Revitalizing Warrior 3: Re-working DEFENSE

[Grand Marshal.4098]

1 hour ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I'm not entirely sure what you meant by this, GM, but I think you were referring to the idea of having Protection and Resistance proc on burst use in the proposed change to Armored Attack--please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Getting Resistance on burst would make bursts harder to counter, but what certainly not make them uncounterable.  Resistance removes the ability to be blinded or weakened, sure, but you can still block, evade, move out of range, LOS, hide in stealth, CC, etc.  Definitely still lots of ways to counter Warrior bursts.  And, given that our bursts are either extremely telegraphed (e.g., Eviscerate, Decapitate, Combustive shot, Kill shot) and/or must be done in melee range (e.g., Arcing Slice, Skull Crack, Flurry, etc),  there is plenty of opportunity for an opponent to employ whatever countermeasures his class has to offer.  Moreover, our burst attacks are a huge part of a Warrior's DPS output; thus, things that prevent a Warrior from landing his burst (like blind or weakness) have a disproportionate effect on Warrior's viability.  It thus makes sense to have a trait (notably in a trait line without many other offensive attributes) that can mitigate at least a few of the ways that a Warrior's burst can be defeated.

I don't mind the boons tbh and there's still plenty of counterplay invol;ved. It would kinda shoehorn Defense into all roamer builds tho ngl. Aside from that, I actually promote the idea of Unblockable, blind immune, stability and second boon stripping Headbutt, so counterplay is not the issue.

 

The issue is one and has been already nerfed by the dev team when it was relevant->Revenge counter...

 

Need I say more? It's waht Acyk is more or less implying in his reply to me, to which again, I got no issue with bloated theorycrafting cause it's fun, what I have an issue with is a GM which gave Resistance and dmg on burst at the same time and we all saw how the devs treated that change...

 

It doesn't look good for us at all I'm afraid...

[TugboatSteve.3607]

Weakness doesn't prevent you from landing your burst, it just makes it do less damage. With respect to Adrenal Health and Cleansing Ire, you would still get the benefits. I only feel the need to mention as this is after all with regards to the Defense tree, and those are most often the two reasons I want a burst to land moreso than the pitiful damage the burst puts out (or none at all in the case of Skull Crack).

 

Weakness also doesn't matter quite as much with many Berserker mode bursts since there is at least a component of damage that isn't strike damage.

 

As an aside, it is strange to me that Strike damage is subject to being modified by Toughness directly, as well as the Weakness condition, and Protection. Why is Resolution availability so closely restricted again? Ah, that's right, it was an afterthought, just like the removal of Resistance ignoring all damaging conditions.

Not to mention the sheer volume of abilities that completely ignore only strike damage.

Meanwhile, Might affects both Condition and Power damage, and corrupts into Weakness, which only affects power builds. And Vulnerability affects both damage types as well.

I cannot fathom why condition builds are everywhere in PvP. It truly is mysterious. It's almost like the systems favor it.

 

I still find it incredible that there is no direct stat to mitigate condition damage, but whatever. My entire action bar is covered in condition cleanses to compensate for this obvious structural vulnerability.

Edited September 10, 2021 by TugboatSteve.3607

[Stalima.5490]

In my experience defense is probably one of the better trait lines as it actually does what it is supposed to do: increase your defense, the issue I have with it is purely the 300 second cooldown things because there are other professions that have more or less the same general idea but on 60 second cooldowns or even less, for example the engineers automatic stun removal in the tools line has a fraction of the cooldown of the one in the warrior defense trait line while still being of comparable power with the improved gadgets trait.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

On 9/12/2021 at 5:20 AM, Stalima.5490 said:

In my experience defense is probably one of the better trait lines as it actually does what it is supposed to do: increase your defense, the issue I have with it is purely the 300 second cooldown things because there are other professions that have more or less the same general idea but on 60 second cooldowns or even less, for example the engineers automatic stun removal in the tools line has a fraction of the cooldown of the one in the warrior defense trait line while still being of comparable power with the improved gadgets trait.

I'd actually disagree there...that's actually my biggest grip with Defense--it doesn't increase your defense.

 

Outside of Thick Skin and Hardened armor (both very small and very transient reductions in damage) and Defy Pain (which has been nerfed out of existence), there is nothing that actually leads to damage reduction.  That's....puzzling, given the supposed nature of the trait line.  Many of the changes suggested in the OP and by other contributors to this thread have attempted to work meaningful damage reduction into the trait line--a necessary step for it to be truly viable.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

I've been thinking on some of the comments that in this thread and I had an idea I wanted to float past you all regarding Cull the Weak.

 

@anbujackson.9564had noted that neither the current Cull the Weak nor my suggestion for it offers any benefit for condi builds and had suggested incorporating vulnerability.  @Dadnir.5038suggested that it shouldn't be base on a "on crit" proc.  Both good thoughts.  And then I had a thought or two of my own.  So here goes:

 

Cull the Weak:

Apply vulnerability (5 stacks for 5s) when you inflict weakness on a foe.

When you strike a foe in combat, inflict your target and nearby enemies with weakness (5s weakness, 240 radius, 20s ICD).

 

Discussion:

-Vulnerability provides some value for Condi builds, and provides assistance in a team fight since it amplifies the damage your target receives from all sources.

-No longer procs on crit, so even condi builds running Carrion or trailblazer could use it

-The mini-AOE effect would allow us to provide a little more presence in Zergs or team fights

 

What do you think?

 

 

[Stalima.5490]

27 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I'd actually disagree there...that's actually my biggest grip with Defense--it doesn't increase your defense.

 

What are you talking about Just about everything in the defense specialization is designed to make you last longer in combat, how can you say it doesn't increase your defense when the entire thing Is entirely devoted to reducing damage and healing it back, in fact this specialization alone is probably one of the strongest toughness specs in the game.

 

all 3 mandatory traits Increase durability:

 

reduced damage taken when above 75% so you just take less damage when high on health

 

A very strong passive heal, especially if paired with signet of fury and signet mastery allowing you to keep it active almost permanently at 3 stacks on core or so long as you are in berserk for berserker.

 

Then hardened armor simply makes you take less damage if you block or are critically hit.

 

All of the adept traits help you survive too:

 

lower shield cooldowns

 

regeneration applied when you receive movement impairment conditions

 

Basically permanent weakness applied to an enemy when they are under 50% health

 

The master traits mostly do:

 

defy pain is nerfed but it does increase your defense and as I said I don't like how this is 300s cd in pvp

 

Gain power based on toughness allowing you to build more toughness and maintain some power damage

 

Reduce mace skills, which increases your survival if using a mace.

 

Finally the grandmaster traits also all increase your survival:

 

Auto stun removal and vigor when using stances ( why does this vigor not trigger on shield stance anet?)

 

Gain adrenaline when hit and cleanse conditions when bursting

 

Heal and become super tough when breaking stuns.

 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

28 minutes ago, Stalima.5490 said:

 

What are you talking about Just about everything in the defense specialization is designed to make you last longer in combat, how can you say it doesn't increase your defense when the entire thing Is entirely devoted to reducing damage and healing it back, in fact this specialization alone is probably one of the strongest toughness specs in the game.

 

all 3 mandatory traits Increase durability:

 

reduced damage taken when above 75% so you just take less damage when high on health

 

A very strong passive heal, especially if paired with signet of fury and signet mastery allowing you to keep it active almost permanently at 3 stacks on core or so long as you are in berserk for berserker.

 

Then hardened armor simply makes you take less damage if you block or are critically hit.

 

All of the adept traits help you survive too:

 

lower shield cooldowns

 

regeneration applied when you receive movement impairment conditions

 

Basically permanent weakness applied to an enemy when they are under 50% health

 

The master traits mostly do:

 

defy pain is nerfed but it does increase your defense and as I said I don't like how this is 300s cd in pvp

 

Gain power based on toughness allowing you to build more toughness and maintain some power damage

 

Reduce mace skills, which increases your survival if using a mace.

 

Finally the grandmaster traits also all increase your survival:

 

Auto stun removal and vigor when using stances ( why does this vigor not trigger on shield stance anet?)

 

Gain adrenaline when hit and cleanse conditions when bursting

 

Heal and become super tough when breaking stuns.

 

I know what the traits say, thank you 😉 I could probably recite them by heart.

 

I never said that the traits didn't do anything, just that they don't do very much.  Also, please revisit what I said in my response to your initial post: Thick skin and hardened armor, for instance, provide only modest damage reductions and only under certain conditions (health >75% and being critically hit or blocking), over which you have very little control.

 

Adrenal Healing is the only "good" trait, IMO.  Some of the others are decent, but have flaws that limit their usefulness or prevent them from reaching their potential.  Shield Mastery, for instance, is nice for reduced shield cool downs and missile reflects, but they have nerfed the might it produces so much that its only function is to grant healing through MMR or mending might.  If they increased the Might duration to 5s (thereby promoting not only synergy with MMR/MM but also a powerful counter attack), Shield Mastery would go from "OK" to "great!". 

 

Similarly, Cleansing Ire is great for generating adrenaline, but requiring you to actually land the burst to cleanse conditions greatly diminishes its usefulness as a condition cleanse.  As suggested in the OP and elsewhere on these forums, allowing it to cleanse 1 condition per bar of adrenaline spent (even if the burst misses) would allow this trait to really shine and would allow Warriors a powerful strategic option to use their bursts as a condition cleanse, even if it misses, in emergency situations.

 

Rousing Resilience is a decent trait, I agree, but you have to be CC'd (and have a stunbreak) to make use of it.  Therefore, while it is powerful, it is also very niche, and doesn't contribute as much to Warrior's overall sustain as many of the suggestions in this thread would.

 

Again, you're not wrong to say that "Defense isn't terrible;" it's not.  I myself often run a Core Str/Disc/Defense war in PvP.  But it's definitely not great. And its undeniable that Warrior is severely underperforming in the current meta, and underperforming trait lines like Defense are a big part of the reason why.

 

I think if you take the time to read the OP and suggestions left by other contributors on this thread, you'll see the general vision (while we may disagree about many of the particulars) of finding ways to get Warriors more consistent access to damage reduction (e.g., protection, resolution, barrier, etc) and condition mitigation.  I think we can all agree that that would push Warrior in the right direction.

 

 

[TugboatSteve.3607]

On 9/13/2021 at 3:30 PM, Stalima.5490 said:

 

What are you talking about Just about everything in the defense specialization is designed to make you last longer in combat, how can you say it doesn't increase your defense when the entire thing Is entirely devoted to reducing damage and healing it back, in fact this specialization alone is probably one of the strongest toughness specs in the game.

all 3 mandatory traits Increase durability:

reduced damage taken when above 75% so you just take less damage when high on health

 

A very strong passive heal, especially if paired with signet of fury and signet mastery allowing you to keep it active almost permanently at 3 stacks on core or so long as you are in berserk for berserker.

 

Then hardened armor simply makes you take less damage if you block or are critically hit.

 

All of the adept traits help you survive too:

 

lower shield cooldowns

 

regeneration applied when you receive movement impairment conditions

 

Basically permanent weakness applied to an enemy when they are under 50% health

 

The master traits mostly do:

 

defy pain is nerfed but it does increase your defense and as I said I don't like how this is 300s cd in pvp

 

Gain power based on toughness allowing you to build more toughness and maintain some power damage

 

Reduce mace skills, which increases your survival if using a mace.

 

Finally the grandmaster traits also all increase your survival:

 

Auto stun removal and vigor when using stances ( why does this vigor not trigger on shield stance anet?)

 

Gain adrenaline when hit and cleanse conditions when bursting

 

Heal and become super tough when breaking stuns.

 

So I think I commented on most of this, but essentially it boils down to:

A) Tactics is actually superior if what you're looking for is pure sustain, and also provides better and more reliable cleansing with Rune of the Soldier.

B) Much of Defense isn't actually defense, in the sense of mitigating damage; to me it really boils down to Cleansing Ire (cleanse on burst) and Adrenal Health (heal on burst), both of which carry the limitation that you have to land a burst.

That is actually often very challenging to do when you are either being trained or kiting. In team fights that can be difficult because of rampant reapplication of conditions like Blind, Stun, Interrupt/Daze, Immobilize, Cripple, Fear, Blocks and Immunes, as well as Full Counter that make your easily telegraphed burst abilities which you are dependent on for both of those effects not only drain your adrenaline and therefore your potential burst damage, but also your self sustain. One well timed dodge and you lost both traits.

Both of these both also fall under the categories of self cleansing and self healing or self sustain, not really damage mitigation per se. That's not bad, but it really doesn't play into the theme of the trait line.

In contrast to Tactics with Rune of the Soldier and shouts, you literally have AoE healing without a cast timer that also cleanses conditions. The healing in and of itself is better, and you even get access to Soldiers Focus and an even better synergy with Might Makes Right, which is also an excellent sustain from Forceful Greatsword.

C) The mitigation traits themselves, namely Hardened Armor and Thick Skin, are barely passable. Thick Skin looks alright on paper until you realize it's 5% damage mitigation for only 1/4 of your health bar. .05 * .25 = .0125 or 1.25% damage mitigation. I strongly suspect, if this ability was bugged and inactive but the tooltip did not reflect, you would not even notice.

Hardened Armor I think made more sense with Retaliation (which again provided no damage mit). It procs on Crit or block. So it can proc when I am about to go into Shield Block for 3 seconds, meaning it's largely a waste when it procs on block. If they made this ability not proc on block, I'd be cool with it. I'd be a lot more favorable toward this trait if there were actually options to take Resolution because you get an acceptable amount at 10% strike damage mitigation, but this doesn't really exist other than one meditation on Spellbreaker with a questionable uptime. The overall uptime is kind of adequate but suffers from being an autoproc with a long ICD.

D) Armored Attack - the hint is in the tooltip, increases your Power. It doesn't "allow" you to take more toughness in PvP, where Power amulets are deliberately designed to limit you to 500 toughness at the most with demolisher amulet, for a measly 50 power. In WvW and PvE it works as intended. It also doesn't work with things like Dolyak Signet when it's on cooldown because 18 power is apparently OP. For that reason I don't think it stacks with Rousing Resilience, but I can't be bothered to check my hero pane to confirm. This would be way more appealing in PvP if it was flipped - gain toughness equal to % of power. And it would actually be providing Defense. And it still sucks compared to Forceful Greatsword.

Sundering Mace is poop because MH Mace is poop. If I took that on a MH mace I would literally only be getting a couple of seconds shaved off the cooldown on Mace 2 and 3. It doesn't even affect Skull Crack. And I'm still going to swap weapon sets when they go on cooldown.

E) shield mastery doesn't change how shield is played, and I think that's why it's rarely taken despite many builds featuring shields, and why Defense is largely overlooked. Going from 30 seconds to 24 second cooldown on Shield Block would only help if you have the kiting ability or self sustain/cleanse to last the 24 seconds. If you're getting trained or focused you usually only get to use it once anyway, and then you swap back to Greatsword/Axe/Axe.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Here is my take on re-working Defense at the moment. Keep in mind that this is based on what we discussed in the Omnibus, my prior thread on reworking Defense, and what has been discussed here.

Swap Adrenal Health and Thick Skin. Adrenal Health now is granted per adrenaline bar spent, max stacks remains at 3. Please recall that there are a maximum of 3 stacks as you read the following points. This is to change Adrenal Health so that it can be gained defensively as well as offensively as well as to turn it into a traitline mechanic.

Adept Tier: This tier should offer one of three ways to gain Adrenal Health with out using a burst.
Shield Mastery: Gain 5s of might and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you block an attack, reflect a projectile, or destroy a projectile.

Dogged March: Gain Regeneration for 6s and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you are inflicted with movement impairing conditions, such conditions have 33% reduced durations. The current ICD affects regeneration only and not the application of Adrenal Health.

Cull the Weak: Deal10% increased damage from all sources versus weakened foes. Striking a foe below 90% health inflicts 5s of weakness in an 240 radius around the target with a 5s CD. Inflicting weakness on a foe grants 1 stack of Adrenal Health.

 

Thick Skin: Gain 5% damage reduction per stack of Adrenal Health.

Master Tier: This tier should grant extra benefits when you gain Adrenal Health, with CDs as appropriate.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection and Resolution (3s) when you gain Adrenal Health. Protection and Resolution are 20% more effective (that means 40% damage reduction for the math disinclined). 15s CD. Actions that grant multiple stacks of Adrenal Health will trigger this effect multiple times before activating the CD. This allows your T3 bursts to grant more benefits over T1 bursts, but while also keeping some of the potentially rapid applications from the Adept tier from granting too much defense.

Armored Attack: Gain 10% of your power and 10% of your condition damage as toughness. Adrenal Health now grants 5% condition duration reduction per stack.

Sundering Maces: Adrenal Health no grants 5% increased CC durations per stack. CC durations inflicted while wielding a mace are increased by 15%. When you inflict weakness on a foe inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability.

 

Grand Master Tier: This tier Adrenal Health will provide a small offensive benefit depending on the trait. These are to give a small to moderate dps boost to the traitline. They are not meant to be super powerful. The values given can certainly be debated, but as GM traits should not be too low.

Last Stand: Stances last 2s longer and have 20% reduced duration. Activating a stance grants Vigor and Resistance for 5s. Adrenal Health increases all damage by 5%/3% per stack (PvE/Comp).

Cleansing Ire: Cleanse 1 condition per adrenaline bar spent. Gain 1 strike of adrenaline when struck by a foe, and 1 strike of adrenaline when inflicted by a condition. Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% critical strike chance per stack. (PvE/Comp)

Rousing Resilience: Gain 2500/1053 healing and 1000 armor for 8s/4s when you break out of a stun (PvE/Comp splits). Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% extra critical damage and +5%/3% condition duration per stack. (PvE/Comp) 

 

 

Just my 2 copper on how I would rework Defense at this point. It needs more resolution, more protection, needs to decouple Adrenal Health from purely offensive use, and give an option for increasing your DPS by a little bit.

 

Edit: I did not include Hardened Armor. That is because I had nothing to suggest. The collection of changes above would result in more defense over all. When I state damage I mean all damage, strike and condition. So there is potentially 75% damage reduction versus all damage there, but purposefully not something that can be easily maintained.
 

With that in mind, and along with what I suggested for Defy Pain it did not feel prudent to change Hardened Armor. There is still sense in changing it to proc off of receiving a bleed, burn, poison, torment, or confusion stack. and I wouldn't say no to it.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Lan Deathrider.5910
Clarity on Hardened Armor

[Grand Marshal.4098]

7 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Here is my take on re-working Defense at the moment. Keep in mind that this is based on what we discussed in the Omnibus, my prior thread on reworking Defense, and what has been discussed here.

Swap Adrenal Health and Thick Skin. Adrenal Health now is granted per adrenaline bar spent, max stacks remains at 3. Please recall that there are a maximum of 3 stacks as you read the following points. This is to change Adrenal Health so that it can be gained defensively as well as offensively as well as to turn it into a traitline mechanic.

Adept Tier: This tier should offer one of three ways to gain Adrenal Health with out using a burst.
Shield Mastery: Gain 5s of might and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you block an attack, reflect a projectile, or destroy a projectile.

Dogged March: Gain Regeneration for 6s and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you are inflicted with movement impairing conditions, such conditions have 33% reduced durations. The current ICD affects regeneration only and not the application of Adrenal Health.

Cull the Weak: Deal10% increased damage from all sources versus weakened foes. Striking a foe below 90% health inflicts 5s of weakness in an 240 radius around the target with a 5s CD. Inflicting weakness on a foe grants 1 stack of Adrenal Health.

 

Thick Skin: Gain 5% damage reduction per stack of Adrenal Health.

Master Tier: This tier should grant extra benefits when you gain Adrenal Health, with CDs as appropriate.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection and Resolution (3s) when you gain Adrenal Health. Protection and Resolution are 20% more effective (that means 40% damage reduction for the math disinclined). 15s CD. Actions that grant multiple stacks of Adrenal Health will trigger this effect multiple times before activating the CD. This allows your T3 bursts to grant more benefits over T1 bursts, but while also keeping some of the potentially rapid applications from the Adept tier from granting too much defense.

Armored Attack: Gain 10% of your power and 10% of your condition damage as toughness. Adrenal Health now grants 5% condition duration reduction per stack.

Sundering Maces: Adrenal Health no grants 5% increased CC durations per stack. CC durations inflicted while wielding a mace are increased by 15%. When you inflict weakness on a foe inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability.

 

Grand Master Tier: This tier Adrenal Health will provide a small offensive benefit depending on the trait. These are to give a small to moderate dps boost to the traitline. They are not meant to be super powerful. The values given can certainly be debated, but as GM traits should not be too low.

Last Stand: Stances last 2s longer and have 20% reduced duration. Activating a stance grants Vigor and Resistance for 5s. Adrenal Health increases all damage by 5%/3% per stack (PvE/Comp).

Cleansing Ire: Cleanse 1 condition per adrenaline bar spent. Gain 1 strike of adrenaline when struck by a foe, and 1 strike of adrenaline when inflicted by a condition. Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% critical strike chance per stack. (PvE/Comp)

Rousing Resilience: Gain 2500/1053 healing and 1000 armor for 8s/4s when you break out of a stun (PvE/Comp splits). Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% extra critical damage and +5%/3% condition duration per stack. (PvE/Comp) 

 

 

Just my 2 copper on how I would rework Defense at this point. It needs more resolution, more protection, needs to decouple Adrenal Health from purely offensive use, and give an option for increasing your DPS by a little bit.

I assume lesser GM remain as is with reso but instead procs on condi (1) and blocks? dmg reduction too

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

49 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

I assume lesser GM remain as is with reso but instead procs on condi (1) and blocks? dmg reduction too

See my edit above. I actually just came back to make that edit and saw your post.

[anbujackson.9564]

18 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Here is my take on re-working Defense at the moment. Keep in mind that this is based on what we discussed in the Omnibus, my prior thread on reworking Defense, and what has been discussed here.

Swap Adrenal Health and Thick Skin. Adrenal Health now is granted per adrenaline bar spent, max stacks remains at 3. Please recall that there are a maximum of 3 stacks as you read the following points. This is to change Adrenal Health so that it can be gained defensively as well as offensively as well as to turn it into a traitline mechanic.

Adept Tier: This tier should offer one of three ways to gain Adrenal Health with out using a burst.
Shield Mastery: Gain 5s of might and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you block an attack, reflect a projectile, or destroy a projectile.

Dogged March: Gain Regeneration for 6s and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you are inflicted with movement impairing conditions, such conditions have 33% reduced durations. The current ICD affects regeneration only and not the application of Adrenal Health.

Cull the Weak: Deal10% increased damage from all sources versus weakened foes. Striking a foe below 90% health inflicts 5s of weakness in an 240 radius around the target with a 5s CD. Inflicting weakness on a foe grants 1 stack of Adrenal Health.

 

Thick Skin: Gain 5% damage reduction per stack of Adrenal Health.

Master Tier: This tier should grant extra benefits when you gain Adrenal Health, with CDs as appropriate.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection and Resolution (3s) when you gain Adrenal Health. Protection and Resolution are 20% more effective (that means 40% damage reduction for the math disinclined). 15s CD. Actions that grant multiple stacks of Adrenal Health will trigger this effect multiple times before activating the CD. This allows your T3 bursts to grant more benefits over T1 bursts, but while also keeping some of the potentially rapid applications from the Adept tier from granting too much defense.

Armored Attack: Gain 10% of your power and 10% of your condition damage as toughness. Adrenal Health now grants 5% condition duration reduction per stack.

Sundering Maces: Adrenal Health no grants 5% increased CC durations per stack. CC durations inflicted while wielding a mace are increased by 15%. When you inflict weakness on a foe inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability.

 

Grand Master Tier: This tier Adrenal Health will provide a small offensive benefit depending on the trait. These are to give a small to moderate dps boost to the traitline. They are not meant to be super powerful. The values given can certainly be debated, but as GM traits should not be too low.

Last Stand: Stances last 2s longer and have 20% reduced duration. Activating a stance grants Vigor and Resistance for 5s. Adrenal Health increases all damage by 5%/3% per stack (PvE/Comp).

Cleansing Ire: Cleanse 1 condition per adrenaline bar spent. Gain 1 strike of adrenaline when struck by a foe, and 1 strike of adrenaline when inflicted by a condition. Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% critical strike chance per stack. (PvE/Comp)

Rousing Resilience: Gain 2500/1053 healing and 1000 armor for 8s/4s when you break out of a stun (PvE/Comp splits). Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% extra critical damage and +5%/3% condition duration per stack. (PvE/Comp) 

 

 

Just my 2 copper on how I would rework Defense at this point. It needs more resolution, more protection, needs to decouple Adrenal Health from purely offensive use, and give an option for increasing your DPS by a little bit.

 

Edit: I did not include Hardened Armor. That is because I had nothing to suggest. The collection of changes above would result in more defense over all. When I state damage I mean all damage, strike and condition. So there is potentially 75% damage reduction versus all damage there, but purposefully not something that can be easily maintained.
 

With that in mind, and along with what I suggested for Defy Pain it did not feel prudent to change Hardened Armor. There is still sense in changing it to proc off of receiving a bleed, burn, poison, torment, or confusion stack. and I wouldn't say no to it.

kitten you would be one tanky boy with those traits. 

 

But hey I like how you benefit both power and condi equallly. Though I gotta admit that those GM traits seem pretty op.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

kitten you would be one tanky boy with those traits. 

 

But hey I like how you benefit both power and condi equallly. Though I gotta admit that those GM traits seem pretty op.

I mean it's supposed to be about defense right? That and the uptime on peak damage reduction would not be as high as you may think.

 

Defense should not be pigeonholed into one damage type.

 

The changes to the GM traits are not OP. Last Stand is more or less what we settled on in the omnibus, CI just gained adrenaline when inflicted with condi which makes sense, and the cleanse on burst use is what has been discussed previously. RR did not change it's base functionality. The damage boosts that I added to tie them to AH are all rather small, especially for GM traits.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Defy pain idea is bad. 180  toughness is not a game changer, and it's a slap in the face considered it competes with armored attack that actually has a use for that extra toughness.

If anything i would move the 180 toughness to armored attack, where it makes sense and is a nice cherry on top.

As for defy pain you could make it improve protection and resolution that warrior receives (40% damage reduction on both) and grant these boons when using a healing skill (15s icd, 3s base durations). Key takeaway here would be that he gets them instantly upon healing cast, not after like too many traits and runes do, as to actually cover his healing skill cast.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

6 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

As for defy pain you could make it improve protection and resolution that warrior receives (40% damage reduction on both) and grant these boons when using a healing skill (15s icd, 3s base durations). Key takeaway here would be that he gets them instantly upon healing cast, not after like too many traits and runes do, as to actually cover his healing skill cast.

That's a neat idea; thanks for this.

 

I do think there are multiple ways Defy Pain could be re-worked to be viable, including the version suggested in the OP.  But I agree, having a stronger form of protection and resolution tied to the healing skill could be a great mechanic.  One potential drawback would be that you wouldn't want to use this with Defiant stance, as you would be getting the boons (and the damage reduction) at the same time you are trying to convert damage into healing.  That's not necessarily a deal-breaker (you could just run a different heal skill, of course), but it does introduce some anti-synergy between the Defy Pain trait and the healing skill that is supposed to be associated with the Defense line.  Because of that, I would personally be inclined to stick with my original suggestion for Defy Pain, but reasonable folks can (and often do) disagree.

 

 

6 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

180  toughness is not a game changer, and it's a slap in the face considered it competes with armored attack that actually has a use for that extra toughness.

If anything i would move the 180 toughness to armored attack, where it makes sense and is a nice cherry on top.

This would indeed make sense if Armored Attack stayed the same as it currently is (converting 10% toughness into power).  But assuming that Armored Attack gets re-worked, as suggested in the OP and some of the comments, it would no longer be as intuitive to place a toughness boost there.  Not that you couldn't; it just wouldn't be as obviously connected with the rest of the trait.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

4 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

That's a neat idea; thanks for this.

 

I do think there are multiple ways Defy Pain could be re-worked to be viable, including the version suggested in the OP.  But I agree, having a stronger form of protection and resolution tied to the healing skill could be a great mechanic.  One potential drawback would be that you wouldn't want to use this with Defiant stance, as you would be getting the boons (and the damage reduction) at the same time you are trying to convert damage into healing.  That's not necessarily a deal-breaker (you could just run a different heal skill, of course), but it does introduce some anti-synergy between the Defy Pain trait and the healing skill that is supposed to be associated with the Defense line.  Because of that, I would personally be inclined to stick with my original suggestion for Defy Pain, but reasonable folks can (and often do) disagree.

 

 

This would indeed make sense if Armored Attack stayed the same as it currently is (converting 10% toughness into power).  But assuming that Armored Attack gets re-worked, as suggested in the OP and some of the comments, it would no longer be as intuitive to place a toughness boost there.  Not that you couldn't; it just wouldn't be as obviously connected with the rest of the trait.

Fair enough.
Another approach do defy pain could be by having it reduce healing skill cooldown when dropping below hp treshold (with idc ofc)
For example:

When your health drops below 50% reduce healing skill recharge by 5s. 30s icd.
 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

On 9/15/2021 at 6:44 AM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Here is my take on re-working Defense at the moment. Keep in mind that this is based on what we discussed in the Omnibus, my prior thread on reworking Defense, and what has been discussed here.

Swap Adrenal Health and Thick Skin. Adrenal Health now is granted per adrenaline bar spent, max stacks remains at 3. Please recall that there are a maximum of 3 stacks as you read the following points. This is to change Adrenal Health so that it can be gained defensively as well as offensively as well as to turn it into a traitline mechanic.

Adept Tier: This tier should offer one of three ways to gain Adrenal Health with out using a burst.
Shield Mastery: Gain 5s of might and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you block an attack, reflect a projectile, or destroy a projectile.

Dogged March: Gain Regeneration for 6s and 1 stack of Adrenal Health when you are inflicted with movement impairing conditions, such conditions have 33% reduced durations. The current ICD affects regeneration only and not the application of Adrenal Health.

Cull the Weak: Deal10% increased damage from all sources versus weakened foes. Striking a foe below 90% health inflicts 5s of weakness in an 240 radius around the target with a 5s CD. Inflicting weakness on a foe grants 1 stack of Adrenal Health.

 

Thick Skin: Gain 5% damage reduction per stack of Adrenal Health.

Master Tier: This tier should grant extra benefits when you gain Adrenal Health, with CDs as appropriate.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection and Resolution (3s) when you gain Adrenal Health. Protection and Resolution are 20% more effective (that means 40% damage reduction for the math disinclined). 15s CD. Actions that grant multiple stacks of Adrenal Health will trigger this effect multiple times before activating the CD. This allows your T3 bursts to grant more benefits over T1 bursts, but while also keeping some of the potentially rapid applications from the Adept tier from granting too much defense.

Armored Attack: Gain 10% of your power and 10% of your condition damage as toughness. Adrenal Health now grants 5% condition duration reduction per stack.

Sundering Maces: Adrenal Health no grants 5% increased CC durations per stack. CC durations inflicted while wielding a mace are increased by 15%. When you inflict weakness on a foe inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability.

 

Grand Master Tier: This tier Adrenal Health will provide a small offensive benefit depending on the trait. These are to give a small to moderate dps boost to the traitline. They are not meant to be super powerful. The values given can certainly be debated, but as GM traits should not be too low.

Last Stand: Stances last 2s longer and have 20% reduced duration. Activating a stance grants Vigor and Resistance for 5s. Adrenal Health increases all damage by 5%/3% per stack (PvE/Comp).

Cleansing Ire: Cleanse 1 condition per adrenaline bar spent. Gain 1 strike of adrenaline when struck by a foe, and 1 strike of adrenaline when inflicted by a condition. Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% critical strike chance per stack. (PvE/Comp)

Rousing Resilience: Gain 2500/1053 healing and 1000 armor for 8s/4s when you break out of a stun (PvE/Comp splits). Adrenal Health now grants 5%/3% extra critical damage and +5%/3% condition duration per stack. (PvE/Comp) 

 

 

Just my 2 copper on how I would rework Defense at this point. It needs more resolution, more protection, needs to decouple Adrenal Health from purely offensive use, and give an option for increasing your DPS by a little bit.

 

Edit: I did not include Hardened Armor. That is because I had nothing to suggest. The collection of changes above would result in more defense over all. When I state damage I mean all damage, strike and condition. So there is potentially 75% damage reduction versus all damage there, but purposefully not something that can be easily maintained.
 

With that in mind, and along with what I suggested for Defy Pain it did not feel prudent to change Hardened Armor. There is still sense in changing it to proc off of receiving a bleed, burn, poison, torment, or confusion stack. and I wouldn't say no to it.

Lots of neat ideas here.  I especially like the way you built in extra synergy between traits and Adrenal healing (i.e., tying damage reduction or damage modifiers to the stacks of adrenal healing)--that's a really good idea.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

3 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Fair enough.
Another approach do defy pain could be by having it reduce healing skill cooldown when dropping below hp treshold (with idc ofc)
For example:

When your health drops below 50% reduce healing skill recharge by 5s. 30s icd.
 

I really do like your original idea (boons on heal skill use), though.  I hadn't thought of that before, and it's a mechanic that currently does not exist in the Defense line, nor has it been suggested thus far in the comments.  You're on to something!  I think it should definitely be considered somewhere, I'm just not sure where, and what boons it should give out.  

 

Just spit-balling here, but what about tying it to Rousing Resilience?  RR is a decent trait as is, but it's pretty niche...you don't want to have to be stunned (and have a stunbreak) in order to get the benefits of the trait.  What if it still gives 1000 toughness and 1000 healing on stun break, AND grants regeneration and Vigor (5s each) on heal skill use?  No Anti-synergy with Defiant stance, you get a little extra healing via regeneration, and access to vigor (which we really don't get access to anywhere else apart from Last Stand, which of course would be mutually exclusive with picking RR).  Just a thought.

 

 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

I've been thinking about Defense again, and I wanted to take another crack at synthesizing some of the great ideas you guys put forth.  See what you think:

 

Minor Traits:

Thick Skin:  reduce incoming damage for each stack of adrenal healing (5%/2.5% damage reduction per stack—PvE/PvP splits)

 

Adrenal Healing:  Same as it is now

 

Hardened Armor:  Gain Resolution (5s) when you block or are afflicted by a damaging condition (15s ICD).  Damage reduced by 10% when you have Resolution.

 

Adept Traits:

Shield Master:  Same as it is now but Might generated lasts for 5s.

 

Dogged March:  Keep 33% passive reduction in duration of movement-impairing conditions.  Grant Resistance instead of Regeneration—4s Resistance with 12s CD.

 

Cull the Weak: Hitting with a burst skill inflicts weakness on all enemies near the target (3s Weakness duration, 240 radius; 10s ICD).  Inflicting weakness on a foe also applies vulnerability (10 stacks for 5s).

 

Master Traits:

Defy Pain:  Gain +120 toughness.  Gain Resolution (4s) and Protection (4s) when your health drops below 50% (30s ICD).

 

Armored Attack:  Gain Resolution (2s) when you use (not hit) a burst attack (5s ICD).  Deal increased damage (+7%) while you have Resolution.

 

Sundering Mace: Depends on if/when Mace gets reworked…

 

Grandmaster Traits:

Last Stand:  Gain Vigor (5s) when you evade an attack.  Stances last 1s longer and have 20% reduced cooldown.

 

Cleansing Ire:  Gain adrenaline when struck or inflicted with a condition.  Gain Resistance (1s) and cleanse one condition for each bar of adrenaline spent.

 

Rousing Resilience:  Gain up to 1000 toughness (4s) and 500 healing when breaking stuns or using a heal skill.

Edited October 16, 2021 by CalmTheStorm.2364

[oscuro.9720]

Duplicate

Edited October 9, 2021 by oscuro.9720
Duplicate post

[oscuro.9720]

My philosophy for defense is that it should be reworked to have more traits involving the active generation and consumption of adrenaline for providing sustain/mitigation, since I bias towards a more aggressive play style with warrior. For example, I believe some of the following problematic traits should be reworked as such:

 

Shield master: Reflect projectiles when blocking an attack. When you block an attack, gain protection for 5s (15s icd) and adrenaline (1 hit). Shield skills gain reduced recharge.

 

Dogged March: Each bar of adrenaline gained grants resistance (2s). 

 

Cull The Weak: Weakness is more effective (75% reductions instead of 50%). Apply 1.5s weakness per bar of adrenaline spent on burst skills.

 

Adrenal Health: Change to a lump sum of health instead of regeneration over time.

 

Defy Pain: Gain barrier for every bar of adrenaline gained.

 

Armored Attack: Gain Protection (1s) and Resolution (1s) per bar of adrenaline spent.

 

Last Stand: When below 50% health, all adrenaline based effects are doubled (this would enhance all other traits that use adrenaline as a determinant) and gain 1 stack of stability (2s) per bar of adrenaline spent.

 

obv these aren’t perfect ideas, but the general theme is more of what I am trying to emphasize.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

On 10/8/2021 at 7:40 PM, oscuro.9720 said:

My philosophy for defense is that it should be reworked to have more traits involving the active generation and consumption of adrenaline for providing sustain/mitigation, since I bias towards a more aggressive play style with warrior. For example, I believe some of the following problematic traits should be reworked as such:

 

Shield master: Reflect projectiles when blocking an attack. When you block an attack, gain protection for 5s (15s icd) and adrenaline (1 hit). Shield skills gain reduced recharge.

 

Dogged March: Each bar of adrenaline gained grants resistance (2s). 

 

Cull The Weak: Weakness is more effective (75% reductions instead of 50%). Apply 1.5s weakness per bar of adrenaline spent on burst skills.

 

Adrenal Health: Change to a lump sum of health instead of regeneration over time.

 

Defy Pain: Gain barrier for every bar of adrenaline gained.

 

Armored Attack: Gain Protection (1s) and Resolution (1s) per bar of adrenaline spent.

 

Last Stand: When below 50% health, all adrenaline based effects are doubled (this would enhance all other traits that use adrenaline as a determinant) and gain 1 stack of stability (2s) per bar of adrenaline spent.

 

obv these aren’t perfect ideas, but the general theme is more of what I am trying to emphasize.

I like your overall philosophy.  Indeed, many of my own proposals are based around procing effects on burst use/burst hit, or at least tying trait effects to player actions (e.g., allowing Rousing Resilience to proc on heal skill use as well as on stun break).  

 

I think many of your ideas could be good; that they differ from my own suggestions just shows there are more than one good way to approach this.  I especially like your idea for shield master.  I had proposed something similar earlier in the thread, but a lot of folks didn't like taking away the synergy with shield mastery's might generation and MMR or MM, so I left it with might generation.  But your suggestion is equally valid, and I personally prefer it. 

 

The mechanic of procing traits on adrenaline gain is an interesting one.  It would be a powerful way to passively proc traits throughout a battle, which could be neat.   On the other hand, procing those traits would then be at least partly outside of the player's control (except when using something like signet of fury, headbutt, or To The Limit, of course), so it would be a double-edged sword there.  I think you would also need to pair it with ICDs, because it can be very easy to generate a lot of adrenaline very quickly (e.g, the aforementioned skills or jumping into a chaotic battle with Cleansing Ire) and you could end up spamming the trait.  For these reasons, I would generally prefer something that procs on burst use or burst hit, since it is both a.) player-controlled, and b.) time-gated by the burst CDs.

 

The Defy Pain idea (barrier on adrenaline gain) would be super strong.  Personally, I think barrier is toxic in this game (looking at you, Scourge, Ele, and Scrapper) and should be used much more judiciously than it currently is.  Not saying it shouldn't exist, but I think Warrior and Ranger are currently on the right track with only 1 or 2 skills that provide barrier.  And if Defy Pain did turn into a source of barrier, it would need to be not tied to something as constant/spammable as adrenaline gain (or at least would need to have a reasonable CD).

 

As always, thanks for the good discussion! I enjoy your thoughts and commentary.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Some of these ideas are really good, I just think Rousing Resilience definitely needs some love, at least in PvP.

 

Since it only procs on Stunbreak its very unreliable, and it only heals 1k hp to boot. The extra toughness doesn't last very long and isn't all that useful.

 

Like, if someone puts 1 stack of burn on me after I proc Rousing Resilience, every benefit I got from it is immediately bypassed.

 

Imo; should apply protection and resolution instead of giving toughness and the base healing needs to be higher.

After all; resolution gets a pretty good buff with defense, yet warrior only has like 1 way to passively apply it without taking useless utilities. 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

2 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Some of these ideas are really good, I just think Rousing Resilience definitely needs some love, at least in PvP.

 

Since it only procs on Stunbreak its very unreliable, and it only heals 1k hp to boot. The extra toughness doesn't last very long and isn't all that useful.

 

Like, if someone puts 1 stack of burn on me after I proc Rousing Resilience, every benefit I got from it is immediately bypassed.

 

Imo; should apply protection and resolution instead of giving toughness and the base healing needs to be higher.

After all; resolution gets a pretty good buff with defense, yet warrior only has like 1 way to passively apply it without taking useless utilities. 

That's a really good idea.

 

In my most recent attempt at tweaking some of the traits, I had suggested (inspired by @ZeftheWicked.3076) that RR proc on heal skill use as well as on stun break.  I had envisioned keeping the +1000 toughness part and reducing the healing to 500 (there's no way they'd let us get a bonus 1000 healing on every heal skill use in addition to what amounts to unstrippable protection). 

 

But your suggestion of getting Protection and Resolution would work great, too.  If you could get, say, 3s of protection and resolution for each heal skill use and stun break, that would be pretty powerful.  I don't think you'd be able to slap healing on to that, too, though; that'd be a bit too much.   But since the boons are strippable/corruptible, there is some counter-play there to keep things balanced.

 

Great suggestion!

[JTGuevara.9018]

Defense? Really?...I find the Defense line to be pretty solid. (Pun not intended!) Put it this way, I have more of a problem with Discipline than Defense. Discipline is a mess! Minus the critical weapon-swapping and adrenaline traits that are needed, there are a lot of disjointed traits that do all sorts of unrelated things. This does not seem to promote any concept of "discipline" whatsoever. Those could be transferred to other spec lines. However, the topic is Defense. Let me stick to that. Defense, overall, lives up to its name, although it could be better. I would rework the following traits as follows:

 

Defy Pain - Cast Lesser Endure Pain when struck while below the health threshold. Gain resolution(5s) each time you are struck below that threshold. (Recharge: 10 seconds)

 

Hardened Armor - Gain protection(5s) when you block or are struck by a critical hit. (Recharge: 15 seconds)

 

Rousing Resilience - Gain toughness and health when you break out of a stun. Grant an 300 additional health per adrenaline bar.

 

There. That's all I would really touch. Leave everything else as is.