He's right actually.Farrul wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 9:56 pm Have fun with that and this sounds like a boast more than something realistic, 99% of the playerbase will never go through that struggle even if was possible so they re-rolled other tanks instead with better utility, also underplaying the duties of a tank which requires punting, snaring, cc, position awereness and then the annoying piano gameplay of the IB post GCD nerf. There just isn't enough time to do what you're saying whilst performing all the other tank duties competently.
With all things considered 15 seconds oath buffs would be balanced for the power that these buffs give and imho nowhere near overpowered. Dwarven riposte + rising anger wont be used thogeter as this means a big sacrifice of more important tactics, also imagine using up 2 tactics to fix what the mirror class get for free more or less, hence why IB quality of life buffs are overdue.
No grudge issues is assuming large scale combat where there is constant damage being taken, when grudges are typically available, but there are plenty of times in different situations when the mechanic matters and can't be utilized like that (BG is different because they got channel attack that generate a lot of hatred + rising anger equivalent for free).
That widespread info (Earthcake article) about lack of time/GCDs has wrong grounding and assumption that you are forced to do all at once, while its not true at all.
The harsh truth is that IB cant be played like that (keeping uptime on all your buffs while still doing all other tanking stuff), and its way more demanding then any other tank class in terms of GCD management and situation awarness. I believe such situation is fine as its also very rewarding to play IB properly. Lets use 6v6 as most competetive environment where team efforts and GCD management shines most brightly and Ill make and attempt to explain and hope it may help others understand what counter arguments are actually are for "IB lacks time" with few thesis using 6v6 as game environment:
1. You should apply parry buff to a friendly target that is under few of following conditions alltogether:
- your Enemy addon shows IHD on your party member (at this point according on results of you reading situation you shouldnt buff, but its possible in case something in your team is bad/wrong and enemy has proper pressure, or just as a safe play if you are not comfortable with how things go)
- friendly target is KD'ed (you now check if your team tanks are kd'ed/punted or not, if not you dont have to buff yet unless next condition is met)
- you now check if there is silence/stagger on your healers (and here is a decision you make according to how the fight goes, if tanks/healers are not CC'ed and you doing fine you keep doing your other stuff, if tanks/healers are not CC'ed but your team takes too much pressure you can buff, and even here you need to consider if you actually need it or challenge would be enough, or challenge + parry buff in case you feel like it, but there is no obligation to keep it up yet unless tanks/healers cc'ed, ihd applied, target is knocked)
- focused target or you or other tank in your team has choppa parry debuff (then you buff and keep it for debuffs duration as it helps to negate the affect a ton)
In rest of cases your parry buff is very close to a waste of resources/GCD (assuming AI level of GCD management, in reality tho i admit that ppl rebuff parry and try to keep it up for unjustified technically reason "just to keep up a shiny thingy i have at my disposal"), mitigation level it gives in comparison to challenge/healers doing their job (and assuming everyone position and move properly and doing their job well enough) can be fully neglected.
So the smartest play is to evaluate your team vs enemy team, if you know they will be doing CC great then you prebuff parry once you see IHD on target, f you know/see them failing then you better off helping with pressure/debuffs (by HB weaving, applying armor debuffs to different targets etc). There is no reasoning to stupidly keep parry on 1-2 targets with as much uptime as you manage to.
Oh and also a small edit&update: in case enemy DPS attacks knocked target from behind like they should your parry buff goes to hell too, in reality fights are pretty chaotic and timing may mean more than positioning so there are alot of situations where enemy DPS abandon repositioning due to lacking time and hit straight focused target however they can of course. So parry buff is still powerful in reality, especially to somewhat negate parry debuff but not an absolute gamechanger.
2. Crit buff is most critically required on a coordinated burst in case all the CC landed properly. Usefullness window for such buff is actually straight up 3 seconds. Keeping it up all time only increases fluff (or pressure, depends on persective ^^).
And its such a big RNG tbf that its not obligatory to keep it up either. In case of fluffing it doesnt matter if your dps have it or not, in case of burst increasing their chance to get some lucky crits along with all the other stuff may be a gamechanger, but you never know as overall coordination with overall gcd management of 6 ppl in your team is way more crucial than +crit%. So this buff actual main usage where keeping it up makes some sense is prolonged premade vs. premade city but even there you should better time your crit buff and synchronize it with channel drops and not maniacly focus to keep it up while your group/warband run and not fight.
3. There is no place or justified reason for armor or toughness buffs (forseeing lame crap like "butbutbutbut overrided by kotbs", kotbs cant afford toughness auras in 6v6 matches and also shouldnt be using them in orvr/city too as meta is resists+ap+heal) at all. If pressure on your team is too high than its way better to just punt DPS away to lessen it then to try to buff some crap.
etc... (may add some more but lazy atm)
And thus tl;dr dont randomly smash your buttons to try to keep everything up all at once, read situation and react properly assuming all the conditions there are on both your team and enemy and be gucci.
However tho, QoL changes IMHO:
1. Rising Anger goes baseline and GBF mechanic put on par with EB = it should also grant grudge each tick.
Rising Anger going baseline (and ppl forget that GBF doesnt give +grudge on each hit while bg's EB channel does) is pretty huge buff that i would love to see but im too biased myself in this case. That would help a ton for solo/pugging, but also would increase IBs dmg outputs (consider that BG has no single ability which dmg is tied to hate levels on contrary IB has plenty!!!) and then balance should be done very carefully in mind of IB topping charts too much and being too much ahead of other tanks (and need to consider all the other arsenal IB could use if doesnt have rising anger for solo/pugging or dwarven riposte for group play slotted).
Not sure if i would still slot dwarven riposte or not for group play/6v6 if RA is baseline. Need to test out.
2. W'a'L has WS selfbuff duration increased for IB without increasing duration on AP pump effect on oathfriend. Atm its technically possible to slap both crit buff and ws buff into your ideal GCD managementwise burst rotation however its just so tight, its literally 2 seconds. Increasing this burst window buff option should be done very carefully as IB is in a good spot dmg wise atm (need to consider all tanks together tho, their assist dmg options should be either with significant trade-off and much higher than rest of tanks (e.g. no st punt BO/SM) or should be equal (so BO/SM gets 65ft st punt and then IB would definitely need dmg increases)).
IB has very great of a synergy with dots (dmg allings and time perfectly) and HB+BG has huge numbers at full grudge so its pretty easy to reach ~8k bursts in BiS within 3 seconds by interrupting GBF with Earthshatter (which can be considered as somewhat working spec either as 13/5/5 or 13/0/9 if you dont play against meta WE+choppa) without any cheese like focused offense and other crap (which is in reality would be a little bit higher with PB active, not sure about dps measures cause IB cant do it properly cause cant trigger aa haste) so balancing dmgwise you need to be very careful or consider a meta shifts (which is ok too but needs to be done properly, not emotionally or impulsive).
