SM Changes

[balvor877]

I'd focus on the FUN-factor when working on the SM class. At the moment I dont see a point in playing SM. It doesn't bring much to the table for the group and has not really anything where it shines.

There needs to be something to make it fun again. Something like dual whield, or throw weapon, or 2h whirl wind lol. Something unique and fun that makes you wanna play it. All the other classes have such great tools, the SM feels boring compared to them.

When you think about SM, why would you wanna play one? What comes to your mind beside lore? Nothing? Magic damage? kind of weak? yeah...

leaping up to oil and aoe punting everyone off (semi joke as it was grey area and not sure dev stance on it ha) as some keeps have poor terrain

M1 snare tying down enemies that engage, or try to flee... jumping into people and knocking them off bridges or cliffs... that seems like one of the reasons to play sm

that and trying to out heal healers in sc or city...

Bunkering objectives to troll people is another reason to play SM

Being a WW bot and your AM best friend

If that is everything then you are really easy to entertain Im not impressed. Pushing off the bridge doesnt happen too often and other classes can that too. For bunkering the knight an IB are better. Guess some people like playing a WW bot or Waithammer Online.

[Aurandilaz]

Just revert the Wings of Heaven nerf and maybe improve the distance of speccable ST punt that requires block, other than that SM is just fine. Its extremely tanky and provides desired utility (WW, RT, AoE KB, 9th wb healer spot)
Sure, it might be fun to add this or that, but even then, are X Y Z really needed?

Class is already one the tankiest tanks when maximizing avoidance buffs + multiple absorb layers, if anything the tankiness is higher than other order tanks, especially if going 2h with WODS.
Utilty is below kotb but above IB - is that good or bad, depends if you play kotb or IB.
Would be nice to have WW being undefendable, but apart from that, don't really think the class needs any buffing. Midtree 13pts could be turned into something useful, but otherwise the class is just fine.

[Ysaran]

As proposed by Aurandilaz ^ above, maybe a solution would be to make WW undefendable. As pointed out by Wam, CD decreasing is a delicate issue on order side and maybe making WW undefendable would make the class less triky to play without blostering too much SL/BW

[detrap]

There is a reason why WW is two hits, you have two chances to proc the ability. Sure the BO version is easier to activate, but they have to waste a tactic slot for it and it applies a corp debuff instead of a more useful 4 second silence. Pros and cons.

I think all order tanks are somewhat equal when it comes to utility, it's just a matter of having the right counters for warband play.

[BluIzLucky]

Yup.. SMs are fine, happy to take all the straight up buffs/QoL suggestions here.. But already SMs best general 2h/snb dmg tank and 2h survivability, best healer, and best protector and probably the strongest anti blob in RT + CA + GW.. And best mage/healer disrupter WW+5s CA, 10s Taunt, CW.

Then if you are getting parried a lot.. pick an easy target for WW or you can easily get 20% block/parry strikethrough + 10% on gear.
Also good if you want to play tank busta.

[Aethilmar]

Yup.. SMs are fine, happy to take all the straight up buffs/QoL suggestions here.. But already SMs best general 2h/snb dmg tank and 2h survivability, best healer, and best protector and probably the strongest anti blob in RT + CA + GW.. And best mage/healer disrupter WW+5s CA, 10s Taunt, CW.

Then if you are getting parried a lot.. pick an easy target for WW or you can easily get 20% block/parry strikethrough + 10% on gear.
Also good if you want to play tank busta.

I love all the discussion going on but I think this summarizes part of the problem with perceptions around SM so going to dissect it.

1) "But already SMs best general 2h/snb dmg tank" - Not true. 2H IB and BO outperform it.
2) "2h survivability" - Not true outside of WoDS (at which point you are doing nothing else). BO is better while still active and have you seen the stuff a geared 2H Knight/Chosen can walk away from?
3) "best healer" - Desperation fluff per my original post.
4) "best protector" - What? Knight/Chosen for WB and IB/BG as individual guard. Raking Talons is a shadow of it once was with the reduced multiplier.
5) "best mage/healer disrupter" - Debatable. Anti-heal auras, stagger, moonpunt are also pretty damned good.
6) "Also good if you want to play tank busta" - If you are playing "tank busta" you have already lost.

As I noted up front, SM is a vanilla tank with one trick (WW) that may keep it from getting other tricks because as noted it might make it too powerful from a group perspective if it got other buffs (although I don't totally buy this but willing to entertain it as something that needs to be considered as a tradeoff).

[Farrul]

^^ In addition to the above, let's put things into context.

BO(well all destro tanks really) is a vastly more popular class than SM, SM is likely the least played tank class in the game on the realm(order) that desperately need tanks & frontline. I have observed 2-3 IBs and 2-3+ Kotbs per SM in orvr on average. The absence of the swordmaster fits into the general tank/melee problem that order have.

It's not a random discussion without cause, as if we were just talking about improving the class for the sake of it. I started a thread myself pointing out the problematic itemization(weapon skill, generic sets does not consider the spirit nature of the class at all, i was told the same is true for chosen to a lesser extent ).

At the very least imho Qol suggestions should be looked into, an increased Eagle's flight duration(5 sec uptime, with stance dance mehanics makes for a poor quality of life ) reliability of WW and so on, making something a little more useful out of phoenix wings won't break any balance and could be exactly what is needed for the class. Let's not forget 2 hand and not SnB is the real class fantasy of the swordmaster, it should be allowed to shine in this role which is what i think new players that might want to check out the class expect. Currently i'd say that outside of WODS, the black orc mirror is a stronger 2 hand- beast by a fair margin.

[BluIzLucky]

It's a great conversation, good to see some love for SM.

Yes, Warlord stats and 3-4p bonus could use a face lift as i agreed on that thread

And.. Wings of Heaven got a massive buff now that it can be used with Bellow.

1) I'm sure both bo and Ib (with full grudge) could out dps sm on some targets.. Tho i suspect they would need to sacrifice more survival than SM to do so.
2) Good thing we only need Wods when focused.. Which is rare since nobody wants to target someone with 70-100 avoidance. Make Calming wind apply to dodge as well to make us 100% if you want more.
3) call it what you want.. And again devs please 2x heal sm for the lulz.. You can passively reduce fluff dps pressure on half the wb.
4) Just my experience.. Looking at city scoreboard SM>IB>Kotbs. Rt still gives 10-20% on demand with no cd.. With POH SM is best (order) group proc.. not sure what makes kotbs better for wb, please let me know. Same for IB, SM as best avoidance and self absorb, that barely any guard dmg is registered.
5) sure, stagger is OP and should be moved to 13p.. OR move WW to 9p.. 25% heal reduction on 1-2 healers = fluff desperation?
6) nobody playing tank busta.. Just reminding you that there's two core tactics and 10% from 2h, if you are struggling to land WW.

My point is.. (and happy to proven wrong) SM is as good as or better in certain aspects, and it seems like they are being overlooked/ignored when it comes to buffs.

And totally agree, I want to see a change towards making SM primarily 2H..
Move WW to 9p
Unlock CA and RF for 2h.
Make WoDs a smaller area of HtL but same effect
Give 2h SM 10% base parry or make PD 10/20% parry.
.

[detrap]

Maybe fix the SM and BO blade enchantment cooldown bug for starters.

Also a big drawback is the current 10 seconds till reset back to normal stance, it's very annoying. Would be nice to have it increased to to 15 or 20 seconds because what is painful to see is being ready in perfect stance to activate WW and being cc'd to the point that your 10 seconds is up by the time you get behind your target to hit it.

Only extending reset timer would do wonders for both classes. Enhancing the during of defensive tactics like PD and calming winds.

[Strakar]

I love the idea above about making SM fully 2h, I had a lot of the same thoughts. I think them and BG lorewise are the two tanks that wield 2h, it would give something unique. You would have to tune dmg because it wouldn't be fair to be as tanky as snb while doing 2h dmg, and a tank who can't do tank things like guard or HTL would be useless, especially on order who is already lacking.

Based on what I read the devs have a meta in mind so anything bold probably isn't happening. The biggest single change I think is giving PW some debuff so 2h can bring unique WB utility. I'd love snare like BG but I think IB needs a couple prime improvements more.

Second thing if we're stuck with snb meta is to give us a spear, it would be very high elf like to be an actual spearman.