Fighters Guild Skills Rework

SodanTok

I know this is something really unimportant. Like why would you change stuff that is so bad nobody uses it when you have to change plenty of bad stuff that people use.
But please, do something with majority of skills in this tree. It got butchered by the overhaul more than a year ago. All skills bar Circle (i think) were useful and now all but two are trash.

1. Dawnbreaker - fine as is. Maybe too fine. But lets not go into nerf waters on it
2. Silver Bolts - in current state very horrible ability for what it does. Expensive. Low damage. No other real advantages other than 40% snare (please, stop with the snares everywhere)
   Suggestion: lower the cost and increase the damage, remove snare
   • Silver Shards morph keeps all the disadvantages of base version and adds AoE for 50% of the again very low damage. There is no lack for AoE abilities in this game. And all are better than this.
     Suggestion: My opinion is that this morph should be pure single target semi hard hitting ability around the damage and cost of most spammables. No need to offer any snare or debuff.
   • Silver Leash morph is in the same boat, but instead of useless AoE it has useless gap closer. I can understand why there was need to change it so it is not like fiery grip (flavor of the class), but this is just bad. It has barely needed utility (gap closers are nearly in every tree) and it works so bad. Shoot once (so 0 - 40m range) and then press again in half the range (in PVP) to gap close. I have yet to meet someone that uses it, but I bet they arent happy about it.
     Suggestion: If it should remain gap closer then it has to be single hit one. It is awkward to use this way (2nd hit to gap close). In my opinion there is no need for more stamina gapclosers (there is only one class/weapon combo that lacks gap closer). If it supposed to be utility morph and stay in spirit of the name (leash) then some CC should be added. If not then it is open to many possibilities. Could be less spammable but more damaging counterpart to the other morph.
3. Circle of Protection - probably worst skill in this tree and top10 worst skills in the game. Super expensive. Very small radius. Not enough good buffs to make up for any of it. I am willing to learn more about the uses of this ability, because I have never seen it used in serious manner. -> situationally used by tanks in PVE, not reason enough to not buff it (imo)
   Suggestion: If I keep it low (on changes) it needs to get a lot cheaper (like 50%) and the radius needs to get a lot bigger (like 100%)
   • Turn Undead - The fear on cast of 8k stamina ability and 4sec longer duration is very very lackluster bonus on itself (even if base ability was actually good).
     Suggestion: The sky is a limit in possibilities for this morph. The most boring one that comes in mind is making radius/duration/cost better (after actually making better the main ability)
   • Ring of Preservation - same case again. Very lackluster morph. It reduced dost of dodge roll yet it takes just one to leave the area. Would even argue that nobody cares about cheaper dodge rolls (either they are expensive anyway or you already have them cheap to profit from this). Apparently in some trial situations people do care about it. Still it is very bad synergy with small radius, so if not base morph then at least this one should imo get bigger radius.
     Suggestion: Keep dodge roll. Increase radius through base ability or this morph.
4. Expert Hunter - I could say many things about why this ability (the active, not passive) is bad. But why bother, just see magelight that is better in every way. It has even half the radius of it.
   Suggestion: if this is supposed to be stamina antistealth ability make it cheaper (if all stam abilities are 15% cheaper than magicka, this should be too), increase the radius because 6m catches nobody (I know base magelight has small radius too, I would like that one changed too). Obviously keep savagery.
   • Evil Hunter - Decreases stamina cost of FG abilities. Why is this a thing. it costs 4.5k stamina to have all the bad abilities (and trap) cheaper by 25%. If your rotation (for some reason lol) is casting circle, trap, twice silver bolts and recasting evil hunter then congratulations, you saved 1500 stamina. It is simply not worth it (probably even if it was for free). The only situation for 99% people where the cost reduction comes in play is when they recast it for the cheaper price. Price that is still more expensive than radiant magelight (that has better passives and stealth detection)
     Suggestion: let it be the defensive antistealth morph. Increase radius if its not already increased from base ability. No need to just copy radiant magelight. Could get even bigger radius, longer stealth suppression, longer duration, less damage from stealth attacks (passive or on active use)
   • Camouflaged Hunter - if you gank people from stealth it gives you buff you already had, unless you gank people as not nightblade (then you are doing the whole ganking stuff wrong and minor berserk wont help you). This was the best (and OP) antivampire ability in the game. Now it is horrible. Worse than the first morph that is bad.
     Suggestion: make it the offensive morph. Less about stealth detection, more about hunting. Reduce (or keep) radius to 5-6m, remove stealth suppression and make it passive effect. Active should boost damage. Either by 'casual' means by granting Major Brutality (some class/weapon setups would be very happy) or even minor berserk for ~10 seconds (so on cast, not on some stealth attack that only NB does most of the time)
5. Trap Beast - probably fine as is tho awkward to use (unless reaming morph used)
   Suggestion: increasing the duration of damage and minor force to ~10 seconds (keeping same total damage) could be nice, but probably unnecessary buff
   • Rearming Trap - This morph is good. It fixes all the problems of base ability (short duration of minor force or too expensive to cast for what it does)
     Suggestion: Keep as is. If base ability got better (like the duration) dont nerf anything but costs on it
   • Lightweight Beast Trap - personal bias alert. This ability is simply punished too hard for being ranged. Minor force is very important buff in PVE and ranged stamina characters using it are essentially forced to to waste 1gcd and 3k stamina more every rotation to keep it 100% (which is not worth to do, so they have essentially 50% uptime)
     Suggestion: Keep the range. Like with base ability suggestion increase duration of buff and damage to 10sec. If that is too much to ask, lower the overall damage. If that is still too much to ask find some other way to make minor force last 10 second on single cast.

Passivess

1. Intimidating Presence - Fine by itself. The overall cost of abilities in this tree is not fine (it is same as magicka abilities while stamina skills are supposed to be 15% cheaper). Could be used to further decrease, but that is better to do directly to skills.
2. Slayer - Fine. One of the reasons some of these abilities are even slotted (on front bar)
3. Banish the Wicked - I think this passive is too 'RP'. The big presence of undead players and mobs in pvp/pve makes it constantly useful, but that is imo pretty bad way to do it. Could be lowered and affecting any kill (with some CD)
4. Skilled Tracker - Same as Banish the wicked, but instead it buffs damage. The only situation where this is good is on dawnbreaker in PVP ((and maybe trap in duels)) against vampires. Could be more valuable if all other skills got better. Imo should just be put together with Banish the Wicked to create one "flavor" passive in the theme of the guild and something more universally good put here.
5. Bounty Hunter - Why. Probably the worst passive on combat tree in the game. While Mag Guild gets Empower, Fighters Guild gets... daily quests? Completely remove this and make the dailies available to everyone (or everyone with leveled FG tree). Put something combat useful here. I dont have suggestions, but if MG gets passive that makes people literally use some skills because of it, this should be something close to that effect.

Feel free to add something or correct me. My point of view is mostly PVP centric with few drops of nonTrial PVE DD

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// TL;DR version:

1. Dawnbreaker fine
2. Silver bolts low damage, too expensive. Morph1 low/useless AoE damage should be changed to proper ranged spammable. Morph2 useless gapcloser with bad mechanic
3. Circle of Protection small radius, high cost. Morph1 fear on cast useless. Morph2 dodge roll cost barely useful (greatly related to small radius)
4. Expert Hunter expensive and in every way worse than magelight. Morph1 useless cost reduction on FG skills. Morph2 ganker buff that most of gankers already have.
5. Trap Beast fine. Morph2 deserves Minor Force for whole duration of rotation (10sec)

1. Intimidating Presence fine
2. Slayer fine
3. Banish the Wicked ok, but should be changed to affect any enemy.
4. Skilled Tracker sometimes useful, should be put with banish for one antiundead flavor passive and passive slot replaced by new passive
5. Bounty Hunter bad combat unrelated passive. Quests should be open to everyone. Passive replaced by something that makes FG skills worth to cast.

Liofa

Circle is commonly used by tanks in PvE and is very good in lots of fights . Any buffs are welcome

SodanTok

Liofa wrote: »

Circle is commonly used by tanks in PvE and is very good in lots of fights . Any buffs are welcome

Interesting. Would you say commonly as in it is very good to use it or commonly in a way that it used because there are not many other things to use over it on tank. If its very good I could see reason why not buff it, but if its just nice buff to have I dont think it would break the game if the radius got larger (to maybe affect more melee DD players around the boss) and the cost cheaper

dirtykdx

SodanTok wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

Circle is commonly used by tanks in PvE and is very good in lots of fights . Any buffs are welcome

Interesting. Would you say commonly as in it is very good to use it or commonly in a way that it used because there are not many other things to use over it on tank. If its very good I could see reason why not buff it, but if its just nice buff to have I dont think it would break the game if the radius got larger (to maybe affect more melee DD players around the boss) and the cost cheaper

It is not overpowered at all. It is very expensive, and the radius is very small.

Where this is used normally, is in the execute phases of bosses, where everyone stacks in a relatively close range, the tank(s) can lay it down and the MINOR PROTECTION which is the key buff from this skill, the only thing we care about actually, hopefully catches the melee DPS and allows them to focus on finishing off the boss, rather than reacting to the incoming damage.


IIRC it has a 5m radius. Tanks have a lot of buffs now that act in an 8m radius. The Lord Warden move to 8m from 5m for the last update was the greatest thing for tanking since the Argonian resourcefulness passive. If circle protection either cost less, or lasted longer, and was bumped to an 8m radius, then this would be so much better skill. The roll dodge cost reduction is next to useless and the fear undead morph is absolutely useless for this scenario.

Liofa

SodanTok wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

Circle is commonly used by tanks in PvE and is very good in lots of fights . Any buffs are welcome

Interesting. Would you say commonly as in it is very good to use it or commonly in a way that it used because there are not many other things to use over it on tank. If its very good I could see reason why not buff it, but if its just nice buff to have I dont think it would break the game if the radius got larger (to maybe affect more melee DD players around the boss) and the cost cheaper

It is commonly used . Especially on off-tanks . If you can sustain it (should be able to easily if you are a decent tank) , it can be very very useful . It is mostly used for Minor Protection but there are many many other uses for this skill .

Roll Dodge cost reduction is incredibly useful on vHoF first boss if you are using the nuke tactic (everyone needs to Roll Dodge the Taking Aim) . Magicka DDs and healers can have a hard time sustaining their stamina if RNG is not kind to them . Getting 3 Taking Aims in a row and dodging them back to back is not very possible without Circle .

It also gives Minor Endurance which is a very good buff for Stamina DDs . It is 10% Stamina Recovery buff which is almost a 1p Stamina Recovery set bonus . This means more sustain for all DDs , tanks (when they don't block) and healers . A lot of fights in this game requires you to block/dodge/break free a lot . Minor Endurance is a small but a good buff in long run .

Here is a list of fights it is used commonly :

- Mage . During execute.
- Serpent . All the time .
- Rakkhat . Drop it on melee group .
- Hunter Killers . Drop on group .
- Archcustodian . Drop on middle area to cover a lot of space .
- Assembly General . All the time for melee group .
- Few trash fights . Especially vMoL trash fights are very dangerous .

Circle is far from useless but still I would love a buff to it . I use it a lot so would be very good for me ^^

SodanTok

@Liofa sounds very niche to me ( I mean, even something useable only by tanks is niche already, but this sounds even more) but If it has use (the dodge roll morph) they should keep this one advantage (obv, still looking for overall buffs and second morph change)

Now I sound like I actually believe something will change about these abilities...

GeorgeBlack

Mages guild has entropy.
Fighters should have Momentum and its morphs.

Takes-No-Prisoner

1. Dawnbreaker - fine as is. Maybe too fine. But lets not go into nerf waters on it

Dawnbreaker of Smiting = Physical
Flawless Dawnbreaker = Magical

Then we'd be good.

I would also be ok with a physical version of Meteor from Mages ult.

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Mages guild has entropy.
Fighters should have Momentum and its morphs.

Co-sign my agree to this

Rally and it's morphs would be amazing on FG skill line

STEVIL

I think its a reasonable case to be made that both the mage and fighter's skill lines may be due for a re-think and analysis to see where they fit in.

So many morphs and skills from classes and weapons have been added and changed and so much of the overall combat system changed that these appear to be more or less random collections of oddities than a cohesive thought out set of abilities.

Given the significant differences between class skills and weapon skills for magica and stamina based chars, i think these could have "the same them" and yet still produce radically different ability trees because the "baseline" of the class/weapon skills are so radically different.

Perhaps one theme for these lines could be "versatility" providing a decent (but likely expensive) skill for each role and two solo related support with buffs varied.

others ideas for "what these are for" are there as well.