The answer is better resource management tools. I kinda like the way Sweep+Bash plays on Roland's so maybe a buff to Golden Flense and/or some rollback on Drakon's / new shield at a later date. IMO the Roland's set itself is fine. It suffers the same problem all things Crusader have (crap resource management, unclear design, weak or non-existent non-weapon support legends)
Admittedly it would be REALLY nice for a third set that offers a medium between the two we have. Other classes have 3+ class specific sets by now and Crusader's still sitting at 2.5.
Still Akkarat is going to be stronger, at least until a moment when those two sets can be combined.190% of armor + cc immunity in one button is unbeatable since Rolands isn't solving main issue which is surviveability,and i am shure that Akkarat setup can use those "defence skills" with same effectivnes as Rolands with new set bonus, because of high CDR involved.
Iron Skin outright thrashes AC in terms of raw DR since the scaling on AC is essentially linear while Iron Skin is multiplicative. Permanent Bravery is partywide CC immunity. If you can achieve permanent time stop...
Akkhan's even with significant CDR won't achieve permanent Iron Skin without hosing damage since it requires a minimum 77% CDR. It can get permanent offensive laws. Permanent Bravery would require ~75% CDR, so you're not getting that (last I checked bravery was at 8 second duration after Long Arm because lying game is lying). Permanent Time Stop flat out can't happen.
So no. AC cannot use those defensive skills to anywhere near the effectiveness of Roland's. And Roland's using Sweep/Bash is going to crush the DPS of AC against single targets and small groups. AC will keep its better skill flexibility and extra cheat death.
Basically Akkhan's for support builds / AoE builds, Roland's for bosskillers.
If you can get perma Laws of Hope: Stop Time then rolands will be the go to but I think if we can attain that Blizzard will break it like when DH's right after launch could perma smoke screen and avoid all damage.
Just having permanent Iron Skin offers defensive parity with Akkhan's. It's not like you can't run Indestructible with the set.
The answer is better resource management tools. I kinda like the way Sweep+Bash plays on Roland's so maybe a buff to Golden Flense and/or some rollback on Drakon's / new shield at a later date. IMO the Roland's set itself is fine. It suffers the same problem all things Crusader have (crap resource management, unclear design, weak or non-existent non-weapon support legends)
Admittedly it would be REALLY nice for a third set that offers a medium between the two we have. Other classes have 3+ class specific sets by now and Crusader's still sitting at 2.5.
Iron Skin outright thrashes AC in terms of raw DR since the scaling on AC is essentially linear while Iron Skin is multiplicative. Permanent Bravery is partywide CC immunity. If you can achieve permanent time stop...
Akkhan's even with significant CDR won't achieve permanent Iron Skin without hosing damage since it requires a minimum 77% CDR. It can get permanent offensive laws. Permanent Bravery would require ~75% CDR, so you're not getting that (last I checked bravery was at 8 second duration after Long Arm because lying game is lying). Permanent Time Stop flat out can't happen.
So no. AC cannot use those defensive skills to anywhere near the effectiveness of Roland's. And Roland's using Sweep/Bash is going to crush the DPS of AC against single targets and small groups. AC will keep its better skill flexibility and extra cheat death.
Basically Akkhan's for support builds / AoE builds, Roland's for bosskillers.
Just having permanent Iron Skin offers defensive parity with Akkhan's. It's not like you can't run Indestructible with the set.
The damage output was already massively higher than Akkan's for a sweep build.