Normal redq, FBI. Your super feat. I remind you, that in the same place for example GWF has got +25% crit sev or +10% hp/-5% power. FEAT.
Before you accuse me, my stats without scaling:
So please, next time if you will talk about something, use arguments. I am not one week GF toon who doesn't know GF mechanics. If you want to use underperforming skills & feats - you're free. I saw your build. Awesome solutions like use second wind & tanner's ring passive + envenomed. Wow so smart. FYI chitters fang > manticore/tanner's passive. But lets go. Also you:
"Deep Breathing : +4% dmg and inc heal for 10s every 3s spent dug in, stacks 3 times - This simply takes too long to have any practical use in party combat, +12% damage dealt in solo play is very handy tho."
Stay 9 sec on tab to get 10 sec buff. Solo play. Where do you use it? Hellpit once per year? Yeah, handyyyy. Or maybe you write on party chat "wait guys, I must wait 10 sec for my bonus".
If you use knight's valor you should know that something wrong is with your build.
"Knight's Challenge : 50% stamina restored, 80m when blocking for 8s (0,75s, 21,8cd) - Threat generated (when guarding): 80*3,6 = 288m - I personally never use this, as all stamina issues is handled by my eclipse enchantment" Sure, eclipse > elven. Very good. Because 3k deflection and once per 60 sec refill stamina is better than regular stamina regen and cc resistance. Did you ever play endgame content?
So please man, first of all look at yourself, then accuse or give me proof of your "super feats/encounters" + other armor enchantments more useful than elven. I am waiting.
I dont understand what that piechart is supposed to prove.
I dont see how your stats are relevant in this "discussion".
How " Or maybe you write on party chat "wait guys, I must wait 10 sec for my bonus"" can be an apropriate comment to the statement "This simply takes too long to have any practical use in party combat" beats me.
Why is it wrong to use Knights Challenge ?
"Did you ever play endgame content?" Yes.
"Sure, eclipse > elven." I still have made no comments about armor enchants and their qualities. For the thrid time I can say that I think replacing a feat based on what an armor enchant can/can't do is stupid.
Sorry for keeping you busy joebot, but I figured now would be a good place to discuss any changes to Fighter DPS, especially regarding that one "feature" that seems to be somewhat common knowledge. The most important changes are the ones retaining to the Heavy Slash cancel.
Do note that there are other problems that exist, such as Heavier Slash being inferior to Weight of Vengeance, or some feats/powers/etc being completely useless, but the main focus is trying to re-tool Fighter to be a decent enough DPS without being reliant on cheesing out twice as many dailies and At-will damage to keep up.
Heavy Slash Get rid of the ability to cancel Heavy Slash with Seethe (canceling Heavy Slash with regular Guard is fine).
Crushing Blows Lower base damage to 120 magnitude. Buff base chance to 30% rather than 20%. Write out how the mathematical ratio works Move to Tier 5 (swaps places with Bloody Reprise).
Executioner's Cut Allow the 50 magnitude procs to trigger off of Critical hits (leave the "gain 3 Vengeance when striking a target at 30% or less HP" as is).
Rolling Hatred If you adjust Crushing Blows to be placed in the Tier 5 spot, nerf the Vengeance gain to 3 Vengeance per Critical Hit. Otherwise, do nothing.
Bloody Reprise Keep base effect, in addition to completely eliminating passive Vengeance drain in combat (feats/powers/etc which drain Vengeance should continue to drain meter).
Vengeance (mechanic) Allow player At-wills to generate 1 Vengeance per hit. Allow the damage buff to start at 25% meter (10% buff at 1/4th meter), capping at 20% buff for the meter being half or above (same as live).
Heavier Slash Raise the base damage of the effect to 380 magnitude and chance to proc to 25%. OR Lower the base damage of the effect to +125 magnitude, lower the duration of the effect to 5 seconds, but make Heavier Slash reduce the cooldowns of your currently recharging encounter powers by 15%.
Griffon's Wrath Lower the cast time of the 3rd hit to 1 second.
Knee Breaker Lower base cooldown to 14 seconds, then change attack to a 500 magnitude DoT that ticks over 5 seconds.
Striker's Mark Fix the bug that allows you to poach the buff from allied player Wicked Reminder, allied player Commander's Strike, allied player Disarming Takedown, and allied played Thorn Ward. Then, replace with a new feat.
Into the Fray Now causes player attacks to deal 60 magnitude damage (ICD: 0.45 seconds) for 5 seconds in addition to increasing player & allies' movespeed by 10% for 5 seconds. No longer refills stamina. Costs 15 Vengeance to use.
Determination Make this daily attack cost 50% of Action Points to use rather than all of your AP.
Ricochet, Landwaster, Steady Vengeance, and Heated Vengeance Replace effects with something entirely new, nobody uses these effects.
Shield Talent Buff Stamina regen bonus to the range of 7.5% through 10%.
Vigorous Strikes Make it add 12.5% Crit Severity relative to how full your Stamina (or Vengeance meter) is.
Explanation for changes to Heavy Slash, Rolling Hatred, Bloody Reprise, Crushing Blows, and Executioner's Cut
The Heavy Slash cancel creates a strange balance problem, because so as long it exists, you have two different performances: once with twice as much At-will damage and twice as many daily attacks as intended, and one that actually plays by the rules and has mediocre damage as a result.
The suggested changes to all of these feats are intended such that you can get rid of the cancel, but still have roughly the same At-will base damage, if not slightly more to help compensate for the loss of a second daily in terms of damage.
Crushing Blows and Bloody Reprise should swap places such that the player is presented with an actual choice in Tier 3 on how they want to help refill Vengeance: more steady refill that is best over time (Rolling Hatred) or for players than plan to consume a lot of Vengeance in a short period of time (Bloody Reprise). Additionally, Tier 5 would then be a similar choice on how the player wants their extra procs of damage: large amounts more rarely (Crushing Blows) or lower amounts over time (Executioner's Cut)
If players can take Crushing Blows in Tier 5, then Rolling Hatred should be adjusted to 3 Vengeance per hit to reflect the fact that a player can take both Rolling Hatred and Crushing Blows in the same build. You should not be able to just write off the Vengeance consume of Crushing Blows with Rolling Hatred, Rolling Hatred should just partially mitigate the effects of Crushing Blow.
Adjusting Bloody Reprise to also have a Steady Vengeance-like effect would make Bloody Reprise more unique.
Crushing Blows and Executioner's Cut make it so players get get sort of the same damage on At-wills but without needing to cheese: Executioner's Cut is the consistent easy to use option that occurs often while Crushing Blow occurs less often but hits harder.
The feats would look something like this if these suggestions are considered:
Notes about adjustments to Crushing Blows: A very common suggestions is to get rid of the ArmorPen/ratio formula entirely, which is a reasonable idea considering how frustrating it was to find the formula (which I don't even know is correct). If you take my suggestion to pit Crushing Blow against a newly revised Executioner Cut in Tier 5, then you need the feats to function a bit differently so you aren't choosing between "stronger Executioner's Cut that consumes a bit of Vengeance" and "Executioner Cut". Hence why I suggest to keep that silly ArmorPen/Power formula, but raise the base chance to 30% so your average player challenging Zariel will have a ~11% chance to proc Crushing Blows.
Speaking of the formula: it took a lot of sleuthing, but data Sume and I gathered seems to point towards the proc chance being: 20% * (ArmorPen/Power). For most players challenging Zariel now, you will have ~9% Crushing Blow proc chance (20% * (90,000/200,000)). Please just write out the formula on these ratio type feats so players like me don't go insane getting a bunch of data.
Explanation for Vengeance (mechanic) changes
Allow At-wills to generate a small bit of Vengeance to make up for the fact that players are going to have a tank absorb most attacks and cannot be playing using the intended counter attacker style. 1 Vengeance per hit isn't a lot and will not overshadow effects which help the player generate more Vengeance, but it's something such that players aren't completely dead in the water and have to take Rolling Hatred feat all the time.
Let the damage buff occur at smaller portions of the meter such that the damage buff is more dynamic and responsive to the situation in combat, rather than being a case of all or nothing with the buff.
Explanation for Heavier Slash change
I believe the original design behind the feat was that you could get an additional 300 magnitude, with one method being reliable but eating your meter (Weight) and the other not eating your meter but not being active when you want it (Heavier Slash).
Theoretically, this is one of the most balanced choices. However, almost everybody picks Weight for its reliability for burst attack windows, in addition to not being able to proc Heavier Slash off of using Heavy Slash cancel (if you could proc Heavier Slash off of using Heavy Slash, then Heavier Slash would be superior). Thus, the feat needs a slight rework to make it useful and unique.
My first suggestion aims to make the feat about on par with Weight of Vengeance (slightly less theoretical DPS, but you trade a small bit of damage for slightly more reliability).
My second suggestion aims to make the feat unique relative to Weight of Vengeance with the cooldown reduction aspect: you deal less damage immediately, but can deal much damage over time with the cooldown reductions.
Explanation for Griffon's Wrath change
The power's only problem is the stupid 3rd hit animation that takes a long time to cast while you get hit out of the attack or the enemy walks out of your range.
Simply lower the animation time on the 3rd hit only and the power is fine.
Explanation for Knee Breaker change
This power is not used at all due to its long cooldown and relatively poor base damage. I suggest reworking it to a DoT based power such that it stands out relative to other powers.
If you want an easy, consistent option that works even if you have to run away for mechanics, use Knee Breaker. If you want to use a power that hits harder, you have to make a sacrifice in some other form (meter drain, longer cooldown, etc).
Explanation for Striker's Mark Change
If you are wondering what I mean, have any of the following powers applied to a target: Wicked Reminder (Rogue), Thorn Ward (Warden Ranger), Disarming Takedown (Sentinel Barbarian), and Commander's Strike (Fighter).
Then, cast Mow Down while you have the Striker's Mark feat. You should get the +400 magnitude bonus damage from Striker's Mark and the debuff should be cleared from the target.
I don't think this is intended and is only possible because all of those powers are the literal exact same debuff, so I would suggest remaking the entire feat.
Explanation for Into the Fray Changes
This ability is useless in PvE and kind of niche for cheesing PvP. In PvE, there is no point in using it unless you like using it to run faster, as it literally does not help your offense and takes too long to recharge. It would be fine as is if placed in the Vanguard spec, but then Stamina Regen on Vanguard is covered by Knight's Challenge, so Knight's Challenge & Into the Fray would both recover Stamina and be doing the same thing. In PvP, the Stamina Regen makes the power problematic, as all it does is it allows you to take as much punishment as a tank spec, while having ridiculous base damage to slaughter any counter attackers.
So, instead, make the power do something different as a self buff that costs Vengeance to cast. To be honest, I wish there were more powers and passives which drained Vengeance such that meter management is an active part of the gameplay, but I don't know how far you are willing to change things.
Explanation for Determination Change
This power is not too helpful. It is overshadowed by Bladed Rampart on tank for the "not dying" utility and is overshadowed by all of the raw damage daily attacks (Earthshaker, Shockwave, Mow Down).
I would suggest making the power consume only half of your Action Points such that the power has a niche relative to the rest of the attacks. You get less damage up front relative to a raw damage daily attack, but can use the daily attack twice as many times to proc "on daily attack" bonuses such as the Arcturia's Music Box set.
Explanation for Ricochet, Landwaster, Heated Vengeance, and Steady Vengeance
These effects are completely useless, outshined by other options, and need total overhauls to be a useful option.
Explanation for Shield Talent changes
2% is useless and had to be figured out by looking at the tooltip. Changing the bonus to something in the range of 7.5% through 10% should make it useful.
Explanation for Vigorous Strike Changes
Adding 10,000 Crit Strike is useless. I personally would have let the Critical Chance go past the Critical Cap, but making the bonus add 12.5% Crit Severity should be fine (not 25%, since that would be the same as giving Vanguard Barbed Strikes. Then you'd have the Sentinels clamoring for Barbed Strikes as a universal class feature...).
12.5% Crit Severity amounts to a ~4% DPS increase assuming a base Critical Severity of 110% and assuming a capped Critical chance of 50%. This should be somewhat similar to Enduring Vengeance, which is a ~3-4% DPS increase.
I've been meaning to make a post for Fighter feedback in a while. I guess I'll post it here.
Vanguard:
First of all, gearing needs to be made easier for tanks. They are expected to stack both offensive and defensive stats to hold aggro and survive, unlike dps and healers who focus on only certain stats. This makes it harder for a new player to begin tanking end game content in comparison. On top of that, there is a huge variety of offensive rings and companion gear but a shortage when it comes to defensive gear. Why hasn’t a defense/deflect or deflect/crit avoid ring been made available in 3 years?
Knee Breaker: I get the reason for long cooldown, you don’t want people having too much uptime on the slow for PvP, but in PvE this power is very useless. Make it so that if the target is control immune, the cooldown is reduced by 8 seconds instead of slowing the target for 8 seconds. Now it might be worth slotting.
Enforced Threat: Add a damage component to this so that it’s still useful when the tank has aggro already. Linebreaker is a 160 magnitude damage engage so there’s no reason this shouldn’t have 150 or so. Then it can compete with linebreaker/shield slam for an encounter slot in AoE fights.
Knight’s Challenge: This, much like Knee Breaker, suffers from having long cooldown due to providing an effect with duration. Make this a toggle! Sacrificing one encounter slot to deal 80 mgn damage whenever you block is an interesting mechanic. Currently, sacrificing one encounter slot to deal 80 mgn damage 1/4rd of the time is just dumb.
Iron Warrior: Reduce cast time. Also reducing cooldown along with the active time would make this more interesting to use. It’s much more engaging to use this every 12 seconds with 4 second uptime than it is to use it every 24 seconds with 8 second uptime. But the cast time must be reduced first so that 4 seconds can be used more effectively.
Knight’s Valor: This is so niche that it won’t ever be useful unless you specifically design a boss where it is. I don’t even have a suggestion on how this can be improved. Just delete it and make a new encounter instead. The new encounter should probably have some stamina recovery component since there’s only 1 encounter(Knight’s Challenge) that provides that currently and that’s basically useless unless changed.
Determination: Add a size increase animation to this for the duration. It will make it easier to tell in crowds when it’s active/over. Also it was fun
Phalanx: Useless most of the time. It could be useful in LoMM boreworm boss but the CC there interrupts this. Stop that CC from interrupting it.
Dig In: Make it cancel animations like regular Block does. Currently, it’s possible to immediately block by using regular Block briefly to cancel current animation then switching to Dig In right after. But that’s unintuitive and makes usage a hassle. Another hassle is the fact that you can’t rotate while using it. You can already throw the Retaliate in any direction you want by holding “W” and looking in the direction you want to use it in. It also blocks in all directions. So there is really no reason for its animation to lock you in one direction. It only makes usage feel more clunky. Retaliate: Very fun! One of the best things about the Vanguard. Maybe make it receive effects of cooldown reduction so we can use it a bit more often. Path of the Vanguard: Remove the 10% reduced damage component. Vanguard already does less damage than dps based on the fact that there aren’t any damage buffs or high magnitude encounters in its toolkit. On top of that, stacking defensive stats means offensive stats won’t be as high anyway. This removal will help in aggro generation and make the class less gimped in PvP. And speaking of PvP, instead of removing the 40% hp and stamina buff entirely, maybe cut it just in half to see how that works out. Currently the tank paths are very pointless in PvP without it.
Vigorous Strikes: Currently does not seem to increase the crit rate 10% if you’re already at cap. Fix it so that it works past the cap.
Enduring Warrior: The way the game works currently, if you take damage when your HP is below 25%, you’re likely dead anyway because all the hits are so large. 5% reduction won’t have any uptime. Make it so that when your HP goes below 25%, you take 5% less damage for 10 seconds. This way it’ll actually have some uptime when you get healed too.
Critical Deflection: This has too many ifs and whens and an internal cooldown. The amount of stamina it gives should be increased for it to actually matter.
Combat Balance: Give us the formula!
Deep Breathing: Make it activate for 10 seconds after every Retaliate. Remove the stacking mechanic and make it a 5% flat bonus and add a damage reduction to the bonuses too. This way it will encourage using Retaliate(The best thing about the class) as often as possible.
Dreadnought:
Heavy Slash: Reduce cast time to 0.5 seconds so Dreadnought doesn’t have to animation cancel to compete with other dps.
Reave: Reduce cast time to 0.3 seconds so it’s more in line with Heavy Slash.
Into the Fray: Add an AoE damage component to it so it can compete with Shield Slam for an encounter slot. None of the current effects are ever really desirable.
Griffon’s Wrath: Speed up the animation. It takes too long to land all 3 hits and even if you can, it’s not really worth it as you could just be using an instant encounter like shield throw then place a lot of Heavy Slashes instead by the time animation is complete. Alternatively increase the magnitude.
Steady Vengeance: Kind of pointless. Vengeance gauge already fills up with Seethe while blocking, so why slot a feat just to keep it steady? Make it so that this allows slow movement while seething. Though that requires a new animation so likely won’t happen.
Check retaliate again. Maybe it currently counts as an attack type that already receives effects of cool down reduction? 🧐
I disagree with your request to remove the -10% dmg dealt, as it would make some endgame tanks even stronger damage dealers. Current threat modifier should make threat generation a non-issue if correct rotations are being utilized.
Most other suggestions for Vanguard I 100% agree on. Niche = life btw 😂
Check retaliate again. Maybe it currently counts as an attack type that already receives effects of cool down reduction? 🧐
I disagree with your request to remove the -10% dmg dealt, as it would make some endgame tanks even stronger damage dealers. Current threat modifier should make threat generation a non-issue if correct rotations are being utilized.
Most other suggestions for Vanguard I 100% agree on. Niche = life btw 😂
From my testing, Retaliate always seems to remain at 10 sec cooldown regardless of recharge speed. This is testing with Stronghold piranhas and a chronometer so it's not very accurate considering the small recharge speed bonuses we get. But the fact that its cooldown isn't reduced by Artificer's Persuasion also lines up with that.
Endgame tanks can at best deal around 50% of the damage an endgame DPS deals currently. My opinion is that this number should be more around 70%. This is what the devs suggested the case would be during mod 16 preview, however it clearly fell short on that mark. Removal of the -10% damage debuff would put tanks at 60% of an endgame dps when it comes to damage dealing, which is far from what I'd consider strong. Threat is just a nice side effect. I just want tanks to deal more damage.
I really like to play GF. In mod 15 it was a little bit funnier because we had a specific fighting style (massive burst damage). But the current GF is also fun to play. The problem is that we have a disadvantage to other DPS classes in terms of the damage potential. And the devs seem to know that. But instead of buffing our class like the Barbarian, we get only a small 'buff'. So our GF will be still the weakest DPS class like the last 3 modules... That's sad.
Current PVE playstyle for GF forces players to use vengeance restoration feat when crit procs and talent to have +5% damage when vengeance bar filled for certain time
This makes player forget about that vengeance bar at all, except annoying shielding before starting combat, and this is not fair. I would like to see fighter dps with 2 ways of build:
1) you pick vengeance restoration on crit and do less damage 2) you pick other feats that makes you watch your vengeance constantly, but as an outcome you deal more damage. I like the idea of hitting encounters in 2sec window after vengeance drops lower 50% to restore it, it makes gameplay very dynamic and interesting.
currently issue is that build which does not require player watch vengeance bar is bis for PVE. I personally would like to have rolling vengeance to restore full bar instead of 75%, this would allow more combos, for example casting double daily right after it
GF has interesting mechanics, but they are out of meta again
Would it be possible to get a fix for Vanguards Retaliate and Bladed Rampart crit chance? They currently calculate crit chance based on players critical avoidance, not mobs 🤷♂️
Reave: Reduce cast time to 0.3 seconds so it’s more in line with Heavy Slash.
I mean, I'm not against the reduction in cast time (especially on the second hit taking 0.6 seconds to cast), but Reave is already kind of fine as is? I am not sure why it needs to be brought in line with Heavy Slash when the at-wills serve two different purposes.
Reave seems to be desgined as an AoE At-will that hits multiple targets but has lowish base damage as a result.
Whereas Heavy Slash is a single target DPS power with some finger work or something you throw onto the enemy every 12 seconds for the buff (idk which interpretation of Heavy Slash is more correct).
So our GF will be still the weakest DPS class like the last 3 modules... That's sad.
Whisperknife and Hunter exist. Well, until Joebot does whatever he plans to do with Sume's Hunter feedback, then we'll see how Hunter stacks up.
This is part of the problem with the Heavy Slash cancel: if you can do it, you basically solve all your issues with DPS. If you can't do it, then you actually are a subpar DPS.
And no answers or comments from devs in this topic. A lot of good comments and feedbacks, but no feedback from cryptics devs.
Given the silence and considering how Thaumaturge's Shatter Strike was handled (was bugged for a while, reported multiple times, no changes made), I think that there will be not much, if any more changes.
I believe that the Heavy Slash cancel is purposely not going to be adjusted/changed/whatever due to making the spec's damage passable if you use it, in the same way Shatter Strike makes Thaumaturge a good DPS.
My apologies for the delay in response. We are combing through a ton of your feedback and making adjustments while trying not to push any class too far. I want to provide an update on the changes we made so far: Bug Fixes
Striker's Mark: The description was changed to match the functionality. This allows Fighter daily powers to gain the 400 magnitude benefit from any source of the physical vulnerability up debuff, not only Commander's Strike.
Commander's Strike and Mow Down: Added proper tagging to these powers so they gain the benefits of powers that increase melee damage such as the Swordman's Perk.
Adjustments
Encounters
Kneebreaker: Reduced the cooldown by 5 seconds.
Feats
Ricochet: Shield Throw now bounces to up to three nearby enemies dealing 10% less damage to the second target, 20% less damage to the third target, and 30% less damage to the fourth target. Attacks that hit more than one enemy allow Shield Throw to be used without triggering a cooldown.
Thank you for your patience in all of this, we look forward to bringing you more!
Striker's Mark: The description was changed to match the functionality. This allows Fighter daily powers to gain the 400 magnitude benefit from any source of the physical vulnerability up debuff, not only Commander's Strike.
Commander's Strike and Mow Down: Added proper tagging to these powers so they gain the benefits of powers that increase melee damage such as the Swordman's Perk.
I didn't expect you guys to turn it as an "intended" feature, but okay. Though I would like to note that most players will not make use of Striker's Mark to begin with due to most of the physical debuff powers being pretty terrible in terms of cooldown or damage.
In the rare circumstances that players do use a "debuff" power such as Ray of Enfeeblement, Wicked Reminder, or likely the new Commanding Shot on Hunter, it is because those powers already do good damage to begin with. The extra debuff is a slight bonus that people let run in the background, not a decisive bonus that is used when everyone wants to rotate.
(That last part was part of the fun parts of the old buffs: it felt like a team was fighting together and collectively waiting to time an attack and not just 6 solo runs, even if the mathematics of old buffs were broken).
The change is appreciated, but it ends up being a buff to the tank path moreso than the DPS path.
Even with the change to Knee Breaker's cooldown, the power isn't worth using on the DPS side due to many other DPS powers being better.
-Two Griffon's Wrath hits deal much more damage and has the same cooldown (the cast time is longer, but not that much longer). If you get the 3rd Griffon's Wrath hit (and can deal with that silly 3rd hit animation), you obviously deal way more damage than any other encounter power that isn't Weight of Vengeance + Anvil. -While I don't see many using Commander's Strike in general, Commander's Strike is more worthwhile to slot over Knee Breaker due to hitting slightly harder and has the debuff for the mere cost of waiting 2 more seconds. -Bull Charge has a significantly shorter cooldown (4 seconds shorter) and only deals slightly less base damage than Knee Breaker. Players can also opt to use Momentum to make the power hit harder than Knee Breaker and most other encounters.
Knee Breaker needs more buffs, but, I personally do not think it should be in the form of base damage or cooldown.
I would rather see the power gain a different identity besides "something to slap on for more damage" and "slows a single target", even it means lowering the base damage of the attack to make room for this new special effect.
This is because any changes to base damage/cooldown is just changing which powers have the best magnitude per second and making the powers good because of numbers, not because powers do something unique besides "deal a lot of damage with different animations".
Slowing targets isn't very useful, as slows are useless in PvE. In PvP, players seem to just go for the route of overwhelming players with base damage, such as Shield Throw/Bull Charge+Momentum/Weight of Vengeance+Anvil setup.
Ricochet: Shield Throw now bounces to up to three nearby enemies dealing 10% less damage to the second target, 20% less damage to the third target, and 30% less damage to the fourth target. Attacks that hit more than one enemy allow Shield Throw to be used without triggering a cooldown.
I was hoping you would change it completely, but I suppose this works for making the feat more useable.
This power essentially turns Shield Throw into a hard hitting AoE "At-will" that hits only 4 targets and takes up an encounter slot. If you are planning to attack more than 4 targets, use Prepared Slam, 4 or less, use Ricochet.
Richochet could be useful for players that aren't killing things quickly. But though I don't think many players will swap off of Prepared Slam for AoE damage due to Prepared Slam being a less "intrusive" feat (just slap Heavy Slash on a target, then use your AoE powers as you normally would) and Prepared Slam affecting more than 4 targets.
If Ricochet is chosen as a feat, I highly suggest removing the stun on shield throw, if only so you don't get some stupid PvP cheese involving an infinite stunlock and pinatas or something.
Or impose a PvP specific penalty that gives an internal cooldown of ricochet of some amount like 8 seconds, or reduces the base damage of the attack.
Thank you for your patience in all of this, we look forward to bringing you more!
For your sake and before the pitchforks and torches come out, I hope they get announced soon and are focused on single target damage or, more hopefully, making the playstyle more involved.
Right now, Fighter DPS is only borderline passable because it is a large block of numbers to throw at enemies, and not because playing it requires that much in thinking.
Thanks for your answer and the new 'adjustments'. I have already thought that our feedback does not matter... But it is nice to read that you "look forward to bringing [us] more!"
But these two adjustments are not really useful at all. Knee Breaker is still not good enough to be used, like rjc9000 explained. After reading your adjustments I have one big question to you (and the other devs):
Do you think that our Fighter is in line with the other DPS classes?
Because if you did not think so, you would give us more useful adjustments, like the ones we have suggested. I got the feeling, that you think that our Fighter is good balanced. Are there some new Mod 18 statistics from TOMM? It opens the discussion about class balance again. But I personally do not think, that our Fighter is really balanced with the other classes. We maybe need about 10% more damage to be in line with most of the other classes. It is not that much like in Mod 17 but that are still about 10% less damage. That is a disadvantage. Or is it intended that the Fighter is the worst DPS class in the game (for single target)? That would explain why you are so hesitant with a real Fighter damage buff.
A short statement would be really nice. If I am right with my assumption, some more useful adjustments will be very nice. Thanks for reading and the communication with us.
Thanks for you feedback @joebot#9387 but, if we compare with the changes in magnitude and 'be useful' that changes you said are nothing. It's weid because the Barb changes increase magnitude in some useful encounters (Bloodletter + Feat and Frenzy), and they have more magnitude than we have in our main encounters Anvil + Feat and Bull Charge. The Barbs will have a increase in magnitude in their at-wills and it will be faster, we have just one at will with a good magnitude HS (but 1 sec casting, omg) and the others barely have 50 magnitude. So, there are not class balance atm.
Whenever you attack you have a chance to deal a crushing blow consuming 5 vengeance to deal an additional 100 magnitude damage. You chance to deal a crushing blow is 20% when your armor penetration is at least half or more to your power, and decrease the lower your armor penetration.
Ricochet: Shield Throw now bounces to up to three nearby enemies dealing 10% less damage to the second target, 20% less damage to the third target, and 30% less damage to the fourth target. Attacks that hit more than one enemy allow Shield Throw to be used without triggering a cooldown.
Could you re-write the tooltip for this feat such that the "attacks" part is clearly referring to non Shield Throw attacks and not Shield Throw itself?
I originally read the feat as "if your Shield Throw hits multiple targets, use Shield Throw again with no cooldown".
It was unclear that the intended effect is different, which is "your AoE attacks which hit multiple targets have a 10% chance to give you a cooldown-free use of Shield Throw".
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Also, I can't see anybody using this feat at all. It's yet another Heavier Slash versus Weight of Vengeance problem: why bother spamming At-wills for a small chance for the proc when you can just outright kill things with high base damage and Prepared Slam?
Honestly, I'm wondering if you could you just scrap the feat entirely and make it something completely different?
So just CS and Anvil changes are useful. No changes in casting at Wills, or useful encounters. @joebot#9387 any news about a super useful change for now?
Also, I can't see anybody using this feat at all. It's yet another Heavier Slash versus Weight of Vengeance problem: why bother spamming At-wills for a small chance for the proc when you can just outright kill things with high base damage and Prepared Slam?
heavier slash proc every 2-6 sec, and you have heavy slash always in slot, so every 4sec (average between 2 sec and 6 sec) you have an at-will with 435 magnitude. weight of vagance decrease the cooldown of anvil of doom by 4 sec and increase the magnitude, so every 12 sec you have an encouter with 1060 magnitude.
in a 1 minute fight: 60 sec/12sec=5 uses of anvil of doom => 1.060*5=5.300 total magnitude 60sec/4sec=15 uses of heavier slash =>435*15=6.525 total magnitude
this was my tought when i choose the feat, plus with heavier slash your vegange gauge will not deplete, so in dungeon you have fixed +25% damage (20 from vengeance and 5 from enduring vengeqance). heavy slaash is always in slot for the +5% buff and you can slot commander's strike to help the player that deal physical damage (btw xuna benefit from commander's strike) and buff yourself and synergize with striker's mark.
Good to see I'm not the only player using Heavier Slash (thought I was). Currently I use Bull Charge always, switching the other two.
AoE (Tremor + Onslaught) Using Heavy Slash to proc Prepared Slams.
Single Target - (Commander's Strike + Griffin's Wrath) The GW is laggy and deals about the same damage as CS because of it. The advantage of using it over Anvil of Doom is that you actually spam Reave in Single Target, since it procs the Heavier slash buff 2.5x more often than Heavy Slash itself. Use Heavy Slash when procced only.
yes, i do that too. if they return GW as a charge power with the old animatione it would solve all his related problem. reave deal 45 magnitude every 0,4 seconds (like relentless slash of the barbarian in unstoppable), with a 112,5 magnitude every second; brazen slash deal 75 magnitude every 0.5 sec for 150 magnitude every sec.
if you want to increase the damage you could decrease the cast time of reave to 0,3; reave at 0,3 will deal 150 magnitude every second, ad will proc heavier slash more often; then reurn GW as it was (a 3 charge power with a 350 magnitude and cooldown of 5 sec per chrage ( every 5 sec you have a charge back)).
the new ricochet can be procced by at-will, so for aoe: ricochet + blody reprise -> restore vengeance if you return GW as it was, you can use an encounter every 5 sec so for st: GW+blody reprise ->restore vengeance with this crushing blow can be used for burst damage and there is a good source of vengeance to keep the bar full, but every time you proc blody reprise you lose the buff from enduring vengeance. landwaster can be used too because you can restore your vengeance again with shield trow or GW.
personally i use roiling hatred to keep my vengeance full, and executioner's cut to deal more damage, i might lose in burst damage but don't have to worry abount my vengance bar, so i keep always +5% from enduring vengeance. would be nice to have a synergy with executioner's cut, so that he consume vengeance to deal more damage but not so much that can't be kept at max with roiling hatred (like you lose 5 vengeance and your encounter and daily deal 100 more magnitude when enemies have 50% or less hp).
the fighter dreadnought is the only class (that i play) with this degree of synergy.
heavier slash proc every 2-6 sec, and you have heavy slash always in slot, so every 4sec (average between 2 sec and 6 sec) you have an at-will with 435 magnitude. weight of vagance decrease the cooldown of anvil of doom by 4 sec and increase the magnitude, so every 12 sec you have an encouter with 1060 magnitude.
in a 1 minute fight: 60 sec/12sec=5 uses of anvil of doom => 1.060*5=5.300 total magnitude 60sec/4sec=15 uses of heavier slash =>435*15=6.525 total magnitude
this was my tought when i choose the feat, plus with heavier slash your vegange gauge will not deplete, so in dungeon you have fixed +25% damage (20 from vengeance and 5 from enduring vengeqance). heavy slaash is always in slot for the +5% buff and you can slot commander's strike to help the player that deal physical damage (btw xuna benefit from commander's strike) and buff yourself and synergize with striker's mark.
i think that heavier slash is a good feat
The point being made was that Ricochet sucks when you compare it versus Prepared Slam, as the feats have a similar structure to Heavier Slash versus Weight: one ability is better for killing things over time and the other is reliable burst damage at some cost.
You can use Prepared Slam with any regular AoE powers, play the same as you normally would, and just one hit entire hordes of of enemies with high base damage. Or you can use Ricochet and spend more time killing enemies for the chance of getting a free AoE attack which hits 4 enemies.
Heavier Slash is much more useful than Ricochet and is very balanced to Weight of Vengeance assuming you play by the rules.
The existence of the Heavy Slash cancel renders Heavier Slash useless, because you can't trigger Heavier Slash off of regular Heavy Slash. The cancel also allows you to attack with Heavy Slash so fast that you can deal more damage in the same amount of time as getting a Heavier Slash proc.
yes, i do that too. if they return GW as a charge power with the old animatione it would solve all his related problem. reave deal 45 magnitude every 0,4 seconds (like relentless slash of the barbarian in unstoppable), with a 112,5 magnitude every second; brazen slash deal 75 magnitude every 0.5 sec for 150 magnitude every sec.
Reave's first hit casts for 0.4 seconds and second hit for 0.6 seconds, with no changes to magnitude on cast time. Unless you plan to only use the first hit, the real MPS of Reave is 90.
Brazen Slash's first and second hits take 0.5 seconds to cast and the third hit takes 0.65 seconds to cast. Unless you plan to never use the 3rd hit (which takes so long to circumvent that you end up losing damage trying to do so), the real MPS of Brazen Slash is 136.
Also, on the subject of Heavier Slash, since someone in the GF discord brought it to my attention:
Heavier Slash only causes Heavy Slash to deal 300 magnitude damage. Most people, myself included, interpreted the tooltip as Heavier Slash causes your next Heavy Slash to deal an additional 300 mag damage from the base damage, or 435 mag (300+135).
I am not sure if this is a bug or a poor reading of the feat. In light of this information, I would say that it's safe to say that Heavier Slash is clearly inferior to Weight of Vengeance, whether it is Heavy Slash canceling reasons or for raw damage reasons.
Therefore, Heavier Slash needs a buff of some form to make it a better feat, whether it is aiming to make the function match the tooltip (give 435 mag Heavier Slash on proc) or take peoples' suggestions for other things Heavier Slash could do.
The mathematical check is in the spoiler:
The character used
The log
100 x 3.0 x 1.04 = 312.0
where 100 is the weapon damage, 3.0 is 300 magnitude, and 1.04 is 16 STR (16 * 0.025).
Comments
Normal redq, FBI. Your super feat. I remind you, that in the same place for example GWF has got +25% crit sev or +10% hp/-5% power. FEAT.
Before you accuse me, my stats without scaling:
So please, next time if you will talk about something, use arguments. I am not one week GF toon who doesn't know GF mechanics. If you want to use underperforming skills & feats - you're free. I saw your build. Awesome solutions like use second wind & tanner's ring passive + envenomed. Wow so smart. FYI chitters fang > manticore/tanner's passive. But lets go. Also you:
"Deep Breathing : +4% dmg and inc heal for 10s every 3s spent dug in, stacks 3 times
- This simply takes too long to have any practical use in party combat, +12% damage dealt in solo play is very handy tho."
Stay 9 sec on tab to get 10 sec buff. Solo play. Where do you use it? Hellpit once per year? Yeah, handyyyy. Or maybe you write on party chat "wait guys, I must wait 10 sec for my bonus".
If you use knight's valor you should know that something wrong is with your build.
"Knight's Challenge : 50% stamina restored, 80m when blocking for 8s (0,75s, 21,8cd)
- Threat generated (when guarding): 80*3,6 = 288m
- I personally never use this, as all stamina issues is handled by my eclipse enchantment"
Sure, eclipse > elven. Very good. Because 3k deflection and once per 60 sec refill stamina is better than regular stamina regen and cc resistance. Did you ever play endgame content?
So please man, first of all look at yourself, then accuse or give me proof of your "super feats/encounters" + other armor enchantments more useful than elven. I am waiting.
I dont understand what that piechart is supposed to prove.
I dont see how your stats are relevant in this "discussion".
How " Or maybe you write on party chat "wait guys, I must wait 10 sec for my bonus"" can be an apropriate comment to the statement "This simply takes too long to have any practical use in party combat" beats me.
Why is it wrong to use Knights Challenge ?
"Did you ever play endgame content?" Yes.
"Sure, eclipse > elven." I still have made no comments about armor enchants and their qualities. For the thrid time I can say that I think replacing a feat based on what an armor enchant can/can't do is stupid.
Sorry for keeping you busy joebot, but I figured now would be a good place to discuss any changes to Fighter DPS, especially regarding that one "feature" that seems to be somewhat common knowledge. The most important changes are the ones retaining to the Heavy Slash cancel.
Do note that there are other problems that exist, such as Heavier Slash being inferior to Weight of Vengeance, or some feats/powers/etc being completely useless, but the main focus is trying to re-tool Fighter to be a decent enough DPS without being reliant on cheesing out twice as many dailies and At-will damage to keep up.
Heavy Slash
Get rid of the ability to cancel Heavy Slash with Seethe (canceling Heavy Slash with regular Guard is fine).
Crushing Blows
Lower base damage to 120 magnitude.
Buff base chance to 30% rather than 20%.
Write out how the mathematical ratio works
Move to Tier 5 (swaps places with Bloody Reprise).
Executioner's Cut
Allow the 50 magnitude procs to trigger off of Critical hits (leave the "gain 3 Vengeance when striking a target at 30% or less HP" as is).
Rolling Hatred
If you adjust Crushing Blows to be placed in the Tier 5 spot, nerf the Vengeance gain to 3 Vengeance per Critical Hit. Otherwise, do nothing.
Bloody Reprise
Keep base effect, in addition to completely eliminating passive Vengeance drain in combat (feats/powers/etc which drain Vengeance should continue to drain meter).
Vengeance (mechanic)
Allow player At-wills to generate 1 Vengeance per hit.
Allow the damage buff to start at 25% meter (10% buff at 1/4th meter), capping at 20% buff for the meter being half or above (same as live).
Heavier Slash
Raise the base damage of the effect to 380 magnitude and chance to proc to 25%.
OR
Lower the base damage of the effect to +125 magnitude, lower the duration of the effect to 5 seconds, but make Heavier Slash reduce the cooldowns of your currently recharging encounter powers by 15%.
Griffon's Wrath
Lower the cast time of the 3rd hit to 1 second.
Knee Breaker
Lower base cooldown to 14 seconds, then change attack to a 500 magnitude DoT that ticks over 5 seconds.
Striker's Mark
Fix the bug that allows you to poach the buff from allied player Wicked Reminder, allied player Commander's Strike, allied player Disarming Takedown, and allied played Thorn Ward.
Then, replace with a new feat.
Into the Fray
Now causes player attacks to deal 60 magnitude damage (ICD: 0.45 seconds) for 5 seconds in addition to increasing player & allies' movespeed by 10% for 5 seconds.
No longer refills stamina.
Costs 15 Vengeance to use.
Determination
Make this daily attack cost 50% of Action Points to use rather than all of your AP.
Ricochet, Landwaster, Steady Vengeance, and Heated Vengeance
Replace effects with something entirely new, nobody uses these effects.
Shield Talent
Buff Stamina regen bonus to the range of 7.5% through 10%.
Vigorous Strikes
Make it add 12.5% Crit Severity relative to how full your Stamina (or Vengeance meter) is.
Explanation for changes to Heavy Slash, Rolling Hatred, Bloody Reprise, Crushing Blows, and Executioner's Cut
The suggested changes to all of these feats are intended such that you can get rid of the cancel, but still have roughly the same At-will base damage, if not slightly more to help compensate for the loss of a second daily in terms of damage.
Crushing Blows and Bloody Reprise should swap places such that the player is presented with an actual choice in Tier 3 on how they want to help refill Vengeance: more steady refill that is best over time (Rolling Hatred) or for players than plan to consume a lot of Vengeance in a short period of time (Bloody Reprise). Additionally, Tier 5 would then be a similar choice on how the player wants their extra procs of damage: large amounts more rarely (Crushing Blows) or lower amounts over time (Executioner's Cut)
If players can take Crushing Blows in Tier 5, then Rolling Hatred should be adjusted to 3 Vengeance per hit to reflect the fact that a player can take both Rolling Hatred and Crushing Blows in the same build. You should not be able to just write off the Vengeance consume of Crushing Blows with Rolling Hatred, Rolling Hatred should just partially mitigate the effects of Crushing Blow.
Adjusting Bloody Reprise to also have a Steady Vengeance-like effect would make Bloody Reprise more unique.
Crushing Blows and Executioner's Cut make it so players get get sort of the same damage on At-wills but without needing to cheese: Executioner's Cut is the consistent easy to use option that occurs often while Crushing Blow occurs less often but hits harder.
The feats would look something like this if these suggestions are considered:
Notes about adjustments to Crushing Blows:
A very common suggestions is to get rid of the ArmorPen/ratio formula entirely, which is a reasonable idea considering how frustrating it was to find the formula (which I don't even know is correct). If you take my suggestion to pit Crushing Blow against a newly revised Executioner Cut in Tier 5, then you need the feats to function a bit differently so you aren't choosing between "stronger Executioner's Cut that consumes a bit of Vengeance" and "Executioner Cut". Hence why I suggest to keep that silly ArmorPen/Power formula, but raise the base chance to 30% so your average player challenging Zariel will have a ~11% chance to proc Crushing Blows.
Speaking of the formula: it took a lot of sleuthing, but data Sume and I gathered seems to point towards the proc chance being: 20% * (ArmorPen/Power). For most players challenging Zariel now, you will have ~9% Crushing Blow proc chance (20% * (90,000/200,000)). Please just write out the formula on these ratio type feats so players like me don't go insane getting a bunch of data.
Explanation for Vengeance (mechanic) changes
Allow At-wills to generate a small bit of Vengeance to make up for the fact that players are going to have a tank absorb most attacks and cannot be playing using the intended counter attacker style. 1 Vengeance per hit isn't a lot and will not overshadow effects which help the player generate more Vengeance, but it's something such that players aren't completely dead in the water and have to take Rolling Hatred feat all the time.
Let the damage buff occur at smaller portions of the meter such that the damage buff is more dynamic and responsive to the situation in combat, rather than being a case of all or nothing with the buff.
Explanation for Heavier Slash change
I believe the original design behind the feat was that you could get an additional 300 magnitude, with one method being reliable but eating your meter (Weight) and the other not eating your meter but not being active when you want it (Heavier Slash).
Theoretically, this is one of the most balanced choices. However, almost everybody picks Weight for its reliability for burst attack windows, in addition to not being able to proc Heavier Slash off of using Heavy Slash cancel (if you could proc Heavier Slash off of using Heavy Slash, then Heavier Slash would be superior). Thus, the feat needs a slight rework to make it useful and unique.
My first suggestion aims to make the feat about on par with Weight of Vengeance (slightly less theoretical DPS, but you trade a small bit of damage for slightly more reliability).
My second suggestion aims to make the feat unique relative to Weight of Vengeance with the cooldown reduction aspect: you deal less damage immediately, but can deal much damage over time with the cooldown reductions.
Explanation for Griffon's Wrath change
The power's only problem is the stupid 3rd hit animation that takes a long time to cast while you get hit out of the attack or the enemy walks out of your range.
Simply lower the animation time on the 3rd hit only and the power is fine.
Explanation for Knee Breaker change
This power is not used at all due to its long cooldown and relatively poor base damage. I suggest reworking it to a DoT based power such that it stands out relative to other powers.
If you want an easy, consistent option that works even if you have to run away for mechanics, use Knee Breaker. If you want to use a power that hits harder, you have to make a sacrifice in some other form (meter drain, longer cooldown, etc).
Explanation for Striker's Mark Change
If you are wondering what I mean, have any of the following powers applied to a target: Wicked Reminder (Rogue), Thorn Ward (Warden Ranger), Disarming Takedown (Sentinel Barbarian), and Commander's Strike (Fighter).
Then, cast Mow Down while you have the Striker's Mark feat. You should get the +400 magnitude bonus damage from Striker's Mark and the debuff should be cleared from the target.
I don't think this is intended and is only possible because all of those powers are the literal exact same debuff, so I would suggest remaking the entire feat.
Explanation for Into the Fray Changes
This ability is useless in PvE and kind of niche for cheesing PvP.
In PvE, there is no point in using it unless you like using it to run faster, as it literally does not help your offense and takes too long to recharge. It would be fine as is if placed in the Vanguard spec, but then Stamina Regen on Vanguard is covered by Knight's Challenge, so Knight's Challenge & Into the Fray would both recover Stamina and be doing the same thing. In PvP, the Stamina Regen makes the power problematic, as all it does is it allows you to take as much punishment as a tank spec, while having ridiculous base damage to slaughter any counter attackers.
So, instead, make the power do something different as a self buff that costs Vengeance to cast. To be honest, I wish there were more powers and passives which drained Vengeance such that meter management is an active part of the gameplay, but I don't know how far you are willing to change things.
Explanation for Determination Change
This power is not too helpful. It is overshadowed by Bladed Rampart on tank for the "not dying" utility and is overshadowed by all of the raw damage daily attacks (Earthshaker, Shockwave, Mow Down).
I would suggest making the power consume only half of your Action Points such that the power has a niche relative to the rest of the attacks. You get less damage up front relative to a raw damage daily attack, but can use the daily attack twice as many times to proc "on daily attack" bonuses such as the Arcturia's Music Box set.
Explanation for Ricochet, Landwaster, Heated Vengeance, and Steady Vengeance
These effects are completely useless, outshined by other options, and need total overhauls to be a useful option.
Explanation for Shield Talent changes
2% is useless and had to be figured out by looking at the tooltip. Changing the bonus to something in the range of 7.5% through 10% should make it useful.
Explanation for Vigorous Strike Changes
Adding 10,000 Crit Strike is useless. I personally would have let the Critical Chance go past the Critical Cap, but making the bonus add 12.5% Crit Severity should be fine (not 25%, since that would be the same as giving Vanguard Barbed Strikes. Then you'd have the Sentinels clamoring for Barbed Strikes as a universal class feature...).
12.5% Crit Severity amounts to a ~4% DPS increase assuming a base Critical Severity of 110% and assuming a capped Critical chance of 50%. This should be somewhat similar to Enduring Vengeance, which is a ~3-4% DPS increase.
Reave: Increase magnitude from 30 to 45
just saying its already magnitude 45 on live so thats not an increase its the same
Landwaster Feat: Using a Daily Power triggers the Landwaster effect (5 seconds). Landwaster effect: At-Will powers deal double damage.
Vanguard:
First of all, gearing needs to be made easier for tanks. They are expected to stack both offensive and defensive stats to hold aggro and survive, unlike dps and healers who focus on only certain stats. This makes it harder for a new player to begin tanking end game content in comparison.
On top of that, there is a huge variety of offensive rings and companion gear but a shortage when it comes to defensive gear. Why hasn’t a defense/deflect or deflect/crit avoid ring been made available in 3 years?
Knee Breaker: I get the reason for long cooldown, you don’t want people having too much uptime on the slow for PvP, but in PvE this power is very useless. Make it so that if the target is control immune, the cooldown is reduced by 8 seconds instead of slowing the target for 8 seconds. Now it might be worth slotting.
Enforced Threat: Add a damage component to this so that it’s still useful when the tank has aggro already. Linebreaker is a 160 magnitude damage engage so there’s no reason this shouldn’t have 150 or so. Then it can compete with linebreaker/shield slam for an encounter slot in AoE fights.
Knight’s Challenge: This, much like Knee Breaker, suffers from having long cooldown due to providing an effect with duration. Make this a toggle! Sacrificing one encounter slot to deal 80 mgn damage whenever you block is an interesting mechanic. Currently, sacrificing one encounter slot to deal 80 mgn damage 1/4rd of the time is just dumb.
Iron Warrior: Reduce cast time. Also reducing cooldown along with the active time would make this more interesting to use. It’s much more engaging to use this every 12 seconds with 4 second uptime than it is to use it every 24 seconds with 8 second uptime. But the cast time must be reduced first so that 4 seconds can be used more effectively.
Knight’s Valor: This is so niche that it won’t ever be useful unless you specifically design a boss where it is. I don’t even have a suggestion on how this can be improved. Just delete it and make a new encounter instead. The new encounter should probably have some stamina recovery component since there’s only 1 encounter(Knight’s Challenge) that provides that currently and that’s basically useless unless changed.
Determination: Add a size increase animation to this for the duration. It will make it easier to tell in crowds when it’s active/over. Also it was fun
Phalanx: Useless most of the time. It could be useful in LoMM boreworm boss but the CC there interrupts this. Stop that CC from interrupting it.
Dig In: Make it cancel animations like regular Block does. Currently, it’s possible to immediately block by using regular Block briefly to cancel current animation then switching to Dig In right after. But that’s unintuitive and makes usage a hassle. Another hassle is the fact that you can’t rotate while using it. You can already throw the Retaliate in any direction you want by holding “W” and looking in the direction you want to use it in. It also blocks in all directions. So there is really no reason for its animation to lock you in one direction. It only makes usage feel more clunky.
Retaliate: Very fun! One of the best things about the Vanguard. Maybe make it receive effects of cooldown reduction so we can use it a bit more often.
Path of the Vanguard: Remove the 10% reduced damage component. Vanguard already does less damage than dps based on the fact that there aren’t any damage buffs or high magnitude encounters in its toolkit. On top of that, stacking defensive stats means offensive stats won’t be as high anyway. This removal will help in aggro generation and make the class less gimped in PvP. And speaking of PvP, instead of removing the 40% hp and stamina buff entirely, maybe cut it just in half to see how that works out. Currently the tank paths are very pointless in PvP without it.
Vigorous Strikes: Currently does not seem to increase the crit rate 10% if you’re already at cap. Fix it so that it works past the cap.
Enduring Warrior: The way the game works currently, if you take damage when your HP is below 25%, you’re likely dead anyway because all the hits are so large. 5% reduction won’t have any uptime. Make it so that when your HP goes below 25%, you take 5% less damage for 10 seconds. This way it’ll actually have some uptime when you get healed too.
Critical Deflection: This has too many ifs and whens and an internal cooldown. The amount of stamina it gives should be increased for it to actually matter.
Combat Balance: Give us the formula!
Deep Breathing: Make it activate for 10 seconds after every Retaliate. Remove the stacking mechanic and make it a 5% flat bonus and add a damage reduction to the bonuses too. This way it will encourage using Retaliate(The best thing about the class) as often as possible.
Dreadnought:
Heavy Slash: Reduce cast time to 0.5 seconds so Dreadnought doesn’t have to animation cancel to compete with other dps.
Reave: Reduce cast time to 0.3 seconds so it’s more in line with Heavy Slash.
Into the Fray: Add an AoE damage component to it so it can compete with Shield Slam for an encounter slot. None of the current effects are ever really desirable.
Griffon’s Wrath: Speed up the animation. It takes too long to land all 3 hits and even if you can, it’s not really worth it as you could just be using an instant encounter like shield throw then place a lot of Heavy Slashes instead by the time animation is complete. Alternatively increase the magnitude.
Steady Vengeance: Kind of pointless. Vengeance gauge already fills up with Seethe while blocking, so why slot a feat just to keep it steady? Make it so that this allows slow movement while seething. Though that requires a new animation so likely won’t happen.
Check retaliate again. Maybe it currently counts as an attack type that already receives effects of cool down reduction? 🧐
I disagree with your request to remove the -10% dmg dealt, as it would make some endgame tanks even stronger damage dealers. Current threat modifier should make threat generation a non-issue if correct rotations are being utilized.
Most other suggestions for Vanguard I 100% agree on. Niche = life btw 😂
Endgame tanks can at best deal around 50% of the damage an endgame DPS deals currently. My opinion is that this number should be more around 70%. This is what the devs suggested the case would be during mod 16 preview, however it clearly fell short on that mark. Removal of the -10% damage debuff would put tanks at 60% of an endgame dps when it comes to damage dealing, which is far from what I'd consider strong. Threat is just a nice side effect. I just want tanks to deal more damage.
Current PVE playstyle for GF forces players to use vengeance restoration feat when crit procs and talent to have +5% damage when vengeance bar filled for certain time
This makes player forget about that vengeance bar at all, except annoying shielding before starting combat, and this is not fair. I would like to see fighter dps with 2 ways of build:
1) you pick vengeance restoration on crit and do less damage
2) you pick other feats that makes you watch your vengeance constantly, but as an outcome you deal more damage. I like the idea of hitting encounters in 2sec window after vengeance drops lower 50% to restore it, it makes gameplay very dynamic and interesting.
currently issue is that build which does not require player watch vengeance bar is bis for PVE. I personally would like to have rolling vengeance to restore full bar instead of 75%, this would allow more combos, for example casting double daily right after it
GF has interesting mechanics, but they are out of meta again
Would it be possible to get a fix for Vanguards Retaliate and Bladed Rampart crit chance? They currently calculate crit chance based on players critical avoidance, not mobs 🤷♂️
@joebot#9387 are you there?
Reave seems to be desgined as an AoE At-will that hits multiple targets but has lowish base damage as a result.
Whereas Heavy Slash is a single target DPS power with some finger work or something you throw onto the enemy every 12 seconds for the buff (idk which interpretation of Heavy Slash is more correct).
Whisperknife and Hunter exist. Well, until Joebot does whatever he plans to do with Sume's Hunter feedback, then we'll see how Hunter stacks up.This is part of the problem with the Heavy Slash cancel: if you can do it, you basically solve all your issues with DPS. If you can't do it, then you actually are a subpar DPS. Given the silence and considering how Thaumaturge's Shatter Strike was handled (was bugged for a while, reported multiple times, no changes made), I think that there will be not much, if any more changes.
I believe that the Heavy Slash cancel is purposely not going to be adjusted/changed/whatever due to making the spec's damage passable if you use it, in the same way Shatter Strike makes Thaumaturge a good DPS.
My apologies for the delay in response. We are combing through a ton of your feedback and making adjustments while trying not to push any class too far. I want to provide an update on the changes we made so far:
Bug Fixes
- Striker's Mark: The description was changed to match the functionality. This allows Fighter daily powers to gain the 400 magnitude benefit from any source of the physical vulnerability up debuff, not only Commander's Strike.
- Commander's Strike and Mow Down: Added proper tagging to these powers so they gain the benefits of powers that increase melee damage such as the Swordman's Perk.
Adjustments- Feats
- Ricochet: Shield Throw now bounces to up to three nearby enemies dealing 10% less damage to the second target, 20% less damage to the third target, and 30% less damage to the fourth target. Attacks that hit more than one enemy allow Shield Throw to be used without triggering a cooldown.
Thank you for your patience in all of this, we look forward to bringing you more!I didn't expect you guys to turn it as an "intended" feature, but okay. Though I would like to note that most players will not make use of Striker's Mark to begin with due to most of the physical debuff powers being pretty terrible in terms of cooldown or damage.
In the rare circumstances that players do use a "debuff" power such as Ray of Enfeeblement, Wicked Reminder, or likely the new Commanding Shot on Hunter, it is because those powers already do good damage to begin with. The extra debuff is a slight bonus that people let run in the background, not a decisive bonus that is used when everyone wants to rotate.
(That last part was part of the fun parts of the old buffs: it felt like a team was fighting together and collectively waiting to time an attack and not just 6 solo runs, even if the mathematics of old buffs were broken). The change is appreciated, but it ends up being a buff to the tank path moreso than the DPS path.
Even with the change to Knee Breaker's cooldown, the power isn't worth using on the DPS side due to many other DPS powers being better.
-Two Griffon's Wrath hits deal much more damage and has the same cooldown (the cast time is longer, but not that much longer). If you get the 3rd Griffon's Wrath hit (and can deal with that silly 3rd hit animation), you obviously deal way more damage than any other encounter power that isn't Weight of Vengeance + Anvil.
-While I don't see many using Commander's Strike in general, Commander's Strike is more worthwhile to slot over Knee Breaker due to hitting slightly harder and has the debuff for the mere cost of waiting 2 more seconds.
-Bull Charge has a significantly shorter cooldown (4 seconds shorter) and only deals slightly less base damage than Knee Breaker. Players can also opt to use Momentum to make the power hit harder than Knee Breaker and most other encounters.
Knee Breaker needs more buffs, but, I personally do not think it should be in the form of base damage or cooldown.
I would rather see the power gain a different identity besides "something to slap on for more damage" and "slows a single target", even it means lowering the base damage of the attack to make room for this new special effect.
This is because any changes to base damage/cooldown is just changing which powers have the best magnitude per second and making the powers good because of numbers, not because powers do something unique besides "deal a lot of damage with different animations".
Slowing targets isn't very useful, as slows are useless in PvE. In PvP, players seem to just go for the route of overwhelming players with base damage, such as Shield Throw/Bull Charge+Momentum/Weight of Vengeance+Anvil setup. I was hoping you would change it completely, but I suppose this works for making the feat more useable.
This power essentially turns Shield Throw into a hard hitting AoE "At-will" that hits only 4 targets and takes up an encounter slot. If you are planning to attack more than 4 targets, use Prepared Slam, 4 or less, use Ricochet.
Richochet could be useful for players that aren't killing things quickly. But though I don't think many players will swap off of Prepared Slam for AoE damage due to Prepared Slam being a less "intrusive" feat (just slap Heavy Slash on a target, then use your AoE powers as you normally would) and Prepared Slam affecting more than 4 targets.
If Ricochet is chosen as a feat, I highly suggest removing the stun on shield throw, if only so you don't get some stupid PvP cheese involving an infinite stunlock and pinatas or something.
Or impose a PvP specific penalty that gives an internal cooldown of ricochet of some amount like 8 seconds, or reduces the base damage of the attack.
For your sake and before the pitchforks and torches come out, I hope they get announced soon and are focused on single target damage or, more hopefully, making the playstyle more involved.
Right now, Fighter DPS is only borderline passable because it is a large block of numbers to throw at enemies, and not because playing it requires that much in thinking.
Thanks for your answer and the new 'adjustments'. I have already thought that our feedback does not matter... But it is nice to read that you "look forward to bringing [us] more!"
But these two adjustments are not really useful at all. Knee Breaker is still not good enough to be used, like rjc9000 explained. After reading your adjustments I have one big question to you (and the other devs):
Do you think that our Fighter is in line with the other DPS classes?
Because if you did not think so, you would give us more useful adjustments, like the ones we have suggested. I got the feeling, that you think that our Fighter is good balanced. Are there some new Mod 18 statistics from TOMM? It opens the discussion about class balance again. But I personally do not think, that our Fighter is really balanced with the other classes. We maybe need about 10% more damage to be in line with most of the other classes. It is not that much like in Mod 17 but that are still about 10% less damage. That is a disadvantage. Or is it intended that the Fighter is the worst DPS class in the game (for single target)? That would explain why you are so hesitant with a real Fighter damage buff.
A short statement would be really nice. If I am right with my assumption, some more useful adjustments will be very nice. Thanks for reading and the communication with us.
Change the effect to looks more useful:
Whenever you attack you have a chance to deal a crushing blow consuming 5 vengeance to deal an additional 100 magnitude damage. You chance to deal a crushing blow is 20% when your armor penetration is at least half or more to your power, and decrease the lower your armor penetration.
I originally read the feat as "if your Shield Throw hits multiple targets, use Shield Throw again with no cooldown".
It was unclear that the intended effect is different, which is "your AoE attacks which hit multiple targets have a 10% chance to give you a cooldown-free use of Shield Throw".
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Also, I can't see anybody using this feat at all. It's yet another Heavier Slash versus Weight of Vengeance problem: why bother spamming At-wills for a small chance for the proc when you can just outright kill things with high base damage and Prepared Slam?
Honestly, I'm wondering if you could you just scrap the feat entirely and make it something completely different?
weight of vagance decrease the cooldown of anvil of doom by 4 sec and increase the magnitude, so every 12 sec you have an encouter with 1060 magnitude.
in a 1 minute fight:
60 sec/12sec=5 uses of anvil of doom => 1.060*5=5.300 total magnitude
60sec/4sec=15 uses of heavier slash =>435*15=6.525 total magnitude
this was my tought when i choose the feat, plus with heavier slash your vegange gauge will not deplete, so in dungeon you have fixed +25% damage (20 from vengeance and 5 from enduring vengeqance).
heavy slaash is always in slot for the +5% buff and you can slot commander's strike to help the player that deal physical damage (btw xuna benefit from commander's strike) and buff yourself and synergize with striker's mark.
i think that heavier slash is a good feat
AoE (Tremor + Onslaught) Using Heavy Slash to proc Prepared Slams.
Single Target - (Commander's Strike + Griffin's Wrath) The GW is laggy and deals about the same damage as CS because of it. The advantage of using it over Anvil of Doom is that you actually spam Reave in Single Target, since it procs the Heavier slash buff 2.5x more often than Heavy Slash itself. Use Heavy Slash when procced only.
if they return GW as a charge power with the old animatione it would solve all his related problem.
reave deal 45 magnitude every 0,4 seconds (like relentless slash of the barbarian in unstoppable), with a 112,5 magnitude every second; brazen slash deal 75 magnitude every 0.5 sec for 150 magnitude every sec.
if you want to increase the damage you could decrease the cast time of reave to 0,3; reave at 0,3 will deal 150 magnitude every second, ad will proc heavier slash more often; then reurn GW as it was (a 3 charge power with a 350 magnitude and cooldown of 5 sec per chrage ( every 5 sec you have a charge back)).
the new ricochet can be procced by at-will, so for aoe:
ricochet + blody reprise -> restore vengeance
if you return GW as it was, you can use an encounter every 5 sec so for st:
GW+blody reprise ->restore vengeance
with this crushing blow can be used for burst damage and there is a good source of vengeance to keep the bar full, but every time you proc blody reprise you lose the buff from enduring vengeance.
landwaster can be used too because you can restore your vengeance again with shield trow or GW.
personally i use roiling hatred to keep my vengeance full, and executioner's cut to deal more damage, i might lose in burst damage but don't have to worry abount my vengance bar, so i keep always +5% from enduring vengeance.
would be nice to have a synergy with executioner's cut, so that he consume vengeance to deal more damage but not so much that can't be kept at max with roiling hatred (like you lose 5 vengeance and your encounter and daily deal 100 more magnitude when enemies have 50% or less hp).
the fighter dreadnought is the only class (that i play) with this degree of synergy.
You can use Prepared Slam with any regular AoE powers, play the same as you normally would, and just one hit entire hordes of of enemies with high base damage. Or you can use Ricochet and spend more time killing enemies for the chance of getting a free AoE attack which hits 4 enemies.
Heavier Slash is much more useful than Ricochet and is very balanced to Weight of Vengeance assuming you play by the rules.
The existence of the Heavy Slash cancel renders Heavier Slash useless, because you can't trigger Heavier Slash off of regular Heavy Slash. The cancel also allows you to attack with Heavy Slash so fast that you can deal more damage in the same amount of time as getting a Heavier Slash proc. Reave's first hit casts for 0.4 seconds and second hit for 0.6 seconds, with no changes to magnitude on cast time. Unless you plan to only use the first hit, the real MPS of Reave is 90.
Brazen Slash's first and second hits take 0.5 seconds to cast and the third hit takes 0.65 seconds to cast. Unless you plan to never use the 3rd hit (which takes so long to circumvent that you end up losing damage trying to do so), the real MPS of Brazen Slash is 136.
Heavier Slash only causes Heavy Slash to deal 300 magnitude damage. Most people, myself included, interpreted the tooltip as Heavier Slash causes your next Heavy Slash to deal an additional 300 mag damage from the base damage, or 435 mag (300+135).
I am not sure if this is a bug or a poor reading of the feat. In light of this information, I would say that it's safe to say that Heavier Slash is clearly inferior to Weight of Vengeance, whether it is Heavy Slash canceling reasons or for raw damage reasons.
Therefore, Heavier Slash needs a buff of some form to make it a better feat, whether it is aiming to make the function match the tooltip (give 435 mag Heavier Slash on proc) or take peoples' suggestions for other things Heavier Slash could do.
The mathematical check is in the spoiler:
The character used
The log
100 x 3.0 x 1.04 = 312.0
where 100 is the weapon damage, 3.0 is 300 magnitude, and 1.04 is 16 STR (16 * 0.025).