Kotbs Arcing Swing suggestion and about 2h spec

[Battlefield]

I think the point of "lack of armor debuff" is a very weak one. Armor debuff is a group utility that you want if your party do physical damage. As such, armor debuff is utility and if it is one thing kobs should not get more of it is utility. As this is a group based game, lack of ability to debuff your own damage type is primarily a solo issue. You just need to have a WL, IB or SW in your party and that "problem" is solved.

then magic path deal elemental damage and no problems, on the other side BO has armor debuff but SM not....

It means 2 destro tanks (BG,BO) have armor debuff and on the order side there is only 1 is IB has armor debuff !

Doesn't look very balanced, does it? Following the logic it is possible to give armor debuff ability to the Kotbs, It could be Precision Strike ability.

[Nekkma]

I think the point of "lack of armor debuff" is a very weak one. Armor debuff is a group utility that you want if your party do physical damage. As such, armor debuff is utility and if it is one thing kobs should not get more of it is utility. As this is a group based game, lack of ability to debuff your own damage type is primarily a solo issue. You just need to have a WL, IB or SW in your party and that "problem" is solved.

then magic path deal elemental damage and no problems, on the other side BO has armor debuff but SM not....

It means 2 destro tanks (BG,BO) have armor debuff and on the order side there is only 1 is IB has armor debuff !

Doesn't look very balanced, does it? Following the logic it is possible to give armor debuff ability to the Kotbs, It could be Precision Strike ability.

Sure, just trade your resist debuff for armor debuff if you think that would be better (and have realm ”balance”. Personally, I would not make that trade as a knight tho.

[Battlefield]

I think the point of "lack of armor debuff" is a very weak one. Armor debuff is a group utility that you want if your party do physical damage. As such, armor debuff is utility and if it is one thing kobs should not get more of it is utility. As this is a group based game, lack of ability to debuff your own damage type is primarily a solo issue. You just need to have a WL, IB or SW in your party and that "problem" is solved.

then magic path deal elemental damage and no problems, on the other side BO has armor debuff but SM not....

It means 2 destro tanks (BG,BO) have armor debuff and on the order side there is only 1 is IB has armor debuff !

Doesn't look very balanced, does it? Following the logic it is possible to give armor debuff ability to the Kotbs, It could be Precision Strike ability.

Sure, just trade your resist debuff for armor debuff if you think that would be better (and have realm ”balance”. Personally, I would not make that trade as a knight tho.

np liniment now gives 360 resistance I even thought about it armor debuff for Kotbs is much more important now

[Sever1n]

Order tanks 1 res arura 1 armshred
Destro tanks 1 res aura 2 armshred.

Dunno about what trading you talk about. Its that simple. They gived armshred even for dps wp/dok, but adding it to khigth will break the the game. Its just will be life quality change for knigth. He need boost in dmg for his channel ON TOP. 12 pages of trash as usual. People more intersting spam crap to look smart then in actual balance. Mods this tread is going nowhere.

[ShadowWar]

No, those walls of texts were totally not people just trying to sound smart and superior!

KotBS is a great tank, super useful, and there's a reason it's popular. Those reasons do not include the ability to competitively solo. The Chosen is also a great tank, super useful, and popular. Those reasons do include the ability to competitively solo.

Others can argue the minutia of balance all they want, the self-evident truth of the imbalance between the two aura tanks is known with regards to this. The only argument that means anything is that the value a KotBS brings to group play is so drastically more than that brought by a chosen, that the entire other playstyle deserves to be bad.

To me, that argument is crap, wrong, and a bad perspective on game design.

But we all get to have our opinions.

[Battlefield]

No, those walls of texts were totally not people just trying to sound smart and superior!

KotBS is a great tank, super useful, and there's a reason it's popular. Those reasons do not include the ability to competitively solo. The Chosen is also a great tank, super useful, and popular. Those reasons do include the ability to competitively solo.

Others can argue the minutia of balance all they want, the self-evident truth of the imbalance between the two aura tanks is known with regards to this. The only argument that means anything is that the value a KotBS brings to group play is so drastically more than that brought by a chosen, that the entire other playstyle deserves to be bad.

To me, that argument is crap, wrong, and a bad perspective on game design.

But we all get to have our opinions.

The Knight brings almost the same benefit to the party as the Chosen


equal auras

equal massive stun

equal knock down

equal wounds debuff exept Knight's 10% critical tactic for 2h as debuff


Knight's Traits

Focus Mending tactic cause groupmates get more healing by 15%

Dirty Tricks tactic when blocking party members gain +5% crit chance


Chosen's Traits

Oppression ability now also reduce damage taken by group members too by 15%

Tzeentch's Reflection now gives absorb to all party that absorbs 1100 of ALL magic damage in the game

[nocturnalguest]

Spoiler:

I think i have acknowledged this fact in every one of my posts, ''a buffbot''- .

Does it make up for having this low lvl of personal dps? The question is misplaced.

Why shouldn't a 2H offensive spec with a Greatsword have competent personal dps within its own archetype? This has been the norm in every roleplaying, character building game since the dawn of rpg games. You put on a big stick its supposed to hurt. Hence to me what the ror devs did to it, is until this day unacceptable. I can't remember another rpg game that had a Knight ''human warrior'' class with a big 2H doing weak damage.

The painful fact is, that Kotbs 2H had this. Before the devs here started to nerf it.

So what is being emphasized by myself and others is to restore something which was there already for the class, not give kotbs something it never had or is not supposed to get. Post by @sinisterterror went over that aspect if you care to take a look. Suggestion by @Fenris is reasonable for the current game, also posted it.


The low dps of the Kotbs prevents me from enjoying it at all gameplay levels, solo, duo, trio, 6 man, scenario, in a rvr group etc. From an objective balance point of view the nerfs that caused the current knight 2h situation has been unfair, the original Kotbs with Mighty soul is how the class was, and intended to be. Since it lacks an armor shred then naturally it had means to convert elemental dmg ( i do not advocate for a full restore of previous might, details can be discussed)

Important question is, why did ror devs mess with that working design? It is true for every other tank, It simply can't be justified.

As for your examples, any result you get with a kotbs 2H will be obviously much better with another tank 2H under the same conditions(whether that is a premade, solo, glass cannon gear with focused offence (lol) or whatever). Since each one of them has greater potential of dps, better tools for the task. Try for example to stack WS and crit on IB 2H( which was used as an example) and see the results, you're instantly 2-3 times deadlier than kotbs for assist dmg that matters(bring the target down) or killing a goblin just by yourself.

Hence why i distinguished between ''fluff dps'' and real dps previously. I know kotbs has got fluff dps through weak aoe dots and reflect dmg to make it seem like it does better than it actually does.

knight for example having an conversion effect on Myrmidias fury it wouldn't disturb any balance, knights would not suddenly start to dominate the scoreboards or anything. This converted Myrmidias is still supported by the lowest crit chance of any tank, no % dmg increase effects, not much else elemental since even blazing blade only has the dot part elemental, unlike the Chosen who has several tools more like Ravage spam, run dot, higher crit, Mind you, Chosens 2H who are running around with 1k toughness whilst doing this. 2H Knights wont have those monstrous stats either.

P.S. Fyi i enjoy the classes at all levels, i do also perform well in all gameplay modes and have plenty of experience doing it, all roles including healing when there is a shortage of Healers because everyone and their brother is playing rdps. Solo is not even possible much these days due to everyone zerging.

In fact making Order tanks more attractive to play should be a priority for the Dev team, for every adult that likes to play a support tank there will be 10 kids rolling a 2H chosen. There is always an Order tank shortage except during spam prime time.

ill try to help out with pinning down the issue. and its not damage. design for 2h tanks in group play can be summarized as a) bm/sm high sustain, some niche utilities b) kotbs/bg insane utilities, both are enablers for a group c) outliner #1 chosen, ideal all arounder, decent sustain, decent utilities d) outliner #2 ib either best burst or utilities or something in between, lots of spec options, most "flexable for situation". so there is no need to compare chosen vs kotbs, as in their 2h design you better off comparing it with BG.

besides obvious changes that has lowered amount of options to play (warlord nerf, ws/ini change, itemization) kotbs only issue for solo/pug/all arounder is actually mastery tree allocations. out of every possible spec options people always choose its initial role of being insane utility.

so answering your questions and why's - you just cant have such insane utility AND anything else. thats the price. MF being elemental with tactic aint gonna solve anything as you wont be able to afford it for proper group play (for solo/selfish/group reliant spec just skip KD and gear up properly, many options), it being elemental without tactic is too OP. back in a day then they removed mighty soul that was a change for a sake of change, it had no logical reasoning, now tho, so much has changed that asking for it just be back "as-is" not gonna work out anyways. no matter how loud one would whine.

so tl;dr, actual options worth discussing for buffing up kotbs are:
1) incredibly smart mastery trees relocations to not overbuff it (e.g. so it could have destroy confidence not sacrificing KD or at least reliably take its channel)
2) crit mirror with BG
3) unnerf warlord

1) is incredibly hard to balance out, i have no well thought out suggestions, but its gonna be the greatest. atm kotbs are way too restricted with current mastery allocations
2) is most logically and mathematically explainable. this one can be proven with numbers, modeling and its justified enough. the only con is none constructive bullsh*t along the lines of "but..but..mah mirrorz!!!1"
3) ideal all arounder for each and every tank in the game, those +2 along with proper detaunt (so you dont have to overstack parry so much) even as 5 seconds duration i would love the most. back in a day when stacking WS gave you parry that was even better, eh agree on current team logic of WS stacking for mdps but cant agree with it if we talk about tanks. have no suggestions/solutions to fix it for tanks while keeping it in current state for mdps.

P.S. OK, took a note but why when you lobby damage so much i struggle to understand. For a tank. You even said that

The low dps of the Kotbs prevents me from enjoying it at all gameplay levels, solo, duo, trio, 6 man, scenario, in a rvr group etc.

I agree with "preventing from enjoying" because its gameplay is pretty dull, you are shoehorned into a curse of being in 1 effective spec and struggle to get out of this utility slavery (while meta does evolves, so its pretty much so-so issue, just build your party properly). But it has absolutely nothing to do with dmg anyhow. Numbers are there, mathematically and mechanically nothing prevents kotbs to do damage.

Comparison on paper kotbs = the very best. On practice usually its like: BG has crit but kotbs in theory has runefang and m2 but on practice kotbs has sh*t cause specced OS+KD+FM, BG has FH but kotbs has SI but on practice kotbs again has jacksh*t cause its way too high, chosen has ap drains and kotbs has better ap drains, but on practice kotbs has sh*t cause you have to build a party around such stuff with another KD source (possible and cool, but still). Also destroy confidence even in its current state is strong af, but so high in a tree that its tricky to reach. This issue tho is fixed with group compositions, but as kotbs you no longer have cool all arounder spec that would be interesting to play and shine, you have to be built-in fixed composition and aint flexable as IB (on its own i mean).

But any suggestions to e.g. bring it all back as it was on live with current meta and stuff are delusional af. Thats just way too OP and would need so much of overhauls that its just plain stupid to talk about that nowdays.

Edit #1 (mostly typos but)
So overall conclusion - issue is that kotbs struggle and suffer with working flexable all arounder spec like no other tank. so its a big hit for solo/pug life. outside of solo/pug everything is fine actually, spec into what group needs. it can be damage too. its best all arounder utility spec brings no intertaining shinies (its still does okaish assist dmg tho!) and boring to play

Also its obviously and absolutely intended design and its actually fair and applies to every tank. So again to a point that if you raise a question then there need to be lots of specific context. So pick your poison, lobby either 2) or 3). 3) probably easier to explain

[Farrul]

so answering your questions and why's - you just cant have such insane utility AND anything else. thats the price. MF being elemental with tactic aint gonna solve anything as you wont be able to afford it for proper group play (for solo/selfish/group reliant spec just skip KD and gear up properly, many options), it being elemental without tactic is too OP. back in a day then they removed mighty soul that was a change for a sake of change, it had no logical reasoning, now tho, so much has changed that asking for it just be back "as-is" not gonna work out anyways. no matter how loud one would whine.

so tl;dr, actual options worth discussing for buffing up kotbs are:
1) incredibly smart mastery trees relocations to not overbuff it (e.g. so it could have destroy confidence not sacrificing KD or at least reliably take its channel)
2) crit mirror with BG
3) unnerf warlord

1) is incredibly hard to balance out, i have no well thought out suggestions, but its gonna be the greatest. atm kotbs are way too restricted with current mastery allocations
2) is most logically and mathematically explainable. this one can be proven with numbers, modeling and its justified enough. the only con is none constructive bullsh*t along the lines of "but..but..mah mirrorz!!!1"
3) ideal all arounder for each and every tank in the game, those +2 along with proper detaunt (so you dont have to overstack parry so much) even as 5 seconds duration i would love the most. back in a day when stacking WS gave you parry that was even better, eh agree on current team logic of WS stacking for mdps but cant agree with it if we talk about tanks. have no suggestions/solutions to fix it for tanks while keeping it in current state for mdps.

Imho the impact of it would be minimal, there wouldn't be any balance issues worth mentioning i am 99,9% certain of that. Just a little more effective singletarget added to the Knight in certain situations( not even always as you mentioned yorself, due to restricted tactic slots available). Hardly something to make him over the top.

P.S. As for the tactic slot issue there is an elegant solution. Incorporate the conversion effect into overpowering swing tactic, just like Chosen mirror tactic under relentless. This tactic is not useful to anyone at the lower level it becomes available since arcing swing requires lvl 40, that would solve two issues at once.

Now the suggestion made by fenris;

KotBS need Mighty Soul back , but without all Glory tree buffed. Simply make it core tactic, buffing 2-3 skills, one on each path, to allow various builds with Elem attacks.

Pidgeonholeing builds into full glory spec was not a good idea.

Buff one skill in each path, like :
- Myrmidia's Fury (The only skill in tree not having "special effect", only damage)
- Sunder (to make it actually useful, with the drawback of getting lower base damage)
- Blazing Blade (main attack, maybe buff slightly the DoT component with tactic)

So this particular ''solution'' would make a Kotbs more into magic tank, tactic in this case affects 3 abilities. Would this be too much for kotbs? I even doubt that, since we're still talking about a 2H tank with the lowest offensive modifiers. He is still not going to match a Chosen, just close the gap a bit.

I also bet if any of this was on trial for a period to evaluate the effect, it would be just fine, nobody would complain about it. Just more happy 2H knight players( which order desperately need, we dont have tanks in this faction whilst over at destro they exist in abundance, order 20 min search to find one for a dungeon lol).

Here is something funny take a look , humans do mistakes, we're not perfect not even the devs and staff. Look at this old thread and what Wargrimnir said back then, 5 years ago:
viewtopic.php?t=41773

MS/DW were stupidly overpowered in the way they worked, converting *all* damage output to the respective magic damage type. The devs made more of the Knight's abilities do magic damage (to mirror the Chosen), and the game is better with these tactics removed.

I was going to say something, but Rydiak got it perfectly.

Yes the knight does really mirror the chosen ''more''! Blazing blade dot vs conversion on relentless and a full magic left tree. They made Chosen into a real magic tank like the swordmaster, sure they lost CS but it was a trade-off. Knights? They just lost Mighty Soul, gg.

Anyways, yeah i hear you, i does not need to be such a solution, it can be discussed. I would even bet a lot of 2H knights would gladly get rid of some utility to have a more versatile and fun spec to play, a few ''slaves'' may resist . In fact utility was already nerfed with the destruction of ''Slice through'' tactic.

I could come up with a lot of ideas, but generally i don't think the devs read these forums much or care about our opinions based on how they changed other specs recently. I dont mean to sound unfair to them but that is the logical conclusion.

Edit #1 (mostly typos but)
So overall conclusion - issue is that kotbs struggle and suffer with working flexable all arounder spec like no other tank. so its a big hit for solo/pug life. outside of solo/pug everything is fine actually, spec into what group needs. it can be damage too. its best all arounder utility spec brings no intertaining shinies (its still does okaish assist dmg tho!) and boring to play

Also its obviously and absolutely intended design and its actually fair and applies to every tank. So again to a point that if you raise a question then there need to be lots of specific context. So pick your poison, lobby either 2) or 3). 3) probably easier to explain

In the end we play games to have fun, this directly applies to classes since we play the game through them, i.e our little avatars. If something is boring it gets abandoned or played less, which is a failure in the class design since design should thrive to be enjoyable. Nobody (hopefully) is playing the game as extra work.

As for the solo point again, in fact knight isn't even that bad solo from the def''regen'' perspective, it can survive and outlast none healers but yeah why would anyone stick to that? I have no idea.

[ShadowWar]

Spoiler:

The Knight brings almost the same benefit to the party as the Chosen


equal auras

equal massive stun

equal knock down

equal wounds debuff exept Knight's 10% critical tactic for 2h as debuff


Knight's Traits

Focus Mending tactic cause groupmates get more healing by 15%

Dirty Tricks tactic when blocking party members gain +5% crit chance


Chosen's Traits

Oppression ability now also reduce damage taken by group members too by 15%

Tzeentch's Reflection now gives absorb to all party that absorbs 1100 of ALL magic damage in the game

Sometimes I think you start typing replies without reading the entire comment . Maybe not, and this is for other people, but I explicitly said I don't agree with the argument, but it's the only one I've heard that's in any way valid.

[Battlefield]

If you want some damage on Kotbs, it's easier to take the Bloodlord shield with Invader one-handed than to switch to two-handed weapon completely. BL shield gives +5% damage and Invader 1h weapon has 360 damage proc. it will be almost the same, only with a shield it will be much better because as I said 2h Kotbs has no any bonuses for great weapon, that's why please allow to use Arcing Swing with shield and add a restriction to the Overpowering Swing tactic requires Great Weapon instead of the Arcing Swing.

And honestly Order tanks needs a second armor debuff to maintain some kind of balance since Destruction tanks has 2 of them (BG,BO vs IB and ?)...