TL;DR summary: Reduce Roaring's effect from 12 to 3 people. Increase the effect of Vrol's Command, Inventor's Guard, and Automated Defense to 12 people.
Introduction: Why is Alkosh a support set?
Roar of Alkosh was intended by ZOS to be a damage-dealer set. But the reality is that this is a set used almost exclusively by tanks, and the only time damage dealers used this set was
very early in this set's life (back before players got the idea to use it on tanks) and when hitbox problems prevented Alkosh from hitting the bosses in Sunspire if used from a tank's position.
Question: So, why is Alkosh actually a support set, despite ZOS's clear intent that it be a damage-dealer set?
Answer: Because it is
efficient in its effect. Specifically, what I mean here by "efficient" is that because this is a set that debuffs targets, its effect benefits
everyone in the group.
In a trials group of 12, you just need 1 person to use Alkosh. That's what I mean by "efficient". Furthermore, because the effect does not stack, it is actually disadvantageous to have too many people wear Alkosh, since the extra effect procs will just be wasted. So even if a damage dealer were to wear Alkosh, it would only make sense for 1 damage dealer (or maaaybe 2) to wear the set--there's little point in having the others wear it.
If you think about it, every popular support set is one that can affect a full group of 12; they're all "efficient". Ebon. Worm. Hircine. Yolnahkriin. Olorime. Alkosh.
Why is Roaring Opportunist the next Alkosh?
Four years later, we have another "Roar" set, this time Roaring Opportunist, which grants Major Slayer to
12 people upon the completion of a heavy attack. As it currently stands,
even after the week 2 PTS changes, this is a support set.
- One person can give Major Slayer to a full trials group of 12.
- You can't have more than one person wear this set because the cooldown is on the recipient of the buff.
- In order to get the most out of this set, it's necessary to build specifically for heavy attacks, and for the kinds of players that this set is aimed at (players who run trials), it's one thing to ask them to heavy attack every now and then (which some do anyway for sustain), but it's quite another to ask them to build specifically for heavy attacks. And without a heavy-attack build, a damage dealer is not going to do that much more heavy attack damage than a healer (particularly since it is now commonplace for healers to spec more into spell damage) and will not get significantly more uptime than a healer.
So the reality is that, despite the week 2 changes, Roaring Opportunist is
still considered by players to be a support set. The only difference now is that it's a weaker support set, and groups are now considering having healers come on the DK class because of the DK's unique class ability to boost heavy attack damage.
How do you fix Roaring Opportunist?
There's a very simple solution to this problem:
Cap the Roaring Opportunist effect to three players. Eliminate/revert the duration scaling from heavy attack damage. And instead of Roaring Opportunist becoming the next Alkosh, it will become the next Master Architect. Roaring Opportunist has the
(ahem) opportunity to become a more desirable alternative to Master Architect, particularly for those classes that lack cheap ultimates.
That's it. If you want RO to be a set used by damage-dealers, you
MUST eliminate the 12-person effect. As long as it can affect 12, people will look for ways to shoehorn it onto a support. And
even if groups do decided to put RO on a damage-dealer, only one damage dealer could use the set. All other RO sets in the group would be wasted. Is that what you really want, ZOS? For a damage-dealer set to be usable by only 1 out of 8 DDs in a group?
Effect efficiency and Major Aegis
Vrol's Command suffers from the opposite problem. This is a set that is designed to be a support set, but supports will never use it. Why?
Because it's inefficient. In order to cover the entire group, you need
both of your tanks to run it. It's one thing to ask one tank to sacrifice a set for Vrol. But asking both tanks to do this? No, I can't imagine any group accepting that level of sacrifice.
I find it amusingly ironic that ZOS made the mistake of letting Roaring affect 12 people while also making the
exact opposite mistake of letting Vrol affect only 6.
Furthermore,
this is the same mistake that was made with Inventor's Guard and Automated Defense.
The Major Aegis sets from Halls of Fabrication are automatic decons for everyone. Why? Because they affect only 3 people. In order to cover an entire group, you'll need all four supports running Inventors/Automated. That's completely impractical.
I imagine, back in 2017 when the Halls sets were designed, that someone at ZOS thought, "Well, the Major Slayer sets affect 3 people. So wouldn't it be nice and symmetrical for the Major Aegis sets to also affect 3 people?"
The problem with that symmetry in the set design is that, in practice, the roles are not symmetrical. You have 8 DDs, but only 2 healer and 2 tanks. There are a lot more DDs than there are supports.
Also, defensive bonuses really need to go to everyone. If someone doesn't get an offensive bonus, that's fine, they just do a bit less damage, but that's not a big deal. But for defensive bonuses, if someone needs a defensive buff to survive, then not getting it means death. In places where groups need to mitigate a lot of damage, the damage usually affects everyone. Think about the execute phase on Assembly General. Or the laser on Lokkestiiz HM. Major Aegis is never a consideration in those scenarios because we need that buff on everyone, and in order to get it, we would would need to sacrifice four support slots (if using Halls support sets) or two support slots (if using Vrol).
The Galenwe treatment
There is one more trials support set that ZOS had made this mistake with: Galenwe. Before the Update 26 PTS, Galenwe affected only 3 people. It was too inefficient to be used as a support set. But with Update 26, Galenwe can now affect an entire trials group, and suddenly, the set is on the radar for consideration instead of automatic decon fodder. This was a great and necessary change. Now you need to do the same for Vrol, Inventor's Guard, and Automated Defense. All three of these sets could be interesting and useful in certain situations,
if only they were able to affect everyone.
And of course, you need to do the opposite for Roaring Opportunist. Reducing the effect count is the only way to get people to actually use RO on damage dealers instead of on a support or just a single damage dealer. And it would make it a far more balanced set.