Bulwarks have problems. Let's fix them!

[Calodine]

EDIT: First rework test is a-go. Make sure you have autoassign at birth disabled, 'cause I'm dumb and forgot to check for that.
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/newshield



Shieldmen aren't in the best of states right now. I think this is a problem, moreso than Doomed and co, because Bulwarks are one of the go-to classes for new people. They have a simple concept, no really complex mechanics to worry about like Archmage's shield stacking/interactions, and don't fall over early on like say cursed, or rogue.

Then you hit the dark crypt and explode into a million pieces. And if you're warned about the crypt? Well, the master will be a rude awakening. Or the orcs. Etc, etc.

But I think they're a hell of a lot easier to fix up than most other classes that aren't doing so hot right now - Archers shoot stuff, but don't do much else. Rogues do lots of things, but nothing someone else doesn't do better. Bulwarks already have their main thing - they do shields better than anyone (Demonologist possibly excepted, but they do it different, and that's fine!). They already have options for mobility, defence, and offence. All of these options are mostly quite good, even!

A bunch of people have already come up with a whole bunch of ideas for reworks. I honestly don't know that they need a complete rewrite like that, but there's a ton of good ideas there.

So y'know, might as well start off basic. What should Bulwarks *be*? What, when recommending the class, do you give people? Pick this class if you want X. Berserkers get stronger and stronger as they get close to dying, then refuse to actually die. In my opinion, bulwarks should be the guys who don't let it get to that point. Defensive powerhouses. Archmages have thousands upon thousands of hp with their shields. Berserkers just keep going when anyone else would keel over. Bulwarks would block your damage from getting through in the first place.

So, problems with this, as they are now? As soon as you run into stuff that does more than hit you with a sword or shoot you with a bow, Bulwarks are pretty damn squishy. Casters just blow them right up. Conversely, Bulwarks are effectively immortal against anything that DOES rely on hitting you physically. This comprises the majority of the first half of the game, and can get tedious. So I think the first place to look for changes is shield defence - their unique tree. The thing that most defines them compared to similar classes.

- Shield wall

It's what makes Bulwarks able to bump mindlessly through most of the early game. It's the single most defining talent they have.
Stun and knockback resistance is fantastic! The rest...Not so much. I mean, the armour is great. The defence is great! But it completely undercuts what is otherwise the core mechanic of the class - blocking. Anything you can block is probably already doing next to no damage to you by virtue of either missing outright or hitting your massive armour and bouncing off. The -20% damage penalty is completely unnecessary and causes a lot of problems down the line by way of how their mobility works. But, I think it should stay! Bulwarks are the shield guys in the massive armour, shrugging off damage like it was nothing. The damage penalty is thematic - They shouldn't ALSO be dishing out damage like a rogue.

Not sure what exactly, but I think the defence and armour bonuses should change, to make the early game more interesting and make the shield useful beyond getting counterstrike damage early on. Possibly roll a mini eternal/spectral guard in here?

- Repulsion

Just...why? You're a melee class. You don't WANT to knock people away from you! AoE daze is fantastic, but it still doesn't help in the slightest against actual threats. And on top of that, it takes a turn and doesn't do damage. It's just not very good. Good concept, though!

- Shield Expertise

I mean, it's okay? Weird that this is the best way to increase your shield offence skill damage, even over leveling the skills themselves. This is the defensive tree, after all. It's not BAD, I just think it could be better. Another good candidate for shifting some of that eternal/spectral guard goodness in.

- Last Stand

Yeesh. Pin yourself, to get better at dodging! Wait, what? Gives a ton of hp, but kills your mobility. For what should really be the defining bulwark talent - like shadowstep, or arcane destruction, or unstoppable, etc, it's a big letdown. A quick glance at the vault shows a lot of winning bulwarks don't even bother to take it. I quite like the version up in that google doc I linked. It really emphasizes the whole BIG GODDAMN TANK idea - You can't just blow this guy up, you gotta wear him down. Also good in that it provides solid defence on all difficulties without being absurdly strong on normal.

So, from THE bulwark tree, we have one really good skill...That makes their shield pointless for the times where it should be shining. They have a lot of other problems - Huge stamina issues due to fatigue, offensive-only mobility, requirement for said mobility that you're constantly killing dudes, and most importantly that they are one of the LEAST tanky classes when put up against anything that goes around their shield/armour, which is a large portion of the second half of the game. But I think a lot of problems could be solved just by changing up this one tree.


...That's just my take on it, anyway. But as it is they're a very newbie friendly class that just falls apart right about when the game starts getting more difficult. Edge suggested getting an ideas thread going as the best way to actually get them changed, like the TW/PM revamp. I'm more than willing to put in the work to actually do the changes, insofar as I'm capable, but I ain't an ideas guy and I'm not good enough at the game to do numbers and all without making something abusable.

[MarginalMagus]

Wow, Razakai's Bulwark is really comprehensive--I'd love to play that!

[Delmuir]

I think the one thing that Bulwarks should have, but don't, is total damage reduction. After all, that's what armor is good for and I think should be good for, even against magic.

I would just give them a skill that lets them apply the armor stat to all damage types, thus granting them a flat damage reduction against all damage.

Given that this might be too strong, how about only applying that when blocking?

[Calodine]

The main issue is that Stone Wardens already do that. If that ain't a problem it's probably not a bad mechanic for 'em to have.

Something that came up earlier in IRC was that blocking, as it stands, is generally a bad turn investment even if you block all damage, against multiple targets - You take no damage, but they can still apply status effects.

Maybe adding a shield bash on block via shield expertise would go some way towards fixing this, so you're still doing some damage while mitigating?

[Delmuir]

I was not aware of that about Stone Wardens… thanks.

As for the blocking mechanism, it's a problem. It's simply almost never worth the investment AND the block amount is pretty low considering that you can only block every few turns.

Perhaps the act of blocking should come with significant other bonuses, such as total damage reduction and increased saves…

OR

Make counter-strikes automatic. This always struck me as obvious but when I first played a Bulwark, I learned that this was not the case. It really just doesn't make sense to me.

[Calodine]

Counterstrikes not being automatic means you get double damage assaults. It's a pretty big thing.

Beyond that, though, even increased saves/damage reduction doesn't help the problem of block still being a turn where you're reducing incoming damage/effects, but you're still giving up a turn for yourself and the chance of damage/effects getting through is still there. I think there's gotta be an offensive component for the standard block to be worth it. Or just roll eternal guard in to the skillset, but I don't know if that'll fly.

[Effigy]

Blocking is pretty strong in my experience. The counterattack bonus is usually enough of a "refund" on the turn you spend blocking, especially with 5/5 Riposte and Eternal Guard. I was able to tank the overpowered wyrms on Nightmare with Spectral Shield blocks and Sun Paladin skills. I think the problem with Bulwarks is that they don't have enough other tricks going in addition to their block skills. Blocking alone isn't enough. The Shield Defense tree seems pretty lacklustre, as already mentioned. Shield Offense is an amazing tree that I frequently use on other classes to great effect.

[Calodine]

Yeah, with spectral/eternal guard, blocking is great. Since it lasts a full two turns, you're getting a LOT more out of it. The problem is getting there. They're mobile, but only while consistently killing people, and have trouble sustaining that due to lack of solid stamina regen combined with fatigue from the heavy armour/shield. And down the line have problems killing people to keep moving quickly, with the lack of pen and the 20% damage penalty.

So, quick questions - Thoughts on getting something like Razakai's flow of battle in in place of repulsion, as further defence and as a primary form of stamina regen? For reference:

Flow of Battle - On killing a foe you immediately prepare for the next battle, raising your shield to block at 70-50% reduced block value. In addition, blocking gives you a brief moment to catch your breath, restoring 0.5-2.5 stamina each turn for 3 turns. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

It synergises quite well with the offensive mobility they already have and helps solidify the current playstyle suggested by their talents (Which doesn't work so well in practice right now), and would go quite a ways to sustaining it. And it replaces repulsion, which is just bad.

Any fancy ideas about shield wall, or do we just try axing the damage penalty? I'm still not a fan of the defence, honestly - Bulwarks haven't been about defence for a long time, that's brawler/the rogue's thing these days. How 'bout some sort of distance based damage reduction? Might not be able to block a fireball, but you could probably deflect/guard against some portion of the impact if you see it coming. This'd help a lot with the caster problem I think.

Any better ideas for shield expertise than bash on block? Might be cool with the block on kill flow of battle would provide. I dunno.

I'm still really liking Razakai's last stand - thoughts on that?

[Effigy]

I like the Flow of Battle idea. The other ideas seem reasonable too.

I would not recommend any changes to Shield Offense though. That line is great, and numerous other classes get it as well.

[HousePet]

I like the idea of getting a small boost to resource regens (something like Sudden Growth) when you press Block.
Maybe use that for Shield Expertise?

[grayswandir]

Shield Wall is fine as is, I think. It's a pretty strong talent that fits in well with the class's theme. (It could probably stand to lose the damage debuff, though, just in the interest of streamlining things a bit.) I'd look at one of the other skills in the tree to buff if you think they're too weak overall.

Maybe one of the talents could give a massive save boost while blocking? I definitely think that'd be thematic and useful. (Or maybe we could just stick them on the shield egos. Like if the shield gives arcane resist, also have it give spell save while blocking.)

Some sort of passive that gave you damage reduction based on your shield's block power while not blocking would possibly be good.

[Calodine]

So I'm gonna whip up an addon with a reworked defence tree just to see how it plays out in practice. Quick notes on what I planned on trying out. Maybe it doesn't work out, I dunno.

Shield wall - axe the defence, make the damage penalty 20% of ALL damage, not just physical. Let you block elements your shield doesn't cover at 20% effectiveness.

The defence was pointless - blocking lowered your defence by your block value. The damage penalty? People talking in IRC thought it was thematic. Given common consensus is that this is the only really STRONG talent in the tree, buffing it more is probably overkill, and 1/5th of a spectral shield is a lot better than some defence you lose whenever you use your primary class mechanic.

...Could always remove it/make this stronger in other ways. This is just a first draft after all.

Repulsion - just replace with flow of battle. Everyone liked the idea, and Repulsion is just bad.

Shield expertise - Keep as is for now, but make blocking no longer end on hit (still only 1 turn!) at TL 5. I'd prefer bash-on-block or Razakai's version here, but I don't want to change too much at once before we can see how the rest plays out.

Last Stand - just stealing Razakai's. It's a hell of a lot stronger, but it deserves to be.

[Calodine]

Biiig discussion happened in IRC and some stuff changed, most notably Last Stand. First attempt is just gonna be the current one with the pin removed and a stamina drain. It was pointed out that Razakai's version is really unintuitive for new players to understand, amongst other things. I wanna try putting flat reduction based on block here at some point, and Supermini suggested making it an active with stamina regen and shield based resist bonuses, which is also an iteration worth trying out.

[grayswandir]

Elementals has some code for partial shield blocking you're welcome to steal:
https://github.com/gwx/tome-elementals- ... sc.lua#L21
https://github.com/gwx/tome-elementals- ... sc.lua#L39

As I said, I'd rather it be on some other talent, though.

[Calodine]

I couldn't figure it out. Sorry, am dumb.

But you and Edge went quite a ways in convincing me on stuff, so this version of the tree is less 'different' and more 'better'. Shield Wall lost the damage penalty, Last Stand lost the pin but gained a stamina drain, and Shield Expertise just got the block not ending on hit passive. Repulsion is gone, replaced with Flow of Battle.

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/newshield

Gogo test it out. From the few minutes I spent playing around with it, it feels better - the stamina regen is definitely notable, perhaps too much. Gonna have to see how it interacts with Last Stand if we keep either of 'em. With the mobile Last Stand and the regen/block for killing, this version definitely plays a lot better with the step up 'kill dudes > kill more dudes' style the old one tried for.

Edit: main thing I'm thinking of regarding tweaking this version, is making the tree scale off (Not require) con. Last Stand already does - and maxed out gives a whopping 1k hp - So I think emphasizing it more would be good. Switch the shield wall scaling and bump it up a tad, maybe something on one of the other two skills. As a stat it's pretty sucky, but Bulwarks already have conditioning, and making this scale off con would make the class more cohesive, I think. Str > con > dex or something. That's no more than most classes build - Rogues are cun/dex/str.