War Class Discussion

[Stormcloak]

I’d like to open up a discussion on the war class as a whole. The war class seems to be the one that comes up most often with suggestions for improvement, and instead of making suggestions for one particular skill at a time, I'd rather explore the whole skill tree. While I don’t think that it’s necessarily broken, I do think there may be opportunity to fine tune the skill tree somewhat and maybe we can hash out a feasible proposal here.

Personally, the war class is my favourite – it has a lot of depth of complexity and for the most part is well balanced. I feel that its greatest feature, the ability to dip into the other trees with skills that fit, is also its biggest drawback in that to get those options, you lose out on the tier 5 skills (considering weapon skills as Tier 0 for nomeclature purposes). I think that a few modifications could be made to make the war class a bit more dynamic – granted this is coming from my own casual observation and personal bias, while I’m hoping to look at this from a larger perspective.

Each class has a concept and for the most part the skills fit in with it. Rages focus on offense and aggression with a fierce flurry of attacks and damage, or the guerilla style hit hard and run. Theatrics are tricky, adaptive, and create tactical situations that they are able to take advantage of. When I think of War, defense and toughness come to mind (which the War certainly fits with), but so does discipline and decisiveness with practical and economical strikes.

For the most part, I quite like the war skill tree, but there’s a couple that just don’t quite fit right in my opinion:

Master of Arms: I think this is a decent skill, and a good way to train shields while getting a bit of extra utility (in case of picking up a new weapon when disarmed). I don’t know if I would put this as a Tier 2 skill though – it seems more on the level of a Tier 1 skill. Yes, you also have the ability the retool your glad’s weapons which offers a lot of utility, but at the same time that aspect is fairly cost prohibitive to take advantage of (buying weapons and vault space). I think this would be a good tier 1 skill.

Iron Jaw: Admittedly I’ve never used this much – I see this as being highly situational and the perception by some in the forum is that it offers very little utility. At the same time though, I can see it being useful for the war trug tanks (and there seems to be a lot of them moving up) – sit them down in the middle of the arena with their lunch pail while they exhaust their opponents with high health, bleed resistance, and now knockout resistance. I saw some suggestion about modifying Iron Jaw to include knockdown resistance, but that may be a bit OP on those tank builds. I see two potential options for this skill:
1) Swap Iron Jaw into the Rage tree and put Barreling Attack into the War Tree (as a Tier 2 skill since MOA would be Tier 1). Rages have plenty of offensive options, and BA is generally not held in very high regard for them. Give the rages Iron Jaw to give them a bit of beefiness (anyone ever try to head-butt Conan?) and resistance to allow them to push through stuns and give Barreling Attack to the War Tree to give the War’s a bit more offense/tactics. This could tie in half decently with War-Cry in builds, which is another skill held in low regard in some cases. This way Iron Jaw is kept for those that really want it, plus it gives an option to take out the war-trugs a little easier.
2) Another option is to eliminate the skill (With MOA taking its place in Tier 1), and opening up a Tier 2 skill slot which could give a bit more balance. My suggestion would be a passive skill something like “Live by the sword” or “Equipment Master”: War’s define themselves through their equipment, so it makes sense to have a skill focussing on this. When I picture a war in my head, I see a tough, grizzled veteran who’s learned how to survive out on the battlefield. This is a guy/girl who’s learned where armour weaknesses are and where to strike on his opponent (mild armour penetration) and who isn’t going to ever let go of his weapon/shield as it means his life (resistance to disarm and critical fumbles). This provides a bit of offense for the war class, and a bit of protection from disarms (particularly for twohanders).

War Cry: A lot of people have suggested the limited use of this skill, but I’m on the fence about it. I’ve used it on a dual sword glad and it worked well enough, and I also tried it on a pole-arm dunder which was terrible and I had to retrain (lost attack – not so good when have low initiative and don’t make many attacks). I think the skill as it is, is okay but nothing fantastic. Looking at it on its own, I don’t see it competing with Adrenaline Rush or Hamstring, the other open skills at the same level, but you have to consider it within the whole skill tree. I know it used to give an initiative bonus/penalty (before my time) which sounds interesting and fits in with the war concept (take a hit and then burst back on attack), but I’m not sure if that would be overpowered (a 2 round initiative penalty to your opponent sounds like it could be good). I’ve seen it suggested that it should be an attack that includes damage, but damage and a successful stun at the same time might be a bit too much (edit: correction as pointed out by Adoede, it will sometimes do damage). If Barreling Attack was in the War Tree, these two skills together might give a bit more utility for certain builds. Again, I’m on the fence with this one and would be curious what others suggest.

Down and Dangerous: I just can’t get excited by the skill description here. I agree with some of the concerns that it sounds like a way to get around the War’s situational weakness when sent to the ground (where Light as a Feather should be helping them get back to their feet) and that compared to other Tier 5 skills it just doesn’t hold up. There were a number of suggestions made on the new skill, and I personally would be interested in some of those. Compiled suggestions (and a few more) from previous threads include:
- Passive bonus to attack power and initiative
- Offensive version of Never Say Die (the closer your war gets to losing whether by hp or endurance, he gets a bonus to damage)
- Offensive use of shields to distinguish the war class. Decreases your opponents initiative and each shield type provides a different activated benefit (perhaps bucklers do a shield stun, tower shields can pin opponents to increase critical chances and the level of a crit, medium shield can let you get in close and decrease your opponent’s defense with an activated attack similar to feint) to give both some offense and tactical flavour
- Damage deflection with returned bleeding (spiked armour) – an interesting idea, but in my opinion would have to be less effective the more defensive you were running your strategy (would otherwise potentially reinforce tanking and not doing anything)
- Increased critical protection with a reasonably low chance to halve attack damage – another good idea but I wouldn’t make it against all crits, maybe just knockdowns, stuns, and disarms as a way to allow your war to continue to make attacks (and against whatever it is that happens when you simply aren’t attacking or returning fire – give a minimum of at least one attack per round, considering activity, weapons speed, etc)
- Ambidexterity which reduces the off-hand weapon damage penalty and increasing attack power – I see this as more of a theatrics type skill in concept, but again it is a good viable option. Perhaps if it had an offensive benefit as mentioned when attacking, but also a defensive benefit when parrying.
- Perhaps an activated offensive skill where you immediately hit back when you get attacked (like a counterpart to the defensive Create Distance)

The final skill tree could look something like:
Tier 0: Weapon Skills
Tier 1: Grim Determination, Master of Arms
Tier 2: Battle Hardened, Death from Above, (NEW SKILL or Barreling Attack)
Tier 3: Armour Movement, Never Say Die, War Cry (possibly adjusted?)
Tier 4: Intercepting Guard, Light as a Feather, Create Distance
Tier 5: Armoured Fortress, NEW SKILL


Anyway, that’s my two cents and I’m interested in what others think – we have a good passionate community here Again, I’m not saying the war class is broken or lodging a complaint (I plan to continue using them afterall), I just want to explore some options with constructive feedback for how to make it a bit more dynamic.

Looking forward to your thoughts,