Patch Notes 12/09/2025

[mazi761111]

Choose new tactics and relentless changes are almost no different
punt The tactical trap wasted 3.5 seconds in the air for 5 seconds. 1 second left after landing. A lot of extra。 relentless 100 more damage to the last attack.
I doubt dev has tested its own changes

[fatelvis]

Chosen wasn't supposed to be buffed with this patch, it was a compensation for the hit they took with the new setup of aoe and st buffs/debuffs.
If it feels the same like prepatch they've done a good job. If it feels like a slight buff they might even need to tone it down a bit. (jk)

[Shieldslam]

Oh, and also im a bit annoyed at those people who cried on forums about last tick of relentless being OP...not because they've expressed their opinion, but because they didnt do their "homework" and provided an ungrounded feedback/judgement which, quite likely, affected both the community's and, whats most important, devs' sentiment.

I'm one of those who voiced his concern about the potential Chosen DPS, though that was when the last tick was 50% each and the new dot was spirit instead of phys. On paper, like many things, this seemed rather overtuned even with losing resist debuff on aura. However! it's important to note that, as said by others before, even the previous dpsbuff didn't really do anything in a more coordinated and constructed environment. Rather, my comment, and maybe others too?, was aimed specifically at 1v1/solo roaming as Chosen already has quite the strong presence there so bumping the dps up wouldn't be healthy though obviously barely anyone seems to cares about that aspect of the game so whatever I suppose.

[fatelvis]

To be fair, solo roaming and maybe duo or meme parties are the only environments 2h tank dps matters. Everywhere else you got your DPSs and a whole other job as tank.
So it's fine to see it in that aspect.

[Alubert]

How can you complain about Chosen's current state?
Chosen is strong.
He's weaker than Knight, but I accepted that a long time ago.
Knight can only invest in defense.
Chosen's only weakness is that he needs to secure a large amount of crit to make his best tactic work.
This makes his snb spec weak because in order to use CP, I sacrifice so much defense that I am weaker than a 2h def spec (the 2h tactic means that there is no problem with crit). This makes 2h spec > snb spec.
The only change I would like to see in Chosen is the return of the old CS and the removal of Daemonclaw and CP in its place.

[nocturnalguest]

I have to disagree with the sentiment of "the devs lack the competence so they'll **** it up". How about, you know, do it well instead of badly? BG focuses on debuffs, aoe damage and aoe debuffs. IB does focus on ST buffs and ST damage (which is neglectable on snb, so this mostly affects 2h). So it has less range and hits less targets. The IB with a on hit generation of grudge is STILL weaker than a BG (generation is limited by a internal cooldown iirc, so range matters here). This also does not explain why the absorb bubble on the IB is only absorbing non physical damage while having to spend attribute points to get it. I'll even go ahead and say 2h BG is way more defensive and tanky than 2h IB, due to parry tactic (which in turn needs high hatred and is the single reason 2h BG is surviving in WBs while the aoe debuffs make it viable). I'd say, fix the absorb and the class resource generation and then the classes are still sufficiently different from each other while not being out matched so blatantly.

You miss understood me with "devs lack the competence", its about they do have their own perspectives and what you/me/others say is irrelevant, they do move on with their own none public goals and vision. You/me/others may not like what they have planned. And im fine with how it is now, assuming all pros&cons im convinced IB could use only minor tweaks, and for any major change like grudges we will have to pay with something, be it dmg or surviveability or whatever and me personally not ready for that.
Good example is heavy blow, it used to have main stat scaler of 240 at 800 str, just like murderous wrath atm but was for no real reason butchered and now heavy blow main stat scaler is 160 at 800 str, balance team reasoning is clear - too much burst 2h IB brings in competetive organised environment (and this leads to my points about that it wont come without a cost so im against lobbing it). Was it a problem? No, never. But change is done. Hence im saying (ill rephrase a bit) - no straight up buff for IB is to be expected without a big cost of losing something else.

Grudge/hate generation is very tricky and deep question, its gonna be totally out of control dmgwise for competetive organised environment if 2h IB will just get grudges on hit for free. It wont affect oRvR so much of course, cause dmg is irrelevant there, but mark my word - if IB gets grudge on hit as basic its damage will be lowered.

In regards to other points:
a) defensive. first, there is no reason to run 2h IB in warband to begin with but if there would be any then IB could be built to survive just fine or even way better then BG in theory. no, 2h BG is not "way more defensive", its all about gearing afterall, for wb both can go either 7+ warlord and get that butchered (it now also decrease your own dmg) detaunt proc cause their dmg is irrelevant for orvr or uses various gear mixes for stats, BG is there for crimson+additional wounds debuff and thats it, on order kotbs does the same job and only one aoe wounds debuff to sort of balance to partywide wounds buff from WP. if say we talk about sc then IB is usually geared offensively to capitalize on its ability to do heavy bursts while BG still play a role to debuff stuff, both can be equally tanky or offensive its down to gearing. for meta wb play as BG you spend hate applying debuffs, so you cant stay at 100 with 100% uptime, thus 20% oathbound is more reliable then potentially 25% from anger drives me (i cba to do proper calculations but you usually stuck around ~70 from my experience so its 19% parry vs none conditional 20% from IB to 2 people at best). Plus BG has to use crit tactic and wounds debuff tactic thus leaving it with only 1 tactic slot which will go for toughness.
doubt you can reason your claim anyhow on that point.
b) runic shield vs shield of rage. i'd pick runic shield over shield of rage any day. value is not that high on both of them so runic at least serves a purpose to e.g. disrupt sorc rotation or you can use it for grudge gains, it nets you 30-45+ grudges easily within 2 seconds (what it means is that runic shield is resource free in reality), its none physical nature is actually a feature not cons. problem with shield of rage it gets "eaten" way too easily with a stuff flying around, dots, procs, melee aoe etc. it all adds up of course, there are never enough of absorbs, but targeted usage of runic shield with additional component of grudge gains is imo >>> shield of rage.
runic shield absorb value could use a buff tho, cause as you mention its not core and specable, +30-40% would be nice.

Overall, i would love to see a plain buff without downsides for grudge generation (but i doubt its gonna be happening), runic shield absorb values increased by ~30-40%, AP battery spec revamp to be less dull. However what role for IB and vision balance team has is unknown thus im happy with how it is tbf.
Even with this patch IB is a pick for all content and has places. WL orvr meta is better to be changed instead of IB.

[Farrul]

How can you complain about Chosen's current state?
Chosen is strong.
He's weaker than Knight, but I accepted that a long time ago.
Knight can only invest in defense.
Chosen's only weakness is that he needs to secure a large amount of crit to make his best tactic work.
This makes his snb spec weak because in order to use CP, I sacrifice so much defense that I am weaker than a 2h def spec (the 2h tactic means that there is no problem with crit). This makes 2h spec > snb spec.
The only change I would like to see in Chosen is the return of the old CS and the removal of Daemonclaw and CP in its place.

A relevant question would be, how does the two compare in 2H damage after the patch? I'd guess 2H Chosen is still quite a bit stronger(especially itemization, no need to invest into weapon skill or sets, all into Str, toughness).

[Ravoos]

Everyone talking about KOTB and Chosen......meanwhile I am waiting for them to rework Sacrifical Stab for WE.

[Wdova]

Spoiler:

Ib is god tier for quite a while now, mostly taken over sm as secondary tank...

- AA DMG for group (1 huge reason to already bring one)
- +500 armor buff for one friendly target which you also do not have to spec (unlike bg who has to)
- 20 % perma parry buff (more like 23% now since it also buffs more iniative now)
- 10% perma crit for 1 target
- extremely survialbility with shield spec

I´d take ib over sm everyday nowdays since it provides way more utility

AA dmg for the group only if: You have melees in your group, only small scale. In WB its absolutely worthless.
+500 armor buff sinlge target with 20s CD require to HIT target. If its blocked or parried no effect on 20s CD vs 396 armor buff for 60 min from engi (also stack with pots) and armor aura from kobs with unlimited timer and cant be shattered. Common m8, common.
10% perma crit for 1 target vs 5% perfma crit for entire group on block on cobs... ehm
Extremely survivability with the shield like most tanks do, but kobs also add 20% dmg reduction for entire group while 50% damage reduction for self.
IB single target absorb bubble if hit by magic for 1 target vs SM absorb bubble for entire group that works against any damage type.

IB is god tier yet nobody want to play it and WBs prefer SM and kobs for obvious reasons. This is the reason why they get no attention. Everyone talk about them like GOD tier yet in fact they are subpar in most cases except the 20% parry buff for 1 target and AOE snare.

Ktb Vagiliance plus tactic does not give 20% damage reduction to the party, but 20% critical damage. That's a big difference.
You can't read all of Ktb's buffs because others will think he has it all at once. And that's not the case. Many buffs depend on the choice of tactics and now on mastery paths. You can't have everything.
Knight is an excellent tank, which doesn't mean that others are weak.
IB is:
10 sec punt without tactics
10% crit - you can easily maintain this buff on two dps from the party and even on someone outside the party.
20% parry - additionally, a very large buff to initiative, which gives over 23% parry and over -5 ctbc
50% outgoing HD
High str buff
High Corporeal resist buff (Jagged edge, WE, sorc, etc.)
Aoe slowdown
And most importantly, AA dmg buff.

The only thing that could be improved in IB is the Watch An' Learn skill. The WS buff should also work on oathfriends and have a 10 sec cd. There is no WS buff on the order. Maybe the devs don't want this because Destro has no equivalent to SM Dragon Talons and it's a nod to balance.

You described exactly this build: RoR.builders - Ironbreaker

Which is perfect for PvE and small scale melee party, however....

If you run this as a 2H, while it has most off important IB buffs, IB it self lose 10% damage and 5% parry tactic, on demand knockdown with DOT, mentioned burst assist damage from GBF (reason why heavy blow was tonned down and hit like a wett noodle now).

If you run this as a SnB in a warband, You loose 10% block - 5% damage taken from tactic, Oathstone that provides 6s immovable for you and the guardie and ATD that provides root/snare removals and 3s immunity for these effects. You mostly sacrifice both Ancestors Fury and Blood of grimnir for fights larger than 6v6 to take these Oathstone, Avenging the debts, Shield mastery to survive and abbility to coordinate with warband (not be snared endlesly by BOs)