A plea to reconsider Inner Beast changes

[Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam]

Now I'd like to preempt this by saying I'm happy WAR is getting some love. It's always been and always will be my main. It's had some pretty glaring flaws since day 1 (as has every class in some form really) but I'm gonna go against the grain here and state that we've never been in a bad spot like others might claim. I've tanked absolutely everything this game has to offer without any issues and whilst it's clear to everyone we have less potential mitigation (in very high damage situations) than a PLD that is absolutely not a problem. The class has more than enough tools to handle tanking everything up to and including Twintania as is.

Anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time on WAR should pretty easily be able to point out some of the real issues the class has. Holmgang has exceptionally niche usage (resisted by almost everything worth mentioning), Storm's Path was completely useless, Steel Cyclone had very minimal use and Vengeance served mostly as a free stack of wrath rather than a functional buff. There's other minor stuff I could touch on like Bloodbath, but none that really require any noteworthy changes. I'm really glad to see these all receive buffs (Steel Cyclone still needs love, enmity was not the answer), though I think some are a bit overkill. I just wanted to touch on these before getting in to the discussion of Inner Beast to give some perspective.

Now here's my beef - the complete retooling of Inner Beast. Though some may disagree, Inner Beast is the central focus of a Warrior. The entire class and playstyle essentially revolves around Inner Beast; how you manage and build wrath, when you pop it and a number of your cooldowns (Berserk, Internal Release, Infuriate) all involve or lead up to Inner Beast. Proper usage of Inner Beast may be the most defining thing between a bad and a good Warrior.

That said, there's a lot of controversy behind the skill. Misinformation surrounding it spread like wildfire and it became common practice for a WAR to sit comfortably on his/her 5 stacks of wrath, refusing to use them unless Infuriate was available. To put it simply, you are bad if you play like this. Remember when Yoshi-P came out and stated the community was playing WAR wrong? Everyone laughed it off, called him crazy and refused to accept it. The fact of the matter is he was absolutely right. It may not encompass everyone, but the grand majority of Warriors followed this line of thinking despite it very, very rarely being the best way to play. This style of play, higher baseline gear requirements (and lack of CT tier as a bridge) for the class and PLDs ability to scale DR well with content (regardless of gear) absolutely destroyed the communities perception of WAR, despite the class being a very good tank that synergizes very well with PLD in 2 tank situations.

Now I'm going to use Titan as an example here because I imagine it's what most people have experience with, it also seems to be the first real case of people favouring PLDs and writing off WARs entirely. If you haven't reached Titan HM you honestly shouldn't be engaging in any balance discussion, each class is equally good regardless of gear prior to Titan.

Inner Beast is currently used to proactively mitigate damage. Now this can be done one of two ways, either via buffering your HP just before taking a big hit or healing it back quickly after it connects. In an ideal world it will always be the second option, but there's situations where the first is necessary too. When I hit Titan HM I could be healing from anywhere between 1000-2250 or so, with current gear I'm up to 1300-3000, with BIS you can push that to around 1500-3400 (I'm discounting STR+15 accessories and 30 STR allocation but they're an option too). As you can see that's a huge chunk of mitigation, with the option of using it before Mountain Buster connects in an emergency or shortly afterwards (timed carefully alongside heal(s)) to top yourself off. This is really where WAR differs from PLD. With the upcoming changes in 2.1, Warrior is shoehorned in to thinking and playing like a Paladin. You will pop Inner Beast before MB each and every time, healing around 333-750 (500-1200 with BIS) and reducing the MB by 20% damage. At a base level this is slightly more mitigation overall, but in cases of Berserk + Crit (not uncommon with Internal Release) it is a bit worse.

So why am I complaining? The biggest issue for me is loss of identity. No longer do we have to decide the optimal timing to use Inner Beast, you will be popping it just before Rock Buster each and every time. This is exactly how PLD plays (though with more leeway on the timing, with buffs ranging from 10-20 seconds over IBs 6). No longer do we have to have to pay any attention to our healers actions or worry about precisely timing it to minimize lost healing potency, we blindly pop it before the scripted burst damage and go back to our combo rotation.

It's also a big nerf to Infuriate. You're down to one healer, they get locked in a gaol and in just a few seconds Mountain Buster is coming your way, what do you do? A quick Berserk followed by a double Inner Beast and you're back up to full HP just in time to eat the MB. Your healer may need some new underwear but the fight will go on and damn will you feel good about it. Say good bye to situations like these (and I'm sure nearly every tank out there has been in a similar situation at least once), because double IBs are now near worthless. You can prolong the 20% DR to 12 seconds but why bother? Every fight with burst to worry about has downtime between each hit. You're not eating another buster for a while, Cadaceus gives you around 15 seconds between Hood Swings (hardly worthy for saving IB for anyway), Twintania has a whopping 30 seconds between Death Sentences. Wrath stacks in general require absolutely no thought now, there's no trade off to using them.

Another problem is Inner Beasts utility prior to Titan and coil. In larger AoE pulls it may be a minor increase in mitigation in 2.1, but in near every boss up to and including Garuda it will likely lose effectiveness. Whilst DR scales better in heavy hitting content it gets significantly worse in easier stuff. No longer can I shrug off Ifrits 1.6k incinerates, healing back the entirety of it, I'll be reduced to lowering it by... 320 (on top of a 400 heal). It only gets worse from there.

So what do I propose? I honestly think IB was perfect as is, the other skill fixes were more than enough to bring WAR up to par (if not ahead of PLD). It's true PLD has an easier time eating hits in Titan and coil without requiring as much gear, but the gap is not a particularly big one. As a WAR gets more and more gear the gap gets increasingly smaller. Classes should not be identical. There is nothing wrong with PLD being a bit better at soaking up hits. Warrior can put out noticeably more damage, can generate enmity faster (great for adds, turn 4, etc) and buff PLDs damage in cases where it falls back to a DPS/back up tank. Perhaps the proposed buffs alongside the old IB would be too good? In that case you should be toning down those changes, not butchering our one class defining mechanic/skill. Drop Vengeance from the proposed 30% DR to 15-20%, if Storm's Path is a 10% DR change it to 5%. There was so many routes you could have taken when fixing/buffing WAR, but instead of playing to the classes strengths and flavour you're simply turning us in to a PLD with an axe.

This got entirely too long despite trying to avoid elaborating on every point I made, so apologies for the wall. I'd be happy to go in to anything I mentioned further if necessary.

[Vactus]

If you're getting that big a heal from IB then Titan isn't something you normally worry about at all. You overgear it by a lot. A WAR at the Titan stage heals about 1k on avg. Only mildly useful when MB/auto attack hits for over 4k.

Now would I have changed IB? Not like they did, but wrath stacks should be more useful than saving for IB.

[Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam]

If you're getting that big a heal from IB then Titan isn't something you normally worry about at all. You overgear it by a lot. A WAR at the Titan stage heals about 1k on avg. Only mildly useful when MB/auto attack hits for over 4k.

Now would I have changed IB? Not like they did, but wrath stacks should be more useful than saving for IB.

Like I said?

When I hit Titan HM I could be healing from anywhere between 1000-2250

A well timed IB (just before Rock Buster) will mitigate a bit under 2k from RB, a bit over 1k from auto, and around 4-5k from MB. Lets say 7.5k total. That's around 1500 from the DR and 333 from the unbuffed IB for a total of 1800~1850. A buffed/crit IB in 2.0 is around 2250 in just DL gear/Garuda Axe. Depending on the order of operations (when does the DR apply? Does it factor Virus, Rain of Death and 2.1 Storm's Path before or after? How about SS and Adlo?) it could get even worse. Regardless my main point wasn't really whether it was a nerf or buff. It's obviously a big buff for Twintania, debatable in Titan, nerf in most cases before that.

[Amida2k2]

Can't agree more. I have this aching feeling like I'm not going to feel as if I'm playing a WAR anymore, but a pseudo-PLD.

The thought alone makes me sad that our 'identity,' as you called it, is being torn apart at the seams.

[Amas]

Someone is so used to over-gearing that they forget just how bad Inner Beast is.

Protip: Player damage does not scale with mob damage, so tying WAR's external healing requirements (aka healing required after Inner Beast) to player damage rather than mob damage means the class will never be balanced. It'll underperform badly when undergeared and overperform badly when overgeared (which... it still doesn't, go figure).

DR scales with mob damage, so the Inner Beast change is actually spot-on for making sure WAR is viable at all stages of progression and in all encounters.

Out of all the WAR changes, the Inner Beast changes and the de-coupling of the healing bonus from Wrath are the best, far and away. They will do more than anything else to ensure there isn't a massive gulf in performance between WAR and PLD going forward.

[Maqaqa]

On anything that matters id take 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds over any amount of hp (over)healed.
Especially because like Amas said IB isnt THAT good unless fully buffed and loaded on STR.

[ZDamned]

So your entire post/plea can be summed up in 2 sentences:

"I lost my identity(?) from Inner Beast changing from a Dual Purpose -Heal, to a Dual-Purpose Mitigation/Heal."

and

"I don't want to be a Paladin, because that's how they play: Push Button before ability, get hit."

Alright, lets start with the obvious problem. Identity? What are you talking about? This is the biggest loaded sentence I have ever read, becasue you can't be reasoned with. What was your "identity" before? What will it be after?

I call Warrior's a High Enmity sub par Damage Dealer with Double'd HP.

We have no Mitigation at all, and as a tank, the entire purpose of being the focus target is for mitigation. I prefer to tank AK/WP currently with defiance turned off. Why? Because it's useless when you out gear something. Your entire "plea" is totally biased toward content you out gear.
As a Warrior our only technical mitigation is done through the bonus heal potency we receive, and the moment you toss out IB, you also effectively drop your "shield". Without Infuriate, were no better than a High HP Dragoon. If you can't realize this, please switch over to White Mage, or Scholar, and ask a Warrior with 2 pieces of Darklite the rest Hoplite, with a Garuda Axe to tank a Titan for you. BTW, You, as a WHM, need to be in Strategos/1-2 Piece Darklite, and Garuda Wand at best as well.
Then ask a Paladin to put on the exact same gear as that warrior, and do it again. You will immediately notice how different the game plays out.

Next point. Where is this "I don't want to be a Paladin" crap coming from? You don't want to hit your ability before Titan uses MB? You said you already do that to heal up to full. You think it will be worthless to use it after MB? That's because you are getting healed to full, since you mitigated the attack by 20%, and topped yourself off before hand. I don't know how a Paladin accomplishes both of those. Their version of this is to cast Stone Skin on themselves.

Either way, you will be using IB in the same way, but your no longer gimping yourself when you toss it out. Your healers will always be healing you for 20% more, while you as a tank are free to be a TANK, by actively mitigating things. You are now able to choose to "pick up a shield and block" damage, as opposed to bending over and taking it, waiting for your healer to pick up all the slack. I don't see how this is such a terrible thing, since we now have to play proactively, instead of re-actively.

[Phreak]

Mitigation that scales with enemy damage will always be king in content that matters. Who cares if you can't heal to full in trivial content anymore? It's trivial.

The change to IB is great. No longer will it feel like a half gain/half loss for using my stacks to heal myself nor will it require a stupid amount of telepathic communication with my healers to avoid stepping on their toes after I take a large hit.

[Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam]

Not sure why you guys are hung up on me overgearing things. Didn't realize gearing up suddenly deemed me inappropriate to discuss my class. I tanked turns 1-4 in less than full DL. My first run was NQ relic, Hoplite head/body, rest DL. That was plenty to MT Cadaceus, ADS and OT turn 4. Of course that's baseline gear and things go much smoother once you get more, but that's kind of the point in a linear progression MMO. You have 7 months to get full i90, which will again be plenty for the first batch of the next tier of content in 2.2.

I've not forgotten what WAR was like and I acknowledge multiple times in my post that WAR has a higher minimum baseline for gear and that PLDs mitigation scales better in harder hitting stuff (and worse in easier). The thing is that is not a problem in the slightest. Warrior does not need to mitigate exactly as much damage as Paladin. Just as PLD does not need to be able to watch our DPS. The classes only hindrance currently is the communities warped perception of what the class is capable of.

You bring up not having to worry about losing the 20% heal potency, but that was a change to wrath/defiance, not IB. I don't like there being no downside to expending wrath (might aswell just put IB on a 15 sec CD at that point, there's 0 resource management required) but I can live with it. It makes the class easier to play but doesn't adjust the playstyle. The IB change does change it however. We can't burst heal ourselves with 2x IB, we can't post-heal burst to avoid overhealing. PLD mitigates boatloads of damage, Warrior soaked it up and self healed through. Now we just get to mitigate it too. The two tank classes are no longer unique or offer any interesting differences.

[Lex_Luger]

stuff

I hear what you are saying, but I am pretty sure you are over simplifying it. First of all, on average, you're looking at realistically more around 20 seconds most times on IB. Second, you're not taking into account phase changes, and other mechanics that interrupt your timing. I don't know what else you expected them to do in order to keep WAR on par with PLD in terms of viability in the content that matters. It's been proven many, many, many times that self heals will always be weaker and always scale poorly as content gets harder, and be over powered on weak content... aka unbalanced. Fixed % mitigation is one of a few viable, and more easily balanced (this is the key) ways of doing so, while maintaining viability for both tanks.