Subj, I suggest to put armor from Safeguard intro Haven and move shield stuff intro shield passive. That would make Haven slightly better for ppl w/o shields and wont change much for shield users, as they tend to max both anyway.
I actually don’t see any reason to max Safeguard, it’s a one-pointer to me. If they made that change I would simply not play Oathkeeper because it already has too many skills that are useful. All Presence of Virtue line, Resilience and Ascension are must-max for my builds because I prefer tanky playstyle, and your change would just make my builds hungry by 10 more points, which is absurd since I always focus on as many items with + to skills as possible. Mostly +5 to main class, up to +5 for secondary. So I totally disagree with you.
Another thing, if “wont change much for shield users, as they tend to max both anyway.” then I don’t see any issues with leaving it as it is right now. You probably won’t need the extra HP or healing from Haven if you go for massive stats in damage, as most of Crucible builds don’t even bother maxing Pneumatic Burst, Blood of Dreeg or Word or Renewal - they just pick it for the damage or OA in case of BoD, but it still doesn’t get max points.
Aegis is starved of character-wide flat damage bonuses because they typically only affect weapons and not shields. So Safeguard is crucial for any build that does a lot of shield damage. It also has some nice bonuses in addition to the flat damage. Not a 1 pointer at all in many cases.
It’s true OK has a lot of useful stuff; the trick is to optimise it as much as possible because it’s impossible to max everything.
As for the OP’s suggestion, it does make sense but it won’t be totally trivial to implement because Safeguard is 12 points whereas Haven is 10 points, so there will be some rebalancing required.
I don’t recall saying “safeguard is a one pointer and will never be maxed by anyone”, heck, I don’t even see it in my comment, so I don’t even understand what you’re saying. You simply imply I said that no one would ever max that skill while I said something totally different.
Oh, well thanks for clarifying. The OP did say “tend to” which means in his mind you’d be one of those exceptional people that wouldn’t at least soft-max both SG and Haven. Now, the question is, how many other people would be as exceptional as you are such that “tend to” would be false. I’m not sure that there’d be enough people. And in any case the amount of those exceptional people are probably less than the amount of people that would like armor on Haven instead of shield bonuses.
If it’s gonna be maxed anyway for any shield build, and dual wield, two handed and off-hand builds won’t max it anyway, why does it need to be switched? Switching this would basically NOT change anything for MOST players and dual, two handed and off-hand users would not even care wtf is going on with it as they basically go for flat damage only, which Haven doesn’t grant. Switching that would only make tanky players spend more points, nothing more.
I can go with it on and on, there’s nothing good coming when it’s changed as the OP wants it to, some people would only have to spend additional points while most people will not be affected at all.
Uh, no.
For non-shield users, if they previously thought Haven wasn’t valuable enough, the OP’s change would make it more valuable. This presents harder choices for the player and makes the game more interesting. If they thought Haven was valuable enough, they’ll get a buff. Unfortunately none of us on this thread so far knows whether this buff is necessary or not, because we’re not playtesters. I guess we’ll see when FG is actually released.
Safeguard is shield only. 
My guess is that the OP wants Haven to be more inviting to non-shield users, which only benefit from the flat health and healing increased. Shields will go regardless for Safeguard and Haven, so putting the flat armor of Safeguard to Haven and put the shield stuff of Haven on Safeguard will make Haven more inviting for non-shield users and not change much for shield users.
Believe it or not, I know. Why? Simply because I saw people use Word of Renewal and give one point to the first modifier, which grants HP.
Here a comparison for you:
The only stat non-shield users would go for is the healing increase, which won’t even affect most of builds because they either have no life steal or have enough lifesteal to withstand massive damage, and vs. bosses+ Haven won’t have any effect since it’ll be reduced by at least 85%, so the healing increase is 1.95% while the average lifesteal would be 2.25, so 2.293875 lifesteal. No change at all. So swapping those would literally change nothing for non-shield users while making all defensive/hyper-defensive builds suffer. Moreover, people don’t pick Vigor and it doesn’t even eat energy, while Haven does, and energy is again a valuable source in Crucible.
The reason why I talk most about Crucible because the vast majority of Crucible players lost their minds and think it’s the main game, and in the main campaign you don’t even need too much HP or healing. I’ve never needed healing on a non-defense character in the normal campaign if I had a slight amount of life steal, HP regen or one of the 3 healing buffs.
Since you’re an exceptional guy, let’s look at the situation purely from your perspective. You don’t play Crucible and you want to create a hyper-defensive build focusing on shield defences while not caring too much about health, healing or armor.
If the OP’s suggestion were implemented, the only change is that you’d max Safeguard instead of Haven. You’d gain some damage at the expense of health and healing. But, in your own words, “in the main campaign you don’t even need too much HP or healing.” The X factor here is whether you’d play Shattered Realm. So, tell us, what would you theoretically do in FG? We need to know so that we can cater to your every wish.
Why would I pick damage when I’ll have about 2k OA anyway? Tankiness is all about retaliation damage from now on, so the flat damage doesn’t do anything at all. If the skill added 100 damage, then I’d probably get 10 damage from it because I’ll be unable to hit my targets too often. Haven already gives two stats a tank would like, shield defenses and health. Armor is not needed at all for a tank because you usually end up at 4k anyway. Tanky builds may need some healing increase if they have weak(er) healing skills, but in most cases one health potion every minute (if you’re fighting a super boss for 10 days) is enough (it does affect potions too, so increased healing is quite useful if you want even more HP).
What will I be doing? Shattered Realm, maybe. Super bosses for sure. Right now Safeguard is rather offensive, so making it have defensive stats is pointless because then you’re forced to waste more skill points, as I already said. There will be builds that don’t even need Safeguard because they deal enough damage and are short on points, but they need healing increase because their defenses are not too great, then what? If it was swapped, you’d be FORCED to pick Safeguard on any shield character while being also forced to pick Haven, because both HP and healing increase is important (aside of Crucible).
I’ve already explained enough, even you seem to already admit that there’s no point of swapping it as you said even retaliation builds need flat damage (read your own message and think about a tanky build in FG, it’s retaliation).
You’ll see the point when playing aegis
@ptiro. That would be really shitty for shield builds where safeguard is not mandatory like non aegis and i doubt it will be implemented. Or at least I hope it won’t be
I theorycrafted an Aegis build and still didn’t max it. It just doesn’t look too good to me to pick flat damage, I rather get some more defense or another skill. Just preferences.
Not sure why. Lets think what builds would use both and what none of them in current state and after change.
Pre-change:
1)Non-shield builds.
0 points intro Safeguard 0 points intro Haven. Probably 1 pointer in Haven if you have a lot of +skills in it.
2)Shield builds with shield dmg
Max Safeguard, softcap Haven.
3)Shield builds w/o shild dmg
1 pointer intro Safeguard, softcap Haven.
After change:
1)Non-shield builds.
Depend on %armor bonuses. I think of at least a few builds that want to invest intro Haven.
2)Shield builds with shield dmg
Max Safeguard, max / onepointer Haven
3)Shield builds w/o shield dmg
Max/softcap Safeguard or onepointer in safeguard. max Haven or onepointer in haven.
@ptiro you are looking at it based on bias over some builds you want to work better. Overall the change is an improvement for some and unfair nerf for many others. Whe you’ll play the game and be skill starved you’ll understand.
@user name. Based on theory crafting foun can’t see the 500K crits you do with Virtue, per example:)
But you can see if you’ll be durable. I don’t actually care that much about damage, honestly. If I pick a shield, I want defense, if I pick an off-hand, two handed weapon or dual wield, I look for damage.
I fail to see the unfairness of “nerf” for “many” others. Every single non-shield build will gain extra choice on where to put skill points. That include:
Two hander, DW, Casters.
As shield build you only loose some armor/health if you decide to ignore Haven, or leave it as onepointer.
- When you’ll play OK more you’ll never say this. Haven is better than 1 pt wonder for more than just health
Take Safeguard at face value. Like Ranged expertise but for whiled instead of ranged and instead of AS you have armor. It’s great for some builds less for others.
You can argue for more flat armor on it and that’s fair imo.
I think I failed to make it clear T_T
I try again.
Right now shield build get :
128 armor from 12 points in Safeguard.
10 block chance and 30% blocked dmg from 10 points in Heaven.
None shield gain:
Nothing
After the change you gain
10 block chance and 30% blocked dmg on Safeguard
128 armor on Heaven
but everyone get 128 armor on Heaven.
Its a win-win situation. For everyone. It make sense, it gona make Heaven better