2H Tanks: 9001th thread edition

[th3gatekeeper]

I think first you need to set out a clear concept of what you expect a 2h tank to do and what you expect a S&B tank to do. You also need a solid means of dealing with the Guard problem, as tanks are valued because of their Guard, and 2h tanks must have some means of weakening the effect of an enemy Guard if they are forced to weaken their own through loss of shield and stacking def - be this either through superior damage when they reach the target (as tanks will generally speaking be lacking mobility) or through unique interaction.

A no-brainer first split would be to ensure that there are limits or buffs applied such that no tank can be optimally played as DPS with a 1 hander. 1 handed weapons on tanks should simply not be capable of generating the same damage as a two-handed weapon or anywhere close while retaining Block and access to shield skills.

Conceptually speaking, you could model 2h tanks around primarily offensive effects and s&b tanks around primarily defensive ones, and possibly have some abilities (like kicks?) recognize that a 2H is going to generate more power than a 1H and should be capable of a better effect (it's pretty insane that you're able to super punt people with a bloody one handed sword). This is just an idea though.

Also - drop the idea of using FO as a mandatory super-tactic. Playstyle shifter tactics are a design flaw and should be handled by toggle abilities.

Well one interesting idea could be to give 2h weapons "10% guard pass through" weakening the effect on guard making guard only do a 60/40 split rather than 50/50 - rather than block or parry pass through. Although then this would apply to ALL 2H not just tank 2H... So IDK if that would fix it or if that would be difficult to "code"....

Punt is a great way to temporarily remove guard from someone however I dont see many 2H knights running super punt (even if it were 2H restricted) just because there are too other "mandatory" tactics it seems... The length of basic punt is a little lack luster however.... There is only 1 map Punt is really even used.... I guess if you really wanted to go this route then I would probably suggest this:

(Knight Example) Banish Darkenss: Requires a 2h. Repel Darkenss will send the victim flying even further away and leave the target prone for 2 seconds upon landing. Repel Darkness can no longer be defended against.

Now it would be a useful guard-break + CC that would KEEP the tank out of guard range long enough to try and kill the guarded target. This would be a load of fun too.

Issue regarding 1h damage is that there frankly isnt much damage difference between a 1h and 2h... So a 1H can stack pure STR and deal 90%+ the same damage as a 2H but picks up the ability to block... II guess I dont get your comment about "play-style shifter" since it already is one... IF you dislike them, then why not change it to something useful?

Regarding super tactics, FO might need to be tweaked a tiny bit, mostly since the return is relatively low for the cost. Might be a case of a few percentage points more armor left tbh. Distributing the "super" among less used tactics might be an option tho, would still give more options without increasing the power to much.

Well a "no brainer" here to me would be to atleast make it "match" the other %s of similar nature - meaning a 25% increase to damage with a 20% loss of armor. Atleast it might be "less useless" if someone really wanted to spec for this... Since you would be giving up a little less armor but atleast get a modterate damage increase.

[Dreadspectre]

I think first you need to set out a clear concept of what you expect a 2h tank to do and what you expect a S&B tank to do. You also need a solid means of dealing with the Guard problem, as tanks are valued because of their Guard, and 2h tanks must have some means of weakening the effect of an enemy Guard if they are forced to weaken their own through loss of shield and stacking def - be this either through superior damage when they reach the target (as tanks will generally speaking be lacking mobility) or through unique interaction.

A no-brainer first split would be to ensure that there are limits or buffs applied such that no tank can be optimally played as DPS with a 1 hander. 1 handed weapons on tanks should simply not be capable of generating the same damage as a two-handed weapon or anywhere close while retaining Block and access to shield skills.

Conceptually speaking, you could model 2h tanks around primarily offensive effects and s&b tanks around primarily defensive ones, and possibly have some abilities (like kicks?) recognise that a 2H is going to generate more power than a 1H and should be capable of a better effect (it's pretty insane that you're able to super punt people with a bloody one handed sword). This is just an idea though.

Also - drop the idea of using FO as a mandatory super-tactic. Playstyle shifter tactics are a design flaw and should be handled by toggle abilities.

So does this mean that you'll eventually make FO a not garbage skill with a real purpose?

[GodlessCrom]

Why not just replace it with the Great Weapon Mastery that crops up in various guises throughout the Black Orc, Ironbreaker and Sword Master trees? +10% dmg, +5% parry with wielding 2her. Is that less garbage? Does anyone spec those tactics? (never played any of those classes)

[Genisaurus]

Why not just replace it with the Great Weapon Mastery that crops up in various guises throughout the Black Orc, Ironbreaker and Sword Master trees? +10% dmg, +5% parry with wielding 2her. Is that less garbage? Does anyone spec those tactics? (never played any of those classes)

You could also just replace FO with Brute Force. Less DPS benefit, but increased strikethrough and no penalty outside the opportunity cost.

[GodlessCrom]

Why not just replace it with the Great Weapon Mastery that crops up in various guises throughout the Black Orc, Ironbreaker and Sword Master trees? +10% dmg, +5% parry with wielding 2her. Is that less garbage? Does anyone spec those tactics? (never played any of those classes)

You could also just replace FO with Brute Force. Less DPS benefit, but increased strikethrough and no penalty outside the opportunity cost.

Hm, what about Focused Offense increases STR/WS by X Amount when wielding 2her? WS increases armor pen and Parry, yeah?

[TenTonHammer]

If brute force mirror please make it require 2h

no potential side effect buffs for SnB dps tanks

Also armor pen yes but parry is not affect by WS here in RoR

i dont know if that is a permenat decsion or temporary

[th3gatekeeper]

Why not just replace it with the Great Weapon Mastery that crops up in various guises throughout the Black Orc, Ironbreaker and Sword Master trees? +10% dmg, +5% parry with wielding 2her. Is that less garbage? Does anyone spec those tactics? (never played any of those classes)

On SM I have used it before.... Its not horrible, better than 15% damage and 30% less armor.... Then the issue becomes, what do you replace GWM with? Because on SM its in the Mastery tree....

"Focused Offense" to me seems like you are deciding to NOT do something in order to do something else better. In this case, you give up armor for damage.

As pointed out before, in slotting a 2H you are already giving up "armor" via block % in order for damage. So its already a big tradeoff.

I am a big proponent of increase in attack speed especially given a 2H Tank usually has 3.5 speed weapons.

So Focused Offense could even be changed to give you an increase in AA speed after X conditions, or just all the time.

I gave this example in the KOTBS thread, so you wouldnt want BOTH but you could always do something like:

"After a crit, increases your AA speed by X% for X seconds" - WP has a similar tactic.

Or could be "After receiving a crit, increases your AA speed by...." I just think those make things fun when you attack faster.


I do really like the super punt + prone thing requiring a 2H making it an "anti-guard" of sorts.... I also like 2H having 10% guard strike through as that can be key in cutting through guard making it slightly less impactful...

Things like this would make the 2H tank the "anti-guard" if thats the goal..... You could always make an ability "remove" guard but then it can be recast quickly and more than likely that just requires mod add ons etc etc... Im probably more in favor of positional guard removal via super punt + a prone

[th3gatekeeper]

Why not just replace it with the Great Weapon Mastery that crops up in various guises throughout the Black Orc, Ironbreaker and Sword Master trees? +10% dmg, +5% parry with wielding 2her. Is that less garbage? Does anyone spec those tactics? (never played any of those classes)

You could also just replace FO with Brute Force. Less DPS benefit, but increased strikethrough and no penalty outside the opportunity cost.

Hm, what about Focused Offense increases STR/WS by X Amount when wielding 2her? WS increases armor pen and Parry, yeah?

Dislike as its not hard to hit the cap on things like STR and the higher up you go, the less the marginal benefit of STR becomes.

When I was @ 600 STR I needed 13 STR to give me 1% increase in damage. @ 800 STR it was more like 17.. These were @ 32 BTW.

So 15% damage equivalent would be like 230+ STR required....

Also, you just described Runefang.... "After you parry, gives 210 STR/WS for 10 seconds"

[GodlessCrom]

A guard-pierce debuff specific to 2h tanks would be useful IMO. That avoids indirect buff to 2h dps like White Lion or Choppa/Slayer. Either one placed on the Guarding tank, or the Guarded mdps/healer: again, something like

Shieldbreaker:
reduces Damage Reduction target receives from Guard by X%. Requires Greatweapon.

@gatekeeper: ah, I see your point. Not terribly useful then? Again though, +dmg% and parry% while wielding 2her wouldn't be terrible. Have to replace the mastery tactic in all those trees though, so maybe less feasible?

[Idrinth]

Regarding super tactics, FO might need to be tweaked a tiny bit, mostly since the return is relatively low for the cost. Might be a case of a few percentage points more armor left tbh. Distributing the "super" among less used tactics might be an option tho, would still give more options without increasing the power to much.

Well a "no brainer" here to me would be to atleast make it "match" the other %s of similar nature - meaning a 25% increase to damage with a 20% loss of armor. Atleast it might be "less useless" if someone really wanted to spec for this... Since you would be giving up a little less armor but atleast get a modterate damage increase.

I don't think armor is worth that much, with 20% loss of armor, I'd vote for 14% damage - outside aoe a tank will usually be attacked with armor ignore and/or high weaponskill anyway, so there is not much armor left.
would still propose -30% armor, +20% damage there, that is closer to the actual use.

What I see as a way of making twohanded tanks(those do NOT need to be dps-tanks) viable is increasing buffs and debuffs and/or increasing mobility.
My tactic of choice for that would be the Juggernaut one, since on it's own it's relatively weak.