Gladiator's Defense

Ok, thinking this needs a fix, but doubt it will happen. Considering Flashing Blades got a boost, Glad's Defense looks like crap now. I know the general use isn't good, and never will be, but it has uses for some farming builds, etc. Compare the numbers for Flashing Blades and Gladiator's Defense.

15 Dagger Master

" For 30 seconds, you have a 75% chance to block incoming attacks while attacking. If you block an attack in this way, your attacker takes 20 damage."

Can be maintained 100% as the recharge and the duration are the same. Damage is dealt to any attack, whether it me melee or ranged, even a wand triggers it.

15 Tactics

"For 11 seconds you have a 75% chance to block incoming attacks. Whenever you block a melee attack this way, the attacker suffers 35 damage."

Only effects melee attacks, only lasts 11 seconds, and recharge is 30 seconds, so just a tad over 1/3 of the time can this be active.

Glad D will do more damage, but not a huge difference. However, since it can't be maintained like Flashing Blades, and it only works on melee attacks, it has much fewer uses. The clause of 'while attacking' for FB is not at all hard to meet.

Would hate to see a nerf to FB, but I think a few possible fixes could occur.

1) Reduce block % of FB to 50%
2) Reduce duration of FB to 25 seconds at 15 Dagger Mastery
3) Increase duration of GD to 25 seconds at 15 Tactics
4) Allow GD to cause damage to all attacks, not just melee
5) Make GD a skill, so another stance can be used at the same time

1 and 2 are not what I want to see. I do think they would allow Glad's Defense to be more useful. Both skills can be used from a secondary and both function in similar ways. I just don't understand why FB for a buff and GD got nothing.

Niether of these skills are a problem nor will they see use unless they're horribly imbalanced. /Notsigned.

The reason why Glad's got nothing is because the only people who look at Tactics anymore are monks.

Still, I have no problem with it getting a little more love. Personally my choice would be #5, similar to Warrior's Endurance being switched to a skill.

/signed

Gladiator's Defense can be kept up with Renewing Smash. But when compared to Whirling Defense and Sliver Armor, Gladiator's Defense is a really bad skill. It has:

30 second recharge, low duration.
Negligible damage/effect.
Elite status.

Fix one of those and it should be good.

I agree with Tyla.
There is no NEED for this as you like to point out alot.
/notsigned

I'd make it so that GD can last ten seconds but recharges in 15.

Something like
5e 15 recharge
Stance. For 5...10 seconds you have a 75% chance to block attacks. Whenever you block a melee attack in this manner the attacker takes 5...29 damage.

Kinda would agree. It would be like the other non elite stances that don't deal out damage. By dealing damage it makes GD an elite skill.

you cant compare the two skills.

FB: the while attacking clause is funny. you so only block when you hit stuff. with the way assassin bars work, you spike and recharge, the only sustained attack for any decent time duration is the moebius/blossom combo with the logically superior crit strike/crit def, where moebius is the elite. the while attacking makes it so FB fails when you need it most. ss/empathy/reckless/price of failure/faint all hurt you or inhibit your ability to attack. so as a sin, in say ra for example, you come across these hexes a lot. so you choose to eat the damage from these to prevent attacks from hitting you or stop attacking to prevent on attack damage and take the other teams attack skills? plus the whole FB being an elite stance takes away the possibility for an attack speed boost, except wep of aggression. an issue here though would be that when wanding/bow/spearing at range, you take damage, should just be adjacent range take damage, yeah sins are ninjas, but not that good...

glads def is fine. as a warrior you shouldnt need to block all the time. getting hit helps with adrenaline, even though its small, it helps. if you are bonded by a monk, blocking doesnt trigger life bond for balth spirit. skills like on your knees and renewing smash help to manage durations of this stance. glads defense allows you to use skills during also, so you block during activation of heal sig/lions comfort. it wasnt meant to be used as a stand in there and take a beating for a long time skill, it was a gather aggro keep you alive when your monk had to wait a bit skill; tank and spank. if you wanna aggro a ton and not take damage, use dolyaks signet.

Both skills are bad,neither needs a buff,they wouldnt effect any one if they were removed from the game honestly,tactics is never used by warriors,and monks wont use an elite blocking stance.

It could use some love.

But rememeber that tactics has a lot of blocking skills, while Dagger mastery has only that one.

When you balance you balance the whole attribute related to the rest, not just skill by skill.

sins arent tanks, sins shouldnt block

Tanks endure damage mostly with armor and health. Strenght has a lot of those. Tactics is a warrior attribute, but can be used by others. And there are other professions with blocks, like Mesmers, Rangers and Monks, yet they aren't Tanks.
Assassins are more in the 'escape' side. Evasion no longer exists, but it was 'moved' to block.
So blocking is perfectly logical of an Assassin.

Well, I agree the skill isn't that great... but GW has no need for a pure tanking class or pure tanking skills anyways. The entire concept of those skills just don't fit in with GW's play style
(although the sins who have tons of blocking in RA when my team doesn't have a SINGLE way to strip and I'm playing monk are kinda annoying. Though I blame my teammates for that more then I blame the sin for them not having any counters).

Well, I highly doubt any change outside of making it 'godmode' will give it use in PvP. I wasn't intending this to be a PvE-v-PvP skill debate. Tanking is used in PvE for several places, and whether you agree with it or not, it works when done right. My intention wasn't to use this for tanking though, in fact, I may not use it even if changed. I do feel, however, that it needs a change. Why? It is worse than the closest skill to it, and worse by a far margin.

I could live with a duration to 10 seconds and a recharge of 15 as mentioned. But when the skill can't only be used 1/3 of the time, and only effects one form of attack, while its relative from the Assassin class works against all attacks and can be maintained indefinitely, it is bad.

I'm asking for a bad skill to be made an average skill.

It doesn't affect one form of attack, it blocks ALL attacks, but only triggers on Melee, and aren't you complaining about the block here, not damage? And whoever said about blades only work while attacking is right, Flashing blades needs a buff at most, not a nerf. If you put any anti melee on a FB sin, Bye bye sin. Glad defense is a farming skill, not a PvP skill, use it with dwarven stability and be quiet.

/not signed

FB needs a nerf, for it not to deal damage back to ranged attacks.

And GB should last 25 seconds at 15 Tactics, imo.

Nothing else needs to change.

No, it doesn't need a nerf. If anything, Flashing Blades is underpowered.

Just because one mediocre skill is better then another mediocre skill doesn't mean either one needs to be buffed/nerfed.

Both skills are subpar. Anyone using either needs to learn to play better. Enough said.

ya... shd increase the duration or decrease the recharge time.