He ain't Heavy he's my brother...

[Gildara]

As you can imagine by the title, this post is for all those Heavies out there. Warrior's, Hero's and Armsman...

Since day one we've always had a somewhat limited role in end game rvr. As a soloable class they are the most limited in the game, due to plain and simply being kite bait. This isn't a plea for heavies to be given access to Charge as an RA.. though I'd happily pay 10 ra pts for it It's some feedback on the marginalisation of a class set that many people enjoy playing. Mainly due to it's simplicity.

The biggest issue the heavies face in rvr here on Eden, isn't so much being kite bait (yes, I solo on a warrior both on live and Eden), but it's the manner in which every shield class has been granted access to a 9 second anytime stun style.. aka.. Slam. This essentially renders the Heavies niche market if you will irrelevant. When other classes can offer far more utility to a group/smallman than a warrior can. Giving BM's and Merc's a 9 sec stun is just ludicrous, as if charge, damage boosts, dirty tricks etc weren't enough. Why have a heavy in your group when light tanks and hybrids can do their job for you? and offer greater utility/damage output.

in the smallman/solo arena the variance in damage capability for classes like the reaver, warden, champion, thane etc off the back of a 9 second stun, compared to 5 seconds as is the case is considerable. With capped swing speed that's 2-3 extra styles or spells equating to 500+ dmg. Given most Heavies have in the region of 3k hp, we're looking at around 20% extra dmg compared to a 5 second stun. Yet the Heavy's have nothing to either a) mitigate this damage increase, or b) anything that bolsters their damage capabilities by 20%.

So, what is the solution? How do we find a way to bring back the heavy in a balanced way?

Well we have to potential solutions:

1) Reduce the stun timer for slam for non heavy classes back to 5 seconds. Something I'm sure will cause all those people who are benefiting from this system imbalance to rage quit.

2) Grant the Heavies Greater Stoicism. Essentially, making their cc reduction (yes it stacks with Det.) effect style based stuns and snares, in the same way they do casted versions of cc. Though not as effective as charge. Greater Stoicism would make heavies viable both in group/zerg warfare and solo. Bare in mind to get a highly of Greater Stoicism they still need to invest heavily in Det. A low RR tank is only likely to have 25% cc reduction from Stocism.. there's so much more to invest in lower down.

Greater Stoicism would also tie in with the character and nature of the heavy tank. There are by definition the damage sponge, they hit a lot, nuked a lot and as such by the time they're level 50 they should have learnt how to recover faster than anyone else.

[Idi]

It never ceases to amaze me how garbage the devs in this game make the heavy tanks compared to pretty much every other melee dps class.

>VW's, Reavers, Thanes given MELEE styles that proc additional damage despite the fact those chars have things like self buffs, rupts, debuffs, and ranged attacks
>chars like Pali's, Wardens, and Friars given melee heal procs when they hit or get hit which out performs your dps regardless if you have moose, ip, or whatever...
>assassins being able to out dps and kill you due to poisons despite the fact your char has specced solely in melee damage, parry, shield, has better armor, and maybe even evade and moose in the case of the hero, while the assassin has shitty leather armor and only evade.
>light tanks being able to go toe to toe with you, or kill you due to dps add abilities and RA's despite having weaker armor

It's like the devs decided that the main melee class in each realm should absolutly suck at the ONE thing it can spec for....melee. About the only thing good about these classes is the HP pool, and ONLY when you have buffs and heals.

If you want to solo, you have to spec for solo RA's which makes you trash in group and BG rvr. If you want to group and BG rvr, you have to spec for det which makes you gimp AF for any solo work. The class is garbage until like RR 7 + when you finally have some of the BASIC ra's you need to survive in group / solo combat.

What I would like to see in the main melee classes of each realm is that they're actually good at MELEE combat. Things like:
1. Damage add style proc similar to that which the hybrids get.
2. Defensive bonus proc style to up our parry and block rates to compete with the OP heal procs of hybrid classes.
3. An increase of base melee damage compared to EVERY other melee class of say 10%.
4. An increase of defensive percentages based on spec points compared to any other melee class. Why should a heavy tank have the same rate of parry and block chances of those chars that have speed, insta dd's, and ranged attacks like so many of the hybrids?

Regardless, it's all on deaf ears. This is a caster game, and a caster server. Between the gimp abilities of the heavy tanks compared to all the others, and the melee mechanic exploits, heavy tanks aren't really worth playing here outside of set groups.

[Sarmale]

I would enjoy to see more love for the heavies. Give them 11 second slam? light tanks 7? Esthetically they should not be able to easily fall from other melees. Keep playing with the numbers until we start seeing more of them out there imo.