Patch Notes 23/03/2019

[Tobias26]

Spoiler:

Haven't had a chance to test the changes to guard yet, however here are my initial thoughts on it.

First off, I mainly solo roam in ORvR so it won't affect me at all there.

The main place that I use guard is in Scenarios. With the recent rise of hybrid DPS healers I have been seeing a distinct lack of healing there which has led me to often stop guarding in them. Hell, I usually even announce it in the scenario chat, "No Heals, Dropping Guard". Oddly, with this change I'm actually more inclined to use guard without being healed as I'll be taking less damage from doing so. True, this also means that any guarded target will be taking more damage, but me mitigating some of their damage is better than mitigating none of it at all.

Looking at how this will affect groups, I think that it will change combat somewhat.

A 6 man with 2H tanks will do the same damage and have less mitigation - pressuring healers and making them focus heals more on guarded players, while still having to heal their tanks.

A 6 man with SnB tanks will do less damage and have the same mitigation - basically being the type of combat we have now, with healers healing both the tank as well as his guarded DPS.

So (and this is kind of simplifying things a bit), the following should be true -

2H group vs. 2H group - more damage happening, less mitigation, healers going insane trying to heal. This playstyle discourages healers from being hybrid DPS as their healing is needed more than the damage they do.

SnB group vs. SnB group - less damage and more mitigation on both sides. Relieves some pressure on healers and allows more hybrid healing builds.

2H group vs. SnB group - 2H does more damage, less mitigation. SnB does less damage, more mitigation. Depending on the amount of damage the 2H group does, this may just cancel out (or it may lead to 2H needing to be buffed to bring their damage into line compared to the mitigation being done). SnB group may do more damage overall due to the likelyhood of there being more DPS healers in that group.

That all gets a lot more complex when you scale it up to Warband size, but I think in the long run this may lead to 2H tanks needing to have their damage buffed due to the increased damage advantage that a SnB group has.

The one thing that I do like is how this has completely shaken up the group play meta. It will force 6 mans and Warbands to have to rethink group compositions and cause lots of chaos for the next few weeks.

And that always tend to make the game much more fun.

Like many others, you forget the main thing - most tanks are not able to cause significant damage, even with 2h and str build. Therefore, your conclusions are fundamentally wrong. With these changes, the group with 2h tanks will have less survivability and have a slightly greater amount of control and not too powerful debuffs. And that's all. And it will always lose to the group with SnB tanks.

[nailinthehead]

I think it's an interesting change which will force some more group comp variety. Ofc 2h tank is not a real dps, but it brings so much utility and decent dps that i see the reasoning behind adding additional drawback besides lack of block. Now groups will have to decide if they want boost their dps via 2h tanks or strengthen their defenses via s&b ones.

I hope it will bring changes to some tanks (ie. IB which snb sucks) to make both builds worth playing.

Side note: keeps it civil guys, it is only a game.

[Ashoris]

first you strip all the utility from SnB to force Player to go 2H - now you remove the other core function from 2h ... It is just plain boring now to play tanks

But this will be a huge boost to all the ppl playing alone - who qq that Guard is OP because punt and focus is too difficult for them to understand ...

i can now decide between being a dmg add without guard responsibilities or a guardbot without function (utility) - so pretty straight forward to play !!

[adamthelc]

I'm not opposed to the idea that a 2h tank shouldnt be able to do tank specific activities as well as a tank with a shield. I don't really think it's a good idea to nerf something on an idea alone, if things are working decently currently.

I'm not sure 2h tanks were really overperforming before this though, so it seems like it was just a nerf to make something else relatively better. Not really a big fan of that.

That seems like the intention of the change though. I think there are other things that could have been done to make a shield more appealing.

Could have made 2h unable to defend guard damage or given it a reduced chance. Or made the only way to defend guard damage was with a block.

Or you could make Shielded tanks better at it some how. Which I think would be better just because I dont think you should actually nerf something unless it's too strong. An example would be something like an ability that allows you to guard 60% more damage for a duration or something like that.

As it stand now though they have 25% which isnt nothing. If it was nothing people wouldnt be so upset about losing the other 25%. Still a nerf is a nerf and I dont agree with nerfing things to make other things seem better.

[Esperflame]

To all you guys who think this change is great and SnB tanks needed a buff, you apparently didn't notice the consistent nerfs to SnB tanks. Tank SnB builds have been nerfed on this server with the exceptions being Swordmaster who has been gifted with the most amazing regen build in the game and Ironbreaker/Black Guard who have been for the most part left alone. Lets discuss the various Nerfs that specifically target SnB builds shall we?

Knight of the Blazing Sun: Banish Darkness cooldown was removed for SnB tanks. Destroy Confidence (11pts) was removed from the game. Dirty Tricks was reduced to 5%, and Encouraged Aim was made unusable by SnB tanks.

Chosen: Hasten Dissmissal like banish darkness lost it's cooldown bonus for SnB tanks. Bane Shield was given an internal cooldown due to a bug they fixed making the tactic Dire Shielding useless since the whole point of the tactic was to punish AoE.

Black Orc: Tree-hit combo requires a 2 handed weapon now. I had planned a really fun SnB build for my BO but need rr70 and was rr66 when this change was made.

Look, I'm not saying changes don't need to be made, but this change is flat out wrong. You're altering a Core Mechanic of an archtype. Are you gonna nerf res on dps healers? Make charge less useful on tanky DPS build? I've sat by quietly in the forums for the most part as you make changes that either aren't needed or done so over the top that after 3-4 months of complaint you finally relent and make a tiny adjustment down. Stealth openers need to be undefendable? I thouht WH/WE was supposed to be a class about positioning and skill, not just walking up to a fully super tanky tank and slapping him in his face thru a shield.

You've just continued on with changes here and their claiming it's "just a test" only to leave them in place even when half your community is yelling at you that this is a horrible mistake. The real problem is you keep making these balance changes without re-addressing them that you're slowly throwing balance completely out of whack. Too many people want to complain about this class having this or that class now being too strong, but when it comes to their favorite class think everything is just fine! Remember the plague of unkillable WLs in Guardian spec? I can honestly tell you my fav character has something I consider a bit too damn strong but I'm not even gonna bother with the balance forums. I've seen decent proposals refused because they didn't follow your format. We don't need a format to discuss good ideas. I grumbled for a month in discord when I was 4rr away from running Treehit and Waaagh on my SnB BO. You wanna bring back SnB BO's? Let them treehit! You wanna know why Etherdance requires a 2 hander and Treehit doesn't? Because Treehit has to go through the highest dmg mitigation stat in the game. You wanna know why Knight of the Blazing Sun had such a hard boner hate tactic on Shamans? Because Blackguard's ruin a Rune Priests day super hard. This isn't about mirroring abilites, it's about balance. I've watched in the forums a few complaints about Guard and how it needed nerfed. Do you guys even understand what Guard is? It's about me as a tank standing next to an ally putting myself between him and the dmg he's taking. Shields have nothing to do with how it works. Shields just make it work better because I get 2 attempts vs 1 to fully negate the dmg blowing through.

[Skullgrin]

Like many others, you forget the main thing - most tanks are not able to cause significant damage, even with 2h and str build. Therefore, your conclusions are fundamentally wrong. With these changes, the group with 2h tanks will have less survivability and have a slightly greater amount of control and not too powerful debuffs. And that's all. And it will always lose to the group with SnB tanks.

No, I took that into account when I said the following -

...I think in the long run this may lead to 2H tanks needing to have their damage buffed...

You apparently just skimmed what I wrote without seeing that we have the same conclusion, that the SnB tank group with DPS healers will have a potential damage advantage...

[Kurama]

The one thing that I do like is how this has completely shaken up the group play meta. It will force 6 mans and Warbands to have to rethink group compositions and cause lots of chaos for the next few weeks.

And that always tend to make the game much more fun.

What? It wont change wb play at all. Serious wbs always bring snb tanks.

[CeeJay89]

You wanna know why Knight of the Blazing Sun had such a hard boner hate tactic on Shamans?

I dream of the day this tactic sees light again...I dream.

[Skullgrin]

What? It wont change wb play at all. Serious wbs always bring snb tanks.

Yes, but pugs generally used to take anyone regardless of their spec. It will be interesting to see if they still will after this change. Not that it really affects me personally, I only tend to join a Warband for Fortresses at this point...

[Tobias26]

Spoiler:

Like many others, you forget the main thing - most tanks are not able to cause significant damage, even with 2h and str build. Therefore, your conclusions are fundamentally wrong. With these changes, the group with 2h tanks will have less survivability and have a slightly greater amount of control and not too powerful debuffs. And that's all. And it will always lose to the group with SnB tanks.

No, I took that into account when I said the following -

...I think in the long run this may lead to 2H tanks needing to have their damage buffed...

You apparently just skimmed what I wrote without seeing that we have the same conclusion, that the SnB tank group with DPS healers will have a potential damage advantage...

Oh, realy. Sorry, my mistake)