Feedback for ongoing Tank mitigation and balance for 1.6

[propapili]

I just want to be able to spend more than 26 points in a tree other than VK and not feel like all of my points are being wasted.

The diversity of the soul system sounds great from a distance, but in practice we are really pigeon-holed into a few specs because the mitigation is so poorly distributed among the trees. Why would you spec over 26 points into any of the trees other than VK? Every point after 26 is just fluff. Wasted points.

1) Base Mitigation should exist for every tank spec based on shared roots
2) Specialized mitigation should be acquired with deep investment into any given tank soul
3) If we cannot tank with 51pt specs of each warrior tanking soul when this patch goes live, it will be deemed a failure.

To me, this is the make-or-break patch. Tanking is what I do; if they don't deliver here, I will not be nearly as active with feedback or analysis because I will have learned directly that it's gone to waste. That's not a threat by any means. It is, however, the truth.

[Marrocco]

I just want to be able to spend more than 26 points in a tree other than VK and not feel like all of my points are being wasted.

The diversity of the soul system sounds great from a distance, but in practice we are really pigeon-holed into a few specs because the mitigation is so poorly distributed among the trees. Why would you spec over 26 points into any of the trees other than VK? Every point after 26 is just fluff. Wasted points.

1) Base Mitigation should exist for every tank spec based on shared roots
2) Specialized mitigation should be acquired with deep investment into any given tank soul
3) If we cannot tank with 51pt specs of each warrior tanking soul when this patch goes live, it will be deemed a failure.

To me, this is the make-or-break patch. Tanking is what I do; if they don't deliver here, I will not be nearly as active with feedback or analysis because I will have learned directly that it's gone to waste. That's not a threat by any means. It is, however, the truth.

I have to agree with you, but will stress that I will be happy if two of those tanking trees are shifted to support.

[Draagh]

I would suggest:

-Reaver uses improved debuffs to reduce the tank and raid damage taken (great for splash damage fights). It should also perhaps have better aoe dps

-Void knight keeps its high passive mitigation and better magic CDs and better dps against casters

-Paladin keeps its block-based mitigation but should have the highest average physical mitigation (because you will be taking bigger spike damage and thus stressing the healers more). Maybe increase block-related dps a little so it gives better dps against physical damage bosses

-Warlord, how about mitigation based on shouts/calls? Maybe call to entrench should reduce tank damage by 25% or so and call to battle increases raid damage by 10% (but only allow one call active at one time). That way warlords can switch between damage/mitigation at key moments in a fight giving a bit of skill back to the tank.

This would keep all tanking souls different but viable while each one will have tools better suited to specific fights

Please dont forget that other tank trees either need +hit talents or we need a +hit rune for shields. Otherwise we will all still be forced to spec into paladin for HK until we are fully geared up. Improving the +hit on tank vendor gear could also help with this issue

[propapili]

Gift of the Void Knight: Increases HP by 0.45% per points, and Armor by 1% per point (RD then augments magical mitigation)
Gift of the Paladin: Increases HP by 0.75% per point, Armor by 0.5% per point and block by .25% per point.
Gift of the Warlord: Increases HP by 0.75% per point, Armor by 0.5% per point, and dodge/parry by 0.25% per point.
Gift of the Reaver: Increases HP by 0.45% per point, Armor by 0.5% per point, and Reduces Damage Taken by 0.2% per point.

Now: Increases Maximum Health by 0.46% for each point spent in the ____ tree. Stacks with other warrior gift abilities.
Proposed: Increases Maximum Health by 0.46% and Armor by 0.75% for each point spent in the ____ tree. Stacks with other warrior gift abilities

---

By now, I think most of the warrior board readers are familiar with these suggestions that have been proposed by myself, Sebb and others. Well, I have been thinking and I what might end up working the best (and easiest) would be to combine the ideas. Here's what I mean...

Warrior Gifts would be as I have suggested many times; they increase base health by 0.46% and armor by 0.75%. Then, once you reach the soul-specific root threshold (usually 36 pts), you start building upon the unique passives for each tree. Here's are some 51 pt examples:

Paladin
6 pts: Gift of the Paladin - 0.46% health per point, 0.75% armor per point
36 pts: Heart of the Crusader - 5% chance on block to reduce the damage of the next unblocked physical attack by 1% per point above 36. (75% chance to reduce by 15% at max)

Reaver
6 pts: Gift of the Reaver - 0.46% health per point, 0.75% armor per point
36 pts: Pox - Whenever an enemy is damaged by a Reaver damage over time ability, there's a 1% chance per point above 36 for the enemy to become afflicted by Pox for 5 seconds. Pox reduces damage dealt by 10% and causes hits by the Reaver to heal for 100% damage done. (15% chance at max, 1 sec ICD)

Warlord
6 pts: Gift of the Warlord - 0.46% health per point, 0.75% armor per point
36 pts: Battlefield Veteran - Maximum health is increased by 2% for each point spent in the warlord tree above 36.

Void Knight
6 pts: Gift of the Void Knight - 0.46% health per point, 0.75% armor per point
36 pts: Anti-Mage - Each point spent in the Void Knight tree above 36 increases all resistances by 5 and gives all voidknight abilities a 2% chance to interrupt spellcasting.

--- Just thought of them off the top of my head, but the point is that the Gifts should be used to give base mitigation and the 36pt stuff should be used to specialize the tree.

[Atrius]

Thank you all for the continuing great feedback, there are several suggestions in this thread that I really like and am looking at the possibility of combining in some way with the already existing plans. We are trying to make all of the tank souls equivalent in mitigation and threat without completely reworking them, we want to do it with as little change as possible, and also with as little homogenization as possible. At the end of the day we want them to play very much as they already did, just better.

[Nevia]

I'd like to point out that because a Dev creates a feedback thread does not mean they will actually pay attention to any of the feedback.

It's in the interest of Trion that their players enjoy the game. If they really completely didn't care, they would not have created a thread like that.

Anyway, I'm aggreing with the way of tanking you propose. So I put a huge "+1" on this thread.

[Sebb]

Thanks for checking back. Looking forward to next round of PTS updates to see what our feedback has changed.

[propapili]

Atrius wants to balance 51 pt builds. A good start would be to find disparities.

*Using LIVE server values - Including all buffs available to the spec*

Test sample numbers: 10,000 health 10,000 base armor, 10% dodge, 10% parry, 30% block (45% absorb)

51 VK:
Magic Mitigation: 28% - 50% Spell Damage reduction for 10 sec, 1 min CD; 20% heal upon spell damage, triggers 5 times, 3 min cd.
Physical Mitigation: 75.81% base, 83.26% avg, 20% avoidance, 44% combined avoidance - 20% Accord of Emptiness - No Cooldown
Effective Health: 41,346 <------- The GOLD standard

51 Paladin:
Magic Mitigation: 9% - No Cooldown
Physical Mitigation: 63.90% base, 79.70% avg, 20% avoidance, 64% combined avoidance (block) - 100% block for 10 seconds, 1 min CD
Effective Health: 27,700 <------- Huge Disparity

51 Warlord:
Magic Mitigation: 3% (not considering the 5% from Entrench; only the 3% exclusive number) - Killing Blow heals to 50% 3 min. CD
Physical Mitigation: 64.98% base, 77.87% avg, 25% avoidance, 51.25% combined avoidance (block) - 3% Entrench - Killing Blow heals to 50% 3 min. CD
Effective Health: 28,557

51 Reaver:
Magic Mitigation: 22.2% - Shroud of Entropy 35% damage reduction for 10 sec, 1min CD
Physical Mitigation: 66.96% base, 77.14% avg, 20% avoidance, 44% combined avoidance (block) - 5% Imbued Armor, 10% Power from the Masses - 35% damage reduction for 10 sec, 1min CD
Effective Health: 30,265

Comparisons
Base Damage Reduction:
75.81% VK
66.96% Reaver
64.98% Warlord
63.90% Paladin
Analysis: The three red numbers are understandable. A three percent disparity in base physical damage taken is fair; Reaver has the highest of the three; and is penalized by having less avoidance. Paladin has the lowest, but has the best avoidance... Warlord is just terrible.

Avg. Damage Reduction:
83.26% VK
79.70% Paladin
77.87% Warlord
77.14% Reaver
Analysis: Again, the three disadvantaged trees are within acceptable ranges based on their base damage reduction; however, VK is still far and away the best - because the base damage reduction is so good. This also does NOT include Ravenous Strength, which would push this number even higher for VK.

Magic Damage Reduction:
28% VK
22.2% Reaver
9% Paladin
3% Warlord
Analysis: this is where a decision needs to be made. Obviously, VK is just the cream of the crop overall; but what do you want the tanks to be able to do? Based on what you have said recently, you don't want a spec to be REQUIRED to complete content. Alright, then you need to improve these numbers to be within ~8% of eachother so they are all competitive. Warlord and Paladin are in need of serious love.

Trion, please ask yourselves... what do we want each tank to do? Set some goals! For example...

MISSION
"We want reaver to be +5% innate magic damage vs. the three other souls; but is limited on cooldowns at 51 points. We want Paladin to be 5% better average mitigation than other tanks, but 5% less base mitigation (aka block tank). We want Voidknight to be average mitigation with great magical cooldowns. We want Warlord to be +5% innate physical mitigation, with average magic mitigation and limited cooldowns across the board at the expense of group buffs."

I'm not telling you that's how it should be, but that's a good fundamental start. If you truly want the 51 point trees to work, you MUST rid us of all of the front-loaded talents. Almost all of the talents that give Paladin any form of mitigation are located a whopping 13 points into the tree. All of the warlord mitigation (lol) is 16 points into the tree. All of the reaver mitigation is 21 points into the tree. Most of the VK mitigation is 25 points into the tree. Until you close these gaps, this will not work.

Every small percentage point becomes a larger and larger deficit for the lesser trees as you get better gear.

SOLUTION!
Baseline Mitigation; an absolute bare minimum that is determined by a shared branch or root. This will determine a the minimum amount of PHYSICAL mitigation and/or MAGICAL mitigation. Then you can evenly distribute the mitigation; but back-load more of it so you are not obligated to take X points of Y to be competitive.

I'm sure I've drilled the Warrior Gift adjustment idea down your throat enough; but I want you to tell me that you're working on something. Because if you don't, I will just keep coming with this data and analysis.

Each point spent in the ___ tree increases health by 0.46%, armor by .75% and reduces spell damage taken by .01%.

Each point spent in the ___ tree increases health by 0.46%, and armor by .75%.

Each point spent in the ___ tree increases health by 0.46%, armor by .75% increases all resistances by 1%.
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I don't think I posted this on this thread. Atrius, please analyze what is causing each of the souls to be so drastically different mitigation-wise. I've broken most of it down here, by the way.

I don't want credit or a pat on the back, I want to enjoy my warrior.

[Nevia]

Thank you all for the continuing great feedback, there are several suggestions in this thread that I really like and am looking at the possibility of combining in some way with the already existing plans. We are trying to make all of the tank souls equivalent in mitigation and threat without completely reworking them, we want to do it with as little change as possible, and also with as little homogenization as possible. At the end of the day we want them to play very much as they already did, just better.

Cool, just really keep in mind that the really bases of tanking is to have nearly the same passive mitigation. This is what basically makes a tanking spec viable in Rift, all the cool stuffs comes after.

[herlpderp]

If you are going to make all tanking souls equal in mitigation and threat, why not just reduce the amount of tanking souls? What is the point of having 4 souls that are equally useful/useless?

[Soulsurfing]

I'm so glad we have onzo posting. I'm horrible at the number crunching but it's obvious some work is needed on our tank souls.

What I would like to see is 51pt builds, AND hybrids, all have a use for tanking.

But at the same time, I don't want to be required to have 5 tank roles in order to tank. I think for the average person 1-2 should be more then enough to handle 90% of content. Remember there are tons of other facets in Rift, including PVP, crafting/farming, PVE DPS... ideally we should be able to do a little of everything if we set our souls up correctly.

That is why 51vk was so nice, 1 tank soul to handle the majority of the content, and then you could respec to something else if needed for specific encounters (like Reaver Hybrid for maxmit magical bosses, etc)

[Phantom Scony]

If you are going to make all tanking souls equal in mitigation and threat, why not just reduce the amount of tanking souls? What is the point of having 4 souls that are equally useful/useless?

Why have souls at all? We could dumb it down to picking "DPS", "Tank", or "Healer" during CG.

People want to play different than others. I like all three Tank classes, but I prefer the playstyle of Riftstalker.

[Sebb]

If you are going to make all tanking souls equal in mitigation and threat, why not just reduce the amount of tanking souls? What is the point of having 4 souls that are equally useful/useless?

The question needs to be asked, if they're all the same, how are they different?

I hope we all can learn a lesson from the Riftstalker tree.

[Dartan]

Thank you all for the continuing great feedback, there are several suggestions in this thread that I really like and am looking at the possibility of combining in some way with the already existing plans. We are trying to make all of the tank souls equivalent in mitigation and threat without completely reworking them, we want to do it with as little change as possible, and also with as little homogenization as possible. At the end of the day we want them to play very much as they already did, just better.

Please consider fixing itemization as well for all T1 raids and HK. There are multiple items that have missing stats (hit, crit, or any non-primary stat) that is affecting guilds that have DKP. There is almost a 1 minimum runebreak for every boss killed in T1 raids due to missing stats on items in T1 raids. Thanks.

[Gaylonn]

If you are going to make all tanking souls equal in mitigation and threat, why not just reduce the amount of tanking souls? What is the point of having 4 souls that are equally useful/useless?

That is the fundamental question I have.

A Tanks job is to hold aggro and soak up DMG. If all 4 are equal at doing that then how are they not homogenized?

If we go down this path.....apply it to DPS and Heals then really why even have the soul system we have now?

I guess the more basic question can only be answered by Trion....what level of versatility did they want from the soul system. One of function and specialization or one of fluff and style. I was drawn to Rift because I thought it was the former not the latter.