Enf's weapons choices and objectives

[Dagget]

This has been brought up in the past by others (such Arrien) but since we now have a designated forum for balance changes, now seems a good time to bring up the topic again and consolidate those suggestions of the past.

Since Enforcers have an aptitude (read: perks, buffs, and light skill bars) for 6 different types of melee weapons, how about tweaking each type to be more suitable for a designated task then the other types?

The dIfferent types of gameplay an enforcer mainly is involved in are: PvP, Soloing, and Tanking.

Changes could be implemented in both the perklines, as well as many of the weapons in the form of procs.

Some suggested ideas:

2he/2hb might be orientated towards PvP. Give those weapons high max dmg and procs/perks in the lines would revolve around AAO and +dmg.

1he/1hb could be orientated towards Solo PvM, with high min dmg, good dps, and the procs/perks/WeaponProcs centered around AAD/heal/absorbs.

Melee Energy and Piercing might revolve around retaining aggro and tanking with procs/perks/weapon procs all adding taunts/AAD throughout the lines.

[Kopecz]

While I think that some of our weapon lines need to be addressed as far as perk support is concerned (piercing/melee energy anyone?) I think that trying to make specific weapons do certain things is a bad idea. It's like saying that Assault Rifle soldiers should tank better and pistol/smg soldiers should do pvp better or other such nonsense.

One of the main points of rebalancing is that different setups will be viable for everything. As it is now pretty much all the main enf weapons are viable in pvp to some degree with 2hb still lagging behind a bit, especially w/ the Overwhelming Might nerf.

[Xebulba]

This has been brought up in the past by others (such Arrien) but since we now have a designated forum for balance changes, now seems a good time to bring up the topic again and consolidate those suggestions of the past.

Since Enforcers have an aptitude (read: perks, buffs, and light skill bars) for 6 different types of melee weapons, how about tweaking each type to be more suitable for a designated task then the other types?

The dIfferent types of gameplay an enforcer mainly is involved in are: PvP, Soloing, and Tanking.

Changes could be implemented in both the perklines, as well as many of the weapons in the form of procs.

Some suggested ideas:

2he/2hb might be orientated towards PvP. Give those weapons high max dmg and procs/perks in the lines would revolve around AAO and +dmg.

1he/1hb could be orientated towards Solo PvM, with high min dmg, good dps, and the procs/perks/WeaponProcs centered around AAD/heal/absorbs.

Melee Energy and Piercing might revolve around retaining aggro and tanking with procs/perks/weapon procs all adding taunts/AAD throughout the lines.

Although this idea for 2HE/2HB does fit within the role of a tank, smash someone's head with a giant sword/club/etc., there are going to be people (like myself) who would much rather pick at people (or mobs) slowly with 1H weapons while *gasp* tanking (shrugging off the damage) as well. I guess my main point here would be that to dedicate specific weapon lines to PvP or PvM, regardless of solo or team status, would just bring up further confusion and/or arguments from players that have a different style of playing their profession.

[harkness]

I very much like the idea of increasing weapon choice, and in particular increasing choice for enforcers is something I've asked for a long time.

Of course, any change would have to be a combination of perk and weapon changes, so it's hard to push for anything directly aimed at the perks. (I pushed VERY hard for the Xan weapons to have a different form, but I guess the devs either weren't reading the Enforcer forums or just thought I was on crack.)

While I agree with the general goal of increasing variety, I'm not sure I agree with the particular breakdown you've put together, Dagget. In my mind, there is a different breakdown of roles an enforcer can play in AO:

1) PvM tanking large groups of mobs: AAD matters a lot, some sort of heal on hit proc would matter a lot, very rare AoE stuns matter a lot. HP matters a ton. Nano regen.
2) PvM tanking a single mob, or 1-3 at a time: Single target stuns more effective, HP may matter, but usually only a single doc present, so not as much. heal delta
3) PvP ganking: stuns, huge alpha, AR
4) PvP non-ganking: alpha, speed, survivability, AR
5) PvM DD focus: +damage and perks
6) PvM Soloing: survivability, nano regen, heal delta

I've proposed a breakdown in the enforcer forums that tries to address a lot of these with ideas, assigning various weapon choices to the various roles, but the choices of matching weapon to role is really random. What we need is buy in and support from the devs.

On the off chance this is read by the devs, I'll reiterate some of my ideas from the enforcer forums:

PvM raid tanking: give a enforcer only weapon or proc that has a very low (like 1 in 50) chance of AoE stun when the enforcer is hit. If you're tanking 1 mob, it almost never goes off, but tanking a group of 10, it goes off more. Give weapons/perk lines with more evades. (my suggestion: 1hb)
PvM single-target tanking: give a weapon or proc or perk that has more single target stuns, so the enforcer can mitigate a single opponent, but put a check on it so it wouldn't land often in PvP. (my suggestion - 2hb)
PvP ganking: boost the piercing (for example) support to give enforcers an alpha option
PvP non-ganking: seems like 2he still fits this slot pretty well.
PvM DD: 1he pretty well fits this slot I believe, maybe with a enforcer only 1he weapon that adds a damage proc.
PvM solo'ing: seems we've run out of enforcer weapon choices, but if we only have 5 choices, I'm sure we'd manage to deal...

[Moonbolt]

as i have stated on the enf forums..
enforcers have a hughe amount of viable setups already.

2he
2hb
1he/1hb
1hb/piercing
1he/piercing
now with the upgraded dmg on manners of mongo we could even go
piercing
mellee energy

tho we would have lower AR in the last 2 setups manners of mongo will be quite a good DPS boost to those 2 lines.

imo give mellee energy support to keepers if anything due to that they only have 2he as a choice in weponlines.
and there are several swords around SL and RK that actually require both Mellee energy and 2he as attack skills.

[Mrowki]

Enfs will receive more taunts (like we need more) to be able keep agro without weapon coz we nerfed your perks "haha" . Making new setups for weapon is pointless coz we will nerf every same as 1he/1hb. We want u to have 100k hp coz we are all sols here in fc and we want to see 15k hp cap on every shot. And becouse advs are OP we nerfed your coon :P and becouse shades have nice alpha we nerfed yours perk execution time.
Best regards FC :P

[Hacre]

About the proc idea.

No. Please no. No more "proc PvP" where dumb luck can make or break a fight.

Imo, as part of the rebalancing act, LE procs and weapon procs should be tossed in the trash, with actual, reliable situational -tools- put in their place either in the form of perks, nanos, items or perk actions.