Warrior Changes

[Helos]

I don't get it why any of these changes are necessary. Tanks are not losing aggro. Why do "taunts" need to generate more threat, when they already do enough. You can limit threat generation of said talents, that won't make hybrids any worse if that is the intention as they oft run the same feats/talents as "pure tanks". Same goes for scaling threat with defense. How exactly does it make any of the game/class experience better.

If tanks would lose aggro to dps, then yes there could be a need for such a change, but that is not the case (if a dps can take over the top threat spot, that is the tank's fault, unless there's a bug at play or they have a big level difference). To me the real question would be is that why high end tanks gear towards more offense than defense. Why defense heavy tanks are less efficient? It has nothing to do with threat generation, both deal enough. It is the game's content, there's simply no encounter in the game (save for some gimmick self challenges, like soloing 95 elders), that needs you to gear up with only defense in focus, so of course any tanks who wants to be more efficient will start gearing towards offense as well, to shorten kill times.

Changing Veil is again seems like an answer to a problem that doesn't really exist. Maybe it could help some low level tanks, and for that it's fine. But high level tanks are always tanks. They can't turn it on or off. They wouldn't use it, because it would reduce their damage. And damage is always better than more threat as it makes content complete faster. The only use I see it in a high level play, if someone wants to over take another tank (again, why would anyone do that, unless they were griefing a fight, but that's in my experience is very rare).

You can make all of these changes, but besides Veil (and even that only in a limited form) it won't change anything gameplay wise. The issue is not threat generation. If you want to remove hybrids or offensive tanks, it is not the threat system that needs to change, but the game content.

I feel like dawn and I are often the same person. There is no problem with threat generation at the moment. If you put out effort and do it right, it's fine. I don't think there's a need to change this at all. Changing it to align more with defense also means that tanks will have to have multiple armor sets, which is super lame. So I need a separate raid set, a tank set, and a solo set? Am I gonna respec each time too? Tanking needs to be able to be fun, and adding in alllll that stuff, doesn't sound fun. Maybe just leave it alone for a bit, and let the changes play out?

 

[Kitty the Hunter]

I feel like dawn and I are often the same person. There is no problem with threat generation at the moment. If you put out effort and do it right, it's fine. I don't think there's a need to change this at all. Changing it to align more with defense also means that tanks will have to have multiple armor sets, which is super lame. So I need a separate raid set, a tank set, and a solo set? Am I gonna respec each time too? Tanking needs to be able to be fun, and adding in alllll that stuff, doesn't sound fun. Maybe just leave it alone for a bit, and let the changes play out?

I like the idea of moving threat from damage to defense. This will increase possibilities for challenging combat confrontations tremendously. I can anticipate this being especially fun in a group, not so much in solo but I am only speaking from my own perspective now. It should be possible to increase defense with other options than armor, such as trinkets or jewelry, origin is also possible, but I suspect not as easy to implement. I would be the last person to suggest that needing several builds is acceptable. We can work this out.

 

[Dawnfire]

Without seeing any numbers, it's really hard to say how defense based threat would play out. But just on a theoretical level my issue with it is that instead of the current high risk high reward it shifts into a low risk high reward setup.

From what I've seen we have two types of tanks. Tank A stacks enough defense to be a proper tank and dumps the rest into damage (offensive tanks), Tank B dumps as much as they can into defense and rest into damage (defensive tanks). If Tank A is the main tank (this is mostly the current norm as they out threat B type tanks), they will deal even more damage and make the run go even faster. If Tank B is the main tank, they will also deal more damage, albeit by a smaller margin. Shifting into making B tanks the norm, means slower runs while also reinforcing the idea that not taking risks is more rewarding.

So without seeing exact numbers if defense becomes the main threat generating factor what most of you will see is slower EZ/Raid/Rift/Elder runs. Your tanks won't be sturdier as they already are, both kind. Threat generation is non issue for both types (save for the pointless threat race). This change would make the game experience overall worse (unless you enjoy going even slower), and would "solve" an issue that doesn't exist in the first place. Who is this change aimed for? What is the goal of it? How does it make the game experience better?

 

[Helos]

Without seeing any numbers, it's really hard to say how defense based threat would play out. But just on a theoretical level my issue with it is that instead of the current high risk high reward it shifts into a low risk high reward setup.

From what I've seen we have two types of tanks. Tank A stacks enough defense to be a proper tank and dumps the rest into damage (offensive tanks), Tank B dumps as much as they can into defense and rest into damage (defensive tanks). If Tank A is the main tank (this is mostly the current norm as they out threat B type tanks), they will deal even more damage and make the run go even faster. If Tank B is the main tank, they will also deal more damage, albeit by a smaller margin. Shifting into making B tanks the norm, means slower runs while also reinforcing the idea that not taking risks is more rewarding.

So without seeing exact numbers if defense becomes the main threat generating factor what most of you will see is slower EZ/Raid/Rift/Elder runs. Your tanks won't be sturdier as they already are, both kind. Threat generation is non issue for both types (save for the pointless threat race). This change would make the game experience overall worse (unless you enjoy going even slower), and would "solve" an issue that doesn't exist in the first place. Who is this change aimed for? What is the goal of it? How does it make the game experience better?

To tag onto this…. It also further eliminates hybrid tanks, and there does need to be so,e flexibility in gameplay. It can’t just be all square pegs in square holes.

 

[Antavious]

with defensive scaling very little will change for hybrids they will still get more threat than a standard dps. What it will do is change it so tougher tanks take the heat if there are any around also freeing up healers from there normal babysitting duties and the more dps focused ones will get to focus on dps (exactly like they want as that’s what they spec towards).

I’ve been thinking about the feat toggle idea, it would only work if it was the only option to take threat otherwise it leads to the same issues for example:

tank 1 is a dps tank who wants threat
tank 2 is a defensive tank that wants threat

normally tank 1 gets threat. if tank 2 turns on his ability he gets threat but lowers his damage then tank 1 turns on his ability and threat reverts back to normal only both are on reduced damage now considering how competitive dps tanks are about threat/there place on the dps meters I do believe this will only hurt everyone.

 

[Antavious]

the real problem is that when you stack a class that has defensive tools up against one that doesn’t there is a clear winner and that’s not right so these classes need nerfs and the correct way is to move away from damage. Either the entire class has to lose damage or the sub classes need to be separated so the defensive elements can’t work with the offensive ones. So lightning warriors as our focus need to get the threat and defence but not the offensive (granted this isn’t what most tanks currently do but they have been op forever so are gonna need time to adjust) once threat is separated from offence perhaps this process will be much easier.

it goes both ways of course and we need to think of ways to keep fury dps away from lightning builds and lightning def out of fury dps builds if we can come up with some good ideas we might just be able to keep them from nerfing the entire classes dps and be done with it.

 

[Helos]

the real problem is that when you stack a class that has defensive tools up against one that doesn’t there is a clear winner and that’s not right so these classes need nerfs and the correct way is to move away from damage. Either the entire class has to lose damage or the sub classes need to be separated so the defensive elements can’t work with the offensive ones. So lightning warriors as our focus need to get the threat and defence but not the offensive (granted this isn’t what most tanks currently do but they have been op forever so are gonna need time to adjust) once threat is separated from offence perhaps this process will be much easier.

it goes both ways of course and we need to think of ways to keep fury dps away from lightning builds and lightning def out of fury dps builds if we can come up with some good ideas we might just be able to keep them from nerfing the entire classes dps and be done with it.

That’ll make people wanting to level as lightning have a lot of fun. You’ll survive but it’ll take forever? Sounds like a terrible experience? I get you’re talking about endgame but the entire experience matters, including those just starting out. Fury done correctly already highly dominates light on dps charts. If all tanks are useless on dos charts, runs will be slower and leveling them will be wayyyy slower, and honestly less fun. Keeping people interested, including tanks, is also part of it…

 

[Antavious]

That’ll make people wanting to level as lightning have a lot of fun. You’ll survive but it’ll take forever? Sounds like a terrible experience? I get you’re talking about endgame but the entire experience matters, including those just starting out. Fury done correctly already highly dominates light on dps charts. If all tanks are useless on dos charts, runs will be slower and leveling them will be wayyyy slower, and honestly less fun. Keeping people interested, including tanks, is also part of it…

that’s why it’s important to nerf the right stuff and not do a general nerf (kinda already coved this) and I’m glad you admit lightning is lower damage (it means your on the right track)

In terms of whether tanks should not be dealing as much damage as pure DPS classes, yes this is the intent. If a character is built to be extremely defensive while still matching or even exceeding the damage of their vulnerable DPS counterparts, then that is not balanced.

So which elements make a defensive focussed lightning warrior choose a fury dps element? Here are the op elements and suggestions on how to nerf:-

phoenix strike: easily the most op move in the entire warrior armoury, the main reason I can solo anything with little or no healing and a quite big reason aggressive tanks need little defence making this move only work for fury would go a long way to killing our op status. I suggest doing something like the earth shamans spell that was recently changed and only giving the healing if you have a certain no. of fury moves on cooldown say (20% of the heal for each fury move on cooldown)

the fury D.O.T’S: slash and griffin strike both do loads of damage over time making them the main damage/threat boosting fury moves and as such a huge boost to this when hybridised hence desirable. They are very fundamental to fury’s damage potential so got to tread carefully here I recommend a debuff based on how many lightning moves you have on your weapon so that they simply wont be anywhere near as effective if you have a mix.

frenzied strikes: the problem with this is it’s a super cheap way to dump charge and free up another weapon slot for a powerful damage feat so we simply need it to be less desirable to do so a good way to do this is to make the move less desirable than charge I suggest nerfing it’s speed a bit making it more in line with the shaman wind talent that dose the same keeping its offence intact for fury players.

right on to offensive hybrids what makes them pick these dps inferior (as stated by one of them in the top quote) lightning elements? Well I think we all know by now that threat is a big one and there are already some great ideas how to change that so that just leaves defence. What makes a hybrid tank say “I spec all offensive because I have plenty of defence“? I’m pretty sure the main culprit is:-

electric disposition + spurring jolts:
this talent turns any warrior into a blocking machine and weaponises the blocks too with those cool-downs so if this where reworked so it only works for a defensive warrior it would be the end of the op defence of a almost completely focused on offence warrior. maybe it should carry a penalty to block chance for each fury move socketed to your weapon say -7.5% rendering it a “pick this or those high damage fury feats but not both”

that about covers it I’m sure the devs will like more suggestions on how to re balance these op elements than just my ideas so please share any you can come up with too.

 

[GoGoGadget]

I do not like the idea of penalties. I would even remove them from shaman as its a poor way to go. I would rather see higher scaling with power so the main portions on skills and ultimates could be lower but scaled with power so investing into one would become preferable. All these penalty things are just not intuitive and if for example phoenix strikes healing would be based on how many skills on cooldown it would become unreliable as when you need to use it you might have none on cooldown as its quite chance based. On mana regen it makes sense but on healing it doesnt. More scaling with power less non intuitive penalties.

 

[Tareco]

I do not like the idea of penalties. I would even remove them from shaman as its a poor way to go. I would rather see higher scaling with power so the main portions on skills and ultimates could be lower but scaled with power so investing into one would become preferable. All these penalty things are just not intuitive and if for example phoenix strikes healing would be based on how many skills on cooldown it would become unreliable as when you need to use it you might have none on cooldown as its quite chance based. On mana regen it makes sense but on healing it doesnt. More scaling with power less non intuitive penalties.

Seismic Shock healing isn't affect by earth feats on cd, only the 3% mana regen.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Seismic Shock healing isn't affect by earth feats on cd, only the 3% mana regen.

My point exactly

 

[Antavious]

I do not like the idea of penalties. I would even remove them from shaman as its a poor way to go. I would rather see higher scaling with power so the main portions on skills and ultimates could be lower but scaled with power so investing into one would become preferable. All these penalty things are just not intuitive and if for example phoenix strikes healing would be based on how many skills on cooldown it would become unreliable as when you need to use it you might have none on cooldown as its quite chance based. On mana regen it makes sense but on healing it doesnt. More scaling with power less non intuitive penalties.

Ok that could work as long as we half the influence of mastery (right now it’s quite easy to get a high amount of both with our specing options) might require re working it for all classes not just the ones with overpowered hybrids.

Seismic Shock healing isn't affect by earth feats on cd, only the 3% mana regen.

yeah just an example of a similar type of thing, remember this is all just theoretical brainstorming. keep the ideas/thoughts coming

 

[Doorena]

I have not played lightning warrior so I cannot speak to the technical aspects nor provide specific recommendations. I would like to give an example where threat scaling with defense works on shaman. Ultimate erosion (diamond skin) adds 30% threat generation on threat-generating attacks. There are still offensive tanky shamans who use windfury and there are defensive tanky shamans who use diamond skin. I use diamond skin and was easily able to keep aggro in an H1 orla against a high level fire wiz and I can solo H1 raids. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

 

[Antavious]

Been giving mastery scaling more thought and I don’t think it would work: main reason low lvl players can’t really afford to put points in there 40 point talent very early they need the full damage from there feats if it’s changed so feats are more mastery dependant they would need those talents and maybe a bunch of socketed runes to do anything.

 

[IrishElf]

I really love the way you all are bouncing ideas off one another. This is exactly the type of interaction that can be really helpful in developing a better balance for the game. BRAVO!

 

[Lady Hawk]

Wow, lots of great ideas!
The one that caught my attention and had to really think about was the toggle switch idea. Like many others I have 2-3 sets of gear pending what I'm focused on (ie 95 elders, rift, group raids, solo raids, etc). To take this a step further on the toggle switch idea, I don't mind having 2-3 sets of gear, it allows me to play around a bit. What I would like to see is 2 (maybe 3) character tabs (showing gear, etc) that allows me to quickly switch (toggle idea) to the appropriate gear for what I'm doing rather than storing in bags or vault. It would be convenient and quick to compare a new found drop to what I currently have on. Additionally, if the talent tree is linked separately for each character tab (2-3 talent set ups now) I could spec Pure Tank, Hybrid or pure dps. This would be a huge ask for developers obviously but I just had to put this in as an idea that generates more ideas.

Perks
1. all drops may be important now (Lightining and Fury) to each class
2. pre-raid, group can identify the tank and other tanks can switch gear to hybrid (a back-up tank) or dps
3. no more 2-3 sets of gear in my bags and vault, whohoo
4. quick way to compare drops, rather than opening up bags or going back to vault
5. another way to play around with gear and builds, always fun
Cons
1. likely a tonne of work for developers
2. some players may not like the idea of more crafting and playing around
3. more sockets (keep in mind that there are lots of ways to obtain sockets in game or buy them from item shop), devs need money too

NOTE: If you have ever played WoW they had this feature for each class (where I got the idea from). Pre-2014 before I started playing V&H I did a lot of WoW raiding (10 and 25 man), I played a Paladin with a spec (Ret-dps and holy-healer), it was a hoot, the other spec was tank which I didn't try, go figure cause I love tanking now. I'm just suggesting this as an idea if we look more towards the toggle idea and I wanted to build on the toggle switch idea.

Cheers,
Lady Hawk

 

[Math Fish]

For this multiple sets idea, even something as simple as a button that switches between 2 copies of the gear screen would do wonders. All it would need to do is give a confirmation message "Are you sure you want to switch to set #?", then upon confirmation switch the gear out as if we had switched each piece out manually (including that delay in casting out hotbar spells and removal of some buffs, yada yada). That way the only new code would be the creation of the "switching gear" script and whatever UI is needed to display multiple gear sets, and hopefully both of those would use a lot of old code.

What I feel would be much more difficult is switching between talent point loadouts, as it would probably require a lot of rewriting the base code for the talent system. So that part would be much lower on the priority list for me. After all, it doesn't take *that* long to click 130 times to change talents - maybe a few minutes.

 

[Dawnfire]

Loadout/build switching would definitely be a great boon and would solve lot of the bickering. But I believe it needs to switch both gear and talents (and maybe even relics). If it would only switch gear, you'd need to spend a hefty amount of gold (I think 50g at lvl 95) each time you switch your setup (which in some cases could be hundreds of gold a day, if you keep switching roles for each EZ run/raid/etc.), not to mention being tedious to put all points in 1 by 1. If it only switched talents, it'd be tedious to switch gear pieces, not to mention if it's in your bag, it will always be at risk of accidental selling. I can only see this system worth the work if it implents both. Relics would be comfy if it could be switched too, but it would be a low priority for me as there would probably be some overlapping so only needed to switch a few pieces at most.

 

[Antavious]

I see this as an after balance is really ironed out so the roles are definitely different kind of idea, only then will it be worth it.

 

[IrishElf]

Long ago we used to call out before a group battle, "Who is tanking". Then we'd all use lesser feats so the tank could keep aggro. The priest knew who to keep heals on to control the fight and all usually went smoothly and we killed the boss.

Right now what we have is a bunch of "tanks" who aren't really tanks or should not be thinking they are tanks; leading fights and dying. When they die the bounty goes in search of a new target, IF we are lucky. If we aren't lucky they go on a rampage and kill ever toon possible until the "tank" or A tank can get control back. Most times the result is lots of deaths.

I do not envy the task but I do thank the devs for doing this.