Why would someone want to play tank if ALL a tank can do is block and try to survive, instead of doing that AND moderately something else too, like taunting more enemies, buffing allies, healing, DDing. Just plain survival is boring, and that's what they're trying to make any build that uses block. However, these changes do not only affect PvE tanks, they affect magicka dks and templars in PvP.

First of all: all of which I am about to say is from a purely PvE perspective, since tanking is a group role. I'll leave out PvP discussion.

To say that blocking got nerfed is not really true.
It got changed, we got a new trait for blocking, and we'll have to revise the way we build our tanks.

From a permablocking perspective, it can still be done, but will require 7 HA, really squeezing the resource management.
Let's assume most people wear their armor in 5-1-1 variations. The Undaunted passives are just too good to pass up, especially now that resource management will become more of an issue.
Meaning tanks should use all tools at their disposal to be on-par with the current block cost reduction.

There are a few tools for tanks to reduce their block cost in DB:
Sturdy trait
Fortress/Defensive stance
Shield-play enchantments
CPs in Shadow Ward

Let's say that apart from trials, permablocking is not really required. This eases up tanking, and people might want to re-think their tanking strategy to involve some periods of shield-down time.

BUT, if we consider that, then, why even wear Heavy Armor? If we are to fight "smart" and only block heavy attacks and when in sticky situations, would not MA be better?

You may have noticed that NONE of the above tools for block cost reduction are directly tied to heavy armor, and can be used with any armor type.

Now, let's have a look at what HA passives provide in 5-1-1, and what MA passives provide in 5-1-1.

   Heavy armor                           Medium armor
roughly 4000 more resistances        | 1643 Weapon Critical rating
16% more health recovery             | 16% more stamina recovery
744 more resources with Constitution | 12% more feat cost reduction
8% more health                       | 
maximum 200 more power               | 12% weapon damage (160 minimum)
8% healing recieved                  | 16% lesser roll dodge cost
50% more resource generation on h att| 

Did you know that the revamped defending trait grants MORE resistance than a reinforced shield if you don't have Shield Expert? It does. Having Shield Expert unlocked is practically mandatory for tanks , and it is also available to any armor type.
Defending used to be more effective while wearing HA, now it is as efficient as on LA. Same goes for Nirnhoned.
The feat cost reduction and stamina recovery more than make up for all that HA tries to accomplish with Constitution and that heavy attack resource generation.
Even with tanking in mind, HA is nowhere near the damage output that MA has, and needless to say HA was never made with damage in mind, those that deal damage know well enough to stay away from HA.

So when Wrobel says that they wanted to see more tanking builds, they sure succeeded. There will be many new MA tanking builds. Especially since the trend is to strip all content of what little difficulty it had left.

Which leads me to my final conclusion:
While I can't say that blocking got a nerf, heavy armor most definitely did.

What was wrong with the Red tree being Defense/Tanking, Green being Sustain, and Blue being DPS?

@Wrobel , maybe you undo changes, maybe you make more, or maybe you do nothing, but I have to jump in with many others and express discontent with the champion system.

This CP system was supposed to let us feel cool for being able to customize our characters, but the CP system, just this very moment of my writing, has again kept me from wanting to play the game. I'm just tired of paying 3k gold. I'm just tired of paying 3k gold, making the selections, and only to have to do it again when I am needed as a tank later.

Nerfs are one thing, but even if you don't really think that you are nerfing tanks and HA users from a perspective of resource management, I think you should consider more how being a tank or HA user is a pain in the butt because it is hard for us to enjoy other parts of the game without totally switching to a different specification. And Wrath or the moving of block expertise isn't making this issue better either, just worse.

Without the blocking buff, there's no real enticement to wear HA relative to LA or MA.
For defense, shields play well with LA, roll-dodging plays well with MA, why would blocking not play well with HA anymore? Isn't the idea of HA to be able to hold the ground?

You need to get hit repeatedly to get the HA buffs (regen and weapon damage), which I personally think is a very good idea.
But those buffs are ridiculous compared to those of LA and MA.
And to enjoy them, we need to survive.
In PvP, without impen, you get crit-shot in three hits.
Is the idea to end up dead with an extra 50 in weapon damage?

Add to that - upgrading HA to legendary costs an arm and a leg.

Why on earth would anyone want to wear HA unless they're die-hard masochistic fans of it?

It amazes me how these post are not thought out at all. The maths all wrong, you're including regen in your block cost reduction and using all block cost reduction enchants on your jewelry? Why? Tanks use more magicka than stamina. Stamina is used for blocking and taunting.

nordsavage wrote: »

MikeB wrote: »

It amazes me how these post are not thought out at all. The maths all wrong, you're including regen in your block cost reduction and using all block cost reduction enchants on your jewelry? Why? Tanks use more magicka than stamina. Stamina is used for blocking and taunting.

More magicka than stamina huh? Well let me just say pierce armor, inner beast, heroic slash, bash, reverb bash, absorb magic, dodge, block, evasion, shield charge, circle of protection. I could keep going but you get the idea. If you do not see why you need block cost reduction try tanking trials.

Tank em all the time on a magicka templar with 17000 stam. Oops.

I am curious how these calculations effect hybrid tanks as they seem very specific to a full spec stamina tank.

My current set-up:

Imperial Dragon Knight

Tava's 5pc
Blood Spawn 2pc
Worm Cult 5pc (jewelry and S&B)

* Undaunted 5-1-1 with belt light and shoulders medium (yes, hands should be medium, but haven't had a hvy shoulders drop yet)
* Every piece of armor is reinforced
* Prismatic Rune on every piece of armor and shield
* Jewelry has:
- Shield Play enchantment (reduce cost of blocking)
- Reduce Spell Cost enchantment
- Reduce Stamina Cost enchantment
Stats (approx) are:
- 25.5k magicka
- 30k health
- 19k stamina
- Resistances are just shy of cap when buffed, but once I gold the Worm Cult S&B, I may hit cap
- Recoveries are very low, but with well times potions, constant ultimate (warhorn) usage, and Ignious, I maintain my resources extremely well.

I run this set-up in trials as I believe every build should support the group. It is a non-selfish build so to speak. I have Aggressive Warhorn up constantly and I have plenty magic for chain pulls, claws, range taunt when necessary, Ignious, etc, and have just enough stamina to Pierce Armor, Shuffle, and block. It is not the easiest tank build to run (though admittedly I am not the most experienced tank); it does take more skill than say an Armor Master/Engine Gaurdian or Footman/Histbark/EG set-up, but I feel like I am contributing to a raid group much more with this set-up.

This was was an extremely expensive and hard to farm set-up, and I am pretty proud of it.

My concern is that your math, and the planned changes currently in PTS, will limit such builds and more or less force tanks into full spec stamina builds. Yes, there is some resource return now, but it would seem we must have a much larger resource pool for it to be effective. I am a consoler, and am therefore unable to get on PTS. I try to keep an open mind and reserve judgement. Furthermore, I understand some of the changes you are making and feel I understand the reasons why. However, I agree with many of the others in this thread in that it seems your evaluation of tanking has a very specific build in mind and that your justifications are centered around that.

To my fellow players: I would be very interested to hear from anyone on PTS if hybrid DK tanking is still viable and if a build like mine will still work. Because honestly, if tanking is only going to be layer massive resistances and keep your shield up, then I have little interest in tanking anymore.

To @Wrobel and team: I hope you are taking such builds into account and not killing them. You give us sets like Tava's and put Hakeijos in game and make them pretty damn rare. Please don't make the fruits of such efforts in vein and force us into a very specific tank set-up just to make heavy armor only slightly more viable in PvP.

Lavum wrote: »

What was wrong with the Red tree being Defense/Tanking, Green being Sustain, and Blue being DPS?

I personally think the CP system is flawed and needs to have trade offs. This isn't exactly what I was thinking bit maybe they are heading in the right direction. As it is now, you can out all points into increasing defenses, sustain, and damage with no real trade offs, unless you are going some niche build. My main complaint is the sustain and damage. These should be in the same trees. You either do a lot of damage or have great sustain, shouldn't have both at suck high levels.

Am I the only tank who puts points into the Roll dodge/CC break part of the tree?

Does anyone use the CP layout shown in the OP's LIVE example?

Did I do it wrong?

I've been OK with the tanking/block changes since the block nerf, I just adapted and moved on...even enjoyed the changes.
I haven't really tested much on the PTS but the movement of block expertise and an increase (if there is one) to break free.....

So as a counterpoint to Wrobel's tank example I ran some numbers using my typical tank setup. This is a DK stamina tank, 5 piece heavy armor, 75 points in Block Expertise and x1 Block reducing Enchantment. See here for more build details. While I'm relatively new to the tanking game it seems to work just fine for all the veteran dunegons I've tried so far, though I haven't dared try vWGT/vICP yet.

It is a standard block-heavy "hybrid" DK build if that makes any sense. Run in, get everything's attention, block and regain Stamina by casting Igneous Shield, potions, and Ultimates in boss fights. With careful use it is basically self-sufficient...I can perma-block and don't need much if any healing. The downside to this type of build is low DPS but I leave those details to the other squishy folk.

So I took a look at two common situations in dungeons: tanking trash mobs and tanking bosses and compared the resource usage on live and PTS. On PTS I'm using the same equipment but with the CP changes I have taken 57 points from Magician and 8 points from Warlord to put into the moved Block Expertise.

Trash Fight
I looked at a typical, short 30 sec trash fight where I get hit 40 times (once every 0.5 secs at first and less at the end). This is a short fight so I can basically list all the abilities I use and the resources I regen to get a close to exact figure.

• Live = I can cast 11 magicka abilities (x4 Igneous, x3 Claw, x1 Cinder, x3 Grip) and have 4k stamina left over at the end
• PTS = I can cast 9 magicka abilities (x7 Igneous, Claw+Cinder) and have -3k stamina left over.

In this situation I'm hurting due to the increase in resource costs across the board (block cost increased from 633 to 839, Magicka abilities +25%, Stamina +12%). I need to cast more Igneous to regain stamina so I can keep blocking but that severely limits the utility and little DPS I can do. And even with that I'm down 7k stamina over the live version.

Boss Fight
To be conservative I choose a boss fight of 2 minutes where I get hit 80 times (once every 1.5 seconds). Since this is longer I just looked at how much magicka/stamina I had available to use over the course of the fight assuming I'm blocking most of the time. I assume I cast Igneous x20 times over the course of the fight. I'm not including regen from potions and ultimate since they should be the same in both cases.

• Live = 25k Magicka and 3k Stamina available
• PTS = 30k Magicka and 8k Stamina available

So a bit more resources available from the buffed Constitution that offsets the increased resource costs. This good, however, there are a fair number of boss fights where I would be hit more than 80 times in 120 seconds due to adds and AoEs. In this situation the cross-over point would be getting hit around once per second. Basically it boils down to:

• Getting Hit Less than 1/sec = PTS is a "little" better than Live
• Getting Hit More than 1/sec = Live is "much" better than PTS

I say a "little" and "much" as it really depends how often you're getting hit and using resources with the buff to constitution. If you're only getting hit once every 4 seconds PTS will be vastly superior while getting hit at the cap of every 0.5 seconds then PTS will be far worse.

Analysis and Comments

1. Block Cost / Constitution -- Wrobel's example showed that in that case the buff to Constitution resulted in a net gain of resources. Unfortunately, in my example it only shows a small increase in cases where I am hit less than once a second. Different builds will have a different cross-over point like this.
2. Hybrids -- The game already punishes hybrid builds to such an extent that they are really only viable in tank builds that don't care about DPS. Moving the CP tree around Moving Block Expertise to The Shadow means hybrids have to choose between block cost reductions and Magicka/Stamina cost reductions. The global increase in ability costs just makes it worse. If I only put 75 points into the new Block Expertise I'm loosing 57 points in Magician and 8 in Warlord to do so and in a fair number of tanking situations the buff to constitution is nowhere near enough to compensate for it.
3. Average Ability Cost -- I would advise caution about using an "average" ability cost in such simulations. In Wrobel's example he used 2700. In my build the stamina abilities are generally low cost (1200, 2100, 1700, 900, 3300 Stamina) while the Magicka costs are high (4050, 4590, 3780). It also seems a little unfair to omit the 10% increased cost of all abilities on PTS. If you do the math for a casting a 2700 resource ability on live with 67 points in Magician to a 3000 resource ability on PTS with 0 points in Magician then the PTS ability costs more even with the buff to constitution (+7% more, 2187 cost on Live vs 2348 cost on PTS using his example of a spell cast every 2 seconds).
4. "Average" Cast Times -- Wrobel uses the "ability every 2 seconds" figure which may be fine for long fights but not typical for shorter fights. On most fights my typical MO is to use up my Magicka right away, quaff a potion, and use that up and then keep using my Magicka whenever I have it, quaffing potions and using ultimates when I can. If we switch to a "spell every 1 second" it makes the example comparison much worse for the PTS.
5. "Average" Tank Build -- I don't think the "average" tank build is using 7 heavy armor and x3 block cost enchants. Most tanks, especially a hybrid build like mine, would prefer a 5/1/1 setup to take advantage of the Undaunted passive and use a minimal number of block cost enchants in favor of other more useful ones. While it may be useful to look at a "max" tank build like that it hides the fact that a "lesser" tank build like mine will get less (sometimes far less) buffs from the cumulative changes.
6. CP Change -- While I have no doubts that other tank builds may benefit from the change it is a noticeable loss for any tank relying on reducing resource costs across the board (magicka, stamina, and block costs). Not only does it affect my tanking but it makes me less effective when I wish to switch into DPS mode (all abilities cost more). I don't benefit much from increased healing CPs or Hardy/Defender as I don't take much damage or need much healing (most of the time anyways). The extra 75 red CP points only have some use in Bastion or Heavy Armor Focus. He also mentions Unchained as one of the most influential passives for tanks. I rarely need to break free and don't really consider this to be that useful for my build...most of my Stamina abilities are low cost and I use more Magicka abilities anyways.
7. Sturdy -- I'm not sure it is fair to just say "just wear sturdy traits" to offset the loss of Bracing and increased block cost given the cost to do so. That's some 70-80k per piece on PC-NA assuming the item is crafted and potentially weeks/months of farming if it is not. Here's where a one-time trait change would be useful, especially considering all the other trait changes involved (which are generally good, no complaints here).
8. Wrath -- This new HA passive is a little underwhelming with buff of 200 WD/SD. I can basically get that with a single jewelry enchant. I think it needs to be considerably higher to offset the increased DPS we can get with LA/MA passives.

Suggested Changes
I realize at this point changes are unlikely but I'd like to suggest some anyways...

• Global Ability Cost Increase -- Revert the increase to all ability costs at cp160 such that they are the current values at v16 on Live. Other than a "nicer" cost function I don't really see the purpose of doing so and going back to the original costs would help a great deal in the block cost changes and the CP change which results in a partial/complete loss of Magician/Warlord for some builds.
• Constitution -- I'd like this to better scale with the number of mobs attacking you. Perhaps it should work like the Wrath passive but give you Stamina/Magicka back instead (not recovery). Something like "Gain 50 Magicka/Stamina per second for 5 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 10 times." for 7 pieces of HA.
• Wrath -- I'm unsure of the exact values needed but it should be similar to the DPS passives of Light and Medium armor. It should be more useful in PvE where you are tanking a dozen mobs and taking +10 hits/second. Perhaps something like "Gain 20 Weapon and Spell Damage for 10 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 40 times.".
• Trait Change -- A one-time free ability to change traits on gear after the patch. This would let people choose whether they needed to go sturdy on some items or to keep their build and eat the increased block cost. Not to mention trait changes are something much needed/desired in the game anyways.

Conclusion
The overall changes to block and resource costs can be offset by the change to constitution but only in cases where you are hit infrequently and depending on your exact build. For some block-heavy builds you will often be far worse in overall resource costs on PTS compared to Live.

@Reorx_Holybeard Thank you.

sebban wrote: »

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

So as a counterpoint to Wrobel's tank example I ran some numbers using my typical tank setup. This is a DK stamina tank, 5 piece heavy armor, 75 points in Block Expertise and x1 Block reducing Enchantment. See here for more build details. While I'm relatively new to the tanking game it seems to work just fine for all the veteran dunegons I've tried so far, though I haven't dared try vWGT/vICP yet.

It is a standard block-heavy "hybrid" DK build if that makes any sense. Run in, get everything's attention, block and regain Stamina by casting Igneous Shield, potions, and Ultimates in boss fights. With careful use it is basically self-sufficient...I can perma-block and don't need much if any healing. The downside to this type of build is low DPS but I leave those details to the other squishy folk.

So I took a look at two common situations in dungeons: tanking trash mobs and tanking bosses and compared the resource usage on live and PTS. On PTS I'm using the same equipment but with the CP changes I have taken 57 points from Magician and 8 points from Warlord to put into the moved Block Expertise.

Trash Fight
I looked at a typical, short 30 sec trash fight where I get hit 40 times (once every 0.5 secs at first and less at the end). This is a short fight so I can basically list all the abilities I use and the resources I regen to get a close to exact figure.

• Live = I can cast 11 magicka abilities (x4 Igneous, x3 Claw, x1 Cinder, x3 Grip) and have 4k stamina left over at the end
• PTS = I can cast 9 magicka abilities (x7 Igneous, Claw+Cinder) and have -3k stamina left over.

In this situation I'm hurting due to the increase in resource costs across the board (block cost increased from 633 to 839, Magicka abilities +25%, Stamina +12%). I need to cast more Igneous to regain stamina so I can keep blocking but that severely limits the utility and little DPS I can do. And even with that I'm down 7k stamina over the live version.

Boss Fight
To be conservative I choose a boss fight of 2 minutes where I get hit 80 times (once every 1.5 seconds). Since this is longer I just looked at how much magicka/stamina I had available to use over the course of the fight assuming I'm blocking most of the time. I assume I cast Igneous x20 times over the course of the fight. I'm not including regen from potions and ultimate since they should be the same in both cases.

• Live = 25k Magicka and 3k Stamina available
• PTS = 30k Magicka and 8k Stamina available

So a bit more resources available from the buffed Constitution that offsets the increased resource costs. This good, however, there are a fair number of boss fights where I would be hit more than 80 times in 120 seconds due to adds and AoEs. In this situation the cross-over point would be getting hit around once per second. Basically it boils down to:

• Getting Hit Less than 1/sec = PTS is a "little" better than Live
• Getting Hit More than 1/sec = Live is "much" better than PTS

I say a "little" and "much" as it really depends how often you're getting hit and using resources with the buff to constitution. If you're only getting hit once every 4 seconds PTS will be vastly superior while getting hit at the cap of every 0.5 seconds then PTS will be far worse.

Analysis and Comments

1. Block Cost / Constitution -- Wrobel's example showed that in that case the buff to Constitution resulted in a net gain of resources. Unfortunately, in my example it only shows a small increase in cases where I am hit less than once a second. Different builds will have a different cross-over point like this.
2. Hybrids -- The game already punishes hybrid builds to such an extent that they are really only viable in tank builds that don't care about DPS. Moving the CP tree around Moving Block Expertise to The Shadow means hybrids have to choose between block cost reductions and Magicka/Stamina cost reductions. The global increase in ability costs just makes it worse. If I only put 75 points into the new Block Expertise I'm loosing 57 points in Magician and 8 in Warlord to do so and in a fair number of tanking situations the buff to constitution is nowhere near enough to compensate for it.
3. Average Ability Cost -- I would advise caution about using an "average" ability cost in such simulations. In Wrobel's example he used 2700. In my build the stamina abilities are generally low cost (1200, 2100, 1700, 900, 3300 Stamina) while the Magicka costs are high (4050, 4590, 3780). It also seems a little unfair to omit the 10% increased cost of all abilities on PTS. If you do the math for a casting a 2700 resource ability on live with 67 points in Magician to a 3000 resource ability on PTS with 0 points in Magician then the PTS ability costs more even with the buff to constitution (+7% more, 2187 cost on Live vs 2348 cost on PTS using his example of a spell cast every 2 seconds).
4. "Average" Cast Times -- Wrobel uses the "ability every 2 seconds" figure which may be fine for long fights but not typical for shorter fights. On most fights my typical MO is to use up my Magicka right away, quaff a potion, and use that up and then keep using my Magicka whenever I have it, quaffing potions and using ultimates when I can. If we switch to a "spell every 1 second" it makes the example comparison much worse for the PTS.
5. "Average" Tank Build -- I don't think the "average" tank build is using 7 heavy armor and x3 block cost enchants. Most tanks, especially a hybrid build like mine, would prefer a 5/1/1 setup to take advantage of the Undaunted passive and use a minimal number of block cost enchants in favor of other more useful ones. While it may be useful to look at a "max" tank build like that it hides the fact that a "lesser" tank build like mine will get less (sometimes far less) buffs from the cumulative changes.
6. CP Change -- While I have no doubts that other tank builds may benefit from the change it is a noticeable loss for any tank relying on reducing resource costs across the board (magicka, stamina, and block costs). Not only does it affect my tanking but it makes me less effective when I wish to switch into DPS mode (all abilities cost more). I don't benefit much from increased healing CPs or Hardy/Defender as I don't take much damage or need much healing (most of the time anyways). The extra 75 red CP points only have some use in Bastion or Heavy Armor Focus. He also mentions Unchained as one of the most influential passives for tanks. I rarely need to break free and don't really consider this to be that useful for my build...most of my Stamina abilities are low cost and I use more Magicka abilities anyways.
7. Sturdy -- I'm not sure it is fair to just say "just wear sturdy traits" to offset the loss of Bracing and increased block cost given the cost to do so. That's some 70-80k per piece on PC-NA assuming the item is crafted and potentially weeks/months of farming if it is not. Here's where a one-time trait change would be useful, especially considering all the other trait changes involved (which are generally good, no complaints here).
8. Wrath -- This new HA passive is a little underwhelming with buff of 200 WD/SD. I can basically get that with a single jewelry enchant. I think it needs to be considerably higher to offset the increased DPS we can get with LA/MA passives.

Suggested Changes
I realize at this point changes are unlikely but I'd like to suggest some anyways...

• Global Ability Cost Increase -- Revert the increase to all ability costs at cp160 such that they are the current values at v16 on Live. Other than a "nicer" cost function I don't really see the purpose of doing so and going back to the original costs would help a great deal in the block cost changes and the CP change which results in a partial/complete loss of Magician/Warlord for some builds.
• Constitution -- I'd like this to better scale with the number of mobs attacking you. Perhaps it should work like the Wrath passive but give you Stamina/Magicka back instead (not recovery). Something like "Gain 50 Magicka/Stamina per second for 5 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 10 times." for 7 pieces of HA.
• Wrath -- I'm unsure of the exact values needed but it should be similar to the DPS passives of Light and Medium armor. It should be more useful in PvE where you are tanking a dozen mobs and taking +10 hits/second. Perhaps something like "Gain 20 Weapon and Spell Damage for 10 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 40 times.".
• Trait Change -- A one-time free ability to change traits on gear after the patch. This would let people choose whether they needed to go sturdy on some items or to keep their build and eat the increased block cost. Not to mention trait changes are something much needed/desired in the game anyways.

Conclusion
The overall changes to block and resource costs can be offset by the change to constitution but only in cases where you are hit infrequently and depending on your exact build. For some block-heavy builds you will often be far worse in overall resource costs on PTS compared to Live.

Thank you for making this post! I think your build and your numbers are much closer to what the typical tank setup looks like, which is very different from Wrobels post.

I wanted to do a similar post, but can't really be bothered, since I fear Wrobel has already made up his mind and our feedback does not really matter in the end. Wrobel has shown again and again that he does not understand how the tanking role actually works in-game. He says he doesn't want to make tanking worse, but then makes it worse anyway.

I wouldn't go that far. I honestly belive that the developers vision on how tanking should work is not fully aligned with the expectations of the players, ot at least part of them.

It is not an issue of just tanking. Many of the changes they are making are being done to make heavy armor viable in PvP, which is something a portion of playerbase has been asking for for quite some time. So I respect that they are trying to meet some player demands.

The problem is that they are going about it one way, without evaluating all options. These changes will hurt all but full spec stamina tanks. I see no possible way my hybrid DK with all hekeijos will survive this change. They really need to reconsider some of the changes as it will, unequivocally, negatively effect tanking. And frankly, as much as I respect trying to make heavy armor DPS a viable playstyle, they really do not need to make tanking harder when it is already difficult to find quality tanks.

@Wrobel and team, please go back to the drawing board with some of these changes. I made some recommendations above regarding CPs. Keep Bracing and change a different HA passive for your wpn dmg option, and find a way to keep tanking viable with no more than a single piece of sturdy gear and only a single block cost reduction glyph on jewelry. We do not all want to run the same exact tanking build just to be able to be a successful tank, and this should be understandable since you are making these changes to allow DPS to 'play as they want' (i.e. HA dps). Do not bottleneck our builds.

Respectfully~

code65536 wrote: »

WolfingHour wrote: »

sebban wrote: »

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

So as a counterpoint to Wrobel's tank example I ran some numbers using my typical tank setup. This is a DK stamina tank, 5 piece heavy armor, 75 points in Block Expertise and x1 Block reducing Enchantment. See here for more build details. While I'm relatively new to the tanking game it seems to work just fine for all the veteran dunegons I've tried so far, though I haven't dared try vWGT/vICP yet.

It is a standard block-heavy "hybrid" DK build if that makes any sense. Run in, get everything's attention, block and regain Stamina by casting Igneous Shield, potions, and Ultimates in boss fights. With careful use it is basically self-sufficient...I can perma-block and don't need much if any healing. The downside to this type of build is low DPS but I leave those details to the other squishy folk.

So I took a look at two common situations in dungeons: tanking trash mobs and tanking bosses and compared the resource usage on live and PTS. On PTS I'm using the same equipment but with the CP changes I have taken 57 points from Magician and 8 points from Warlord to put into the moved Block Expertise.

Trash Fight
I looked at a typical, short 30 sec trash fight where I get hit 40 times (once every 0.5 secs at first and less at the end). This is a short fight so I can basically list all the abilities I use and the resources I regen to get a close to exact figure.

• Live = I can cast 11 magicka abilities (x4 Igneous, x3 Claw, x1 Cinder, x3 Grip) and have 4k stamina left over at the end
• PTS = I can cast 9 magicka abilities (x7 Igneous, Claw+Cinder) and have -3k stamina left over.

In this situation I'm hurting due to the increase in resource costs across the board (block cost increased from 633 to 839, Magicka abilities +25%, Stamina +12%). I need to cast more Igneous to regain stamina so I can keep blocking but that severely limits the utility and little DPS I can do. And even with that I'm down 7k stamina over the live version.

Boss Fight
To be conservative I choose a boss fight of 2 minutes where I get hit 80 times (once every 1.5 seconds). Since this is longer I just looked at how much magicka/stamina I had available to use over the course of the fight assuming I'm blocking most of the time. I assume I cast Igneous x20 times over the course of the fight. I'm not including regen from potions and ultimate since they should be the same in both cases.

• Live = 25k Magicka and 3k Stamina available
• PTS = 30k Magicka and 8k Stamina available

So a bit more resources available from the buffed Constitution that offsets the increased resource costs. This good, however, there are a fair number of boss fights where I would be hit more than 80 times in 120 seconds due to adds and AoEs. In this situation the cross-over point would be getting hit around once per second. Basically it boils down to:

• Getting Hit Less than 1/sec = PTS is a "little" better than Live
• Getting Hit More than 1/sec = Live is "much" better than PTS

I say a "little" and "much" as it really depends how often you're getting hit and using resources with the buff to constitution. If you're only getting hit once every 4 seconds PTS will be vastly superior while getting hit at the cap of every 0.5 seconds then PTS will be far worse.

Analysis and Comments

1. Block Cost / Constitution -- Wrobel's example showed that in that case the buff to Constitution resulted in a net gain of resources. Unfortunately, in my example it only shows a small increase in cases where I am hit less than once a second. Different builds will have a different cross-over point like this.
2. Hybrids -- The game already punishes hybrid builds to such an extent that they are really only viable in tank builds that don't care about DPS. Moving the CP tree around Moving Block Expertise to The Shadow means hybrids have to choose between block cost reductions and Magicka/Stamina cost reductions. The global increase in ability costs just makes it worse. If I only put 75 points into the new Block Expertise I'm loosing 57 points in Magician and 8 in Warlord to do so and in a fair number of tanking situations the buff to constitution is nowhere near enough to compensate for it.
3. Average Ability Cost -- I would advise caution about using an "average" ability cost in such simulations. In Wrobel's example he used 2700. In my build the stamina abilities are generally low cost (1200, 2100, 1700, 900, 3300 Stamina) while the Magicka costs are high (4050, 4590, 3780). It also seems a little unfair to omit the 10% increased cost of all abilities on PTS. If you do the math for a casting a 2700 resource ability on live with 67 points in Magician to a 3000 resource ability on PTS with 0 points in Magician then the PTS ability costs more even with the buff to constitution (+7% more, 2187 cost on Live vs 2348 cost on PTS using his example of a spell cast every 2 seconds).
4. "Average" Cast Times -- Wrobel uses the "ability every 2 seconds" figure which may be fine for long fights but not typical for shorter fights. On most fights my typical MO is to use up my Magicka right away, quaff a potion, and use that up and then keep using my Magicka whenever I have it, quaffing potions and using ultimates when I can. If we switch to a "spell every 1 second" it makes the example comparison much worse for the PTS.
5. "Average" Tank Build -- I don't think the "average" tank build is using 7 heavy armor and x3 block cost enchants. Most tanks, especially a hybrid build like mine, would prefer a 5/1/1 setup to take advantage of the Undaunted passive and use a minimal number of block cost enchants in favor of other more useful ones. While it may be useful to look at a "max" tank build like that it hides the fact that a "lesser" tank build like mine will get less (sometimes far less) buffs from the cumulative changes.
6. CP Change -- While I have no doubts that other tank builds may benefit from the change it is a noticeable loss for any tank relying on reducing resource costs across the board (magicka, stamina, and block costs). Not only does it affect my tanking but it makes me less effective when I wish to switch into DPS mode (all abilities cost more). I don't benefit much from increased healing CPs or Hardy/Defender as I don't take much damage or need much healing (most of the time anyways). The extra 75 red CP points only have some use in Bastion or Heavy Armor Focus. He also mentions Unchained as one of the most influential passives for tanks. I rarely need to break free and don't really consider this to be that useful for my build...most of my Stamina abilities are low cost and I use more Magicka abilities anyways.
7. Sturdy -- I'm not sure it is fair to just say "just wear sturdy traits" to offset the loss of Bracing and increased block cost given the cost to do so. That's some 70-80k per piece on PC-NA assuming the item is crafted and potentially weeks/months of farming if it is not. Here's where a one-time trait change would be useful, especially considering all the other trait changes involved (which are generally good, no complaints here).
8. Wrath -- This new HA passive is a little underwhelming with buff of 200 WD/SD. I can basically get that with a single jewelry enchant. I think it needs to be considerably higher to offset the increased DPS we can get with LA/MA passives.

Suggested Changes
I realize at this point changes are unlikely but I'd like to suggest some anyways...

• Global Ability Cost Increase -- Revert the increase to all ability costs at cp160 such that they are the current values at v16 on Live. Other than a "nicer" cost function I don't really see the purpose of doing so and going back to the original costs would help a great deal in the block cost changes and the CP change which results in a partial/complete loss of Magician/Warlord for some builds.
• Constitution -- I'd like this to better scale with the number of mobs attacking you. Perhaps it should work like the Wrath passive but give you Stamina/Magicka back instead (not recovery). Something like "Gain 50 Magicka/Stamina per second for 5 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 10 times." for 7 pieces of HA.
• Wrath -- I'm unsure of the exact values needed but it should be similar to the DPS passives of Light and Medium armor. It should be more useful in PvE where you are tanking a dozen mobs and taking +10 hits/second. Perhaps something like "Gain 20 Weapon and Spell Damage for 10 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 40 times.".
• Trait Change -- A one-time free ability to change traits on gear after the patch. This would let people choose whether they needed to go sturdy on some items or to keep their build and eat the increased block cost. Not to mention trait changes are something much needed/desired in the game anyways.

Conclusion
The overall changes to block and resource costs can be offset by the change to constitution but only in cases where you are hit infrequently and depending on your exact build. For some block-heavy builds you will often be far worse in overall resource costs on PTS compared to Live.

Thank you for making this post! I think your build and your numbers are much closer to what the typical tank setup looks like, which is very different from Wrobels post.

I wanted to do a similar post, but can't really be bothered, since I fear Wrobel has already made up his mind and our feedback does not really matter in the end. Wrobel has shown again and again that he does not understand how the tanking role actually works in-game. He says he doesn't want to make tanking worse, but then makes it worse anyway.

I wouldn't go that far. I honestly belive that the developers vision on how tanking should work is not fully aligned with the expectations of the players, ot at least part of them.

Wrobel's team is also in charge of itemization. Take a look at the many tanking sets that have been released in the past half year to get an idea of how well they understand what tanks actually want.

Jolting Arms
Tormenter
Permafrost
Glorious Defender
vMA tank sword

It may come down to PvE vs PvP.

While the developers implement sets (or skill revamps) that fit both, players look at them separately.