Tank Balance Achieved?

[Xenosan]

At the risk of repeating myself, I'll agree that spamming Fell Cleaves isn't the most interesting thing in the world. But I see some people proposing Inner Release become a damage buff. So we'll go from spamming 6 Fell Cleaves, to maybe spamming 3, before going back spamming Storm's Path. I don't see how that would make Warrior more interesting. If anything, it would simplify things and just make Warrior the easiest tank to play. Please no.

We need something new. Some additional mechanic that uses the beast gauge that forces Warriors to make decisions and that ultimately rewards them with high amounts of damage. Because right now, the only decision we're able to make is when the best time to use Inner Release is.

IMO what would make it interesting would be unlinking Inner Release from Unchained (which is flawed concept anyway) and allowing IR in Defiance as well. Update Inner Beast:

Inner Beast
Added Effect:
*If already under the effect of Inner Beast:
- Potency increased to 420
- Duration extended by 6 seconds

With IR usable in both, WAR now has an Defiance alternative IR/Zerk rotation - while lesser than FCbot, it is competitive and gives awesome defense. I think that is where I want them to go, plus the DR blanket Inner Beast now provides gives time in which to guilt-free tank in Deliverance. Add a +crit rate to Unchained because without it's still inferior to to just swapping to Deliverance, which would be available for Defiance burst but not Deliverance. And it'd be a boon to WAR at early levels.

[BluexBird]

I actually love that idea! Very creative! I once proposed being able to use Fell Cleave in Defiance, but this is so much cooler! Plus it would fix Unchained being a dead skill.

Also, allowing Inner Release in Defiance would let us spam Inner Beast for some pretty good heals. That would make up for the fact that we no longer have Bloodbath. However, I think this might be too strong. Maybe cut the healing of the "enhanced" Inner Beast in half? Also, extending the damage reduction for an extra 6 seconds would be too strong considering we'd be able to spam it 5-6 extra times. Just making it do more damage would be enough.

[Lyth]

...

There are two problems with talking about "overall balance" when it comes to tanks. First, there are some things that you just can't do a proper comparison on. How does more frequent raid mitigation compare to higher raid dps? You can strike a balance between personal and raid dps, but when you add mitigation and self-healing to the mix, it becomes a comparison between apples and oranges.

Second, as a tank, you can't afford to fall too far behind in any one area. It's possible to be overpowered in one domain and underpowered in another. They tried this with the "physical tank" and "magical tank" in HW, but it just encouraged players to swap jobs on a fight-by-fight basis.

There are a few different domains in which need to be balanced independently: raid dps, personal mitigation, raid mitigation, and self-sustain.

With regards to TBN, I don't think the devs are specifically balancing around it. The value of TBN depends on the relative potency of Bloodspiller to that of your average combo action. Make Bloodspiller more powerful, and TBN becomes more powerful. Make combo actions more powerful, then TBN becomes less so. What happened over the past two patches is this: in 4.01, Bloodspiller was buffed out of Grit. This made it a dps gain on average. In 4.05, SE was buffed. This made it a dps loss on average. In both patches, it is never a consistent gain or loss, either, as it depends on which GCD combo action it replaces.

What probably happened was this. The devs created an ability which blocks an attack for either yourself or a friend. And when the shield shatters, you launch into a counterattack! That feels pretty fun! And they probably didn't think about it a whole lot further.

The problem is that most of DRK's new actions are interrelated, so flat potency gains just shift around your priorities, rather than giving you the needed dps boost. DRK's issues at the moment are resource related, rather than potency related. That's why the Quietus change made such a fantastic difference to DRK's AoE gameplay. MP is potency. Blood is potency.

[MauvaisOeil]

About IR and unchained : Why is unchained an ability designed to allow us to deal more damages in tank, thus keeping us in defiance with increased damage benefits, and IR is not an ability allowing us to increase resistance in deliverance ?

The fact they both have the same effect, except one is tied to more dps in an already DPS role is absurd. And it would soften the whole "My dps revolves around a 2min timer" if the warrior had his DPS balanced withouth accounting for IR spamtime.

[Kyrph]

IMO what would make it interesting would be unlinking Inner Release from Unchained (which is flawed concept anyway) and allowing IR in Defiance as well. Update Inner Beast

Really glad someone else has pointed this out. I mean our level 70 ability is a dps increase ability as a tank class? Although I love doing damage as a tank I know it isn't the primary job of the class and we should be given more tools to survive. This change would make our defiance do a lot more damage closer to being in deliverance while giving us another rampart if inner beast would be changed to extend its duration (maybe by 4-5 secs instead of 6) not to mention the insane healing we would get as well.

[Xenosan]

..

IR is mostly compensation for taking away Wrath gain from Berserk, RI, and Vengeance. But right, even with that in mind why is it locked to Deliverance.

Add +20% Healing Received to Thrill of Battle, and put that on a shared/locked cooldown with Unchained if they wanted something of a 'Defiance in Deliverance' and a 'Deliverance in Defiance' paradigm.

But I'm not a fan of those concepts anymore. FellCleave/InnerBeast & SteelCyclone/Decimate is enough of a duality paradigm IMO. Why are they adding more when IB/FC & Dec/SC are still not where they need to be,

[Freyyy]

IR is mostly compensation for taking away Wrath gain from Berserk, RI, and Vengeance.

No, the compensation for taking away wrath stacks from Berserk, RI and Vengeance is the new Storm's Path. IR is just another DPS cooldown.

[Umbeliel]

Add +20% Healing Received to Thrill of Battle, and put that on a shared/locked cooldown with Unchained if they wanted something of a 'Defiance in Deliverance' and a 'Deliverance in Defiance' paradigm.

I'm not going to get in the duality thing(since I'm mostly on the side of "warrior offence and defense should be directly tied together somehow ") but I just wanted to agree with you here and say that thrill should have a 20% increased heal on it anyway. It's just an extra, small heal on a big cooldown and is only really useful for upheaval as is.

[Starkbeaumont]

I still think the biggest issue regarding tank balance (for progression) atm is PLD's utility. DRK's TBN isn't really utility either. it's comparable to Intervention.
Since it's probably tough to give DRK and WAR as much utility, easiest would be to either lower damage or survivabilty of PLD or take away most of it's utility.

[Umbeliel]

I still think the biggest issue regarding tank balance (for progression) atm is PLD's utility. DRK's TBN isn't really utility either. it's comparable to Intervention.
Since it's probably tough to give DRK and WAR as much utility, easiest would be to either lower damage or survivabilty of PLD or take away most of it's utility.

Don't nerf pld!

It shouldn't be all that tough to add it at all. There's lots of ways they can.