Problem:
Warriors suffer from a variety of issues related to the RNG of their swings, their inability to hurt other warriors, and the ease of robewearers to reach the same amount of protection as other warriors (for specific body parts). Furthermore, it is near impossible for a warrior to pursue damage kills.

Potential Solutions (Updated 10-22):

Related to Warrior Mechanics:
- Raise the bottom edge of wounding/damage, so that the outliers aren't buffed.
-Introduce the aforementioned new stancing thing, wherein you can trade off different qualities of warrior combat to buff others. Wound phase (high damage, high wounds, low afflicting, low chance to hit, perhaps), affliction/lock phase (low damage, low wounding, high to-hit, high to-aff), kill phase (high damage, high to hit, low wounds, low to-aff), for instance. These would also be percentage type things with diminishing returns, and you HAVE to be in some sort of style to fight, even the neutral one.
-Increase each swing attack type by 10% in favor of the first limb.
-Change hack down|ups to 75%head/25%chest and 75%gut/25%leg, slash to 66%leg,
17%gut/17%chest, swipe to 66%chest/17%gut/17%arm, slice to 66%arm/17%chest/17%gut, and same for
corresponding bashing skills.
-Massive increase in chance to hit first limb in the swing list, at the cost of extra
balance recovery time (1.5x, or, a flat 1-2s), possibly added as a maneuver option after limb e.g.
"maneuver perform hackyhack down @target focus"
-Delete natural missing on power abilities

Related to Defending Against Warriors:
-Make armour stats independent of wound reduction.
-Add diminishing returns to armour stats for wound reduction
-replace rebounding
-alter dodge
-Significantly lowering the proc rate of parry and stance so that they are still noticeable but not regular; maybe even just by making it so that protecting different areas seriously hampers the effect.
-Continue to allow trueshield to affect damage when attacked on a bodypart protected by the shield, but stop having it affect wounds, and/or give warriors some way to knock a gripped 'shield' item out of someone's hand with an inability to rewield it for a short time.
-Reduce armour effectiveness; make armour protect around 3/4 as much as it does now for the current stats against PCs.

Related to Group Combat:
-Make wounding scale down in an exponential way based on the number of people in the room, to the point of being ineffective in group fights.

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Please make your suggestions and discuss.

This may be a bit sweeping of a change, but from the previous warrior thread over in the combat section, this stood out to me. I may edit this for a bit to add the other items that stood out as good suggestions from that thread.

Sojiro:

You could also make armour stats independent of wound reduction, then you can just tweak things (like 10 prec = 10 wounds, etc) to get to the best balance. This could also be used to improve warrior damage if that's what it takes.

The point of this is, as said before, to reduce the number of things to that we need to take into account.

Lerad:

Estarra mentioned somewhere in this thread that tweaking combatstyles to interact with the current damage/wounding formulae is not practical because of the variables involved.

At the same time, if I heard it right, combatstyles are almost entirely unused because of how little effect they have as they are.

In which case, why not delete them and re-institute them with a new mechanic aimed at helping warrior problems as they stand? For example, if warrior problem is building wounds (not enough damage -> constant health application) then make a style that adds a flat wound or damage bonus (so that it doesn't interact with formulae) to help build wounds. To balance this out-of-nowhere boost, make being in the style give a flat malus to affliction proc rate, and make a mirror of it as another style (flat lower damage/wounds, flat higher affliction proc rate), and add a balance cost to changing styles.

So you start in one style, build wounds effectively but are unable to land dangerous afflictions, switch to another style (alerting your opponent) and start landing afflictions, but your wound building suffers, making it impossible to sustain regeneration affs indefinitely.

Other styles to deal with parry/stance/rebound/miss/dodge/poison RNGs as well?

Rainydays:

Make wounding scale down in an exponential way based on the number of people in the room, to the point of being ineffective in group fights. This would create an incentive for knights to use damage weapons in group fights, as well as keeping them from being group fight death machines with rapid high end wounds. RP wise, this could be some sort of "combat press", the crowded fight not leaving room for precision strikes, meaning they can only hack away. Knights, of course, retain all the other group utility they bring to the table- movement control, a durable platform for tertiaries, etc.

In return for this, increase the amount of damage knights do in general (perhaps through weapon stats, if possible, since they are ultimately more fixed- if its done through strength, you can get a lot of stacking with race choice + every buff you can find). This would supplement the above group function, as well as alleviate some of the one vs. one issues.

PhantasmalKiller:

AdvancedManeuvers, wherein your maneuvers not only can be used to proc a lower wound over a higher one, but instead can be used to actually increase the odds of a higher aff proc'ing (if the RNG hits one level below it as well).

For instance, if you have the wounds to amputate, but the RNG only falls into the tendon category, using an advanced maneuver with only amputate would proc it. However lower wound categories (lacerate, etc) wouldn't. It would slant the RNG just a little in favor of warriors again.

lilija:

And, to clarify my previous idea about maneuvers and mods, I was curious if it would be possible to add two specific styles of mods to them, positive and negative. A positive mod would be a buff, to damage, wounds, aff rate, poison aff rate, chance to avoid dodge, etc. A negative mod would be the opposite, it would reduce the amount of damage/wounds/etc. Mods have to be applied at a 1:1 ratio, ie I can have damage and wounds buff, but I take a hit on aff rate and poison aff rate.

All the things that warriors hate (stance, parry, dodge, lack of aff, etc) could be mitigated at a cost that the warrior determines for themselves. Allows for a lot more options in combat (which I think is a good thing) and each one can be adjusted by itself if it proves too strong.

Xenthos:

However, reducing the RNG impact tremendously would help all warriors by giving a more common and less complicated base at which to balance; warrior combat is drastically overcomplicated and difficult to tweak because there is just so much going on.

Some options might be:
1) Significantly lowering the proc rate of parry and stance so that they are still noticeable but not regular; maybe even just by making it so that protecting different areas seriously hampers the effect
For example, if you are parrying head with 100% weight it has the current parry value, but if you are parrying head with 50 and chest with 50 the total effectiveness of your parrying is halved. Three areas is cut by 2/3, 4 by 3/4, etc. Something like that, a significant disincentive to parrying multiple places. Same with stancing.

2) Replace rebounding with another effect.

3) Acrobatics dodge against players is just wonky and needs a re-examination!

4) Reduce armour effectiveness; make armour protect around 3/4 as much as it does now for the current stats against PCs. (Effects people with lower stats less than people with higher)

5) Continue to allow trueshield to affect damage when attacked on a bodypart protected by the shield, but stop having it affect wounds, and/or give warriors some way to knock a gripped 'shield' item out of someone's hand with an inability to rewield it for a short time.

I'm not asking for all of these, nor are these the only available options; simply throwing some talking points out there. Numbers are definitely adjustable!

Turnus:

I wonder if a power attack that does the highest affliction on a limb (excluding instadeath stuff) would be considered too powerful. It would cost power but doesn't increase wounding/damage.
Edit by Lilija: This was clarified to mean the highest affliction possible to give at the current wounds level (ie amputate at crit, tendon at heavy for Pureblades). The idea was further clarified to mean it's assault, but gives a 100% chance for the aff instead of increasing damage/wounds.

Rivius:


2) Replace rebounding with another effect.
I'd more go for increasing the timer a small bit and maybe making it take herb balance.

5) Continue to allow trueshield to affect damage when attacked on a bodypart protected by the shield, but stop having it affect wounds, and/or give warriors some way to knock a gripped 'shield' item out of someone's hand with an inability to rewield it for a short time.
Only warriors that can do this are bonecrushers right now. Maybe give the rest of them arm-affs that are similar? Someone suggested to me making hemiplegia and similar things just prevent parry on that arm while active. Does that sound good?

I admit to knowing little about warrior combat, but would it be possible to warrior damage scale to wounding levels so that (high strength) warriors can pursue damage kills?

IMO, the best series of changes (besides changing artifacts, which lots of people feel needs to happen for warriors more then any other class) would go like this:
1) Raise the bottom edge of wounding/damage, so that the outliers aren't buffed. Introduce combatpress type mechanic to balance the buff to small group/individual combat.
2) Introduce the aforementioned new stancing thing, wherein you can trade off different qualities of warrior combat to buff others. This can help with rng absurdity, and introduce definate phases in warrior combat where you can get things done. Wound phase (high damage, high wounds, low afflicting, low chance to hit, perhaps), affliction/lock phase (low damage, low wounding, high to-hit, high to-aff), kill phase (high damage, high to hit, low wounds, low to-aff), for instance. Each of those can be changed separatly to tone down or buff different facets of warrior combat more easily. These would also be percentage type things with diminishing returns, and you HAVE to be in some sort of style to fight, even the neutral one. That way, it would be possible to tone down outliers in the context of the skilllset.

I sort of like the idea of 'advanced maneuvers' as long as it has some sort of associated cost (low power cost/increased balance times), and doesn't include death condition afflictions. If the above happens, I'm not sure it would be as necessary.

I feel like the bottom edge and single combat potential of most warriors is what needs a pick me up, and that the outliers need to be toned down. Something to prevent high level afflictions from being proc'ed in the first round of combat would be fantastic. I'd gladly trade having wounds be easier to maintain for having them be less... spikey.

Some of these suggestions are a little a lot overcomplicated and unnecessary.

Warrior mechanics are good as they are, and only require a few tweaks such as those suggested by Sojiro and Xenthos in the above quotes.

Wounds scaling depending on the number of knights in the room (not to the point of ineffectiveness, but to prevent the whamwhamwham behead that's possible now) would be good as well, though it might take some finagling to get to a good place.

- Make armour not effect wounding as suggested.
- Make the scaling wounds thing if multiple warriors target the same person. "As you slash at Malarious you are forced to pay close attention to Shuyin, who is also engaging" (how to measure though... or allies could attack to make ti change).
- Slightly increase damage stats effect as precision will be adjusted in value. I am not sayin bring back 500+ base damage (aka before mods and shadow steal etc) swings or anything though.
- Allow a method of phases as stated above, perhaps in combatstyle. Maybe add more if needed, concentrated increases proc of aff, etc etc.

Wounds scaling depending on the number of knights in the room (not to the point of ineffectiveness, but to prevent the whamwhamwham behead that's possible now)

Are there similar compensatory mechanisms for the whamwhamwham of multiple staffing mages? I don't believe this is necessary.

foolofsound:

I admit to knowing little about warrior combat, but would it be possible to warrior damage scale to wounding levels so that (high strength) warriors can pursue damage kills?

I don't think that'll fare well - in 1v1, they get better afflictions, and in group combat, people will be warriorswarmed much quicker than they already are. Plus behead in groups with 3-4 warriors goes off really quick (since the victim easily spends the majority of the time and parry/stanceless).

Yes, there are various ways to mitigate health damage (like dmp, numb, numen, proofing, biofeedback and so on), various panicbutton type skills (like vitality, for instance), and more ways to boost health totals then can be listed. It's not generally as viable a tactic as insta-behead.

Rivius:

Are there similar compensatory mechanisms for the whamwhamwham of multiple staffing mages? I don't believe this is necessary.

Multiple warriors are doing damage, affliction(s), poison(s) and wounds vs. mage damage. The mechanics of warrior (sipping vs. applying health) make the combination even more deadly than pure damage. Also, if the warriors are at all decent, they can prevent (or at least make it more difficult) for you to leave in a way that mages spamming staff cannot.

I don't recall ever being just staffed to death by a group of mages, and if I have been, it's probably my own fault for not typing 's'.

There'd still be benefits to having multiple warriors, too. I envision only wounds being affected by said scaling, so as to prevent the ridiculous insta-behead/bashbrains, which are silly.

Here's my pet idea that I've been polishing for when this thread was made :)

Instead of aggressive, lightning and concentrated combat styles, have the fighting styles control which limbs are hit by swings, which would limit the amount of RNG involved.

So, you would have two combat styles: an "advancing" combat style and a "retreating" combat style.

Right now, slice hits arms, chest, gut. Lots of RNG there.

Under this system, if you used the advancing combat style, slice would hit chest and gut only because you are moving inwards towards your opponent.

If you used the retreating combat style, you are moving away from your opponent, so slice will hit them further out, hitting arms and chest.

This would basically halve the amount of RNG involved with using normal, non-power attacks and would be a bigger boon to warriors who don't have a lot of might/artifacts, since they use power attacks less often. But those are the warriors who need help the most.

I think it's a pretty simple idea that works conceptually, thematically and would reduce RNG without completely reworking the class.

I think envoy report 630 would have gone a long way in reducing RNG and helping out warriors. Swings are just too unreliable when stacked with the additional randomness of actually getting the right affliction and the venom proccing.

Agreed with report #630 being re-visited. Was the decision on admin review ever announced? Another simple tweak that would go a long way.

I remember reading this idea somewhere, but can't remember where.
Would it be possible to reduce Dex influence in affliction proccing and make affliction proccing more reliable in general? Perhaps a 1-2 power attack that lets you choose and automatically afflict with a (non-critical) affliction, assuming you have sufficient wounds.

Why does everyone keep adding the caveat of some new maneuver or power attack to get the afflictions more reliably? Why not just make warriors innately more reliable by removing an obstacle or two?

Incidentally, if warrior wounding was scaled down with the more warriors that are in a room (which isn't a particularly good option in my opinion) - I seriously hope something else be given in compensation, considering the horrible damage warrior weapons can actually do.

Agreed. Even as a Faeling Bard I rarely need worry about warrior Health damage...
I feel that there is zero reason that warrior damage should not be comparable to staffblast/nightkiss/ect. considering that warriors hit with said damage significantly less often.

Will things need to be reconsidered with the implementation of chaosaura? Forcing mana sips (focus mind) or herb balances (pennyroyal) on 50% hits could bring it's own issue into balancing the rest of warriordom without making one spec overly powerful (also, I figure Hallifax will absolutely get timewarp on their hits, so again elixir/herb balance may be an issue). Granted, I haven't seen chaosaura in action and have no idea how effective it is, but this may be something that needs to be considered.

foolofsound:

Agreed. Even as a Faeling Bard I rarely need worry about warrior Health damage...

Since you're referencing combat experience, how much of it have you had it? 1+ warriors on you and you didn't need to worry about health damage?

lilija:

Will things need to be reconsidered with the implementation of chaosaura? Forcing mana sips (focus mind) or herb balances (pennyroyal) on 50% hits could bring it's own issue into balancing the rest of warriordom without making one spec overly powerful (also, I figure Hallifax will absolutely get timewarp on their hits, so again elixir/herb balance may be an issue). Granted, I haven't seen chaosaura in action and have no idea how effective it is, but this may be something that needs to be considered.

I seriously hope it wasn't put in at 50% proc rate, does anybody know what it is?