PVE tanking buffs to the GF

thestaggy

In light of the current one-shot meta in PVE, I was thinking about ways in which the GFs could be improved in the tanking/survival area to better fulfill their PVE rolls.

The primary issues I have picked up are the following;

1 - The Tactician capstone requires the GF to take unblocked blows to activate. This is untenable in current PVE and thus the capstone is not as effective as it could me.
2 - Knight's Valor, our ultimate tanking skill, is now an incredibly deadly power to use in PVE. GFs have been one-shot while guarding with it up. I know I have.
3 - We received a nice speed buff to the casting time on Enforced Threat and it works a treat. However, going back to the damage going on in PVE, our crucial survival daily - Fighter's Recovery - has an incredibly long wind up time and this is not ideal when we are on the brink and having to guard while under pressure.

Ideas to address the above and hopefully improve PVE tanking and by extension, improve the overall quality of life of everyone when dungeon delving:

1 - The Tactician capstone needs a rework. It just isn't feasible in the new dungeons.
Concept 1: Allies within 30' feet of you deal 10% more damage and gain AP 5% faster. This can only affect 4 allies at a time. Each strike you deal increases your AP gain by 1%. This effect stacks up to 10 times. Each stack lasts 3 seconds.
Concept 2: Whenever you activate a daily power your allies have their critical chance increased by 10% and their critical severity increased by 15%. This effect lasts for 6 seconds. Each strike you deal increases your AP gain by 1%. This effect stacks up to 10 times. Each stack lasts 3 seconds.
Concept 3: Whenever you activate a daily power your allies receive 10% of your hit points as temporary hit points. This effect lasts for 6 seconds. Each strike you deal increases your AP gain by 1%. This effect stacks up to 10 times. Each stack lasts 3 seconds.

2 - Knight's Valor increases the GF's hit points by 50%. This only applies in PVE. Whenever Knight's Valor is toggled off the hit point buff is immediately removed. - This should help improve PVE party tanking and not turn the power into something that can break PVP. The risk-reward angle worked in Mods 4 and 5, but in Mod 6 it is just a high-risk power.

3 - Simple one here and I've been asking for this for some time. The cast time on Fighter's Recovery is too long. As the class that is and will always be the closest to the action, it needs to go off quicker, especially now that it is used like a crutch to cope with the incoming damage.

hauwlyn

We have been spoiled for far too long. We used to have tank, healers and controllers all use hybrid builds doing a lot of damage while doing "good enough" in their areas of expertise.

You bring up some good points, but if you want to be tanking a dungeon in the game as it is now, why go with a supporty feat line when you could specialize in the tanky one? We must move away from the way we used to play and do what the difficulty of the content encourages us to do: overspecialize like we were meant to.

That also means that Knight's Valor should be a less valuable Encounter simply because between the tank, the controller and the healer, group damage you might intercept should be a lot less frequent. I think we should favor powers that let us keep threat and control as many enemies as we can afford to alleviate the wizard's work rather than catch up on intercepting damage with KV.

We now need to optimize tanking like tanks do in most other MMOs out there. Forget your damage total, if you can sustain your team, your dps will take care of it.

That does mean, however, that finding a good compromise build for PvE and PvP is now harder than ever. We need double specs now more than ever.

daaly

I agree with most of what you brought up...KV does tend to be the suicide option at times for tanking...which I still use but I'm more cautious about toggleing it off and on as needed. Incoming damage from trash/adds let alone the boss encounters seem to be tad out of control...and self healing abilities and potions seem to be filled with their onw issues for current content (I mean healing potions for 10k or 10k plus a heal over time for 850 if crafted...while damage incoming can one shot tanks...and everyone else 120k hp plus)...

Side issue does anyone else annoyed that GF's cant use a heal pot while blocking? I mean the HP incoming is far far outweighed by the incoming damage....just saying.

zachwho

As an Xbox gf, I think it's ridiculous that we can't use some of or encounters while blocking. ET, IttF, and front line surge come to mind. I feel we should be able to use any of encounters while blocking. That may just be my opinion, but it sure would be nice.

query523

Honestly I never use KV. It is suicidal and stupid. Using it in earlier Mods it only worked because the folks you were 'protecting' were not taking enough damage to really be in danger. If you really want it slot Iron Warrior too and I guess ITF while you sit in the corner with your shield up. Sorry ranting. Anyway the way to make Martial Mastery work is the same as Reckless Attacker because you have to take hits for either. It's not your build. You have to learn the attack animations for the mobs. And then you have to know which dailies to employ. You want to take the little hits and block the big hit and/or CC (dependant on daily I will get to this).
Figure out what mobs you will survive and what you will not. Yes indeed this process involves dying a lot. Equiped with this knowledge let the smaller hits hit you and toggle your shield for the big hits. Do not wait until you are at 20% and block everything hoping you survive. Ok now this is where the Dailies come in. A lot of the bad CC actually has pretty low damage. Which means that you can waitfor that cycle and use VM to be immune, eatthe attacks, and use your damage buff (remember hitting things also builds AP). Alternately if under attack from a lot of things that do not CC but you can survive (even if only briefly) you can use FR and ride the phenominal lifesteal from it to survive while.... getting hit and building MM AP. Knowing when to use which cycle means that if your AP bar did not fill up (sometimes it does and you can keep using dailies) you block.... building more AP. But really the whole thing comes down to knowing when to attack and when to defend.

gfalconio

I use kv when have a good healer, it is very usefull for save you team mates of a enemy aoe. I prefer die alone than let all party die by one shot. Xd

killernore

all tactician paragon need full rework is wrost path for GF or any other class on game.

the Gf on general need alot love for pve roll as main tank... no good temp HP/ DR and protective skill for the party...

query523

gfalconio wrote: »

I use kv when have a good healer, it is very usefull for save you team mates of a enemy aoe. I prefer die alone than let all party die by one shot. Xd

My general experience is that if my GF dies the rest of the party follows right behind her. Likely because they eat all the aggro she was holding.....

ryoshinette

In my humble opinion your suggestion won't change anything.
If you'll maximize your defensive stats, you are rising your shield up, DC supports you, your build is defensive - and despite this, you are dying cause of 1 arrow or regular mob - then something is wrong.

Obviously dev's won't say, that thei idea with whole this arpen is piece os shi3t. 100% DR and CC when shield is up can help a bit and drasticall reducing of casting time of GF skills (ITF, VM, etc). But expect whine here, mainy from HR's who were pwned in pvp by Gf's. They used treat GF as a easy target, now we can deal some dmg. So 100% would be overpowered for them.

Maybe I have no practise, but during eCC run - who is first class who is entering new room - tank? No - it's always TR with smoke, or CW with some chilling/freezing skills. Simple, after aggro (even fast) Tank is DEAAADDD.