Aura heal
Does 100% of your skill damage for heal per aura, guess which class has a low skill damage? Knight thats who! Also aura heal requires crit to be useful and guess what they just nerfed? Indirecty and directly, thats right agi knights!!
Most people were complaining about the crappy Knight heal even before the patch, when it was:
Warrior: 60% over 20sec ever 120sec (or 54% after 120sec if used with 90 rage)
Knight: 18% every 20sec (or 54% after 60sec if used three times)
Well, even back than, ppl couldn't calculate right.
Right now, the Warrior Tension relax got nerfed, but also got 3 additional level to compensate the loss.
Old lvl-3 Warrior heal: 60% over 20sec
New lvl-3 Warrior heal: 15% instant + 30% over 20sec = 45% totally healed
Grand Cross
Still has a buggy animation(casts twice even if you click once) Requires aura blade to grant the extra 130% damage. Worthless as a tank knight.
So after all, nothing has changed... it was useless before and it's useless thereafter. But just as a quick side node:
lvl 5 Bash: 25% damage, single target
lvl 5 GC: 27.9% damage, up to 10 targets
So if you fight more than 1 enemy, it's strictly better than Bash.
If you do the Off-tank role... and this is the main concept here, using Aura Sword instead of Aura Armor, it could be one of your favorites... even during raids.
Shield Charge:
Good skill concept but still bug slides and misses A LOT
You need agi for this skill to work, a lot of it.
This "miss" problem is true for every character. What is worse: Missing a 20sec cooldown Shield charge or a 60sec cooldown Asura Strike?
Shield Cannon:
Okay, this is the only skill thats "fantastic" but still has a low 1160% skill damage modifer. Most power skills have 1500% or more.
Keep in mind that Shield Cannon only requires 3 Auras, instead of 50 Rage for Rage Strike, 50 Beast Power for Brutal Strike, 5 Combo Points for Moonlight Dance. This means that you can use your aura points more often to increase your damage output via Aura Strike. This alone equals 2x 70% = 140% power bonus.
Aura Shield:
The second to one tank skill knights got 20% damage reduced for 10s duration. It's a tank skill yet the cooldown is horrid.
Just compare it to the other two siblings:
Aura Shield: 20% damage reduction, 10sec duration, 60sec cooldown
Parrying: 40% chance for half damage, 10sec duration, 60sec cooldown
Evasion: 20% dodge bonus, 10sec duration, 60sec cooldown
So all in all, the Knight still has the best of all three skills.
But I agree that it's a shame they didn't reduce the cooldown to at 30-40sec or the duration to 20sec. But then, they would have been forced adjust skills like Endure, Shield Fortress, etc., as well, since they have "double effect, double cooldown".
Shield fort:
120 second cooldown l0l
Cant move with the skill, long cooldown. Good o button but thats it, how dull.
One of the best skills in game. Before the patch, this could make the difference whether the whole party dies to an AoE attack that deals 6-8k damage or everyone surviving. You can stop the animation by clicking on the appropriate icon.
If compared to other similar skills, this was a defensive, group oriented skill version, but as I've already said, one of the best.
Warrior - Endure: 40%, can act
Monk - Ki-Protection: 50%, can act; cooldown can be resetted
Beastmaster - Feral Defense: 100%, can't act
Assuming you already have enough threat... and this should have been the case, 100% damage reduction isn't necessary, since your gear should have give you enough starting damage reduction already.
Concentration:
+20% attack power for the price of recieving 10% more damage. Useless skill apart from some dumb sucide knight build.
Well, it was either 10% more damage from Aura Sword (not usable with Aura Armor) or double the effect for the price of receiving a bit more damage.
The good thing of this skill is that you can plan the duration of that skill. So you could use it after each AoE when you usually can be sure, no other AoE will come in quick succession.
But all in all, this is more the "DPS" or "Off-Tank" skill. I usually used Berserk only to increase the mermaid damage, stopping the effect by clicking on the icon.... if necessary.
If compared to Berserk, it was the better skill. If compared to the Bear Form, it was underwhelming, but at least usable with the tanking aura on the same time.
Shield Bash:
Good aura generator for currently broken Aura strikes.
I wouldnt put this skill over lvl 1 because it misses 50% of the time but at least it can make you pancakes every blue moon.
Well, let's see the old version of this skill did nothing else. So beside the miss chance, it wasn't a good skill, but at least did a nice side effect - stunning the target. If compared to Warrior Pommel Strike, it at least did damage and had a liower cooldown. If compared to the Warrior Bowling Bash, it at least stunned the target. So it was a two-in-one packet.
The new version is a colo upgrade. The cooldown is decreased to 20sec and you can deal more damage than the usual Bash attack. So if you want, you can increase your DPS value with it.
The Warrior Bowling Bash is still at 10sec cooldown, which therefore grants a higher DPS bonus than Shield Bash, but the Pommel Strike is still at 90sec starting cooldown.
Ergo: Both skills are quite unintersting for tank builds, but the Knight skill is much, much better in Colo than Bowling Bash.
All in all, it seems you shouldn't play a Knight. He has a certain focus and was one of the best tanking classes in colo. Yes, all the class changes are mainly colo-centric and that's MY biggest concern and the reason why I quit playing my "overpowered" warrior. You can fix the damage output or other boni, but the additional skill levels will never be made undone.
My build neither had Rage Strike, Berserk, Bowling Bash or Whirlwind. And Tension Relax was and is purely underwhelming to a Willow Worker pet during raids. So what did I get? A PATK bonus that's true, but even if they would restore the old pre-patch "hit" system, this wouldn't make me a better tank and I would have even more "second thoughts" about DPS classes and a own DPS builds, I never wanted as a tanking Warrior.
Edited by Greven79, 05 January 2014 - 09:08 AM.