What if I told you there was a backbar ability set and skill that :
You'd probably think it was overlooked, like vamp drain's tooltip retaining its full damage value from Scalebreaker despite being a dot.
I think it's worth considering that vBRP dual wield and the way it stacks with an already defensively dense skill like quick cloak has been the single hardest defensive carry while kiting in this game for the past 3 patches. It outperforms every single other pvp dungeon set by miles(masters/vAS/brp). Pirate skeleton's major protection was gated behind RNG and came with a minor defile penalty yet was still regarded as the strongest defensive monster set.
vBRP dw gives on demand major protection, letting you use it both pre-emptively or in a reactionary manner : major protection + minor protection + psijic dmg absorb shield + bloodspawn proc + 2x defensive traits + life drain/escapist poisons makes damaging most experienced stam players a fool's errand with a single button press, resulting in an extremely efficient damage resource drain from opponents, while they chase/attack you.
Compared to other backbar weapons like SnB or bow with medium armor, major protection/expedition/evasion offers far more survivability utility than SnB. From an offensive standpoint, master's bow requires a bar switch and 1 gcd to proc the berserker glyph - being forced to run infused with the bow's comparatively lower wpn dmg = weaker vigor tooltip and lower armor.
I'd like to propose removing the major protection and replacing it with a 8-10 second minor protection buff instead, freeing the back bar ultimate slot in place of temporal guard.
- gives on demand major protection and major expedition for 3 and 4 seconds respectively, coinciding with vigor's timeframe - making kiting away in an almost snareless meta as easy as pressing roll dodge and running.
- gives major evasion for 14 seconds.
- does damage and procs poisons and glyphs while on your front bar, saving you the need to waste 1 gcd on a backbar dot rotation - poisons allow you to run 2x defensive traits and escapist poisons.
- gives a useful extra line of stamina regen, bumping up its stat density beyond that of a 5 piece set bonus.
- backbar temporal guard's minor protection stacks with the major protection.
- exists while pirate skeleton was acknowledged as a problem.
You'd probably think it was overlooked, like vamp drain's tooltip retaining its full damage value from Scalebreaker despite being a dot.
I think it's worth considering that vBRP dual wield and the way it stacks with an already defensively dense skill like quick cloak has been the single hardest defensive carry while kiting in this game for the past 3 patches. It outperforms every single other pvp dungeon set by miles(masters/vAS/brp). Pirate skeleton's major protection was gated behind RNG and came with a minor defile penalty yet was still regarded as the strongest defensive monster set.
vBRP dw gives on demand major protection, letting you use it both pre-emptively or in a reactionary manner : major protection + minor protection + psijic dmg absorb shield + bloodspawn proc + 2x defensive traits + life drain/escapist poisons makes damaging most experienced stam players a fool's errand with a single button press, resulting in an extremely efficient damage resource drain from opponents, while they chase/attack you.
Compared to other backbar weapons like SnB or bow with medium armor, major protection/expedition/evasion offers far more survivability utility than SnB. From an offensive standpoint, master's bow requires a bar switch and 1 gcd to proc the berserker glyph - being forced to run infused with the bow's comparatively lower wpn dmg = weaker vigor tooltip and lower armor.
I'd like to propose removing the major protection and replacing it with a 8-10 second minor protection buff instead, freeing the back bar ultimate slot in place of temporal guard.