Improving the 2H blackguard playstyle

[Uchoo]

The simplest solution is to make blade of ruin into a mirror of cave in, which would also encourage bg's to spec an ability that they would otherwise never touch

Blade of Ruin is a 5pt ability with no weapon requirement which requires Block or Parry. Guard feeds this requirement to all tanks for free, so you're essentially granting another KD to S&B BGs, not just the two-handed ones. If you want a conditional KD depending on whether the user has a two-hander equipped, I can do that, but you need to decide if having this ability at 5pts is balanced.

Just wanted to point that out. I'm all for giving use to useless abilities.

What if you made it 9pt, require a 2H, and put Enraged Beating at 5pt?

[TenTonHammer]

Blade of Ruin is a 5pt ability with no weapon requirement which requires Block or Parry. Guard feeds this requirement to all tanks for free, so you're essentially granting another KD to S&B BGs, not just the two-handed ones.

Just wanted to point that out. I'm all for giving use to useless abilities.

When i say cave in mirror i mean quite literally cave in more or less in every way:
25 ap
20s CD
No need for block or parry
Requires great weapon
3S KD
*DoT component not necessary but would be nice*

Yes i realize there will be tool tip complications

[Azarael]

Every other tank has their channeling attack at 9 or 13pts. Do you think that would be fair?

TenTonHammer: It can't be made to mirror Cave-In exactly because of the client, which will continue to expect the ability to be usable after block/parry and with all kinds of weapons. Sticking with the principle of least modification, I would advocate making the ability perform a conditional knockdown when a two hander is equipped.

The question for me is whether "Requires 15 Hatred, requires Block/Parry" is enough of a drawback to balance the ability at 5pts.

[Gobtar]

The simplest solution is to make blade of ruin into a mirror of cave in, which would also encourage bg's to spec an ability that they would otherwise never touch

Blade of Ruin is a 5pt ability with no weapon requirement which requires Block or Parry. Guard feeds this requirement to all tanks for free, so you're essentially granting another KD to S&B BGs, not just the two-handed ones. If you want a conditional KD depending on whether the user has a two-hander equipped, I can do that, but you need to decide if having this ability at 5pts is balanced.

Just wanted to point that out. I'm all for giving use to useless abilities.

The IB has a 10 second cool down off the shield and Cave-in doesn't require a proc, where both the BG abilities will require a block or parry and SS is a 20 sec cooldown, and Blade of Ruin will require hatred. Is there a way to require a two-hander for Blade of Ruin? I think that would balance it out.

[TenTonHammer]

The question for me is whether "Requires 15 Hatred, requires Block/Parry" is enough of a drawback to balance the ability at 5pts.

well...considering you give up the surviveablity of SnB, as well as access to the longest KD in the game and all the while still being inferior to a DPS spec bg with SnB....yes?

[Penril]

The simplest solution is to make blade of ruin into a mirror of cave in, which would also encourage bg's to spec an ability that they would otherwise never touch

Blade of Ruin is a 5pt ability with no weapon requirement which requires Block or Parry. Guard feeds this requirement to all tanks for free, so you're essentially granting another KD to S&B BGs, not just the two-handed ones. If you want a conditional KD depending on whether the user has a two-hander equipped, I can do that, but you need to decide if having this ability at 5pts is balanced.

Just wanted to point that out. I'm all for giving use to useless abilities.

All tanks have their KDs at 10 points, so only for this reason i would say no.

Maybe if you swapped Enraged Beating with Blade of Ruin? And to answer the obvious question that would follow: i don't see any problem with having EB at 6 points since probably no BG would spec it. Most 2H BGs would maybe go something like this (assuming BoR is moved to 10 points):

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=bg; ... 5:;0:0:0:0: (Tier 4)

And in lower tiers, most would go for Soul Killer first instead of EB. Not enough points (T2 or T3) to have Soul Killer AND the KD (if BoR is moved to 10 points).

[Penril]

The IB has a 10 second cool down off the shield and Cave-in doesn't require a proc, where both the BG abilities will require a block or parry and SS is a 20 sec cooldown, and Blade of Ruin will require hatred. Is there a way to require a two-hander for Blade of Ruin? I think that would balance it out.

The shield-KDs sound balanced. Yes, IBs has a lower CD duration, but the BGs can last 2 more seconds.

I dont see a problem with BoR requiring Hatred since BGs gain it faster than IBs gain grudge anyway (unless they use Rising Anger, but that requires a tactic slot). So imho the only difference would be that BoR requires a parry. So yeah, as you say, maybe that condition could be changed to "requires great weapon".

[Uchoo]

I think I like your idea about keeping it at 5 points better, Az.

Enraged Beating and other channels offer a lot of output without any investment in offense, and that's when an offensive tank starts to shine in my opinion. At least, Black Orcs and Swordmasters. Relentless and Myrmidia's Fury aren't very good iirc.

[Uchoo]

well...considering you give up the surviveablity of SnB, as well as access to the longest KD in the game and all the while still being inferior to a DPS spec bg with SnB....yes?

You're trading off the survivability for more damage.

[TenTonHammer]

Enraged beating does a lot of dmg espically when paired with hate on crit tactic and is an easy way to apply hastend doom wounds debuff

Late game i see bgs spec it on live as the ap cost is irrelevant, furthermore while IBs shield kd is 2s less, its cd is only 10s

Crimson death is debateable to get, id rather have the disrupt tactic on the side to pair with ap and move speed tactic

Anyway Id much rather have BoR have a more "meaningful" downside and be 5 pts than switch EB down to 5 but the call is yours and at the end of the day as long as bg gets a 2h kd thats all that matters