Is Weapon Mastery Useless for Support Roles?

I have been playing DUCO since launch and have over 150 SP on my healer, troller and tank. I am a tank at heart, though. DPS is the only role in the game that I have never tried to master. I have no interest in clipping, or cancelling or chasing the scoreboard. I just don't.

I have been playing the DLC 10 since the Legendary drop, but have yet to go to the effort to respec all my SP to explore the Weapon Mastery system. I have been reading up on the forums and Kristyana's guide. It seems like a complete waste of time for me as a tank - for the purposes of my role.

I appreciate that it might make sense for controllers and healers, who have to do combos to build their power. But for tanks, who in the highest end content often have to block (less so for Ice and Rage tanks), the combos can be a liability. In addition the benefit of lessened power cost, is just not a reward or benefit to a tank. We never have power problems activating a power every 8-10 seconds.

So, I ask the Devs, what's the point?

This game mechanic seems like it is a huge part of the game now. However, as a tank, it seems to have passed me by. It is a new and potentially interesting gameplay mechanic, that is utterly devoid of utility for my role. To those that will suggest that all roles should now be concerned with doing as much damage as possible - I say, NO. I have eschewed the DPS role since launch. I don't want to kill things. I want to take all of the Hate and eat it up. I want to absorb all the damage and be the indestructible rock upon which my team can seek refuge. I don't want to be forced to start doing as much damage as possible.

However, I am truly looking for an answer or clarification of the purpose of, or applicability of these changes tot the support roles - especially tanks. Was it an effort to alleviate the problems for tanks getting into alerts, duos and raids? Was it an effort to allow us to do more damage so that we won't be left behind as often? I don't know. If so, tell the community that explicitly.

If, however, it was designed to benefit us as support role players - please explain to me how. How does it make my tanking better? Does it assist in grabbing aggro? Does it assist if mitigating damage or recovering health? Based on my current understanding of the mechanic, the answer seems to be no. That is a shame, in my view. Because it means that there is a large aspect of this game that I will not be using, and that just seems like poor planning.

Surely, there were options to make the combo-ing useful to the support roles. Our Skill Points should allow us to specialize into our roles too. I have worked hard and long to rack up over 150 skill points. I should be able to spend them in such a way that makes me an uber-tank - as compared to a tank with 50 SP. I'd like to to see role-specific mastery bonuses. Or at least some tweaks to the values and locations of the big bonuses for tanks.

Constructive thoughts encouraged.

From what I understand weapon mastery not only increases damage output but gives support roles beneficial traits such as for trolls the power needed for recharge or debuff is cut in half as well as the weapon mastery added skill points +8 Vit +1% Power Crit. So yes it is beneficial to support although I'd spec more into stats unless you are a tank then go weapon mastery

WM is benefiting support roles very much. Cuts power cost in half while boosting damage out. I call that a win win.

Yes, I appreciate the benefits to trollers and healers of having their power costs reduced. Trollers will have more power to give out and healer's power will last longer. But, for a tank, we never run out of power. We never (or should never have to) spam our powers. So a benefit of reduced power cost really is not that beneficial.

If we completed a WM combo correctly - how about our taunt last 20 seconds instead of the usual? How about if we do a combo, our health pool gets a 8 second buff of 30%? I am just spit-balling here...I am just saying that as of right now with tons of SP to spend - I don't think there is any benefit to me to spec into WM - for the express purpose of being a more effective tank, at tanking.

Have I missed the boat, or do I have the right measure of it?

Other posters beat me to it. WM is great for support roles, I've been doing more damage and using less power.

As a healer with WM and core strength, my damage out has shot through the roof, while my healing numbers have generally stayed the same.

Yesterday in T6a, my numbers were 2.7mil healing, and 2.2 mil dmg, and close to tied for lowest power out, and that was a league run.

I <3 WM.

Agreed. However, we do need more role specific bonuses. That will come in time. This is just a first step. I'm a Tank and my power bar doesn't move, and the damage is great.

As far as effective tanking is concerned, it's always been next to impossible to quantify with numbers.

Simply put, less power usage and more damage, especially with a tank being the one that is doing most of the melee in an instance, can definitely be beneficial.

I'm specing into stats not weapon mastery as a troll because I'm too lazy to perform weapon combos I've been soloing with 1800-2100 VIT with no problems in Paradox, A&B, and Nexus

I appreciate that point. However, it isn't really a response to the point of the OP - that WM's only benefit seems to be increased damage. I understand the argument that it is a boon - however misplaced - for all players to do more damage.

I get that all of the NPCs in DLC 10 have huge health pools and that it would be helpful is all roles could do more damage to make the instances go faster. We are already seeing people drop tanks and even healers from the new Alert so that it does not take 50 minutes to complete.

That is why I suspect that they added WM in combination with the huge NPC health pools - it forces tanks, trollers and healers to spec into WM and mod (i.e. core strength) for higher damage - lest we continue to get left behind by a community that is, not unfairly, obsessed with completing all content in under 30 minutes.

You are right on the money there. WM's only benefit is increased, streamlined, assembly line damage for a low cost.

Unfortunately, it does not have any real concrete support role benefit outside of the reduced power cost part, as it was implemented only to affect the damaging portion of the game.

It is still most definitely worth spec'ing into though, simply for the innate skills at the bottom, as well as the WM finishers themselves, which do amazing damage even in support role.

As a healer, I love it. My damage is amazing with it and it cuts the cost of providing heals. I feel like a true... what do people call 'em..."battle healer".

My damage out as an ICE tank has increased by 5-8x just from using WM. While it doesn't help you hold aggro, mitigate damage, etc. What it does is allow you to do RELEVANT damaage while you have all the adds/boss near you. Before, you can't do meaningful damage as a tank, now you can because there are a lot of MELEE WM combos that hit hard(1-H, DW, HB, Shield, etc).

I have been running without a healer in the new alert and STILL I don't need to block anything just put my buffs and WM the adds. It's definitely made tanking more fun to me as we can DP-Tank like never before.

WM allows the support roles to put on SIGNIFICANT damage, thus we are less reliant on DPS. It's still good to have them, but if they're not there, it's not a big deal. Think running the DUOs with Tank + Troll/heal, before WM a duo without a DPS would take too long because of the low damage, now having no DPS is not that big of a deal.

i agree as well as a healer. In a raid i normally fall behind the Dps on Damage output and to top it off my power in consumption is considerably less than the other roles. so it's a win win.

Increased damage is a real concrete support role benefit.

If this makes running duos with all possible role combinations more viable, then that is a decent side benefit.

Using WM in Controller stance has helped me personally such as:

1. Able to build SC significantly using WM Combos (Brawling into MA range) Tap T, Hold T
2. Reduced Power Cost has worked great for powers such as Debuff's, Recharge
3. Players are not just spamming powers on their loadout which makes Trolling more comfortable
4. Best of ALL we do not have to spam Power Dump every 1.8 seconds!!!! Which helps build supercharge up as well

Would love to see full raid groups 2 tanks 2 heals 2 trolls 2 dps all using wm and see how fast and smooth those runs go

Well my secondary character is celestial healer and because of WM it's awesome to heal whole content using only McB + WM. Heals are pretty big and damage is pretty awesome for a healer.

If the alert is any indication, the future is Tankable bosses without one-shots. A battle Tank is pretty useful.

But, do what you like! If you don't want to use any of that stuff, you don't need to.