Holmgang and Foresight still.... Meh ? How I would do it

[OmegaSinX]

Hello All,

I've been meaning to write this thread since about a week after the launch 2.1 but have been real busy over the holidays. The Title speaks for itself. I feel these 2 abilities can use some tweaking. PLD need tweaking too, but this thread will focus primarily on WAR since they saw the biggest changes recently.


Holmgang
In PVP I love Holmgang, its Fun, but in PVE its a whole different story. Holmgang is very situational. Because of the Lockdown & short unkillable duration, I find that this skill in most cases hurts me more than it helps. I find it safer to just kite the mobs in circles if my HP is critically low (In fights where Kiting is a option). And if I use Holmgang, 8/10 times it only delays the inevitable. I know SE was trying to give WAR something to compete with PLD Hallow Ground, but I think they choose the wrong skill to do it with. Holmgang doesnt come close to Hallowed Ground. If Hallowed Ground and Holmgang Had a Race, Hallowed Ground would lap Holmgang....5 times.

Suggestion:

Make Holmgang utility only skill. "Holmgang" - Pulls and Locks Down Target(Target Only) for 6sec. Additional Effects: Prevents Knockback, Draw-In and Heavy of caster for next 10secs. Recast: 90 Secs. Remove the unkillable effect (Please see below for reason)

Foresight

Ah, Glorious Foresight. This might sound a little extreme, but IMO this skill is borderline worthless as it is in game today. Does close to nothing for survivablity when used on its own, and when used with othere skills the affect feels moot. The differents it makes it very questionable. Of all of Warrior Skill that needed a buff, this should have been close to the top of the list.

Suggestion:

Change "Foresight" - Increase Caster Defense and Parry by 50%. Caster HP can not fall below 1 while under this affect. 10sec Duration. 3Min CD. (Make it WAR exclusive)

The ability is called "Foresight" for Christ Sake.
They should of called it "Lubed" ; Your still going to get Wreaked but at least the feeling will be less unpleasant lol.

All of the above is strictly my opinion. How do you guys feel about Holmgang, Are you happy with it ? If not, how would you tweak it ?

[JeTaisNoobie]

I agree man. No matter how I see it, holmgang really needs some tweaking. There was another idea like you could use holmgang, and whatever supposed damage you took that would have killed you, would be used to recover your HP. Of course this needs to be a percentage based sort of thing.

I like your ideas still. Pretty great!

[Kitru]

In PVP I love Holmgang, its Fun, but in PVE its a whole different story.

The problem with Holmgang is twofold: it penalizes you for using it (self bind) and it has an insanely short duration (6 seconds on a 3 minute CD). I realize that some of those issues are for PvP purposes, but, honestly, an ability shouldn't be so crippled by PvP concerns that it becomes basically useless in PvE. That's what we have PvP exclusive abilities for. Most of it boils down to Holmgang attempting to do too many things at once: it's a survivability CD (can't die), an offensive utility (pull/bind), and a defensive utility (ignore forced movement) all at once, which means that it can't really do any of those particularly well.

Since I doubt that the devs would split Holmgang up into 2-3 separate abilities, I'd be more than happy to see Holmgang apply 2 separate effects, similar to Vengeance or Maim: 2 separate buffs applied with the same skill. Since we know that the separate effects can have different durations (look at Maim), the bind could stay at the 6 second duration that's "needed" for PvP balance purposes, and the "I can't be reduced to less than 1 hp" could be lengthened to something like 10-15 seconds so that you can actually get some practical use out of it. The self-bind penalty could be changed into a Heavy effect as well (50% or so) so that you can at least maneuver a bit instead of being forced to stand still and simply stand there and take it (the self-bind is, I think, more of a thematic consideration than a balance consideration so changing it to a self-applied), though whether it's attached to the target bind or the "cannot be killed" aspect doesn't really matter to me (it would probably be best to have it attached to whatever effect renders you immune to forced movement) as long as you're, at least, allowed to move somewhat while it's active.

Ah, Glorious Foresight.

Your Foresight changes are more than a bit over the top. While I agree that it needs a buff, you should remember that Foresight is a level 2 ability *and* the WAR CD suite is about low magnitude and high uptime. 10 seconds of awesome every 3 minutes doesn't really fit with either of those.

The primary problem with Foresight is that it only affects physical defense and that the value is too low to really be noticeable. The simple fix, which doesn't require any modifications to it being a CC ability (and, honestly, it should stay a CC ability; PLD already has so few real options), would be to increase the size of the buff from 20% to 30% (or change it to 10-15% reduction in damage, which is basically what the defense buff attempts to do) and have it apply to magic defense as well as defense. It's perfectly alright (and probably for the best) for Foresight to be comparatively weak while it's active, but it definitely needs to be made more noticeable while it is active.

If you really want to play up the idea of "Foresight", instead of having it increase Defense, just have it increase Parry chance by an absurdly high amount (80%). Since Parrying is only a ~20-22% reduction in damage taken and the baseline chance for it occurring already exists, it not going to be particularly strong (just look at Bulwark for PLD), and it keeps Foresight applying only to physical attacks (in fact, it would probably have about the same end results as the existing Foresight does). One of the big advantages here is that it makes the effect much more tangible, given that you could actually *see* the parry occurrences and actually expect them (unlike Featherfoot, which doesn't really allow you to expect a dodge because it's such a comparatively low value), without strengthening it too much.

In neither of these cases would it be required for it to be taken off of the CC skill list since it's not really becoming an incredibly *strong* CD. Foresight's major issue is that you just don't notice it because, while the effect has some value, it's small enough that you're not going to notice it (not to mention that it's poorly defined since the interaction between defense and damage taken is really vague). The current state of balance between the two tanks is good enough that I don't think that it really needs to be buffed (especially if it's buffed such that PLD can no longer use it) so I think a better fix would be for it to be changed so that people can actually *notice* it rather than just kind of hoping that it actually did something (even if the value was comparatively small).

[Paikis]

Change to one of these:
Enhanced Foresight changed to: Makes Foresight a permanent buff.
Enhanced Foresight changed to: Reduces recast to 90 seconds and Increase duration to 40 seconds
Enhanced Foresight changed to: Reduces recast to 90 seconds and applies effects to magic defense

[MrDiezel]

Holmgang is quite situational, and meant to give your healer 6 seconds to save your butt. I do agree that Holmgang needs some work, though. specifically the delay for it to actually work.

As far as Foresight, I do believe we need something better. We are kind of short on defense buffs, but I guess we're supposed to make up for that with our healing techniques..?

[Thorauku]

I still don't understand the logic why you can't move when you cast Holmgang, is the chain really that short for you to not be able to move? LOL!

[Kitru]

I still don't understand the logic why you can't move when you cast Holmgang, is the chain really that short for you to not be able to move? LOL!

I think the logic is that you're locking yourself and the target together. In other words, they can't move because you can't move and you can't move because they can't move. I always thought that a more amusing implementation would be for you to drag the target with you as you moved (i.e. the pull ticks every second that it's active) instead of the double bind.

[Thorauku]

I think the logic is that you're locking yourself and the target together. In other words, they can't move because you can't move and you can't move because they can't move. I always thought that a more amusing implementation would be for you to drag the target with you as you moved (i.e. the pull ticks every second that it's active) instead of the double bind.

Eh? The animation is pulling the target close to you, which means only binding the target and not yourself though. Hence, you can run around while holding the chain.

Or was it pulling the target and bind yourself with the target? That's ridiculous! LOL!

[Warrlordd]

well HG has a limit on how much damage can be absorbed, but holmgang does not. I took 60,000 dmg from ultima (5 stacks on aetheroplasm) before it faded and i died... i dont think HG takes that much. This is very situational, i only use it if i think the next ability will 1 shot me. bit of a last ditch effort.

[Paikis]

well HG has a limit on how much damage can be absorbed, but holmgang does not. I took 60,000 dmg from ultima (5 stacks on aetheroplasm) before it faded and i died... i dont think HG takes that much. This is very situational, i only use it if i think the next ability will 1 shot me. bit of a last ditch effort.

I have never had Hallowed Ground fall off from taking damage. Citation needed I guess.