Adds the 'Technique/Shield tactics' talent tree as a new generic category available to Bulwarks. Starts unlocked at 1.3 mastery and requires Constitution.
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1)Tempered Will:
While your shield is raised you become a nearly impenetrable wall of metal and pure grit, able to divert some of the force of even non-physical assualts.
While Block is active, you will gain X% Physical resistance and Y% of all non-Physical incoming damage will be converted to Physical damage. Damage conversion is improved by your Spell Save, and Physical resistance by your Constitution.
2)Relentless Retaliation:
Each time you fully block incoming damage, you gain X% attack speed for one turn. This effect can stack up to 8 times. The effect improves with Dexterity. Each attacker can only trigger this effect once per turn. If you know Eternal Guard this restriction is removed.
3)Tactical Defense:
Each time you fully block incoming damage, you use the tactical advantage to reduce the remaining cooldown of your inscriptions. This will reduce the cooldown of a random inscription by one turn, and can occur at most X times per turn. This value improves with Constitution.
4)Refleive Block:
You are unmatched in your ability to react with your shield. If an attack would deal damage greater than 12% of your maximum life, you raise your shield in an instant, preemptivley reducing the damage by X% of your block value and assuming a blocking stance. This bonus block will not check or trigger Block cooldown. Damage reduction improves with Constitution. This talent has a cooldown.
The motivation behind this tree is pretty straight-forward: Bulwarks are a base class, and any new player is likely to make the assumption that this will be a very durable class that should be fairly forgiving to a new player. This is not really the case. Block is a pretty weak defense option, has a high opportunity cost, and has very confusing mechanics for new payers, inconsistently blocking or not blocking various damage types based on the stats of the shield. My aim is to improve the usefulness and defensive ability of Block without drastically over-hauling the mechanic, while also creating a tree that is noob-friendly. The talents are effective without requiring a lot of thought or strategy, aside from when to use Block, and serve to make Block actually worth-while.
My intention is that this tree be balanced and viable enough to be merged into the base game. I understand that Bulwark can win higher difficulties already and some would argue that they do not need such a tree. I would counter that short of a major overhaul, nothing is going to bring Bulwark in line with other classes power- or defense-wise, so adding an optional tree that lets you improve a mediocre mechanic at the cost of many generics is far from balance-breaking.
Thoughts, suggestions, and, most especially, bug reports, are quite welcome, as always.
Enjoy!
