Version 1.0.8's impact on Warriors

[Kyrottimus]

Having only played Archers and Warriors with this update, I can only lend opinion regarding their affected changes.

In this thread, I shall focus on both the positive aspects of the new combat system and those I see as negative.

Positive: Global Cooldown (GCD) revamp. It sort of levels the playing field for all classes at their foundations.

Negative: While I like GCD and the implemented concept, it does bring with it some negative results. First of which is that other spells, created and balanced before this revamped GCD system, have not been tuned to work in sync with the new system.

For instance: Ripost, Shield Bash, Howl, Roar, etc. all have a casting time of 0.5 seconds. With the new GCD system, even instant spells have a greater delay to cast than in 1.0.7. This compounds to make 0.5 second cast spells (both direct and area) much harder to pull off.

EXAMPLE: Get on a Knight character, and stand still in your arena had have a friend on a mage character run around in a circle around you. Try to get shield bash to trigger. It is very difficult to get this to work on a moving target, and I can't even get it to cast myself if I'm moving.

Same for Ripost, Howl, Roar, etc.


In 1.0.7, warriors did enjoy a good rhythm to combat. It was fairly fast, transitioned well between normals and spells/buffs, and was fluid and easy to learn.

Now, it's far more stop-go, herky jerky, awkward and cumbersome to buff and execute certain non-instant attack spells.


Granted, it is more of a fair matchup between warriors and archers/mages with this new system, but I still find it far more frustrating to enjoy the flow of combat as I did in 1.0.7. I used to grind my knight quite a bit vs. Aquantis Captains. Since they spam their crazy area-knock attack all the time (aquantis thrust), I would usually lead off with shield bash4.

It was easy, I'd select an Aquantis Captain, targeting it, and as I'm running up I'd click on my Shield Bash4 hotkey. As soon as I'd get in range, my knight would stop, cast timer begain immediately upon reaching range of target and stopping, and as long as the target stayed in range, my knight would execute his shield bash attack.

This was the same method by which I used it upon enemy players. Sometimes they were able to avoid it by getting out of range as it cast, but there was a margin of error and if you knew how to approach a moving target it wasn't hard at all to make it work.


Now, if you want to do a spell like shield bash, or ripost, or roar or howl or any non-instant as a warrior, you literally have to stop in place and wait 2 seconds (yes, spell says 0.5 seconds to cast but there is a 1-2 second delay between normals and spells now). Even if I approach a target with my character not in attack-mode, and click on shield bash, it takes a solid 1-2 seconds before it even begins cast-timer.


This results in a far slower, clunkier flow of combat and frankly if it is not changed, I will not skill shield bash anymore because it is hard enough to get work on mobs, let alone a moving player. And no, knocking down a player + shield bash wouldn't work, because dizzy does not affect knocked opponents.


I use shield bash mostly as an example because it used to be a staple skill for my knight. Now the go-stop-go-stop type of fighting is boring, uninspiring and cumbersome.

I realize that there will still be tweaking on 1.0.8, I just hope that the "flow" of warrior combat is brought back to the same "feel" (or close to it) as 1.0.7 with how spells trigger while I or my opponent move.



I'd really hate to see 2 players just standing still, spamming spells. I'd miss the circling, strafing, running around while fighting excitement of 1.0.7 with warriors.

On my archer I can maintain a good rhythm of fighting, even while standing still. Let's give that to warriors again. Fix the cast-times and triggering of warriors spells. Make it so they can all be cast while moving (both auto-run and movement keys), instead of getting canceled by movement. Same with archers, make it so that when one is running, and they click a buff or spell, they will stop, cast/buff/attack, and continue movement after completed.

The movement of your char, pretty much canceling everything, destroys the flow of combat with all classes.






It would be nice for other warriors to opine about this. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed my fluidity of warrior combat to have been hamstrung.

--Kyro

[ZericOfGa]

My opinion is that Knights = Useless Warriors with shiny armor and lots of hp.

Honestly I feel like a cement block running around doing nothing. Here are my issues:

In war:

Knights need more controlling spells. Plain and simple. I would not mind in the least to not have one attack/damage spell on my spell bar. Unfortunately, do to fact that the Shields tree is (still) worthless, people are leveling their weapon trees to 15 to get passive resist damage (which is broken/less then it should be).

NGD, please, look at the role you want knights to play, whatever that might be, and analyze why we can't do it. Warriors get 2 extra trees on choosing a subclass and one of them isn't worth leveling. This is a HUGE problem.

Superbosses:

I'm sorry, but barbs and marksmen should not be the only ones getting drops. Knights are supposed to be the warrior-version of a conj: higher defenses, less need for heals. So what do Knights, warlocks, and hunters get from super bosses? Nothing.

Also the lack of knight drops is appalling. Evendim's axe, with +6 const SHOULD be a knight weapon. The hammer, being +strength should remain barbarian.

Knights take the longest to level to 50, and when they get there, what reward is there? Nothing. Barbs, mages, and archers get drops. Barbs can use both knight and barb drops. I'm sorry, but if it takes so damn long to get a knight to 50, there should be a weapon or shield or something worth looking forward to that is special for knights.

Work on the drop after you figure out how to make knights useful again. I feel stupid as hell being level 49 and having no role in mind for my gameplay.

[Kyrottimus]

I'll simplify my original post:

The movement of your char, pretty much canceling everything, destroys the flow of combat with all classes.

[Znurre]

I agree 100%.
This is what I've been saying all the time during my testing on Amun, and now (so far) my experienced on RA.

I have to choose to either do normal hits, or use skills all the time - or I will reduce my dps alot!
Also, attackspeed% does not affect the time between hits/skills the slightest which makes the situation even worse.

I do not understand how people can call this patch an improvement for warriors.
As barb, I feel really badly nerfed - and not because I feel weak, but because the funny parts of the warrior gameplay is gone.

Yeah, sure - I can buff up with TFB and the new Berzerk and go around causing 1k+ hits trough all armor.
How fun... right...

I cannot however, make a normal hit on one enemy and then cast a Deafening Roar within a reasonable time.
The same goes for all instant skills.

If I happen to cancel my area casting right after a terror I have to wait around 2.5 sec to be able to even start to casting it again.
Everything just feel so sluggish and clumsy.

[gluffs]

I agree, the upgrade from what i understood was to tune down the archers
and make warriors better. I cant say much about barbarians since i havent
tested mine yeat. BUT knights is harder to play now, the delays on instas
make it hard for us to get off knocks/brainpierce etc. And like Kyro said,
trying to get off a shield bash in combat is allmost impossible now whit the
high delay before it starts casting.

And the role off knights protecting allys is even harder since we cant act
quick anymore against multiple targets.Before the update i could atleast
knock 2 players fast and then gett off balestra/ribsbraker on a third target.
And further, knights had low base dmg as it was before, the nerf on dmg
was uncalled for. Its not like knights had a reputation off destroying their
enemy whit brute force. So to sum up what the update did for knights.

Slow and sluggish combat
Low dmg
More nerfs in our buffs

So i really dont understand how this will increase the number off warriors.
IMO this update will increase the number off warlocks. So i hope NGD will
give knights perhaps an area cc spell in vanguard or something and fix the
very very annoying delay that occurs when we want to cast a skill/spell.

Ofc the area cc is just a dream, but the delays could be fixed and it would
be fun to play rather then frustrating due to the fact you slam on the
keybord trying to get off your brainpierce and it fires after mage has
finished his spell.

[bois]

Yes , I must agree with all the posts above.
I usually pay knight and must admit that I hoped knight would have had a little attention this time.
Sadly, the touch we got was the raising of troll skin to 4.5 minutes. While I feel I can adjust over time to the new system, I am now forced into a stand and deliver or run and slash (normal attacks) approach. Because I play Molok and have not been blessed with much +constitution armour (only a +2 piece) I usually had a set-up based on atkspeed to compensate for my low constitution and higher strength. It is an unusual set-up for knight but the high speed usually compensated quite well.
Having a super fast corsair sabre and attack speed bonus armour have been basically nullified by the update. While not a problem per Se, I feel that the advantages gained by attack speed are now basically eliminated. Having a slow axe is now more useful than a faster weapon.
Troll skin, I feel should have the same cool down as the spell time. Its not as if that skill gave knights any real advantage in a battle, as it allowed only us to soak in only 1 or 2 more hits.
As for auras, I just can't be bothered to skill anything other than heroic presence, for the reasons mentioned on various other posts on the forum.

As for Zeric's post :
Yes the shield tree should be looked at and I would go even further to say Vanguard need to be looked at as well. I tested Awareness and Rigorous Preparation to lvl 5 each and despite the lower cast, it simply is useless. I gain nothing in defence and as such I still will stay away from those two.


As is, I love playing knight and will persist and adjust to suit but I do hope the knight gets a review for the next update.

[Brother-brian]

I am frustrated by being a warrior who hits for less dmg than archers. I understand Barbs, who hit harder, but suffer in hps. But, where barbs can hit for 1500+ buffed, I am only hitting between 3-400, 500 crit. When I go into battle, even with ao1, i get ignored until enough allys are dead that ALL the enemy can concentrate on me, meanwhile I am struggling to get in a single hit, and when I do, its for 346 or 371, someting pretty useless like that. IMHO, knights should be able to deal more damage. Not as much as a barb, but more than we do right now.

And now we are forced into a 30sec interval where we cant cast trollskin?

[Znurre]

Originally Posted by Brother-brian

I am frustrated by being a warrior who hits for less dmg than archers. I understand Barbs, who hit harder, but suffer in hps. But, where barbs can hit for 1500+ buffed, I am only hitting between 3-400, 500 crit. When I go into battle, even with ao1, i get ignored until enough allys are dead that ALL the enemy can concentrate on me, meanwhile I am struggling to get in a single hit, and when I do, its for 346 or 371, someting pretty useless like that. IMHO, knights should be able to deal more damage. Not as much as a barb, but more than we do right now.

And now we are forced into a 30sec interval where we cant cast trollskin?

Well, yeah - barbarians can hit for 1.5k to unbuffed targets with Berserk. So what?
I can't do a shit except for that now with this update, since even attempting to cast anything will break my rythm and bring my DPS down to the basement.

That said, yeah, maybe barbarians got more powerful this patch.
But what did we have to sacrifice for that change? The whole fun of playing the class in the first place.

And to be honest I don't give a shit about being powerful, because, you play a game to have fun - playing a barbarian now is not fun.
Trying to fix the position lags from 1.0.7 while keeping the balance would have made playing a barb fun again.

IMO, 3 classes (1 partly) are now useless from a "having fun" point of view:

• Marksman
• Barbarian
• Knight
• Petless hunter

Good job.

[backe]

You forgot support conjurers, Znu.

[relu-cri]

My opinion is that Knights = Useless Warriors with shiny armor and lots of hp.

Honestly I feel like a cement block running around doing nothing. Here are my issues:

In war:

Knights need more controlling spells. Plain and simple. I would not mind in the least to not have one attack/damage spell on my spell bar. Unfortunately, do to fact that the Shields tree is (still) worthless, people are leveling their weapon trees to 15 to get passive resist damage (which is broken/less then it should be).

NGD, please, look at the role you want knights to play, whatever that might be, and analyze why we can't do it. Warriors get 2 extra trees on choosing a subclass and one of them isn't worth leveling. This is a HUGE problem.

Superbosses:

I'm sorry, but barbs and marksmen should not be the only ones getting drops. Knights are supposed to be the warrior-version of a conj: higher defenses, less need for heals. So what do Knights, warlocks, and hunters get from super bosses? Nothing.

Also the lack of knight drops is appalling. Evendim's axe, with +6 const SHOULD be a knight weapon. The hammer, being +strength should remain barbarian.

Knights take the longest to level to 50, and when they get there, what reward is there? Nothing. Barbs, mages, and archers get drops. Barbs can use both knight and barb drops. I'm sorry, but if it takes so damn long to get a knight to 50, there should be a weapon or shield or something worth looking forward to that is special for knights.

Work on the drop after you figure out how to make knights useful again. I feel stupid as hell being level 49 and having no role in mind for my gameplay

damn yes!!! u are so right man!! knight is the less funny class ... in war i feel quite useless... bah... and yes yes yes we want some special thing from bosses!!! like an epic shield or something similar... but, only one thing, in syrtis knights dropped, not so often, but it's possible to drop with them.. not as a conju or a barb ... but we can drop