable so at least we have something to work with should we choose to. So I can kill those damn Shaman running around pressing 1 button and autoattacking me to death...

that makes sense, i guess it isn't the completely self sufficient tank i was dreaming of. i am a sadist who wants to play melee in orvr whilst not even expecting a single hot

def BO is beyond awful and really boring, greenskins are dedicated killers. time to try a regen IB i guess