Return of Reckoning

gersy wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2025 3:08 pm the new skill is definitely not useless, not sure why you would say this. it's being used by almost all IB in organized smallscale who have a double melee party, actually it's incredibly powerful ability. much better than a mediocre heal over time honestly. giving 25% AA damage buff to class like SL, WL, WH is quite powerful.

It is indeed "useless".
There has been some discussion on a matter, e.g. like this viewtopic.php?p=552386#p552378
According to last tournament Trolar did try out this thingy but perfomed much better in GBF spec laters. Cba to search for exact matches, would need to look up in discord
I still dont have parsing to prove it by numbers (cause mia and lazy ass) but im pretty much set that it aint worth speccing for outside of regular SCs in which everything works pretty much and it doesnt matter in such semirandom environments.
As for 6v6 im also set on a take that if you need dmg than GBF spec >>> BoG, simply IB alone will make up for all this percentage of AA.
BoG spec is way too gimp to outweight other options and even tho AA is a significant part of overall kill damage "25%" is playing tricks on ppl.
Maybe someone found a way for it to shine, i dont know as i barely play anymore. If you have any proper data (id value specifically 6v6 scoreboard links if you have something that you dont have to look up) i'd be happy to look at it and discuss further.

Ill repeat myself, but still, to make a proper decision of is it worth going BoG one need to parse few matches (ideally 6v6 against same comps) to find out exact weight of those 25% into mDPS. So parsing should be done on DPS (wl/slayer/wh) and IB should go as BoG vs. other spec (ideally GBF). Overall dmg and parsing details of DPS are to be compared. Havent done it myself yet, havent seen any data debunking what i think/suspect too.

nocturnalguest wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2025 7:17 pm

gersy wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2025 3:08 pm the new skill is definitely not useless, not sure why you would say this. it's being used by almost all IB in organized smallscale who have a double melee party, actually it's incredibly powerful ability. much better than a mediocre heal over time honestly. giving 25% AA damage buff to class like SL, WL, WH is quite powerful.

It is indeed "useless".
There has been some discussion on a matter, e.g. like this viewtopic.php?p=552386#p552378
According to last tournament Trolar did try out this thingy but perfomed much better in GBF spec laters. Cba to search for exact matches, would need to look up in discord
I still dont have parsing to prove it by numbers (cause mia and lazy ass) but im pretty much set that it aint worth speccing for outside of regular SCs in which everything works pretty much and it doesnt matter in such semirandom environments.
As for 6v6 im also set on a take that if you need dmg than GBF spec >>> BoG, simply IB alone will make up for all this percentage of AA.
BoG spec is way too gimp to outweight other options and even tho AA is a significant part of overall kill damage "25%" is playing tricks on ppl.
Maybe someone found a way for it to shine, i dont know as i barely play anymore. If you have any proper data (id value specifically 6v6 scoreboard links if you have something that you dont have to look up) i'd be happy to look at it and discuss further.

Ill repeat myself, but still, to make a proper decision of is it worth going BoG one need to parse few matches (ideally 6v6 against same comps) to find out exact weight of those 25% into mDPS. So parsing should be done on DPS (wl/slayer/wh) and IB should go as BoG vs. other spec (ideally GBF). Overall dmg and parsing details of DPS are to be compared. Havent done it myself yet, havent seen any data debunking what i think/suspect too.

comparing avg player to trolar is not really a good idea. a lot of games he's playing with dps oriented gear, sometimes going as far as using bloodlord weapon and axe slam m4 so naturally he's going to go in left tree. for other people, playing different comps or playstyles, it's not useless at all. i'd rather put it on an average IB player and have him play 5/5/13 for traditional SC/roaming. for 6v6, yes maybe not the play and the play is to play more points in 2h tree and ignore this buff. IB doesn't need 2h for punt tactic like other tank, so they can stay snb and go with this AA/crit/parry buff build and OHD tactic. it's surprisingly effective tbh, i mean we're using it often and seeing it working well, with 80-90% winrate in SCs i'd say it works fine. for the way my team plays and the content my team plays, most situation we'd rather BoG than GBF and definitely rather BoG than an AP pump that takes a tactic slot. you can have your own opinion ofc, there's a place for everything.

gersy wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2025 4:24 am comparing avg player to trolar is not really a good idea. a lot of games he's playing with dps oriented gear, sometimes going as far as using bloodlord weapon and axe slam m4 so naturally he's going to go in left tree. for other people, playing different comps or playstyles, it's not useless at all. i'd rather put it on an average IB player and have him play 5/5/13 for traditional SC/roaming. for 6v6, yes maybe not the play and the play is to play more points in 2h tree and ignore this buff. IB doesn't need 2h for punt tactic like other tank, so they can stay snb and go with this AA/crit/parry buff build and OHD tactic. it's surprisingly effective tbh, i mean we're using it often and seeing it working well, with 80-90% winrate in SCs i'd say it works fine. for the way my team plays and the content my team plays, most situation we'd rather BoG than GBF and definitely rather BoG than a morale pump that takes a tactic slot. you can have your own opinion ofc, there's a place for everything.

Good and interesting points you've brought for discussion, thanks!

First, the Trolar case, i believe there should be a balance between efforts put and performance. Should be top criteria for balancing and we surely don't have it here, e.g. what some people can do on engi vs avrg engi player. Difference is astonishing. However tho, im convinced that discussion should be held regardless player skills and with assumptions its perfect.

Second, average IB, yeah you've got a strong point that its easy to use, gives instant result without much efforts put. Especially good point you have about going snb for regular sc/roaming, lots of utility, even bringing htl.
However id love to argue here that BoG introduction has reduced IBs efficiency as you could previously do the same with GnM but you'd be ultimate AP battery instead of providing mere 25% AA increase. Im strongly convinced that AP >>> AA, plus another argument that AP pump has been greatly effective not only for SC/roaming but for city/orvr as well. I think that there are no arguments against that ap pump provides more damage overally then aa increase, especially opening up options like infinite id spam (dull playstyle but still very effective). So from all POV BoG introduction is a nerf to IBs allaroundness and efficiency. GnM was a great passive TyS! generator, other currently available options are not effective (you waste gcds) and very dull. Gameplay wise what we've had before was more intelligent and smart play, even taking into account that pump was passive (so you had space to better manage other gcds).

Third, GBF vs BoG, ill try to rephrase myself abit, if your IB knows the drill than it will overcompensate those 25% of AA increase by its own damage and also would open itself possibility to do much better bursts with GBF cancellation. That is demanding for your healers of course as they would have to have more attention and a bit demanding on IB movement as you have to be more careful too, of course considering that IB in this case goes offensive. However (ill try to look up those last tournament matches later, just to bring more clarity into discussion) there are examples where its clear that overall party dmg is higher if IB actually ignores BoG.

This all leads to a thesis ill try to phrase (maybe someone can word it better here): BoG has no effective applications in current meta.
Yeah its easy to use, not demanding, agree with you here but regardless there are always other options that are technically more effective.

So to clarify, its what i mean/understand then write/read things like "BoG is useless". Repeating myself but BoG should either also debuff elemental resistance by 380 as WAAAGH (instead of RP gimping itself) or be replaced back by GnM to return crucial meta build for ap pump.

nocturnalguest wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2025 8:13 am

gersy wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2025 4:24 am comparing avg player to trolar is not really a good idea. a lot of games he's playing with dps oriented gear, sometimes going as far as using bloodlord weapon and axe slam m4 so naturally he's going to go in left tree. for other people, playing different comps or playstyles, it's not useless at all. i'd rather put it on an average IB player and have him play 5/5/13 for traditional SC/roaming. for 6v6, yes maybe not the play and the play is to play more points in 2h tree and ignore this buff. IB doesn't need 2h for punt tactic like other tank, so they can stay snb and go with this AA/crit/parry buff build and OHD tactic. it's surprisingly effective tbh, i mean we're using it often and seeing it working well, with 80-90% winrate in SCs i'd say it works fine. for the way my team plays and the content my team plays, most situation we'd rather BoG than GBF and definitely rather BoG than a morale pump that takes a tactic slot. you can have your own opinion ofc, there's a place for everything.

Good and interesting points you've brought for discussion, thanks!

First, the Trolar case, i believe there should be a balance between efforts put and performance. Should be top criteria for balancing and we surely don't have it here, e.g. what some people can do on engi vs avrg engi player. Difference is astonishing. However tho, im convinced that discussion should be held regardless player skills and with assumptions its perfect.

Second, average IB, yeah you've got a strong point that its easy to use, gives instant result without much efforts put. Especially good point you have about going snb for regular sc/roaming, lots of utility, even bringing htl.
However id love to argue here that BoG introduction has reduced IBs efficiency as you could previously do the same with GnM but you'd be ultimate AP battery instead of providing mere 25% AA increase. Im strongly convinced that AP >>> AA, plus another argument that AP pump has been greatly effective not only for SC/roaming but for city/orvr as well. I think that there are no arguments against that ap pump provides more damage overally then aa increase, especially opening up options like infinite id spam (dull playstyle but still very effective). So from all POV BoG introduction is a nerf to IBs allaroundness and efficiency. GnM was a great passive TyS! generator, other currently available options are not effective (you waste gcds) and very dull. Gameplay wise what we've had before was more intelligent and smart play, even taking into account that pump was passive (so you had space to better manage other gcds).

Third, GBF vs BoG, ill try to rephrase myself abit, if your IB knows the drill than it will overcompensate those 25% of AA increase by its own damage and also would open itself possibility to do much better bursts with GBF cancellation. That is demanding for your healers of course as they would have to have more attention and a bit demanding on IB movement as you have to be more careful too, of course considering that IB in this case goes offensive. However (ill try to look up those last tournament matches later, just to bring more clarity into discussion) there are examples where its clear that overall party dmg is higher if IB actually ignores BoG.

This all leads to a thesis ill try to phrase (maybe someone can word it better here): BoG has no effective applications in current meta.
Yeah its easy to use, not demanding, agree with you here but regardless there are always other options that are technically more effective.

So to clarify, its what i mean/understand then write/read things like "BoG is useless". Repeating myself but BoG should either also debuff elemental resistance by 380 as WAAAGH (instead of RP gimping itself) or be replaced back by GnM to return crucial meta build for ap pump.

i guess for me the thing is most tanks, even "good" or above average ones, can barely get down the basic criteria of the tank gameplay; proper punts, snares, not giving enemy tank your back, reaction time on morales, guard swaps and KDs. the more things you add on to this the harder it gets to play tank effectively especially against good players. to me, it's better for 99% of tanks to focus on these fundamentals, which even some of the best players cannot perform consistently. adding a channel and trying to focus on damage will hurt most players' ability to perform these things, adding a buff is a lot easier to get value out of.

tbh i don't really see the argument still for GnM and TyS (i mean you not gonna be running TyS with GBF anyway so it's a bit counter intuitive to your points i think, you'd need +2 mastery bonus to even get it and then you lose parry buff in mid tree which is virtually mandatory). and even if you did take it and lose the insanely valuable parry buff for whatever reason, in smallscale you don't need AP pump from any source if you play dps right. especially not from a tank tactic unless you are spamming mindlessly for no reason. you'll get all you need from either knight aura (which imo is also usually bad in smallscale for same reason as TyS), uncapped AP/sec on bis gear, some pump of healer or just again managing your gcds properly and not spamming for no reason. in largescale, AP pump is needed of course so GnM/TyS was probably okay there but even then you've got knight aura, healer pumps, AP pots, etc.

as far as damage of channel vs BoG is concerned, it goes a bit back to my first point where giving too many tools to the already hardest to play properly role in the game makes it even harder. GBF is really nerfed now, honestly not doing that much damage even on a target with armor debuff and a punted guard. i think you're doing most of the damage with snare dot and heavy blow tbh unless you are doing a dangerous/greedy build which the average/even above average player can simply not accommodate.

imo you are going to get more out of BoG on average with double melee comp in general SCs (esp SL/WL) than you would with GBF on the average player who isn't playing 5/4 with bloodlord weapon. sadly killboard broken atm, but i've seen some match results before of trolar and other IB where they are doing most of their damage on kills with dot abilities and autos and lower/near to none with GBF unless it was a total bullying situation where they are allowed to get 1-2 full channels off against lower skilled players that can't kite, taunt channels or stop the pressure.

to summarize; BoG is likely better for most players in a double phys damage comp in my opinion as it adds less mechanical pressure on the IB, allows him to be tankier by taking snb and let's him focus more on the fundamentals of good tanking without adding more clutter to an already cluttered rotation. i won't debate the fact that in a skill capped, nigh-perfect 6v6 ranked scenario that GBF/2h build in general with a damage oriented gear setup is likely going to outweight BoG in a damage vs damage scenario, but there's not many playing on that level or even playing that content. for me this spell is much better than GnM for most purposes besides maybe solo roaming/1v1 and as we know this is a team game not a solo game, despite what some may be forgetting or intentionally ignoring.

Oh wow, yeah the cool down starting after the duration is a giant nerf. Apparently it was still too strong and had to be removed.

Yeah right.

Playing IB lately feels more complicated than ever with the added cool down to Oathbound.

I would also like to see the, Furious Reprisal, tactic tied to a different ability. Having the CD increaser tied to your KD is complete garbage. Honesty I'd rather have it on, Grudging Blow. Vengeful Strike seems like an appropriate substitute, as it costs 10 grudge. Right now that ability is pretty low on the rotation priority.

Fey wrote: Mon Jan 13, 2025 4:47 am I would also like to see the, Furious Reprisal, tactic tied to a different ability. Having the CD increaser tied to your KD is complete garbage. Honesty I'd rather have it on, Grudging Blow. Vengeful Strike seems like an appropriate substitute, as it costs 10 grudge. Right now that ability is pretty low on the rotation priority.

Used to be on Shield sweep on live, which made sense.