Role Feedback: Tank

[Atreus]

The following is a collaboration of Koltik Morrel, Suhr Zarek, Drpoo Loop, and Atreus Auditore


This has been updated for path 4.06a and significantly trimmed to place more emphasis on more important things and improve readability.


Dark Knight

Saw a slight nerf to Power Slash's effect, though I'm not going to lie, it did nothing to DRK in the grand scheme of things...

As it stands, is the most well-rounded tank capable of 3 types of CC, a powerful 3,000 HP shield with 50% uptime and no GCD requirement, a powerful 2,000 potency attack with no resource scaling, and arguably the best self-sustain that does not require extra GCDs (like PLD) and can be used every 3 GCDs (opposed to WAR’s 6).

Both of its combos push out a total of 3250 potency before traits/Sole Survivor, which is higher than both PLD and WAR.

Everything in its toolkit can be used both for itself and the party and its entire kit flows well with each other, utilizing all of its resources (MP, TP, blood gauge) quite fluidly.

As opposed to calling for nerfs, we should use it as a basis to elevate the other tanks, however if nerfs needed to occur, it should likely go to increasing the Blackest Night’s cooldown to reduce its 50% uptime.


Paladin

Okay, so 4.06a saw a straight nerf to PLD. It is an undeniable nerf and the only perceivable positive you can consider is the 5% extra mitigation from Shield Oath with Cover. You lose 5% damage extra as well, making this an adjustment rather than a nerf or buff.

The CC nerf to PLD's stun was SUBSTANTIAL. The 1 second trimmed off of Shield Bash is very noticeable and has made PLD CC objectively worse than DRK. I cannot conjure a reason as to why this was done. This was almost as foolish as the Hallowed Ground nerf.

Cover was nerfed as expected. So with two nerfs, PLD saw no exchange, so now it's time address Clemency and PLD's undeniably weak self-sustain.

Suggestions (the following are options, they are not necessarily all to be combined)

• Requiescat: increase base damage from 500 to 1000 and adjust MP scaling from 400% to 200%.

1. This will increase the move’s reliability while not increasing maximum potency. It simply means the move can still achieve at least 1000 potency at 0 MP (which is like all the time).

• Clemency: BUFF IT. Improve potency. Allow the 50% bonus to apply to self-casts as well.

1. Going to put this into simple terms. The potency of Clemency does not justify the stop-and-cast nature of it. It requires abandoning forward pressure on enemy teams for a lackluster, GCD heal. If Cover and CC have been nerfed, then the only logical thing is to improve Clemency.

• Rage of Halone: add a 500 or 750 MP gain.

1. To encourage more use of the move while not contributing to MP drought.

• Cover: It already got nerfed, so... mission accomplished?

1. We suggested a recast increase, but an Oath cost had a similar effect.

• Hallowed Ground: … put CC immunity back on it, ffs.

1. The changes to allow things such as stacks, Aetherflow, etc. to still be accrued through HG are completely understandable, however CC on the PLD is not. Who even complained about that? The cooldown for HG is huge and lasts all of 5 seconds (same as TBN, usable every 10 seconds). Like what even is this move.

Warrior

Just got a pretty nice buff with 4.06a, but definitely could use work. It's no longer a literal trainwreck, just somewhat of one.. As opposed to PLD and DRK, it only utilizes two resources instead of 3. The only current use for TP is Tomahawk. The WAR then needs to decide whether to use beast gauge for DPS, CC, or self-sustain where the DRK can do all of it, simultaneously, without stepping on each other’s toes.

It takes 6 GCDs (outside of Inner Release) to acquire the 50 beast gauge needed to Inner Beast, for a 1500 potency self-heal. It takes DRK 3 GCDs to gain 1250.

Suggestions

• Onslaught: either remove the beast gauge cost or switch its required resource to TP.

1. Not too sure about this one anymore, as Onslaught now has the effect of stun (which is a WIN for WAR)

• Upheaval: give same treatment to Requiescat above, increase base damage to 1000 and adjust HP scaling from 400% to 200%.

1. As before, this means low HP can still yield a minimum of 1000 damage.

Kindly discuss and try to include what mode(s) you feel would be impacted the most (either positively or negatively) so as little as possible is left out.

[Praesul]

Dark Knight
I actually really like how DRK works this time around. I kinda miss the "debuffer" status it had in HW, but now it really is more of a hybrid PLD/WAR. It has tools that both the other tanks have, but it can't use them consistently. Sole survivor is good, but it doesn't have the uptime of Butcher's Block, you could keep it up on a priority target and really build up the pressure, but as a DRK you have to be a bit careful when you use Sole Survivor and on who, lest you just waste it. And while the Power Slash debuff is powerful, it doesn't have any damage reduction like PLD's Halone and also doesn't debuff healing power, just healing recieved. I like that it's useful to put on any target regardless, you'll always get something out of it whereas with Power Slash if you put it on the healer when they're not the target, it does nothing, and if you place it on a non-priority target, you gain no benefit either.

I also think people really overvalued Unmend. I don't feel like it was worth spamming on cooldown even though the option was definitely there, I think it just came off as very effective because all people have played are low level matches where people recklessly run in and don't pay any attention to their own team's healer. If anything spamming it was an unnecessary MP drain. It meant less uptime on Power Slash since you needed to recover MP with Souleater more. Now it forces players to use the ability properly and time it for the right moment, while also allowing them to make more use of the Power Slash debuff with less MP strain.

Oh and Suhr brought up that the DRK stun is 750 potency instead of the other two's 500. This is...odd, and should probably be brought down to 500 just for parity. It's really not a huge deal either way though it's just like ????

Paladin
I'll start off by saying I have the least experience with PLD this season. So I'm not gonna offer anything specific, just that I think they're in a pretty good spot. Any adjustments made to it I think, should be minor, otherwise being able to cover + heal people constantly seems like it'll be too over the top. You know...Kinda like last season. So if we're going to increase PLD's healing power or damage, it has to come at a cost, and nerfing cover a bit I think would be a fine way to do it. Especially since almost every GCD they use builds gauge, so they're not starved very often. I do agree that the CC change in HG was stupid. I'm assuming that instead of actually coding it differently to allow debuffs and resource spenders/generators to go through, because maybe that's more difficult to code than we think, they just went ahead and flipped a switch that kept the invincibility but allowed all detrimental effects to go through.

Warrior
Two things that stand out to me are....

Maim: Why is this 750 potency? My guess is the devs wanted to keep WAR combo potency low because Butcher's block is so high + has a nice debuff on it, but I doubt a 250 potency boost on Maim would be make or break. WAR is supposed to be the damage tank, and while having all of their combos do the most damage in comparison to the other two tanks AND having access to a potent debuff and burst damage would be overwhelming, just a small boost on Maim wouldn't hurt.

Storm's Path: This should heal, just like it's pve counterpart. WAR is the squishiest of all 3 tanks, having basically no on demand mitigation. Defiance doesn't reduce damage taken, inner beast comes with a hefty cost and is only available in defiance, and holmgang is also a CC tool on top of invincibility. A small heal on Path would be an okay change to make sure they're able to survive a bit more without having to commit too many tools to it, as for what percentage it should heal I'm not sure. They should be able to survive, but not as well as the other two. It's a tradeoff for the damage they deal. Also if storm's path heals, I feel like that would make the cost of inner beast justified, since using Storm's Path is your resource builder you want to be using it the most anyway. THAT or scratch the heal idea and have it generate 25 gauge instead of 20, this means a fell cleave or inner beast every two combos if you want to selfishly deal damage since two combos is exactly the amount of time for butcher's block to fall off, and with how dyanmic feast matches can be it's rare you'll actually be able to do 2 storm's path combos back to back without butcher's block falling off. It would also help survivability in defiance.

Or we could just make storm's path heal for 100% but only in defiance. This means if you want to survive, you're really switching gears and sacrificing your damage to do it.

So pick your Storm's Path poison.

As for some other issues...

Onslaught: I definitely agree that Onslaught having a gauge cost is silly. 20 gauge might not seem like much but it really limits your uses over time since gauge for WAR = damage AND survivability so every time you use Onslaught you lose out on both. Either increase the cooldown and take away the gauge cost, or leave the cooldown as-is but add a hefty TP cost (higher than tomahawk because onslaught is damage and an interrupt)

As a not-so-serious suggestion, I think it'd be pretty sick if Onslaught also stunned but only if your target makes contact with a wall. Obviously some numbers would have to be changed around (like the distance someone flies back) but I think it's a cool concept since it gives a WAR presence, when one is on the enemy team you really want to stay away from walls or be careful when you line of sight 'cause it could really cost you.

Upheaval: I think Upheaval is perfectly fine as-is, especially if some of our suggestions go through. Upheaval is a pure damage ability, and WAR already deals really good damage on their own AND increases their team's damage. Giving them more damage output seems scary to me, since Upheaval doesn't need to do much damage to be useful. Perhaps lower the gauge cost or lower the cooldown, since really you just want it to be available to help burst someone down with your team's damage dealers rather than wanting it to do a ton of damage on its own. WAR has high GCD damage when they've got butcher's block and fell cleave ready, and can do a ton of GCD damage when Inner Release is up, so increasing their off GCD damage doesn't seem neccessary.

Tomahawk: I think it's fine. WAR shouldn't have amazing CC imo. It should have enough for them + their team to secure a kill, which holmgang and Onslaught already do. If we make adjustments to Onslaught (make it more powerful, or available more often due to a resource cost change) that would allow WAR to peel while keeping Tomahawk as a chasing ability.

[Atreus]

Paladin
Any adjustments made to it I think, should be minor, otherwise being able to cover + heal people constantly seems like it'll be too over the top. You know...Kinda like last season. So if we're going to increase PLD's healing power or damage, it has to come at a cost, and nerfing cover a bit I think would be a fine way to do it. Especially since almost every GCD they use builds gauge, so they're not starved very often. I do agree that the CC change in HG was stupid. I'm assuming that instead of actually coding it differently to allow debuffs and resource spenders/generators to go through, because maybe that's more difficult to code than we think, they just went ahead and flipped a switch that kept the invincibility but allowed all detrimental effects to go through.

Agreed. Whatever improvement comes should be at the cost of Cover. It's like having one mechanic that's excellent paired with another that's clunky and unintuitive. The unintuitive nature of Requiescat is that it's meant to flow with other abilities but it doesn't. It only flows with Holy Spirit if anything and does nothing to assist with MP drought.

Then you have Hallowed Ground which... why even bother.



On Warrior, I kind of changed my mind about Inner Beast. The self-heal should probably equal or exceed Souleater, as Souleater also yields MP, which contributes to more Blackest Nights. HMM.

[Mirch]

Give war stun

[Atreus]

Give war stun

Should probably tie that to Onslaught instead of what it is now.

[Kyrph]

Should probably tie that to Onslaught instead of what it is now.

I would like to see that actually and possible make onslaught cost TP as well cause it feels bad costing beast gauge.

[AdamZ]

Can someone explain how WAR is "Literal trainwreck." (I agree) Yet everyone makes these comments like Praesul (sorry for single you out, just using yours as example really as they are in this thread): "WAR already deals really good damage on their own AND increases their team's damage." and "hey should be able to survive, but not as well as the other two. It's a tradeoff for the damage they deal."

If the damage WAR's can output are actually material better then the other two, then it would not be a trainwreck. The issue is, its burst is not really that materially better pally (if it is played that way) and/or its sustained damage seems less then DRK.

[Atreus]

I would like to see that actually and possible make onslaught cost TP as well cause it feels bad costing beast gauge.

Yep, already covered that in the OP. Little too much being used by the beast gauge.

snip

If I understand correctly, then yes I agree. I don't think the damage it does justifies the complete lack of utility and reliance on beast gauge for its decision-making.

[Praesul]

Can someone explain how WAR is "Literal trainwreck." (I agree) Yet everyone makes these comments like Praesul (sorry for single you out, just using yours as example really as they are in this thread): "WAR already deals really good damage on their own AND increases their team's damage." and "hey should be able to survive, but not as well as the other two. It's a tradeoff for the damage they deal."

If the damage WAR's can output are actually material better then the other two, then it would not be a trainwreck. The issue is, its burst is not really that materially better pally (if it is played that way) and/or its sustained damage seems less then DRK.

A job having one strength doesn't mean it's balanced.

[Synestra]

Can someone explain how WAR is "Literal trainwreck."

Losing all mitigation and self-heals made WAR really lackluster in SB sure it might still have damage(still A LOT less than it used to be)but i rather take self sustain over raw damage any day, currently its impossible to do same things that you used to do in HW due lack of said self sustain and that might be reason why some says WAR is trainwreck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8ohecoTvmI

You just can't do stuff like that anymore ;___;