Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You could actually do it in 7 GCDs, once every second Berserk. You have potentially two free stacks if you have access to both RI and Vengeance, so you only need to make up three stacks over four GCDs.

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This actually brings up another unintuitive part: Popping defensive cooldowns to get a offensive benefit. I'll give Raw Intuition the benefit of the doubt (as its 90s cooldown syncs up with Berserk), but most of this comes off more as Warriors trying to justify an unintended rotation that they found that gives them 3.3 more potency per second than using Fracture at that point by saying that SE (well known for being caught off guard by various things) as having intended it. A 3.3 per second potency gain isn't really something worrying balance wise despite the gut feeling that 3 500 potency attacks doing 50% more damage is broken.

I don't mind sacrificing Raw Intuition for Fell Cleave, because it's rarely a necessity. I mind sacrificing Vengeance for fell cleave, because that's a really good mitigation tool I might need later.

I also oppose anyone that says "real tanks don't even need tank stance, they can do everything in dps stance", because random PUGs are always demanding that you pull as many people as possible, and that is not something you can do in DPS stance.

*Mobs will outlast all of your cooldowns combined.
*Mobs will deal significant damage, even with cooldowns up.
*Threat tables will be unpredictable, because you can't tell who's getting hit by splash damage and who's being burned down by single target DPS.

And then there were all the times I died in A9 because the healers didn't know just how big the main boss could hit.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

unintended rotation

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Problem is we have no idea what's intended and what isn't in this game. We can only assume what their intention is from the way the skills are described, such as how BotD is supposed to work and so on. While you can claim that there was never any intent for the 3FC opener to exist, the fact that RI is to be used aggressively is pretty easy to divine from the fact it gives you a stack, and a stack is always an aggressive tool. I'd also be surprised if during testing for 3.0 they didn't come across the triple fell cleave during regular play.

btw, Fracture will be good when you can prove in-game that it leads to more damage, because as far as the only reliable source for damage charts go (fflogs of course) there is very little use of Fracture in top kills of savage content. At most, it's used as a way of delaying a fell cleave or a decimate for more damage without wasting a stack.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

True... you can 3FC if you trigger Berserk mid-combo after a Heavy Swing, but that is something fairly easy to miss as it requires a not quite intuitive action (Holding a Fell Cleave for 1 or 2 GCDs). But my point pretty much still stands as outside of that corner case 9GCD 3FC is only possible due to Client Server latency before getting a 2.22 gcd. This is similar to the ability for Paladins to squeeze a 13th GCD into FoF before getting a 2.3 gcd.



Which should be impossible prior to a 2.22 GCD (9 GCDs in 20 seconds). Client/Server latency is actually what lets us do 9 GCD Berserks and 13 GCD Fight or Flights before getting the "proper" amount of Skill Speed due to latency giving the buffs roughly an additional second to their durations.

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You don't need but the head of the 9th GCD. For a laggy 9-hit, all you really need are some 8.2 GCDs, or a 2.43 GCD. With zero latency it'd just be 20 seconds divided 8 GCDs + Berserk's animation time.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

When MTs were suddenly forced to change because dps checks got tighter and people finally caught on, they lashed out against it, which is really what that thread was about.

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Between design and pacing, the devs largely expected raids to basically grind out tomes and kill what they could while the DPS geared up to do meet the checks of A3S and beyond. Instead, what happened was that raids decided to use tank DPS to circumvent that (basically taking a shortcut) using something the devs didn't really foresee. Much like they didn't foresee raids using healer DPS to get clears faster than intended during ARR.

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People tried to make DRK into a lot of things that it wasn't, based on whatever preconceptions they came in with. I'm personally delighted with how it turned out. Weapons are generally either one-handed or two-handed, so outside of a three-handed weapon user, it sounds like you were against the idea of another tank.

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Not really. See: BST, SAM, MTK, DNC.

As far as "what DRK wasn't", we can go back to the old discussions after the job was announced. A job known for sacrificing HP to deal high damage (FFIV, FFVIII, FFX-2) and having built in drains (FFTactics, FFXI) was turned into a tank. The precedent for a darkness-themed tank does exist (Everquest, WoW, Lineage II to name three games), but let's at least recognize that some expected the job to be a DPS because they wanted to be the guy with the huge sword dealing high DPS. And frankly speaking, I can't blame anyone who felt disappointed at how DRK has been implemented. And yes, I can admit I'm a little worried that SE might try to pull this again with RDM, since much like DRK it is a highly requested job.

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I find MT interesting, but outside of very specific fights, PLD's gameplay generally doesn't cut it for me.

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Which is fine. I don't expect everyone to fall in love with PLD or to find it appealing enough to make it their main. We'd all play the same job if that were the case.

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You talk about tanks "pretending to be dps" disparagingly, as if they're sacrificing their ability to tank by outputting more damage.

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If you're dropping Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance while still taking hits to the face, you are sacrificing the mitigation that comes with your primary role (to badly paraphrase the legendary Alamo, "sheild oeth iz 4 tank, swoard oeth iz 4 fite"). As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay". It's when it starts spilling over to the other tanks and leads to belittling others as a result that I feel I have to voice my concerns and opinions on the matter.

To me, judging tanks by how much damage they deal is the wrong way to approach raid comps and player dynamics. It's like judging a construction worker by how much they know about the business accounts of the company they work for. It's unreasonable and irrelevant to the duties of that person.

That being said, damage to a tank is a means of holding aggro, and as such a tank should use the skills in their arsenal when possible. As a PLD, as I said before, it's rotating and prioritizing Rage of Halone, Goring Blade and Royal Authority while doing the rest of the things expected of the tank; in short, we already have a gameplay model that encourages maximizing damage output without engaging in unintended behaviors that we aren't even designed for.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

It's only fair that raids account for the total DPS everyone can bring, it shows how capable you are as a tank at understanding how to time your CDs properly and effectively do damage while tanking, with or without tank stance alike. This shows the level of competency if you are into raiding. What's funny is that a lot of veteran tank raiders had been doing DPS ever since the 2.x period. Now this concept is everywhere because those tanks can get away with it, but what does it leave to the new tanks trying to raid? They can't replicate this due to the skillgap. This is just how it is. People need to understand that this concept only works at the top. IF you don't like the idea, you can just do whatever you want anyway.

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Problem is, shit rolls downhill. The stuff done at the top trickles down to the bottom in time. As I've mentioned in the past, this is why during ARR I had WARs say to my face that they couldn't tank HM Garuda or Titan when the problem was in Coil. The problems of the 1% become everyone's problem.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

WAR had a variable stance cost in 2.x. Changing from DPS non-stance to a stack-retaining DPS stance two levels later would seem to be purposeful removal of that cost on a theme that SE felt should WARs should push over the added levels.

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I disagree. Deliverance was added because it makes no sense for WAR to not have access to its job-specific resource when not tanking. Sure, Wrath is one-dimensional as a resource, but it sucks to go from having the Wrath mechanic while tanking to having nothing after the tank swap. This is why I agree with the idea of WAR getting Deliverance (I was quite happy for WAR when it was first announced).

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And why remove a huge portion of interesting gameplay from every other tank, pigeon-holing all any "skillful play" tank into a single job?

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We often talk about varying gameplay, and part of that is differing levels of input needed to do the thing the job is intended for. Not every job should be built around the same level of input; some should be simple like PLD, while others should be more button-intensive like DRG and MCH. That's the idea behind what I've suggested.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay".

It's unreasonable and irrelevant to the duties of that person.

problems of the 1% become everyone's problem.

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To address these three points in particular:

Tank stance will always be dropped by tanks in order to do more damage if they so wish. Unless you wholesale nerf the base to terribad DPS you will still have people dropping stance to do more damage. I'd say that the choice to drop your tank stance is about as ingrained into tanking now as the shield stance itself.

Secondly, if you're a chartered accountant who happens to work construction, you better know how to do basic math, and DPSing as tanks is some of the most braindead activities in the game. You should at least try in difficult content to be better than the bare minimum. Again, doesn't matter in casual content but in savage content it does. I can't imagine the frustration of being in a static where the tanks did ~500 DPS and said that because they were holding aggro everything was fine on the 5% enrages. You're asking for blood from a stone (even better DPS) when you're doing the least work out there. Talk about getting carried though Savage.

Finally, if trickles down because it's the best way to do it. Anybody can try and do the suboptimal thing, and it might work, but not for everyone (the best thing can be the easiest thing in terms of DPS), or at all (running DRK/PLD and expecting to have efficient burn of adds in A9S). You expect people to make lives harder for them because you think they should be more hardcore? What are you, some elitist?! /s

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

This actually brings up another unintuitive part: Popping defensive cooldowns to get a offensive benefit.

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This has been around since ARR. In fact, back then, people were using an Unchained opener even as OT to gain access to a crit bonus from Defiance without the damage penalty as well as to gain the damage boost from IB on their first Berserk window. It was your responsibility to stay behind the MT in enmity if you did this, however.

It probably was far less optimal than having the WAR actually open as MT and swap later on, especially on fights which were clearly designed for this (T12 springs to mind with it's Vengeance IB opener), but hey, everyone was just starting to learn the game back then. Some ignorance and prejudice is natural.

3 years and one expansion later is a long time for a "mistake" to go unnoticed, though.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

I don't mind sacrificing Raw Intuition for Fell Cleave, because it's rarely a necessity. I mind sacrificing Vengeance for fell cleave, because that's a really good mitigation tool I might need later.

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RI is actually extremely powerful. Every parry proc is 20% mitigation. RI lasts for 20 seconds and has a 90 second recast. As long as you're uncrittable (Awareness), this is a physical version of Rampart. As an example, if you use RI and Vengeance correctly, you do not need Defiance or IB for the entirity of A11S.

There's really no question of "I might need this later." The fights are scripted. Either you need it later, or you don't. If you do, you design your offensive rotation around that, so that you gain the stack at a useful moment. If you don't, you don't.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Between design and pacing, the devs largely expected raids to basically grind out tomes and kill what they could while the DPS geared up to do meet the checks of A3S and beyond. Instead, what happened was that raids decided to use tank DPS to circumvent that (basically taking a shortcut) using something the devs didn't really foresee. Much like they didn't foresee raids using healer DPS to get clears faster than intended during ARR.

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There was an interview in May 2015 in which the devs explained that "the minimum ilvl for a fight is calculated from the basic dps of the four dps and two tanks and cut by 15%." This was the case in coil, and was also the case going into HW. Also, note that a lot of early progression groups challenge content at below the minimum ilvl. So healer dps plays a role as well. Also, every group is slightly different. If your MT is a bit of a slouch, perhaps having a really skilled SCH can compensate. Of course, in the best groups, every member actually carries their own weight. Sickness must be purged and all that.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

As far as "what DRK wasn't", we can go back to the old discussions after the job was announced. A job known for sacrificing HP to deal high damage (FFIV, FFVIII, FFX-2) and having built in drains (FFTactics, FFXI) was turned into a tank. The precedent for a darkness-themed tank does exist (Everquest, WoW, Lineage II to name three games), but let's at least recognize that some expected the job to be a DPS because they wanted to be the guy with the huge sword dealing high DPS. And frankly speaking, I can't blame anyone who felt disappointed at how DRK has been implemented. And yes, I can admit I'm a little worried that SE might try to pull this again with RDM, since much like DRK it is a highly requested job.

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Sure. Some people wanted to see it equipped with a Botanist's sidearm as well. You can't cater to everyone. I don't blame anyone who is disappointed by their own expectations, but I do wish that they would move forward past the issue, two years down the line.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

If you're dropping Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance while still taking hits to the face, you are sacrificing the mitigation that comes with your primary role (to badly paraphrase the legendary Alamo, "sheild oeth iz 4 tank, swoard oeth iz 4 fite"). As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay". It's when it starts spilling over to the other tanks and leads to belittling others as a result that I feel I have to voice my concerns and opinions on the matter.

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Hey, hey, hey, now. Don't misquote Alamo. I'm pretty sure that when he grandly announced "sum durids is bare," he included a picture of an armoured vehicle with a giant cannon, not some scaredy-cat cowering behind their shield. Don't underestimate how storng we can b [sic].

I think that this particular point is very similar to the cleric stance debate, and why it never gets resolved: you have two sides arguing completely different points, without any clash. I don't personally mind if you want to tank with a single combo RoH rotation in Shield Oath. You can play however you want, and that is your right. What you're not going to do is convince the player base that you're somehow playing at the same skill level as a player who does everything that you're doing performance-wise, while maximising their dps. You have the right to play how you want, but other players have the right to decide whether they want you on their team. Reciprocity.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

That being said, damage to a tank is a means of holding aggro, and as such a tank should use the skills in their arsenal when possible. As a PLD, as I said before, it's rotating and prioritizing Rage of Halone, Goring Blade and Royal Authority while doing the rest of the things expected of the tank; in short, we already have a gameplay model that encourages maximizing damage output without engaging in unintended behaviors that we aren't even designed for.

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I'm a bit baffled with this part. If damage output is irrelevant to a tank, then why are you using RA or GB? RoH maximises enmity and mitigation. You're actually losing enmity and mitigation by using these other combos.

Isn't Fracture like a 300 potency attack after you get the 30s Trait? The 100 basic, plus 10 ticks of 20. If we consider Maim and Berserk it would reach the point of a non-buffed Fell Cleave. Should be more DPS in some point.

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Nevermind, a post in the previous page said how you must abandom Fracture to get third Fell Cleave within Berserk, no one would bother to replace a buffed Fell Cleave for a buffed Fracture. I suppose Fracture's place could be only outside the Berserk window.

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Originally Posted by Ahrniel

Nevermind, a post in the previous page said how you must abandom Fracture to get third Fell Cleave within Berserk, no one would bother to replace a buffed Fell Cleave for a buffed Fracture. I suppose Fracture's place could be only outside the Berserk window.

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You can fit Fracture in your Berserk and still get the 3x FC as long as you have like 500+ SkS (forget the exact number, been far above it for too long). My point was that even if you're not at that SkS threshold and have 0 latency you can still get off 3x FC by just removing Fracture.

Also yeah Fracture is 300 potency, and it's affected by Maim. However, only the initial damage from applying Fracture is affected by SE, the actual DoT ticks aren't.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Hey, hey, hey, now. Don't misquote Alamo. I'm pretty sure that when he grandly announced "sum durids is bare," he included a picture of an armoured vehicle with a giant cannon, not some scaredy-cat cowering behind their shield. Don't underestimate how storng we can b [sic].

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fite iz durids :^)

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Originally Posted by Duelle

If you're dropping Shield Oath/Grit/Defiance while still taking hits to the face, you are sacrificing the mitigation that comes with your primary role (to badly paraphrase the legendary Alamo, "sheild oeth iz 4 tank, swoard oeth iz 4 fite"). As I've said, I'd have no problem with this if it were exclusive to one job in the guise of "unique gameplay". It's when it starts spilling over to the other tanks and leads to belittling others as a result that I feel I have to voice my concerns and opinions on the matter.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think that this particular point is very similar to the cleric stance debate, and why it never gets resolved: you have two sides arguing completely different points, without any clash. I don't personally mind if you want to tank with a single combo RoH rotation in Shield Oath. You can play however you want, and that is your right. What you're not going to do is convince the player base that you're somehow playing at the same skill level as a player who does everything that you're doing performance-wise, while maximising their dps. You have the right to play how you want, but other players have the right to decide whether they want you on their team. Reciprocity.

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Statics mostly play around their strong links, there will be some weak links too but when everyone is a weak link, it collapses horribly when contents are designed around stringent checks.