I'm confused as to the point of this AA now that it's an activated one and doesn't stack with Defensive Proficiency. Since it already didn't stack with LS, etc...When would you ever want to use PoO vs the Defensive Proficiency?
Elidroth said he would work on splitting out the aggro and the mitigation portions of the AA. I guess Phalanx would be relegated to DW or 2H stance usage.
Just 2H since it's the same mitigation as DW prof. Results suggest the mod doesn't stack with it. Unsurprisingly, DW completely pointless yet again. Constructive suggestions of ways this could have been done better Back this change out and leave things the way they were Roll the mod into proficiencies, rebalance proficiencies/phalanx Rebuild proficiencies as properly-working, well-balanced passives without stance nerfs (been saying this for at least a year now...) Or, better yet, delete the huge mess which is shield specialist, ISS and proficiencies in favor of an appropriate 'equip 2hander with one hand' system that focuses on disciplines and skill attacks (yellow-bar) for DPS/defense.
Another huge slap in the face for the Warrior class. Its like buying a car and going in for a recall notice and the dealership removes the heater from the vehicle because they didn't know how it works in the first place. So instead of replacing the heater with something that works, they throw you a blanket and send you on your way with absolutely no apology or explanation.
I think I'd rather they just refund the AA, roll the aggro portion into Infused by Rage, and figure out a way to roll the passive mitigation into another AA (shield block, whatever). Regardless, rather than waiting till they had a working solution, they tossed the bathwater and the baby out and created a worthless clicky I never have to worry about clicking(because it's useless).
I'm not sure who these players might be, but for the rest of us, it would be great if: The lost mitigation is rolled into another ability (proficiencies, Steadfast Defense, etc) The stacking issue could be addressed while keeping Phalanx as a passive. The current implementation is extremely cumbersome. Combination of nerf + annoyance, I don't see how this is better for anybody. To further complicate the matter DW proficiency is now undertuned defensively vs 2H since they have the same effective mitigation mod. This is in addition to DW proficiency being weak offensively from an auto-attack/ADPS stacking perspective and the fact that both Shield Spec and 2H proficiency modify our skill attacks. Plenty of threads have brought the shortcomings of DW proficiency but this up but the recent change just makes it worse. Hopefully we can see these addressed before you guys get lost in the next expansion. Most importantly, 4 expansions of content have been tuned with passive/stacking Phalanx. How do you intend to address this?
The only one i use is defensive stance. I could care less about the other two, the penalties for them far outweigh the benefits in my own opinion. I do not want to be caught in the oh crap moment when the MT dies an I am getting hit for far greater amounts than i should be because i choose to use my measly amount of DPS to score at the bottom of the parse again. If this could happen that would make quite a few people happy. Steadfast seems to be the go to disc when Defensive is down for a lot of warriors, makes sense to add a little bit of mitigation to it.
If I may redirect slightly here on defensive buffs - is there any plan to make it so we don't have to reapply our defensive proficiency after Last Stand falls? I've resorted to GTTs to constantly remind me to reapply defensive and normally flash the transition just so I dont get an unlucky round at 0 mitigation instead of defensive base of 25. Its a quality of life issue that just sucks, even if minor in nature.
If I were you, I would view people not using the stance abilities as a problem. I would be frustrated that the time I spent coding those stances is going to waste by not being used, much like your content producers hate it when we skip content for whatever reason. For anybody who doesn't main a Warrior, who plays one casually or as a box, it makes sense that they don't use the Proficiency stances because they are cumbersome and come with unnecessary penalties. There are negative impacts to using the Proficiencies, even for their intended purposes. You don't seem to have very much time or concern for this situation, so let me collect all of the problems we currently have with the Proficiencies (and their interactions with Phalanx of One) into one easy location for you. Shield Proficiency issues: Reduces our damage output from special attacks like Shield Topple, the Opportunistic Strikeline, and War Sheol's Heroic Blade because they use a 2H weapon skill. Initiating a Defensive discipline like Last Stand removes the stance instead of overriding only the mitigation portion of the buff, therefor requiring that Shield Proficiency must be recast when that discipline ends. The lack of smooth transition out of a discipline and back to a Proficiency leaves a time gap between the two abilities where no mitigation is active, thus taking full damage. It also means we don't get access to the shield block skill modifier while under a discipline. No longer stacks with Phalanx of One, meaning we no longer get access to Phalanx of Fury procs. DW Proficiency issues: Flash of Anger is still completely overriding this stance, requiring us to recast the Proficiency once Flash fades. Having a 1H piercer in the Primary weapon slot prevents the buff from casting. DW Proficiency still has a Dodge skill penalty for some reason, despite being a tanking stance. Initiating a Defensive discipline like Last Stand removes the stance instead of overriding only the mitigation portion of the buff, same problem that Shield Proficiency has. Activating the stance removes Phalanx of One, so it has to be reactivated if we want access to the Phalanx of Fury procs. Phalanx of One mitigation no longer stacks with DW Proficiency, you get the same mitigation amount from either ability. You have effectively removed the 10% mitigation bonus, so half the reason for even using this stance is gone now. 2H Proficiency issues: Flash of Anger does absolutely nothing while in this stance, but consumes endurance and goes on cooldown anyway. Thus while in 2H stance, Flash stops being a reliable panic button and instead leaves you wide open to being flattened due to 2H stance's defensive skill penalties. This Proficiency buff still overwrites the entire Myrmidon's Skill shoulder clicky spell line, requiring us to recast the clicky every time we transition out of 2H into DW or S&B. The Monk's Master's Aura Effect still overwrites the Proficiency buff every time the Monk leaves range and returns, requiring us to block their aura if we want to use a 2Hander reliably. Activating the stance removes Phalanx of One, so it has to be reactivated if we want access to the mitigation or Phalanx of Fury procs. DPS from Proficiencies: The increases from DW and 2H Proficiencies were both underwhelming. They are % modifiers to a low baseline amount. So it looks good on paper, but not in practice. We would need other passives to increase our baseline first to make the % modifiers bring DPS as much as you are expecting it to. In a group or raid situation with other classes of approximately the same gear and skill levels, Warriors are the same bottom contributors to the total damage dealt to a mob, there is no appreciable difference. The place where the difference shows is when I, raid equipped and knowledgeable, am playing with group-geared returnees to the game. Then I am responsible for half the damage. There are also issues with getting other classes supporting our burns because their abilities aren't stacking with our damage modifiers, but I never get put into a burn group on raids to parse and test these situations, so somebody else will have to step up to speak intelligently about that.
lol okay. Why would someone not use any of their stances? just curious. I was already asking myself what the use of phalanx is how its setup now. Defense stance made it pointless. But what would be a situation where you don't wanna use any stance, so phalanx comes in handy. I'm asking seriously, I've played a good bit lately and haven't found any situation I didn't wanna be in one of the stances.
How about a ranged pulling tool. something that can tag a mob from 200-300' recast 30s. I dont ever mess around with a bow
Sorry, one other question semi on-topic. No matter which stance I use during my burn, I can get the big initial hit I could before using war sheols, and I can't figure out what. Just was wondering if others had this issue with stances/war sheol's.
It would be better if you could just fix it from getting stripped by Proficiencies / Last Stand. It would also be "nice" if we were shown objective data on why the premiere tanking class needs a 10% tanking nerf across the board, kind of like what was communicated in this 70-page thread. None that are relevant.
Phalanx of One stacked with Last Stand and Defensive Proficiency. We've had LS/PoO stacking for some time now. I think that should continue as tuning has been made around this. Keep Phalanx of the One as the old version. i.e, passive, stacks with everything, procs normally and the AA has meaning. Drop Defensive proficiency mitigation to 15%. This then gives you some extra "wriggle" room in the future. You could include more AA ranks of PoO of either increase the mitigation or increase the proc. In it's current form, I personally wont use it.
I'd be cool with this if the 'missing' 10% from Defensive Proficiency is lumped into the Bracing/Steadfast/Stout Defense line. This would position Dual-Wield proficiency better, too. Win-win.
I kinda think 25% mitigation from Defensive (15%) + PoO (10%) virtually always on is still nothing to be borked at. Especially when our other tank brothers don't get similar. The intention from Elidroth was to give us a (total) 25% mitigation. My way keeps the AA viable while also benefitting us under Last Stand for 3mins and the other two proficiencies.
If you don't want another click on the dial between DPS and tank mode you don't have to use it But that's not what's happening here, clicks are being removed, starting from the top.
I wouldn't "be cool with this if~". Why are the Proficiencies defended & accommodated like this? They're a mess! Stacking issues galore, weird tradeoffs, hotbar overhead & buff tracking - it's not a mystery: the reason there are people that choose not to use the stance abilities is because they're hard to use, even detrimental if you're not intimate with their functionality! The players not using stances are not going to be adopting the new version of Phalanx, either. They're just going to run around sucking. That's what they were already doing, now they're just worse. I believe this. I also know for sure, as in I've witnessed, that there are clerics who never use anything but Ardent (née Reverent, etc) Light, and magicians who don't cast either servants OR rain spells, and rangers that don't melee, and bards that don't sing their Aria song, and monks that run around without haste because a potion, delivered for 5p5g from the bazaar to their parceler, is too much bother. et cetera. Without hesitation I would believe you if you told me there are rogues that don't Backstab. These observations don't support balancing arguments, especially for greater complexity in the form of making a previously passive AA into an activated one.
