Focused Feedback - Fighters

Bots have better autoattack timing skills than any players. Bad reason

Mmm, actually most bots I see are healers, rangers, enchanters, mages. All of which don't really need to time their auto-attacks as much as melee. Ranged attacks are easy because they don't do it as often as melee.

However I suppose you can make a long code that could take hours putting pauses on everything - however it is far far easier to just play a mage or ranger for dps.

I don't exactly play high level content, so please ignore this if you're just looking for informed AoM feedback - but have you considered trying to revamp Guardian attacks to be more interesting?

I've played around with the tank classes and this class in particular has the most ridiculous number of copy-pasted boring attacks which all basically do the same thing. Did you really need to make Slam, Precise Strike, Overpower, Taunting Blow and Gut Kick? The first 3 don't even try to be different in anything but damage and cooldown values.

At least bruisers have somewhat interesting animations and damage types (if that matters) on their copypasted stuff.

I wholeheartedly agree with the removal of auto-attack timing. With the gear level my berserker is at, I often don't even bother using combat arts because if I clip an autoattack its such a huge loss of dps. I try much harder on the fury due to the heal on melee attack ability, but its much more of a chore with the cast times her abilities have.

I have been trying to dislike this idea of no more Auto Attack Timing… but I cannot. I have also been trying to think it the entire way through into the implications for everyone.

1st, I am Loving the Idea of making Auto Attack work like Spell Auto in that it is not delayed by the casting of abilities.
2nd, So Melee Auto and Range Auto get this treatment, what would distinguish for people that want to be between Melee and jousting range? I think with this needs to come the removal of the consumption of Ammo. Sure keep the Ammo slot and what it does, but you can just place the type you want in the slot and it uses that….
3rd, should Melee and Ranged Auto be merged? If both Melee and Range Auto will not have problem of being delayed by casting, what really is there to distinguish between the 2 attack types?

RECKLESS MECHANIC WORKS! Just fix it so that it is a reliable buff please. There is currently no easy way to see if reckless is working or not just by looking at your UI. If you get hit, you lose the buff and start doing less damage and your skills generate threat again. It works. You want to have some versatility as a fighter? Build a DPS set and go reckless and have fun. You just have to play like a ninja and don't get directly hit by any critters and you're golden.
Here's the proposed change, give fighters a clear way to tell when/if reckless is up or not. Currently I have to open up my character window and move it all the way up into the top left hand corner of my screen so all that is showing is the -150% threat in red. Without obstructing my view, this is the only way for me to know if or when I've been knocked out of reckless and I need to be careful which skills I'm using so I don't yank agro off the tank. With all the aoe's thrown around by mobs, I do get hit often but not thrown out of reckless unless directly hit by a mob. Currently, moving the character window as I described is the only way to know if reckless is active or not and it's a complete pain. Unless of course you want to continuously open and close your character window to check your threat every time you see your health bar move. I play a bruiser and raid tank for my guild but I like to DPS in groups. I usually pull around 2.5mil DPS on most single target encounters. Fighters are not designed to be T1 or T2 DPS but if the 'real' DPS are being lazy, it's always fun to out-parse them and rub their noses in it.



Now, does this look like something you should have to do to effectively play the archtype to its fullest?

I have an idea for the PVE side since you guys dont give a damn about PVP anymore. Why not make all of the classes equal instead of favoring certain classes every single expansion? ToV was insanely suited for zerkers which made them the number 1 tank to play. This is one of the reasons i quit playing, it got boring because all you devs did was favor certain classes and ruin the gaming experience for those who didnt want to play those certain classes. When are you guys gonna give some actual love to the Rangers?

Just a heads up: We'll be keeping these threads open until January 5th. After that point, we'll be locking the threads and moving on to the next phase!

Too many palain skills require almost instant reaction :

-> Lay on hand, very hard to time often you waste it cause a druid, an inqui a defiler throw sacrifice or faith or the fallen, or because someone cyclone you etc .... if you wait more it may often be too late.

- Faith : very similar, the only time I'm sure to time it well is when there is a casting bar.

- Manawall -> again a very short duration.

It seems that only paladin (and indeed crusaders in general) are plagued with immunities/special that last 3 seconds.

Change faith to 5 second duration (wtih 3/3 aas in it)
Change manawall, it should last 5-8 second.

And make reckless usable while soloing or soloing with a mecenary.

Give to priest a solo/dps stance (sort of reckless) and a real healing stance

Sorry Kalika, I had to respond to "And make reckless usable while soloing or soloing with a mercenary." considering imho reckless is working just fine the way it is. You want a stance to use while playing solo? Go offensive stance since you dont have to worry about all those nifty threat mods on any of your skills when you're running around solo. Reckless stance is as strong as it is because of its limitations. You need to play like you're a ninja or samurai and not get hit while in reckless. If you get hit while running in reckless stance you get hit hard but just for the first hit PLUS knocked out of the stance itself. That's as far as it goes. If you are licking the floor in groups because you're die'n repeatedly, then it's your gameplay and understanding of the stance mechanic and not the stance itself.
There were a handful of fights in the TOV expansion where I needed to run offensive stance because the number and strength of the aoe's being thrown out by trash or bosses was too strong for me to stay in reckless + dreadlord armor and survive, for example the custodians in chamber of stasis. It came down to paying attention to my surroundings.

If you are playing as a DPS while in a group and get hit and survive, you have just been knocked out of reckless stance and all your nifty little CA's are now producing normal threat, meaning you are most likely about to yank agro from the tank because you're not paying attention to your hate mod. When this happens you HAVE to back off and wait for reckless to come back up and then you can go back into battle. Easy enough mechanic when you understand it.

There still needs to be an easy way for fighters to see when reckless is working or not, if you've been knocked out of the stance or not.

Since I think that most tanks are good for Soloing I do not think that Recklessness needs to work when Solo, for any tank.

When you can get Recklessness to work for you and not drop in group or raid content… just from adds or whatever… then yes it works. But from my experience Recklessness does drop way more than the fighter using it can control. I think that Recklessness needs to be more of a longer term commitment. Most tanks if they needed to hold a mob for 10 sec taking double damage with no Block would be ok. So with that in mind …

Step one. Remove the drops when the fighter tanks damage.
2nd – Add a Blue Unlimited target AoE that procs Neg 1 Hate solution, proc limit of 1s a 10 sec. triggers when you are the target of an Melee attack.
3rd – adjust make Taunts do Neg Hate. So the fighters can manage there own hate.
4th – balance the DPS out of the fighters if/as needed when in Recklessness.

Bruiser Feedback / Ideas :

I submitted quite a bit of feedback in Beta on the weakness vs strengths of Bruiser vs Monk and Bruiser vs other tanks. However, now that the feedback is being requested specifically, I am gonna once more right it up again.

So, AA first.
BRAWLER TREE
Pressure Point : Its kinda whatever, most Brawlers take this just to get to the next ability but the damage output of 90% of CA's obtained from OG AA's are insignificant and add little to no benefit to the class. Yes, we cast them and they are probably in our CA Rotation, but a bump to damage on these across "ALL" classes wouldnt hurt.

Relentless Punches: This AA is another meh ability as the DPS gain from spending 10 points in it is very minimal and this is a common issue across all classes that had abilities that provided Double Attack before the stat swap between DA and DPS. The value stayed the same due to the strength of DPS Mod and I understand this but having it upped a little wouldnt hurt. Doesnt need to be changed on any class but would be nice.

Chi: So, I suppose if you want to keep some AA's in place for use at lower lvls and completely undergeared brawlers, then I guess you could keep this AA the same. However, in end game, it is completely useless due to the ability to self capp and reforge all of your stats to be at 100% all the time rather then 30 seconds every 5 minutes.

Baton Flurry: This follows the same mentioning of Pressure Point from the STR line. Damage is miniscule and the recovery mod debuff/buff portion is unoticeable on a mob.

Monkey Dodge: Defense on a Brawler. Hmm, never seen a need for it but doesnt meen it HAS to change, but possibly change it to awarding some Strikethrough or Hate Mod would be nice. Not neccessary but nice regardless.

Altruism: I want to love this ability but being on the end of an AA line that makes it absolutely pointless to obtain makes me hate it. Doesnt need a change but moving it somewhere or giving us more incentive to go down that line would be an awesome change.

Mantis Star: Remove the minimum distance from target on it already. We are tanks, not rangers or scouts. We are in the face of a mob 99% of the time and cant run away just to cast this debuff.

Mantis Leap: Perfectly fine the way it is but would be awesome if Combat Arts / Spells could trigger it as well.
Wisdom Line.

Crane Sweep: Same as before, pathetic damage amount, and with the immunities that 90% of all mobs have now to control effects, the stun/knockdown is meh. Up the damage or maybe add a dispell component to it instead of a the stun/knockdown.

Eagle Spin: Broken Record again, but sad amount of damage even with 10 points.

Eagle's Talon: Not sure if anyone out there focuses on Parry for avoidance on a brawler but I know I dont. Changing this to again Strike Through / Hate Mod or maybe even mitigation would be awesome.

Eagle Shriek: This spell is about as buggy as a bug zapper in Mississippi. First off, usualy, I am healed back up from 50% quicker then my next auto attack goes off and the mitigation would be nice if I wasnt likely to be one shot from 100% HP before I had a chance to use the added mitigation. Also, it doesnt always trigger if you are bouncing back and forth in HP within a few seconds of each other. Changing this to a duration spell that has a trigger limit on it would be nice.
When Target Drops below 50% health Applies Eagle Shriek.
-Improves Base Auto-Attack Multiplier of caster by 0.225. Increases Mitigation of cast vs " ALL " damage by 2200.
-Lasts for 30 seconds
-Cannot Trigger more the once every 60 seconds
-This spell cannot be modified except by direct means.
That meens, that if we drop below 50% and live, we get a nice boost to Auto Attack damage and a slight bump to survivability with mitigation. Its not ground breaking but would diffinately temp me in taking that ability.

End Lines

Tiger Reflexes: 6% is ok, not a big gain or loss so if you want a little more DPS go for it if not, no big loss. Doesnt really need to be changed.

Eagles Patience: If you went with the above changes for Eagles Shriek, then this would be a perfectly fine ability the way it is. While eagles shriek is active, you have the use of a Stone Skin ability for the 30 second duration at your command. If you dont do the above changes, then updating this to be an auto triggered ability with a 30 second limiter on it would make it worth taking in some scenarios. However, the formentioned changes are preffered.

Bruiser Tree

Alot of this tree is fine the way it is, because you can't cater EVERY AA choice to be just for endgame and geared players so there will always be choices you wont take in end game. However, there are a few of these that need updating and changing to make useful.

Enhance Rock Skin: Remove the Weapon Damage Debuff on this ability with the final rank please.

Enhance: Rock Skin (Increases the mitigation and hasten the resuse speed of Rock Skin and its upgrades. Removed Weapon Damage Bonus debuff at rank 5 )
-Increases crush, slash, and pierce resists by 25% " rank 5"
-Hastens reuse speed by 30 seconds "rank 5"
-Removes WDB penalty "rank 5"

Bodyguard of Stone: Please add stone skin reaction to this ability. With the change to its proc %, it is worse then a Ring item that you can obtain from a last tier raid zone. the Stone Skin reaction would prevent the random once shots caused by Flurry Attacks and Physical Spells that multicast.

Control Hate: Fine the way it is while in defensive but please change it to drop hate by 1 position while in wreckless as well. Thanks

Shadows Tree
This tree being generaly shared by eacg archetype and broken down to class specific on the last line has some things that could be changed to help across the board for all fighters and specificaly the bruiser.

Battle Hardening: Up the physical damage reduction on this ability please. Its is out of date compared to the increase of physcial damage from enemies since it was introduced.

Martial Leap: Change this to a Teleport to target with an AOE Threat Position increase for unlimited or 8 targets. Keep the damage reduction component in place for those around you. Reduce the radius to 15 meters and I could see this being used. This may be over powering for our class to some, but as an AoE Tank supposedly, we have 1 ability that is an AoE snap and another ability wouldnt be a bad thing.

Heroic Tree

Only ability on the Heroic Tree that I feel needs to be tweeked again is.
Unrivaled Focus: When Damage with a melee weapon this will cast UF on target.
-Lasts for 1.6 seconds.
-Physical DR for 30%
-Only can trigger once every 10 secons.
Change this to a 3 second duration for physical or leave the duration alone and make it apply a Damage Reduction for all damage types and not just physical with allowing any damage taken to trigger the effect.

Dragon Tree

This tree is fine the way it is except maybe 1 or 2 abilites. It has a mix of stuff to choose from depending on the playstyle be it DPS / PVP / Tanking.

Last Stand: I spec this ability just because of Tenacity triggers but it could serioulsy use a little work. The 90 Second cool down is too long in my opinion. 60 secons would feel more in line with how the ability is supposed to work. If you want to keep it at 90 seconds, then bump the 2% Threshold limit to 25% so we dont have to trigger a death prevent to get it to work. As it stands, the only time this ability will trigger is if you die. Oh, and top it off, not all death prevent abilities will allow this to trigger. Gnomish Pacemakers - AA death prevents - Evaded Reaper to name the 3 I know of.

I havent really had the time to completely break in the new prestige tree. The old prestige tree works the way it is for a Bruiser and I dont have a whole lot of complaints.

For spells and other abilities...
Unyielding Resolve:
Our Mythical Weapon clicky. OMG.. the reuse on that spell is atrociouse. Unyielding Resolve either needs to have the Duration bumped a little or the recase halved. As it stands right now, the biggest difference between us and our counterpar is the duration of our primary Avoidance Buffs. Tsunami vs Unyielding Resolve.

Tsunami : 22 Second Duration / 90 Second Recast
Unyielding Resolve : 10 Second Duration / 180 Second Recast
Tsunami has twice the duration with half the recast time. I am by no means asking for Tsunami to be nerfed or changed but the difference between the 2 abilities are insane. Remove the heal portion from Unyielding if you think its going to make it that much of an imbalance but a balance between these two abilities NEEDS to happen.
Stone Deaf:
3 Trigger Stone Skin for all Magical Damage greater then 30% of our max HP. The only problem I have with this ability is the fact that the recent addition of Spell Flurries occuring, we still take half the damage from said attacks. Barrage abilities for instance from Dreadscale Maw last expac or Cruor had abilities that they would cast that hit you for 300k Damage 5 or 6 times in the same second. The issue with Stone Deaf, is that yes, your eating half of the damage in stone skins but your left taking the rest full frontal. Were this is broke, is that for Stone Skin abilites like Perfect Counter from the Monk AA Tree, it has Stone Skin reaction built in. What this meens is that the flurry attack that we just got hit with is 100% absorbe. Initial stone skins eats the first tick and stone skin reaction eats the remaining damage. The only thing I can figure that could due to Stone Deaf is to add a Stone Skin reaction proc to the final trigger of the ability. I dont knwo if that would work but its a concern non the less.
Thats it for now, and I know its a wall of text but remember these are my opinions and my thoughts on the class. I have played many fighters and have a pretty good knowledge of mechanics. If you have something to add, please do so constructively. We want stuff to get fixed, not get a thread closed due to bickering.
Yacka

Worth mentioning too the frustration at trying to balance all the stats on a Bruiser, since we have no AAs or buffs that give us chunks of stats like some of the other tanks do, while at the same time needing every stat to remain competitive. Would be helpful if you could throw something our way to make it a bit easier. Strikethrough, dps mod, ae auto, anything really to free up some stats elsewhere for reforging.

That is why I asked to have the Defense or Parry AA's in Brawler tree changed to Strike Through or Hate Mod. Just 30% ST at rank 8 or Hate Mob wouldn't be game breaking considering Monks get 50% Strike Through native with there Myth Conversion.

These are a few of the problems I currently can think off the top of my head. I understand everything on my list cannot be changed which is why I noted which items are the most important to be fixed. I also understand asking for complete reworks of skills most of the time is unrealistic; therefore, most of my suggestions are meant to bring the problems of the Crusaders to light and provide a simple way to fix them. If there are questions or debate about my suggestions please quote the section to prompt healthy discussion. I'm sure not everyone agrees with me and I'm certain I've missed a few other important changes that are needed.

Part 1/2 of my post

Fighter General

• Reckless Stance
  • Only complaint is it gets knocked off way to easy and without items to reduce my threat I pull aggro constantly. This of course causes me to get hit which in turn keeps the buff off constantly.
  • Change to - Make fighter taunts work as detaunts just like the Grendish neck does.

Crusader

• Survivability
  • Mana Wall - Heroic Tree AA ( Most Important )
    • Currently - Mana Walls duration is 4 seconds. 4 seconds is entirely too short for this ability to be effective at preventing damage especially with its detrimental effect.
    • Change to - Duration of 12 seconds. This would make this ability highly useful and would only require a minor change.
  • Divine Aura- KoS STA End Line AA ( Most Important )
    • Currently - Any hits over 50% of the Crusaders health will not be stopped. Divine Favor allows too many attacks through to be used in the standard temp rotation without having to rely on a priest to also use a temp buff on you. Divine Favor is simply unreliable atm due to the 50% thresh hold.
    • Change to - Any hits over 75% Crusaders health wont be stopped. This be a easier fix than implementing an entire new ability while making this ability more useful then it is currently.
• Utility
  • Soul Claim - Heroic Tree AA
    • Currently - On a Death Blow increases the power of the group by 6% and gives 1 Crit Bonus to the group for every 3000 Str of the Crusader. This means It gives around 3-4 CB per increment fully raid buffed. Soul Claim is very undesirable in raid content since the increments to not last long enough to be useful.
    • Change the Duration to - Increase soul claims duration from 45sec to 2mins with a max cap of 20 increments.
    • Change the Effect to - Increase Health and Power of the group by 6% and Increases CB and Potency of the group for every 3000 Str of the Crusader.

Paladin

• Survivability
  • Demonstration of Faith VII (Most Important)
    • Currently - DoF Currently wards 15,000. DoF has not scaled well over the course of the years and is absolutely obsolete currently. Solo buffed most Paladins will be over 1mil HP and raid buffed ones will be pushing 3mil.
    • Change to - DoF based on % of the Paladins max health say around 35%
  • Holy Avenger (Myth Clicky)
    • Currently - A temp pet that does a small heal over time to the group. This ability is a mess and always has been. The cast time is entirely to long and the duration too short. Currently this ability is rarely if ever used. Its is one of the worse myth clickys in the game.
    • Change to - Instant cast with a significant increase to the amount of heal done and small duration increase. Or change it intercept some dmg much like Mystic temp pet does.
  • Holy Warding
    • Currently - HW currently has 3 second recovery time. This seen excessively long and an oversight. It should be brought into line with other skills.
  • Divine Favor
    • Currently - Stifles and Dazes the Paladin when the effect triggers. I'm still unsure why Divine Favor is still has this detrimental effect on it. The AA to remove the det effect in the bottom of the EoF tree should be made into one that buffs this ability not remove a terrible detrimental effect. 5/5 Adding a second trigger or providing a short term buff of some sort. When compared to all fighter death saves I'm unsure why Divine Favor still has this effect.
• Utility
  • Crusade VII (Raid wide Buff)
    • Currently - Crusade increase wisdom by 132, 5 potency to heals and arcane mitigation by 331. The Paladins might have the worse raid wide buff out of all the fighters currently. The amount of mitigation provides is dismally small and 5 potency is outdated. Adornments give more than 5 potency now of days.
    • Change to - Convert the 5 potency to 5% Base to all heals, change the Wis competent to STA so everyone in the raid can gain benefit to this. Significantly Increase the arcane resist component from 331 to around 1500-2000.
  • Heretic’s Destruction
    • Currently - 10 sec of 15% potency and CB to the raid. HD like many abilities have not scaled well over the years due the inflation of stats. As HD currently stand now, its obsolete and is in desperate need of a increase.
    • Changed to - 15% potency and CB to 5% Base CB and Potency with a 10 sec with medium size ward applied to the Paladin or small avoidance buff for the duration. This would make the buff extremely more useful while providing a defensive bonus to the paladin when used.

Part 2/2 of my post

Shadowknight

• Survivability
  • Hateful Respite
    • Currently - Stops one attack that is greater than 25% of the SK's total HP. HR doesn’t trigger as often as it should making the secondary component (threat/Heal) only trigger when the buff expires.
    • Change to - Lower HR the trigger chance to 10%, instead of the current at 25%
  • Touch of Death - Myth Clicky ( Most Important )
    • Currently - ToD will absorb dmg when its greater than 60% of the Sk's HP. This ability has same issues as Divine Aura. The 60% dmg component needs to be significantly reduced to make this ability more reliable.
    • Change to - Adjust the % of ToD to 15%, this would allow this ability extremely more effective and reliable.
  • Unholy Warding
    • Currently - UW currently has 3 second recovery time. This seen excessively long and an oversight. It should be brought into line with other skills.
  • Blood Letter ( Most Important )
    • Currently - BL isn’t able to be re cast in combat.
    • Change to - Allow BL to be cast in combat
  • Unholy Blessing VII - SK reactive ( Most Important )
    • Currently - Inflicts a small amount of dmg and heals the SK for 4-4.8%. I have no issues with this skill; however, the AA to increase UB effectiveness are out of date and not working correctly. Enhance: Unholy Blessing currently states it will increase the amount healed by 2% per rank. When 5/5 points are spend it only increase the amount healed by .3%.
    • Change to - Hopefully correct the amount healed to actually increase the amount healed by % rather than 10% of 4.8. To clarify, make the AA increase the amount healed by an actual %. An example: 4.8 base + 2/4/6/8/10%. when 5/5. Or change the AA to increase its duration and amount of reactive triggers. This ability just like the Paladin ward is meant to be one of the main abilities the Crusaders use to increase their survivability. Currently its not as bad off as the Paladin ward but its not very effective either.

• Utility
  • Death March
    • Currently - DM gives 181.6 Int to the group. Since the stat consoidation/changes, Int no longer is useful to the SK.
    • Change to - Change DM Int buff portion to STA so the SK and the group can take advantage of it.
    • Enhance Death March AA (EoF Tree AA) 5/5
    • Currently - Enhance Death March reduces the recast on DM,by 25 seconds. This AA is extremely out of date, DM is as an ancient class ability that is meant to be class defining like most ancients are. DM like many other abilities have not scaled with time and I wont ask for a rework of this ability but just minor tweeks to update the ability so that the SK can take full advantage of it.
    • Change to - Increase On the March buff duration to + 10 seconds with 5/5 points spent
  • Unholy Strength VII (Raid Wide Buff)
    • Currently - Unholy Strenght increase 5 potency to spells and Sta by around 100. The SK raid wide ins't as bad as the Paladins but its not as useful as other Fighter buffs. Unholy Strenghts 5 potency is outdated and nearly obsolete.
    • Change to - Convert the 5 potency to 5% Base to all spells and add a Nox mitigation component to the buff. Around 1500-2000 to Nox.

TLDR; Please Fix Divine Aura and Mana Wall for Crusaders while making our Reactive/Ward useful again.

Thank you Xelgad for the opportunity to provide direct feedback for some of the issues Crusaders currently have.

-Mahgnus, SK of Revelations on BB

Agreed with all above. My one addition would be to increase Paladin spell damage by 10-15%. It is abysmal how little damage all of their CAs and Spells do compared to all of the other fighters.