Adding "Almost Unstoppable" to large monsters (PvE)

klangeddin

In various threads I've read about a PvE balance complaint concerning mostly Control Wizards and Guardian Fighters, the former being "too popular" and the latter being the opposite.
I'm very well aware that applying changes directly to the classes may shift the problem to PvP balance (and while there may problems there as well, it's not the argument discussed here), so instead I thought it would be more reasonable to suggest a change in PvE content.

Unstoppable is a buff that all bosses and very few monsters have. It grants total control immunity and I'm also aware that extending this to many other monsters could lead to Control Wizards to be rejected in PvE content.
That's why I suggest of implementing a new buff, "Almost Unstoppable", which grants immunity only to "forced movement" (I do not know how its classified, but this includes the various knockbacks and pulls from GF, GWF, CW and DC) and provides a 50% duration reduction to all other forms of crowd control (stun, choke, slow, ecc...).

This change would affect only dungeon PvE content (both normal and epic).

There are various monsters that this could be applied to, the ones that I can think of right now are:

- Thoon Hulks (Dread Vault) ***
- Spellplagued Hulks (Spellplague Cavern)
- Ogres (Various T1 dungeons)
- Large Feral Trolls and Cyclops. (Malabog Castle)
- Large knights with scythe and Golems** (Valindra's Tower)

But I'm sure that there other monsters that could be involved.

I think that this change would make Guardian Fighers more appealing in dungeons as the possibility of controlling the monsters that are perceived as the most dangerous would have to be replaced by tanking.

** Those golems should have the normal Unstoppable, really. The ones in Frozen Heart do, I don't see why these should not.
*** I know this would make Epic Dread Vault even sillier than now, but I think that the dungeon needs a rebalance regardless of this change as its difficulty/reward appears to completely out of whack.

chaoscourtesan

certainly worth thinking about. i've always thought that the main answer was in changing the way the dungeon fights work.. just not sure on how best to do that.

i've thought also of threat gen.. like, add a class based modifier to a mob's tendency to focus on a team member.

maybe +18% gf, +12% gwf, +8% dc, +5% cw, +3% hr, +2% tr.

i don't know about those particular values, maybe they are terrible. i just put them there to illustrate.

sorry about punctuation/caps here, i need to get a new keyboard.

the gf does need a defensive boost vs. mobs only, though. but yeah, if i could reliably get the bulk of an enemy horde focused on me, i'd respec to full tank, and that might not be necessary.

pitshade

The problem is that of the three control powers GFs have, only Griffon's Wrath would be able to do anything with these proposed changes. Unless you also added a longish cooldown to the mob's ability to spam their AOEs, the GF isn't going to do much after the three changes of GW are expended. The real problem with the stuff on that list anyway, except for the ogres and Cyclops Hewers, they all spam AOEs that will hit people regardless of who has aggro. So the GF will give you three charges to stop them from doing the attack, and then the mob will continue to use the attack which a GF can do nothing to protect the party from. Basically you just make them like FH Golems and Plaguechanged Maws which are basically untankable by anything but a GWF (unstoppable) or TR (ITC) both of which classes are doing real damage to the mob at the same time.

The best way to make GFs more useful in dungeons would be to make mobs that do actual damage that isn't AOE spam (so the GF can actually absorb it) and are immune to control, so their aggro would have to be controlled. Fast damaging single target attacks, not semi random AOEs that can only be tanked by kiting the splat away from the party - or worse yet no range AOEs that are still going to hit the striker on the other side of the mob even if the GF moves away. Plaguechanged Maws for instance don't benefit much at all from being tanked. Their single target punch doesn't do nearly the damage that the two AOEs do and it's the easiest to avoid, yet the only thing that a GF would be able to protect the striker from.

If we assume (as many do) that the content isn't going to be changed, then the way to fix the GF is basically just to buff them enough where they become a DPS class, still doing less damage than the others but enough that their ability to manage aggro isn't the only thing that they've got going for them. (I would also buff their guard by limiting how much can be depleted at a time so that it's more on par with the dodges and that other classes have)

cayapp

Mod 3 has some mobs with an incredible Unstoppable perma buff already, that seems different then previous.

reiwulf

Mod 3 has many changes from teh rest of PVE and I like a lot more the direction things are going.