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).

[OmegaSinX]

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.

what the heck... Me and Kitru actually agree on something. The sky is falling lol.

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.

I was just throwing ideas out there, but yes it might be a lil over the top when combined with WAR's 2.1 arsenal. But regardless, it Foresight needs a buff. 10%DR seems reasonably.

Which brings another topic to mind.

One thing I noticed since I've started leveling a SCH is that Foresight/FeatherFoot is WAR only means of mitigation till lvl 35 when they get Inner Beast, Followed by Storm path at 38 and Finally Vengeance at 46. Which is sad since both of those are really weak and thats they have for so long. So what you have are WARs who still get hit like Trucks until they reach their 40s.

Pre-50 healing on WAR is still an issue. I now see what all the healers were talking about. There really no room for error when healing WAR unless the healer or the WAR is over geared.

[Paikis]

One thing I noticed since I've started leveling a SCH is that Foresight/FeatherFoot is WAR only means of mitigation till lvl 35 when they get Inner Beast, Followed by Storm path at 38 and Finally Vengeance at 46. Which is sad since both of those are really weak and thats they have for so long. So what you have are WARs who still get hit like Trucks until they reach their 40s.

Pre-50 healing on WAR is still an issue. I now see what all the healers were talking about. There really no room for error when healing WAR unless the healer or the WAR is over geared.

Pre-30 you can cross class anything. I remember I went and got a whole bunch of classes to 8-ish while I was leveling my Paladin (my first class to level).

Flash and Convalescence from Gladiator to 10
Second Wind and Featherfoot from level 8 Pugilist
Feint and Keen Flurry from lancer level 6

All of these will help you with tanking pre-30, and then at 30, you get Defiance which is an effective 20% damage reduction. Either way though, tanking pre-30 is more about holding agro than it is about not dieing. If you've done any of the low level dungeons recently, you'd see that they don't really need a particularly tanky-tank.

[OmegaSinX]

If you've done any of the low level dungeons recently, you'd see that they don't really need a particularly tanky-tank.

Thats the thing, All i have been doing is Dungeons since i started leveling this healer. every time when I party with a low level WAR it seems like Healing Spam-o-roma. Their are some that hold thier own but most time time its no stop physicks.

[Kitru]

what the heck... Me and Kitru actually agree on something. The sky is falling lol.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

One thing I noticed since I've started leveling a SCH is that Foresight/FeatherFoot is WAR only means of mitigation till lvl 35 when they get Inner Beast, Followed by Storm path at 38 and Finally Vengeance at 46. Which is sad since both of those are really weak and thats they have for so long. So what you have are WARs who still get hit like Trucks until they reach their 40s.

Something to remember is that PLDs don't get Shield Oath until 40. WARs get Defiance right at 30 so, even without the same CD suite as a PLD (which, until 40, is Rampart, Convalescence, Awareness, and Sentinel; you can also get Foresight via CC), WAR is still going to be nominally easier to heal because WAR would be healed as if it were a PLD with Rampart up *constantly* (especially since a WAR should also have at least Conv, Featherfoot, and Second Wind to augment their existing suite).

If anything, WAR is incredibly overpowered compared to PLD pre-40. I'd be pretty suspect of anyone claiming that WAR is somehow harder to heal than PLD pre-40 since the only explanation I can really come up with is penkac on the WAR's end.

[OmegaSinX]

Maybe ive had alot of bad WAR's. Seriously, I had one WAR today who complete ignore adds and did single target rotation and I kept getting threat because he didnt even tag them with flash or overpower. And another who refused to turn on defiance because he said he didnt like the -25% attack reduction. I can see if you way over geared, but if I have to spam my best heal to keep u alive and dps are on your heels in threat, its prolly for the greater good for you to turn on defiance. Ironically, All you see in dungeons now are WAR's. I rarely see PLD in dungeons anymore unless its a higher level PLD doing Duty Roulette.

[Kitru]

Maybe ive had alot of bad WAR's.

From the two anecdotes you've provided, I'm pretty sure that you're dealing with a lot of pebkac WARs (the same happens with pugs of all kinds; at release, I saw a lot more skilled WARs while leveling than skilled PLDs because PLD was where all of the idiots were flocking to). If a tank isn't getting aggro on everything or refuses to use their tank stance without *good* reason (and, honestly, the only good reason in a 4 man I can think of is Demon Wall; at any other time, you're better served requiring less healing so that the healer can spend less time looking at you and more time attacking), they're suffering from idiot syndrome.

Ignoring player skill, WARs are substantially stronger than PLD until PLD gets Shield Oath, at which point the two tanks level out, but, as most people are wont to say, it doesn't matter how strong a class is, you'll still suck if you put an idiot in charge of it.

[Heroicbandit]

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).

I actually really like this idea or a similar variant of it. Essentially it puts WARs at around the same damage reduction as Rampart albeit only physical damage. Still loads more useful than its current state. I've parried Mountain Busters and Double Wheels. It certainly helps.