Sm/Bo talk only!!!!!

[mistgun]

Aza, I think Dragons talon only needs to be increased by 1-2 more sec, that's all I think. Also Eagles flight, increase by 1-2 more sec. And then I think we have a good start. I think your suggestion sounds great.

[Luth]

So what we've generally got so far being proposed, from different people:

Black Orc

- Down Ya Go to 9pts
- Arm Breaka into either a steal or a greater drain
- Tuffer 'n' Nails into a group armor buff
- Mor' Hardcore! into a long punt on R'DJ
- Da Toughest! into a group buff

Swordmaster

- Crashing Wave to 9pts
- Sapping Strike into either a steal or a greater drain
- Crushing Advance into a group armor buff
- Phantom's Blade into a group buff
- Redirected Force into a medium punt

? Dragon's Talon into an effectiveness reduction?

On Redirected Force specifically: There's an issue that we have here in that there's no obvious ability to swap with Crashing Wave. Given that T'N on BO is core, I'd suggest the possibility of setting the trees up as the following:

Crushing Advance => Crashing Wave => Redirected Force (long punt + CD increase)

+1

[mistgun]

any news aza?

lets do this!

[Coryphaus]

any news aza?

lets do this!

this will take some time to do, plus the devs have other things planned/to do as well


so lets give them time

[Fey]

The first solution is to modify any and all spec abilities that increase hate against monsters or have to do with hate at all. No one ever in the history of the game wants increased hate on a spec ability. Clobber and Graceful Strike and Enraged Blow and etc. are basic attacks that increase hate and with menace are quite enough thank you.

Phoenix's Wing: An aoe frontal attack with a 5 foot (**** kidding me?) range that increases hate (really, **** kidding me?). This is the Order attack that should be Shatter limbs, pretty much obvious. Slayer's have simultaneously superb sustained aoe damage, and the best aoe offensive utility skill by **** far. Shatter Limbs 20 sec. cooldown lasts for 10 seconds, **** your mother whoever came up with that. Phoenix's Wing should be shatter limbs, an aoe frontal 65ft cone no limit, (9 limit maybe) as opposed to a 30 ft pbaoe with no limit. Even single target this is a death sentence for whomever selected which for six mans is still a very viable tactic fer ta win.

Replace Redirected Force and Can't Hit Me, move crushing advance down. For SM another interrupt with taunt and KD, crushing advance looks tasty to me. Make these a frontal Waaaaagh yeeaalll/winds animation cooldown increase on par with Slayers Shatter Everythings. Make aoe cooldown increase un-unique instead of taking it away from Slayers. They would cry bloody murder if you take it away, (I would,) but give it to these two and how can they complain greedy worthless bastards that Slayers are. BO can still get No choppin' me and SM can still get Whispering Wind if they so desire.

Eagle's Flight: The parry buff needs to last 15 seconds, no questions asked shut up. Chosen's Suppression costs LESS AP (30 vs 35) FFS and lasts THREE TIMES LONGER! Also it doesn't need a specific stance, but it does 10 less damage; nice balance. It does have a 10 sec. cooldown, but that's great you can use more useful abilities in the meantime. Up-taining the parry buff really ruins your tine (sic) as a two-handed SM I know all about it. You pretty much use Enscorcelled every tine (sic) in your no stance. I'd like to be able to use intimidating once in awhile because you always have to snare **** with Improved.

If group absorb is sub par to a group wounds buff, add a damage shield to the absorb buff. If that is too underwhelming go ahead and add an unstoppable to the absorb, at most it will negate one attack.

After the aura changes to cho/kotbs that allow you to have 3 auras up without thinking, the stock of the BO/SM has suffered. Think about how three persistent group effects perform as opposed to group proc buffs. The short story is that they do not compute.

Make SM/BO mechanics fire on defense (dodge, disrupt, parry, block) as well as attacks, solves your two-handed off tank problem. Uless I'm mistaken the aura tanks have 9 goddamn auras to choose from if not more. Thats a great deal of choice that the proc tanks don't get. Fewer choices require more potent effects. Make the stat steal into two buffs one str/int/ball, one will,int,tough. This was suggested by someone else and I would point out that old DaoC embraced a change along these lines. They consolidated the bard/minstrel/skald buffs into two groups why can't WaR? Leave out wounds buff as it will be group.

I played a lot of SM on live, but haven't played it on RoR so I'm not really biased on that point. If there are any other spec abilities that deal with aggro/hate they need to be changed across the classes. Tactics like menace and subtlety are enough fer to pve especially until you get to high level raids like ToVL.

[Gobmarley]

Hi all.

I've just red the 5 pages of this topic. And the first question who came to me is:
We talk about a up of the SM and the BO, or just the SM and we have to do something (bad thing for me) for the BO just not hear destro crying?

I don't play the BO to heal my group, healers are done for that...
When i see armor group for a SM abylity, i want to ask for: why not up the Black Guard with group buff too, and not just his def target...

On the forum, i've red that the SM is awesome in solo and viable in group ( http://www.returnofreckoning.com/forum/ ... f=8&t=5891 )
So, The SM realy need a up, or he is awesome?

As somes said, we are just in T2, we should wait for T4 to take a decision about upgrade.
And why wanted to up an order character when all know that order character are better than destro char (and please don't tell me that i'm a pro destro player as it said to another one player)

And to finish, why wanted to change character abilities when there are a lots of things to do, i think about the WL or SH's pets bugs for exemple. Or the SH 's disarm...

[Luth]

Sm is not awesome in groups, he is actually the worst tank to fulfill the "tank-role" in a group.

The problem of both SM and BO is, that their class mechanic is not realy rewarding but very punishing compared to the other the tanks mechanics. It is also very vulnerable to lag, so switching balances while it is lagging can cost even more time.

e.g. other tanks can use their snares/knockdowns when they want, SM/BO have to be in the right stance. In the middle of the fight a 1 second (or more) delay to switch the balance can make a big difference.

The SM/BO mechanic is like playing with an iron ball chained at your leg, compared to other tank class mechanics (or class mechanics in general...).

When i see armor group for a SM abylity, i want to ask for: why not up the Black Guard with group buff too, and not just his def target...

Because the other tanks have already a huge load of group support.

The Chosen/Kotbs have generic buffs for the whole group, the BG/IB have strong buffs for single targets.

The BO has some good group support abilities and don't needs excessive buffing (like stated several times by others), but he still needs some adjustments.

The SM is crap.

That is the only "support" that a SM can bring to a group, that others can't do (much) better:
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sm; ... ;;0:0:0:0:

[Gobmarley]

Do we have to concider SM and BO like real tank? (As KotBS, IB, Chosen and BG)
I started warhammer battle 20 years ago, and i never see that SM and BO are tanks anymore. They just want to fight, fight, and fight again. But fight for them self, not for the others. I don't imagine that, it's the fluff of those characters.
In warhammer online, they are build like that too.
So you want to change the fluff of warhammer?

[Azarael]

Did you seriously just try to bring warhammer fluff into a balance discussion?

The door is that way.

If you want to set up SM and BO as more offensive characters, you still have to deal with the issue that nobody wants to take them in a group. Short of making both into MDPS, I cannot see how anyone would want to take either in that form.

And to finish, why wanted to change character abilities when there are a lots of things to do, i think about the WL or SH's pets bugs for exemple. Or the SH 's disarm...

Because I have my own agenda and I'm not just a machine for fixing your bugs. My motivation is putting this project into a state where balancing can begin. Attempts to frustrate that just annoy me and reduce that motivation.

any news aza?

lets do this!

This ended up hitting a wall in the internal chats, because nobody agrees on what should actually be done there. Everyone has their own idea of the T4 metagame. Additionally, there are objections to buffing BO, which leaves this idea completely screwed - adjusting SM without adjusting BO will cause a tsunami of

ORDER BIAS!

to fall upon the shores of RoR.


Quite frankly, I expect at this point that nothing will ever be done without the ability to modify the client.

[Luth]

@Gobmarley: not sure if trolling...

@Aza: that's very depressing to read that