Tanks and the Guard Mechanic

Bribzy

Seeing a lot of posts here related to individual experiences with the tank class, suggestions for balance, etc. While I personally agree and disagree with various points on them, I didn't want to add yet another post to the pile.

Instead, I wanted to get more specific and start a discussion to ask how other people felt about the current Guard system and its potential for improvements, especially given the context of the tank class. This includes all the bells and whistles: Stamina Tree, Tank skills (Reflect), etc.

Personally, I feel as if the system has some budding elements that feel pretty nice, but leaves a lot to be desired. I really enjoy the s&b play-style, and the incentives to Guarding attacks for tanks. That said, even with the improvements over phase 1, Blocking still doesn't feel very snappy. The damage reduction against big attacks is great, but as it stands, it feels as if ignoring guarding and just relying on heals/mitigations is optimal until absolutely necessary to block (big hits, cc effects, survival, etc).

I personally wish that there was a bit more proactivity in guarding. Responding to animations, immediate animation cancels out of attacks, perfect guard windows, or something of that sort would do wonders for me.

As it is stands, Reflect does feel pretty okay in relation to my previous point. The fact that when grouping lots of monsters that reflect can get popped by random attacks does make it a bit harder to use sometimes, but the reward for a good reflect is very satisfying.

What do others think?

sunaurus

I haven't felt the need to use regular blocks (other than just trying it out a few times). Mostly I use reflect.

IMO block would be much better if it was designed specifically for tanks to prevent some tank busters every now and then.

As in:

1. It should provide much more significant mitigation
2. It could have a very limited duration (to reward good timing) - 2-3 seconds would be enough
3. It could have a longer cooldown (balanced around the frequency of tank busters)
4. Enemies should properly choreograph tank busters (it should be more than just some cast bar under your target frame)
5. Non-tanks really shouldn't get access to this ability

This would be way more engaging than just mindlessly holding down the guard button for long durations, and barely getting anything out of it. Additionally, the existence of such tank busters would make tanks much more necessary for groups than they arguably are right now.

Malva

Active blocking has a very high cost: not attacking, not using skills, walking slower and consuming stamina per blocked blow. Therefore it should be something extremely efficient to offset all the cost of you actively raising the shield.

My suggestions are:

1) Perfect guard
A passive in which if we block at the exact moment of the enemy's attack, we would mitigate 100% damage and have a reduction in the stamina cost for blocking this specific attack

2) Battle exhaustion
In the first 3 seconds of blocking attacks, our stamina cost will be reduced. However, from that time on, our stamina cost becomes progressively higher until it becomes a continuous cost (like when we run) of stamina, forcing us to lower the shield again.

I believe that these two changes would bring more significance to active blocking and more action elements for combat, which is precisely AoC's proposal, to have a hybrid combat

Bribzy

Malva wrote: »

1) Perfect guard
A passive in which if we block at the exact moment of the enemy's attack, we would mitigate 100% damage and have a reduction in the stamina cost for blocking this specific attack

This is something along the lines of what I'd love as well. A small window encouraging a reason to actually cancel existing skills. This sounds especially fun to use.

That said, as sun suggested, more tank buster skills would actually fit in pretty well into this sort of change. It would add more layers of skill expression and encouragement to actually want to shield in the first place, or rather, whether a tank can even afford not to weave shields into their rotations.

Solrick

I have never played a tank without some type of reactionary ability like a pommel or throw to interrupt a cast ability. Would love to see it.

ShivaFang

Path of Exile 2 has a spirit gem I like that made me think of this thread - if you are hit within 0.5 seconds of blocking you get a burst of magma from your shield and get an endurance charge. You have to stop blocking unblock for at least 0.75s before it will activate again.
This is great if you are good at timing or surrounded by enemies when you block.