pole changes?

[Kagato.]

COMBAT STYLE CHANGES

Albion Polearm

- Disabler has been changed to medium to-hit and now chains off of Defender's Cross.

- Poleaxe has been changed to chain off of Defender's Rage and now has a high to-hit bonus.

- Defender's Revenge has been changed to medium fatigue and chain off of Phalanx. Additionally, the damage has been lowered.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.65d


Soooo, this is Mythics idea of improving polearm styles?

Lets take a look at this style by style.

Disabler is what most use after crippling blow due to being close to the same damage as Mangle but for a tiny endurance cost.

Now - We have to use Mangle, and Disabler now moves to the Side positional chain no one will ever bother with.

Result = back to a crappy2 medium fatigue cost anytime chain.

Poleaxe after Rage? Why? Poleaxe was decent damage for a rediculous fatigue cost, now it chains of a Reactionary style whos main benefit was that its follow up provided a good damage with 9 sec stun style. The only thing we will gain from this chain now is that we have 1 good damage style and one decent damage style, in return for the extremely difficult task of performing this after an enemy uses a style on us.

In the meantime, Defenders Revenge now chains of Phalanx? wtf? So what are we meant to do with our level 50 Aegis style?
Our best stun and the best reason for polearms has now been changed to only work after a rear positional style, which basically means no one will any longer fear uses styles on a polearmer. This change is only going to benefit polers who work in fg - zerg fights, and even then the damage has been reduced now. Utterly pathic changes in my opinion which means polearmers will now be impossible to solo with or duel as we have absolutely no way at all to stun our opponent.

Nearly every single line has some form of stun from parry chains to simply slam, whilst we will now have to rely on our enemy being so kind as to turn his back to use for 6 seconds to stun them.

If these changes go through you wont be seeing me soloing in Odins or Sauvage anymore.

/quit

 

[Draylor]

This is probably better in other thread - but unless you choose to close this one .......

Originally posted by Kagato.
So what are we meant to do with our level 50 Aegis style?

You choose between the (Im assuming) higher damage snare style (Aegis) and lower damage stun style (Revenge). Seems perfectly acceptable to me.

If these changes go through you wont be seeing me soloing in Odins or Sauvage anymore.

Well classes should be balanced for the majority - playing in a group - rather than the few remaining die-hard soloers. For you Rage/Revenge has been a useful chain - for the rest its something we use in duels, and once in a blue moon when only tanks are standing at the end of a battle and someone actually styles you when your not stunned with 20 savages on your tail.

As you know the only practical option polearm users had for a stun style was speccing 42 shield for slam - since rage/revenge is VERY rarely usable grouped. Giving us a usable stun style is something the majority should welcome - even if it hurts us 1v1 (which I really couldnt care less about)

 

[Kagato.]

Re: Re: pole changes?

Originally posted by Draylor
This is probably better in other thread - but unless you choose to close this one .......You choose between the (Im assuming) higher damage snare style (Aegis) and lower damage stun style (Revenge). Seems perfectly acceptable to me.

Well classes should be balanced for the majority - playing in a group - rather than the few remaining die-hard soloers. For you Rage/Revenge has been a useful chain - for the rest its something we use in duels, and once in a blue moon when only tanks are standing at the end of a battle and someone actually styles you when your not stunned with 20 savages on your tail.

I was writing it as the other was posted.

And whats the point in choosing between aegis and revenge for rear positionals? Aegis already did good damage before there was no need to switch revenge to chain of phalanx as well, they'd of been better making Aegis chain of an anytime instead, so we at least have a negative effect style on something other then back positions. This is just one more effort by Mythic to force everyone into zerg war fare. Its pathetic, utterly pathetic, the game is already frustrating enough as it is, there just making it ever so much easier to quit, its only friends that we'd miss that keeps alot of people here as it is.

 

[Draylor]

Re: Re: Re: pole changes?

Originally posted by Kagato.
And whats the point in choosing between aegis and revenge for rear positionals?

Well we're not going to get a 9-sec stun on an anytime, it used to be on a parry reactionary, and then we had the "opponent uses a style on you" version. This makes it usable, while still keeping Aegis as a worthwhile style - and more than likely well worth spec'ing for.

You call it forcing you into zerg warfare, Id call it improving the pole-armsman for 8v8 fights. You cant please all of the people all of the time

 

[vindicat0r]

Kagato I can see why your mad, basically because you solo and your best solo style is now not useable. But this change is sooooo good for Polearm's.

We really lacked a stun move that we could actually get off in RvR without some fool stlying on us, so really you should be happy. Polearms got love, woot .

Come on though, really. Oh no we cant duel or solo so well anymore, lol. We were never intended to do so and we can still hold are own in a duel.

As for the other change's, I never used anytime's much. 90% of my attack'ers were Rear attacks anyway . The use of Aegis is not as great anymore but consider, Stunning then doing Phlanx again and Aegis, they will be snared as they get out of stun, = more phalanx or at least they cant run etc. The Disabler was bad though yes, nobody will use the side chain I feel, although I plan to test damage on both and see how it is, after doing rear stun ofc.


So all in all, Polearm's got some loving, still no sign of the double speccing issue but hell it's a start ^^

 

[Khalen]

So back to the cripple again I guess... But I agree with Kagato they aren't improvements at all. They just twist every form of using a style on an enemy. Think I'll wait with that respecc and might even go S/S.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Originally posted by vindicat0r
Kagato I can see why your mad, basically because you solo and your best solo style is now not useable. But this change is sooooo good for Polearm's.

We really lacked a stun move that we could actually get off in RvR without some fool stlying on us, so really you should be happy. Polearms got love, woot .

Come on though, really. Oh no we cant duel or solo so well anymore, lol. We were never intended to do so and we can still hold are own in a duel.

As for the other change's, I never used anytime's much. 90% of my attack'ers were Rear attacks anyway . The use of Aegis is not as great anymore but consider, Stunning then doing Phlanx again and Aegis, they will be snared as they get out of stun, = more phalanx or at least they cant run etc. The Disabler was bad though yes, nobody will use the side chain I feel, although I plan to test damage on both and see how it is, after doing rear stun ofc.


So all in all, Polearm's got some loving, still no sign of the double speccing issue but hell it's a start ^^

Wot he said.



PS: a new&good reason for armsmen to go full pole if they plan to play in group rvr.

 

[Coim-]

Originally posted by Khalen
Think I'll wait with that respecc and might even go S/S.

Tbh, I'm S/S atm...thinking of going pole just for the fact that they've got to get some love some time. Right?

 

[old.TeaSpoon]

The fact that people go on about Armsmens endurence being too easily used, is negated (so they claim) by a Paladin running end chant. So no problems there. But why the need to add the behind stun when we had a perfectly good behind chain? Most Armsmen are going to have a Paladin close to give them end so they can do something, and its most likely that that will include slam with it.

Defenders Revenge was noted as one of the hardest hitting styles in the game, but definately one of the hardest to pull off in group fights, which justifies its damage and its stun.

They should keep the Phalanx/Aegis and the Rage/Revenge chains the same.

 

[Kagato.]

Originally posted by old.TeaSpoon
The fact that people go on about Armsmens endurence being too easily used, is negated (so they claim) by a Paladin running end chant. So no problems there. But why the need to add the behind stun when we had a perfectly good behind chain? Most Armsmen are going to have a Paladin close to give them end so they can do something, and its most likely that that will include slam with it.

Defenders Revenge was noted as one of the hardest hitting styles in the game, but definately one of the hardest to pull off in group fights, which justifies its damage and its stun.

They should keep the Phalanx/Aegis and the Rage/Revenge chains the same.

Precisely, and Poleaxe was perfectly fine as an anytime style, the damage was good to, its just that the endurance cost was completely out of proportion, If all they did was reduce the Poleaxe end cost i'd be happy.

It just makes no sense now, why would you want to use poleaxe after Defenders Rage? Rage is the hardest hitting style of all, even more then Revenge usually, for a very small end cost, why bother using Poleaxe after it, its completely inferior, i'd rather just hit them with Rage again.

 

[Kagato.]

And for the benefit of the Armsman still in shock, here's some good news ? <note extreme sarcasm>

Latest TL Response inc...

Overview

Armsman find themselves to be worthy contenders in PvE, but lacking in RvR. There are no discernable characteristics that would make the Armsman desirable in most optimal RvR groups. The ability to wear plate makes us a desirable class and gives one the sense that this is a combat ready melee class. From day one, we were the model for heavy tanks, though over time have slowly slipped behind the curve when it pertains to receiving new abilities, counter abilities, and other improvements that would essentially allow the Armsman to compete with other classes - other classes that have received new abilities either steadily throughout time or, in some cases, in over abundance in single updates.

Concerns



Most of our problem is lack of damage output. I don’t mean total damage per hit, but total damage in the allotted time a fight takes place. Most classes are front-end loaded when it comes to dealing damage. Mercenaries, blademasters and even Assassins are huge in this area and are (arguably) the most effective melee classes in the game. This damage comes and is dealt at a much more elevated rate than the Armsman can produce, largely due to our slower weapons and much higher penalty to hit negation (block, parry, evade and p/bt). The lighter tank classes and the assassin classes simply do not get hit often enough to make the higher damage that pure tanks deal effective. The equation dealing specifically with the Evade and to-hit ratio needs to be further examined when looking at why pure tank classes regularly lose these fights.

We're looking into this. The issue seems to be one of endurance. In our tests today, armsman were dealing out very respectable damage. In one test, an RR6 armsman with end regen was able to beat an RR6 savage with end regen 70% of the time, which is exactly where we intended it to be. No plans on addressing this in 1.65 but we'll be looking at the issue down the road.



The effects bladeturn has on our slowest weapons and the armsman's ability to deliver damage.

This is definitely an issue, but not one we're going to be able to address in the near future.


Armsman usually run out of endurance before the first kill. This absolutely has a drastic affect on the outcome of many RvR encounters because it prevents an armsman from sprinting to catch the enemy. Without endurance we are also unable to use styles, which is the source of our real damage, and this easily hinders our damage output by more than 50%.

As I mentioned above, we're looking into armsman and their performance with and without endurance.


We should be the masters of all weapons without penalty and deal the damage befitting the name Armsman. If we were to look for differentation this would be it. We generally deal less damage over time and there is nothing group oriented, except perhaps three realm abilities that most armsman cannot afford to buy - Trip (10 points), Grapple (14 points) and Soldiers Barricade (10 points).

Will keep this in mind.



Specialization Line Issues.

The Dreaded Double Specializing of Polearm / two-handed:

There is little to no benefit to double specializing two-hand or Polearm. We have to spec the damage type to gain the minimum damage cap, and the weapon type to get the styles and maximum damage cap. The problem is that there is little consistency to doing this - as with my level 50 Polearm, for example, and level 50 slash, I can hit once for 325 damage, then again for 500 damage, all without critical strikes. Over time, however, this produces much less damage than our single specialization counterparts who strike maximum damage consistently with only one line in which to specialize, due also in part to how slow an armsman's weapons are. And in RvR combat, *speed* is everything. The double specialization only further assures a handicap where none is present in any other class.

We're looking into ways to address this. Not something we'll be able to get into 1.65.

Spellcrafting and Double Specing:

Since we have to double spec our weapons it essentially lose normally available spellcrafting points to be added to our stats. This should be looked at again and any weapons that have to be double specced should get double the available SC points.

Same as above. Also, this affects other classes as well.

One Handed Thrust Spec:

There are styles that are based off "You Evade" which is not in the Armsman core abilities. I would like to see a second thrust styles table created for classes that do not have evade but do have the ability to spec thrust as a damage type.

Noted for the style review. This change didn't make it into the 1.65 style triage.

New Issues

Endurance:
I would like to see a “Battle Cry” similar to the hero stag form that would allow us to regenerate our endurance. I don’t think additional health would be out of line either.

Armsman no doubt need a larger pool of endurance. There are many reasons it is needed, but predominantly due the fact that if you use three big styles on a Polearm, or four styles (and/or shield slam) with S/S, armsman are ompletely out of endurance. That’s means we cannot sprint to keep up with enemies and we do not deal the damage that comes from the styles. Without styles, a one-handed armsman's damage is far less than those classes for which styles cost very little endurance. For an armsman, based on the damage I've mentioned, it would take 116 seconds, roughly, to kill a 2000 hit point enemy. This is assuming that healing, blocking, parrying, evading or any other number of other factors were involved, such as realm abilities. However, most RvR fights last 30 seconds.

Other Issues

Block Penalty of dual wielders:

The ability to block a dual wielding opponents attack is next to nothing in most circumstances. Please give us the ability to use our shields as intended against all attackers as dual wielders have a very high to hit ratio on us.

Other heavy tank TLs mentioned the same thing. (Hmm...collusion? ) But yes, let's get some logs on this so we can see exactly what the block rate is versus dw and where we think it needs to go.

Xbow and its use:

We would like to see the ability to use our Xbows while moving. We would have to pre-load it but then are are able to run with it loaded ready to shoot at a moments notice without a wait period. Right now the range of the xbow makes it a death trap in most RvR instances. I believe we can wait to load it but are penalized when trying to shoot it.

Nothing planned for 1.65, but we think Xbow is a nice line that has a lot of room for fun and cool improvements.

2 Hand Specced Armsman:

There should be a way for a 2 hander to provide some type of guard ability or taunt that will help protect our rvr group such as the shield guard ability. Anyone specced this way is pretty much a group loner and cannot provide much in the way of protection. This could be said generally about all 2 handed specced characters.

Nothing specifically planned for this, however there will be some general things in TOA master level abilities along these lines.

General Shield Style Problem:

Slam has to land, no two ways about it. As the evade tables have been getting higher and higher, nothing has been done to this common attack. It consistently misses. The endurance cost is so high that trying to slam on a high evading target uses all of the endurance in four attempts. The to-hit bonus must be increased for the amount of endurance it consumes. Dexterity based fighters have no trouble landing their stuns. It’s getting nearly impossible to land ours stun and, as a result, is a large part of the problem when it comes to an armsman's survivability.

Yes, this is something else we've been discussing. I think I may be able to make a case that slam should have a bonus to land on assasin classes given their extremely high chance to evade.(except for scout slam). I'll let you know if anything comes out of these discussions on the matter.

Start a TL forum discussion on this after 1.65 goes live so we can evaluate this idea from all points of view.

Armor:

It’s obvious, at least to most armsmen, that the armor factor in plate is really no factor at all - not when it comes to the survivability of plate-wearing classes in RvR. It seems that Chain mail equals plate in its effectiveness. We are regularly beat my most melee classes. Another possible solution to the plate-wearing class defensive issues might be to further raise the absorption rate of plate armor.

General RA Problems:

Soldiers Barricade:

The concept and idea of this RA is a great one. Having this ability could make us much more desirable in RvR groups. However, the reduction to ten points, is still not enough to convince most armsman to purchase - or simply not cheap enough to allow most armsman to purchase it even if they wanted to. This is due largely to armsman needing passive RA’s to try to achieve a little performance out of our regular attacks (even if those regular attacks are much slower than the average, it's still all we have). The sacrifice for this RA is far too great to convince most armsmen that taking more base damage "as a group" is a better thing. And it still doesn’t assist us with our damage output. This RA should be much easier to purchase if it was truly intended to be class specific.

Noted for RA review.

Item Problems

No items to report at this time.. I need to research the items more.



Or in other words, absolutely no changes whatsoever, just a nice little polearm nerf.
Don't expect any Double-Speccing fixes to compensate for this in the near future.

See ya all in WoW.

 

[-frostor-]

i use phalanx/aegis about 90% of the time(after i slam ofco)
rest i use cripling blow

with that fix
i can use
phalanx/defendersrev/phalanx/aegis
mucht beter imo

 

[old.TeaSpoon]

I'm laughing since most of the polers supporting the changes are basicly telling people to respec to 50p/42s/39dam type to solve the problem.

 

[wolfofslaughter]

so armsmen will be doing the phalanx / defenders revenge then 6 sec stun making it so you can go phalanx then aegis... right?

changes are ok for group combat i guess but they messed up our anytimes and solo combat abilitys which makes no sence since armsmen are not good at solo combat most of the time anyway so why nerf it?

talking about polearm specced armsmen here.

well armsmen won't be after prevent flight anymore.

maybe we should all reroll mercs

 

[Khalen]

Already making one.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Originally posted by -frostor-
i use phalanx/aegis about 90% of the time(after i slam ofco)
rest i use cripling blow

with that fix
i can use
phalanx/defendersrev/phalanx/aegis
mucht beter imo

And go full pole, thus improving your damage

 

[stupidshady]

good thing nobody laughs with arms, especially mythic.........RRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTT

 

[-frostor-]

Originally posted by Vasconcelos
And go full pole, thus improving your damage

meebie i will if i still play when the patch hits ;D

 

[Kagato.]

Originally posted by wolfofslaughter
but they messed up our anytimes and solo combat abilitys which makes no sence since armsmen are not good at solo combat most of the time anyway so why nerf it?

talking about polearm specced armsmen here.

On the contrary pure pole armsman are very good at solo combat if more would try it, I do very fine as I am now, but once these changes go through, im effectively screwed over by no access to any form of stun and my anytimes are now shit.

 

[Vireb]

wanna solo?
play solitaire, youll find it on your start menu.And you dont need to pay each month for your account and a buffbot account to use it

end of story

 

[Ialkarn]

Originally posted by Kagato.
On the contrary pure pole armsman are very good at solo combat if more would try it, I do very fine as I am now, but once these changes go through, im effectively screwed over by no access to any form of stun and my anytimes are now shit.

shield armsmen are better than 2h/pole users to solo btw,but the problem is another,armsmen aren't builded to solo,they are 100% agroup characters.
So I don't see why Mithic should care if their changes make them be worse or better for solo,since it affect only a v v little part of armsmen population .
I consider those changes a little boost,cause they 'll make them more effective in group,and prolly make ppl stop to spec hibrid (thing it's not bad at all).
I can't wait this patch.

 

[bult]

Great changes for 99% of the armsman population, too bad for the 2 solo armsmen on each server tho but imo this change will do alot more good then bad. good work mythic more changes like this.

 

[old.TeaSpoon]

Originally posted by Ialkarn
and prolly make ppl stop to spec hibrid (thing it's not bad at all).

Then why are people saying that in this next patch you should spec hybrid to get the anytime stun, giving you the advantage you need when you get get behind the target.

When in group warefare, the Armsmen don't desperately need a stun like that. You've got Paladins there for that, or even still, the popular hybrid spec for slam. The damage from Revenge was there because it was one of the hardest styles to get off, but not impossible, even in fg v fg fights. If you knock the scale up a notch, Armsmen getting stun won't make much difference, since everyone in the zerg will bash what should be mezzed targets fast enough to not need it.

If people are complaining about getting Rage/Revenge off now when tanks are hitting their support, then here's a hint:

Target support - Apply intercept - Intercept attack - hit Rage, then revenge, and done.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Originally posted by old.TeaSpoon

If people are complaining about getting Rage/Revenge off now when tanks are hitting their support, then here's a hint:

Target support - Apply intercept - Intercept attack - hit Rage, then revenge, and done.

Pffffffft are you serious??? Honestly, in high end rvr you wont never ever be able to perform that.
Why?? Because you are a polearmsman, you are supposed to be stuck to an enemy support and not at intercept range from your own supports, moreover, intercept has a re-use timer

 

[parlain]

Originally posted by old.TeaSpoon
Then why are people saying that in this next patch you should spec hybrid to get the anytime stun, giving you the advantage you need when you get get behind the target.

spec anytime stun...for when you get behind the target...

Anyone else not following this? especially when you can spec 50pole 50weapon and 23 shield to get the 6sec back stun off shiled if you reaaaaally want to?

 

[stighelmer]

Originally posted by old.TeaSpoon
Then why are people saying that in this next patch you should spec hybrid to get the anytime stun, giving you the advantage you need when you get get behind the target.

They are not. You just don't understand them. Why would you change your spec from 50/50 to 50/xx/42(slam) when you get a stun style with the changes that will come? Possibly it will have the opposite effect.

Originally posted by old.TeaSpoon

When in group warefare, the Armsmen don't desperately need a stun like that. You've got Paladins there for that, or even still, the popular hybrid spec for slam. The damage from Revenge was there because it was one of the hardest styles to get off, but not impossible, even in fg v fg fights. If you knock the scale up a notch, Armsmen getting stun won't make much difference, since everyone in the zerg will bash what should be mezzed targets fast enough to not need it.

If people are complaining about getting Rage/Revenge off now when tanks are hitting their support, then here's a hint:

Target support - Apply intercept - Intercept attack - hit Rage, then revenge, and done.

Do j00 play an Arms in RvR?

Btw, back stun for when it is needed is still possible with 50/50 spec. I have 50/50/23(back stun)/17, but with these changes i might go 50/50/all parry

edit: bah, just realised i just repeated what parlain already said

 

[old.TeaSpoon]

Ahhh fuck it, I really can't be bothered anymore.

 

[stupidshady]

I just hope I dont need to respecc for the love of god I'm gonna kill myself if I would :-(

 

[Kagato.]

I actually have got the Rage/Revenge of after an intercepted style in RvR before actually, wasn't intentional I admit but it worked just nicely all the same

And im sorry but the Armsman being 100% group based is just nonsense, Armsman are perfectly capable of soloing as any other non stealth based class, just because alot choose not to doesn't mean we're not capable of it. After this patch though that will drastically change, which means no more duels and no longer even the option of solo fights. If they wanted us to have a Rear stun they should of just changed Aegis to that and left Rage/Revenge as it is.

 

[ilienwyn]

Originally posted by Kagato.
I actually have got the Rage/Revenge of after an intercepted style in RvR before actually, wasn't intentional I admit but it worked just nicely all the same

xmm, Mythic and their bugs.
I landed an after block style with a lowbie alt in xping after i blocked for someone else!! I will try to check if it happens all the time, would be really funny if it does.