Thread: Defiant Challenge

Is there anyone else who thinks this skill is FAR too powerful?

I kinda want to trade it's power off into some other things.

Originally Posted by Untg99

Is there anyone else who thinks this skill is FAR too powerful?

I kinda want to trade it's power off into some other things.

Nah,

It's just the right amount of Powerful.

If anything it should bubble us with a 5K heal bubble, crush our enemies, see them driven before us and maybe to hear the lamentation of their women.

<.<

>.>

^_^

Just Sayin....

For moors?
I don't really care about PvP enough to ask for changes concerning it, but you are right there.

For PvE?
I suppose you could say that. Still, survivability is an issue if I'm thinking about ToO T2. I have only seen Kalbak and Saruman, each time without knowing the healers very well and maybe it's my fault, but it was very close from time to time at Kalbak. I don't even want to mention Saruman. As soon as I had 2 Fire and awakened 2 poison from their slumber, I died 7-10 seconds later (because I forgot to use DC in time).

I love that we have a button to push if youknowwhat hits the fan, but I would still prefer to take all its power and evenly distribute it across the whole 3 minutes.

It is exactly as powerful as it should be and maybe it could be even more powerful as DC is probably the answer on wardens prayers about more mitigations. And it being a CD skill which lasts for 30s I wouldn't mind a small morale bubble there too, but this is a very good thing they did.

I think it's spot on for a skill. I haven't been to the moors since level 65 so I can't comment on it there.

In PVE I only just started using this skill and it's a great oh-#### skill. I don't raid on my Warden, but I could see it being very useful there. In the basic 6 and 3 man instances it's great if something goes wrong (pits T2/Roots T2).

I do not think it is overpowered in PVE. Constrictions, as a former windfolian, i know you pvp a lot. In TOO (tier 2 of course), i have taken some epic hits and feel like I strain the healers. Defiant challenge helps lessen this load. Kalbak once devastated me for ~15k and that hit would have hit a guardian for much less.

What other options are there? If it's spammed on cooldown is up 20% of the time for an 8% mitigation increase. It gives warden the ability to soak up damage like they're wearing heavy armor but only temporarily and with foresight, or in reaction to infrequent but large spikes in damage.

bacho
I would still prefer to take all its power and evenly distribute it across the whole 3 minutes.

The ability to soak up damage as if we're heavy armor has been discussed before. Personally I like the primarily pre-emptive nature of the current Defiant Challenge; exchanging it into a passive mitigation would detract from this. One other feature of the skill that PvMP'ers overlook is its' Forced Taunt component that doesn't break CC. Would this become another clicky skill for Wardens? Turned back into a gambit no one really uses?

Originally Posted by Untg99

Is there anyone else who thinks this skill is FAR too powerful?

I kinda want to trade it's power off into some other things.

DC has very little place in the Moors, especially considering Warden's current state. Even with no tradeoffs, I don't think any honest warden should have a problem with DC simply being disabled in the Moors.

For PvE, use and reliance on DC and NS are something I personally don't like. Yes its nice to have panic buttons, but it also develops reliance on them for some players, which ultimately can reduce player skill/deveopment. Especially for difficult raid content before (and even after) groups have things on farm mode, relying on panic buttons reduces the fun and true challenge and coordination required in content, and ultimately is poorly designed content, at least in my opinion. My aversion to these longer cooldown skills goes doubly for the warden class.

I would be VERY supportive of removing NS and returning DC to its old force taunt gambit form (with no mit buff) in return for more utility and/or potent skills (If DC were returned to this form though, make it instant cast time, and remove the legendary trait requirement). A few ideas I'd trade for DC/NS are adding a slow to The Boot, Removing the stun immune reapplication debuff from Shield Tactics, or some type of miss chance debuff to war-cry or goad. Just a few ideas, but there are planty of more subtle, potentially effective ways to improve the gameplay, versatility, and potency of the class without an "I win"/panic button.

Originally Posted by Gandalphor

It is exactly as powerful as it should be and maybe it could be even more powerful as DC is probably the answer on wardens prayers about more mitigations. And it being a CD skill which lasts for 30s I wouldn't mind a small morale bubble there too, but this is a very good thing they did.

DC pairs great with the Martyr morale bubble. Both are on similar cooldowns, and the bubble will help cover your damage while you wait for DC's long animation before the buff applies, meaning you can wait until you're nearly dead before you pop on God Mode. And DC's mitigations ensure the bubble doesnt collapse and Martyr's heal will kick in, meaning you dont have to spend as much of the 30s queuing up self-heals.

Originally Posted by spelunker

DC has very little place in the Moors, especially considering Warden's current state. Even with no tradeoffs, I don't think any honest warden should have a problem with DC simply being disabled in the Moors.

For PvE, use and reliance on DC and NS are something I personally don't like. Yes its nice to have panic buttons, but it also develops reliance on them for some players, which ultimately can reduce player skill/deveopment. Especially for difficult raid content before (and even after) groups have things on farm mode, relying on panic buttons reduces the fun and true challenge and coordination required in content, and ultimately is poorly designed content, at least in my opinion. My aversion to these longer cooldown skills goes doubly for the warden class.

I would be VERY supportive of removing NS and returning DC to its old force taunt gambit form (with no mit buff) in return for more utility and/or potent skills (If DC were returned to this form though, make it instant cast time, and remove the legendary trait requirement). A few ideas I'd trade for DC/NS are adding a slow to The Boot, Removing the stun immune reapplication debuff from Shield Tactics, or some type of miss chance debuff to war-cry or goad. Just a few ideas, but there are planty of more subtle, potentially effective ways to improve the gameplay, versatility, and potency of the class without an "I win"/panic button.

I LOL'd pretty hard at everything that dude just said... LOL...

Originally Posted by Giliodor

I LOL'd pretty hard at everything that dude just said... LOL...

Umm, Why?

Admittedly the tradeoff suggestions are some utilities i'd like and are mostly half-baked ideas, but please: elaborate on why DC in the moors isn't completely lame, and having a class that previously did just fine without long cd panic skills is better/more fun with them now...

Originally Posted by spelunker

elaborate on why...having a class that previously did just fine without long cd panic skills is better/more fun with them now...

Because they'll never be able to create content that both Guardians and Wardens can tank differently but equally well as long as Guardians are completely reactive and Wardens are completely proactive. There needs to be some reactive skills, or else Wardens will never be able to tank bosses with damage-spike mechanics.

If DC was still a 5-length gambit, there'd be no way you could build it in time, when you needed it. If bosses telegraphed their moves that early, then it would be completely trivial for a Guardian (or other Heavy) and his groupmates to buff him up and/or avoid the mechanic entirely.

Before the DC change, there was so many complaints about how Warden damage mitigation was wholly inadequate for tanking. DC gave us a way to increase our mits, just like Guardians can increase their BPE with Pledge, but without simply raising it across-the-board, or putting it in as a gambit-based buff that we could keep running 100% of the time.

Wardens were generally considered co-equal tanks (some fights being better suited for guard, some for wardens, but all doable by either) pre-RoI. Just because RoI mechanics hit wardens harder than any other class doesn't mean these two skills are necessary or (imo) fit with the classes gameplay style.

If you think these skills make the class more fun/engaging/rewarding to play, all the power to you. But theres no content currently that REQUIRES using them, and again, i don't think the skills fit with the class, so if content is too difficult for wardens without CD skills, fix it through mechanics that fit the class.

Edit: how many complaints were there about warden mitigations from the U6 revamp to the time DC was updated a month or so later? not many

Originally Posted by spelunker

Wardens were generally considered co-equal tanks (some fights being better suited for guard, some for wardens, but all doable by either) pre-RoI. Just because RoI mechanics hit wardens harder than any other class doesn't mean these two skills are necessary or (imo) fit with the classes gameplay style.

Maybe back in MoM/SoM they were....Finesse is what killed the Warden, comparatively with Heavies, since it kills BPE but not mitigations. Plus some attacks are not Avoidable, though every attack is mitigatable. DC and NS make up for the fact that we're prone to large spike damage such as dev crits or strings of unlucky BPE rolls. NS guards better against large individual spikes; DC guards better against strings of heavy incoming damage.

As long as enemy Finesse is not a defensible stat, Wardens are going to be at a competitive disadvantage in any realistic tanking situation. If you want to change DC into a "Negates Enemy Finesse" buff, thats something you can discuss, but it'd still have to be a clicky-skill or we'd have it up 100% of the time.

Ok the heart of the problem with wardens is two-fold.

1- Wardens suck against spike damage, no matter how good a warden you are you WILL eventually get 1 shotted at some point in t2 raids while guards almost never get 1 shotted i.e Kalbak shock explosion + crit/dev = ~20k dmg, if you're not a 100% morale you'll die. Acid bubble wargs crit/dev for ~17k and hit ~5k normal once again if you're not at full morale you'll die. Saruman storm makers back to back devastates = ~15k dmg and if you have more sarumans on you and you're not at full morale you'll die.

2- If wardens die we can't get agro back. May be on trash we can but on bosses there's no chance with the absurd dps requirements. We just can't ask the dps to slow down while we slowly climb the threat ladders.

So in most cases warden death = raid wipe which has been a problem in the past many many times and still is but suppressed to a bearable extent.

NS is a blanket protection against 1 shots. DC is a proactive protection against 1 shots. The crit immunity supplements protection against 1 shots but isn't really as great as people think it is(for those of you and i know there are many wardens who don't know the crit immunity has a 45sec cd). Even with these tools(NS bugging out anyone? :P) we still sometimes get 1 shotted but its very very rare, rare enough to make us forget about the problem.

If you're asking for these tools to be removed I suggest you provide us a solution where we are protected against 1 shots. We don't develop a RELIANCE on these tools as you said, we NEED them to get through hard content just like guards need pledge/engage. You can't say "oh some guards suck at generating threat so they develop a reliance on engage". Guards have legitimate problems generating threat and so they have a tool to bridge the gap just as wardens do for 1 shots.

Personally I'd be ready to give up the 2 tools if our crit immunity cd was removed and the duration extended to 10 seconds with a let's say 20%(needs to be adjusted in testing) boost to mitigation for the duration.

Not sure about pvp implications as I don't give the slightest youknowwhat about pvp.

Originally Posted by droid

Maybe back in MoM/SoM they were....Finesse is what killed the Warden, comparatively with Heavies, since it kills BPE but not mitigations. Plus some attacks are not Avoidable, though every attack is mitigatable. DC and NS make up for the fact that we're prone to large spike damage such as dev crits or strings of unlucky BPE rolls. NS guards better against large individual spikes; DC guards better against strings of heavy incoming damage.

As long as enemy Finesse is not a defensible stat, Wardens are going to be at a competitive disadvantage in any realistic tanking situation. If you want to change DC into a "Negates Enemy Finesse" buff, thats something you can discuss, but it'd still have to be a clicky-skill or we'd have it up 100% of the time.

But finesse IS defensible, maybe its more of a semantic argument, but anyone who isn't overcapped on all 3 avoidances and resistance can do something do defend against finesse. If shield mastery got an additional 3k to parry and evade buffs (or just a 5% overcap bonus like black stance for guards), would your warden not be better off, all the time? That isn't preferable to relying on a godmode cooldown skill for a class that traditionally never had cd skills? if shield tactics raised resistance rating by a significant margin, wouldn't that also defend against finesse. what if the stacking bonuses to safeguard and impressive flourish gave us a 10% incoming healing bonus? the list of potential buffs that work within the existing class mechanics are pretty much limitless, I'll trade something that works with how the class was designed over a hastily added band-aid solution.

Edit for Shintah: Fair point about our succeptibility to dmg spikes, which i'll agree is a far bigger problem than finesse. but realistically NS works on that once, and DC doesn't at all (and my bigger gripe is with DC).

Originally Posted by spelunker

But finesse IS defensible, maybe its more of a semantic argument, but anyone who isn't overcapped on all 3 avoidances and resistance can do something do defend against finesse. If shield mastery got an additional 3k to parry and evade buffs (or just a 5% overcap bonus like black stance for guards), would your warden not be better off, all the time? That isn't preferable to relying on a godmode cooldown skill for a class that traditionally never had cd skills? if shield tactics raised resistance rating by a significant margin, wouldn't that also defend against finesse. what if the stacking bonuses to safeguard and impressive flourish gave us a 10% incoming healing bonus? the list of potential buffs that work within the existing class mechanics are pretty much limitless, I'll trade something that works with how the class was designed over a hastily added band-aid solution.

NO to everything you said. I have 75% avoidance literally and I give charity on the day my combat analysis shows me 30% total avoidance on kalbak. Resistance is just a horrible stat, it should just be removed. Avoidance is not a reliable form of defense to begin with and this problem is worsened by fineness. Inc heal doesn't do anything against spike damage and 1 shots(SB SoW already puts me at 50% inc heals +10% wouldn't do much). May be a well timed epic for ages crit heal for 13k will save you but how reliable is that? Even if you don't die you'll be hogging up heals making the healers work extra hard on just healing and forgetting/making mistakes on raid mechanics(missing names on kalbak/potting/movement etc). You just can't look at these problems in isolation, they often have profound impacts which is why it often takes months of deliberation and testing to make even the slightest adjustments. It's not a hastily added band-aid solution.

Edit for above: Like I said DC is proactive protection and proactive doesn't always work great but it's there still. For example when I'm at 8/9 shock and I've just been devastated and sitting at 10k morale I just hit DC. I might have survived without it i might have not but I had a choice to make that gamble(i.e i wasn't helpless as previously i'd be sitting there praying to the rng gods to bpe the next hit or im toast) and then again how many times do i find myself in a situation like that during that fight? not many... As I have mentioned already we still get 1 shotted but it's very rare, rare enough to make us forget about the problem.

Originally Posted by spelunker

Fair point about our succeptibility to dmg spikes, which i'll agree is a far bigger problem than finesse. but realistically NS works on that once, and DC doesn't at all (and my bigger gripe is with DC).

So going from 50% to 90% mits, and reducing an incoming crit from 20k damage (instakill) to 4k ("heal, please...thank you!"), isnt a good defense against damage spikes?

Originally Posted by droid

So going from 50% to 90% mits, and reducing an incoming crit from 20k damage (instakill) to 4k ("heal, please...thank you!"), isnt a good defense against damage spikes?

Hold on there champ, I've yet to see anything past 9k.


A kinmate of mine tanks ToO T2 Shadow Challenge and has our healers tell him they are bored when healing because he takes no damage. He told me he was going to consider tanking in Recklessness because of how easy it was to tank.

Recklessness has changed considerably so that it is immensely more difficult to tank with than it was at 65. That to me is just absurd and is not the warden that I want to play.

By the way, without DC that sort of sleep tanking would not be possible.

Originally Posted by droid

So going from 50% to 90% mits, and reducing an incoming crit from 20k damage (instakill) to 4k ("heal, please...thank you!"), isnt a good defense against damage spikes?

It only works when you have it up. The whole issue with a damage spike is you don't know its coming. If you/your healer knew the hit was coming, you'd get baubled/bubbled/rk dmg redux'd/shield of the dunedain'd/etc which would solve the problem.


Getting off topic, but: Shintagh, i'll have to start running CA again for some runs again, but i remember right after the U6 buffs holding at least 35-40% bpe on Kalback for the 5ish runs in a row (with me facing away from him at 9 static to force the explosion), and my character screen would have read around 25/21/22 for b/p/e since i personally can't keep wall of steel and surety of death buffs up consistently and hold aggro with good dpsers. Can you really maintain 75% avoidance and hold threat on good dps? I'm not doubting you, i'm genuinely impressed with those numbers unless you're stacking huge amounts of b/p/e in gear at the cost of running at 11-12kish morale unbuffed (and thus exacerbating spike damage problems).

hmm, maybe i'll start another thread rather than further derail this from the topic.


So summary of my opinion and i'll leave rather than derailing and degrading the conversation (which I'm at risk of doing):
-If NS and DC were purged from the game, i still don't think good warden's would lose their spots in raids to guards, and as someone with a t2 raid ready guard and warden, i don't think I'd be asked (or anyone who ask behind my back) for me to bring my guard instead of warden if i didn't want to, because bringing one or the other wouldn't have a significant influence on the outcome of the raid.
-I died a little on the inside when I was in a foundry run with a poorly played warden who asked for us to wait at the start of bossfights for DC to come off cooldown.
-In a woefully imbalanced PvP system, DC is the single most overpowered skill in the Moors, on a class that's at or near the top of the food chain to begin with.
-If the Devs, in their infinite wisdom, think we need powerful buffs like NS or DC, I really wish they would implement them in ways that fit the class better. AKA working within the gambit system, rather than adding long CD skills to a class that traditionally never had any.

Having raided every week since BG I pretty much agree with Shintagh on his points. When RoI first came out a warden was a large liability in a ToO T2 raid as a tank vs. a guard and I almost wanted quit playing the class, we were a glass cannon, without the cannon. With some of the initial updates the gap was closed. Currently, a warden or guard are interchangeable on any raid content up to the most difficult. That is where we should be in our PvE tank role, which is the primary role for this class. We almost always raid with a guard and a warden and it is good to have the same survivability. NS and DC help with this. They are good insurance against the spike damage which was the warden's bane in raids and for times when a single tank had to take a whole raid's worth of damage for, say, 30 sec; much like guards do. To use all the skills to max out our B/P/E, which is gimped by finesse, we can't hold aggro against a raid going all out dps, which is sometimes req. DC and NS are nice if you need to spam nothing but aggro skills for a short period, but don't want to die and wipe the raid. If we could get the same result without a CD skill I'm all for it, but haven't seen it yet.

PvP: DC and NS are OP in a 1v1, so don't use them if you don't want to. I do like being able to hit DC when 5 rank 10+ creeps jump me while I'm solo at 10K morale traited spear/dps. They brought OP numbers, so I'll use an OP skill to at least get a kill before dying, it isn't like I can hit DC and then kill 5 rank 10+ creeps.

Originally Posted by spelunker

Getting off topic, but: Shintagh, i'll have to start running CA again for some runs again, but i remember right after the U6 buffs holding at least 35-40% bpe on Kalback for the 5ish runs in a row (with me facing away from him at 9 static to force the explosion), and my character screen would have read around 25/21/22 for b/p/e since i personally can't keep wall of steel and surety of death buffs up consistently and hold aggro with good dpsers. Can you really maintain 75% avoidance and hold threat on good dps? I'm not doubting you, i'm genuinely impressed with those numbers unless you're stacking huge amounts of b/p/e in gear at the cost of running at 11-12kish morale unbuffed (and thus exacerbating spike damage problems).

hmm, maybe i'll start another thread rather than further derail this from the topic.

I hear you on the 35-40% bpe, I've even had ~55% bpe in a couple of runs but I look back and ask myself can I rely on those numbers? I mean those SS are great for bragging rights but when it comes to farming something you want to be in and out in 30 min and I found that the more reliable thing to do is get close to 25k buffed morale with high crit def and capped inc heals + rk healer and just faceroll through it. I might have exaggerated when I said 75%, may be more like 73-74% since as you said BoV/SoD are hard to maintain and instead I just end up using WC but 73%(without protection and anthem of prowess) I can hold absolutely guaranteed while letting my hunter go bollucks at 1.2mil on kalbak. I use a 1-1 rotation and rely on smaller quicker refreshes/threat gains as opposed to the famous double up all the buffs for 50sec and go threat crazy for that duration.

Btw I had ~16.3k unbuffed morale in my &&&&&&&& bpe build days. Now I'm looking at 18.5k(clasp would push it to 19k) bpe down from 25/25/25 to about 25/22/21(this is solo, it almost caps if I have guard protection/AoP) and frankly when I average out the numbers I get about same avoidance as my capped bpe build but a lot more safer(I can't remember dying on kalbak since switching my build).

Originally Posted by Shintagh

I hear you on the 35-40% bpe, I've even had ~55% bpe in a couple of runs but I look back and ask myself can I rely on those numbers? I mean those SS are great for bragging rights but when it comes to farming something you want to be in and out in 30 min and I found that the more reliable thing to do is get close to 25k buffed morale with high crit def and capped inc heals + rk healer and just faceroll through it. I might have exaggerated when I said 75%, may be more like 73-74% since as you said BoV/SoD are hard to maintain and instead I just end up using WC but 73%(without protection and anthem of prowess) I can hold absolutely guaranteed while letting my hunter go bollucks at 1.2mil on kalbak. I use a 1-1 rotation and rely on smaller quicker refreshes/threat gains as opposed to the famous double up all the buffs for 50sec and go threat crazy for that duration.

Btw I had ~16.3k unbuffed morale in my &&&&&&&& bpe build days. Now I'm looking at 18.5k(clasp would push it to 19k) bpe down from 25/25/25 to about 25/22/21(this is solo, it almost caps if I have guard protection/AoP) and frankly when I average out the numbers I get about same avoidance as my capped bpe build but a lot more safer(I can't remember dying on kalbak since switching my build).

Do you get there with 4x partial avoidance relics?

Originally Posted by rannion

Do you get there with 4x partial avoidance relics?

2x bpe,inc heal,item-wear settings
2x bpe,vit,icmr gems
parry orthanc necklace(even though it has phy mit it's super easy to cap tac mit so its no biggy)
parry scrolls on both weapons
full orthanc set
parry and evade legacies on both weapons with 3xcrystals on both

and just gambit action after that