Although shields were hardly useless in the first game, where you could get, what, 50-75% block chance, ridiculous amounts of armor, health and resist, so you were basically unkillable, I'll agree there was a huge lack of "tank skills." Not sure if Larian is going to do much with shield specialists, since I seriously doubt the tanking skill tree will win in the ability votes, but here are my thoughts anyway.
First, I'd either tone down the total block chance you can get, or make it only reduce damage, not negate it completely. It'd be easier to balance and create less scenarios where your tank complete negates three attacks in a row so you basically win. In turn, more abilities like the ones suggested above would make tanking more dynamic.
Three different tanking stances would help you chance your focus on the fly. Numbers could totally change, but things like:
Self-Preserving: 15% higher chance to block attacks against yourself, but -20% movement speed.
Self-Sacrificing: 15% lower chance to block attacks against yourself, but you can block attacks against allies within 3m of yourself.
Retaliatory Defender: 50% of the damage you block is dealt to the attacker.
So you could specialize for self-defense, ally defense, or damage, depending on what's needed at the moment.
I like the idea of casting elements on shields, tanks giving cover, maybe adding shield CC attacks (CC is already super common), and more shield specific abilities in general.
The game DOES have a kind of aggro system, hence the Stench talent, but it's behind the scenes and hard to know what affects the AI's decision making. Mostly AI just attacks whoever's closest, but if they're made smarter, tanks might need a way to attract attention to themselves, unless they gain lots of abilities to negate damage to allies.
On a slightly unrelated note, I hope there's some reason to use a single melee weapon without a shield. Pillars of Eternity gave you an accuracy bonus for using only a single weapon one-handed weapon with no shield or offhand weapon, which I thought was a good way to give its niche as the "accurate stance."
Last edited by Baardvark; 30/09/15 04:38 PM.
