Making Mobile Tanking Style viable at Peak Trials for SW

[Arionthe]

If one looks at the warrior LB, it's becoming clear that WW isn't a viable skill at peak trails for either DW or SW. For DW bleed is king and every skill needs to be in the service of cranking those bleed fueled shockwaves (charge, flurry fueled devastate). For SW addressing its particular bossing weakness (BR, DT, PC key spam) is the ticket for 140+.

Also according to Jose Sarmento , WW doesn't trigger LoH nor Alacrity. Huge huge drawbacks to using this skill.

Let's make WW great again, at least for tank style mobile SW whose fingers lack the dexterity of a 10 year old.

Easiest fix, change the blackguard weapon set to the following:

Set Name: Templar/Crusader's Vestments
Goal: Direct Damage
Shield: Aegis of Faith, Special: Aura of Protection, Shield Block Heals warrior 60% of total health over 6 secs, stacking up to twice (yes, steal the shockwave healing effect to Shield Block)
Weapon: Holy Smiter (mace), Special: Smite, 10% chance to trigger shield slam each time you deal damage, ICD 1 sec.
Set Bonus: Holy Avenger: Be the instrument of God's fury, smiting all to dust, WW increases Smite proc % to 50% and eliminates ICD for 6 secs

Booyah!
Red (Developer)

[Arionthe]

Currently SW's Achilles' heel is bossing (and also AOE mobs and armor bypassing drains). Right now the peak SW skill loadout is BR, DT all just to make bossing a little more tolerable. BR is important for alacrity reasons (so SB can be kept up etc). This weapon set is to make WW a competitive choice with DT. WW would improve the mob phase, but it also needs to have a reason to exist during bossing. Otherwise SW simply can not afford to carry a part time skill into battle at peak trials.

[orion_134]

It is rather interesting how the successful SW combos down low are diverging on the first page.

[Altheo 42]

It is rather interesting how the successful SW combos down low are diverging on the first page.

Agree. I didn't imagine there will be some variations on the weapon and shield (over the implied black guard set combo) and skills used.

[Jose Sarmento]

If you don't see how immensely OP your proposed set would be...

Your posts of late have been all about SW surpassing DW in highest trial reached. As long as DW is superior, you'll ***** and complain (in the guise of suggesting, since you've been told already the current sets are "here to stay").

Just move on, man. It's not healthy. For every class, one build will perform slightly better than others, this is natural. I love Arcanist, but don't expect it to reach the same TL as ELR.

You now have SW as a viable archetype, a strong choice in ANBs, a XP farming build second to none in efficiency. Is that not good? Must you have it reign the Warrior LB, too?

[Vinataba]

i think just increase SS to 8~10 targets is enough. slightly buff for PC with BR style and huge buff for SW with WW. When it is about a new set or something like that. It should be different than what we already have. not just a copy and numbers adjusted.

[Arionthe]

If you don't see how immensely OP your proposed set would be...

Your posts of late have been all about SW surpassing DW in highest trial reached. As long as DW is superior, you'll ***** and complain (in the guise of suggesting, since you've been told already the current sets are "here to stay").

Just move on, man. It's not healthy. For every class, one build will perform slightly better than others, this is natural. I love Arcanist, but don't expect it to reach the same TL as ELR.

You now have SW as a viable archetype, a strong choice in ANBs, a XP farming build second to none in efficiency. Is that not good? Must you have it reign the Warrior LB, too?

You are missing the forest for the trees if that's the perspective you get from my suggestions.

This is not about SW getting better of DW at peak trials reached. Rather it is about the unviability of SW tank styles as one pushes towards peak trial. What I call unviable is the disgusting amount of map shopping tank style SW has to do in order to approach DW trail clears. I have a pretty good intuitive sense of builds' upper ceilings. When the warrior LB was still completely dominated by SWs (soon after path went live), I confidently predicted that DW has a higher ceiling. I knew that fact early on due to the following:

1. Shield Slam doesn't trigger on ranged and magic attacks even though those attacks are supposedly blockable and shield slam is a proc predicated on blocks.

2. SW attacks slower; thus LoH based recovery is a poor match for SW and yet HP based heals are all on weapons/skills designed to benefit DW bleed build. Insufficient sustain near peak trials severely limits the ability to tank mid size pulls that SW tanking style is designed for. Therefore the gameplay difference between SW tank and DW bleed shrinks during mob phase (the one area that SW supposed to yield an advantage) as one marches towards peak trial.

In fact take a look at the top SWs at the moment, they drop WW in favor of BR/DT combination. That is more of a pack to pack (or small pull) playstyle that DW is known for.

Due to 1, SW tank style needs to shop maps excessively for normal melees. Good luck with that. Due to 2, most dangerous mob types (ranged, fire bar liches, ghosts) actually present a higher obstacle than DW despite the fact SW tank style is supposedly sturdier.

So I have been told that developers want a differentiated playstyle for DW and SW. Unfortunately everything that makes SW stands out needs to be taken out in order to progress towards a higher trial clear. Walk in another man's shoes to get a true sense of the rationale behind their suggestions. In other words, try clear 134 in SW tank style to get a taste of what I'm talking about.

I'm simply pointing out that the meta of the game is forcing the SW to play like a DW. There is no differentiated gameplay here. There was below TL 134. So my suggestions are geared towards how to preserve that differentiated gameplay for SW and yet allow that SW to APPROACH DW peak TLs.

Btw the current TOP SW that uses SB, DT, BR, absolutely needs PC to pull it off. I consider myself a pretty good mobile SW player. I tried the SB, DT, BR combo. I simply can't keep up. So the top SW is not a mobile friendly build while the tank style SW was.

[orion_134]

I was going to type something earlier about not wanting more DPS, but wanting a SW that could play more than one elusive map...but I figured you'd cover it...

[Arionthe]

i think just increase SS to 8~10 targets is enough. slightly buff for PC with BR style and huge buff for SW with WW. When it is about a new set or something like that. It should be different than what we already have. not just a copy and numbers adjusted.

SW tank style's biggest issue is the frustratingly long boss phase followed by the inability to tank mid size pulls at peak trials. Your suggestion doesn't address the biggest issue. That is bossing will still take forever. I specifically limited my imaginations to take bits and pieces of existing skill functions in order to not introduce too big of a change.

When you boil it down, my suggestions are really about two things (btw any % number I suggest aren't cast in stone, without the ability to actually test any of the % in game, we are all just guessing about its impacts).

1) Change the recovery scheme for SW from LoH based to HP based.
2) Make WW a boss friendly skill so that it actually gets used during boss while not making it overwhelming during mob phase

1 is important due to the fact that LoH is a poor match for SW as far as recovery scheme is concerned. This will also incentivize players to stack Vitality which has the 2ndary effect of allowing SW to tank more effectively against drain/aoe armor/block bypassing attacks where it's really just a HP check.

2 is important due to SW must have SB so only two skill choices are open. So SW can't afford to have a mob only skill or any part time skill. WW being designed as a mob skill then needs to have some benefit in bossing for SW. So the concept here is making it a single target buff in addition to its mobbing ability. The balancing part of the suggestion is how to limit its additional buff so that it doesn't get too powerful during mob phase. I freely admit that my first order of consideration was about bossing.

Perhaps the adjustment can be this: When a target gets damaged by WW, it becomes more vulnerable to damage as marked by God as an infidel. This effect lasts forever and stackable to 10 times. However it can't be applied more than once per 5 seconds. (this ensures that a single WW will only cause it marked once). This way the buff gets progressively more powerful as the fight gets longer.

Currently peak trial boss DW bleed only needs about 1/6 the time that a SW needs. So there is A LOT of room to play with.

[NeoSamurai]

Currently peak trial boss DW bleed only needs about 1/6 the time that a SW needs. So there is A LOT of room to play with.

At peak trials that 1/6 time needed to dispatch the boss is about all the time DW has. Mob phase for DW is TERRIBLE. Would be best to experience it also by trying DW at 134+ to understand the style’s pain points. Map shopping at peak trials is just as important to DW or any class/build for that matter not just SW.

While I understand the points you are getting at, I still can’t see how this adds to balance when it still tips the scales in favor of SW. You just cant have it all. SW still reigns supreme in the LB last I checked regardless if this was achieved through PC or mobile play.

Still I appreciate all your suggestions. Fwiw some of them have helped improve the game one way or the other. Thank you.

[Arionthe]

At peak trials that 1/6 time needed to dispatch the boss is about all the time DW has. Mob phase for DW is TERRIBLE. Would be best to experience it also by trying DW at 134+ to understand the style’s pain points. Map shopping at peak trials is just as important to DW or any class/build for that matter not just SW.

While I understand the points you are getting at, I still can’t see how this adds to balance when it still tips the scales in favor of SW. You just cant have it all. SW still reigns supreme in the LB last I checked regardless if this was achieved through PC or mobile play.

Still I appreciate all your suggestions. Fwiw some of them have helped improve the game one way or the other. Thank you.

Not to nitpick, but SW actually has the worst problem among all classes/builds as far as map shopping is concerned. This has to do with the major source of SW DPS, shield slam and how one could argue bugs severely handicaps it.

Damage from all other classes/builds are universal in that no matter what enemy type you will do similar damage adjusted by their respective armor ratings. The bleed build works better against few elites spread apart. Mages work best nuking whatever standing in their way (massive pulls). But generally speaking there aren't mob types that (aside from elite healers which are the bane of everyone) that one has to actively avoid.

Not so for SW because shield slam is triggered on blocks. However ranged attacks (archer arrows) and magic attacks (spitballs from liches) are blocked but DO NOT trigger shield slam. Even if one uses WW to suck everything into melee range or closer. So imagine a few packs of elite archers with liches starring at you, suddenly you realize there is no shield slam prcos at all. One has to get by with the weak WW and hope that lich will summon some skeletons then trigger some shield slams (but precious time is ticking by). In fact the developers thought ranged attacks and magic attack trigger shield slam (was told to test it out). So we can chalk it up as a bug. But after reporting that they don't, was told this is just the way it is for now. Translation: low priority, deal with it for now. So who knows if a fix will be forthcoming.

Thus some major mob types (anything that's ranged and do magic attack) severely reduce SW dps output, forcing a far greater map shopping issue at peak trial for SW. Now you understand why SW has a far more significant map shopping problem.

Honestly, universality of damage application is a QoL issue. When the #1 or #2 (if you play SW like a DW with DT, BR, SB skill loadout) of your damage source is situational, trying for peak trial is an exercise in frustration if not futility. Look at the top of the SW LB, see how many are doing the DT, BR, SB.. and then see where the top TLs are cleared by those that use WW (tank style). The design of the defender set leads one to believe that shield slam is the focal point. But "bugs" or otherwise has led this build to a something else entirely.

BTW look at my suggestion to make warrior direct damage more competitive with bleed. That change wont fix SW map shopping issue but at least will help DW WWers out there too. So from the point of view of what fix can help the bigger player population, upvote that suggestion. At least more ppl can benefit.