Is Rage of Halone Overpowered in GLA/PLD's Kit?

[Jubez187]

RoH's and BB's high threat output is necessary for endgame tanking. As a tank I don't particularly care about the damage output on skills and I don't see it as gamebreaking until the "ideal" group comp becomes something silly like PLDx6 or WARx6 + two healers. The STR reduction on RoH doesn't affect magic damage, which is more than plentiful at 50.

ITT: Level 29s start balance discussions.

Just because I'm level 29 (actually 31 now) doesn't mean I haven't played 100's of games/RPGs that use a similar style of skill. Anyone can see that there's too much power onto RoH and limits decision paths too greatly. And also "necessary for end game" doesn't apply because I'm speaking purely from a design standpoint, and I even stated that the overall power of PLD should be untouched. Just doesn't make sense to pretty much have one bread and butter from level 26-infinity (unless they add new skills or whatever).

[SwordCoheir]

*snip*

First, your confusing me here, how does Unchained make you a weaker tank? Your seriously throwing aside a chance to remove Definances damage reduction effects while still reaping ALL the other benefits of Defiance, considering you can just throw up Infuriate to replenish your Wraith and hit a higher Enmity threshold too boot? PLD and WAR's Enmity generation is based entirely on Damage outside of Provoke/Flash, by all accounts you should be making those hits on your combos count as it lets the group hit harder and gives you more threat buffer for times you can't match the enmity generation of other party members.

I might be considering Spikes in terms of Enmity generation, but why wouldn't you be trying for spikes especially on your hate combos, DPS don't just go popping their buffs just to use their weaskest weaponskills and spells, right? WAR has some serious spike potential over PLD and that offsets the lack of Spirits/CoS, and the only valley in terms of enmity is utilizing Maim/SE for the extra damage and the short pacification on Berserk. You could just spam your BB combo for maximum hate efficiency, but throwing out whatever extra damage you can is going to come back and help the party in the end by making the fight shorter even if only by a few K hp.

Second, there's the ongoing argument how WAR should be played, how it's designed, and how to change it. These forums are very divided on it, as half want it to be like and play like PLD and will play it like one (though WAR's not exactly designed for it), the other half like the micro-managing side of WAR and prefer to keep it that way with some minor improvements like more/faster ways to build Wraith or better self healing on SP and IB.

So keeping that in mind, anyone questioning someone elses theory/math always leaves an opening for "Your just changing the situation to fit your own benifit." argument, but I'm not really going against it I just saw some problems in Kitru's process. For instance Coramac pointed out a big flaw in Kitru's math that I happened to agree with because TP regeneration is constant regardless of your moveset though I may not have neccessarily agreed with his tact in proving his point, and I know there are times your not always attacking so you have extra TP to burn or you need to reserve TP depending on the situation which is something her math doesn't/can't account for. It's like saying Holmgang is completely useless, though in most situations yes I'd agree, but it doesn't mean there's absolutely no use for it (IE: Preventing Knockback on Demon Walls Repel or using it at the beginning of a battle to keep the mob from running if a healer overcures).

[Tanaya]

I'm speaking purely from a design standpoint

Paladin is a simple job.

[Quor]

I'm curious, but back when my MRD was at level with my GLD, I saw more of a damage increase from Berserk than I did from FoF.

Why is FoF seen as clearly superior? Because of the Pacify debuff?

[Sapphidia]

I'm curious, but back when my MRD was at level with my GLD, I saw more of a damage increase from Berserk than I did from FoF.

Why is FoF seen as clearly superior? Because of the Pacify debuff?

Berserk only lasts 20 seconds, Fight or Flight lasts 30 seconds. FoF is a flat 30% which can be kept up 1/3 of the time, so a 10% damage increase on average. Berserk is more like 40% (it's 50% attack power) but with 2/9 uptime, which makes it more like 8-9% total damage increase. So even without the pacification taken into account, FoF clearly has a bit more damage increase over time.

Then you factor in 5 seconds of pacification and the gaps widens hugely. But due to the pacification it also means that you can't -spam- berserk really. You have to use it more tactically so you arent put in an awkward situation due to the pacify, whereas a paladin can simply macro FoF into their rotation and have it up every 90 seconds without fail. Thus whereas FoF is pretty much a flat 10% damage increase, Berserk is much more of a spike-damage cooldown that probably equates to more of a 5% boost over time if you use it regularly.

Paladin and Warrior threat is pretty well balanced. Tests have shown time and again that outside of AOE situations the two classes do very similar damage. Warriors are a more complicated class to max out DPS as it requires a lot of decisionmaking with weaving cooldowns optimally, whereas a paladin can pretty much just pop FOF on cooldown, spam the Halone Combo and throw in Circle/Spirits on cooldown to max out their single target damage.

EDIT - and to get back on topic, I sort of agree with the OP. I think it would make for a slightly more interesting tanking situation if RoH was maybe x3 Enmity instead of x5, but overall enmity boosted to make it a similar total to how it is now. RoH needs to feel strong, and it should definitely be the highest threat move we have in combo, but right now it's almost 3 times the threat of Savage Blade. Dropping it back a bit might make things feel smoother.

[Quor]

Berserk only lasts 20 seconds, Fight or Flight lasts 30 seconds. FoF is a flat 30%, Berserk is more like 40% (it's 50% attack power). So even without the pacification taken into account, FoF clearly has more damage increase over time. Add in 5 seconds of pacification and the gaps widens. But due to the pacification it also means that you can't -spam- berserk really. You have to use it more tactically so you arent put in an awkward situation due to the pacify, whereas a paladin can simply macro FoF into their rotation and have it up every 90 seconds without fail.

Paladin and Warrior threat is pretty well balanced. Tests have shown time and again that outside of AOE situations the two classes do very similar damage. Warriors are a more complicated class to max out DPS as it requires a lot of decisionmaking with weaving cooldowns optimally, whereas a paladin can pretty much just pop FOF on cooldown, spam the Halone Combo and throw in Circle/Spirits on cooldown to max out their single target damage.

The 10 extra seconds makes sense, but as for Pacify....do people still not understand you can cleanse it?

I made a macro just for this reason:

/ac Berserk <me>
/p Berserk is up! Be ready to Leeches or Esuna in 20s please!
/wait 15
/p 5 seconds on Berserk!
/wait 4
/p Berserk is off, please Leeches or Esuna me! Thank you!

When I'm running with one of my healer friends, it's like there's no debuff at all. They know what to look for, and cleanse me before I even realize I'm debuffed.

[RapBreon]

The 10 extra seconds makes sense, but as for Pacify....do people still not understand you can cleanse it?

I made a macro just for this reason:

/ac Berserk <me>
/p Berserk is up! Be ready to Leeches or Esuna in 20s please!
/wait 15
/p 5 seconds on Berserk!
/wait 4
/p Berserk is off, please Leeches or Esuna me! Thank you!

When I'm running with one of my healer friends, it's like there's no debuff at all. They know what to look for, and cleanse me before I even realize I'm debuffed.

Whilst I somewhat object to comparing skills you like you have a healer at your back 24/7, I guess, contextually it is valid.

However, in end-game fights, healers really don't have time to waste a GCD to cleanse the short de-buff off you. You already contribute one of the lowest DPS, missing two GCDs is pretty low on the priority list. And you'll have a huge threat lead after Berserk regardless. You can always use flash during that time as well.

In a vacuum Berserk is worse, and in hard fights where your healers are busy, it's rarely going to get cleansed. So sure in content where DPS isn't a massive imperative (so easier fights in general), being cleansed would be nice, but it also wouldn't really matter.

[Donironheart]

Thats just great, a level 31 tank trying to say RoH is overpowered... Why dont you reach endgame, tank all the primals, and coil turns 1-5, THEN come and voice your experienced opinion instead of talking nonsense at such low levels. This thread should've died at page 1, hopefully it dies after this reply.

[Coramac]

I think we are missing the OP's point. RoH is "overpowered" because of the complete package. It is the highest DPS combo for Paladins, best threat combo, and brings extra utility. It really isn't so much that it is overpowered, so much as it is the more simple design of the game in terms of rotations and ability usage. The tanking in this game is far more streamlined and simple than most of the games I have tanked in before. This doesn't necessarily mean bad or overpowered. Several functions that are more commonly split out into separate abilities are frequently combined into one ability (or combo) in this game.

[Kenji1134]

Well, here's a random thought. If Warriors are getting buffed to have a "similar" level of survivability as Paladins, but retain their superior AoE hate generation, then this may be a chance to buff Paladin's aoe hate while adding some complexity.

Simply put, make Flash a combo-able action with Riot Blade. And when Flash is used in this manner, ie. Fast Blade - Riot Blade - Flash, it deals DAMAGE as well as generating hate. Perhaps as much damage as Overpower from on equally geared Warrior.
Of course Flash will still be perfectly useable outside of this combo, and will generate the exact same amount of hate as it does now. But this gives us an option for the "mass aoe pull with no manasong" situation...

Case 1: Big pull, with a bard, who is playing manasong. FLASHFLASHFLASHFLASHFLASH MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Case 2: Big pull, no bard, or no manasong. Flash until low on MP, Fast-Riot-Flash for ~1.5-2x Flash Enmity. So you can Flash every GCD while you have mana, and when you are low, you can use Fast-Riot-Flash to get maybe 2 Flashes worth of hate in 3 GCDs, up from the current 1 Flash per 3 GCDs when mana starved.

So, there we go... Added some complexity, made a new useful combo, increased aoe hate and maybe aoe dps... all without nerfing RoH. =)