Royaji wrote: »

SinXGreen wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

SinXGreen wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

The answer to your original question is yes. It absolutely can. As mentioned earlier, viable does not mean optimal.

The reality is fairly simple. S&B brings something to the table and so does a staff. Both offer different pros and cons. You can easily get 90% of the utility a weapon offers from one bar though. Double S&B is redundant. Double staff is redundant. A build which utilises both gets the best of both worlds. And gets to cover the weakness of their second bar by barswapping.

This is why changes to staves will not help double staff. It can get better but it is still redundant. The buff will affect both double staff and S&B/staff builds. S&B/staff will still be better.

And since you are so fixated on Fracture/Breach in one skill let me mention a couple of things double staff gets over double S&B.
1) Ranged interrupt. With increasing emphasis on interrupts in boss mechanics it just can't be overlooked.
2) Full power enchants. This is actually a pretty big deal and S&B has no acces to them at all.
3) Ground AoE DoT. Crucial for maintaining your enchant (be it crusher, weakening or sustain). Once again, not available at all in S&B toolkit.

Do you agree that all of those should be added to S&B as well?

Diversity is not only about the haves. It is also about the have nots. You trade something to get something else. As a result you can have a different approach to your build and encounters based on your choices. What you are looking for is homogenisation. Making both staff and S&B the same. Just a cosmetic skin. A stick instead of a sword and a shield. Blue resource instead of green resource. With the exact same underlying functionality.

You know what's the worst part? I can already tell your wish will be granted. Sooner or later the spreadsheet balancing will catch up to tanking too. And after that it will all be the same. Cosmetic differences. Your class defines the colour of your skills but functionally they are all the same. Fun for everyone. Or is it?

So you are saying its homogenisation to want a dual frost to be as good as a dual S&B?
The range taunt actually has a stamina morph if you weren't aware. Never did I say to make them the same. I said for them to be on par with each other. As it stands Hybrid is best then dual S&B then Dual frost. I feel like both dual should be on par meaning able to play at the same level without 1 being better than the other. Sure you will have your pros and cons but as it is now there are far more cons to dual frost. The stamina morph of inner fire actually increases the damage output with range so actual dual frost doesn't have the advantage of range taunt unfortunately. Also we have addressed the terms optimal and viable and the original question actually doesn't say either.

It's homogenisation to want dual frost and dual S&B to have the exact same skills.

S&B/staff is indeed best. Although I disagree that the difference between double S&B and double staff is that black and white. It is much easier to find a source of Major Fracture (even from one of your DDs) than to get an interrupt for that mechanic which will absolutely wipe the whole group unless it is interrupted NOW. A DD/healer who is using crusher is also not the most common occurence. At this point I'm honestly not sure if I would rather use double S&B or double staff.

Not a single time do I mention ranged taunt in my post. The fact that you do not understand the difference between ranged taunt and ranged interrupt speaks volumes about your tanking experience (and reading comprehension).

Sorry I did misread that, I was skimming. I know the difference. So have both taunts in the game apply major breach and fracture is really homogenisation? 1 skill? Never did I mention skills be change other than inner rage. So the fact that you jumped to the conclusion that I want them both to have all of the same skill speaks volumes about your comprehension period. 1 skill out of how many?

It is indeed homogenisation.

You've brought up one skill. As a counter-argument I've brought up some staff-exclusive options. So in your opinion those completely unique and otherwise unobtainable advantages are not significant enough to warrant parity with S&B? But a skill which just gives two fairly common debuffs is?

But I see no reason in arguing with someone who is skimming through the conversation. Enjoy the rest of your day.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I do wonder about the importance of a tank's Major Breach/Fracture in a period when there are so many necro DDs around.