It would be great if we could have something to deactivate marks and temporary pause of the movement of a hard marked monster.
That way we can pull mobs strategically, move and stop them to regain control over the battlefield.
For instance in Fangbreaker island, if we could use the above mentioned taunts and hard marks we could focus on one giant at a time and reduce the number of deaths the party and ourselves receives.
Trying to tank all those giants at the same time is not a easy task with our current setup of powers and abilities.
You know our feats and encounter powers need to be reworked when a DC has more survive abilities with there encounter powers than a Tank.
Only thing a DC would need is mark and agro then it might be best tank available in game.
Defender moves are designed to cause threat, damage to maintain threat, increase defender DR for a short time or buff the group to help kill enemies faster.
Leader moves are designed to buff the group damage and defense and heal the group.
DC are in fact not as tanky as you think. AA is changing and it will not allow a player to take four hits without any damage. It will now reduce that damage by a set amount, meaning, DC will have to actually heal in group content.
I have no problem on my tank. I run all dungeons but GWD and CC without a healer. In fact in mDemo and CN when I did run with a healer, I beat them in healing on my GF due to Fighter Recovery.
Well yeah, sometimes I see huge green floater when I hit FR.
Getting something along the lines of 500-700k heals is not a rare thing now days, especially in mSVA.
The way I see it, and I'm sure I'm there are many others :P, DC is rarely a healer now. Properly build tank does not need heals, maybe apart from Hill Climb in FBI where HAMSTER can go real sometimes.
We can easily use FR+KV combined with GA+SD and go immune than block, to regain to full health in seconds.
To add to it, current end game is more about one shots than chip damage. We're either at full health or we're eating dirt.
Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based? 2). Yes. I am panzer! 3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen. 4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Well yeah, sometimes I see huge green floater when I hit FR.
Getting something along the lines of 500-700k heals is not a rare thing now days, especially in mSVA.
The way I see it, and I'm sure I'm there are many others :P, DC is rarely a healer now. Properly build tank does not need heals, maybe apart from Hill Climb in FBI where HAMSTER can go real sometimes.
We can easily use FR+KV combined with GA+SD and go immune than block, to regain to full health in seconds.
To add to it, current end game is more about one shots than chip damage. We're either at full health or we're eating dirt.
Instead of adding unique mechanics such as get this item and move it here to turn off the bosses defense most MMOs go for one shots. I'm sorry but I rather have a bunch of smaller hits encouraging healing and tanking to work together to achieve success vs. you are one shotted simply because the hit does more damage than you could ever get in HP if you don't put up your shield.
Using CN as an example, the first two bosses are a joke and Ocrus you simply have to have good timing. Now imagine if Orcus had a damaging aura and if you range him he does one shots to kill off anyone at long distance range when the tank does not have threat. Now the only way to stop him from doing that is having a tank hold threat. Now, the tank is up front and personal with him and getting constant damage. Orcus hits would be reduced and healing would now come into the equation making healers more viable, especially if the devs add cool down on all dailies like they did with DC, so no more spamming Figther's recovery. We know it is coming, so devs would have to adjust the game to make it more engaging for all roles.
I'm 100% against DEX giving crit chance, wouldn't that mess pvp builds and their ability stat rolls?? I want to pvp someday maybe in 2229 and I wouldn't like to have to deal with unwanted crit chance that will get me toasted against high tenacity pvpers Imo there should be 2 types of ability rolls, like pve and pvp so there can be more built varierty, pve DEX with added crit and PVP DEX as we know it.
tbh I really don't mind an ICD cooldown nerf to Fighter's Recovery.
For me, I always thought Fighter's Recovery is like using a bomb in classic shoot-em ups: you can use your bomb to clear the screen and survive right now, but then you lack a resource which could be extremely useful in later stages. When the situation repeats itself, you lack that resource that could potentially save your life...
Granted, it could lead to this problem, but if you run into this problem, you probably don't need Fighter's Recovery to begin with...
But yeah, need less oneshots but more attacks which hit hard and hit over a period of time so healers have time to react.
tbh I really don't mind an ICD cooldown nerf to Fighter's Recovery.
For me, I always thought Fighter's Recovery is like using a bomb in classic shoot-em ups: you can use your bomb to clear the screen and survive right now, but then you lack a resource which could be extremely useful in later stages. When the situation repeats itself, you lack that resource that could potentially save your life...
Granted, it could lead to this problem, but if you run into this problem, you probably don't need Fighter's Recovery to begin with...
But yeah, need less oneshots but more attacks which hit hard and hit over a period of time so healers have time to react.
Awkward zombie comics man...so awesome haha !
Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based? 2). Yes. I am panzer! 3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen. 4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
I'm 100% against DEX giving crit chance, wouldn't that mess pvp builds and their ability stat rolls?? I want to pvp someday maybe in 2229 and I wouldn't like to have to deal with unwanted crit chance that will get me toasted against high tenacity pvpers Imo there should be 2 types of ability rolls, like pve and pvp so there can be more built varierty, pve DEX with added crit and PVP DEX as we know it.
I don't expect a GF rework any time soon, but I was thinking about a feat that could replace, say, Crushing Shield, with something which would give Crit chance from DEX.
Even if it was only 0.5% Crit per point of DEX from the feat...
So the gwf gets a feat in their destroyer tree that dumps 20% defense into power. I'd like to see 3 versions of this for us. 1. Conqueror: 20% defense into power 2. Protector: 20% defense into deflection 3. Tactician: 20% defense into recovery
The capstone in protector should equal, in its percentages, to that of the conqueror capstone. So 25% damage debuff and 10% increased deflection chance, as an example. Also, the protector capstone is still broken, which is ashame and borderline criminal.
Staying power feels like it should be in conqueror tree. Surging tide, powerful strike and terrifying menace in tactician tree are pretty useless. Two or three feats give temp HP, but they have severely long cooldowns. The amount of temp HP should be higher in feats such as shielded resurgence. And adding points should reduce the cool down time to something reasonable.
Anyone could go on about particular feats being terrible. Or that they feel as is if they should be in a different tree. This has been done before in a previous post by Proteus. I personally don't think we need a full rework. Just dump 1-3 feats per tree and replace with ones that are viable/useful.
As for the crit chance into DEX from comments above. I'm thinking it would work better in a feat within conqueror tree. Or give us 5% possible in heroic feats and crit severity in conqueror tree. Or 3% of both in the already existing heroic feat weapon mastery.
As for attributes I'll repeat my biggest complaint. CON is terrible. People Put points into CON for the AP gain, not the HP. And we all know why. Two fixes: Connect CON to the heroic feat toughness. Or make it 1/2 AP gain AND 1/2 damage resistance per point.....thusly combining what we have versus the pally. And give the pally the same thing. Two birds, one stone.
I know Tactician is fine as is, but I have a few problems with it.
Why does the Tactician have feats (Daunting Challenge + Surging Tide) which give it damage mitigation capabilities better (because bugs)/on par with the dedicated Protector path.
And why does the Tactician have a feat which rewards a player for sucking? I get that it was for pre-Mod6, when people had to save their dailies for a good time and place, but now, Martial Mastery barely does anything, and I have to suck to do it. Once you get good enough at tanking, Tactician offers very little tangible benefit over the Conq's chip damage.
Anyways, I know that this is wishful thinking and that we're not slated to get a rework for maybe another couple of years (since we got ours in Mod10).
But, here's how I'd rework Tactician:
Tier 1-3 Fight On: Leave as is. Crushing Pin: Leave as is. SM Specific Feat: Steel Grace now gives allies 1-5% extra Critical Chance. Rename to "Steel Resolve" or something less corny sounding. IV Specific Feat: Targets affected by Trample the Fallen recieve a 1-5% DR debuff for the duration of however long Trample is on target. Rousing Speech: Move down to Tier 2 and leave as is. United: Teammates standing within 30' of you have 2-10% extra Recovery. Daunting Challenge: Move to Protector. In its place, I propose the following feat: at the start of combat, you and your teammates move 2-10% faster and have 1-5% extra Critical chance for 5 seconds. Rename to "" or something less corny sounding
Less damage debuff/defensive buffs, more "buff your team's offense" feats to separate it from the Protector (who should be the defensive powerhouse). The effects are generally underwhelming because any GF type can access them.
Tier 4-6 Inspiring Leader: Leave as is. Surging Tide: Move the damage debuff to Protector. In its place: Tide of Iron's debuff now works against allies' attacks (you know, like the debuff that the devs took away? T_T) and stuns the enemy for 3 seconds. Powerful Strike: Using Commander's Strike causes allies' At-wills and dailies to deal 2-10% more damage for 5 seconds. The Hawkeye effect of Commander's Strike now works with dailies. Terrifying Menace: After you drop your shield, you and teammates within 30' of you deal 1-5% more damage for 5 seconds. Rename to "Sortie". (Sortie is a French word meaning "switching from defensive posture to an offensive attack").
Let's differentiate the Tactician from the other two trees. The Conqueror focuses on counter-attacking and burst damage potential. The Protector should be the most tanky and have the most damage debuffs for protecting their team. The Tactician, meanwhile, focuses on improving their team's offense through good positioning and good observance of their enemies.
Martial Mastery: Targets marked by the Focus of your mark take 20% more damage from all sources (20% damage buff on the target with Focus of the Tab Mark). If the target with Martial Mastery dies, the other players in the party 2% of their total AP Gain and have their cooldowns reduced by 5%.
The idea behind this one is to reinforce the Tactician theme. Designate your targets correctly and know what your objectives are on the field of battle. If your team follows your orders, then they are rewarded with buffs for their efforts.
If you think the effect is broken, remember that it's tied to the focus of Tab mark, which means you can only have this up one at a time. If a target with Martial Mastery on it dies, you manually need to apply the Tab Mark Focus to each target. This means you constantly need to be on the ball, keeping an eye out for which targets have died and who needs to die next
I like everything except the increased crit chance being in tactician tree. I like daunting challenge as is. Unless things have changed, I understand that this feat works for you and allies.....not just allies. Another words, it's broken, but in a good way lol....rare. It's a great debuff for teammates IMO. Tactician is about protecting and buffing your team. I guess I'd go for it if you meant 2-10% movement and 1-5% crit chance for teammates only. Personal damage increases should be left to conqueror tree.
And that's the sacrifice. All trees should have a philosophy that flows. Conqueror=personal damage buff. Protector=personal tankiness. Tactician= teammates' buffs and enemy debuffs.
I agree that Martial Mastery effect did got "old" we have so many ways to gain AP that it does close to nothing.
On the flip side making this tied to Tab mark and increasing the damage by 20% when the target dies...uhmm not sure it's balanced. I mean I do understand that it's limited to one target only but 20% is a lot. Cooldown reduction seems a nice idea.
Tide of Iron change was really "not smart" not sure anyone even uses it after the change. Making it a party vide debuff makes perfect sense.
Hard to judge how will re-made Commander's Strike work. Making it work on At Wills sounds a bit too much but than again, this skill is, even now, very powerful.
Sorry, I'm not trying to wine or anything, these are all great suggestions and I'm far from being a hater :P I would actually like to have those good ones come into my head, but it's not likely to happen
Good read Gentleman! good read indeed.
Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based? 2). Yes. I am panzer! 3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen. 4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Overall, I just want the GF's featpaths to be less tied to junk powers or useless effects (have you guys seen any GF singing the praises of Terrifying Menace, Crushing Shield, or Stunning Flourish?). And I want some interesting effects to the GF's feats, because, currently, a lot of the feats are split between "good and must have" to "toss in the garbage bin".
I agree that Martial Mastery effect did got "old" we have so many ways to gain AP that it does close to nothing.
On the flip side making this tied to Tab mark and increasing the damage by 20% when the target dies...uhmm not sure it's balanced. I mean I do understand that it's limited to one target only but 20% is a lot. Cooldown reduction seems a nice idea.
Tide of Iron change was really "not smart" not sure anyone even uses it after the change. Making it a party vide debuff makes perfect sense.
Hard to judge how will re-made Commander's Strike work. Making it work on At Wills sounds a bit too much but than again, this skill is, even now, very powerful.
Sorry, I'm not trying to wine or anything, these are all great suggestions and I'm far from being a hater :P I would actually like to have those good ones come into my head, but it's not likely to happen
Good read Gentleman! good read indeed.
No problem, critique is all about making things better.
The mark puts a 20% damage bonus on the target with the Mark Focus. The idea is you want the target with the mark focus to die first, which is why your Tab mark (Focus) puts a 20% damage bonus on them. If your teammates kill the target, then they get rewarded for following your orders. The idea is that it emphasizes teamwork and a little bit of strategy, which is what the Tactician should be about.
The Commander's Strike idea was articulated rather weirdly.
If you use CS, then your teammates deal 10% more damage with Dailies and At-wills. This isn't consumed by CS, it's just as damage bonus which lasts for a short period of time. Given how wonky CS is, this means that you need to use CS when you know that your team needs to maximize their damage. The biggest change would be that the Hawkeye (ie, the extra damage hit you get from your teammates hitting a target which you hit with CS) would work with daily attacks, which gives some extra variety. This is limited to the Tactician tree, emphasizing the Tactician's focus on observing your enemies and having precise attacks.
I like everything except the increased crit chance being in tactician tree. I like daunting challenge as is. Unless things have changed, I understand that this feat works for you and allies.....not just allies. Another words, it's broken, but in a good way lol....rare. It's a great debuff for teammates IMO. Tactician is about protecting and buffing your team. I guess I'd go for it if you meant 2-10% movement and 1-5% crit chance for teammates only. Personal damage increases should be left to conqueror tree.
And that's the sacrifice. All trees should have a philosophy that flows. Conqueror=personal damage buff. Protector=personal tankiness.
Tactician= teammates' buffs and enemy debuffs.
Yes, Daunting Challenge works for you as well as your teammates currently. Same goes with Surging Tide, which is why I found it extremely odd that (currently) the Tactician has better damage debuff potential than the dedicated Protection path (even if Iron Guard gets fixed, Tactician still has capabilities pretty close to the Protector).
I personally think Protector should be all about protecting your team, in addition to being the "skill gate" path (ie, it's easy for newbies to learn, but may not be as useful as the player gets better).
I agree. The protector path should be the "new player" path. Nice and easy tanking while they get used to the GF. And considering rjc's comment about the protector path being all about protecting your team....I'll adjust my aforementioned description about the paths, as they should be.
Conqueror: personal damage buffs Protector: personal/team protection Tactician: team buffs/enemy debuffs
The conqueror does what it should, albeit filled with useless feats too. Tactician does what it should, useless feats included as well. But protector only "protects" you, and not your team. Correction, the capstone protects your team, but it's broken. And it's the only feat in the tree where this exists.
But protector only "protects" you, and not your team. Correction, the capstone protects your team, but it's broken. And it's the only feat in the tree where this exists.
That's my issue with the Protector, it's technically the most selfish path with very little to differentiate itself besides Shieldmaster. Apart from the Iron Guard bug, it "works" but is unremarkable.
Here's how I'd imagine Protector: a GF which focuses on team survival
Tier 1-3 Armor of Bahamut: You generate 5-25% extra aggro. Rename this to something else. Plate Agility: Change to " you and your teammates get 1-5% extra Deflect chance". SM Exclusive Feat: Move Staying Power to Conqueror. In its place: Steel Defense now gives teammates 3-15% extra DR while the effect is active. Rename to "Shared Defense" or something less stupid sounding. IV Exclusive Feat: Leave as is. Shield Defense: You and your teammates gain 2-10 extra AC (1-5% extra DR). Unshakeable Line: Activating Fighter's Recovery gives you TempHP worth 2-10% of your total HP and Recovers 1-5% of your teammates' HP. Devoted Protector: You move 2-10% faster while holding your Shield. Rename to something else.
Can't make these feats "too" overpowered, since all GFs have access to them. Mostly minor defensive bonuses, but most of them are shared with your team.
Tier 4-6 Shieldmaster: Leave as is. Brawling Warrior: Knight's Valor redirect 10% additional damage from teammates to yourself (instead of splitting the damage 50/50, the damage is split 40/60 Teammate/GF. Additionally, at 5 points invested, your marking effects do not expire if you are hit by an unshielded attack. Rename this feat to something else. Overwhelming Impact: Move Daunting Challenge from Tactician to here as Protector. Change the tooltip to reflect what it actually does. Balanced Shield Fighter: Move the Surging Tide feat from Tactician to here.
More unique damage debuff feats, to set the Protector apart from Conq/Tac.
Iron Guard:Teammates standing within 30' of you take 10% less damage. Additionally, if they stand behind you while your shield is raised towards enemy attacks, their incoming damage is reduced by a further 20%. Give the shield a big indicator which shows where your teammates need to stand behind, ala Reindhart from Overwatch. Rename to "Phalanx", or something less corny.
The idea behind Iron Guard change is to add uniqueness to the tree. Yeah, the Iron Guard damage debuff is nice, but feels somewhat lame for a final capstone. And, given how the stacking issue may never get fixed, why not change it to something else? So, I decided to add something uniquely "Protector-y", in what I call Phalanx. I mostly thought of it as a "taking the bullet" style feat that encourages the rest of the team to let the Protector GF take the brunt of attacks/take point.
I like everything except the iron guard damage phalanx 'indicator' part. That sounds like, and it would be necessary for, a glowing area on the ground. Similar to the pally stamina power..... I forget the name but they have their shield up and circle of healing surrounds them. Also, I don't write code but a change to incoming damage and the mitigation of it....based upon your position, your teammates position and the enemies seems convoluted. I might be way off base on this and if so, disregard.
Everything else looks like what I'd like to see. The moving of certain feats to other paths. Ex: staying power to conqueror is great. The shared effects of feats with team, awesome. Deflect chance for everybody!!!
Lastly, you hit on a pet peeve of mine with the soft mark. I'll restate what I posted almost a year ago on this topic.....
The GWF gets a soft mark thru a power called daring shout. It doesn't go away if they get hit. It has a timer, and it's very long. Thusly, when two GWF's are together, it would behoove one of them to run battle fury. They have a feat that buffs their damage output to marked targets, which makes daring shout pretty much Lia Knowles build necessary. Or any dps GWF build for that matter.
So, I say that our soft mark should have a cool down and not go away based upon us getting hit with shield down. Rather, increase cool down on ET, yeah I said it. Make the soft mark last half as long as the cool down of ET. You can obviously close this gap with recovery/fight on etc. Ex: 18 second ET with 9 second soft mark. You can close this gap like people try to close the gap on fray.
The problem is that IV GWF's and GF's have an at-will that mark, softly. So, I'd suggest that threatening rush damages all enemies that would be affected by threatening rush AOE. The same as the pally at-will.....but no soft mark. Soft mark only comes from ET. Now, you can apply tier 4-6 feats in each tree. More damage in conqueror 'for self', obvious. Less damage output by enemies for protector, again obvious. And more damage taken by enemies, for teammates only, for tactician.
Comments
Probably one that won't ever be acted on because game balance, but definitely the trade of something not-useful for something that is. Heh.
Neverwinter Census 2017
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That way we can pull mobs strategically, move and stop them to regain control over the battlefield.
For instance in Fangbreaker island, if we could use the above mentioned taunts and hard marks we could focus on one giant at a time and reduce the number of deaths the party and ourselves receives.
Trying to tank all those giants at the same time is not a easy task with our current setup of powers and abilities.
Let me know what you guys think.
Only thing a DC would need is mark and agro then it might be best tank available in game.
Leader moves are designed to buff the group damage and defense and heal the group.
DC are in fact not as tanky as you think. AA is changing and it will not allow a player to take four hits without any damage. It will now reduce that damage by a set amount, meaning, DC will have to actually heal in group content.
I have no problem on my tank. I run all dungeons but GWD and CC without a healer. In fact in mDemo and CN when I did run with a healer, I beat them in healing on my GF due to Fighter Recovery.
Getting something along the lines of 500-700k heals is not a rare thing now days, especially in mSVA.
The way I see it, and I'm sure I'm there are many others :P, DC is rarely a healer now.
Properly build tank does not need heals, maybe apart from Hill Climb in FBI where HAMSTER can go real sometimes.
We can easily use FR+KV combined with GA+SD and go immune than block, to regain to full health in seconds.
To add to it, current end game is more about one shots than chip damage. We're either at full health or we're eating dirt.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Using CN as an example, the first two bosses are a joke and Ocrus you simply have to have good timing. Now imagine if Orcus had a damaging aura and if you range him he does one shots to kill off anyone at long distance range when the tank does not have threat. Now the only way to stop him from doing that is having a tank hold threat. Now, the tank is up front and personal with him and getting constant damage. Orcus hits would be reduced and healing would now come into the equation making healers more viable, especially if the devs add cool down on all dailies like they did with DC, so no more spamming Figther's recovery. We know it is coming, so devs would have to adjust the game to make it more engaging for all roles.
For me, I always thought Fighter's Recovery is like using a bomb in classic shoot-em ups: you can use your bomb to clear the screen and survive right now, but then you lack a resource which could be extremely useful in later stages. When the situation repeats itself, you lack that resource that could potentially save your life...
Granted, it could lead to this problem, but if you run into this problem, you probably don't need Fighter's Recovery to begin with...
But yeah, need less oneshots but more attacks which hit hard and hit over a period of time so healers have time to react.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Even if it was only 0.5% Crit per point of DEX from the feat...
1. Conqueror: 20% defense into power
2. Protector: 20% defense into deflection
3. Tactician: 20% defense into recovery
The capstone in protector should equal, in its percentages, to that of the conqueror capstone. So 25% damage debuff and 10% increased deflection chance, as an example. Also, the protector capstone is still broken, which is ashame and borderline criminal.
Staying power feels like it should be in conqueror tree. Surging tide, powerful strike and terrifying menace in tactician tree are pretty useless. Two or three feats give temp HP, but they have severely long cooldowns. The amount of temp HP should be higher in feats such as shielded resurgence. And adding points should reduce the cool down time to something reasonable.
Anyone could go on about particular feats being terrible. Or that they feel as is if they should be in a different tree. This has been done before in a previous post by Proteus. I personally don't think we need a full rework. Just dump 1-3 feats per tree and replace with ones that are viable/useful.
As for the crit chance into DEX from comments above. I'm thinking it would work better in a feat within conqueror tree. Or give us 5% possible in heroic feats and crit severity in conqueror tree. Or 3% of both in the already existing heroic feat weapon mastery.
As for attributes I'll repeat my biggest complaint. CON is terrible. People Put points into CON for the AP gain, not the HP. And we all know why. Two fixes: Connect CON to the heroic feat toughness. Or make it 1/2 AP gain AND 1/2 damage resistance per point.....thusly combining what we have versus the pally. And give the pally the same thing. Two birds, one stone.
Why does the Tactician have feats (Daunting Challenge + Surging Tide) which give it damage mitigation capabilities better (because bugs)/on par with the dedicated Protector path.
And why does the Tactician have a feat which rewards a player for sucking? I get that it was for pre-Mod6, when people had to save their dailies for a good time and place, but now, Martial Mastery barely does anything, and I have to suck to do it. Once you get good enough at tanking, Tactician offers very little tangible benefit over the Conq's chip damage.
Anyways, I know that this is wishful thinking and that we're not slated to get a rework for maybe another couple of years (since we got ours in Mod10).
But, here's how I'd rework Tactician:
Tier 1-3
Fight On: Leave as is.
Crushing Pin: Leave as is.
SM Specific Feat: Steel Grace now gives allies 1-5% extra Critical Chance. Rename to "Steel Resolve" or something less corny sounding.
IV Specific Feat: Targets affected by Trample the Fallen recieve a 1-5% DR debuff for the duration of however long Trample is on target.
Rousing Speech: Move down to Tier 2 and leave as is.
United: Teammates standing within 30' of you have 2-10% extra Recovery.
Daunting Challenge: Move to Protector. In its place, I propose the following feat: at the start of combat, you and your teammates move 2-10% faster and have 1-5% extra Critical chance for 5 seconds. Rename to "" or something less corny sounding
Less damage debuff/defensive buffs, more "buff your team's offense" feats to separate it from the Protector (who should be the defensive powerhouse). The effects are generally underwhelming because any GF type can access them.
Tier 4-6
Inspiring Leader: Leave as is.
Surging Tide: Move the damage debuff to Protector. In its place: Tide of Iron's debuff now works against allies' attacks (you know, like the debuff that the devs took away? T_T) and stuns the enemy for 3 seconds.
Powerful Strike: Using Commander's Strike causes allies' At-wills and dailies to deal 2-10% more damage for 5 seconds. The Hawkeye effect of Commander's Strike now works with dailies.
Terrifying Menace: After you drop your shield, you and teammates within 30' of you deal 1-5% more damage for 5 seconds. Rename to "Sortie". (Sortie is a French word meaning "switching from defensive posture to an offensive attack").
Let's differentiate the Tactician from the other two trees. The Conqueror focuses on counter-attacking and burst damage potential. The Protector should be the most tanky and have the most damage debuffs for protecting their team. The Tactician, meanwhile, focuses on improving their team's offense through good positioning and good observance of their enemies.
Martial Mastery: Targets marked by the Focus of your mark take 20% more damage from all sources (20% damage buff on the target with Focus of the Tab Mark). If the target with Martial Mastery dies, the other players in the party 2% of their total AP Gain and have their cooldowns reduced by 5%.
The idea behind this one is to reinforce the Tactician theme. Designate your targets correctly and know what your objectives are on the field of battle. If your team follows your orders, then they are rewarded with buffs for their efforts.
If you think the effect is broken, remember that it's tied to the focus of Tab mark, which means you can only have this up one at a time. If a target with Martial Mastery on it dies, you manually need to apply the Tab Mark Focus to each target. This means you constantly need to be on the ball, keeping an eye out for which targets have died and who needs to die next
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Thoughts, opinions?
And that's the sacrifice. All trees should have a philosophy that flows. Conqueror=personal damage buff. Protector=personal tankiness.
Tactician= teammates' buffs and enemy debuffs.
On the flip side making this tied to Tab mark and increasing the damage by 20% when the target dies...uhmm not sure it's balanced. I mean I do understand that it's limited to one target only but 20% is a lot. Cooldown reduction seems a nice idea.
Tide of Iron change was really "not smart" not sure anyone even uses it after the change. Making it a party vide debuff makes perfect sense.
Hard to judge how will re-made Commander's Strike work. Making it work on At Wills sounds a bit too much but than again, this skill is, even now, very powerful.
Sorry, I'm not trying to wine or anything, these are all great suggestions and I'm far from being a hater :P
I would actually like to have those good ones come into my head, but it's not likely to happen
Good read Gentleman! good read indeed.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
The mark puts a 20% damage bonus on the target with the Mark Focus. The idea is you want the target with the mark focus to die first, which is why your Tab mark (Focus) puts a 20% damage bonus on them. If your teammates kill the target, then they get rewarded for following your orders. The idea is that it emphasizes teamwork and a little bit of strategy, which is what the Tactician should be about.
The Commander's Strike idea was articulated rather weirdly.
If you use CS, then your teammates deal 10% more damage with Dailies and At-wills. This isn't consumed by CS, it's just as damage bonus which lasts for a short period of time. Given how wonky CS is, this means that you need to use CS when you know that your team needs to maximize their damage. The biggest change would be that the Hawkeye (ie, the extra damage hit you get from your teammates hitting a target which you hit with CS) would work with daily attacks, which gives some extra variety. This is limited to the Tactician tree, emphasizing the Tactician's focus on observing your enemies and having precise attacks. Yes, Daunting Challenge works for you as well as your teammates currently. Same goes with Surging Tide, which is why I found it extremely odd that (currently) the Tactician has better damage debuff potential than the dedicated Protection path (even if Iron Guard gets fixed, Tactician still has capabilities pretty close to the Protector).
I personally think Protector should be all about protecting your team, in addition to being the "skill gate" path (ie, it's easy for newbies to learn, but may not be as useful as the player gets better).
Conqueror: personal damage buffs
Protector: personal/team protection
Tactician: team buffs/enemy debuffs
The conqueror does what it should, albeit filled with useless feats too. Tactician does what it should, useless feats included as well. But protector only "protects" you, and not your team. Correction, the capstone protects your team, but it's broken. And it's the only feat in the tree where this exists.
Here's how I'd imagine Protector: a GF which focuses on team survival
Tier 1-3
Armor of Bahamut: You generate 5-25% extra aggro. Rename this to something else.
Plate Agility: Change to " you and your teammates get 1-5% extra Deflect chance".
SM Exclusive Feat: Move Staying Power to Conqueror. In its place: Steel Defense now gives teammates 3-15% extra DR while the effect is active. Rename to "Shared Defense" or something less stupid sounding.
IV Exclusive Feat: Leave as is.
Shield Defense: You and your teammates gain 2-10 extra AC (1-5% extra DR).
Unshakeable Line: Activating Fighter's Recovery gives you TempHP worth 2-10% of your total HP and Recovers 1-5% of your teammates' HP.
Devoted Protector: You move 2-10% faster while holding your Shield. Rename to something else.
Can't make these feats "too" overpowered, since all GFs have access to them. Mostly minor defensive bonuses, but most of them are shared with your team.
Tier 4-6
Shieldmaster: Leave as is.
Brawling Warrior: Knight's Valor redirect 10% additional damage from teammates to yourself (instead of splitting the damage 50/50, the damage is split 40/60 Teammate/GF. Additionally, at 5 points invested, your marking effects do not expire if you are hit by an unshielded attack. Rename this feat to something else.
Overwhelming Impact: Move Daunting Challenge from Tactician to here as Protector. Change the tooltip to reflect what it actually does.
Balanced Shield Fighter: Move the Surging Tide feat from Tactician to here.
More unique damage debuff feats, to set the Protector apart from Conq/Tac.
Iron Guard:Teammates standing within 30' of you take 10% less damage. Additionally, if they stand behind you while your shield is raised towards enemy attacks, their incoming damage is reduced by a further 20%. Give the shield a big indicator which shows where your teammates need to stand behind, ala Reindhart from Overwatch. Rename to "Phalanx", or something less corny.
The idea behind Iron Guard change is to add uniqueness to the tree. Yeah, the Iron Guard damage debuff is nice, but feels somewhat lame for a final capstone. And, given how the stacking issue may never get fixed, why not change it to something else? So, I decided to add something uniquely "Protector-y", in what I call Phalanx. I mostly thought of it as a "taking the bullet" style feat that encourages the rest of the team to let the Protector GF take the brunt of attacks/take point.
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Thoughts, opinions?
I like everything except the iron guard damage phalanx 'indicator' part. That sounds like, and it would be necessary for, a glowing area on the ground. Similar to the pally stamina power..... I forget the name but they have their shield up and circle of healing surrounds them. Also, I don't write code but a change to incoming damage and the mitigation of it....based upon your position, your teammates position and the enemies seems convoluted. I might be way off base on this and if so, disregard.
Everything else looks like what I'd like to see. The moving of certain feats to other paths. Ex: staying power to conqueror is great. The shared effects of feats with team, awesome. Deflect chance for everybody!!!
Lastly, you hit on a pet peeve of mine with the soft mark. I'll restate what I posted almost a year ago on this topic.....
The GWF gets a soft mark thru a power called daring shout. It doesn't go away if they get hit. It has a timer, and it's very long. Thusly, when two GWF's are together, it would behoove one of them to run battle fury. They have a feat that buffs their damage output to marked targets, which makes daring shout pretty much Lia Knowles build necessary. Or any dps GWF build for that matter.
So, I say that our soft mark should have a cool down and not go away based upon us getting hit with shield down. Rather, increase cool down on ET, yeah I said it. Make the soft mark last half as long as the cool down of ET. You can obviously close this gap with recovery/fight on etc. Ex: 18 second ET with 9 second soft mark. You can close this gap like people try to close the gap on fray.
The problem is that IV GWF's and GF's have an at-will that mark, softly. So, I'd suggest that threatening rush damages all enemies that would be affected by threatening rush AOE. The same as the pally at-will.....but no soft mark. Soft mark only comes from ET. Now, you can apply tier 4-6 feats in each tree. More damage in conqueror 'for self', obvious. Less damage output by enemies for protector, again obvious. And more damage taken by enemies, for teammates only, for tactician.