Fix keepours some more please, they shouldnget double damage and 1000-3000(2000) edge of taraxan sword.
I think that would be a nice start and balance, so they match shades.
I don't think keepers really need any real bump in DD. I think keepers just need the tool set to be tweaked a little. Adding the option to play with Melee energy was a great thing IMO. maybe not for those who like PVP but I dont really pvp to much myself.
while having access to ME is awesome, It leaves much to be desired for leveling. Outside of Kyr weapons there isn't much available til endgame. There are so many useless items in the database that could just be deleted or better yet, turned into something useful. Hell even if they added 1 or 2 different melee energy weapons that were rollable via RK missions would be sweet lol
Noorb: 220 Keeper
Retention: 217 shade
Hawtpants: 210 trader
Osker: 210 MA(may re roll)
I've been playing 220 keeper a lot lately. There is something missing, but it's really difficult to pin it down.
Lately I've been using a pretty balanced Crit/HP setup (15% scope, sniper's friend, ACDC, Flurry of blows, DB protector module, Gannondorf, 5k off board, DB chest, gaunt gear, DB sleeves, 300 dusters, greaves (for some reason), Gold boots, 1% crit ring, and all alphas with pride of xan) basically, this gets me around 35k HP, about 2900 AR, a crapload of crit and decent add dmg. DD is very reasonable in PVM, plus pretty astonishing support.
So, on the upside, Keeper is #1 damage mitigation in game, and it seems people are finally starting to wake up to this, so teaming is easy-as for new stuff like PoH or whatever.
Keeper still FEELS boring though, and it's hard to put my finger on what would make it less boring.
I know with 100% certainty there are some obvious things that need addressing.
Perks on reaver need adjusting - there are three glaring problems. First, for 2HE keeper's this perkline MUST be easier to land. Currently most perks are 100% 2he vs 100% evade close, which means we're at about a 400-600 AR disadvantage over most other profs enjoying AMS vs DMS which counts AAO twice in checks (lots of SL lines were changed to this check system). Second, transfix is way too slow, I'd like to see faster attack times on the first perks in the chain with longer attack times as the perks hit harder further up the chain, plus (Third) the recharge needs to be aligned. Here's a suggestion:
1. Cleave 0.5s att, 28s rech (AMS vs. 90% evade close)
2. Transfix 0.5s att, 28s rech (AMS vs. 95% evade close)
3. Pain lance 1s att, 29s rech (AMS vs. 98% evade close)
4. SnD 1.5s att, 30s rech (AMS vs. 100% evade close)
The next thing that keeper really feels like it is missing, is some kind of utility - broadening it's current role and expanding into a new one which is swappable based on need.
Keeper is damage mitigation - everyone gets that... but what the hell, that role only opens at 215 with Watch Ward. At every other level of the game, that role doesn't exist... !? So I think keeper needs to broaden this utility at other levels and expand it to include PVP. here's what I suggest:
1. expand the Ward line into Special blockers in the same way that normal blockers supplemented Engineer blockers (WW gets 2 spec blockers on 18s refresh)
2. boost the entire ward line - everything under watch ward is pretty trash, the only thing it actually does is stop stray aggro from flattening a doc, whereas, at 220 it's actually a (best) top damage mitigation mechanism. It fails at EVERY other level. So, shorten the refresh a LOT, i.e. make the lowest ward refresh in 30s, and make the top ward lower than WW refresh in 12s with 1 spec/1 normal blocker on them
3. It's a pretty common mistake to use imminence as a default in PVM. But realistically, since Crats have fallen out of favour there simply isn't enough AAD in most teams to make evasion be a even remotely reliable damage mitigation mechanic. The problem then becomes whether the use of barrier is a comparatively useful mitigation strategy. Adding 7% reflects to the tank and team is undeniably useful... but is it enough? In many endgame encounters, that 120 AAO on imminence is a substantial boost and may be needed for some team members to land perks so the trade off is a tricky one.
Interestingly, Keeper becomes quite tanky in his own right when running barrier as well as the 4% barrier proc. Time for a bit of math:
3% on coon, 29% on engi team buff, 7% on top barrier, 4% on barrier proc. that's a total of 43% reflect which is pretty reasonable.
Lets take the setup I said before, with 35k HP that gives an effective HP of 35000/(1-0.43) = ~61k HP which is near Enforcer levels pre-mitigation. (enforcer effective HP post mitigation is more like 90k-100k HP [[60000/(1-(0.03+0.29)) = ~88k]] plus enforcers take about 1400dmg off every hit if actually tanking due to layer spam which is considerable.)
The difference, of course, is taunt. Keeper simply doesn't have the taunt that enforcers have, and this presents a substantial problem.
Because keeper's have less health but more reflect mitigation than enforcers, they should be easier to heal - basically 1 cast of BI assuming it's worth 10k health is worth 14300 damage on keeper vs 13200 dmg on enforcer (15000ish if absorb running). Keeper's have OK burst healing, at around 7-8k for blessing, plus some minor heals, but blessing is on a longish CD and since it's a perk it often can't be utilised in an emergency due to perk queues - same with DA and Coon. Keeper does have fairly reasonable base healing with pretty solid boosts from top ambient heal, lay on hands, natural HD and bio rejuv, but if keeper actually wants to set up to utilize healing and tank with higher HP, higher heal eff, heal reactivity, keeper gives up a big chunk of damage, lessening his ability to hold aggro.
So here the current keeper toolset fails to provide the essentials of a tank: holding aggro.
Here are two changes which I think would be pretty solid changes to the keeper toolset to really help flesh out the tank secondary role.
1. add a second perk action in the blessing line that locks out devotional armor. Instead of adding a big reflect for a short period, it could add a medium reflect and max HP boost for a longer period with a no gap between length and CD, eg. 4% reflect, 4000max health (and heal), 250 reflect damage 60s duration, 59s CD, AND, while this buff is running it adds a 100% 15000 AOE taunt proc on sanctifier...
Now, this would be awesome because if you didn't want AOE taunts, just wait out the 60s on the perk, and then you have devotional armor back, and operating normally again
2. Add a keeper only "stance" similar to zazen that simply changes the keeper concept from "protector" to "protective" !!! Some really simple modifiers would do a world of good, but not affect balance at all, e.g.
On self:
heal efficiency -25%
heal reactivity 25%
Now keeper will reduce the effect of his heal auras to team and become much more susceptible to incoming heals, and can simply be cancelled if playing a more support role.
These changes would give keeper's reasonably good AOE tank capability, closer to the same effective HP as enforcers (35000+4000)/(1-0.47) = ~73000 effective HP, give much closer actual tank capability in terms of receiving heals as enforcer, and much stronger AOE tank capability.
The interesting thing here is that enforcers and doc's make a great healer/tank combo - and it's always worked because docs are REACTIVE healers, and enforcers have the meatshield to soak a lot of damage... Since MA's have got zazen, MA's are PROACTIVE healers - needing to get heals rolling prior to the tank taking damage and refresh constantly, and even with that MA's simply don't really have the capability to heal an enforcer with massive chunky HP heals. Keepers with overall higher base mitigation and slightly lower "meat" shielding would provide a slightly more tank friendly to MA's. Basically, with lower HP MA's wouldn't have to heal so much, but with better mitigation the MA healing method of hot spamming has far better synergy.
Thus, doc<--> enf synergy remains in tact
but
keeper<--> MA synergy is bolstered considerably
Last edited by McKnuckleSamwich; Jan 11th, 2016 at 07:20:08.
Keeper perks/wrath dd need serious boost at 200. There's no way to kill agent in doc even when we are supposed to be the nemesis prof for those serious murderers... Maybe add a proper DOT to "blow their cover" nano. 1000 points every 2 seconds. There needs to be someone who can deal with those pesky agents otherwise this is starting to look like agent online more by more every day.
Nice ideas McKnuckleSamwich.
Adding spec blockers to Ward seems obvious since engineers got normal blockers to there spec blockers... but with the current mechanics it is probably non-trivial to implement without interfering with each other (blockers overwrite each other, so keeper 1-spec-blocker would cancel engies 9-spec-blocker).
Some "oh ****" emergency action (not in perk queue) would be nice -may be a nano with 8normal/3spec blocker with a reasonable cooldown. Could also add a aoe taunt to it.
So more or less a second Devotional Armour but worse?
40% deflect is more or less a 20% reflect since you deflect is like 50% damage (+ some rng chances on FA) afair,
whereas DA is 32% for 20s.
The emergency action i proposed in my previous post could may be simply be added to keeper dimach. May be even (small) area damage.
I like all those ideas mcknuckle. Wish I could say I had all that gear... Try playing a keeper that doesn't have everything and say we are good lol. Being west coast US, there is basically no raiding that goes on 8pm-11pm PST. But that's an AO problem not a keeper problem I suppose.
Until I can get more betas I won't waste my time doing an IP reset. With the addition of melee energy to our tool set we open up more options. That becomes more true if we get useful shields instead of shields for our social tab.
1h ME +shield with a few changes could make us a considerable tanks in the right situation. I think the boringness of a keeper is the fact they have changed so little over the years.
Before AI we all used FBR or if you were like me you used Gelids to go full Def. You begged friends to farm pand garden in hopes of a 290+JDN. Only after AI released and we all got a weapon that could 1/1 at full Def did people see keepers as a viable option for anything other then to leech auras from. We rocked faces for about 2years. Even just moderately geared keepers could stay alive for a long time and take folks out. Now if your just a moderately geared keeper, don't even bother doing BS unless you just need VPs. Hence why I don't pvp in AO anymore
As for emergency actions. Maybe a few of our perk actions should be moved into nano lines. Make devotional armor a nano w/a lockout instead. Give keepers "must haves" like curing touch from a nano. Every keeper has it anyway lol. Idk
Noorb: 220 Keeper
Retention: 217 shade
Hawtpants: 210 trader
Osker: 210 MA(may re roll)
actually, all that would be needed is to tack it on. Engineer blockers currently stack with keeper's (if you cast WW, then cast Improved Isochronal Sloughing Combat Field, they both can be in NCU at the same time. I think the engineer one has a higher stacking order so it gets used first because I've seen stuff like:
Your attack shield has been used (1) - isochronal depleted
Your attack shield has been used (1) - second blocker of WW depleted
Your attack shield has been used (0) - second blocker of WW depleted
which could have been WW getting depleted and refreshed between the first and second attacks, but it could also have been the engi attack shield getting used, then the system counting the two available remaining shields on WW. Hard to tell, actually.. but I definitely know that they stack because I've used both with keeper and engi in team on various encounters with the phobettor where every mitigation method is employed and has value.
So this change would simply bring back the pre-18.7 level of blockers to team - only now you need 2 profs to provide them, not 1.
Undeniably though, 2 blockers/18s on WW is a much faster replenishment rate than 5/60s which engineers will provide with isochronal.
So maybe just adding one spec blocker on WW is reasonable
Where do you get the 5/60s for engineers from? I only see 1/30s = 2/60s.
I think there is only one counter but it's only guessworks.
When having a rather high hit non-burst rate (WW gets depleted) you still benefit from also running ISC when it refreshs before WW so you have approx. 8 blocks/minute (6 from WW, 2 from ISC).
But that is also because you can only loose 1 block if ISC resets an undepleted WW.
The f-up would be greater for spec-blockers since they more likely have to work against burst attacks and the ratio 9:1 (but only rerelevant for pvp anyway... )
(with burst here not beeing the in-game special attack but description for "many in short time")
Last edited by kemi; Jan 12th, 2016 at 12:57:15.
You must recently have 2-Handed Edge Focus running! This is a glaring problem... 2he focus shows up in your ncu, i'm sure most of you understand why this is just stupid to require.
Also, damage via 2he is laughable at best. I cant say for certain what i would adjust with keeper (combine perk lines, or add something better) but overall in anything mass pvp related keeper is only useful for clarion call
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