This is what I have found so far: Weapon guard is used very similar to any combat art, not a buff even though it has a 30 second buff icon. You only activate it when you are getting beat on or just before you engage something. When you are not tanking, you won't use it at all unless you want to position yourself in front of the mob and trigger your counterattacks via riposte. However you then have to deal with dodge parry thrust spin (for those buggs bunny fans) so I don't really know if it is effecient DPS wise. Controlled rage is near useless in the current form and I don't use the word useless lightly like most posters do. 1.2% avoidance for 14% dps reduction. I can't imagine anyone trying to keep this buffed non-stop, let alone use it at all. Anarchy is nice when you are tanking, but it is yet another drain on your power pool. As a "group support tool" I found it mostly ignored on my toolbar when raiding last night (I was not a primary tank in the raid). Picking up agro from the additional creatures was a curse in the early stages of fights so timing is very important and I just didn't get that feeling of accomplishing anything when using the skill to be honest. I really liked the skill as a concentration buff and really dislike it as a short term castable. You and others may like it how it is now and use it, I don't know. Short of it all is you might concern yourself about casting anarchy over and over, but I even doubt that will happen.
Did I actually read somewhere that someone doesn't like using Tides of War becasue it's only a 20 str buff right now? Um, what about the friggin' group haste that it adds? That means nothing?!?!?!!? I can't wait for Vanguard!! /blowit SOE!
Did they eliminate the Fury/Greater Fury line? Looks like Weapon Guard, and likely Weapon Shield, have about that same effect. Do you have a shot of Blood Rage? That was such a nice spell that stopped being useful when it started hitting me for 1200 to have a chance of proc'ing a lot less than that back. I don't much care for how No Quarter drops Focus, rather than a power drain. I wonder if they've done that for the entire line now as well. They will no doubt change the in-combat regen line. Either drop the amount of regen, or shorten the duration and up the recast. Having 150 regen per ticket in combat seems likely to trivialize any non-epic encounter, unless they are really killing our avoidance and mitigation.
Actually, War Chant is currently the spell that grants 20 str (with ad3) to self and group and that's all it does. Tides of War currently adds melee dps and attack speed to self and group. It appears that that the effects of hese two spells are being switched around. Currently I always use War Chant (hey 20 str is 20 str) plus the hate it generates and it's short cast time makes it good for pulling adds off people or getting initial aggro when pulling. I dunno how this will change with the new patch. Message Edited by infernus006 on 08-15-2005 02:09 PM
Fury->Greater Fury->Unbridled Fury. This is the new Offensive stance line of buffs Blood rage->Blood flow->Blood boil. This is the new self regen line of no concentration buffs. Pretty nice little perks. The regen lines are very wonky on test at the moment. Healing for different amounts solo/group/raid. Very hard to lock down numbers since it gives no text or graphical feedback, just have to count on the persona screen. I agree it is going to be a hard balancing act to make these not trivialize solo play, yet be attactive to group/raids. Sambora, Tides of war adds about 60 strength now and adds 10% damage to combat arts, depending on strength/weapon etc, and I assume regular melee. Much better IMHO than old haste. We still offer haste and DPS buffs to the group now with the war chant line of spells. Works for the group, pretty cool little spell.
STR has an effect on the inspected damage of combat arts. In his experience, 60 STR is worth about +10% on the arts he inspected. najena.konk
Well I think Tides of War is one of the best Berserker skills now, it gives us alot of attack speed and I love it I am not sure if having +60 str will be good or not.. the bad part is that it will use a concentration, but 60 str is still alot, but if you gave me a choice, I would leave it as it is now, but oh well.. Good Luck!
Actually that's one of the few things I'm actually looking forward with this revamp is that extra str. I think it will make a noticable difference. Currently at ad3 War Chant only gives 20 str.
I noticed in the update notes they did a pass of the training skills. Does anyone know if the training choices that put us in berserk state retain those abilitites?
I don't see Rampage on there......am I going blind? Or am I really going to have to go sit in a corner and cry?
I see unflinching will, infuriate and destructive rage in my near tanking future... And Tides of War, Infuriate, and Unbridled Fury switched on and off with Destructive Rage for whatever DPS roll I have left... The new counter attack isn't half bad either. We're nerfed, but atleast it looks promising.
I am wondering if our dps will pay with the no cast time spells.. many spells dont have a casting time so this makes us able to cast much more in a fight, I made myself a low lvl fighter on test and I could do a HO in less than a second, it was very cool, but then again thats only the low levels, I wonder if we will get some of our dps loss back with these no cast time skills.. Good Luck!
I'm still wondering about Rampage, hehe, it's one of my favorites, except for the timer they are supposedly changing. I'm wondering just how different the skill itself will be.
Well I just hope they don't change it into another tanking skill, or defensive skill.. many of hour offensive skills are being changed to defense, and I would like to have some back up on offense. Good Luck!
Yes, hitting Rampage and following it up with a Slaughter or Stunning Roar vs. a group of three to five is one of the few joys I've had testing the changes so far. Being able to do it every three minutes is nice. najena.konk
