Choppa solobitz!

[fatelvis]

Nice fights. Unfortunately you ignored my junior kotbs, would've been nice to check how it's doing against an experienced solo choppa, yet.

Regarding the IB topic: IB with dot build feels pretty balanced atm, it can even fight and barely win against WB WEs without investing in fleshrenders. (and dps zeals are possible to if you start prepared)
It's fine that you don't beat any class and build as long as others have the same level of balance.
Unfortunately (and mainly) for specific magus builds this doesn't seem to be the case right now. The combination of range, CC, damage and even tankiness once you get to them is crazy. Having your absorb available doesn't really do much there.

And IB can convert grudge to AP, nothing else.

Generally for grudge generation dwarven reposte feels sufficient for me except on targets that ignore you. You'd want to have a tactic set with rising anger ready for those. (Mostly rising anger, FO, heal debuff plus X)
Picking someone around being picked on as oathfriend helps as well if it is more than a 1v1.

[nocturnalguest]

Toptier quaility video, but lemme also join derailing train

Throwing out ideas to make IBs solo life better lets not forget about how it will affect group play. Potion change alone made it possible to cap str without unplayable downsides, at the moment 100 grudges restrict IB from being ultimate menace in group play. Its the only tank that can spike its damage, and spiked damage is the only thing that is actually damn scary in group play. Very very few understand how actually strong IB damage is in group play, most just look into total scoreboard number, see e.g. chosen numbers (in city for example) and know no further. In case what you spitballing here goes live, im scared of what i may do myself and im not even mentioning what other, more skilled and active folks would do (i know tho! Settle all the Grudges, ha). Pure nightmare.

Another side of the coin tho. Previous friday i somehow got all the folks in one place same time and instantly formed proper 6men and we went warfront, we ran 2h sl+dps wp combo with sm/ib. We've had no issues to kill tanks from other organised groups and it has been in ALL cases even easier then to kill DPS, surely some were really offensively built, some just reckless but in general tank became a legit 6v6 target quite long ago already. Maybe considering that warlord detaunt is nerfed into the ground and you cant build yourself both decently defensive and this offensive it could balance it out. Still have alot of doubts on this tho, one could just swap triumph/darkpromise chest+gloves for alt sov/vic in classic setup and still reach 850 str in full parry build for group play, trading in general just 3% parry...

[Pahakukka]

I don't mind the topic being derailed at all, this is a important bit too.

Like said, I would have to try IB post potion rework to see how it does now. And the balance should not be done according to the 1v1 perspective, but these issues are good to be brought up, as some of them might be things that wont affect the "real" game that much, but would just bring IB up that little bit so some meta class players could try it. Now the soloroam scene is very polarized around stealthers, very few ppl roam with anything else.

In any for of group content IB is a absolute beast, I can only imagine the hurt proper 2h slayer will bring when being fed with sustain, crit, str and ws, while getting enemy armor debuffed. I play so little with groups that I can't always see the effects in larger scale.

I tried the dwarven riposte and my opinion was that it made IB stronger against characters its already good against, but also made it even more weak against rdps/dot classes as you didn't generate even that little bit of grudge soloing. Then, the balance is kinda rock paper scissors anyway. maybe we just gotta roll one each and try to match our scissors against opponents paper.