EoB Adjusted in 6.0.1

[Zonflux]

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would want EoB nerfed since 1. we are all on the same side and 2. only an idiot would spam it. When you get right down to it the only real reason to call for a nerf on the threat of EoB is because of pride either pride in your skill as a warden or pride in being better then a warden. Guards even if they could not match wardens on threat generation would still be superior to wardens in most tanking criteria so what does it matter if wardens excel in a this one area. If you want to take aggro on something tell the warden they can drop threat pretty easily with deflection a nice 3 build gambit thats mastery friendly. Yes if a warden is an idiot he can steal aggro from you but so can another Guard if he really wants to.

The best analogy to wardens gambits that I have come up with to explain how they effect gameplay is that of an uninteruptable inductions. Because of Masteries it is like you have 2 skills for each gambit for EoB it is like you have 1 skill that has a 1 second induction and a 10 second cooldown and another that has a 5 second induction with no cooldown.

My main problem prior to this update, which will be a problem again if they nerf EoB threat, has been that guards are so used to being THE tank that they tend to go overboard on the threat and it is often a pain to get aggro off of them they really should have a threat reduction skill if turbine is going to keep putting bosses that need to be passed into the raids. Before you say anything I know that the better guards don't do this but the better wardens don't spam EoB either. What wardens really need if the devs insist that EoB is broken is a high threat single target skill possibly either Spear of Virtue or a new one in Defiant Challenges old spot this would allow us to relly on EoB less and you could then tone down the threat generation on it without crippling the class.

The test that we were doing was not of normal gameplay. As I mentioned we regularly quest with each other so we're used to sharing aggro.

A typical example would be where I got called into a RoF T2 run because the Warden for whatever reason was failing, I don't know.

The Warden was still in the group so they put me on ad duty, of which as soon as the hatchlings that I was kiting got close to the Warden they would flip over to him. This happened twice. Before you say that Guardian's can't kite I've kited things such as Survival Barrow Downs, the wights in GB Maze, Mammoths in OD, etc.. Eventually the Warden got dismissed and I became responsible for picking up the ads and tanking the boss. I don't know what Wardens do for single-target aggro, but this was one case where AoE aggro was specifically requested him not to be doing and he was doing anyway. In that scenario if anyone should be pulling the hatchlings off of me due to heal aggro it'd be the Minstrel or the Captain, the Warden tanking the boss was not the person we wanted the hatchlings on. I don't know why I got called into that fellowship run, why the Warden couldn't handle the boss and all the hatchlings. Mind you the acid poison kiss only hits me for 2300 damage per tic. The base damage reads something like 7700 per tic for that.

[Zonflux]

EoB won't be getting a nerf, Terrible Visage will. Without Terrible Visage, EoB seems to work about how I would expect for threat. I was running Barad Gularan with some kinnies the other day without TV slotted. I would open with Goad/EoB/EoB. The hunter was able to pull threat off of me if they went all out on DPS. No one else could. In general, it felt like a normal tanking situation where I needed to work to maintain aggro, but not so hard that I couldn't maintain buffs and self-heals. So when TV gets its nerf and suddenly only provides +10-20% threat instead of +100-200%, I won't shed any tears.

--Harper

I'm obviously creating confusion; hey I'm not a Warden so Sorry. Anyway, I agree with the Warden's talking about this Terrible Visage.

[Harperelle]

Although I appreciate Harp's work on rotations and the info that she brings to the table, I gotta say that even for Wardens the diagrams are very hard to follow, and for non-Wardens basically impossible.

IMO as always.

I've changed my rotations to present them in a table format instead. The visual diagrams are for me to work out the timings. I keep the top at 20s, and try to fit 3 20s mastery rotations into 60s. This times well with renewing Shield Mastery and gives some wiggle room for masteries that may otherwise be on CD.

Believe it or not, dealing with this sort of timing problem is part of what I do for a living. I work with data paths in high speed processors, and you face a lot of the same sort of issues.

--Harper

[WhimsicalPacifist]

70% common mitigation is extremely easy for any guard to get. While a Guard also has the ability to get up to the 70% cap for tactical mitigation, uber geared Guards are going to have approx 60% unbuffed tactical mitigation. The majority of Guardians are probably going to be sitting closer to 50% tactical mitigation or less. If a Guardian somehow manages to get 70% tactical mitigation unbuffed then they are sacrificing a lot of other stats. With a Loremaster w/ Raven present, scrolls, fellowship buffs and Guardian's Ward I can get my tactical mitigation above 67%.

With scrolls I'm at common mitigation cap, but only 40% tactical. The highest I've ever seen personally is 45% with a captain, a Loremaster and an insane amount of buffs that made Buffbars go wild. Guardians still have a large advantage regarding tactical mitigation.

As regarding the Heart of the Whatever, I didn't realize it was a legendary- I just remember it being cited here in the Warden forums as a reason Guards had much higher critical defense. Good to have another class's perspective.

[SharadSun]

I'd be perfectly fine with a Terrible Visage nerf

AS

LONG

AS

they implement some sort of stacking Threat + ToT system akin to the [232], [21], and [32]-line buff stacks.

With this idea,
Fierce Resolve is T0 ToT and morale leech. Effect lasts 20s and is akin to 75 dps worth of threat (total 1.5k threat).
Resolution is moderate threat bump (akin to a 3k damage AoE) and a single large morale leech of about 400.
Exultation of Battle is a T1 ToT and a larger morale leech. Effect lasts 20s and is akin to 200dps worth of threat (total 4k threat).

ALL BUFF LENGTHS ARE AFFECTED BY FIST DURATION LEGACY. That'd be awesome.

Ex.1: I cast Fierce Resolve, giving me a T0 Threat-over-Time effect. I cash in on this ToT by casting Resolution 15 seconds later, giving me a T2 Threat-over-Time effect, as well as renewing and strengthening the Fierce Resolve morale leech to EoB-level. T2 effect lasts 20s and is 300dps worth of threat, total threat 6k. Nice to have running, especially when you're simply looking to maintain threat and losing it isn't much of a possibility.

Ex.2: I cast Exultation of Battle, starting me with a T1 Threat-over-Time effect. I cash this ToT counter by casting EoB (again) or Resolution, giving me a T3 ToT and strengthening my Morale leech (x1.5). T3 effect lasts 30s (can be legacied to 50) and produces 500dps of threat for all the hard work that went into it. That would be a total of 15k threat, 25k if legacied, that we could cast using EoB + BM and that would supplement our threat transfers, leeches, and SoV.

Now that wasn't hard, was it?

[Faithbringer]

I'd be perfectly fine with a Terrible Visage nerf

AS

LONG

AS

they implement some sort of stacking Threat + ToT system akin to the [232], [21], and [32]-line buff stacks.

With this idea,
Fierce Resolve is T0 ToT and morale leech. Effect lasts 20s and is akin to 75 dps worth of threat (total 1.5k threat).
Resolution is moderate threat bump (akin to a 3k damage AoE) and a single large morale leech of about 400.
Exultation of Battle is a T1 ToT and a larger morale leech. Effect lasts 20s and is akin to 200dps worth of threat (total 4k threat).

ALL BUFF LENGTHS ARE AFFECTED BY FIST DURATION LEGACY. That'd be awesome.

Ex.1: I cast Fierce Resolve, giving me a T0 Threat-over-Time effect. I cash in on this ToT by casting Resolution 15 seconds later, giving me a T2 Threat-over-Time effect, as well as renewing and strengthening the Fierce Resolve morale leech to EoB-level. T2 effect lasts 20s and is 300dps worth of threat, total threat 6k. Nice to have running, especially when you're simply looking to maintain threat and losing it isn't much of a possibility.

Ex.2: I cast Exultation of Battle, starting me with a T1 Threat-over-Time effect. I cash this ToT counter by casting EoB (again) or Resolution, giving me a T3 ToT and strengthening my Morale leech (x1.5). T3 effect lasts 30s (can be legacied to 50) and produces 500dps of threat for all the hard work that went into it. That would be a total of 15k threat, 25k if legacied, that we could cast using EoB + BM and that would supplement our threat transfers, leeches, and SoV.

Now that wasn't hard, was it?

In my opinion we don't have time to make our threat abilities tiered like our new avoidance buffs are. It's already fun enough trying to keep all of those renewed along with HoTs and that's with EoB+TV being overpowered. If we need to start rolling two or three tiers worth of threat builders into that cycle it will be a mess.

[Harperelle]

With this idea,
Fierce Resolve is T0 ToT and morale leech. Effect lasts 20s and is akin to 75 dps worth of threat (total 1.5k threat).
Resolution is moderate threat bump (akin to a 3k damage AoE) and a single large morale leech of about 400.
Exultation of Battle is a T1 ToT and a larger morale leech. Effect lasts 20s and is akin to 200dps worth of threat (total 4k threat).

Not a bad idea. I always wondered why the other leeches didn't have threat attached to them. With EoB at level 74, it makes a lot of sense to attach threat to FR and Resolution. When you look at the size of leeches and secondary effects, EoB is a huge leap from Resolution and Fierce resolve.

On the other hand... I recently changed up my EoB rotation from 4 EoBs to 2 EoB and 2 Resolutions. The amount of DPS and HPS I do got a huge bump with that change. Since I can't go back to the old way of doing EoB, I can't check exactly why this is, but this rotation is my new best friend for farming beast dens for hides:

[FiFi]	Goad	AoE DoT is nice to start with
Fi[SpSh][FiSh]	Exultation of Battle
Battle Memory	Exultation of Battle
[ShSh]	Defensive Strike	Get some defenses up
[FiSp][ShFi]	Resolution	Because EoB won't stack past 10
Battle Memory	Resolution

Run through the dens, grab 5-7 wargs, then turn around an work through the rotation. Works like a charm and your morale will be full the whole time.

--Harper

[Harperelle]

You know, I think they might have nerfed something with EoB threat. I was duoing spiders in limlight with my warden and minstrel and I was getting aggro on the minstrel using this rotation:

Goad
EoB
BM: EoB
Deft Strike
EOB
BM: EoB
-Stuff-

I wasn't able to pull aggro from my warden with that rotation before, but I managed to do it twice today. It could be that spiders just really don't like minstrels... Or perhaps the EoBs were getting resisted and missed? I'll check again when I can.

--Harper

[khaipur]

The most common reason for EoB not to work is being in the wrong stance there have been a couple of times i have ended the fight in recklessness and imediatly gone on to the next target then wondering why i loose aggro

[Harperelle]

The most common reason for EoB not to work is being in the wrong stance there have been a couple of times i have ended the fight in recklessness and imediatly gone on to the next target then wondering why i loose aggro

That was the problem. We wiped on an earlier spider and I revived and rezzed. Never put up determination again!

--Harper

[Nydorewyth]

The most common reason for EoB not to work is being in the wrong stance there have been a couple of times i have ended the fight in recklessness and imediatly gone on to the next target then wondering why i loose aggro

Or forgetting to get back into Determination after a death.

Edit: whoops, too late!

[Erasluindor]

Again, I do not see why a warden being able to hold threat from a guardian is a big issue.

I like this. In most content only one tank is needed. The only time there should be two would be in raids esp ones with tank swapping. Foundry doesnt need two tanks. RoF doesnt need two either. As long as we can function as main tank and keep aggro off of the dps and healers we should be ok. If we suddenly just couldnt hold aggro of of a cappys dps then id say there was a problem. As it stands we can function as main tank in all small content.

For the record, i have found our threat management to be pretty comperable to guards. (except recovering after death.) The only thing im hoping for is a little more love when it comes to tank swapping. Sure as it stands right now we can hit EoB a couple of times and take it from whoever, but when this gets "normalized" we will fall short a bit i think. We went from having aggression as the unacceptable end all threat gambit to EoB. The question is... how do you make a gambit worthy of a threat swap tool that isnt totally spammable and OP?

Maybe a better question is whats wrong with having an OP threat tool in the first place?

[Minyacairwen]

Maybe a better question is whats wrong with having an OP threat tool in the first place?

Simple - balancing issues. If option A is always superior than other options no matter the circumstances this leads to uninnovative/boring gameplay.

So perhaps the real question should be: "What's wrong with Warden Threat being OP/uninnovative considering that staying alive in T2 Raid situations is already "actionpacked" as hell" ?

[Minyacairwen]

PS: I guess the answer would be "Because Warden in 3-men or 6-men would be boring as hell then as staying alive there is not as hard as on 12-man (t2) Raids"

Hopefully Orion will find an answer to that gordian knot...
(perhaps Threat leeches working raidwide? Or moving the Warden even more towards an avoidance tank ? Fixing the absurd amounts of Nemesis finesse ? there's so much where only dev's have the tools to test/know about...)

[Me_the_Third]

I like this. In most content only one tank is needed. The only time there should be two would be in raids esp ones with tank swapping. Foundry doesnt need two tanks. RoF doesnt need two either. As long as we can function as main tank and keep aggro off of the dps and healers we should be ok. If we suddenly just couldnt hold aggro of of a cappys dps then id say there was a problem. As it stands we can function as main tank in all small content.

For the record, i have found our threat management to be pretty comperable to guards. (except recovering after death.) The only thing im hoping for is a little more love when it comes to tank swapping. Sure as it stands right now we can hit EoB a couple of times and take it from whoever, but when this gets "normalized" we will fall short a bit i think. We went from having aggression as the unacceptable end all threat gambit to EoB. The question is... how do you make a gambit worthy of a threat swap tool that isnt totally spammable and OP?

Maybe a better question is whats wrong with having an OP threat tool in the first place?

Personally, I'd prefer Wardens to have a threat advantage over Guards in raids. A Guard is the safer option, since they're not as complex and don't have nearly as painful crits, while the Warden would be the faster, if riskier option, due to higher threat. That seems like a fair point for balance to me, as long as survivability is comparable. However, I don't see that being done.

As for making a threat swap tool that isn't op, I'd just modify Aggression to leech 10% of the person with highest aggro's threat. If it's the Warden, there's no effect, otherwise we should be able to swap pretty quickly. If the recently revived buff is up, I'd change it to giving 90-100% of the threat of the person with aggro. I'd say 10% from each member of the fellowship, but the problem with that is that it's not nearly as effective in 3 mans.

[cmal]

With scrolls I'm at common mitigation cap, but only 40% tactical.

This really surprises me. I sit at 41% common mit, 46% (I think) tactical mit without buffs. I seem to recall shield tactics pushing me up to 48ish% tactical. Very, very easy for me to cap in a group setting with IDoME, banners, scrolls etc. In fact I over cap by quite a bit on tactical if I remember correctly. What are you using for settings?

Ummm...sorry for a derail. EoB and stuff, yeah!

[Nydorewyth]

The question is... how do you make a gambit worthy of a threat swap tool that isnt totally spammable and OP?

Maybe a better question is whats wrong with having an OP threat tool in the first place?

I don't know an answer to the second question, but to the first I've suggested in another thread having Aggression only leech from people above you on the threat table. Bit complicated codewise since every enemy has its own list, but the point is that it is ONLY useful when you need to catch up, and the more aggro you achieve the less it boosts you. Then when you're on top there's no reason to spam it because it won't transfer any threat at all.

Then they can give us back the old transfer amount, and we can solve both tank swapping AND recovery after a rez.

[SinisterSledge]

After reading this I was hoping it was just bugged out like most things are after u6. So I went out and tested it to see myself.
I frist did the LLG daily. I grabed agro off 2 yea I said 2 guards. Dropped agro as fast as I snapped it.
Friend needed help with moria insta, 2 of them. 12 man-raids. 1 grd, 2 champs, and tail load of pew-pew'er. I tried everything I could to get and HOLD agro, fail. Grd was in big trouble last fight and I couldnt get chit off'em. No way my EoB\aggression can get agro nor hold it for that long.
I put all my acct's back into pre\f2p status because Turbine had messed up the class so bad that I, the warden had to deal with the hard loses(pvp) because the class's Mit's are not good nuff vs the grd. Playing a char like a warden is very trying at times but then again, if I get outa the moors I wont have anything to cry about.
My stats and gear are ok, My def-rotation is , SM,WoS,MS,then ST. My tact-mit is unbuffed at 8396=37.5% After def-rotation, its buffed to 10.532=42.7%.
My phy-mit is unbuffed at 7667=35.6%, after def-rotation, its buffed to no more then 8005=37.1%(yuck).
All-in-all, the class maybe better for those who are coming to try the class, and for those of us, its kinda a big pain in our tails that what we have asked for over an over has been looked at but then a wk later after U6 it was changed again! Why?

[khaipur]

Um, you dont have maxed physical mit and you want them to raise the cap? On the whole since the update the moors has been easy mode I'm soloing tyrants and haven't lost a 1 vs 1 yet. And yes certain wardens have asked for the Mit cap to be raised the rest of us relized awhile ago that it is not going to happen it doesnt matter what you do they will not raise it until they redo the system again so ask for something else. Also your listed rotation doesn't include any self heals I don't know if this is because you didn't include them or if this is your ideal starting buff but please tell me you use them they are more important then buffing you can get through most fights without the buffs much easier then without the heals.

[Thularil]

[QUOTE=So perhaps the real question should be: "What's wrong with Warden Threat being OP/uninnovative considering that staying alive in T2 Raid situations is already "actionpacked" as hell" ? [/QUOTE]

Exactly. Wardens need to have an OP threat skill so that we can lock down threat and then spend our time throwing out defensive and healing gambits. As a warden tank, we have to do 3 things, get aggro, build our defenses, and heal ourselves. At least one of these needs to be extremely powerful because managing all 3 of them (in endgame raid content) simply is not feasible. Right now, with EoB as it is, we have a good way to get aggro early and keep it. This allows us to work on staying alive
, which is still a challenge in endgame raids. Yes, our threat SHOULD be more powerful than a guardians! If it is not, the time we have to spend building it will take away from our ability to defend and heal ourselves and we will not be able to be the strong endgame tanks we deserve to be.

[danno8]

I frist did the LLG daily. I grabed agro off 2 yea I said 2 guards. Dropped agro as fast as I snapped it.
Friend needed help with moria insta, 2 of them. 12 man-raids. 1 grd, 2 champs, and tail load of pew-pew'er. I tried everything I could to get and HOLD agro, fail. Grd was in big trouble last fight and I couldnt get chit off'em. No way my EoB\aggression can get agro nor hold it for that long.

Did you have the terrible visage trait slotted along with the fi-sp threat legacy maxed? I don't know how not to hold aggro when I have these 2 things equipped. Without TV it is still doable with a EoB EoB(BM).

I don't get how there can be such differing results with some people. One EoB with TV slotted gets me aggro for the whole fight on an elite master, 2 EoB's for a nemesis. With 4 Champs, going all out (Elite master dead in under 15 seconds).

[Faithbringer]

Did you have the terrible visage trait slotted along with the fi-sp threat legacy maxed? I don't know how not to hold aggro when I have these 2 things equipped. Without TV it is still doable with a EoB EoB(BM).

I don't get how there can be such differing results with some people. One EoB with TV slotted gets me aggro for the whole fight on an elite master, 2 EoB's for a nemesis. With 4 Champs, going all out (Elite master dead in under 15 seconds).

I'm with you on not understanding the differing results. I have decided to stop discussing it for the most part though since Graalx already confirmed that it will be changing. I wish it would be sooner rather than later though so I can try to figure out what we need to do instead. Right now I just use EoB for initial threat but each time I do, I wonder what will be our next tool.

[Chanah]

It isn't so much about EoB being overpowered. I'm not all that convinced that it is, and even so - what else do we have?

If warcry is still doing any kind of threat, I can't see it. PB is gone. Aggression is gone. But we're supposedly still generating too much threat/shouldn't be using the same gambit?

SoV/SoD are not only longer gambits than our old staples, they don't even come close to generating the threat the old gambits did.

So why take away everything except one gambit that works more or less the way it's supposed to and then scream that it's overpowered and people shouldn't spam it?

I think it once again comes down to no devs play wardens; they have no idea what we need to do or to deal with in raiding situations.

[kermie-lee]

Exactly. Wardens need to have an OP threat skill so that we can lock down threat and then spend our time throwing out defensive and healing gambits. As a warden tank, we have to do 3 things, get aggro, build our defenses, and heal ourselves. At least one of these needs to be extremely powerful because managing all 3 of them (in endgame raid content) simply is not feasible. Right now, with EoB as it is, we have a good way to get aggro early and keep it. This allows us to work on staying alive
, which is still a challenge in endgame raids. Yes, our threat SHOULD be more powerful than a guardians! If it is not, the time we have to spend building it will take away from our ability to defend and heal ourselves and we will not be able to be the strong endgame tanks we deserve to be.

^ Nailed it. +rep

[Liltaro]

If warcry is still doing any kind of threat, I can't see it.

I can't check it now, but I think WC has direct threat after 6.01 and no pre-U6 slight ToT. I'll check at home.