[MakeshiftWalrus]

Wraithguard is simply too efficient of a skill to use in its current incarnation, and it almost always ends up being a complete gain for whoever put it down. This is especially more so true with the inability to destroy it, should a gravestone be near it.

It's quite frankly abusive when combined with extremely high DR, because even tanks can use it fully, unlike its previous incarnation, which was limited to unarmored. (And halved for light armour) You can easily get upwards of 70% DR with standard defense, or even higher when it comes to armours such as turtle shell, or similarly high-armoured pieces.

It isn't only the DR itself, however.

The momentum economy gained is 9/10 times far in your favour, because your opponent needs to take time out of their turns to deal with the WG, if they even at all can. Not everyone can destroy a gravestone, and the WG itself, in a single turn, so they're stuck spending upwards of nine, even twelve momentum on it, if they really want to get rid of it, which is massive when that isn't being put towards your opponent themselves, who, of course, do not have this detriment.

The only time it isn't worth putting down a Wraithguard, is if you leave it next to yourself, and do not put a gravestone besides it, at which point, if your opponent can hit the Wraithguard and kill it, before the attack hits you. Only then, in that specific scenario, was it not worthwhile to put it up.

This makes for very lopsided battles, if both fighters aren't using it.

This is a list of solutions I've thought of, that I feel would improve the skill, into a place it isn't practically mandatory on all Ghost builds.

Solution 1:
Return Wraithguard to its previous incarnation, when it scaled off resistance and luck, and was a self-buff that could be nulled and stolen. This version had counter-play, and good value for what it did. It suited the overall theme of Ghost, that being a defensive mage-killer, rather than its current incarnation which is simply a king of all trades. It had counter-play, and that was great. This is the one I would by far the most prefer to see. I don't have any love for the current version.

Solution 2:
Give the current incarnation the same trigger clause as old Wraithguard. You still leave a standing ghost on the field, but you actually need some form of stat investment to get the 30% DR. The ghost itself would not benefit from this.

Solution 3:
Make it so only unarmoured users get the DR. Using crazy high DR armours with flat reductions and accessories like Snake-helmet is simply far too strong and efficient. You reduce hits that would have done almost 300 damage to mere 50-70ties.

If anyone has other suggestions, feel free to post them.

[Snake]

I would very well prefer it being reverted. Sometimes simple is just way better, to be completely honest.

First. Thematically. I respect a lot, but I dislike seeing people roleplaying the Wraith as some 'faceless clone' or 'this and that'. And also there's no IC reason to justify its cooldown. Without a 'Wraith' around and the buff being centered around yourself you could atleast roleplay it in infinite better ways, from a simple "raises their guard enhanced by a red mist" to "goes mad before the premise of death". Hell, it was even answered in a Lore Thread over the 'how-to' on roleplaying it. And it was a satisfactory answer. Then it got changed. ;_;7

Secondly, Wraithguard is pretty much a loss in damage reduction on One-On-One, added to to making Titan Gale have a much higher chance to be obtained by your enemy if you are careless with it. Counter-intuitive and also grief-y in teamfights. You can technically buff an enemy with this and let the enemy wipe you for nothing but being a big asshole.

And finally, The Cheese. If you place a Wraithguard infront of mobs along with a Gravestone, if they surround it and mindlessly try to beat it to death while you chip the NPCs down. It makes the game's system look dumb and I don't like it. Cheesy as fuck, even if it's working as intended. And at the same time, if you place a Wraithguard down, it will stall for you infinitely, allowing you to do multiple procs of Die Hard. That. Is. Cheesy. AF.

Still, I believe in one thing, Wraithguard should be changed to what Dev had in mind a long while ago, only be useful against Magic Damage. This way it can still not have a restriction on Armor Type, while having a more solid role over anti-magic.

Ghost was always meant to be super good against Magic Damage and average against Physical Damage anyway.

[Senna]

Okay, so, I guess I'll throw my two cents on this one. It won't be too long so.

IF Wrath sama really needs adjustment then-

Wrath being magic reduction only I'm kinda against that. The problem with wrath-guard currently is the fact that tanks can stack reduction with it. For them, it's just 300 more heaths and extra reduction as well as mob for die-hard.

I understand the idea Dev was going for when making that technique, it's just that it can be abused or used completely differently.

Sure, against something like spell thief and tactician, it'll be the death of a team if they don't choose to not hard-focus the person with titan wind. Not everyone runs those classes nor are they really common.

Explaining that aside, I do agree with both points Snake and Walus brought up but to truly fix it, it should get the weather body (Or evasion) treatment. Unarmored get the full bonus, light armor gets half and heavy armor doesn't. Even a far stretch to make it main-class only.

[Autumn]

Its not only tanks that stack wraithguard's damage reduction super hard, dodgies use it as well quite effectively, I think reverting it to its old incarnation or having it work against magic damage only would be the best ways to go about it, I can't add much more than that, I do think that wraithguard's a bit unfair as you never win the momentum trade, especially when gravestone is in play.

[Fern]

I think another option is removing the Gravestone effect where it makes Wraithguard immune to damage. I find this one to be quick and simple personally, because then it requires more strategic thinking when you set down a Wraithguard instead of just slapping it down with a Gravestone immediately, 7 times out of 10.

[Mewni]

Damn, guess i'll have to be BK or Matador DH if i want to tank, until those change as well because if people are stacking the max of DR/Reduction/Armor possible, they'll go to the next best option, and people will complain about it before going at the next best one again..

People that put all their coins in a single thing [Bursting, Tanking] will always be 'very unbalanced' but i feel like wanting to balance things because of that one Shaitan that uses BK/Ghost with massive armor and Def/Res while spamming 360's true damage painful grips being too unstoppable...a silly premise.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

I think another option is removing the Gravestone effect where it makes Wraithguard immune to damage. I find this one to be quick and simple personally, because then it requires more strategic thinking when you set down a Wraithguard instead of just slapping it down with a Gravestone immediately, 7 times out of 10.

Gravestone isn't the only issue with it, but it adds to the problem largely. Leaving a lone Wraithguard on the field still accounts for massive loss for your opponent, because they still need to take time out of their day to either destroy it, or account for the drastic drop in damage.

Damn, guess i'll have to be BK or Matador DH if i want to tank, until those change as well because if people are stacking the max of DR/Reduction/Armor possible, they'll go to the next best option, and people will complain about it before going at the next best one again..

People that put all their coins in a single thing [Bursting, Tanking] will always be 'very unbalanced' but i feel like wanting to balance things because of that one Shaitan that uses BK/Ghost with massive armor and Def/Res while spamming 360's true damage painful grips being too unstoppable...a silly premise.

You're going to need to be more specific, there's current four or five of those exact builds running around. Wit aside, there's a huge difference between going DH/BK and Ghost/BK. DH/BK could never in a million years out-tank a Ghost/BK.

It boils down to the stat investment, of which Wraithguard is still king, because it doesn't require any setup. It makes you tanky without the need for defensive stats, such as in the case of abusing it with Shared Pain from Bonder. If you do happen to build for evasion, they easily get to compare with someone with major defensive investment, which doesn't sound very fair, does it?

The skill is simply too versatile, has no real counters, and is beyond efficient if you aren't a Muppet and put it somewhere your opponent can easily reach it.

[Slydria]

I wholeheartedly agree that Wraithguard in it's current iteration is too effective. While I prefer the old version I also don't think it's realistic to expect that we'll revert it, so instead I'd like to pitch a couple of ideas so that dealing with Wraithguard isn't nearly so taxing.

Idea 1: Ghosts must be within 4 Range of the Wraithguard mob to benefit from the DR.

This would mean AoE attacks would be useful for simultaneously dealing with both the Ghost and Wraithguard, as well as making it possible to move the Ghost or the Wraithguard to make the Ghost vulnerable. This could also ease up the Momentum trade where now Ghosts potentially have to spend time getting back into Wraithguard range.)

Idea 2: Ghosts do not gain the benefit of Wraithguard when they're inflicted with Guard Break.

This is mostly to add counters. Guard Break doesn't do too much on it's own at the moment and it's not that accessible but even so, I think it would be neat if a person that would normally be protected by Wraithguard can be a candidate for Guard Break, as well as Guard Break negating it for the duration.)

[Sarinpa1]

Bumping the thread, since it has been many months and it has yet to get touched.

Once again, am I voicing support to drasticaly reduce the range from where WG is effective.

[Autumn]

At least capping off the defensive capability of Ghost via this method would at least start making it at level with the rest of the classes currently, this skill remains highly relevant, not entirely to the fault of deployment, but deployment helps it a bit more now too.