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Making Block Useful
cilginordek
Member Posts: 459 Arc User
I'm sure everyone who've tested the stamina block system will agree that its not working. There seems to be however some different ideas for fixing it. Most common ones are:
1)Keep the old guard; just increase its recovery speed and/or increase the amount we can block.
2)Buff the stamina guard; slower degradation and losing stamina only when under attack would help.
3)Another way to fix it; make sure to tell us about your idea, but think trough it carefully and keep in mind that stamina guard was a player idea too.
I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks!
1)Keep the old guard; just increase its recovery speed and/or increase the amount we can block.
2)Buff the stamina guard; slower degradation and losing stamina only when under attack would help.
3)Another way to fix it; make sure to tell us about your idea, but think trough it carefully and keep in mind that stamina guard was a player idea too.
I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks!
Post edited by cilginordek on
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The old block system, however, fast activation, and the 'Block Bar' would be composed of segments, each blocked attack, regardless of the damage blocked, would take 1 segment.
For the 'additional Block/Guard meter' mechanics, the game would add another segment instead (per 20%).
For regeneration of 'Block', I actually had another Idea: Every attack that isn't blocked restores a part of the block/guard meter, like the 'take damage to charge it' Determination on the GWF works right now, filling up the segments again. This means that a GF would now need to make a choice on what to block, instead of just blocking for blockings' sake.
But at the same time, this would mean that the actual block HOLDS, no matter if it is an At-Will, or if it is the 100k crit IBS of Doom. Or the currently dreaded 80k crit Aimed Shot.
As I said, this is an idea written up by someone who hasn't much experience as a GF, and especially not 'Endgame'.
That isn't dissimilar to how block works now. At the moment the block meter is diminished by each individual attack, regardless of damage(for the most part, very heavy damage takes greater chunks). This is why a flurry or trying tot facetank DOT with block is a terrible idea as your block meter is more easily broken by multiple low damage hits than fewer high damage attacks.
In my opinion block should stay as it is in PvP, but with a meter buff. in PvE the amount you can block could scale proportionally with how much threat you generate. More threat makes you tankier in order to deal with the increase in incoming damage.
But let's see how it works out in the next test builds.
However, we can all agree that the current implementation of Guard on the Preview Shard is broken and needs to be seriously looked at.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
They can't go back to previous guard. If gf have aggro from many/all mobs at the same time they should give him a guard with an HUGE hp pool if they would use the old system. And GF would became basically immortal in pvp.
The only way to overcome this is using a stamina system.
That is not the case, proper GFs can handle lots of mobs in most instances already in live. In most cases, you are not supposed to stand in there and take the hits either, you can just dance around a little to minimize the need the block, but when you use it, it absorbs everything. Perhaps with the only exception of Castle Never Dracolich Fight, AoE tanking is not really an issue at the moment.
The problem will be in the single target tanking fights like Fulminorax where the current block mechanic allows you to tank the dragon undisturbed, while the rest of the party deals properly with Valindra without the DC having to worry about your health either. With this change, I don't think that will be viable anymore, remember there's also Valindra shooting at you from atop the hill.
Consider that this new mechanic also makes Knight's Valor and Knight's Challenge even riskier than before as you can nullify their negative effects thanks to block and if this change goes through you will no longer be able to.
The problem isn't in a particular fight. The problem they trying to solve is this I think:
GF pull an entire room. Every mobs attack him: with the old system guard is broken in 1 second. Now he can sustain way more damage, having his guard up for 5 seconds or more. I think is that simple. You want to go back to a really inferior system
The problem is EXACTLY the particular fight, because these type of games (MMOs) end up being a collection of "particular fights" (the boss fights) for which you have to be properly equipped (be it either gear or skill or both) and prepared (strategy) or you will end up failing.
As for the "problem" you mention, it is not a problem. With the exception of Dracolich in Castle Never (Particular fight for which the GF is poorly equipped), the current block mechanic can already cope with most situations, be it either AoE tanking or single target tanking.
The most important thing is that Block is not designed to withstand multiple low hitting small mobs, It's meant to nullify the big powerful hits that also apply CC.
With this new system it becomes the total opposite, it gives us an unneeded tool for something we can already take care of and takes away a vital tool to handle single target tanking of Big Monsters.
I have a GF in both live and test, and I tested this new system and I can 100% say it's currently inferior the old one by FAR. To be equivalent the duration would have to be more than tripled probably, however. I cannot see that happening because of PvP balance.
And it never occurs to you that maybe mod4 will have dungeons in which tanking will be harder?
Anyway I really can't understand you: there was an never ending whine about GF guard. That it would last just one second against pack of mobs. And now that they'll give you a better solution, you still whine?!?!?
And it never occurs to you that with this system those harder dungeons will be impossible to tank since some of the current fights are already near impossible with the new proposed system? (i.e. Fulminorax)
The "never ending whine about GF guard" (an overstatement, guard is fine for most content up to T2 dungeons, it becomes problematic in PvP and post T2 PvE, with due exceptions) was that it broke too fast in IWD because of a very simple reason: It did not scale well, it remained pretty much the same guard meter from release with the exception of a few minor guard regenerating boon here and there. On the other hand, Unstoppable scaled better and better the stronger the GWF became, and monster's damage ramped up as well.
What people asked for was something that scaled better and did not break in one second from the huge single target hits of Beholders and Ice Giants. Proper GFs already know how to deal with masses of monsters, and surely it's not by standing in the middle of the mass with your shield raised.
This new system does not scale better at all and it's worse already for already existing content, if it stays as it currently is. (but seeing the amount of feedback I doubt they'll leave it like this for long)
Real rough math its about 5 seconds on blocking but about 15 to recharge... thats part of the big issue.
This is the meat of the whole block issue right here, which shows why this new block system is precisely worse and bad.
I like scooting along with my shield up or retreating with my shield held up. With the draining system it won't work. And pvp will be a mess because all players will have to do is wait for it to drain off.
I just think they should either change it so stamina doesnt drain when no damage is taken. or cap the rate the old shield deteriorates to 1 hit second or 0.5/0.7.5 etc seconds.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
With the new block mechanism you still take 20% damage. So if you pull a whole room, you'll still die regardlessly.
A couple of ours ago I talked with lvl99looter and another knowledgeable GF player at the preview server, and both strongly prefere the old guarding mechanism as well. If you have read the forum and have enough knowledge about the guardian fighter class to judge what GF player here knows what he/she is talking about, you can see that they agree on keeping the old blocking mechanism.
This is a serious issue for the GF class. The old blocking mechanism must NOT be abandoned!
Thoradin Rubyheart
There are many reasons for this, here is just one: A conqueror GF will deal damage proportional to how high the guard meter is. With the blocking system at the preview server, you would lose power and therefore dps while blocking even if there is not a single mob in sight.
1- Start to regen faster (when it's broken, it start to regen in ~1.5 seconds or something like that).
2- A Faster regen (25% Faster?).
3- More Guard meter (25% More?).
With those changes I would be happy.
Looks like they have already deceided that the new system is the way to go, regardless of our negativ feedback.
I can't always have a healer by my side in PvP. An already bad class getting destroyed, at least in PvP. Pretty sad i think!
I like the 0 second regen dely you're suggesting.
"Buff the stamina guard; slower degradation and losing stamina only when under attack would help."
while two-thirds support to
"Keep the old guard; just increase its recovery speed and/or increase the amount we can block"
Dear Developers, can you hear us?
With a dodge, you are dodging, so it's expected, and it lasts a second or less. GF's have to maintain it currently, and have attacks that are meant to work along with that state. It's hard on an older set of hands.. haha
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
To me, a tank is to tank the mobs and support your party, not to try to do a lot of damage, if you do, then your not a real tank, but a semi tank with a DPS complex.
Well, this poll was made 2 weeks ago, I voted for the old block system with a little buff, but now I prefer the one in preview, the duration is very very good and the damage we get while blocking will be almost nothing when the block stack our DR (actually it's bugged so we receive 20% of the damage in preview no matter what, that's gonna be fixed).
You might have misread the two options in this poll then, if I may dare to say that. Cilginordek, the original poster, did a very good job formulating the two options for this poll, and this is why: Due to the way he phrased the two options, he filtered the strength/efficiency out of the two block mechanics for the comparison, and evaluated the nature of the block mechanics itself. I think Cilginordek foresaw that the stamina-guard and (hopefully) the current guard at the live server are still subject to buffs or nerfs.
To clarify what I mean, here is an analogy: You are given the choice to spend your hollidays at a sunny beach, or at a 'different location'. What some players in the official GF feedback thread (*synergy*) are telling you, and what they focus on, is that you should favor the 'different location' because they did the number crunching and found out that you will get to that holliday destinaion faster. What Cilginordek did, was that he asked you: "Hey there are many different ways to travel, just imagine you could travel to the sunny beach as fast as to the 'different location', what is your choice then?" And I found out that I don't want to go to that 'different location', even if I could get there faster, because it is a garbage dump.
I want to keep spending my hollidays at the 'sunny beach' and if it is important for to you to travel fast, which I can understand, we can even achieve that. There are ways to travel faster to the sunny beach, but the proponents of the stamina-guard in the official GF feedback thread keep quiet about it. Instead we are seeing already the first fallout from heading to this 'different location' also known as stamina-block: The conqueror capstone feat has to be changed to adapt to the stamina-block, and many argue about that now over there. This reworked Reckless Attacker feat is like a punch in the stomache for those GF players that build their GF around that feat and had fun doing that. There are more negative consequences that come with this stamina-block, and some players can see them, and are warning about them.
(To give what I said additional weight: When the sharing of paragon paths between GF and GWF was still just an idea, I pointed out that it would be a bad idea, because it would negatively impact the balance aside from other problems. Several months later we find ourselves now with GFs and GWF having to have a different versions of the Iron Vanguard paragon path, because it had to be changed because of balancing reasons. I correctly saw what was coming, and I warned about it.)
Actually the choices are:
Keep the old guard with buffs
Buff the stamina guard.
So your analogy is "stay at beach A - where we have been for the past year and have found its really rocky and not so great" or we can all travel to beach B where the pamphlet looks like its a better beach.
Also nobody is giving any "numbers" around number crunching and the block system... The only numbers for clarification there are how the block should be when its WAI - posted by crush. Then people STILL have a problem understanding because they go to the PTR, take alot of damage then come back and whine here about how much damage they took when its very clear its not even WAI right now on PTR...
So some of us AGAIN post "hey, once its fixed youll take alot less damage"
Its silly to think that SOME version of stamina cant work, ofcourse it can, its a matter of finding the right balance in duration/recharge. Crush also posted (as some1 quoted above) the reason why they didnt keep the old one. Im not very much in favor of the old block. Ive been using it and been VERY frustrated with it for a long time - same with block+Reckless.
Now the 80% block versus 100% doesnt bother me at all, IF we have enough "uptime" which it seems to me we are pretty close. If built correctly you can have almost a perma block.
(To give what I said additional weight, I too warned of sharing the paragon paths as the GWF would become OP and cause balance issues for GF who got nothing from the SM path. I too saw correctly and warned about it)
I just pulled up the old "guardian fighter swordmaster paragon path" thread and read what you posted there. You did point out problems that come along with the paragon paths sharing, specifically the mark ability of GF compared to GWF, and how to improve that situation that this paragon swapping creates for GFs, instead of stopping it. You even expressed that you didn't want to push that patch back and suggested to make the swordmaster viable for GFs. That doesn't sound to me like "warning of sharing the paragon paths" or what would have been even better: Trying to stop it, so, with patience we could have gotten our very own 2nd paragon path, unique and characteristic for our class and immune to balancing tweaks that target the GWF class.
Sometimes, when I do the dreadring lair that has the "knight captain" as boss and I see his encounters, I wonder if that was the paragon bath that we were supposed to get before the idea of getting a "new" paragon path from the GWF was implemented.
Yes, the old block system is not satisfying, true. But not because its mechanic itself (guardmeter going down when an attack hits the raised shield (that is my "beach")) is flawed, but because it is too weak (that is my "travel speed"). The guard meter going down as a result of taking a hit with the shield is a core game mechanic for the GF. Instead of improving the GF by making that more effective you suggest to abolish it and replace it with something else. As we can see this fundamental change impacts other areas, like the reckless attacker feat which you then (have to) propose to change as well, again not improving it, but changing completely how it works. You do that against a majority that favors the old block mechanic, or/and have built their character around pillars of the GF like the reckless attacker feat which will then be in vain. The time to do such deep reaching changes was the open beta, or at least shortly after the open beta, not now anymore.
I understand that you come mainly or purely from a pvp perspective, and I assume that you favor the stamina-block because of that. I respect the PvP part of the game, but PvE is the main focus of Neverwinter, not PvP. Fundamental changes of a class that come with the negative effects others and I described here and in the sticky GF feedback thread cannot be justified by tweaking PvP (and even some PvP oriented players in the GF stick thread are against it).
I think the players who read and post here in the preview section have a decent understanding about their class and these proposed unfinished and partially buggy changes at the preview server. They are not "uneducated", but might have a different point of view. And this poll clearly took the efficiency of the two guard mechanics, which you refer to, out of the equation by the way it is formulated. Again, hats of to Cilginordek.
Yes, I read that, gentlemancrush wrote that the interaction of block and healing would be complicated for them with the current block. That means it is possible. He also mentioned the binaray nature of block beeing undesired. The first time I heard about such a thing was from gentlemancrush himself, I have never heard that from a fellow GF before. This binary nature of the current block can be unforgiving if you make a mistake, but we chose a GF knowing that we would face danger, right? That's part of the fun of playing GF.