Reworking tank classes

I feel like pretty much every tank career needs a rework, Zealot is busted, UC is amazing, FK and IB are boring and basically feel like untalented versions of their careers, and HM utility really isn’t that useful.

Im open to suggestions on how to fix these problems but some of the numerous issues are as follows:
Zealot Im sure is obvious so we will skip over him for now.

Unchained can basically perma cast, reworking her ability to quickvent cast spam, may be a way to keep her more engaged in melee if that is the intended goal, otherwise she doesn’t have many drawbacks compared to the other careers.

Ironbreaker doesn’t make sense for this game, his only really damage output career makes him a ranged class with way too much protection which is an issue for a number of reasons.

  1. His ranged has absurd horde clear and denies THP
  2. You can get away with spamming to win
  3. He requires little to no mechanical skill
  4. He is the tankiest class in the game and is very forgiving, which teaches bad habbits
  5. He has basically 0 damage talents making other options for competitive dps basically 0, which doesn’t really work well in the game model since there are no real aggro tables outside of his long CD active, outside of his spam builds he brings almost nothing to the team.

FK: Same as IB but to a lesser degree, while he has a good set of equipment he is basically a worse version of Merc, with limited damage talents and weak ranged options (only due to reload, and lack of power talents) he brings very little to the team that others do not, Merc for example is able to THP spam to make up for the lack of tankiness, but that also benefits allies all while putting out considerable damage due to high % power talents, passives, and increased cleave.

Handmaiden: HM, is kinda odd, her stamina regen is fairly useless and she really only excels at horde clear, she is certainly a bit more damagey than FK or IB if used correctly due to elven weapon load outs, but once again its nothing other classes can’t do with much more efficiency, her only real boon in the dash stealth, which offers her essentially a cheat death mechanic, making her feel like an awkward supporty role. I think her only changes need to be adjustment to her passives, perhaps make them a little more useful.

I would count HM not as a tank, tbh, to say elf has no tank carrier. She is more of a support/dmg dealer. I think her stamina regen is AWESOME. It adds so much durability to the team. And her ult is an escape as well as a dmg ult, as it has its bleed. Old article, should be fine though:


Edit: I know it can kill fanatics on legend, so its at least 18 dmg vs inf.

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How does stam regen add durability? Who blocks in 2019?

Wow, why so passive-aggressive? Low dodge count weapons can’t dodge forever, you know, so sometimes you sure have to block. And no, sometimes jumping is off the table.

So you block a hit and still have stam left unless its an overhead, still kinda useless, its just too situational, sidenote, who uses low dodge weapons in 2019 that doesn’t have an out anyway? Merc maybe but then you just pop active. I think its just too niche a passive, plus the range is relatively small so most of the time you won’t even benefit if HM is dashing.

Damage dealing efficiency isn’t the only thing that people go for in their choice of career. Depends what you want to get out of the game.

Personally, I really like FK and IB, particularly with shield weapons. They both have a wide range of attacks and combos that you need to experiment with and learn which ones work best in a wide range of situations. I like that you have to be conservative with your dodges because that means you have to make a choice on whether you want to evade, block or push. They’re one of the more complicated weapon types to use if you want to be useful with them and they pair well with the way FK and IB are designed. I find them more fun than, say, shade, who really has only two things to do: Light spam trash and heavy stab bigger targets.

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But is is the only thing that matters unfortunately, damage and CC, and the highest CC heavy careers are also high damage sooo…

That would be great if they had a purpose, and got a nice buff. Tank classes just don’t make sense to me in the game. Whats the shield for when elites and bosses can break it’s guard in 1 swing?

Only one 30% block cost reduction can solve that. playing IB with even 60% can work wonders. you don’t have to dodge and can enjoy a complete different playstyle, being more stationary than the ever-so-meta only dodge skite around enemies.
Edit: you can give smth your team can fall back to if SHTF.

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Holding block all game really contributes to the team.

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Like I get what you are saying, I just don’t understand how its useful, what do you shield wall against? Hordes? They die in seconds due to overpowered cleave and stagger on basically every weapon, and if its elites most classes can just 1 tap those out of existence. Maybe I could understand your argument when talking about onslaught or deathwish, but in the context of unmodified game modes, nothing is dangerous enough outside of specials to warrant that kind of turtling gameplay, even then there is no aggro table unless you take Taunt as IB, but in that case you’re already invincible for the duration of your active.

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It’s the only thing that matters to you maybe, but not necessarily to everyone else. I play for the fun of playing. Winning a map is less important to me than enjoying the run while doing it.

They do have a purpose. They’re fun to play. Not killing everything immediately is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.

Basically this. Variety is good.

Kinda my point, but im also not going to intentional play something thats useless just to spice up my day, which is why I want reworks to make classes more appealing, being aggressively underwhelming or way too strong are both negatives in my opinion.

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As QP is quite the diverse experience, less experienced players (had a lvl 8 today, which showed) need sometimes help. And as i want my team to live and myself not to clutch all the time, which is the important part, FK and IB can be quite the interesting experience. And when im seeing that my team is on par, i’ll just play more aggressively. Hunting the green circles might be the thing to go for for some, but again, some people find enjoyment through different things. You might say useless, others say fun. Being the support instead of the damage dealer can be fullfilling. It might not be for you, but thats diversity for you. You can’t like all things.

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This isn’t about green circle hunting…

Agreed. I guess my point is that my idea of ‘aggresively underwhelming’ is heroes that are overly straightforward and/or have little variety in how the average game plays out for them. Shade, Slayer, Zealot and Unchained are all very effective in terms of winning games, but they’re kind of boring to play because they all have a very small set of well defined actions that work in almost all situations.

Right, I agree, but even the slightly off meta careers contribute a lot more than tank classes, Huntsman, WHC, BW, WS, RV, Merc and have more varied play-styles.

FK is… you bonk stuff without any of the cool stuff that makes you bonk better. If you like Sword and Shield (for example) run it on merc, you get the extra cleave and paced strikes, deal more damage and have increased power % from talents, can CC and give your team THP, meanwhile FK is like dur… I can stunlock bosses that shade already 1 shot.

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Are we talking about team contributions or are we talking about how the classes feel to play? They’re linked, but they’re not the same thing.

There’s also the difference between runs to consider. Tank play might not be so useful when everyone else on the team is a seasoned legend veteran who takes less than 100 damage per run, but it works wonders when there are players on the team who aren’t the best at avoiding damage just yet.

Not quite. FK has an ult that lets him be everywhere, has one of the strongest CC’s in the game, recharges super fast (basically instant if you let a trash enemy hit you), and gives you a 25% power boost during literally every fight if you pick that talent (which you should, because it’s the best one by a long shot). Pair this with S+S’s inbuilt CC, damage mitigation, mobility, trash clear and face-stabbing power and it all adds up to S+S FK being hyper mobile, tanky as hell and capable of considerable DPS. All this on top of being engaging to play due to having a relatively wide range of combos for different situations and actual choice in how you want to treat incoming damage.

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I guess but damage mitigation I imagine is even less useful on legend when enemies hit for significantly less.

Handmaiden Dash does around 6 damage over 4-5 ticks. It’s pretty nuts. Bladedancer is currently bugged, but roughly doubles its damage. It’s insane, tbh. Her aura isn’t most useful for blocking, but for pushing, tbh.

A thought I’ve had about Zealot and Slayer is to just decrease the power of their damage reduction talents; maybe it reduces damage by a third or 15, whichever is higher.

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With the way dodging is KING at the moment, tanks just aren’t going to cut it. Tanks with weapons that reduce dodge distance are going to be even more mediocre.

It is the combination of damage reduction/fast dual wield weapons and frequent dodging that are elevation things to top tier. UC, Slayer and Zealot are stupidly good purely because they have all three of these attributes no matter what the weapon they carry.

Running a whole group of dual-wielding players trivializes hordes of the point of them being an inconvenience to the speed of progress rather than a threat.

I feel that whatever changes are made to the Tank classes, needs to boost something that will put them on par with the top tier. Plucked out of thin air I think they need to have significant damage mitigation, moreso than the Zealot/Slayer /UC and some kind of automatic taunt or lure for enemies - after all the players gravitate to kill the enemy “tanks”.

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