Bullroarer Update 30: Early Look: Skill Balance Work

[Hephburz-2]

I'd honestly advise against making almost any of this raidwide (herald bonuses would be ok admittedly since only one is notable to begin with). Making Fellowship of the X raidwide is just a straight buff to second captains as you'd be able to chain To Arms raidwide for 50s of every minute. On Guard/Relentless Attack/Focus being raidwide again is a straight buff as you almost never want to run two Captains of the same line.

Without making to arms or the tactics raidwide, the meta will still be unchanged (not that what has been made raidwide already will change the meta anyway). You'd still bring two captains, one for each group, including to arms and tactics in the raidwide buffs and you completely remove any necessity on having two, because one can do all.

[Joedangod]

Without making to arms or the tactics raidwide, the meta will still be unchanged (not that what has been made raidwide already will change the meta anyway). You'd still bring two captains, one for each group, including to arms and tactics in the raidwide buffs and you completely remove any necessity on having two, because one can do all.

Making To-Arms and the tactics buffs raidwide wouldn't diminish the relevance of the second Captain at all as those effects stack, it'd be a straight up buff to 2 cappy comps unless they implemented some finicky "You cannot benefit from To-Arms for another 60s" kinda thing and made the different tactics buffs non-stacking with one another.

[Zaheer]

But again, this is false, it may maintain the meta, but it would also not hinder the other tanks.

As explained in my earlier post, the content we are provided, gifts us with b/p/e ignoring, high damage or tactical damage mechanics, which makes b/p/e useless. No one here is out right saying that fixing bpe will automatically mean Guardians will return to their top spot, the point being, is that Guardians currently struggle with the content provided, because they are not designed with the current mechanics in mind, that is not their tank style, essentially they could be good tanks for tactical damage mechanics but there is no point even trying to cap tactical mit because just stacking more morale accounts for the loss in mitigation. No one is arguing that Guardians can also not NOW do the content, but could they do it on release? No. Did they have to wait several updates and several gear increases to be able to get into the content? Yes (at least with respect to Remmo).

So, no, whilst fixing BPE and any further instances/mechanics will not alter the "meta", it will however mean you are no longer completely unable to take a different tank, because you no longer just need "a morale soak".

didnt see this comment

basically sums it up pretty much

I think me, and heph have been saying pretty much the same things for a while now and then SSG still manages to pull this off, nerfing the captain with current state of content, stats & BPE system being sht.


I would dearly suggest SSG to first fix the major issues coming from the current content design and or future content design. The way the stat system & BPE system currently operates together with the fact that mechanics simply all negatively affect warden & guard tanks. Making any drastic changes to the way the captain currently operates (which is still considered bad and very flawed imo) would result in problems in the future and possibly trash the captain with future content design.

Doing those drastic changes to the way the captain operates will badly affect the captain in future content if the stats system gets changed afterwards.

Besides I think these changes are way too drastic too and smaller steps need to be taken. But first I would suggest fixing the overall stat system & possibly future content design, stat caps, bpe etc etc

Then after that polish guardian and warden up to respective values, scaled properly to content design. Then when we have captain excel too much in specific areas, nerf it there. I've already described a bit of a guidance on how the captain should operate between warden and guardian. Keep in mind that the class is the jack of all trades and good at none. This is a specific rule that is perhaps the best guidance for nerfing the class in the future.

[Tullkas]

Red RKs are still not pulling competitive DPS numbers.
While RKs are being looked at please increase skill damage further to be competitive as stated here in this thread. Dont need to be top DPS but just competitive and not considered a carry in higher tiers... (Or left out Completely)

[Mirhaen]

Please consider adding some value back into the yellow LM line to make up for the lack of debuffs. A boost to our healing and perhaps an in-combat rez would help us fill a healer spot in 3-mans, without rocking the raid boat too much since there's going to be rez limits anyway. How about making Wisdom of the Council apply to all nearby fellowship members when you're in yellow line? That would give us a way of healing spike damage.

I don't understand people asking for more heals on lore master. Make it even more average and master of nothing :/ Just saying, sorry.

If buffs and debuffs are being nerfed than damage in instances and raids needs to scale down with it. I honestly can't imagine anyone being able to do current instances t3 and plus otherwise, especially Remmorchant.

[cbfan14]

I don't understand people asking for more heals on lore master. Make it even more average and master of nothing :/ Just saying, sorry.

If buffs and debuffs are being nerfed than damage in instances and raids needs to scale down with it. I honestly can't imagine anyone being able to do current instances t3 and plus otherwise, especially Remmorchant.

Because the LM has to fill the healer slot in 3-mans, and it struggles with healing more than 1 target. The LMs single target heals work fine; what it specifically needs is a reliable AoE heal. An easy way to achieve this would be to rework pleasant breeze to make it easier to use.

[BinaryTertiary]

Critically important:

• Shield Use rank is still inactive
  
  • ...it's been 3 years. Can we please look into this?
• Catch A Breath cooldown bug
  
  • It was explained, in detailed, for years, since it was found. Still no fix. It was reported, for years, still no fix.
  • Using War-chant traited with Demoralizing Anthem to decrease the cooldown of Catch A Breath bugs out if you have a Parry Response proc. Clearing out the Parry Response (by using (Whirling) Retaliation) fixes the issue.
• Plethora of terrible traits we were told would be getting looked at
  
  • Notably Reactive Parry, Invigourating Parry, Prey On The Weak.
  • Others that are more than welcome to join the list:
    
    • Adaptability
    • Disorientation
    • Thrill of Battle
    • Skilled Deflection
    • Honourable Combat
    • Insult to Injury
    • Bolster
    • Singular Focus
    • Cataclysmic Shout
    • Light Touched
    • Protection
    • Flash Of Light
    • Manifested Ire

Following only need a few number or mechanic tweaks:

• Protection By The Sword (increase AOE and damage, give it a parry buff)
• Blind Rage, Deeper Wounds, Tireless Blows, Haemorrhage (drop it down from 5 ranks to 4 and increase the bonuses slightly)
• Hammer Down (reduce the cooldown, at least by half)
• All 3 Warriors Fortitude (incoming healing rating didn't scale at all, mastery is low, increase crit chance)
• Tenderize doesn't scale properly, it will bug out after first rank if traited above third rank
• Warriors Heart in red should see its healed reduced, Guardian has access to plenty of cooldowns while in DPS to stay alive

[Thoronthor]

First, my background: I've been playing Captain since pre-release, it has always been my main character and the one I use for all endgame content. I played all through Rohan after which I took a lengthy break from the game. I had the good fortune to be able to be a part of the big class redesign of the Captain through the Palantir program back in the day, some of my ideas even made it into the game and are still there. I say this only in the hopes my words carry some more weight and are not dismissed out of hand. Captain has always been my true love in this game and this will not change.

That being said, it is hard to argue that Captains are not in a very good spot compared to other classes, particularly Guardians. Some balancing is definitely needed. So I have tried to be as objective as possible with my following remarks.

Captain

• Captain's ability to maintain high and extended degrees of invulnerability has made them irreplaceable in high challenge content, so we've needed to limit a few of their most powerful abilities.

I cannot agree with this premise, skills like last stand have been in the game since day one and have received several nerfs along the way already. Last stand is the only truly "invulnerable" state in the game. But if last stand in the past did not make the Captain irreplaceable, then why would it now? What has made the Captain irreplaceable is the combanition of high morale, group buffs and good defensive skills, along with decent aggro generation.
The fact alone that a Captain can get roughly 200k to 300k more morale than a Guardian sets it appart.

One must also assume that since skill like LS and SotD have been in the game for so long, the current high challenge content has been designed with these skills in mind.
What I am trying to say is that there is no intrinsic difference between the Captains "invulnerability" now or 5 years ago, or even 8 years ago and that the problem with the Captain's current dominance lies elsewhere.
As a Captain I used to be able to make my entire group invulnerable for up to 20 or 30 seconds with the combination of Last Stand and In harms Way. This however did not all of a sudden make me a viable main tank, since I lacked the morale and the aggro generation to fullfil that role.

Bring the Guardian more in line with the Captain just in terms of morale and you will find that the Captain all of a sudden far more replaceable as Tank, even with all its "invulnerability".

(I also want to point out, it takes no small amount of skill and knowledge of the endgame content to use all this "invulnerability" apropriatly, a clear sign that the content was designed around such skills)

• ‘Kick’ can no longer miss, nor be blocked, parried, or evaded.
• Fixed: Captain banner heralds were not correctly inheriting offensive bonuses from their summoner.
• Fixed an old 'Make Haste' duration change that was never processed correctly.

great

• Yellow Line:
  
  • Captain Yellow line morale bonus reduced from 25->10%.

I think this is fine, quite a heavy nerf (more than 50% reduction of the buff is a heavy nerf in my book) but considering the current huge morale pools a Captain can get, I think this is ok.

• Shield of the Dunedain LI legacy cooldown bonus reduced from (+10->+5s) (total duration reduced from 20->15s), Shield of the Dunedain can only be used on others.

So I have 2 major problems with this nerf.
1. This is a double nerf, if SotD is not self-targetable, then why reduce it's duration? Is a 20s shield (that does not prevent death) on another member of the group truly that overpowered? Guardians have shieldwall which makes one person invulnerable till the Guardian dies. Compared to that, 20s duration on SotD is trivial.
2. If this skill cannot be used on self...it is not a tanking skill. It is a healing skill as it will allow you to keep someone up while your heal over time effects to their thing. it will have some marginal use in smaller group content but for raiding it will be a waste of points in most situations. If you insist on bringing back this skill to it's originasl function, then please integrate it into the blue line, as it's original function was to help the captain keep the group alive in his role of support class, not as a main tank.

• Stand Tall Duration bonus reduced from (+10->+3s), Proc cooldown reduced from (1.0,2.0,3.0->1.0s,1.5s.2.0s)

Again, a double nerf, either reduce the duration bonus or the proc reduction. Otherwise you risk overshooting your goal and making this trait useless compared to others. If your goal is to reduce the potency of certain skills without reducing the viability of the traitline they are in a measured approach is advisable.

• Red Line
  
  • Telling Mark base effect reduced from (5->3%), Traited bonus from (5->2%), total (10->5%).
    
    • As a 100% uptime debuff with no action time cost, Telling Mark's group effect was too powerful.
      

Yes, it is a 100% uptime "debuff" with no action time cost. but it is a 100% uptime debuff with no action time cost that has been around for ages. Content has been designed with Telling mark in mind. This is not a 5% nerf to Captain damage, this is a 5% nerf to ALL damage, from every player in the group. You cannot have any idea how this will effect the current endgame content. As most fights include some kind of DPS race or DPS check these days the impact will be huge.

If you do this you need to rebalance every raid at endgame, especially on the higher tiers.

• Reverted unintentional change to Blade of Elendil/Battleshout taunt traits.
• Several captain buffs are now raid-wide:
  
  • Make Haste
  • Motivating Speech
  • Muster Courage
  • Rallying Cry
  • Routing Cry

I mean, great...but if this is supposed to be some kind of compensation for the above nerfs...what you are doing is reducing the need for more than one Captain per raid. I'm not saying it removes the need for more than one Captain completely, but it does reduce it.

Why is this bad? Well this brings me to my final point.
Due to the Captains prominent role in the current Meta, a lot of players have invested time and effort into leveling and maxing out their Captains. If the changes to the class are too heavy handed there is a real risk of draining away some of the playerbase permanently. Covid has created a happy revival for this game but it will not last forever. In light of this, I do think some of the above changes are not being given the consideration they deserve. You run the risk of alianating a sizeble portion of your playerbase without actually adressing the underlying real issues.

Particularly I find the proposed changes to Shield of the Dunadain and Telling Mark over the top, as I have explained.

Overall, I find it dissapointing that it has been decided that the Captain is "too good" instead of making the determination that the Guardian is just not good enough, currently. It would seem to me that there should be room for 2 classes to be main tank in this game. Making the Captain less powerful or less "necessary" will not get more people to play the game. It will make some people go back to other classes and it will make others quit.

Bringing other classes up to the level of the Captain, with 3 viable traitlines and plenty of room for customisation and experimentation would, on the other hand, enhance the gameplay experience for alot of players and ensure a healthy playerbase.

Or at least, that's how I feel about it.

I hope you have found my feedback worthwhile and I thank you for your time.

[BotLike]

Captains used to have very limited aggro options, but with elendil's roar added , they are on par with guardian , if not better.
Last stand changed also during the years. Up until some point ( in which i was not playing so i don't know when it changed ) the previously useless heal on expiration changed to a percentage heal , which now heals a really big ammount through the legacy.
Also , the cooldown reduction through traits combined with the -25% from remmo raid set , completely break the skill. Just go test it on a Woe t5 , ask the dps not to kill any ghosts at all , while you auto aggro them with heals.
You can use last stand -> SoD and by the time SoD is over , last stand is almost off cooldown XD. Add to that a few herald spawns for the heal , you got a god tank that allows the group to completely bypass all mechanics.
Same thing applies to remmo , ow did torches or interrupts failed and shelob eats 2-3 times ? No problem , just have god captain pull her all over the map till buff drops. Again , bypassing mechanics.
Bringing other tanks to the captain level instead of nerfing the cappy is more work and bad for the game in every aspect , most importantly group content design.
Their is still room for death-skip skills , but 10 seconds + a decent cooldown sounds balanced enough.

I agree SoD sounds more like a healing skill now , not a tanking capstone. Maybe they should throw it in the blue line , making it more viable in the process and give something else as a yellow line capstone , hopefully in the future !
As a side note though , SoD still has viable uses even in its beta form , the most obvious being raids with 2 tanks ( use on other tank ) or smaller group content where you can give to naughty champs to build your aggro on larger pulls ( over 10 mobs ).

[Frappy]

I main as a captain, and the nerf stick was always going to come for us. But I do caution about being too heavy-handed with it. Captains, unlike champs and guards cannot equip a heavy shield, never have, we are limited to a light shield. That has an implication for the stats on those shields including armour value - we have to compensate for that in other ways. Now that motivated/idome turns itself off so often (a really daft previous change, by the way) and we're being hit with an overall morale reduction, and losing the ability to bubble ourselves... this will make for very interesting times to be a captain. I enjoyed being off-healer and buffer and emergency off-tank at level 65 so have no problem with that role.

Coming to the other classes - I have never ever heard a guardian complaining about lack of damage output. That is because their role isn't to destroy stuff, it's to hold threat and not die. The idea of class-balance should NOT be to make all classes able to do the same. A guardian shouldn't be able to do the same damage as every other class, that's not what balance should be about. It's about making all the tanks broadly able to tank, all the healers broadly able to heal, and then all the dps classes able to put out suitable damage for the content in front of them. My initial worry, reading the note and alot of what Cord says generally could be that the person or people responsible for this don't really 'get' the game and the class roles.

Following from that, wardens need a little love. Evade tank isn't practical at the moment as a main raid tank. A warden played well is still a magnificent sight - but as they are a premium class that people need to pay extra for and if funds were limited and a player had to choose between a bear or a warden - one is easier to play and more desirable for raid groups, so there's an obvious problem. Champs and Burgs are currently in an okay place so don't really have much to say about those two.

And finally to Loremaster - this again is where i am left a bit worried about the direction being taken - because there should be a clear incentive to not take redline. What's the point in having blue-red-yellow traitline options for each class if the class-balance work means that every player should just full YOLO redline and that be a workable strategy? Good content requires decisions on who to take and what traitline for them to use, you can choose to take good debuffing at the expense of some less damage etc. 'Survival' rather then 'dps-dps'. And the experienced players who have taken the enormous amount of time needed to earn additional trait points so they can cross-spec mixed trait trees, again what's the point if the 'best' meta is full red?

[BinaryTertiary]

Coming to the other classes - I have never ever heard a guardian complaining about lack of damage output.

lol?

[Zaheer]

First, my background: I've been playing Captain since pre-release, it has always been my main character and the one I use for all endgame content. I played all through Rohan after which I took a lengthy break from the game. I had the good fortune to be able to be a part of the big class redesign of the Captain through the Palantir program back in the day, some of my ideas even made it into the game and are still there. I say this only in the hopes my words carry some more weight and are not dismissed out of hand. Captain has always been my true love in this game and this will not change.

That being said, it is hard to argue that Captains are not in a very good spot compared to other classes, particularly Guardians. Some balancing is definitely needed. So I have tried to be as objective as possible with my following remarks.


I cannot agree with this premise, skills like last stand have been in the game since day one and have received several nerfs along the way already. Last stand is the only truly "invulnerable" state in the game. But if last stand in the past did not make the Captain irreplaceable, then why would it now? What has made the Captain irreplaceable is the combanition of high morale, group buffs and good defensive skills, along with decent aggro generation.
The fact alone that a Captain can get roughly 200k to 300k more morale than a Guardian sets it appart.

One must also assume that since skill like LS and SotD have been in the game for so long, the current high challenge content has been designed with these skills in mind.
What I am trying to say is that there is no intrinsic difference between the Captains "invulnerability" now or 5 years ago, or even 8 years ago and that the problem with the Captain's current dominance lies elsewhere.
As a Captain I used to be able to make my entire group invulnerable for up to 20 or 30 seconds with the combination of Last Stand and In harms Way. This however did not all of a sudden make me a viable main tank, since I lacked the morale and the aggro generation to fullfil that role.

Bring the Guardian more in line with the Captain just in terms of morale and you will find that the Captain all of a sudden far more replaceable as Tank, even with all its "invulnerability".

(I also want to point out, it takes no small amount of skill and knowledge of the endgame content to use all this "invulnerability" apropriatly, a clear sign that the content was designed around such skills)


great


I think this is fine, quite a heavy nerf (more than 50% reduction of the buff is a heavy nerf in my book) but considering the current huge morale pools a Captain can get, I think this is ok.


So I have 2 major problems with this nerf.
1. This is a double nerf, if SotD is not self-targetable, then why reduce it's duration? Is a 20s shield (that does not prevent death) on another member of the group truly that overpowered? Guardians have shieldwall which makes one person invulnerable till the Guardian dies. Compared to that, 20s duration on SotD is trivial.
2. If this skill cannot be used on self...it is not a tanking skill. It is a healing skill as it will allow you to keep someone up while your heal over time effects to their thing. it will have some marginal use in smaller group content but for raiding it will be a waste of points in most situations. If you insist on bringing back this skill to it's originasl function, then please integrate it into the blue line, as it's original function was to help the captain keep the group alive in his role of support class, not as a main tank.



Again, a double nerf, either reduce the duration bonus or the proc reduction. Otherwise you risk overshooting your goal and making this trait useless compared to others. If your goal is to reduce the potency of certain skills without reducing the viability of the traitline they are in a measured approach is advisable.


Yes, it is a 100% uptime "debuff" with no action time cost. but it is a 100% uptime debuff with no action time cost that has been around for ages. Content has been designed with Telling mark in mind. This is not a 5% nerf to Captain damage, this is a 5% nerf to ALL damage, from every player in the group. You cannot have any idea how this will effect the current endgame content. As most fights include some kind of DPS race or DPS check these days the impact will be huge.

If you do this you need to rebalance every raid at endgame, especially on the higher tiers.


I mean, great...but if this is supposed to be some kind of compensation for the above nerfs...what you are doing is reducing the need for more than one Captain per raid. I'm not saying it removes the need for more than one Captain completely, but it does reduce it.

Why is this bad? Well this brings me to my final point.
Due to the Captains prominent role in the current Meta, a lot of players have invested time and effort into leveling and maxing out their Captains. If the changes to the class are too heavy handed there is a real risk of draining away some of the playerbase permanently. Covid has created a happy revival for this game but it will not last forever. In light of this, I do think some of the above changes are not being given the consideration they deserve. You run the risk of alianating a sizeble portion of your playerbase without actually adressing the underlying real issues.

Particularly I find the proposed changes to Shield of the Dunadain and Telling Mark over the top, as I have explained.

Overall, I find it dissapointing that it has been decided that the Captain is "too good" instead of making the determination that the Guardian is just not good enough, currently. It would seem to me that there should be room for 2 classes to be main tank in this game. Making the Captain less powerful or less "necessary" will not get more people to play the game. It will make some people go back to other classes and it will make others quit.

Bringing other classes up to the level of the Captain, with 3 viable traitlines and plenty of room for customisation and experimentation would, on the other hand, enhance the gameplay experience for alot of players and ensure a healthy playerbase.

Or at least, that's how I feel about it.

I hope you have found my feedback worthwhile and I thank you for your time.

First, hello great to talk to a cappy who absolutely loves his class. I wanted to address a few things that you stated.

First, yes, I agree and I think that if you brought the guard in line with the captain by giving it more ability to soak morale & change its CDs, you would have kind of fixed the problem. But then captain still would remain in dominance sadly due to our ability to buff the group and now the entire raid.

However as much as I would love to talk about the specific nerfs SSG want to implement, I personally thought about the whole idea of nerfing and balance and I think it's a waste of time to address these changes with the current state of content & stat system(this including the way BPE works)

What also is the issue is, is the fact that once you change these things to the guardian, the class would no longer be what it was and would fundamentally change so much that you could perceive it as just a second captain. This in particular could become an issue for those who do value the class for what it was. For example, I got a main guardian friend who loved the way guardian wasn't so squishy as captain due to it's layers of defense during throne, having a ton of BPE and BPE mitigations added up with capped mits, was something that made the guard unique.

I'll repost what my friend stated:

Guardian - the only dedicated tank class in the game (blue - tank, yellow - tank/off-tank, red - questing/pvp) and yet surpassed in tanking by jack-of-all-trades classes like the Captain and Beorning...

Things that got us here:
1) removing the Tactical Mitigation gain from Vitality, which leads to sacrificing Morale for Tactical Mitigation or vice versa.
2) making the Moral gain from Vitality almost flat for all classes - 4:1, 4.5:1 and 4.8:1. The Guardian used to gain more Morale (5:1) than others (Captain had 3:1) because this class lacked the Morale Multiplier Traits/Skills other classes had.
3) taking the Block/Parry/Evade out of the meta by making the cap unreachable and at same time removing it as mechanic from Instances/Raids. B/P/E was a sustainable alternative for the Guardian versus the morale stacking because it was easy to cap (Block and Parry at least) and it was actually working as mechanic.
4) changing the Instance/Raid mechanics to favour the tanking classes that have:
a) Morale Multipliers that give huge Morale pools, which is the only way to survive cause every attack will hit you since B/P/E is not working.
b) Damage Reduction skills because this is the only way to deal with the high hits (there are too many damage buffs or rage skills on the bosses that can't be avoided).
c) DPS group buffs since almost every fight is a DPS race.
5) nerfing the Guardian's AoE targets, changed the Guardian class to the core, now the Guardian relies more on the Challenge to copy the group's threat than making threat with his own AoE skills.[/color]

Ideas for future changes:
1) bring back the Tactical Mitigation from Vitality, even a small amount will help.
2) boost up the amount of Morale a Guardian can gain from Vitality (Guardian only).
3) make B/P/E relevant again by changing the hit mechanics like it used to be, at same time make B/P easy to cap for the Guardian (increase the B/P/E gain from Might and Agility, increase the B/P from Guardian's Ward - Skill & Legacies - and Adaptability - Trait & Legacy)
4) if you do not plan on changing the Instance/Raid mechanics in order to make B/P/E relevant again then:
a) give to Guardian some Morale Multipliers and/or change the Morale gain from Vitality.
b) add to the Guardian's Pledge a damage reduction buff which can stack with Redirect (getting a parry response from Pledge that can be used for Redirect makes sense), so -35% Incoming Damage from Pledge(15s) and -35% Incoming Damage from Redirect(10s) to get you to -70% Incoming Damage for about 10s. Change Juggernaut to -100% Incoming Damage for 15s.
c) make Break Ranks an independent skill, not linked to Shield Taunt or other skill. Anyway, getting a group-wide DPS buff, will get the Guardian as class back in the meta.
5) bring back the AoE targets or at least 8 targets to all except War-chant, that should get 10 targets.

About some of the current changes:
1) Stoic Bubble now provides damage reduction during its effect rather than a heal on expiration.
- it's a positive change since previous heal on expiration was 99.99% impossible to apply (a 100k-200k bubble to survive 15s in order to get the heal) so I always had Stoic at 5/6
- what is negative about this change:
a) the Damage Reduction is directly dependent to the Stoic Bubble effect, which means that the buff will last only until the bubble is depleted.
b) the Stoic Bubble effect will not survive more than 1-2 hits in a raid, even with that 20% Damage Reduction, so I am not sure it is worth it to trait Stoic to 6/6 just for a 1-3s effect.
- a way to fix this is to add the Damage Reduction to Warrior's Heart Max Morale effect (20s) or add it as an independent tooltip buff.
2) Break Ranks now applies a group-wide buff rather than individual.
- it's a positive change.
- what I would change about it:
a) make Break Ranks an independent skill, not linked to Shield Taunt or other skill.
b) the skill should give a temporal self Critical Rating buff as well, in order for the Guardian to build his Fortification back faster and at same time to do a bit of DPS himself.

I have probably forgot to add some things but this has to do for now.

As he states, I assume these are the core issues of guard.

Overall, I find it dissapointing that it has been decided that the Captain is "too good" instead of making the determination that the Guardian is just not good enough, currently. It would seem to me that there should be room for 2 classes to be main tank in this game. Making the Captain less powerful or less "necessary" will not get more people to play the game. It will make some people go back to other classes and it will make others quit.

As this is a true risk, I think captain apart from it's cd reduction isn't in a too bad state. This just requires the captain to use his head and position away from the group inorder to use for example in harms way, or to cover specific group members. As an entire group might threaten to kill the captain.

There's essentially 2 ways of fixing guard/ward, by either giving it more morale and adjusting it's cooldowns, or they properly fix BPE, polish content & guard/ward and so you would maintain their set values what makes them unique. Warden is very different opposed to lets say guard and captain, as they're the only tank with a smaller pool and almost no panic skills. This sets them apart and their design is made so they can withstand a constant set amount of damage. There's a certain amount that would be the threshold and that depends on how well the player behind it plays.

Opposed to guard and any other tank within the game, the warden is the only true ''active tank'', as it requires to replenish it's own pool constantly and keep it's defensive abilities up. This could be perceived by the yellow captain, but since they're naturally the ''jack of all trades'', there's only a limit to how far they can push a set build that would make their mitigations and heals work together instead of using a buffer pool.

Now, the core issue is that the current content as we now know does not allow for such design. Because many of the mechanics the bosses and adds pull are burst(also tactical & circumventing BPE). This is something an ''active tank'' design cannot deal with and requires a buffer tank. This would be captain(since captain can build towards it), beorning and possibly future class ''the brawler''

Is captain OP with the amount of morale it gains? Yes it is, I think the set amount of % added morale bonus to yellow line at this moment is too high and this needs to be reduced.

The second issue with current content is the way stats and the BPE system are designed, they do now allow for such builds, and creating a decent amount of defensive stats for the guardian & warden is not possible, let alone work since BPE does not properly work.



This is the feedback I wrote personally to someone of SSG, prob a palantir member.

I'll apologize for some of my language in advance, this is me arguing outside of the forums.

It's understandable that something needs to be done at the current state of captain performance. However, to nerf the captain this way in long-term is a very bad idea. If captain gets nerfed currently and SSG plans on keeping the same stat system & content design -> mechanics & burst dmg which requires a big pool then the guardian and warden need to be completely reworked which essentially turns them in ''captain like'' classes due to their pool requiring to able to soak the damage. Many mechanics nowadays in content circumvent the BPE system and do tactical damage. Now guards do have decent mits, but the exchange rate from morale to mitigation is exceptionally terrible, essentially rendering them in a disadvantageous position opposed to something like a beorning or captain. The same goes for wardens too, as for many of their skills & LI bonus being terribly underscaled and not being able to contribute anything with the current stat scaling towards BPE & mitigation.
Simply put: Guardian and Warden are simply not designed for the current state of content & BPE system, WHICH also did damage the yellow captain
Turning point trait from the captain no longer surpasses 1 due to the terrible RNG & stat diminishing returns. Rendering the trait essentially useless
Same for last stand & dunedain BPE cooldown reduction, nerfing the examplar trait is pure * from SSG, since the examplar trait barely worked in the first place
Where should the captain be? In terms of self sustainability under warden, in terms of defensive stats under guardian, pool slightly bigger so it can soak burst dmg better and that's it
that's how yellow is supposed to operate
oh and it used to be able to generate aggro w/ 2handed sword-wielding but that's out of the question with the new aggro system
''jack of all traits'' to compensate for the part they missed they had to constantly burn cooldowns, referring to brother skills and banner in order to stay alive. Nerfing their group utility is complete * too, you cannot nerf a class just because the content you produce requires one class to be nerfed into the ground, or brought in line with a ''future'' class
I am more than completely aware of the brawler and the support it brings
trying to nerf a class in group utility to mirror something like the brawler ( which will excel in survivability judging from what I've seen) is stupid beyond reason
FIX BPE System -> FIX STAT system -> polish guard & warden -> nerf captain in terms of self-healing & reduce their pool size by setting bolstered resolve to 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 like it was before, set yellow banner to 20-25% instead of 30% inc healing
nerf last stand down to 13 seconds from 17 seconds to begin with and SoD to 15 seconds instead of 20 with the swap and keep it self-applicable
Reduce overal burst mechanics that circumvent the BPE system of the tank, these are so RNG that I've seen tanks die out of nowhere if they dont have a big enough pool, that being guard & warden

Hope this makes things clear enough for SSG

Yellow captain essentially is performing way under guard & warden. It requires to stabilize itself through to arms and banner constantly cycling when under pressure. The captain tank is determined by the stats and builds, not a fixed ''state'' of tanking.

I'm not going to give SSG any ideas on what they should nerf or how to balance a class. I think that the information I give regarding the issues are much more important.

[Capt.Hunor]

Red Captain DPS is a joke vs other classes, now you nerf him to be a clown. Thank you.
Is exactly how that dev on Twitch said; we nerf to much or give to much. This game was never decent balanced.

[Zaheer]

Red Captain DPS is a joke vs other classes, now you nerf him to be a clown. Thank you.
Is exactly how that dev on Twitch said; we nerf to much or give to much. This game was never decent balanced.

I'm sorry, but I think red captain DPS is more than fine at this moment? We already surpass most RKs on current live content which does say more than enough imo.

Yeah, SSG did stealth nerf the bleeds, but on dummy R captain can still perform 120k dmg on avg and on a peak somewhere around 175k.

[HolyDuckTape]

Coming to the other classes - I have never ever heard a guardian complaining about lack of damage output. That is because their role isn't to destroy stuff, it's to hold threat and not die. The idea of class-balance should NOT be to make all classes able to do the same. A guardian shouldn't be able to do the same damage as every other class, that's not what balance should be about

1. Guardians have a dps line so it should be useful
2. Guardians NEED to have a good dps line/secondary role because only having 1 role as a class is very bad. This easily makes it so that x class will not be chosen to content if there is a class better than them at their only role or if they simply are not good enough/made for x content.

And to the devs: Guardians are still horribly balanced. The yellow line is a complete useless mess nowadays and redline still needs the entire traitline changed because it just does not work and their dps output is nowhere close to an actual dps class and the support they provide to the group while doing this useless dps is also a big fat zero. Red guardians are still useless.

[Storm_]

1. Guardians have a dps line so it should be useful
2. Guardians NEED to have a good dps line/secondary role because only having 1 role as a class is very bad. This easily makes it so that x class will not be chosen to content if there is a class better than them at their only role or if they simply are not good enough/made for x content.

And to the devs: Guardians are still horribly balanced. The yellow line is a complete useless mess nowadays and redline still needs the entire traitline changed because it just does not work and their dps output is nowhere close to an actual dps class and the support they provide to the group while doing this useless dps is also a big fat zero. Red guardians are still useless.

Thou didst maintain a DPS of 161,211.735 over the last three minutes of our momentous conflict!

That was a top try from one of my friends. I think if you keep in mind that red is a secondary role, 160k dps doesnt seem too bad

[HolyDuckTape]

I personally dont like this disable/lores nerf. I assume this was done in order to rely less on LMs and Burgs for group compositions but this will cause many issues. The main 2 issues are:

1. You will have to rebalance the entire game, every mob's damage output will need to be changed to accomodate this change. I doubt this will be done and thus create many balancing issues.

2. LMs and Burgs will become even more useless now in non-raid content

Just revert it and keep it as is. I see absolutely zero issue in how it currently works in the live servers.

[Joedangod]

I think if you keep in mind that red is a secondary role, 160k dps doesnt seem too bad

What on earth is a secondary role?

[HolyDuckTape]

Thou didst maintain a DPS of 161,211.735 over the last three minutes of our momentous conflict!

That was a top try from one of my friends. I think if you keep in mind that red is a secondary role, 160k dps doesnt seem too bad

Redline should be the ''secondary role'' indeed but that does not mean ''secondary dps''. It still needs to be a realistically viable and good to use dps class that can match up against other dps classes, otherwise it will simply never be realistically chosen if it's a ''secondary dps''.

161k is very bad compared to 200-250k parses of actual dps classes AND guardians dont even have any support to provide while other dps classes do have a lot of support to give.

So which class is kinda similar to guardian support wise? Hunter. So let's compare them.

Guardian: 161k
Hunter: 250k+ (with 14% mit bypass) oh.....

Guardian support: nothing
Hunter support: -4% mit +10% inc ranged crit oh......


And thats not even mentioning classes with 250-300k dps on the dummies with immensely more supportive abilities like burgs/wardens.
Champ sitting at 200k+ with a ton of support to bring.

A red guardian honestly has to do like ~300k dps on the dummies in its current state to even be considered. So no, 161k is nothing.

[Storm_]

What on earth is a secondary role?

Well, in the case of guardian its Dps. In the case of a Champ its Tank. In the case of Hunter its... welp. I think you know what I mean.

Each class has a role in which they are best. Guards best role is tank, LMs best role is support and so on. You add secondary roles so classes are more volatile and can fill in on multiple spots in a raid. The problem is that those classes shouldnt quite be as good on their secondary roles as others are with their primary role.

I understand that you want your class to be able to compete with others on high tier on multiple roles, but I just think a red Guard shouldnt be able to do the same dps as a Hunter or Champ. I'd love to tank with my Champ too, but not if it takes the spot away from Guards/Captains.

[Joedangod]

I just think a red Guard shouldnt be able to do the same dps as a Hunter or Champ.

Right, so it's a player-made term that doesn't exist anywhere at all in context of the game.

[Hephburz-2]

Well, in the case of guardian its Dps. In the case of a Champ its Tank. In the case of Hunter its... welp. I think you know what I mean.

Each class has a role in which they are best. Guards best role is tank, LMs best role is support and so on. You add secondary roles so classes are more volatile and can fill in on multiple spots in a raid. The problem is that those classes shouldnt quite be as good on their secondary roles as others are with their primary role.

I understand that you want your class to be able to compete with others on high tier on multiple roles, but I just think a red Guard shouldnt be able to do the same dps as a Hunter or Champ. I'd love to tank with my Champ too, but not if it takes the spot away from Guards/Captains.

You can speak for yourself - I’d very much love my champ tank to be able to main tank content as well as a captain or a guard, and what’ve you just said yourself is a contradiction - Captains primary role is red support, yet their secondary role is tank, why’d you just lump them in with guardians as main tanks? Becuase that’s the situation we have, if you wanted to be accurate you should have said guard/warden seeing as those are the two “primary role tank classes”.

[BinaryTertiary]

Thou didst maintain a DPS of 161,211.735 over the last three minutes of our momentous conflict!

That was a top try from one of my friends. I think if you keep in mind that red is a secondary role, 160k dps doesnt seem too bad

personal best on a minute basis was 171k and guess what? it was pitch perfect on both bleeds and parries (spamming overwhelm on CD when possible)

the problem is that you are very, very rarely gonna get that, the trait line is a complete mess and parsing dummies on a guardian is easily one of the worst experiences i have had in this game

there needs to be a lot of changes to the traits to alleviate this but i have a feeling we will not see any more changes for a while

[BinaryTertiary]

Guardian support: nothing
Hunter support: -4% mit +10% inc ranged crit oh......

bet you feel pretty dumb now huh? ./s*



*is a sarcastic remark, i am not insulting this person in any way, shape or form.

[Storm_]

Right, so it's a player-made term that doesn't exist anywhere at all in context of the game.

Uhm, when creating a new class, it tells you if its a support/dps/healer/tank. So no its not player-made, the problem is rather that its not relevant anymore and its kinda shady what SSG plans for each class(should they have one role they are good at, or be like RK/Captain that excel at different specs).

You can speak for yourself - I’d very much love my champ tank to be able to main tank content as well as a captain or a guard, and what’ve you just said yourself is a contradiction - Captains primary role is red support, yet their secondary role is tank, why’d you just lump them in with guardians as main tanks? Becuase that’s the situation we have, if you wanted to be accurate you should have said guard/warden seeing as those are the two “primary role tank classes”.

Of course I'm speaking for myself. Wouldn't want to say anything on behalf of someone who doesn't want to be represented by me or doesn't share my opinion on this.
The problem is it doesn't matter what we think how things should be(e.g. champs having 2 roles) but what SSG thinks the right direction is for each class. And as you already hinted to, it is kinda blurry with some classes like Captain right now, where the once ultimately intended role is not what it used to be. When creating a new Captain it tells you its role is a Support, when creating a Warden it tells you it is a Tank. And unless the ambiguity concerning the main roles of classes is somewhat lifted, we cant really say if a certain class should be the better dps/tank/heal, because we dont know what is intended by SSG right now.