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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Feedback Tank Changes
Malva
Member, Alpha Two
I will comment on each of the changes
1) Vengenace
The skill is definitely better, much better. However, the shield is still very little, if we add all 3 stacks with the passive "relentless Vengeance" on a tank with 5k HP, we will have a shield of 450, which is easily consumed by both mob and player. But the skill is much better
Suggestion: Increase to 5% of maximum HP, when you have the passive "relentless vengeance"
2) Grit
At first this change seemed good because it brought more dynamism to the tank, however, after spending 1 hour playing, pressing the skill every 10 seconds, you understand how unfeasible it is to maintain this. Imagine this for hours and hours of gameplay, simply unfeasible
Suggestion: Make the skill a toggle skill again, but it is constantly consuming Grit, so it continues to have dynamism, but makes gameplay more enjoyable. Another option would be to greatly increase the duration of the skill, to 30-60 seconds
3) Inciting Strikes
Interesting change, I believe the skill will be used more in PVE
4) Ground Pound
Excellent change, this skill needed to have a CD reduction
5) Slam
This change doesn't seem to make much sense to me. It's not a damage skill, it's not a control skill, it takes a lot of courage to generate a little aggro. Honestly, I think it will be an absolutely dispensable skill
Suggestion: Make it apply triped
6) Absorption Field
This skill was not strong enough to receive a nerf. If only she had an increase in her animation speed, but not even that was done. It just made an average skill worse
Suggestion: Revert the nerf
7) Fortify
Another nerf to tank mitigation.
Tank was already a fragile class in relation to what the tank archetype should be, with this further nerf in its mitigations, this situation gets worse.
Suggestion: roll back the nerf
8) Indomitable Spirit
Again, another nerf to tank survival
Suggestion: Revert the nerf
9) Conclusion
Testing new things is always welcome, but unfortunately intrepid has worsened the problems in the tank.
Our class continues to deal mediocre damage, has less ability to generate aggro, has less damage mitigation and less sustain. In other words, the tank has just become even more fragile and even more dispensable in groups. A single positive "vengenace" change does not justify this excess of nerfs on the class that was already weak and became even weaker.
Furthermore, if the skills continue to have such a high courage cost, we need more courage, 100 is not enough for a more fluid combat
1) Vengenace
The skill is definitely better, much better. However, the shield is still very little, if we add all 3 stacks with the passive "relentless Vengeance" on a tank with 5k HP, we will have a shield of 450, which is easily consumed by both mob and player. But the skill is much better
Suggestion: Increase to 5% of maximum HP, when you have the passive "relentless vengeance"
2) Grit
At first this change seemed good because it brought more dynamism to the tank, however, after spending 1 hour playing, pressing the skill every 10 seconds, you understand how unfeasible it is to maintain this. Imagine this for hours and hours of gameplay, simply unfeasible
Suggestion: Make the skill a toggle skill again, but it is constantly consuming Grit, so it continues to have dynamism, but makes gameplay more enjoyable. Another option would be to greatly increase the duration of the skill, to 30-60 seconds
3) Inciting Strikes
Interesting change, I believe the skill will be used more in PVE
4) Ground Pound
Excellent change, this skill needed to have a CD reduction
5) Slam
This change doesn't seem to make much sense to me. It's not a damage skill, it's not a control skill, it takes a lot of courage to generate a little aggro. Honestly, I think it will be an absolutely dispensable skill
Suggestion: Make it apply triped
6) Absorption Field
This skill was not strong enough to receive a nerf. If only she had an increase in her animation speed, but not even that was done. It just made an average skill worse
Suggestion: Revert the nerf
7) Fortify
Another nerf to tank mitigation.
Tank was already a fragile class in relation to what the tank archetype should be, with this further nerf in its mitigations, this situation gets worse.
Suggestion: roll back the nerf
8) Indomitable Spirit
Again, another nerf to tank survival
Suggestion: Revert the nerf
9) Conclusion
Testing new things is always welcome, but unfortunately intrepid has worsened the problems in the tank.
Our class continues to deal mediocre damage, has less ability to generate aggro, has less damage mitigation and less sustain. In other words, the tank has just become even more fragile and even more dispensable in groups. A single positive "vengenace" change does not justify this excess of nerfs on the class that was already weak and became even weaker.
Furthermore, if the skills continue to have such a high courage cost, we need more courage, 100 is not enough for a more fluid combat
7
Comments
I'm lvl 25, with a pretty decent set, firebrand shield, and I thought that, overall, the tank was weaker. But I'm happy to see more people testing it and giving feedback on the changes.
If you don't wanna read my mini novel, what i suggested in an angry-ish rant, that the animation when you used to put it up (the blue shield on the back) slowly fade away over 10s and the different stacks have different hues of blue. But your idea is actually better. Why didn't I think of that?
3: yes
4: agreed
5: agreed
6: no opinion. It tanked 1/2 maybe 1 hit. I assume it was changed do to how much value it proveded in group pvp
7: yes. Tanks are not even mandatory in forge funnily enough. Guild run forge withouth a tank. They said they had to pull 1by1 but was doable.
8: it's whatever. I don't think it's that bad Let's be honest it was pretty strong.
The big problem with this change is that it fundamentally changes how tanks play, and it's quite frankly a slap in the face. I'll drop tanking most likely with this grit change. F this. Tanking was already busy work in PVE. In PVP (that i don't play a lot admittedly) tank was extremely fragile and did 0 dmg.
Glory to Arioch
Glory to Winsted
For my mana addicted brothers:
For the Glory of Quel'Thalas
As to the changes to Slam, very much not a fan. What was once a welcome part of my kit, and one of my favorite tank skills at that, has become something I'm considering dropping entirely. The courage cost is too expensive for how little it provides. Probably my least favorite change from this update.
Besides that, generally agree with the other points made. The shielding changes feel bad (especially absorption field). But while making tanks feel more proactive is a welcome design direction, this iteration feels like a miss.
Even all the mitigation nerfs are not bothering me, since I think it is designed with future augmentation system in mind that probably should even out the lack of mitigation in some ways.
But the Grit is different. Adding Grit to one's rotation completley ruins it, maintaining Grit takes too much of one's attention and focus.
I really like Malva's suggestion of a Grit as a toggle skill, that consumes Courage constantly to prolong it's duration, since I was thinking the exsact same thing.
P.S. Forgive me for my bad English, I'm not native
Tanks are now a lot less fun to play, and i don't want to play one anymore.
We already had HP as a 4th resource to manage and both HP and courage are harder to manage now as we have no buffer to work with we are often at full or empty and far rarer are we anywhere inbetween.
We die more often than any other class because Tanks were already fragile resulting in higher relatively repair costs and xp debt than other classes.
The changes have taken us from a state where we did not feel like tanks anyway to a place we are far more delicate which does not fit the archetype we want to play in PvE or Pvp.
These changes took us from frail to a place where we are a glass class with aggro control and no damage.
1) Vengeance feels like its actually viable to use now. Previously I saw people joking about how tanks should get a buff when Vengeance is in their skillbars, to identify tanks who don't know what they're doing. Now it feels like it can be used, even just for a quick "shield surge" in case of an emergency.
2) Grit change feels horrible, not only because 10 seconds is MUCH too low of a duration, but also because it makes speccing into Fortify basically obsolete. I get the same mitigation (I tested, it's actually 20% with 2 Stacks, not 10% + another 10%, yes there is a difference), which I can sort of "space out" (activate the 2nd stack right before the first ends) at only 80% of the cost. Also I loved the increase in Threat-Generation, because that way, you could have multiple tanks in a group, one playing "as DPS" by simply not activating grit. Now, a second Tank, who doesn't want to do tanking right now, is always at risk of stealing aggro from the Main Tank. (Shouldn't happen, Intimidating Aura should be strong enough to hold it, but.. meh)
3) Inciting Strikes is a good change imho - I'm just a little confused, Patch Notes say "Up to 10 enemies per swing", ingame says "Maximum of 10 Courage per swing". 10 or 30 is a pretty big difference.
4) I kinda dislike Ground Pound for how it "feels", so I haven't used it, can't say anything here.
5) Slam, same as Ground Pound, is not part of my kit right now, so can't say anything here either, but just from looking at it, I feel like I can't find a situation to use it.
6) I guess I'm kinda okay-ish with Absorption field, but since it's used to protect allies, and most allies have noticeably less HP than the tank, I wonder if 15% of the Tanks HP as shield would really protect them more than "Instead of Oneshot, I'm now Two-Shot", if even that.
7) As I already said when talking about Grit, Fortify feels just flat out useless right now. Sure, it's TECHNICALLY another 10%, or when used right after the 2nd Stack of Grit, 12%, mitigation, but for only 10 seconds at a 45 second cooldown. The only reason to specc into it right now would be magic enemies, but those are usually squishy enough to not matter. And even if they do, I rather specc into Supernatural Grit and get the 10% "automatically", than having another Skill to hit for the same amount of mitigation.
8) Can't say much about Indomitable Spirit, haven't used it myself so far.
9) Pretty much agreed. We lost survivability, "gained" a button that needs to be pressed every 9.5 Seconds (At least it doesn't break combos), made another skill completely obsolete. While our Threat-Generation SHOULD be roughly the same (With Removing the Damage Penalty from Grit, we deal more damage to base our threat on), it's now probably more difficult to keep other tanks from "stealing" aggro.
Edit:
Additionally -> I like that Iron Aura got an increase. Now its at least somewhat useful. Maybe make it Additive instead of Multiplicative, and then it's in a good spot imho.
2) Grit spam is horrible. Better to have it toggle - when on more agro generation for other skills and attacks, off more dmg for other skills. Or if not definitely some more visiblity then small buff icon.
Haven't played tank that much, but realy want to, but it has been real struggle.
Grit. Revert change back to how it was please. It’s just another fortify now and we already have that skill. I now have to use this skill all of the time and it’s annoying.
Courage. Please revert to giving mitigation depending on how much you have. This change cost us a lot of our mitigation.
Magical mitigation. The tank kit provides almost 0 mitigation to magic. Most tanks wear plate and get 1 to 2 shot by mages with legendary weapon and enchanted armor. None of these changes addressed the core problem tanks have.
Physical mitigation. The tanks kit provides some physical mitigation through several skills. Even if you stack as much physical mitigation as possible you can tank like one mob in pve. Most mobs just do way too much damage.
Overall the tank felt bad before. Had trouble tanking mobs and 2 shot by anything that cast magic. Now the tank feels pretty much the same with a lot more button pushing.
Long before the Pre-Alpha2 phases.
At this point its a Dev issue. Akin to AGS Dev failings in New World.
That's 378.94 grits per hour, at this rate well get a hotfix tomorrow for 379 grits per hour because they want to round up.
I hope these changes come with a AOC branded wrist brace.
Now technically I can have more survivability if I manage my resources well enough that I am able to keep 2 stacks of grit up always, but the amount of ADHD I have I am not capable of keeping a 2 10 second buffs up for hours on end.
If they want tank play to be more active around grit, make it toggleable, and while it's on you gain less courage and while it's off you gain more courage. This could make 1-2 mobs require you to toggle it while your hp is high to gain grit and have it on as your hp starts to dip, whereas in an AoE group you could likely keep it on. Though a truly good tank would be toggling it whenever their hp is good to create more threat/damage/aoe.
Edit: I forgot to mention, I was tanking better at 17 in RoS than I am at 18 now. The change feels like a slap in the face to a class that barely has a face to begin with. (worst solo class by a LARGE margin, barely useful in group pvp, basically the only class that is redundant in an 8 man group (generally, though not always))
I can however suffer most changes and prior to this patch didn't have a great deal of issue with our class identity.
This is all with the exception to the considerable changes of Grit.
I can't understand this change from passive to priority ability, and feel the attention this one skill requires strips variation, creativity and agency from the Tanks playstyle.
Thanks to fauci for working out the grits per hour (GPH) I'll be testing my limit this weekend.
You're welcome as the resident NIH representative for AOC I want to make sure we do not have any pandemics in AOC including carpal tunnel.
I didn't feel like I suffered a class identity problem until I rolled a fighter at the end of last phase and it was like oh. OH. THIS is what a class identity feels like. Then I became even more aware of how much "tank" identity I was missing, and the grit change is just making that feeling much, much worse.
i mean it was clearly not playtested in any real sense. After 30 minutes of gameplay it'd have been REALLY OBVIOUS that it changes how the class feels, (since it's a fundamental redeisgn), the no visual indication when it's fall off a VERY obvious issue, and apart from that it's just unfun.
Let's combine this with the fact that many normal mobs mechanics feel like they are there just to spite us.
The most egregious is, the firestarters fireblast. There is precious nothing i can do about their oneshot fire skill. Now you might say that "yea just trip" or "it's a bard mechanic to shield" but at the end of the day our job is protect our teammates and we can't do that. I've tried the taunt humiliate and it's just not enough, and i think to myself "damn i failed, somebody died before me".
Other examples are 100% heal prevention puddles, the mushrooms headbutt that changes you around for no reason whatsoever. Flowers stealing all your mana? yup.
In a cognizent and logical part of my brain I understand that none of these mechanics were made to spite us, but it still what it feels like.
All of these mechanics would be fine for a boss like Belowsmasher. It's charge ability is nice, needs a coordinated group to pay attention and you're golden.
Glory to Arioch
Glory to Winsted
For my mana addicted brothers:
For the Glory of Quel'Thalas
Completely agree with these statements. Playing tank in PVP is even worse now. Instead of worrying about my positioning and cc to initiate or peel in a fight, when to drop a shield, how to control the battlefield now you're forced to focus on building courage and spamming grit constantly so you don't die.
You made the "tank" class even more fragile to magic damage, and overall made it less fun and engaging to play.