Blocking - Passive or Active?

As most tanks know blocking currently right now is a passive ability. With the idea of action combat being talked about I wonder if Jeffrey Bard has considered changing blocking to an active ability instead.

Would you prefer active blocking and evading or passive?

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Comments

Jahlon

Active block and evasion may yet be a thing.

They haven't gotten far enough into the action combat to share the final designs with us.

Wandering Mist

Active damage mitigation will always be preferable to passive or RNG-based mitigation, and I'd be very disappointed if there wasn't active mitigation in Ashes. Of course, this can be implemented in many different ways so it will be interesting to see what approach Intrepid take for it.

Noaani

I'm hoping builds will be able to be each, or at least be primarily one or the other.

I don't see the point in having a hybrid attack system if you don't also have a hybrid defense system.

Plateau

TERA managed to make to make decent active-defense combat systems years ago. I don't see why Intrepid couldn't do the same... Which isn't to say that they want to do that. The BR gave some evidence that they are willing to make more modern, quick-reaction-based system. But we'll have to see how it gets integrated in the alphas. (Hybrid-combat is slated for Alpha 2, isn't it?)

Damokles

I would like a Drk Souls like block and parry system

Sarevok

I prefer action myself. They just have passives shown on the wiki that increase your chances to block. I wouldn't mind if they changed those passives to something like increasing the amount of damage you mitigate when you block.

If they make blocking, parrying, and dodging active do you think they will need to create some sort of resource bar to represent how many times they can be used or how much damage can be mitigated?

I personally would like a health bar for my block that slowly deteriorates while I hold it if nothing is actually hitting me but one that rates attacks based on the power of the incoming attack. Such as a PvE boss's 1-shot attack should completely bust my block but still allowing whatever % of damage I was still expected to take. I would then need to figure out other means of staying alive or use a skill that protects me or dodge if I have one.

Parrying should almost be treated like a block but in that it would allow activation of certain skills. The health bar of a parry would be much less than a block but a parry would have a lot of counter attack abilities as an option.

Now a dodge should just be treated like a normal i-frame allowing complete avoidance of any direct attack. Also, if you i-frame in an aoe but your dodge doesn't land you outside the perimeter of the aoe then you just take half damage. There would need to be a certain amount of dodges that could be done in a period of time until they recover. BDO's i-frames were usable ever 3 seconds I believe but you could also use other skills that may have included an i-frame, frontal guard(block), or super armor (damage reduction and CC resistant) during all or some of the animation. I would be curious if they did it this way or just just have us a health bar like in GW2.

mcstackerson

I'd prefer if they made defense active.

I'd like it if all melee weapons had a block/parry option with a stat, similar to damage, that impacts there effectiveness/efficiency.

Plateau

Sarevok wrote: »

If they make blocking, parrying, and dodging active do you think they will need to create some sort of resource bar to represent how many times they can be used or how much damage can be mitigated?

There's always some kind of limit to blocking/dodging. A small stamina bar that regenerates quickly when you aren't blocking/dodging is a fairly standard solution. That, plus the fact that you can't attack while blocking, is usually enough to encourage people to block sparingly.

I'm curious what Intrepid will go for. They've confirmed that some abilities will have i-frames. But I wonder if defensive abilities will be tied to individual cooldowns, or if there's a resource bar for defense, or some other unusual mechanic.

I hope there's a lot of counters too. I like it when you can turn your opponents attacks into a positive opportunity.

George_Black

Active all the way.

Undead Canuck

75% of the way...

Noaani

Undead Canuck wrote: »

75% of the way...

Or 25% of the way, if a player specs that way.

Nagash

Damokles wrote: »

I would like a Drk Souls like block and parry system

*shoots magic*

parry this you filthy casual

Damokles

Nagash wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

I would like a Drk Souls like block and parry system

*shoots magic*

parry this you filthy casual

*dodges magic*

Ha, did you miss me?

Nagash

Ok+anime+i+need+an+anime+before+you+_1bff93e5a23621705c124cc850fffa23.gif

Damokles

Nagash wrote: »

Ishka

I am quite “divided” with two visions of active and passives blocking/evading. I think that regarding tab-targeting abilities, you should have the regular stats like blocking/parrying/evasion stats. But it would make the hybrid combat "obsolete*" (*Sorry I lack words to describe my thought ^^'). Since with action-combat abilities it would make no senses to evade them physically with a dodge/i-frame etc... knowing that the next thing that hit you LITERALLY misses because of the high evasion stat.

Since AOC will be hybrid I guess, we could have some sort of another stat modifier for damages taken for tab-targeting abilities in addition to the classic physical & magical defenses many MMOs have.

For an active blocking/evading, what would be legit in my eyes is that depending on your archetype and weapons ( & shield). You have different resources and ways of not taking damages. A Rogue would dodge with dashes, rolls, abilities etc... A Mage would consume his mana to block incoming damages or reducing them, blink etc... A Tank would uses his shield to reduce a good amount of damages or use an ability to completely block the next attack, well you get my ideas.

Maybe like @mcstackerson said a stat that increase the efficiency of said mechanics above.

What would be nice is that such mechanics are made that it is as much as important to master them as using your abilities properly. In 1v1 and group fights it could add a lot of depth into the fights but; what I wonder is how efficient and practical it would be in large scale battle when you can get literally ganked by many opponents at once. Is the number of things you can evade/block is limitless ? Will it depends on the abilities we're using ?

What do you guys think ? °°

Sarevok

I think until we know what this "hybrid combat" is actually going to be, we won't really know what to expect in terms of how defenses will work. When they say hybrid combat I get the feeling they mean GW2-style of combat but having the ability to select targets for certain spells, if not certain classes such as healers.

I personally would feel more at ease of they just picked one of the two instead of supposedly taking on this hybrid view point. Everything that we saw from Margaret's view point was tab targeting. When i think action combat I think BDO, Tera or Vindictus. When I think tab targeting I think WoW, ArcheAge, or Dark Age of Camelot. I don't think I have ever seen a game that was close to the middle.

Sarevok

Ishka wrote: »

I am quite “divided” with two visions of active and passives blocking/evading. I think that regarding tab-targeting abilities, you should have the regular stats like blocking/parrying/evasion stats. But it would make the hybrid combat "obsolete*" (*Sorry I lack words to describe my thought ^^'). Since with action-combat abilities it would make no senses to evade them physically with a dodge/i-frame etc... knowing that the next thing that hit you LITERALLY misses because of the high evasion stat.

Since AOC will be hybrid I guess, we could have some sort of another stat modifier for damages taken for tab-targeting abilities in addition to the classic physical & magical defenses many MMOs have.

For an active blocking/evading, what would be legit in my eyes is that depending on your archetype and weapons ( & shield). You have different resources and ways of not taking damages. A Rogue would dodge with dashes, rolls, abilities etc... A Mage would consume his mana to block incoming damages or reducing them, blink etc... A Tank would uses his shield to reduce a good amount of damages or use an ability to completely block the next attack, well you get my ideas.

Maybe like @mcstackerson said a stat that increase the efficiency of said mechanics above.

What would be nice is that such mechanics are made that it is as much as important to master them as using your abilities properly. In 1v1 and group fights it could add a lot of depth into the fights but; what I wonder is how efficient and practical it would be in large scale battle when you can get literally ganked by many opponents at once. Is the number of things you can evade/block is limitless ? Will it depends on the abilities we're using ?

What do you guys think ? °°

My thoughts on your question-

Evading should evade everything for the small window it is activated as long as you land outside the AoE range. Meaning if you evade/dodge a single or multiple attacks it will grant the i-frame for the whole second nullifying any incoming damage but it doesn't mean you won't take damage before or after that window. If you can land outside the perimeter of an AoE when the AoE is expected to hit you then yes you don't take damage but if you land in the perimeter then you just take half damage. Think of it as a reflex saving throw when a fireball hits you. Evade/dodge would be available to users wearing medium and light armor. Maybe cloth but i feel those that wear cloth will probably have other means of avoiding damage. Possibly magical.

Parrying I would treat as a frontal block but in terms of strength vs multiple targets it will probably break causing a recovery effect whether that's a stun, knock back or losing access to your abilities for a short duration (1-3 seconds). In terms of being able to counter attack, that will probably be your saving grace. If you are given some sort of mobility counter attack that you can use on the initial parry to get you out of trouble then you might survive multiple targets attacking. Players that would have access to parry would be 1h, 2h or dual wield.

Blocking would be a frontal guard that absorbs all or most damage including AoE and could have access to some shield counter attacks or a riposte perhaps. The shield user would also block incoming damage for any user standing closely behind the shield user as well. The reasoning behind the shield being stronger than parry would be due to a parry user having more damage capabilities available to them and more mobile.

If there are any stats to help your defensive actives it would be either reduced cooldowns, more damage mitigation or possibly more damage to your counterattacks.

Ventharien

I think block and evade are to integral to the idea of action combat. If you take those out It's going to be essentially completely tab target with ranged exceptions. I like the earlier idea of stats affecting the efficacy of each block, or perhaps the amount each blocks costs in terms of stamina or whatever resource they'd tie with it, or even having abilities that cause an instant block on some sort of percentage chance, to make life a little easier for people more comfortable with passive blocking styles.

Ferryman

Active, because that will make dodging and blocking skill based. A hybrid could also work where we could see both options used in the game. However, in hybrid system the active should give more benefits than the passive one.

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