Gday Chilton here.

Getting pwned at work atm (although I shouldn't complain about having a steady job that is giving me lots of overtime), and only just managed to play enough to form an opinion on the latest patch.

Firstly I love the suddenness of it all. We were having a whinge about tanking, and out of the blue, a patch drops that dramatically shakes up tanking in more ways than I have seen since I have started playing about 5 years ago.

I am what you may called a major beneficiary of this patch. My main build is Sword/Shield but I do also have Staff maxed out, with max Hoplology. I had 47 universal event keys saved up from Halloween and 2500 quality phlogistons. On the day the patch dropped I rolled a full set of purple tier equipments and was able to reroll the mods until I got perfect mods on them.

Then I had no time to actually play , it took me this long to be able to play for a total of a couple of hours so I can form an opinion on the patch.

I want to offer a few comments, echo one of Yaffy's feedback, and offer a warning of what I would recommend against doing.

Comment/feedback on the patch. I will have to focus on using Staff/Shield as a combination.

1) Lower tier content is beyond ridiculously trivialised when soloing. I can solo the casino dailies offered by Qatik with no preparation and only having low tier food. I agree whole heartedly that something has to be done to fix this. The idea of "armour chipping" sounds interesting and I will wait until I see it before forming an opinion, but I suspect it won't do enough to overcome the problem. Although I gained a new appreciation of the nuances of the balancing process through Citan's reveal that mob damage scales linearly with level, I am still of the opinion that percentage based mods is the way to go, particularly if we are going to aim to limit the number of mods available to players (I still think that is a good idea and would be healthy for build diversity and the game in general).

2) Partying in lower tier content is a mixed bag. If I have a party of lower level players, they are awed by my ability to pull an entire room and tank them while slowly chipping away at the mobs' hp. However when I am running with a high level party, I feel I am almost a liability because I do less damage than compared to if I was running Sword/Shield.

3) The +10 power regen per sec on bulwark form makes it possible to fly forever, and almost abolish the need to have good food. Although I do find some mid level food is still necessary, mainly because I am in full metal armour, but that might change as I upgrade to max enchanted leather armour. I argue it is still vital when soloing because it negatives your power issues, but you can get away with toggling it.

4) I am able to easily solo the elites in fae realm that don't have regeneration, with almost no preparation (just low tier food, no other buffs). I would say this is imbalanced. It's slow and it would be at least 2.5 times faster with a party, but the idea that I can solo them with almost no preparation, while only selected few other builds can do it with lots of preparation and buffs, does not sit comfortably with me.

5) I suspect just increasing the health of elites will not change pretty much any of my observations above. I would advocate that in the next patch, in addition to doubling mob's health they should also have some regeneration added, so that I cannot just slowly grind them down soloing.

6) I haven't had a chance to run a proper high level dungeon with my new build, but I suspect I will be able to solo 1-2 elites in GK, with good food and power regen, but I will not be able to solo WT because of regeneration of trolls, dark damage of ensigns, and DoT effects of a few mobs. I wonder if I can solo the frost hippogriffs and the bears/minotaurs area, once I run past the trolls and ensigns. In any case, the mob density and sheer health pool of mobs in WT will make soloing them very annoying, even if it is doable.

7) I wont comment on the balancing of the taunt component of bulwark form, as I have not yet had a proper high level dungeon run. Likewise I cannot comment on the power and "feel" of the build in high level dungeon.

8) Yes please make bulwark form a side bar skill, I miss having Shield Team....

Despite being a major beneficiary of this patch and so far loving my new found power, I am concerned about the direction this game may be going, if I am reading this underlying trend and Citan's comments correctly (I am concerned enough that I am posting this even before I had time to experience more of this patch).

I am concerned that we may move too far in the direction of making tanks too powerful/useful/indispensable for the party. As an extreme example, I point to World of Warcraft, where having a tank is mandatory for a party, and I felt it drove a lot of the toxic behaviour in the game. I was a druid tank/healer back in those days and I saw my share of tanks behaving badly, examples include belittling other players, rage quitting, booting out players that are seen as underperforming, charging other players to join the party, etc.

Now Project Gorgon has a much older and mentally mature audience than WoW is what I have noticed, but I think the fact that tanks are in high demand still gives tank players an attitude of superiority and creates tension. I have certainly felt annoyed when there are players in the party that are new/underperforming and I have called them out for it, but to the best of my recollection I have never rage quitted a party or booted anyone unless they are clearly griefing.

I guess what I am trying to say is similar to the points made by Yaffy in that we should aim for a sweet spot where having a tank is not vital, but is desirable. We can't make it too desirable either (for example if having a tank allows you to pull 4 mobs while without a tank you had to pull only 1) because it will have the same effect of making tanks indispensable.

Addressing some of the other comments made:

I think the value of having a tank in the party goes beyond the number of mobs a party can handle at once/clear speed. Having a dedicated tank takes out a lot of the mental strain of playing, healers can easily focus on one target to heal, dps can not worry so much about accidentally attracting aggro, pulling one extra mob than you intended to doesn't result in a party wipe. In that sense even if having a tank does not dramatically increase clear speed, I feel its still worthwhile.

I like the idea of having "situations where a player is useless" as a game design, provided of course it's not too often. The Davlos fight brought a few high level players down a peg or two (myself included), having to concede the role of primary damage dealer to the person who is doing least damage on the post fight autopsy report. I support the idea of having bosses or mobs that are "untankable" or just untankable with a particular build, so that you have to find alternative ways to handle them. It encourages us to accept players with unconventional builds, who might not be high level or optimally built into the party. It encourages us to have more than one build/set of equipments so that we can potentially change skills on the fly for a particular fight. Most importantly, it gives someone else a chance to be the indispensable part of the team.

In summary, I think currently Staff/Shield as a combination is too strong, I think the power regeneration component of bulwark form needs a nerf. I suggest introducing a small amount of regeneration to elite mobs in addition to increasing their health. Please don't take away the ability of a full dps party to do a dungeon without a tank and a healer.

Sorry for long post. I will update it when I have had more time to play with my impressions of the build in WT.