I play a 100 warrior. Currently tier 2 flagged and working on Xorb. DISCLAMER: I just started playing again 10-19-2012. I don't know everything. Let's not nerf the classes people are screaming for to be nerfed. Let's balance the classes that definitely need work. I play a warrior and I'd like this thread to revolve around warrior balancing. Warriors, can no longer dual wield for extra damage. 2 handers are only good for one RAMPAGE hit. Sword and board is highest DPS... This I do not believe was intented. I believe they indented to raise Sword and Board DPS was for aggro purposes, not DPS. b) Why not fix our 2 HANDERs and DUAL wield. If we dual wield we're not using a shield, which is the most important slot for a tanking warrior (post softcap ac). This would go a LONG way to fixing our DPS.. (DON'T NERF ISS, we need it for aggro)! c) Skills like warlords bravery are awesome! I hit when D.I. fires and flash is down, etc... The problem is it's a 60 minute cool down... with max hastened AAs it's 50 minute refresh... What is the point of making us able to use this ability maybe once every event? Let alone a wipe, then we dont have it.... Same with warlords tenacity... ~SHADOW KNIGHTS GET REPROVE~ Mitigate melee dmg by 90% total up to max 30k dmg or 2 attacks...Refresh time is 18 seconds... From what I researched this DOES STACK with SHINING ARMOR!!!!!!!!!! This makes NO SENSE to me. Someone help explain, please d) Commanding Voice/Field Guardian.. Do these have to share a timer with Flash of Anger? These 3 things are some of the best tools a warrior has to help himself survive without relying on healers not messing up.... I don't get why they're on the same timer... one causes parry, the other raises ac, the other raises chance to dodge... In my mind it makes no sense for these abilities to share a refresh. e) What's the deal with SA getting overwritten by EVERYTHING!?!? Yes, I use my blocks so it doesn't happen... but why should it happen? We're warriors... we should get more mitigation... my temporary reduction from shield block / reprieve should stack with SA.... this seems broken to me. Especially, since SK's reprove stacks with it.... Let's not take the easy way out and just NERF... let's actually take the time to look at whats not balanced and bring the other classes into balance... Please feel free to correct any mistakes in my post or add any constructive criticism. I highly encourage people to post their thoughts on bringing classes into balance. I love my warrior. I tank RAID bosses. That's what I wanted to do.. but I also really can help myself with a couple things.. and others are on such long cool down I don't even buy the spell. I am a dreamer, a wishful thinker, sometimes a midnight toker..
All I can say is that I think all the pure melee classes could use some work. With the erosion of skill cap advantages, general lack of AA (some of the lowest numbers of all classes) and directly related to that, the lack of AA's that exponentially enhance each other, it seems most of the pure melee classes have fallen behind the pack. Specifically for Warriors, group tanking is hurting as we need far more support, and Warriors DPS that used to be the baseline (and which was never more than a factor of 2 or 3 behind the top dps-ers) now seems to be almost an order of magnitude behind the top dpsers.
When you "balance" something doesn't one thing have to be taken away from one side? You can't just keep adding to one side without taking something away from another side normally. Then the question becomes...whom do you balance against? For warriors you may say knights..you can't just add a huge token to the warriors side of the scale in one huge chunk (fort) or do you do it in smaller tokens that add up to a big one but the gain isn't seen as huge by and large so the preception is that the dev's didn't do much of anything but the sum total of the tokens add up to a big one.
This thread belongs in the Tank forum. a. A player who was quite proud of his DPS in a mostly DPS support group decided he would work with a Warrior using a 2Hander, put them in that group, and apply the same techniques vs. the same content. Um the 2H wielder got almost the same DPS. Situation discussed briefly on TSW. Note: the S&B user was using a high ratio weapon, a DMG aug, was in a DPS support group, and was using offensive discs. A Warrior setup for tanking challenging content is using S&B with an aggro weapon, an aggro aug, when raiding is most likely in a tanking support group, and is using defensive discs. In other words when we are set up to tank we are not set up to do our best not tanking DPS. Even in a cook the situation as much as possible 2H (and maybe even DW) is competitive. b. Our DPS in our usual role (the tank) and geared to perform that role vs. challenging content (S&B) should be Warrior appropriate. With sattributable to others DPS, damage shields, and riposte it is. When not getting DPS as a direct result of taking the risks of tanking its perfectly reasonable for Warrior DPS to be less but still in the ballpark. I'm entirely in favor of 2H and DW doing more DPS than S&B when fighting at the rear of a mob and not getting hit. IF that's not the case then and only then adjustments might be in order. c. Our awesome discs are likely to always have a long cool down. d. One can be replaced by clickies that most classes have which makes players in our group not dependent on us refreshing CV (so long as we resist the urge to use CV) and Guardian Circle III is even better. If you work through the thicket of what we have (especially when we coordinate our acgtions with other Warrior in our group) it's very good - worth having to evade conflicts. e. See above. SA is awesome and the actions needed to avoid conflicts is not an insuperable burden. knowledge of mechanics and willingness to work through things ought to have a payoff. Class balance??!! Classes will never be balanced in the way you seem to be urging. What's a Paladin heal worth in terms of survivability or DPS? Sometimes absolutely nothing and sometimes everything. IMO you take into account knight combat self healing (for example) and its impact on self rescue. If such capabilty affects tankability perhaps it ought to be part of the overall tank archetype. If that's what's decided, then Paladins might get some via a, B, C, D, E, and F. SK's through G, H, and I. And Warriors though a new ability that restores damage taken and does not merely reduce future damage. Balanced, no - not even grossly balanced. But workable. Playable. No one horribly disadvantaged. Balanced...heh.
Maybe its obvious and I'm just missing it, but why does a sword and shield do more damage than duel wield? Does the shield do damage? Does the main hand weapon do less damage when you wield a second weapon?
Stay a while, and listen! (Just had to) Shield Specialist AA grants a damage bonus increase to weapon + shield. The moment I had the ability to get Shield Specialist, my two handed weapon became obsolete immediately. You may do a teensy bit more damage with it, but it's nothing when you can do almost the same amount AND have a shield equipped for AC. Warriors have even more ranks than knights, so they do even more damage with sword and board instead of dual wield.
1. S&B is a tanking setup. When tanking Warriors riposte and do damage with damage shields - call it compensation for accepting the risks of tanking. DW is a not tanking setup - DW should not benefit from large weapon ripostes, 2. Look at the shield appropriate 1Handers knights employ. SS magically transforms out mainhander into a shield appropriate 1Hander. 3. Don't you rather think Warrior DPS when performing our usual role (tanking), are geared to tank current content (challenging) should be fairly typical of us? Or do you think we should usually be doing far far far lower DPS than we are capable of doing (offensive and defensive discs being accounted for)??
Ah! I see. It's an AA ability. Do they need to create a duel wield specialist AA? Is that all that needs to be done?
Also, offhand damage isn't nearly as much as primary regardless. Abilities such as triple attack and flurry do not apply to the offhand. Then, there's a higher damage bonus on primary versus secondary I believe. Easy enough to parse the difference though I haven't done it in a while. Equip similiar ratio weapons of different skill types (1hs vs 1hb) and do a decent length auto attack parse, such as an hour. I know that seems short, but you'll get the basic idea.
this is inaccurate.. guardian circle III is 18% dodge CV is 20%.. please correct me I am wrong Edit: Not to mention CV lasts 1 min 20 sec with AAs
Myrmidon's Skill XI Slot Description 2: Increase Chance to Dodge by 20% http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=33113&source=Live
Guardian Circle III is 40%, II is 30%, I is 20%. If you have enough people in the raid with the aura clickies that can coordinate, then using them will be better than keeping up CV.
1. Just to let ya know, while warlord's bravery could be good, it is in fact pretty much useless as it is currently b/c it has a max hit counter of 15, which is basically 4 rounds of attacks or like maybe 8 seconds. Its not like it lasts a long time anyways, the base time on it is 6 ticks (30 seconds). The hit limit on it should without question be removed or at least raised to like 60-100 hits to have any chance of it lasting its already short duration if a single mob is hitting you. Anguish BP's Guardian Bravery on the other hand is nice. 2. I think its pretty crazy that knights have reprove and warrior's don't. Giving warrior's Reprove or some similar form of it on the same timer as Ridicule, I think, would go a long way in fixing one of the weakest points of a warrior, their inability to do anything to help keep themselves alive until the next heal comes in if they get a bad round (outside of flash). 3. There are a ton of shared timer issues with the warrior class that are crippling, and make absolutely no sense. You can take Commanding voice off the list of useful abilities now that the T2 myrm skill clickies are the same dodge amount. Shoulders were the first item I bought when i had enough currency so that i could buff block my own buff. How sad is that. The fact that it removed people's mym skill buffs made no sense in the first place though, it should of just been on a different spell slot. I'm almost positive that the increase chance to dodge effects didn't actually stack even if you have both buffs up at the same time anyways. Only the highest one takes effect. All it did was annoy everyone in your group b/c they had to reclick their myrm clicky if you happened to use flash and couldn't refresh CV for a few mins until it refreshed.
Each group member clicks Myrmidon's Skill XI - Increase Chance to Dodge by 20% making CV unnecessary. Myrmidon's Skill controlled by each group member is their fallback when Guardian Circle isn't running (and most of the time it won't be). In a tank support group with Tank_A MTing and having Champion's Aura running. Tank_A announces Final Stand dropping in 10 Seconds and prepares to engage his not Final Stand defenses. Tank_B who is not running Champion's Aura (yep, auras have stacking conflicts) clicks Guardian Circle III after 10 seconds. Tank_C if there is one does the same when the Guardian Circle III buff fades. (And since Tank_B and C aren't getting hit they should have no issue engaging Champion's aura when their Circle has faded). (Tank_A can get in on the fun, but he's not going to be able to be a Champion's Aura supplier after Circling. Getting hit will interrupt that effort). I doubt that a group can keep Guardian Circle III up continuously but you can at least temporarily butress the MT's defences if you coordinate your efforts. With Champion's Aura providing a benefit despite conflicts and Myrmidon's Skill XI being a fall back when Circle's aren't running. Stuff like this is klutzy/inelegant, but things kinda sorta work and a stem to stern re-write is extremely unlikely to happen. These things aren't "Warriors are broken, fix please" they are nicities.
This is turning into a good read. For a post I made mainly as a joke; after Piestro made and locked the class envy thread, I am pleased. I was looking for ways that I, as a warrior, can survive longer in battle. My main tool for this is flash, making sure I am min/max'd (all my auras, foods, etc), health pots, Warlords Bravery/Tenacity, and trying to spread out my discs/aa's to use the least minimal thruought the fight.. the goal being to live the entire time. I understand this is not going to happen on the upper echelon riads and swaps are mandatory. Thanks everyone for your constructive thoughts! Keep it rolin' P.S. Looks like I better get my guardian circle 3 and da clicky asap
Well, I think there's a good argument for a boost to Ridicule recourse. Reprove line came out @ L83 with Withstand Blow, which was 90% for 1050 hp, where as L85 Jeer was 50% for 1140 hp. But for whatever reason, Reprove line got absolutely massive increases every expansion where as Ridicule Recourse line did not.... so Reprove is 90% for 28072 hp vs Ridicule's 50% for 7812 hp. Obviously Ridicule Recourse needs a big boost, but if the argument is about balance, you could argue Bazu should also get a clone of the same recourse, and have the recourses boosted to 90%.
FYI to dispel some of the very incorrect implications in this thread... Reprove will absorb up to 90% of the damage of a single hit that lands, and each hit removes 1 charge from the buff. whether the hit is 20 damage or 20,000 damage it absorbs 90% of that one hit only - it is not like a rune where it absorbs 90% of *all* damage until 28k damage has been absorbed, it's just a single hit. the increased caps on Reprove honestly don't matter - because right now it's 28,072 and for that to be 90% of a hit, it would have to be a 30k hit to begin with there's really nothing ever hitting a knight that hard. (obviously, there are very rare exceptions to that statement with regards to high end raid mobs, but if you think that damage reduction for 3 hits is going to save a knight on a 30k hitter mob, you don't understand how poorly knights handle large damage intake - i've been hit that hard when a war died, and sure Reprove reduced a couple hits, but then the rest of that same round killed me anyways) i know that it looks extremely impressive if you're eyeballing it on lucy, but trust me when i tell you that in practical in-game terms Reprove is a gimmick, and little else.
Reprove rk. III absorbs 90% of 3 hits or 28k total damage, whichever comes first. The mob only has to hit a little over 10k per hit to get the full benefit. 10k hits aren't exactly rare nowadays. Reprove still represents a 20k hp advantage over Ridicule or, if that cap isn't reached, an extra 40% mitigation for 2 hits plus 90% on a 3rd hit. It also has a shorter reuse timer & isn't linked to a necessary aggro ability. Now of course it's not an "I win" button & you can still die after hitting it, but that only underscores how much worse off warriors are when they're about to go splat.
Beryon, it's 2 hits. Either way, reprove will absorb the full 90% of damage up to 2 hits of ~15k each, where as ridicule will absorb 50% of damage of 2 hits up to ~7.5k each. Any damage beyond that will (usually) leave the 2nd hit absorbing less than 90%/50% (I've confirmed this in game, the totals don't consider the hit count which I think Tearsin Rain may have been implying.) I don't think anyone here is suggesting reprove is 'uber' because of the high damage absorbed total.... the problem is that ridicule recourse's is too low. Taking 2 hits averaging 15k in a row is pretty unlikely even vs (eg) vulak, but taking 2 hits averaging 7.5k in a row vs a raid boss is possible-to-likely. To me it's quite simple. Warriors got the 2-hit vie ability first. It was then given to knights. Since it was new to knights, it got more attention and got significantly buffed over the next 2 expansion from them getting it... I see it more as an oversight for warriors than a class balance issue, because like some have said here, it's not a huge deal in the long run either way.
