As said above agro still not working as intended, I tried out SoT with one of my companions and without ET its pretty much impossible to take back agro even with daily.
@asterdahl I wanted to thank you for your response. It really shows a lot how much you care about the community/game by how much time you take to personally reply to everyone on here you can, and read all their messages. Keep it up!
Would have replied sooner than this, but work’s been keeping me busy. Did take your advice, and got in a lot more playtime on preview. Specifically trying all the possible spec combo/ability/rotation combos I could come up with around. Also stuck to only the new areas (like undermountain) since it seems the previous areas are still scaling strangely so it’s difficult to compare those to what I suspect you and the other devs want things to be across the board, post release. Let me update your questions/responses with results.
First—on the topic of Dreadnought and how it stacks up against your friend's classes, who I assume from your description were playing Arbiter and Blademaster. Tuning the damage potential of the classes is one of our largest priorities over the coming weeks. When the module goes live, I promise that Dreadnought will not be far behind the other DPS classes. We can't guarantee that balance will be perfect, but it should be very close, nowhere near an orders of magnitude difference if you're playing well and geared as well as your friends.
Understood, thank you for that promise. See some more of my results later, but I was able to come up with a very specific spec/rotation that came pretty close to the Arbiter’s DPS. Still, not topping it, but much closer than on preview launch. It also helps that there’s no artifact mistakes happening causing massive damage ruining any objective comparisons.
You also go on specifically to bring up the example of the feat that consumes vengeance to deal increased magnitude damage feeling too weak or as if it seriously hampers your synergy with other powers feeling like a clear example of why the changes are uninspired. I would say that tweaks to powers like that are the exact sort of thing we will be changing over the coming weeks if they do feel bad or they do feel like they really mess up the feeling of the class. I genuinely appreciate everyone's feedback on those subjects. Telling us what powers or synergies you do and do not like is incredibly helpful.
So, additional feedback on this. I’m warming up to the vengeance mechanic as a dreadnought. A lot. It’s still a little tricky to figure out, especially as things like cleave were seeming to drain 10 vengeance *per crit* on AOE attacks. However, if I use Brazen Slash’s feat to get an additional 200 magnitude on Heavy Slash, and then crit on that to drain vengeance (with the passive skill), I feel like that mechanic alone helps boost our at-will DPS. It’s very useful. Since it’s a chance, and heavily gear dependent (need lots of +crit obviously), it means our class is very much crit focused/obsessed. I kind of like this. I also like that it drains vengeance, which taking the vengeance to 50% ITF feat gives you a straight up 10% dmg bonus with vengeance (at least until you crit again), and some wiggle room to get some more vengeance empowered crits.
I found myself really liking this mechanic. I also enjoyed dig in (once we make that a bit smoother/more meaningful, the animation is rough right now, end up cancelling it sometimes while trying to cast it) before a fight, then take the “block prevents vengeance from draining” feat, and shield my way into bull rush range, and then go at it. Having one of my encounter powers be ITF means I lose the DPS I could do with that slot, but, using it to generate instant vengeance in combat gives me a lot of flexibility to play around with.
Quoting another reply from somewhere else in this thread you have:
On the topic of the riposte mechanic, ultimately, that is how vengeance works for the Dreadnought, you can block attacks to fill your vengeance meter, and only need to use Seethe to fill it in group play
You’re right. It was nice. I’ve got to hand it to you. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I do.
While soloing, incorporating blocks into my normal rotation to build up my vengeance (since I want that +3% free crit skill to keep my stamina up) was refreshing to add to the playstyle. Had to change my “Don’t hold shield for too long because it’ll drain” habit I’ve built up with the GF on live, and more, just used the shield during combat anytime I wasn’t right clicking. When moving from place to place, when switching my rotations, etc. block has become a *lot* more useful now, and less stressful.
I will say I couldn’t see any benefit from running the increased shield regen skill, I tried playing around with that for a bit, and if it improves our guard recharge rate, it wasn’t noticeable. I could see swapping to that to take advantage of the +3% crit ability, or even just more stamina for burning with “dig in” between combat.
On the downside, not all encounter/feat/skill combos are useful with vengeance, and that seems off. You pretty much *need* the passive skill that burns vengeance to do more damage on crits if you’re going dps. Your at-wills are also similarly affected, as burning through all my vengeance in one or two cleaves or reaves isn’t ideal. BS/HS becomes *the* Dreadnought spec imo. I’m totally ok with that, to be perfectly honest, it’s not like I was swapping to anything other than Weapon Master Strike on live anyhow. At least with this, I’m continually swapping between BS to HS whenever I get the empowered HS buff proc.
All in all, if you went live with the dreadnought exactly as it is right now, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. I especially like how heavily our class/spec with that vengeance passive, is tied to crit. Now, crit is essential to the DPS GF kit. We have an idea of what weapon enchants to buy, and what stats to prioritize.
It’s...honestly kind of fun. I found myself feeling rewarded, finally, after hours of playing, I was enjoying myself. Took a while to figure this new stuff out, which will be a concern for people starting fresh. But, once you get into the groove, and/or someone writes a Dreadnought GF guide, I think you’ll start having more positive player engagement.
Let me start by ensuring you that, we're not specifically attempting to carry out any initial "launch vision" for the game. Most of the launch development team no longer works at the company or on the project. In some ways in fact—for better or worse depending on your perspective—we're actually aiming to resolve a lot of fundamental problems with how the game was built at launch. I've addressed these issues more specifically in other posts and threads so I won't go into too much detail, but those issues include: classes built as if there were a trinity but without the gameplay to support the trinity; lack of a built in failure state for group encounters; unfocused abilities that do far too many things; and far too many bad choices when building your character.
You’re right, of course. I think the direction you’re heading in is...fundamentally, better. I really appreciate your candor and honesty here. My girlfriend plays an OP, and now, we have two of the three pillars for any of the holy trinity group comps we need. It’s nice for her to know that her heal spec will actually be needed, instead of letting the SW’s heal people with lifesteal crits. It’s nice knowing that I have a real tank spec I can swap to, if needed, and hold my own (Looking forward to playing with the aggro meters more btw). And most importantly to me, it’s very nice to know that the Fighter’s Dreadnought spec isn’t just lip service to being DPS. There’s actually, real DPS potential there. Knowing that I’ve seen the inkling of it on the test servers already, and I’m not even lvl 80 yet, is encouraging.
The loss of “flexibility” doesn’t bother me as much anymore. The more I read and talk to other classes, it looks like AOE damage was toned down, or removed completely. So really, this seems to be less about flexibility, and more about finding the high DPS version of the dreadnought spec, versus the utility version of the dreadnought spec. There’s some different ways to play and spec it out, but some aren’t as good as others. I don’t mind that we’re locked into BS/HS 90% of the time. It was 100% of the time with WMS right now. I like the variety of that combo, and if we want AoE, I’ve always got Cleave/Reave to fall back on, but my single target DPS will absolutely suffer. That’s ok. It wasn’t ok that WMS does more damage than single target at wills on live. What we might be feeling is just the loss of things that were completely unbalanced on live, or didn’t make any sense.
Yes, I’d like it if all encounter abilities/feat paths/skills were viable for DPS, but that’s not how it works on live today, and that’s not how it works on preview. There is definitely one, maybe two very similar takes on a High DPS Dreadnought spec IMO on preview right now. If you want utility/flexibility, you will have to sacrifice some DPS to get that. Shield throw and reave are cool, but you’re not going to be at the top of the paingiver charts at any point if you run those right now. That’s ok. They offer things that the pure DPS path doesn’t, and that’s the tradeoff we need to make.
Of course, our goals don't matter if you're not enjoying yourself—so I'd like to ask for a few more details on what you aren't enjoying. You mention that everything feels too slow, can you go into more detail about what feels slow, and which parts of that slowness feel more or less egregious to you? Obviously, we've slowed down a lot of things—no recovery means slower encounters and dailies, scaling in lower level dungeons means no 5 minute runs, and both of those things mean the average enemy encounter lasts a bit longer.
I absolutely wasn’t enjoying myself on preview at first. Doing just the undermountain areas exclusively (and ignoring the imbalanced older content) helped. The other thing that helped was ditching all my BiS +% dmg gear from live, and sticking to straight stats. Finally, the last thing that helped was just sticking with all the specs until something finally clicked and felt “right”. Took time, but since this is new to everyone, there’s no playbook I can go off of. There’s not a billion hours of “Fighter knowledge” to take advantage of anymore. There’s only the last week or so. It’ll probably take time to figure out how to maximize our damage potential, but I believe that with the commitment you’ve expressed to making sure the DPS Fighter is just as viable as other DPS, and what I’ve seen on preview so far, we’ll get there.
The game’s not slow, it’s just...different. I think part of the key is to not use some of the extremely long CD abilities (like anvil of doom, that ability takes 2-ish encounters to cooldown now). But using 12-18s CD abilities is juuuust right. Just enough so you feel like you’re doing more than right clicking things.
I like not dying instantly. I really do. Slowing down can be a good thing here. On Live, dashing in and Enforced Threat-ing everything (like in FBI) is a surefire way to end up dead, or almost dead if I hadn’t popped second wind right before. I both love and hate that mechanic. Yeah, live servers high end BiS gear lets DPS hit like Greek Gods, but we’re all made of paper (Except Paladins). I didn’t like that part. And with Mod16, I think you’ve fixed that. Blocking feels meaningful, I love the scale up with HP mechanic. I love feeling like a tank when I’m in vanguard, and a real DPS when in dreadnought. Some tweaking will always happen, but I like the direction you’re going so far. Most importantly, I like your commitment to that vision, even if it’s not right on preview, you give me hope that you and your team will eventually “get it right”. That’s worth more than the math currently uploaded to your servers
How long would you be okay with the average random dungeon run being?
If the rewards don’t scale with our level, but our items scale down to slow the dungeon down, then either the rewards need to scale up to compensate for the time spent, or the dungeon needs to be able to to be done quickly enough so it makes up for the lower rewards. It’s economics, and I know you guys spend a lot of time thinking/focusing on that. If the incentive is to make the lower level dungeons more challenge/rewarding to play through so the end game content doesn’t feel as “stale”, then the time spent is only an issue if the rewards aren’t worthwhile.
On average though, if it’s a lower level dungeon, I’d expect it to take about half as long, or less (at super endgame) than it would take when that dungeon was actually at the top of the spectrum. E.g. Castle Never, between 15-20ish minutes to run feels about right with the current rewards in relation to the new level 80 stuff.
Thanks again for taking the time to post, I do hope you'll continue to give the changes a chance over the next few weeks.
For sure. Thanks for staying with it, and everyone here and remaining very optimistic and professional. It’s refreshing to not see anyone getting attacked on these posts.
1.) Love the changes to block, allowing us to hold it for as long as we want, draining only on hits, scaling based on our HP and defense, and incorporating that into the DPS rotation in a way that actually increases our DPS. 2.) Also really enjoying the new companion mechanisms. I like not being locked into one companion like we are on Live. The variety is nice. And the companions actually can take hits, and do real damage. They're not just stat factories for the player. Although, it would be nice to be able to issue simple pet commands, like "Passive/Aggressive/Defensive" to avoid some awkward scenarios. 3.) Threat building/generation still feels off. Additionally, the 30% dps reduction hurts a lot with holding aggro. If you compensated by having our attacks generate something like 2x threat, then it'd help. Having long CD mechanics to re-take aggro back makes things very, very tricky. Heck, if there was simply an at-will ability in Vanguard that didn't do any damage at all, but instead, would just do a magnitude 1000 "damage" threat build, taking 1s cast, that'd be incredibly useful. Again, it'd do no real damage to mobs, but would do an incredible amount of "threat damage". Not an instant "retake" aggro ability, but some way to get us climbing that thread list fast when we're falling behind. Then we could use the longer CD abilities (like ET/Anvil) to recover if a DPS/Healer shot to the top ahead of us, or if we needed to absolutely pull a mob off someone.
Dovetailing with my prior suggestion for a positioning tool as the Vanguard's Tab ability: Give the Vanguard a vengeance meter, with the same functionality at 50% as the Dreadnought's version, but no way to actively build vengeance- no seethe button, no powers that grant vengeance, etc. Make it only generate by blocking.
Make our Tab function a melee range pull into the fighter's forward arc (I still like Grapple as a name for this) with a root or slow to hold them there for a second, and make it cost a chunk of the Vengeance meter. Maybe give a little chunk of stamina back to help cement it as a defensive tool- the numbers are whatever, but I'm envisioning spending 30-40 vengeance for Grapple and ~10% stamina restoration.
Alternative to the stamina restoration, still with a defensive/utility focus, and arguably more thematically fitting, is to make it an interrupt or daze along with the slow (can't remember if Pull effects already do that, but it feels like they delay more than properly interrupt)
Доброго дня. Я не знаю не одного из латинских наречий, поэтому пишу через гугл переводчик, в связи с этим прошу прощения за неправильную пунктуацию и грамматику.
Перед своим постом хочу отметить момент, что нынешняя ситуация когда топовые данжи пробегаю почти любой пачкой за 15-20 минут действительно нереалистична. И полностью поддерживаю решение о уменьшении бафов. Но то что я вижу на тестовом сервере, это всеобщее единообразие без возможности придумать что-то своё. Теперь про сам класс танка. Новая механика класса совершенно противоположна нынешней, из динамичного и подвижного класса вы почему-то решили сделать сидящего персонажа. Убирать возможность дальней соло агры с таб для меня остаётся непонятным. Я играю танком уже 5 лет: играл и классическим танком, и бафером-танком и полу-бафером/полу-ДД, а новшество ставит меня в тупик. Нет ни агры, не подвижности. Танки как востребованные персонажи появились в игре только когда умение "рыцарская доблесть" стала работать постоянно. не боитесь ли вы, что сейчас убрав бафы, агр, и отменив своё прошлое решение вы не убиваете класс? Даже единственные бафающие умения "призыв в битву" и "удар командира" были отобраны у танка (я не трогаю тему дд- танков - это отдельный класс и меня он не интересует)
С уважением, игрок Рус
Good day. I don’t know one of the Latin dialects, so I’m writing through Google translator, in this regard, I apologize for the wrong punctuation and grammar.
Before my post I want to note the moment that the current situation when the top dungeons run through almost any pack in 15-20 minutes is really unrealistic. And fully support the decision to reduce buffs. But what I see on the test server is universal uniformity without the ability to come up with something different. Now, about the tank class itself. New class mechanics are completely opposite to the current, for some reason, you decided to make a seated character out of a dynamic and mobile class. To remove the possibility of far away Agra solos with tabs remains incomprehensible to me. I have been playing with a tank for 5 years: I played with a classic tank, with a buffer tank and a semi-buffer / semi-DD, and innovation puts me at a dead end. There is no agra, no mobility. Tanks as popular characters appeared in the game only when the skill of "knightly prowess" began to work constantly. Are you afraid that by removing the buffs, arg, and by canceling your past decision you are not killing the class? Even the only buff skills called "call to battle" and "strike by the commander" were taken from the tank. (I do not touch the topic of dd-tanks - this is a separate class and it does not interest me)
Sincerely, the player Rus </ font>
Hello! Thanks for taking the time to test out the changes on preview, and to translate your feedback! Unfortunately, I know next to no Russian, so I wouldn't be confident posting a translation of my response, I hope you can get something worthwhile out of a machine translation.
I'm sorry to hear you're not enjoying the changes, and feel that you've lost mobility when compared to live. In terms of threat generation, I'd urge you to try out some different tactics than what you are currently used to on live. If you were playing on Preview before March 8th, there was also a bug with Enforced Threat and Anvil of Challenge that prevented those powers from placing you at the top of targets' threat list. But those issues were fixed on Friday, along with a slight increase to threat generation overall. I think fighter is in a much better position to hold and maintain threat, but I am still going to be making further adjustments ahead of launch to make sure that when used competently, fighters aren't having trouble keeping the enemy's attention. That being said, the changes are large, so it may take some time to get used to.
In terms of pulling enemies with ranged attacks, I'm aware that this is a weakness of Vanguard right now, so I'm going to be looking at what we can do to give them an option for pulling. Finally in regards to what I assume is a rough translation of "Into the Fray" and "Commander's Strike," those were moved to the Dreadnought DPS path.
I hope you'll continue to test the changes as more adjustments are made in the coming weeks. Hopefully as we resolve issues, you'll get a better idea of what the new Vanguard plays like, and find it just as enjoyable to play.
Suggestion for 'ranged pulling" : ability(TAB or encounter or at-will) : Axe Throw (name) "Throw your axe to a target and force him to do a successive attack on you" (singe target skill) CD : 10-14 sec range : 40'-60' this could be used to pull mobs and even drug them to a location without insta losing threat
* this is not a completed skill! just a basic idea
Just created a brand new Fighter on preview on a brand new account. No boons, no special items/companions/mounts etc. I did not take it far enough to gain access to the Paragon paths, but I did check them out.
The base Fighter feels fairly good from a tempo standpoint. As a huge fan of Frontline Surge I am very glad to see that it survived as a renamed base power. The class movement speed could use a little bump up, half of tanking is being able to position the enemies and right now that feels like more hassle than it's worth.
Cleave needs a damage boost. As is, you have to hit 4 targets each swing just to be the same DPS as Brazen Slash, but kills at 25% of the speed, costing you more HP to kill enemies and increasing the odds of you dying. In this form it is not worth using when you can burn down enemies 1 by 1 just as fast and with a better shot at survival, since you reduce the incoming damage as each enemy dies. Cleave should definitely NOT be as effective as Brazen Slash, but it needs to be better than it is, maybe multiply the base damage by 3 or so? It really needs to be in a good place to clear trash mobs while forcing you to change at wills to tackle Elites.
With feats being so reduced in variety they should NOT be tied to specific powers. Rather you should have choices to increase damage dealt, decrease damage taken, reduce encounter cool downs by a small amount, increase HP total, increase ratings etc. As it is laid out there are quite a few feats that if you don't use that power the feat is worthless. This does not encourage build diversity, people will work out which one increases which at will/encounter etc the most and will build characters around those powers. The min-max crowd will take those feats and put out a pigeonhole build for the path, and all variety you attempted is out the window.
30% damage reduction for Vanguard, when most encounters do not deal damage anyways, is ridiculous. Either eliminate that feat entirely, or change to 30% less damage from encounters and 50% more damage to At wills. No MMO on the market has ever successfully created a situation in which tanks deal no damage but maintain constant threat, and by using that Paragon path you are reduced to 2/5ths potential damage from the get go (assuming you utilize the "tanking" encounters, by your own design. No further DPS nerfing for tanking should be required, the main damage dealing powers are already eliminated. As designed I would personally use the Dreadnaught path for tanking, and I main a Protector path IV tank on live..
Hello! Thanks for taking the time to test out the changes on preview, and to translate your feedback! Unfortunately, I know next to no Russian, so I wouldn't be confident posting a translation of my response, I hope you can get something worthwhile out of a machine translation.
I'm sorry to hear you're not enjoying the changes, and feel that you've lost mobility when compared to live. In terms of threat generation, I'd urge you to try out some different tactics than what you are currently used to on live. If you were playing on Preview before March 8th, there was also a bug with Enforced Threat and Anvil of Challenge that prevented those powers from placing you at the top of targets' threat list. But those issues were fixed on Friday, along with a slight increase to threat generation overall. I think fighter is in a much better position to hold and maintain threat, but I am still going to be making further adjustments ahead of launch to make sure that when used competently, fighters aren't having trouble keeping the enemy's attention. That being said, the changes are large, so it may take some time to get used to.
In terms of pulling enemies with ranged attacks, I'm aware that this is a weakness of Vanguard right now, so I'm going to be looking at what we can do to give them an option for pulling. Finally in regards to what I assume is a rough translation of "Into the Fray" and "Commander's Strike," those were moved to the Dreadnought DPS path.
I hope you'll continue to test the changes as more adjustments are made in the coming weeks. Hopefully as we resolve issues, you'll get a better idea of what the new Vanguard plays like, and find it just as enjoyable to play.
Very surprised that you noticed. Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I don’t have any characters on the euro server, and I have to test it on a Russian server, and if you don’t know, there were no updates for us. We are looking forward to change, or at least a description (albeit in English) of all skills and abilities, for what is now, to put it mildly, is not playable.
That just... that's tragic. I'm genuinely saddened by seeing that. I'm not saying absolutely no one likes Dig In, but the majority of the feedback that's mentioned it specifically has been negative, and generally not of the "I like this concept but wish it were implemented differently" variety. Please do not commit to this mechanic, it's not the right answer to the "mobs insist on spreading out as much as possible in every fight" problem. Seethe as a mechanic is fine, and doesn't need the Vanguard to have the same kind of "immobilize behind your shield" mechanic. It's too slow to be reactive to an AOE you can't get out of, and essentially self-stunning in exchange for stamina regen is a mechanic that would be fine in a turn-based game, but just feels like unplugging your keyboard in this context.
Your enthusiasm for your work is infectious, your engagement with the testers is admirable, and I share a lot of your underlying philosophy about the accessibility of the game... but this one particular concept just needs to be put to bed.
Give us a positioning tool, or temp HP based on our missing HP/Stamina, or an intimidation mechanic that ties into our threat throughput and/or damage taken(debuff enemies hit by your next power to generate more threat and do less damage, or just pulse for threat on ST hits, or something else rooted in the concept of intimidation), or even, and I know you don't love this idea, but Mark as a resistance debuff/threat buff, but please, please do not commit to going live with a class mechanic that basically reads "press Tab to stop playing the game for a bit"
I apologize if those were brought up already. Haven't managed to read all the comments yet.
Let me start with saying that I agree to most comments I see here and I'll acknowledge that both paragons of the fighter need some additional work. There is still a lot of time before the mod is released so I still have hope the dev team will be able to fix at lest the major issues Now some things I noticed and haven't seen reported (yet):
1. Heavy Slash doesn't have an icon for it's debuff making it hard to see when it wears off and if it's active at all. The next thing I did see reported but I'll address it again cause it's major - the power have issues with hitting targets with smaller boxes. idk why but it seems impossible to hit a small target with it. This is something that needs a serious attention imo. 2. AP gain seems clunky and inconsistent. Sometimes you get hit or attack consistently and don't gain any AP and the next moment or group you gain full AP in 2-3 sec. 3. Various animation bugs but I won't go into details since those are not game breaking and I rather see you focus your attention on the game breaking stuff
That is all I've noticed that I haven't seen reported yet. My personal thoughts on the Fighter changes and the changes as a whole are that most of them are good and long overdo but you're probably trying to do too much all at once Would've been nicer to see class overhaul and lvl cap increase in two separate mods but things are what they are Hope you guys keep the good work and spirit and try to fix at least the major issues before the mod hits live Dealing with so much changes and game breaking bugs on top of that will surely turn off some ppl.
i love the idea of role definition i even dont mind (what will become cookie cutter builds) from lack of feat / boon options. but 2 things make me just want to scream atm. no taunt!!!! that has always been a key factor for tanks.... the ability to pull mobs off party when needed. And the non threat building skill set. our only aoe is in cones going straight ahead but when we go into a group of mobs to gain agro, are we supposed to ask nicely for them to all stay in front of us? no aoe threat generation is going to make good tanking impossible. as fighters are now primarily single target combat dummies with no real way to hold agro even if you use the crappy new version of enforced threat (which puts you at top of list maybe but since does no dmg or taunt for a few seconds to allow you to build some threat you are almost instantly over run by any decent dps) because as we all know mobs surround you and since any aoe is directional everything except whats in front of you will run off to kill the dps.
AND no group KV??? really are you just wanting ppl to not play tanks? absorbing dmg for party is exactly what a tanks role is....crowd control//take the dmg so party dps can kill//rely on healer to keep you standing long enough to win the fight. it is not that hard to see the defined rolls but the abilities your taking away from fighters seems more in line with destroying the ability to do their roll then make them better at it and therefore a necessary part of the group.
also the added threat generation from KV really would help since it would literally be the only real aoe threat generating skill we have.... unless you plan on giving us threat generation to all enemies within 30-40 ft when using block//dig in (as maybe an active skill the yellow ones) and maybe another stating any dmg caused from damaging attacks on a target generate threat to all enemies within 30-40 feet. active skills like these would allow us to generate threat to multiple targets from blocking or attackin a single target without adding dmg to tanks abilities.
as a tank i do not care about soloing or producing tons of dmg my focus is simply gain control of mobs and adds when summoned by a boss all of them and having skills that allow me to keep or jerk agro off team and onto me for brief period and have the ability to survive it. it is that simple if i want to solo or do dmg ill play dps class i really hope you figure this out because everyone on test server is screaming about how terrible the tanks are (all 3 classes) useless as they are now.
i love the idea of role definition i even dont mind (what will become cookie cutter builds) from lack of feat / boon options. but 2 things make me just want to scream atm. no taunt!!!! that has always been a key factor for tanks.... the ability to pull mobs off party when needed. And the non threat building skill set. our only aoe is in cones going straight ahead but when we go into a group of mobs to gain agro, are we supposed to ask nicely for them to all stay in front of us? no aoe threat generation is going to make good tanking impossible. as fighters are now primarily single target combat dummies with no real way to hold agro even if you use the crappy new version of enforced threat (which puts you at top of list maybe but since does no dmg or taunt for a few seconds to allow you to build some threat you are almost instantly over run by any decent dps) because as we all know mobs surround you and since any aoe is directional everything except whats in front of you will run off to kill the dps.
AND no group KV??? really are you just wanting ppl to not play tanks? absorbing dmg for party is exactly what a tanks role is....crowd control//take the dmg so party dps can kill//rely on healer to keep you standing long enough to win the fight. it is not that hard to see the defined rolls but the abilities your taking away from fighters seems more in line with destroying the ability to do their roll then make them better at it and therefore a necessary part of the group.
also the added threat generation from KV really would help since it would literally be the only real aoe threat generating skill we have.... unless you plan on giving us threat generation to all enemies within 30-40 ft when using block//dig in (as maybe an active skill the yellow ones) and maybe another stating any dmg caused from damaging attacks on a target generate threat to all enemies within 30-40 feet. active skills like these would allow us to generate threat to multiple targets from blocking or attackin a single target without adding dmg to tanks abilities.
as a tank i do not care about soloing or producing tons of dmg my focus is simply gain control of mobs and adds when summoned by a boss all of them and having skills that allow me to keep or jerk agro off team and onto me for brief period and have the ability to survive it. it is that simple if i want to solo or do dmg ill play dps class i really hope you figure this out because everyone on test server is screaming about how terrible the tanks are (all 3 classes) useless as they are now.
I mean, we do have taunts, that's what Enforced Threat still is, and Anvil of Doom is, too, with the feat (although I'd argue that Griffon's Wrath would be a better fit, with its multiple charges and shorter cooldown) It jumps us to the top of the target's threat table. That's a taunt, and the fact that we actually also have to hit the thing to hold it is perfectly logical.
That said, 100% with you on the lack of useful AoE. Mobs surround you. Constantly. Often to the exclusion of all else- best AoE dps strat in the game is to drop your splats directly on the tank.
We definitely need more short-cooldown PBAoEs that aren't cones if we want any hope of holding threat- turning Piercing Thrust into Sweeping Strike(and thus, an arc rather than a cone) would be a good quality of life increase, as would buffing the base damage for Cleave and/or throwing a burst effect on Threatening Rush.
Or hey, create new powers. Shield Slam is a good, fairly reliable AoE, but I admit I've avoided it because of its low damage, and there really aren't any alternatives that aren't cones that can completely change direction if your original target decides to walk around/through you to flank you during the cast time (spoiler: it will).
I actually really like the idea of making your single target attacks pulse for threat on nearby targets. With how staggeringly weak all of our AoE damage options are, that would be a role-suiting solution to the problem if you didn't want to tune the damage up.
I play the game for... a looooong time since open beta, before artifacts, before artifact gear, before shield block only 80%... when life steal was a flat % on each hit when ITF was a dmg buff = to dmg resist... then all changed I adapted and still here.
Before i talk about mod16 as it is now... I DO AGREE that life steal it's a problem, I DO AGREE power share its a problem, same with buff/debuff.
Now mod 16 and Fighter's
Having 2 distinct paths Tank and DPS its an amazing change but we need to make them more distinct.
Block as a defensive mechanic is the same and works the same for both paths, We block till we take dmg = to our HP there's my 1st problem tank block should be different from DPS fighter maybe make it 2x HP for tank and leave it as it is for DPS, or as the tank path as the -30% dmg add a 30 or 50% + block Stamina/HP, here is why playing on test server as tank mostly a problem. I find to often shield/block breaking to soon I walk into a room there's 1 or 2 group with 5 adds they all attack at once for 20k + I block shield gone if I don't block the same attack leave the tank near dead if not dead. This could be fixed if the gear for fighter was based on role where gear with dmg status have x HP and gear with tanking status have 2x HP. (even on live i don't get why gear have the same HP for all classes)
Aggroafter testing for some time I cant get aggro out of my companion, well I can for 1sec the sec I am placed and stay on to of threat meter cuz the companion next attack removes it. Threat generating skill need a rework, I think we need a force there, something like Skill X sets u on top of the threat meter and force the target to attack u for 5 secs (since most skill have 15-20 sec cool-down 5 sec doesn't seem to much).
"Dig In" stills strange sometimes u get stuck on it, trying to move and nothing. On DPS build I like the way it works since as a dps, Fighters will not block that much if the tank in your party is doing his job, we dig and fill a (stamina like bar for dmg). On tank I still find it useless if I have to block to stay alive i don't have bar for Dig In seem a 2nd way of block where I stop playing, maybe it helps if I am playing and smoking, game wise needs a rework. I would suggest something similar to dps fighter a 2nd stamina bar just for Dig In, were we block normal and Dig In bar get full when full we can Dig In. Making Dig In force nearby targets to attack seems a must for aggro/threat.
I think this would make survive and managing aggro way easier making the game more balanced and challenging than is is on life and less impossible to survive and hold threat as is is now on test server.
Would it be a good idea to make it so any power a tank uses sends out an Aoe taunt that independent of the damage done? This is how DCUO (DC universe online) handled its tanking.
I haven't played in years so my info might be outdated, but basically whenever you activate a power while in tank stance, whether it was a defense buff, single target skill or aoe, the game would send out an invisible taunt to all enemies 360 around the tank which would force the enemies to attack the tank for 12 seconds. This taunt could be refreshed at the 8-12 second mark. After 12 seconds, the mobs immediately attack other players based on the aggro they made.
Commander's Strike, Earthshaker and Mow Down's damage are not affected by ability scores or Fured Kiuno of the Bear (they deal physical damage however they are not buffed by these bonuses).
Are you willing to listen feedback / feat overhaul suggestions, similarly to private beta? I like the feats for the dreadnought paragon, however I don't like how forceful they make the character become. Example
t1 forces an at will and an encounter OR 2 at wills being used (Heavy Slam or Heavy Slam and Piercing Thrust) t2 doesnt force any skills t3 both force another encounter (Commander's Strike or Bull Charge) t4 both force another encounter (Anvil of doom or Into The Frey) t5 forces a daily and encounter OR a daily (Mow Down and Commander's Strike or Earthshaker)
As you can see by the feats from this, you don't really have flexibility to actually use other skills, and some skills I can never see myself using unless given a unique benefit or bonus, such as Shield Slam, Knee Breaker and Griffons Wrath.
Shield Slam could be used if you need to overstack in aoe skills, but in a dungeon this shouldn't be an issue, and keep the single target skills on for the tankier mobs. Onslaught does less dps then Shield Slam, however its aoe range is huge, and it can hit so many mobs, which just makes it better in bigger mob groups.
Knee Breaker does too low of dps relative to its cooldown comparing to Bull Charge with the feat and Anvil of Doom with the feat.
Griffon's Wrath does higher dps (not damage) relative to its cooldown then Anvil when feated, however you have to hit all 3 attacks for to achieve this, and its a very VERY slow animation, and if you become stunned or knocked back you wont be able to hit the next attack/s due to the skill charge mechanic timing out. And if you spam the button, the skill goes onto cooldown without dealing the other hits, missing out on damage.
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dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
> @fenrir4life said: > i love the idea of role definition i even dont mind (what will become cookie cutter builds) from lack of feat / boon options. but 2 things make me just want to scream atm. no taunt!!!! that has always been a key factor for tanks.... the ability to pull mobs off party when needed. And the non threat building skill set. our only aoe is in cones going straight ahead but when we go into a group of mobs to gain agro, are we supposed to ask nicely for them to all stay in front of us? no aoe threat generation is going to make good tanking impossible. as fighters are now primarily single target combat dummies with no real way to hold agro even if you use the crappy new version of enforced threat (which puts you at top of list maybe but since does no dmg or taunt for a few seconds to allow you to build some threat you are almost instantly over run by any decent dps) because as we all know mobs surround you and since any aoe is directional everything except whats in front of you will run off to kill the dps. > > AND no group KV??? really are you just wanting ppl to not play tanks? absorbing dmg for party is exactly what a tanks role is....crowd control//take the dmg so party dps can kill//rely on healer to keep you standing long enough to win the fight. it is not that hard to see the defined rolls but the abilities your taking away from fighters seems more in line with destroying the ability to do their roll then make them better at it and therefore a necessary part of the group. > > also the added threat generation from KV really would help since it would literally be the only real aoe threat generating skill we have.... unless you plan on giving us threat generation to all enemies within 30-40 ft when using block//dig in (as maybe an active skill the yellow ones) and maybe another stating any dmg caused from damaging attacks on a target generate threat to all enemies within 30-40 feet. active skills like these would allow us to generate threat to multiple targets from blocking or attackin a single target without adding dmg to tanks abilities. > > as a tank i do not care about soloing or producing tons of dmg my focus is simply gain control of mobs and adds when summoned by a boss all of them and having skills that allow me to keep or jerk agro off team and onto me for brief period and have the ability to survive it. it is that simple if i want to solo or do dmg ill play dps class i really hope you figure this out because everyone on test server is screaming about how terrible the tanks are (all 3 classes) useless as they are now. > > I mean, we do have taunts, that's what Enforced Threat still is, and Anvil of Doom is, too, with the feat (although I'd argue that Griffon's Wrath would be a better fit, with its multiple charges and shorter cooldown) It jumps us to the top of the target's threat table. That's a taunt, and the fact that we actually also have to hit the thing to hold it is perfectly logical. > This is not the ET you know and love. It's cooldown is .... ... ... (Mobs scatter and hit your party) ... ... long. Feated Anvil is okay for boss fights. How about Anvil for the mob-crowd-filled 75% rest of the dungeon? Anvil is worthless.
Vanguard needs hard AoE and ranged taunts. We need access to them at-will or at least much much more often.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
> i love the idea of role definition i even dont mind (what will become cookie cutter builds) from lack of feat / boon options. but 2 things make me just want to scream atm. no taunt!!!! that has always been a key factor for tanks.... the ability to pull mobs off party when needed. And the non threat building skill set. our only aoe is in cones going straight ahead but when we go into a group of mobs to gain agro, are we supposed to ask nicely for them to all stay in front of us? no aoe threat generation is going to make good tanking impossible. as fighters are now primarily single target combat dummies with no real way to hold agro even if you use the crappy new version of enforced threat (which puts you at top of list maybe but since does no dmg or taunt for a few seconds to allow you to build some threat you are almost instantly over run by any decent dps) because as we all know mobs surround you and since any aoe is directional everything except whats in front of you will run off to kill the dps.
>
This is not the ET you know and love.
It's cooldown is ....
...
... (Mobs scatter and hit your party)
...
... long.
Feated Anvil is okay for boss fights.
How about Anvil for the mob-crowd-filled 75% rest of the dungeon? Anvil is worthless.
Vanguard needs hard AoE and ranged taunts.
We need access to them at-will or at least much much more often.
Serious question: what are you doing in the time after using ET? Because if you are doing whatever and expecting the mob to stay on you, that's not using the power correctly. If you are attacking the mob and still losing it, that's a balance issue, a bug, or both. I'm just asking to make sure we're having the same conversation.
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dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
Serious question: what are you doing in the time after using ET? Because if you are doing whatever and expecting the mob to stay on you, that's not using the power correctly. If you are attacking the mob and still losing it, that's a balance issue, a bug, or both. I'm just asking to make sure we're having the same conversation.
Excellent question, colleague. What is my Vanguard doing during ET cooldown? Hitting every mob I can reach (in my diminished speed) with my wet-noodle Vanguard At-Wills and remaining encounters (which then go on cooldown until The Second Coming of Christ).
Oh... and also hurling harsh language at the crowd of mobs: You gotta try this aggro method, Fenrir. It is a slightly more effective threat-builder then Vanguard At-Wills.
AND I spend 7 days on preview mastering Vanguard Dig-In, Fenrir. I kneel for 5 seconds to earn our awesome Deep Breath threat-building skill. Here is a screenshot of my threatening Dig-In pose: Intimidating, right? Here is a screenshot of mob reaction to Vanguard DigIn: I need to Bug report this. Vanguard DigIn is OP. It CCs mobs: Causes them to guffaw, snort, wheeze and sometimes falling onto the ground rolling around cackling. Too powerful. Okay. Enough sarcasm.
I agree with everything else you said @fenrir4life We are fellow Tank fans pushing for the same goal. I just respectfully disagree that ET and Anvil are, at present, useful tools for tanking on Vanguard. IMHO they are woefully inadequate.
We can agree to disagree.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
Griffon's Wrath does higher dps (not damage) relative to its cooldown then Anvil when feated, however you have to hit all 3 attacks for to achieve this, and its a very VERY slow animation, and if you become stunned or knocked back you wont be able to hit the next attack/s due to the skill charge mechanic timing out. And if you spam the button, the skill goes onto cooldown without dealing the other hits, missing out on damage.
Additional Feedback on Griffon's Wrath:
-The 3rd hit's jumping animation is unnecessary, slow, and clunky. Just make it another backhanded swing like the Griffon's Wrath of Mod 9-14.
If you can actually get the 3rd hit, the long animation means your target will escape/you'll get knocked over long before you can actually hit them. I get that Griffon's is supposed to be a high risk high reward type encounter, but the 3rd hit taking so long removes most of the "reward" out of the equation...
-Can we have the charge based system back please? Or, perhaps
Every time you guys have tried to avoid players getting a 4th hit, you've made a mess of a power that is unresponsive and awkward to use (and almost never solved getting 4 hits anyways).
This attempt has apparently been the final solution to avoiding 4 Griffons by making it near impossible to get anything besides hit 1. Spacing your hits is rather difficult and holding down the Griffon's button (as suggested earlier in this thread) didn't auto fire the second and third hits.
Unless Griffons is less awkward to use, I can't imagine many people giving it a slot when other encounter powers require less of a hassle and offer similar enough damage.
You also go on specifically to bring up the example of the feat that consumes vengeance to deal increased magnitude damage feeling too weak or as if it seriously hampers your synergy with other powers feeling like a clear example of why the changes are uninspired. I would say that tweaks to powers like that are the exact sort of thing we will be changing over the coming weeks if they do feel bad or they do feel like they really mess up the feeling of the class. I genuinely appreciate everyone's feedback on those subjects. Telling us what powers or synergies you do and do not like is incredibly helpful.
the bolded part means?
I get you're busy creating new powers from scratch, managing 5-7 different feedback threads, and answering every single post (don't kill yourself responding...).
But if you got some spare time, it'd be nice to get a few specific hints as to how Vengeance consuming will be implemented in the coming preview patch(es).
I've been thinking about new block system and something hit me. If i recall there was attempt to tie block to HP and it end miserably. As new system does look nice and all it have one seriouse flaw, it's unreliable. If u fight heavy hitter boss or band of mobs and they brake your shield there's no comming back. Your stamina won't recharge fast enough to block next swing or barrage of attacks and therefore we're in endless loop of losing HP becous we're unable to block.
Current live block system is time based and if u remove stamina regen while blocking u have perfect blocking mechanic. It;s reliable coz even with 10% of stamina you're able to block attackand even if your guard is broken u can block after sec or two.
It could work like this:
Stamina diminish at steady phase that depends on staina regen ( if u have high stamina regen your fully charged block would last lets say 13s instead of 10). As someone mentioned blocking attacks could charge Dig in ( btw i would change that name into something more epic Stronghold maybe or Bastion, something of that sort), anyway so it would charge it and u can activate it only if u have one or more charge. When u activate it u gain shield equal to your max HP (one charge) and let's say twice that much if fully charge. More then that while Dig in is active your stamina regens slightly faster and you have party KV active that redirects 50% of pt dmg to tank. There could be some additional effects added to it to make it more useful.
I tried to test some more the tank path in preview.Major aggro problems. My Apprentice wizzard companion,renamed in halfling in preview I think,was constantly stealling aggro for me. And it is natural to happen cause his att wills are in 40k range,while mine at 5k.Since threat is based in damage,threat modifier have to be increased to offset the difference in damage ,between dps/comps and vanguard.
Also another thing that made me a little sad is that I checked the Tr,the CW ,and the GWF in preview.None has a built in disadvantage as vanguard has. They all have class built in advantages.Do more damage if you do this.OP and Gf tanks are the only ones that get a penalty.-30% damage done.I think this is not fair. It should be for the DPS +30% damage taken ,or more preciselly the damage taken should be equal to damage done.if you do more damage ,you get more damage taken. sadly only Tanks are getting built in disadvantages atm.
My proposal is to change for tanks -30% damage done to -30% damage taken. DPS get advantages to do thier job,but tanks get none,instead they get a penalty.Not counting that there is not an inherent advantage in HP classes in the game
Another thing that makes Vanguard not fun to play,is that he is forced to use damage encounters to do his job,damage powers that have nice destruction themed names-Bull rush,Anvil of Doom etc-yet at the same time ,he does pitifull damage using them. I cannot get past level 71,I cannot play the class anymore than 3 mins before I exit the game in frustration,,but at level 71 my Anvil Of Doom ,having 48k power and 32 arm pen,does 150 damage.Not 150k,but 150.My elol black overload enchant does 250 at every tick. So it feels weird and unsatisfactory to play a vanguard,it sometimes feels like a mockery
I see no reason to not reduce the ICD of non encounter damage powers ,as Iron warrior and ET. I see no reason in nerfing KV
My general opinion after playing the class since february 2014 ,is that atm the tank path is boring and unsatisfactory to play.No fun
Vanguard does not get adequate tools to tank,he does not gain a damage taken reduction,nor usefull encounter powers. As a controller is forced to use single target damaging powers to do his job.Which do not do any damage. IS NOT THAT A CONTRADICTION?
@hypervoreian Try tanking using Energon or another companion that doesn't attack mobs. I have done several runs with a party that stay away from the currently broken companions and artifacts, and it feels really good. No aggro issues at all. When party summons companions and/or use DMG dealing artifacts it's 100% impossible to hold aggro. I think that once the devs fix the companions and artifsvsa, players will get a much clearer picture of how each class will work in final M16 build.(@asterdahl)
Btw, Dig in is still useless for Vanguard
Elite Whaleboy
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checkmatein3Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 525Arc User
Asterdahl,
The current Vanguard choice feels like the original Iron Vanguard of mod 1 (post open beta). It had incredibly low damage output; it was slow, its aggro was suspect, and it was squishy at entry level end game. And in that realm, the mobs did not spread out along the front as they do now (post mod 3 or 4...I don't remember when they were recoded). Because the Iron Vanguard was so useless, dungeon parties avoided taking GFs. This was at a time with no random queues and no role identifications. But, parties would be 5 DPS or maybe 4 DPS and a DC healer. I had to wait 3 months before my own guild would take me on the original master TOS run, because my dps was so low, they could not afford to lose that much dps to kill the boss.
With the mod 16 reset, the Vanguard path feels to be very much in the same position, except now we have forced role selection in random queues. The Vanguard Fighter feels very slow. The answer to the Fighter's unique ability to move and position mobs (contra the OP) is to make it...with dig-in...even more immobile...but without the benefits. Aggro has to be slotted as encounter power generators and linked to other generators that have minimal damage for even a hope to get aggro, and passive aggro generators are removed. As this was probably done to make the class more exciting, it does the opposite. It makes the tank a wet noodle in the party. The dynamics that you removed from the Fighter, party damage absorbtion fed into a means by which the Fighter could generator aggro while simultaneously staying in tank mode. Face tanking, kiting, and fronting/positioning mobs will change with the same setup, just because 1) the block is different, 2) sources of self healing are gone.
My fondest memories in the game are when I am able to pull massive mobs (over 100 in size), stand in the middle and hold aggro, while I take huge amounts of damage, and the party whittles away at them. This is what I want in the Fighter at end game: a player that makes mobs so mad they will not break off the tank for any reason, one that has durability (options based on build), and that can take a massive beating with the help of a skilled healer, one that can control mob fronts, push mobs away or pull mobs from a distance (all of which have party mechanics). A tank role by definition is NOT a solo player's choice. Many in the GF community have fond memories of these times, and also the times when the GF, based on its TANKING abilities, when it was either to weak in the party (mods 1-3) or unneeded (mods 5-15). The current Vanguard Fighter setup will initially be like mod 1-3. But as dps players find out what they can and cannot do, I fear the VF will be crowded out by the other tank choice, or pre-mades will forgo the VF (that of course all depends on the ease of rewards, etc..).
There has been a lot of feedback given on this thread from players who love the Fighter as tank. I am one of them. We want a tank. Please consider the changes as mentioned: passive aoe threat generation, party damage reducer, distance threat generator (better than what is currently available). Thanks!
Bug: Griffon Strike only infrequently triggers the combination attack. Used it a fair bit, and I'd say about 50% of the time I would strike once on a target, and it'd go on cooldown. No explanation or pattern I could discern. When it was back up, I'd attack another mob, and the first hit would put it on CD again. Then the next mob would get the full combo chained on it.
Level scaling: There's something pretty off about level scaling in dungeons in general right now. Doing Epic Shores of Turen, the boss can 3 shot me in vanguard mode with shield up, and I've got 19k IL and 24k+ to all defensive stats even with the scaling down.
In Undermountain? It's easy peasy. Mobs have the right amount of HP/Damage against my 24-30k defensive and offensive stats. But any dungeon I run, it's like I might as well be wearing paper armor and using a broom to attack.
Example:
This was the paingiver scoreboard after running with my girlfriend's OP Devo paladin and I was in my dreadnought loadout. We had the exact same companions out (earth archon), at the exact same level. She did no damage on her own, and focused entirely on healing me. The damage you see is 100% her earth archon. That also means you could subtract her damage from mine to get what damage I did without my companion.
I have 24-35k to all offensive and defensive stats, 76k power, and 56k crit. I have all of my feats for maximizing damage on crits, and I've learned my rotation well. I didn't even out-damage my earth archon pet.
This tells me a few things: 1.) NPC IL/level scaling is behaving very differently from PC's, as our companions were far less impacted by the dungeon scale. 2.) There's something very off with PC scaling in dungeons. Everything was hitting quite hard, and the Devo OP couldn't even come close to keeping up with healing me during the encounters. In addition, my damage was very, very low for the gear/stats/loadout I was set up for
As a dps Fighter I find myself using Seethe very rarely. I would like to have a feat similar to the Soulweaver Warlock, there is a Feat that adds a CD of 15s to your TAB but grants 15 sparks instantly. It would be nice if one of the T2 Feats on Dreadnought would be replaced by "Your Seethe now consumes all your stamina, but generates 50% Vengeance, can only be used every 15sec"
As a dps Fighter I find myself using Seethe very rarely. I would like to have a feat similar to the Soulweaver Warlock, there is a Feat that adds a CD of 15s to your TAB but grants 15 sparks instantly. It would be nice if one of the T2 Feats on Dreadnought would be replaced by "Your Seethe now consumes all your stamina, but generates 50% Vengeance, can only be used every 15sec"
There's a class feature that greatly increases Seethe's conversion rate that seems to fill that niche; have you tried that yet?
As a dps Fighter I find myself using Seethe very rarely. I would like to have a feat similar to the Soulweaver Warlock, there is a Feat that adds a CD of 15s to your TAB but grants 15 sparks instantly. It would be nice if one of the T2 Feats on Dreadnought would be replaced by "Your Seethe now consumes all your stamina, but generates 50% Vengeance, can only be used every 15sec"
There's a class feature that greatly increases Seethe's conversion rate that seems to fill that niche; have you tried that yet?
The point isnt to increase the rate of conversion, its to make it be an instant pop. The mechanic is slow and clunky and I never actually use it for these reasons, I just build my vengeance by blocking. A feat like this (replacing either one of the T2 feats ideally, as they are both about vengeance) would drastically help speed up the fluidity of the class.
On a side note, the increased conversion feat and class feature seem to be very under powered, if even working at all, I see little to no increase with them.
Comments
As said above agro still not working as intended, I tried out SoT with one of my companions and without ET its pretty much impossible to take back agro even with daily.
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I wanted to thank you for your response. It really shows a lot how much you care about the community/game by how much time you take to personally reply to everyone on here you can, and read all their messages. Keep it up!
Would have replied sooner than this, but work’s been keeping me busy. Did take your advice, and got in a lot more playtime on preview. Specifically trying all the possible spec combo/ability/rotation combos I could come up with around. Also stuck to only the new areas (like undermountain) since it seems the previous areas are still scaling strangely so it’s difficult to compare those to what I suspect you and the other devs want things to be across the board, post release. Let me update your questions/responses with results. Understood, thank you for that promise. See some more of my results later, but I was able to come up with a very specific spec/rotation that came pretty close to the Arbiter’s DPS. Still, not topping it, but much closer than on preview launch. It also helps that there’s no artifact mistakes happening causing massive damage ruining any objective comparisons. So, additional feedback on this. I’m warming up to the vengeance mechanic as a dreadnought. A lot. It’s still a little tricky to figure out, especially as things like cleave were seeming to drain 10 vengeance *per crit* on AOE attacks. However, if I use Brazen Slash’s feat to get an additional 200 magnitude on Heavy Slash, and then crit on that to drain vengeance (with the passive skill), I feel like that mechanic alone helps boost our at-will DPS. It’s very useful. Since it’s a chance, and heavily gear dependent (need lots of +crit obviously), it means our class is very much crit focused/obsessed. I kind of like this. I also like that it drains vengeance, which taking the vengeance to 50% ITF feat gives you a straight up 10% dmg bonus with vengeance (at least until you crit again), and some wiggle room to get some more vengeance empowered crits.
I found myself really liking this mechanic. I also enjoyed dig in (once we make that a bit smoother/more meaningful, the animation is rough right now, end up cancelling it sometimes while trying to cast it) before a fight, then take the “block prevents vengeance from draining” feat, and shield my way into bull rush range, and then go at it. Having one of my encounter powers be ITF means I lose the DPS I could do with that slot, but, using it to generate instant vengeance in combat gives me a lot of flexibility to play around with.
Quoting another reply from somewhere else in this thread you have: You’re right. It was nice. I’ve got to hand it to you. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I do.
While soloing, incorporating blocks into my normal rotation to build up my vengeance (since I want that +3% free crit skill to keep my stamina up) was refreshing to add to the playstyle. Had to change my “Don’t hold shield for too long because it’ll drain” habit I’ve built up with the GF on live, and more, just used the shield during combat anytime I wasn’t right clicking. When moving from place to place, when switching my rotations, etc. block has become a *lot* more useful now, and less stressful.
I will say I couldn’t see any benefit from running the increased shield regen skill, I tried playing around with that for a bit, and if it improves our guard recharge rate, it wasn’t noticeable. I could see swapping to that to take advantage of the +3% crit ability, or even just more stamina for burning with “dig in” between combat.
On the downside, not all encounter/feat/skill combos are useful with vengeance, and that seems off. You pretty much *need* the passive skill that burns vengeance to do more damage on crits if you’re going dps. Your at-wills are also similarly affected, as burning through all my vengeance in one or two cleaves or reaves isn’t ideal. BS/HS becomes *the* Dreadnought spec imo. I’m totally ok with that, to be perfectly honest, it’s not like I was swapping to anything other than Weapon Master Strike on live anyhow. At least with this, I’m continually swapping between BS to HS whenever I get the empowered HS buff proc.
All in all, if you went live with the dreadnought exactly as it is right now, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. I especially like how heavily our class/spec with that vengeance passive, is tied to crit. Now, crit is essential to the DPS GF kit. We have an idea of what weapon enchants to buy, and what stats to prioritize.
It’s...honestly kind of fun. I found myself feeling rewarded, finally, after hours of playing, I was enjoying myself. Took a while to figure this new stuff out, which will be a concern for people starting fresh. But, once you get into the groove, and/or someone writes a Dreadnought GF guide, I think you’ll start having more positive player engagement.
The loss of “flexibility” doesn’t bother me as much anymore. The more I read and talk to other classes, it looks like AOE damage was toned down, or removed completely. So really, this seems to be less about flexibility, and more about finding the high DPS version of the dreadnought spec, versus the utility version of the dreadnought spec. There’s some different ways to play and spec it out, but some aren’t as good as others. I don’t mind that we’re locked into BS/HS 90% of the time. It was 100% of the time with WMS right now. I like the variety of that combo, and if we want AoE, I’ve always got Cleave/Reave to fall back on, but my single target DPS will absolutely suffer. That’s ok. It wasn’t ok that WMS does more damage than single target at wills on live. What we might be feeling is just the loss of things that were completely unbalanced on live, or didn’t make any sense.
Yes, I’d like it if all encounter abilities/feat paths/skills were viable for DPS, but that’s not how it works on live today, and that’s not how it works on preview. There is definitely one, maybe two very similar takes on a High DPS Dreadnought spec IMO on preview right now. If you want utility/flexibility, you will have to sacrifice some DPS to get that. Shield throw and reave are cool, but you’re not going to be at the top of the paingiver charts at any point if you run those right now. That’s ok. They offer things that the pure DPS path doesn’t, and that’s the tradeoff we need to make. I absolutely wasn’t enjoying myself on preview at first. Doing just the undermountain areas exclusively (and ignoring the imbalanced older content) helped. The other thing that helped was ditching all my BiS +% dmg gear from live, and sticking to straight stats. Finally, the last thing that helped was just sticking with all the specs until something finally clicked and felt “right”. Took time, but since this is new to everyone, there’s no playbook I can go off of. There’s not a billion hours of “Fighter knowledge” to take advantage of anymore. There’s only the last week or so. It’ll probably take time to figure out how to maximize our damage potential, but I believe that with the commitment you’ve expressed to making sure the DPS Fighter is just as viable as other DPS, and what I’ve seen on preview so far, we’ll get there.
The game’s not slow, it’s just...different. I think part of the key is to not use some of the extremely long CD abilities (like anvil of doom, that ability takes 2-ish encounters to cooldown now). But using 12-18s CD abilities is juuuust right. Just enough so you feel like you’re doing more than right clicking things.
I like not dying instantly. I really do. Slowing down can be a good thing here. On Live, dashing in and Enforced Threat-ing everything (like in FBI) is a surefire way to end up dead, or almost dead if I hadn’t popped second wind right before. I both love and hate that mechanic. Yeah, live servers high end BiS gear lets DPS hit like Greek Gods, but we’re all made of paper (Except Paladins). I didn’t like that part. And with Mod16, I think you’ve fixed that. Blocking feels meaningful, I love the scale up with HP mechanic. I love feeling like a tank when I’m in vanguard, and a real DPS when in dreadnought.
Some tweaking will always happen, but I like the direction you’re going so far. Most importantly, I like your commitment to that vision, even if it’s not right on preview, you give me hope that you and your team will eventually “get it right”. That’s worth more than the math currently uploaded to your servers
On average though, if it’s a lower level dungeon, I’d expect it to take about half as long, or less (at super endgame) than it would take when that dungeon was actually at the top of the spectrum. E.g. Castle Never, between 15-20ish minutes to run feels about right with the current rewards in relation to the new level 80 stuff. For sure. Thanks for staying with it, and everyone here and remaining very optimistic and professional. It’s refreshing to not see anyone getting attacked on these posts.
In addition to the above, some general feedback:
1.) Love the changes to block, allowing us to hold it for as long as we want, draining only on hits, scaling based on our HP and defense, and incorporating that into the DPS rotation in a way that actually increases our DPS.
2.) Also really enjoying the new companion mechanisms. I like not being locked into one companion like we are on Live. The variety is nice. And the companions actually can take hits, and do real damage. They're not just stat factories for the player. Although, it would be nice to be able to issue simple pet commands, like "Passive/Aggressive/Defensive" to avoid some awkward scenarios.
3.) Threat building/generation still feels off. Additionally, the 30% dps reduction hurts a lot with holding aggro. If you compensated by having our attacks generate something like 2x threat, then it'd help. Having long CD mechanics to re-take aggro back makes things very, very tricky. Heck, if there was simply an at-will ability in Vanguard that didn't do any damage at all, but instead, would just do a magnitude 1000 "damage" threat build, taking 1s cast, that'd be incredibly useful. Again, it'd do no real damage to mobs, but would do an incredible amount of "threat damage". Not an instant "retake" aggro ability, but some way to get us climbing that thread list fast when we're falling behind. Then we could use the longer CD abilities (like ET/Anvil) to recover if a DPS/Healer shot to the top ahead of us, or if we needed to absolutely pull a mob off someone.
Dovetailing with my prior suggestion for a positioning tool as the Vanguard's Tab ability:
Give the Vanguard a vengeance meter, with the same functionality at 50% as the Dreadnought's version, but no way to actively build vengeance- no seethe button, no powers that grant vengeance, etc. Make it only generate by blocking.
Make our Tab function a melee range pull into the fighter's forward arc (I still like Grapple as a name for this) with a root or slow to hold them there for a second, and make it cost a chunk of the Vengeance meter. Maybe give a little chunk of stamina back to help cement it as a defensive tool- the numbers are whatever, but I'm envisioning spending 30-40 vengeance for Grapple and ~10% stamina restoration.
Alternative to the stamina restoration, still with a defensive/utility focus, and arguably more thematically fitting, is to make it an interrupt or daze along with the slow (can't remember if Pull effects already do that, but it feels like they delay more than properly interrupt)
I'm sorry to hear you're not enjoying the changes, and feel that you've lost mobility when compared to live. In terms of threat generation, I'd urge you to try out some different tactics than what you are currently used to on live. If you were playing on Preview before March 8th, there was also a bug with Enforced Threat and Anvil of Challenge that prevented those powers from placing you at the top of targets' threat list. But those issues were fixed on Friday, along with a slight increase to threat generation overall. I think fighter is in a much better position to hold and maintain threat, but I am still going to be making further adjustments ahead of launch to make sure that when used competently, fighters aren't having trouble keeping the enemy's attention. That being said, the changes are large, so it may take some time to get used to.
In terms of pulling enemies with ranged attacks, I'm aware that this is a weakness of Vanguard right now, so I'm going to be looking at what we can do to give them an option for pulling. Finally in regards to what I assume is a rough translation of "Into the Fray" and "Commander's Strike," those were moved to the Dreadnought DPS path.
I hope you'll continue to test the changes as more adjustments are made in the coming weeks. Hopefully as we resolve issues, you'll get a better idea of what the new Vanguard plays like, and find it just as enjoyable to play.
ability(TAB or encounter or at-will) : Axe Throw (name)
"Throw your axe to a target and force him to do a successive attack on you" (singe target skill)
CD : 10-14 sec
range : 40'-60'
this could be used to pull mobs and even drug them to a location without insta losing threat
* this is not a completed skill! just a basic idea
The base Fighter feels fairly good from a tempo standpoint. As a huge fan of Frontline Surge I am very glad to see that it survived as a renamed base power. The class movement speed could use a little bump up, half of tanking is being able to position the enemies and right now that feels like more hassle than it's worth.
Cleave needs a damage boost. As is, you have to hit 4 targets each swing just to be the same DPS as Brazen Slash, but kills at 25% of the speed, costing you more HP to kill enemies and increasing the odds of you dying. In this form it is not worth using when you can burn down enemies 1 by 1 just as fast and with a better shot at survival, since you reduce the incoming damage as each enemy dies. Cleave should definitely NOT be as effective as Brazen Slash, but it needs to be better than it is, maybe multiply the base damage by 3 or so? It really needs to be in a good place to clear trash mobs while forcing you to change at wills to tackle Elites.
With feats being so reduced in variety they should NOT be tied to specific powers. Rather you should have choices to increase damage dealt, decrease damage taken, reduce encounter cool downs by a small amount, increase HP total, increase ratings etc. As it is laid out there are quite a few feats that if you don't use that power the feat is worthless. This does not encourage build diversity, people will work out which one increases which at will/encounter etc the most and will build characters around those powers. The min-max crowd will take those feats and put out a pigeonhole build for the path, and all variety you attempted is out the window.
30% damage reduction for Vanguard, when most encounters do not deal damage anyways, is ridiculous. Either eliminate that feat entirely, or change to 30% less damage from encounters and 50% more damage to At wills. No MMO on the market has ever successfully created a situation in which tanks deal no damage but maintain constant threat, and by using that Paragon path you are reduced to 2/5ths potential damage from the get go (assuming you utilize the "tanking" encounters, by your own design. No further DPS nerfing for tanking should be required, the main damage dealing powers are already eliminated. As designed I would personally use the Dreadnaught path for tanking, and I main a Protector path IV tank on live..
With Dig In.
That just... that's tragic. I'm genuinely saddened by seeing that. I'm not saying absolutely no one likes Dig In, but the majority of the feedback that's mentioned it specifically has been negative, and generally not of the "I like this concept but wish it were implemented differently" variety. Please do not commit to this mechanic, it's not the right answer to the "mobs insist on spreading out as much as possible in every fight" problem. Seethe as a mechanic is fine, and doesn't need the Vanguard to have the same kind of "immobilize behind your shield" mechanic. It's too slow to be reactive to an AOE you can't get out of, and essentially self-stunning in exchange for stamina regen is a mechanic that would be fine in a turn-based game, but just feels like unplugging your keyboard in this context.
Your enthusiasm for your work is infectious, your engagement with the testers is admirable, and I share a lot of your underlying philosophy about the accessibility of the game... but this one particular concept just needs to be put to bed.
Give us a positioning tool, or temp HP based on our missing HP/Stamina, or an intimidation mechanic that ties into our threat throughput and/or damage taken(debuff enemies hit by your next power to generate more threat and do less damage, or just pulse for threat on ST hits, or something else rooted in the concept of intimidation), or even, and I know you don't love this idea, but Mark as a resistance debuff/threat buff, but please, please do not commit to going live with a class mechanic that basically reads "press Tab to stop playing the game for a bit"
Let me start with saying that I agree to most comments I see here and I'll acknowledge that both paragons of the fighter need some additional work. There is still a lot of time before the mod is released so I still have hope the dev team will be able to fix at lest the major issues
1. Heavy Slash doesn't have an icon for it's debuff making it hard to see when it wears off and if it's active at all. The next thing I did see reported but I'll address it again cause it's major - the power have issues with hitting targets with smaller boxes. idk why but it seems impossible to hit a small target with it. This is something that needs a serious attention imo.
2. AP gain seems clunky and inconsistent. Sometimes you get hit or attack consistently and don't gain any AP and the next moment or group you gain full AP in 2-3 sec.
3. Various animation bugs but I won't go into details since those are not game breaking and I rather see you focus your attention on the game breaking stuff
That is all I've noticed that I haven't seen reported yet. My personal thoughts on the Fighter changes and the changes as a whole are that most of them are good and long overdo but you're probably trying to do too much all at once
AND no group KV??? really are you just wanting ppl to not play tanks? absorbing dmg for party is exactly what a tanks role is....crowd control//take the dmg so party dps can kill//rely on healer to keep you standing long enough to win the fight. it is not that hard to see the defined rolls but the abilities your taking away from fighters seems more in line with destroying the ability to do their roll then make them better at it and therefore a necessary part of the group.
also the added threat generation from KV really would help since it would literally be the only real aoe threat generating skill we have.... unless you plan on giving us threat generation to all enemies within 30-40 ft when using block//dig in (as maybe an active skill the yellow ones) and maybe another stating any dmg caused from damaging attacks on a target generate threat to all enemies within 30-40 feet. active skills like these would allow us to generate threat to multiple targets from blocking or attackin a single target without adding dmg to tanks abilities.
as a tank i do not care about soloing or producing tons of dmg my focus is simply gain control of mobs and adds when summoned by a boss all of them and having skills that allow me to keep or jerk agro off team and onto me for brief period and have the ability to survive it. it is that simple if i want to solo or do dmg ill play dps class i really hope you figure this out because everyone on test server is screaming about how terrible the tanks are (all 3 classes) useless as they are now.
That said, 100% with you on the lack of useful AoE. Mobs surround you. Constantly. Often to the exclusion of all else- best AoE dps strat in the game is to drop your splats directly on the tank.
We definitely need more short-cooldown PBAoEs that aren't cones if we want any hope of holding threat- turning Piercing Thrust into Sweeping Strike(and thus, an arc rather than a cone) would be a good quality of life increase, as would buffing the base damage for Cleave and/or throwing a burst effect on Threatening Rush.
Or hey, create new powers. Shield Slam is a good, fairly reliable AoE, but I admit I've avoided it because of its low damage, and there really aren't any alternatives that aren't cones that can completely change direction if your original target decides to walk around/through you to flank you during the cast time (spoiler: it will).
I actually really like the idea of making your single target attacks pulse for threat on nearby targets. With how staggeringly weak all of our AoE damage options are, that would be a role-suiting solution to the problem if you didn't want to tune the damage up.
I play the game for... a looooong time since open beta, before artifacts, before artifact gear, before shield block only 80%... when life steal was a flat % on each hit when ITF was a dmg buff = to dmg resist... then all changed I adapted and still here.
Before i talk about mod16 as it is now... I DO AGREE that life steal it's a problem, I DO AGREE power share its a problem, same with buff/debuff.
Now mod 16 and Fighter's
Having 2 distinct paths Tank and DPS its an amazing change but we need to make them more distinct.
Block as a defensive mechanic is the same and works the same for both paths, We block till we take dmg = to our HP there's my 1st problem tank block should be different from DPS fighter maybe make it 2x HP for tank and leave it as it is for DPS, or as the tank path as the -30% dmg add a 30 or 50% + block Stamina/HP, here is why playing on test server as tank mostly a problem. I find to often shield/block breaking to soon I walk into a room there's 1 or 2 group with 5 adds they all attack at once for 20k + I block shield gone if I don't block the same attack leave the tank near dead if not dead. This could be fixed if the gear for fighter was based on role where gear with dmg status have x HP and gear with tanking status have 2x HP.
(even on live i don't get why gear have the same HP for all classes)
Aggro after testing for some time I cant get aggro out of my companion, well I can for 1sec the sec I am placed and stay on to of threat meter cuz the companion next attack removes it.
Threat generating skill need a rework, I think we need a force there, something like Skill X sets u on top of the threat meter and force the target to attack u for 5 secs (since most skill have 15-20 sec cool-down 5 sec doesn't seem to much).
"Dig In" stills strange sometimes u get stuck on it, trying to move and nothing. On DPS build I like the way it works since as a dps, Fighters will not block that much if the tank in your party is doing his job, we dig and fill a (stamina like bar for dmg). On tank I still find it useless if I have to block to stay alive i don't have bar for Dig In seem a 2nd way of block where I stop playing, maybe it helps if I am playing and smoking, game wise needs a rework. I would suggest something similar to dps fighter a 2nd stamina bar just for Dig In, were we block normal and Dig In bar get full when full we can Dig In. Making Dig In force nearby targets to attack seems a must for aggro/threat.
I think this would make survive and managing aggro way easier making the game more balanced and challenging than is is on life and less impossible to survive and hold threat as is is now on test server.
Sorry for the English, not my 1st language.
I haven't played in years so my info might be outdated, but basically whenever you activate a power while in tank stance, whether it was a defense buff, single target skill or aoe, the game would send out an invisible taunt to all enemies 360 around the tank which would force the enemies to attack the tank for 12 seconds. This taunt could be refreshed at the 8-12 second mark. After 12 seconds, the mobs immediately attack other players based on the aggro they made.
Commander's Strike, Earthshaker and Mow Down's damage are not affected by ability scores or Fured Kiuno of the Bear (they deal physical damage however they are not buffed by these bonuses).
Are you willing to listen feedback / feat overhaul suggestions, similarly to private beta? I like the feats for the dreadnought paragon, however I don't like how forceful they make the character become. Example
t1 forces an at will and an encounter OR 2 at wills being used (Heavy Slam or Heavy Slam and Piercing Thrust)
t2 doesnt force any skills
t3 both force another encounter (Commander's Strike or Bull Charge)
t4 both force another encounter (Anvil of doom or Into The Frey)
t5 forces a daily and encounter OR a daily (Mow Down and Commander's Strike or Earthshaker)
As you can see by the feats from this, you don't really have flexibility to actually use other skills, and some skills I can never see myself using unless given a unique benefit or bonus, such as Shield Slam, Knee Breaker and Griffons Wrath.
Shield Slam could be used if you need to overstack in aoe skills, but in a dungeon this shouldn't be an issue, and keep the single target skills on for the tankier mobs. Onslaught does less dps then Shield Slam, however its aoe range is huge, and it can hit so many mobs, which just makes it better in bigger mob groups.
Knee Breaker does too low of dps relative to its cooldown comparing to Bull Charge with the feat and Anvil of Doom with the feat.
Griffon's Wrath does higher dps (not damage) relative to its cooldown then Anvil when feated, however you have to hit all 3 attacks for to achieve this, and its a very VERY slow animation, and if you become stunned or knocked back you wont be able to hit the next attack/s due to the skill charge mechanic timing out. And if you spam the button, the skill goes onto cooldown without dealing the other hits, missing out on damage.
> i love the idea of role definition i even dont mind (what will become cookie cutter builds) from lack of feat / boon options. but 2 things make me just want to scream atm. no taunt!!!! that has always been a key factor for tanks.... the ability to pull mobs off party when needed. And the non threat building skill set. our only aoe is in cones going straight ahead but when we go into a group of mobs to gain agro, are we supposed to ask nicely for them to all stay in front of us? no aoe threat generation is going to make good tanking impossible. as fighters are now primarily single target combat dummies with no real way to hold agro even if you use the crappy new version of enforced threat (which puts you at top of list maybe but since does no dmg or taunt for a few seconds to allow you to build some threat you are almost instantly over run by any decent dps) because as we all know mobs surround you and since any aoe is directional everything except whats in front of you will run off to kill the dps.
>
> AND no group KV??? really are you just wanting ppl to not play tanks? absorbing dmg for party is exactly what a tanks role is....crowd control//take the dmg so party dps can kill//rely on healer to keep you standing long enough to win the fight. it is not that hard to see the defined rolls but the abilities your taking away from fighters seems more in line with destroying the ability to do their roll then make them better at it and therefore a necessary part of the group.
>
> also the added threat generation from KV really would help since it would literally be the only real aoe threat generating skill we have.... unless you plan on giving us threat generation to all enemies within 30-40 ft when using block//dig in (as maybe an active skill the yellow ones) and maybe another stating any dmg caused from damaging attacks on a target generate threat to all enemies within 30-40 feet. active skills like these would allow us to generate threat to multiple targets from blocking or attackin a single target without adding dmg to tanks abilities.
>
> as a tank i do not care about soloing or producing tons of dmg my focus is simply gain control of mobs and adds when summoned by a boss all of them and having skills that allow me to keep or jerk agro off team and onto me for brief period and have the ability to survive it. it is that simple if i want to solo or do dmg ill play dps class i really hope you figure this out because everyone on test server is screaming about how terrible the tanks are (all 3 classes) useless as they are now.
>
> I mean, we do have taunts, that's what Enforced Threat still is, and Anvil of Doom is, too, with the feat (although I'd argue that Griffon's Wrath would be a better fit, with its multiple charges and shorter cooldown) It jumps us to the top of the target's threat table. That's a taunt, and the fact that we actually also have to hit the thing to hold it is perfectly logical.
>
This is not the ET you know and love.
It's cooldown is ....
...
... (Mobs scatter and hit your party)
...
... long.
Feated Anvil is okay for boss fights.
How about Anvil for the mob-crowd-filled 75% rest of the dungeon? Anvil is worthless.
Vanguard needs hard AoE and ranged taunts.
We need access to them at-will or at least much much more often.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
-The 3rd hit's jumping animation is unnecessary, slow, and clunky. Just make it another backhanded swing like the Griffon's Wrath of Mod 9-14.
If you can actually get the 3rd hit, the long animation means your target will escape/you'll get knocked over long before you can actually hit them. I get that Griffon's is supposed to be a high risk high reward type encounter, but the 3rd hit taking so long removes most of the "reward" out of the equation...
-Can we have the charge based system back please? Or, perhaps
Every time you guys have tried to avoid players getting a 4th hit, you've made a mess of a power that is unresponsive and awkward to use (and almost never solved getting 4 hits anyways).
This attempt has apparently been the final solution to avoiding 4 Griffons by making it near impossible to get anything besides hit 1. Spacing your hits is rather difficult and holding down the Griffon's button (as suggested earlier in this thread) didn't auto fire the second and third hits.
Unless Griffons is less awkward to use, I can't imagine many people giving it a slot when other encounter powers require less of a hassle and offer similar enough damage.
Also, I've been wondering what the bolded part means?
I get you're busy creating new powers from scratch, managing 5-7 different feedback threads, and answering every single post (don't kill yourself responding...).
But if you got some spare time, it'd be nice to get a few specific hints as to how Vengeance consuming will be implemented in the coming preview patch(es).
I've been thinking about new block system and something hit me. If i recall there was attempt to tie block to HP and it end miserably. As new system does look nice and all it have one seriouse flaw, it's unreliable. If u fight heavy hitter boss or band of mobs and they brake your shield there's no comming back. Your stamina won't recharge fast enough to block next swing or barrage of attacks and therefore we're in endless loop of losing HP becous we're unable to block.
Current live block system is time based and if u remove stamina regen while blocking u have perfect blocking mechanic. It;s reliable coz even with 10% of stamina you're able to block attackand even if your guard is broken u can block after sec or two.
It could work like this:
Stamina diminish at steady phase that depends on staina regen ( if u have high stamina regen your fully charged block would last lets say 13s instead of 10). As someone mentioned blocking attacks could charge Dig in ( btw i would change that name into something more epic Stronghold maybe or Bastion, something of that sort), anyway so it would charge it and u can activate it only if u have one or more charge. When u activate it u gain shield equal to your max HP (one charge) and let's say twice that much if fully charge. More then that while Dig in is active your stamina regens slightly faster and you have party KV active that redirects 50% of pt dmg to tank. There could be some additional effects added to it to make it more useful.
Just an idea though.
I tried to test some more the tank path in preview.Major aggro problems.
My Apprentice wizzard companion,renamed in halfling in preview I think,was constantly stealling aggro for me.
And it is natural to happen cause his att wills are in 40k range,while mine at 5k.Since threat is based in damage,threat modifier have to be increased to offset the difference in damage ,between dps/comps and vanguard.
Also another thing that made me a little sad
They all have class built in advantages.Do more damage if you do this.OP and Gf tanks are the only ones that get a penalty.-30% damage done.I think this is not fair.
It should be for the DPS +30% damage taken ,or more preciselly the damage taken should be equal to damage done.if you do more damage ,you get more damage taken.
sadly only Tanks are getting built in disadvantages atm.
My proposal is to change for tanks -30% damage done to -30% damage taken.
DPS get advantages to do thier job,but tanks get none,instead they get a penalty.Not counting that there is not an inherent advantage in HP classes in the game
Another thing that makes Vanguard not fun to play,is that he is forced to use damage encounters to do his job,damage powers that have nice destruction themed names-Bull rush,Anvil of Doom etc-yet at the same time ,he does pitifull damage using them.
I cannot get past level 71,I cannot play the class anymore than 3 mins before I exit the game in frustration,,but at level 71 my Anvil Of Doom ,having 48k power and 32 arm pen,does 150 damage.Not 150k,but 150.My elol black overload enchant does 250 at every tick.
So it feels weird and unsatisfactory to play a vanguard,it sometimes feels like a mockery
I see no reason to not reduce the ICD of non encounter damage powers ,as Iron warrior and ET.
I see no reason in nerfing KV
My general opinion after playing the class since february 2014 ,is that atm the tank path is boring and unsatisfactory to play.No fun
Vanguard does not get adequate tools to tank,he does not gain a damage taken reduction,nor usefull encounter powers.
As a controller is forced to use single target damaging powers to do his job.Which do not do any damage.
IS NOT THAT A CONTRADICTION?
Try tanking using Energon or another companion that doesn't attack mobs. I have done several runs with a party that stay away from the currently broken companions and artifacts, and it feels really good. No aggro issues at all. When party summons companions and/or use DMG dealing artifacts it's 100% impossible to hold aggro.
I think that once the devs fix the companions and artifsvsa, players will get a much clearer picture of how each class will work in final M16 build.(@asterdahl)
Btw, Dig in is still useless for Vanguard
The current Vanguard choice feels like the original Iron Vanguard of mod 1 (post open beta). It had incredibly low damage output; it was slow, its aggro was suspect, and it was squishy at entry level end game. And in that realm, the mobs did not spread out along the front as they do now (post mod 3 or 4...I don't remember when they were recoded). Because the Iron Vanguard was so useless, dungeon parties avoided taking GFs. This was at a time with no random queues and no role identifications. But, parties would be 5 DPS or maybe 4 DPS and a DC healer. I had to wait 3 months before my own guild would take me on the original master TOS run, because my dps was so low, they could not afford to lose that much dps to kill the boss.
With the mod 16 reset, the Vanguard path feels to be very much in the same position, except now we have forced role selection in random queues. The Vanguard Fighter feels very slow. The answer to the Fighter's unique ability to move and position mobs (contra the OP) is to make it...with dig-in...even more immobile...but without the benefits. Aggro has to be slotted as encounter power generators and linked to other generators that have minimal damage for even a hope to get aggro, and passive aggro generators are removed. As this was probably done to make the class more exciting, it does the opposite. It makes the tank a wet noodle in the party. The dynamics that you removed from the Fighter, party damage absorbtion fed into a means by which the Fighter could generator aggro while simultaneously staying in tank mode. Face tanking, kiting, and fronting/positioning mobs will change with the same setup, just because 1) the block is different, 2) sources of self healing are gone.
My fondest memories in the game are when I am able to pull massive mobs (over 100 in size), stand in the middle and hold aggro, while I take huge amounts of damage, and the party whittles away at them. This is what I want in the Fighter at end game: a player that makes mobs so mad they will not break off the tank for any reason, one that has durability (options based on build), and that can take a massive beating with the help of a skilled healer, one that can control mob fronts, push mobs away or pull mobs from a distance (all of which have party mechanics). A tank role by definition is NOT a solo player's choice. Many in the GF community have fond memories of these times, and also the times when the GF, based on its TANKING abilities, when it was either to weak in the party (mods 1-3) or unneeded (mods 5-15). The current Vanguard Fighter setup will initially be like mod 1-3. But as dps players find out what they can and cannot do, I fear the VF will be crowded out by the other tank choice, or pre-mades will forgo the VF (that of course all depends on the ease of rewards, etc..).
There has been a lot of feedback given on this thread from players who love the Fighter as tank. I am one of them. We want a tank. Please consider the changes as mentioned: passive aoe threat generation, party damage reducer, distance threat generator (better than what is currently available). Thanks!
Guild--And the Imaginary Friends
Griffon Strike only infrequently triggers the combination attack. Used it a fair bit, and I'd say about 50% of the time I would strike once on a target, and it'd go on cooldown. No explanation or pattern I could discern. When it was back up, I'd attack another mob, and the first hit would put it on CD again. Then the next mob would get the full combo chained on it.
Level scaling:
There's something pretty off about level scaling in dungeons in general right now. Doing Epic Shores of Turen, the boss can 3 shot me in vanguard mode with shield up, and I've got 19k IL and 24k+ to all defensive stats even with the scaling down.
In Undermountain? It's easy peasy. Mobs have the right amount of HP/Damage against my 24-30k defensive and offensive stats. But any dungeon I run, it's like I might as well be wearing paper armor and using a broom to attack.
Example:
This was the paingiver scoreboard after running with my girlfriend's OP Devo paladin and I was in my dreadnought loadout. We had the exact same companions out (earth archon), at the exact same level. She did no damage on her own, and focused entirely on healing me. The damage you see is 100% her earth archon. That also means you could subtract her damage from mine to get what damage I did without my companion.
I have 24-35k to all offensive and defensive stats, 76k power, and 56k crit. I have all of my feats for maximizing damage on crits, and I've learned my rotation well. I didn't even out-damage my earth archon pet.
This tells me a few things:
1.) NPC IL/level scaling is behaving very differently from PC's, as our companions were far less impacted by the dungeon scale.
2.) There's something very off with PC scaling in dungeons. Everything was hitting quite hard, and the Devo OP couldn't even come close to keeping up with healing me during the encounters. In addition, my damage was very, very low for the gear/stats/loadout I was set up for
I would like to have a feat similar to the Soulweaver Warlock, there is a Feat that adds a CD of 15s to your TAB but grants 15 sparks instantly.
It would be nice if one of the T2 Feats on Dreadnought would be replaced by "Your Seethe now consumes all your stamina, but generates 50% Vengeance, can only be used every 15sec"
On a side note, the increased conversion feat and class feature seem to be very under powered, if even working at all, I see little to no increase with them.