Change Request Series: Marching Orders and It's Linked Traits

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Alright, @Cal Cohen.2358/ @Cal Cohen.3527, I hope you read the first in the series and had time to digest it along with your Aquafina. Here is number two in the series: Marching Orders and it's linked traits.

This one is a bit hedgy as I am not exactly sure if you can do this, but in my mind this falls into just tweaking the numbers category of changes, but may need another team to help implement. I still think this is in your interest from a balance perspective though.

 

Problem: The 10s CD on Marching Orders slows the built in might generation from Tactics needlessly. The traits linked to Marching Orders all share it's ICD creating a difficult to balance set of traits.

 

Solution: Decouple the CDs.

Remove the ICD from Marching Orders. This will help both warrior sustain and damage as well as team damage through more effective might support. Marching Orders itself is inherently tied to Burst CDs anyway. A Spellbreaker can get 3 bursts off back to back, and Axe Berserker is locked behind Berserk Mode and is highly susceptible to counter play if they spam Decapitate. Either way this becomes a decent alternative to might generation that requires hitting with Burst, so all the counter play we know and hate love is relevant here.

Make Soldier's Comfort's new CD 5s. This is our core support spec, and while we have Vigorous Shouts they were instant and had little counter play outside of poison. SC still needs the burst skill to hit, so there is an immense amount of counter play to it to justify the shorter CD. Keeping the CD to 5s means that back to back bursts cannot be used to spike heal yourself or your party. This is good and avoids problems from too much sustain (see scourge).

Lastly Martial Cadence's new CD should remain at 10s. This is inherently a useful trait, but anything shorter than 10s would make it too strong. It would still be weak in relation to PS and VS. The only thing that would make it more competitive in it's slot is outside your purview I believe so I won't even bring up those ideas.

With these changes the core support from Tactics would get bolstered, but not become broken OP.  There would be more fluidity to the traitline, and decoupling these three traits gives more breathing room for balance decisions later on.

 

I want to emphasize again that my goal here isn't to create something OP, but to find small things that can help warrior do warrior things better. Again, please feel free to reach out if you are able. Thank you very much for you time and efforts, mate.

 

Warrior brethren, please do not bombard this thread or follow up threads with your own suggestions. If you have commentary to add, keep it to the topic discussed directly in the thread.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

If numbers is all we can tweak, may I suggest for the increase of the healing coefficient of Soldier's comfort by at least 25% with this CD. 

 

On top of that I'd advise for Soldier's Focus on Marching orders to apply more might if a CD cannot be removed from it. Maybe 3 stacks on burst, maybe 4, but that's probably pushing it. Again, if the ICD cannot be removed that is, as without it, I believe it would be pretty balanced to gain this might on core and SpB as well as Zerker. 

 

Too bad we are stuck at changing numbers instead of providing meaningful changes to traits, but whatever, if this is how they will address warrior, it's better than nothing... 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Grand Marshal.4098

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

16 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

If numbers is all we can tweak, may I suggest for the increase of the healing coefficient of Soldier's comfort by at least 25% with this CD. 

Numbers are all that Cal can touch. Bear in mind that I just recommended doubling the output of Soldier's Comfort by way of reducing the CD on it to 5s. I think we would want to see how that plays out before touching the coefficient any.

16 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

On top of that I'd advise for Soldier's Focus on Marching orders to apply more might if a CD cannot be removed from it. Maybe 3 stacks on burst, maybe 4, but that's probably pushing it. Again, if the ICD cannot be removed that is, as without it, I believe it would be pretty balanced to gain this might on core and SpB as well as Zerker. 

Removing the CD from Marching Orders would cause the might to apply on any burst hit. Its 3 might, on a burst hit. Hardly anything anyone should be concerned about and would help core warrior support beyond tooting horns and shouting inspirational quotes.

16 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Too bad we are stuck at changing numbers instead of providing meaningful changes to traits, but whatever, if this is how they will address warrior, it's better than nothing... 

Again, changing numbers is what Cal does on the balance side, anything else goes to the Dev team, and anything they do goes through his balance approach after the fact.

So, I'm keeping this series of balance change requests to what Cal can actually touch.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

3 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Numbers are all that Cal can touch. Bear in mind that I just recommended doubling the output of Soldier's Comfort by way of reducing the CD on it to 5s. I think we would want to see how that plays out before touching the coefficient any.

Removing the CD from Marching Orders would cause the might to apply on any burst hit. Its 3 might, on a burst hit. Hardly anything anyone should be concerned about and would help core warrior support beyond tooting horns and shouting inspirational quotes.

Again, changing numbers is what Cal does on the balance side, anything else goes to the Dev team, and anything they do goes through his balance approach after the fact.

So, I'm keeping this series of balance change requests to what Cal can actually touch.

Assuming he even does! Lmaoooooo

 

Nah fr I fully support your ideas, since I've known you for a year or so in the subforum and you know what I think of Warr and you know what Warr needs. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Assuming he even does! Lmaoooooo

Well, he does not like long balance request threads apparently, so I'm breaking things up smaller for him. Maybe he'll read these, maybe not. Maybe the next set of balance patch notes won't have a barren warrior section and include some of these requests with him at least meeting half way.

2 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Nah fr I fully support your ideas, since I've known you for a year or so in the subforum and you know what I think of Warr and you know what Warr needs. 

9 years as a warrior main gives you some insight to the class. We all may have different playstyles and points of view on how to better warrior, but I think we can all agree on what isn't working and why even if we don't all agree on what a good fix will be. You and I tend to think alike though in regards to warrior balance.

 If numbers are all Cal can touch then so be it. Warrior lives and dies by the numbers anyway.

[oscuro.9720]

Just so you know spell can chain 5 burst skills, not 3. Full counter resets burst skill cool downs, so you could go breaching strike -> arcing -> full counter -> arcing -> breaching (with some CC skills thrown in there as well, otherwise most of this won’t land). 
 

I don’t think this is really problematic, as you don’t actually chain 5 burst skills in a real combat scenario, and if you are able to successfully, it think the skill (or luck if you are bad like me) required to pull it off justifies the payoff. Really like the idea my guy. It’s a great, minimally invasive way to give warrior a slight bump without very intensive changes. Well though out 🙂

Edited September 1, 2021 by oscuro.9720
Accidentally put warrior instead of spell

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

7 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Just so you know spell can chain 5 burst skills, not 3. Full counter resets burst skill cool downs, so you could go breaching strike -> arcing -> full counter -> arcing -> breaching (with some CC skills thrown in there as well, otherwise most of this won’t land). 
 

I don’t think this is really problematic, as you don’t actually chain 5 burst skills in a real combat scenario, and if you are able to successfully, it think the skill (or luck if you are bad like me) required to pull it off justifies the payoff. Really like the idea my guy. It’s a great, minimally invasive way to give warrior a slight bump without very intensive changes. Well though out 🙂

Tyvm. Being able to pull that off should be rewarding.