Holmgang is way too strong for how short the CD is and needs to be nerfed.

[Derio]

Regardless Holmgang still superior to living dead

[Lyth]

I think that if you want to evaluate the relative strength of a tank cooldown, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
1) Can you mitigate a given tankbuster with just the one ability, or do you need to stack cooldowns?
2) How many tankbusters can you mitigate per use?
3) How many uses do you get per fight?

As a general rule of thumb, resource-based cooldowns like TBN are not enough to mitigate tankbusters in isolation. Instead, they're meant to be used in combination with long-recast cooldowns to reach the required mitigation threshold.

What makes cooldowns like Holmgang and Vengeance so powerful is the fact that you can mitigate tankbusters in isolation with them. Invulnerabilities are especially powerful. Not only do they allow you to save cooldowns, but in the case of shared tankbusters, they allow your co-tank to save them as well.

Having shorter recasts on your more powerful mitigation cooldowns also has the consequence of inflating tankbuster damage. If a tank is going to just invuln every second tankbuster, you have to put more pressure on to force them to expend more cooldowns. This in turn devalues weaker mitigation moves. 20% isn't worth nearly as much now as it was in ARR.

Historically, the one thing that would have offset WAR having access to double the number of invulnerability uses that PLD does was the power of Hallowed. It's not just an issue of healer attention. Negating damage used to mean that you wouldn't gain associated vulnerability stacks, in some cases resulting in a complete reset. This used to allow you to solo tank content and cheese mechanics that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to.

We've seen a steady shift away from this in fight design. Vulnerability stacks and knockbacks are often applied independently of damage received. This reduces the benefit of Hallowed. The power balance has changed, and I don't think that you can justify one tank having access to double the amount of invulnerability uses on Hallowed any longer.

This doesn't address the design issues with Living Dead, of course, but I don't think the solution is to also reduce its recast to three minutes. No tank should have an invulnerability recast that short. There are two independent problems here.

[DaulBan]

Unless Holmgang lets you do something the other tanks can't do period I really don't see there being that much of an issue with its existence. Holmgang as of this tier breaks nothing, as its main purposes are either knockback avoidance in 5s or handling ultimate embraces in 8s. In either case I'd be hard pressed to believe either is particularly OP when the former is also handled by standing behind some squares and the latter by having the two tanks stack. Holmgang makes UE easier but it by no means really ignores the mechanic.

The last time Holm did something really remarkable was taking first and third dualcast thunder during exfaust and that wasn't exactly game-changing when you could skip that cast entirely or do it legitimately without much trouble. In fact, since Midas I can think of only a couple examples where holmgang really makes a mechanic any more trivial than any other immunity any more effectively. I might be wrong but I'm really scratching my head here.

[Hierro]

As a general rule of thumb, resource-based cooldowns like TBN are not enough to mitigate tankbusters in isolation. Instead, they're meant to be used in combination with long-recast cooldowns to reach the required mitigation threshold.

You raise a couple good points, but this in particular feels somewhat flawed concerning TBN. If vengeance's mitigation is abusable enough with it's 30% mitigation, there's no reason why we cannot suggest TBN+DM, even un-darkarts'd, is just as effective if not more so given that most of the tier (and previous tier) deals magic damage for tank busters and mechanic damage.

That said, TBN allows the same thing as vengeance and ultimately saves cooldowns. If all your tank busters are being dealt with comfortably with DM+TBN, this frees up the other cooldowns for other uses.

On another note, calling TBN resource-based feels somewhat inaccurate. It pays for itself. The name of the game for DRK isn't worrying about bottoming out on mana, but making sure you never cap out on resources. There's no reason to think why there should be a situation where you would like to use TBN, but can't. It's nothing a bit foresight can't handle. I feel it's more accurate to call it FREE mitigation.

[Rubytoe]

The name of the game for DRK isn't worrying about bottoming out on mana, but making sure you never cap out on resources. There's no reason to think why there should be a situation where you would like to use TBN, but can't.

I couldn't have said this any better. Thank you.

[Lyth]

...

Holmgang is on the same recast as Shadow Wall and Sentinel. That means that any time either of the other tanks are using their 30-40% cooldowns on a tankbuster, you can just invuln it. If you're scratching your head on how to use Holmgang effectively, then it means that you simply aren't taking full advantage of it.

Players tend to fixate on the big, end of tier, split tankbusters because they're memorable, but you can and should incorporate invulns into any tankbuster rotation.

...

TBN doesn't save cooldowns. You're not going to take a tankbuster with TBN in isolation, any more than you would take a tankbuster with Thrill in isolation. It's always used in conjunction with something else. The reason why Holmgang saves cooldowns is because you don't actually pair it up with anything else. It's a faulty comparison.

DA + TBN is very good at handling smaller magical tankbusters, which frees up Rampart and Shadow Wall for harder hitting ones. It offers no benefit against physical damage, however, and there has always been at least one fight every tier, if not more, which predominantly uses physical damage.

TBN interacts with DM to raise it to functional status. Put two half-cooldowns together, get one full cooldown out. Meanwhile, WAR alternates between invuln and supercooldown on their tankbusters, without missing a beat.

[DaulBan]

Holmgang is on the same recast as Shadow Wall and Sentinel. That means that any time either of the other tanks are using their 30-40% cooldowns on a tankbuster, you can just invuln it. If you're scratching your head on how to use Holmgang effectively, then it means that you simply aren't taking full advantage of it.

Players tend to fixate on the big, end of tier, split tankbusters because they're memorable, but you can and should incorporate invulns into any tankbuster rotation.

To quote myself...

Holmgang as of this tier breaks nothing, as its main purposes are either knockback avoidance in 5s or handling ultimate embraces in 8s. In either case I'd be hard pressed to believe either is particularly OP when the former is also handled by standing behind some squares and the latter by having the two tanks stack. Holmgang makes UE easier but it by no means really ignores the mechanic.

What you're saying about maximizing the number of invulns you use is true, but only if it's more efficient for your healers than just mitigating properly with regular CDs. Furthermore as Ultimate Embrace is the single hardest hitting TB in the tier it makes sense to focus on it as a usage of immunities over other TBs, as its where you're going to notice the most difference in cooldown availability, particularly in a fight with a lot of stuff to mitigate.

Uses for Holm exist outside of 8S (I didn't talk about clownka but it's a similar case to godka, just more strict) but are significantly weaker and accomplish little other than letting you go down to 1 for fun when you could have just mitigated properly and had more HP to work with after a hit anyways. Holmgang's effect in those fights is minimal at best or functionally pointless compared to proper mitigation at worst. Saying

If you're scratching your head on how to use Holmgang effectively, then it means that you simply aren't taking full advantage of it.

is just silly and playing to the meme of Holmg is too good and ignores the actual state of tanking in this game. In Chadarnook and Phantom Train there is no 'effective' use of it that isn't covered by just mitigating properly. In Guardian there is if you really want to do it though you're likely just under-utilizing other cooldowns. In Godka it's useful but doesn't break anything.

In Deltascape the primary use was Lightnings in 4S, and you could do some fun stuff with using it on every other TB as MT on WAR for 3S but then you were forcing your non-WAR cotank to pick up most the adds or do confusing and awkward strategies that could be made easier by just swapping to use Awareness and leaving the healers with an even better health state to work with. In 2S Holm didn't do much without incredibly awkward timings, in 1S you could use it to handle a knockback if you wanted to I guess.

In Creator it... Hm. Well, as I was a WAR OT the entire time I'm not sure but going out on a limb 9S just mitigate since you should be overflowing with cooldowns, 10S just mitigate/swap because Lamebricks has a lot of tank busters, 11S it's useful for the double X sword, 12S... Well if you had a DRK then WAR mitigation sort of wasn't even a consideration until you got to the last 2 TBs of the game in which case Holmgang was a detriment to the group.

What I'm getting at here is that saying 'well if you aren't using Holmgang you aren't thinking of the right use for it' is veeery similar in my eyes to saying 'create a situation in which to use an immunity when you don't need to'. Holmgang's best use is to allow multiple people to avoid using cooldowns so that they have them for other parts of the fight. That's why there's a focus on Ultimate embrace. Actually looking back at the last three raid tiers this supposed fixation on shared TBs seems to be kinda made up given that there are 3, and nobody ever seems to talk about 11s when talking about tank balance. In o4s it's not a concern either because any tank could do the double strike (or whatever it was called) solo too.

And going back through these fights I'm still not seeing the one critical fight where WAR well and truly destroyed it by having Holmgang. This is what I was 'scratching my head' over. O4S is the best example I can think of with Exfaust where it allowed you to truly cheese a mechanic that's difficult enough that having a WAR made a significant difference between life and death for the raid.That's going back 2 years worth of raid content with no evidence that Holmgang itself is somehow destroying content. Every TB that I've taken with Holmgang in the last 2 years I've taken with regular mitigation and with only one example (being Exfaust) there's not been any significant issues.

My original post in this thread and my posts in other threads about holmgang aren't that it isn't powerful, it is, with very few limitations it is the most powerful defensive cooldown in the game with only minor drawbacks. But Holmgang does not substantially break fights or trivialize them more than they already are with the current state of personal mitigation. The cooldown is good, but not 'use as much as possible' to the point of making up reasons to use it good. Immunities are only that good if the fight naturally has substantial opportunities to use them, and in the case of Holm that means saving cooldowns for yourself and your cotank or making a mechanic substantially easier.

[whiskeybravo]

Uses for Holm exist outside of 8S (I didn't talk about clownka but it's a similar case to godka, just more strict) but are significantly weaker and accomplish little other than letting you go down to 1 for fun when you could have just mitigated properly and had more HP to work with after a hit anyways. Holmgang's effect in those fights is minimal at best or functionally pointless compared to proper mitigation at worst.

I agree with this. Most of the time when I've tried to use it in 5/6/7 the busters don't even take me to 1 HP. Now, I probably have shields and possibly intervention at times, but there's really nothing worse than using it and not even getting to 1 HP lol

[Chrono_Rising]

I agree with this. Most of the time when I've tried to use it in 5/6/7 the busters don't even take me to 1 HP. Now, I probably have shields and possibly intervention at times, but there's really nothing worse than using it and not even getting to 1 HP lol

If you are not hitting 1 after a tank buster with no mitigation, then you must be at or near full health. If you are in a static with people you trust you could always suggest your healers heal less in the time leading up to your Holmgang use, then there might be more benefit to the skill, and the healers might save resources going into it.

[Hierro]

TBN doesn't save cooldowns. You're not going to take a tankbuster with TBN in isolation, any more than you would take a tankbuster with Thrill in isolation.

What is this faulty assumption that TBN is sufficient in isolation? Where did it come from, but more importantly, why should I take issue with pairing said mitigation with another cooldown? Why should ANYONE take issue with it? It's FREE mitigation that comes with no diminishing returns. Do you not want to press your buttons or something? Is there a reason you want to let DM sit off cooldown? TBN saves cooldowns by being paired with the other mitigation on a 1 minute CD. Somehow, that combination deals with most of the threatening outgoing damage in savage. Yet, you claim it somehow doesn't save cooldowns? :thinking:

TBN interacts with any cooldown and raises it to awesome status. Don't pretend otherwise. I don't understand the logic behind "TBN offers no benefit for physical damage!" Might as well say the same for Thrill of Battle, and we all know the reaction you'd get if you did.

And really, the whole argument about physical damage fights in a tier is currently irrelevent. in O7S, if dadaluma spawns first, you can literally use a combination of only TBN+SW or LD to cover every single Arm&Hammer. If biblio first, only one tank busters has to be covered by TBN rampart, but even that is sufficient to tank comfortably. If we're talking o3s, the same thing was available. you could awarenss+TBN+rampart/shadow wall, or LD all of those critical hits.

Saying TBN doesn't save CDs doesn't make it true.