TheoryCraft [Tanks Balance]

[Azarael]

Strongly agreed with taccr.

People are falling into the trap of proposing vast changes which would have unpredictable effects on the metagame and cause major dissatisfaction.

The proper way to go is to identify only a few changes to make at once, test them thoroughly and then reassess the meta.

[Sulorie]

No fix for the Focused Offense tactic proposed? How could you

Don't take away this jewel of a tactic, a tactic every tanks slots, when nobody is looking.

[Luth]

There is a rumor, that aza wants to change "focussed offense" to buff +33% armor instead debuff -33%.

[murmelon]

Unique abilities of the BG are not even considerered in the suggested balance change (M1, detaunt dispell tactic, wounds debuff+AA speed increase tactic, etc. pp.).

I did not cause controversy:
BG 1 morale ( removes all effects)/ IB 2 morale (0 inc dmg by 5s)
BG 2 morale ( AOE Knock back)/ IB 1 morale (direct root)
BG AA speed in Path = AA speed IB have too like core abbility
BG Wounds bebuff in path = IB weapon skill buf like core abbility and initiative in path
BG detaunt dispell = IB str + crit chance buff in path + 15 crit chance in core.

On the other side i only see nerfs on the KotBS. The knight would need to gimp his class mechanic to 1/3 of the efficiency to make one tactic worthwhile, srsly?
Generally the proposed changes on the KotBS look more like a nerf to one faction, than to balance tanks.

why make another one imba class (for examle chosen) and then nerfed him...(but the fact that Knight was (is) imba class, isn't it?)

Also you write, that you want to make useless abilities valuable, but don't even touch the ones the knight has.
e.g.:
BG "Enraged Beating" should be replaced by IB "Cave-In". The knight has a similiar ability, which is more useless because it doesn't even have the secondary hate restore effect of "Enraged Beating".

chosen crap ability = kotbs crap abillity
IB has =10%to dmg and 5% - and so-so channeling.(with chance to crit hit, ie for fastest killing)
SM has=10%to dmg and 5% - and best channeling.
BO has =10%to dmg and 5% - and best channeling.
BG hasn't - and so-so channeling. (with hate restore effect, ie preparation for killing)

[magter3001]

I think tanks are fine atm. Sure they aren't as good as WE/WH BW/Sorcs or DoK/WP but not every class needs to be uber powerful. I personally love the tanks in this game, prolly the best tanks of any game I played because they do what I want them to do, support and tank. I don't care for more dps on a tank, and they already have guard which by itself is already useful enough to get tanks into 6 mans.

Ye it would be nice for SM/BO to get a lil love but I played my BO to T3 and enjoyed every single moment of him because he did everything I wanted him to do.

[Ototo]

I like the idea of Nature's Blade change so it steal resistences instead of stats.

For the rest i have to agree with Azarael:

Strongly agreed with taccr.

People are falling into the trap of proposing vast changes which would have unpredictable effects on the metagame and cause major dissatisfaction.

The proper way to go is to identify only a few changes to make at once, test them thoroughly and then reassess the meta.

[Vraal]

One thing that many people seem to forget is that many of the KOTBS' tools are also available to destro just that they are spread over more classes. The thing that draws so much hate on the KOTBS is that Mythic apparantly cramed many tools into one class. I know that this is not a good choice of design but stripping away those tools from the KOTBS without giving them to other classes might not benefit the order realm.
Another thing that many people seem to forget is that both your career points and your tactic slots are limited (even for a KOTBS ) and that you cannot take all those things mentioned as one KOTBS.Same thing goes for auras.
Not saying that it is boring to have one "go-to" tank for the realm but I am always of the opinion that it is better to bring the other classes up to the level of a well performing class than bringing a well performing class down.

In case anyone wonders of an example for destro specific buffs that make up for the advantages that KOTBS brings to order, here you go: http://war.mmodb.com/abilities/infernal-gift-982.php

Vraal

[Azarael]

Not saying that it is boring to have one "go-to" tank for the realm but I am always of the opinion that it is better to bring the other classes up to the level of a well performing class than bringing a well performing class down.

This is viable only if the well-performing class represents the ideal level of power for the archetype in which it is contained. Otherwise, the archetype itself becomes overpowered relative to the others. Such is the issue of the "always buff" strategy - if you can only move in one direction, you forego having a baseline to which you can balance, and the system becomes vulnerable to power creep.

[Vraal]

All things that makes KOTBS a bit over the top are things he gives to the group not only himself. As I have said you can redistribute some of the power over all order classes but without totally dropping the whole thing. It certainly is unfortunate that there are so many vital group-buffs clustered in one class when compared to destro where they are abit better spread across more classes.
I don't think that any of the top-tier classes of any archetype are performing so good that they put the whole archetype over the top (for example MDPS being outshined by RDPS). Atleast I have never heard that anyone ever said that " - insert archetype here- are too strong in WAR". The problem lies more within the balance of each archetype and how the classes inside compare (for example Magus compared to Sorc). Because the top-performers of any archetype (Knights, BWs, Slayers and WPs for Order) perform in a balanced way with eachother, I think it is reasonable to say that balance should orientate itself at these well-performing classes.

Vraal

[murmelon]

On the class changes suggested:

Besides the changes to SM and BO (some of them seem very questionable), i see the strong purpose to buff the BG with some tools the IB has and let him generally perform better without a shield.
There was a patch in the past, that gave the BG most of the stuff the IB has.

I recall what was in that patch:
given to BG
- armor debuff
- toughness/willpower buff
given to IB
- outgoing heals debuff

taken from BG
- uniq disorient (+1 sec to build time)
- strenght debuff
- Dot 5 sec
- Dot 9 sec (It was BG's burst)
- morale debuff
taken from IB
- 3rd knockdown!!! (omg)