Would halving Equilibrium recast be worth it?

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

..it at least demonstrates the problem - PLD has too much utility, WAR has too little/none.

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There shouldn't be this much discrepancy:

PLD
Party-wide shield via Divine Veil
Party-wide damage reduction via Passage of Arms
Party member & self heal via Clemency
Party member damage reduction via Intervention
Cover on party member


DRK
Party member shield via The Blackest Night


WAR
Slashing debuff


Considering the fact that PLD (outside of Str down on Halone) retained pre-SB utility on top of gaining new utility... I think SE owes both DRK and WAR some explanation why their utility disappeared.

As for suggestions, one thing is for sure and that's that WAR doesn't need a shielding ability. Whatever they get should help compliment a WAR/DRK setup, as they are clearly disadvantaged in utility compared to even a solo PLD. I'd recommend at least one party wide mitigation ability between them (make it so it doesn't stack with PLDs if needed for balance). And then at least one more "something" to have a unique ability. Whether that's Thrill of War, or changing shake it off to be an aoe cleanse, having an ability to sacrifice HP to restore a party members, etc. For DRK I'm not too sure, since they seem to be the life drain tank now maybe something along those lines, party wide bloodbath or something like that.

Both DRK and WAR need some love. TBN seems really cool with a short 15sec CD but it doesn't seem like enough compared to what PLD brings.

War = Damage, at least thematically.

I would go for this series of changes:

• Lower Butcher's Block available level to 26 (from 30; other tanks get a full hate building combo by 26)
• Lower Deliverance available level to 30 (other tanks get both, DPS and Tank stances at level 30 even if they have nothing to "consume" them with, this also allows for War to serve as DPS off tank in all content other tanks can DPS for.)
• Fill the level 52 hole with a new ability:
  War Cry:
  180 cooldown,
  Increases self and nearby party members Determination by ??%
  Duration: 20s
  Cost: 10 Beast Gauge
• Shake It Off: Usable on self or allies.
  Additional Effect: Increases Tenacity of the target by ??% for 10 seconds (most useful for self or other Tank use.)

I would break it down like this:

Raid Damage Buffs:
PLD: None
WAR: Maim (100% uptime)
DRK: None

Self-Healing:
PLD: Clemency
WAR: Storm's Path, Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone, Thrill of Battle (120s), Equilibrium (60s)
DRK: Souleater, DA Abyssal Drain, Sole Survivor (120s)

Personal Mitigation:
PLD: Sheltron, Bulwark (180s), Sentinel (180s), Hallowed (720s)
WAR: Inner Beast, Raw Intuition (90s), Thrill of Battle (120s), Vengeance (120s), Holmgang (120s)
DRK: TBN, Dark Mind (60s), Shadow Wall (180s), Living Dead (300s)

Single Target Mitigation:
PLD: Cover (120s), Intervention
WAR: None
DRK: TBN

Raid Mitigation:
PLD: Divine Veil (120s), Passage of Arms (120s)
WAR: None
DRK: None

Gapclosers:
PLD: None
WAR: Onslaught (15s)
DRK: Plunge (30s)

Knockback Negation:
PLD: Tempered Will (120s)
WAR: Inner Release (120s)
DRK: None

As you can see, there are quite a few, er, discrepancies. So when players say "WAR should do the highest dps, it has no utility," some of us look over at the distribution of tank raid dps buffs and realise that probably shouldn't be the case. Or if you look at Clemency and say "WAR needs more self healing," the rest of us look at the distribution of self-healing buffs and recognise that a lack of self heals isn't a WAR problem. It's a DRK problem.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This word gets thrown around often, but is rarely defined. What are you looking for? A healing buff like Mantra? A dps buff like Maim or Trick? A raid mitigation buff like Passage? How do you equate these things and balance them against each other?

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An in-combat movement speed buff would be unique, while discretely, not explicitly, increasing both defense and offense capabilities.

I guess if you don't have a nin or sam then the slashing debuff would be considered raid utility. Edited my post. Still, not exactly worthwhile. Also, doesn't DA+Abyssal Drain still recover HP for DRK? And PLD also has Bulwark (and technically blind from flash is personal mitigation as well)

Quote:

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I would break it down like this:

Raid Damage Buffs:
PLD: None
WAR: Maim (100% uptime)
DRK: None

Self-Healing:
PLD: Clemency
WAR: Storm's Path, Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone, Thrill of Battle (120s), Equilibrium (60s)
DRK: Souleater, DA Abyssal Drain, Sole Survivor (120s)

Personal Mitigation:
PLD: Sheltron, Bulwark (180s), Sentinel (180s), Hallowed (720s)
WAR: Inner Beast, Raw Intuition (90s), Thrill of Battle (120s), Vengeance (120s), Holmgang (120s)
DRK: TBN, Dark Mind (60s), Shadow Wall (180s), Living Dead (300s)

Single Target Mitigation:
PLD: Cover (120s), Intervention
WAR: None
DRK: TBN

Raid Mitigation:
PLD: Divine Veil (120s), Passage of Arms (120s)
WAR: None
DRK: None

Gapclosers:
PLD: None
WAR: Onslaught (15s)
DRK: Plunge (30s)

Knockback Negation:
PLD: Tempered Will (120s)
WAR: Inner Release (120s)
DRK: None

As you can see, there are quite a few, er, discrepancies. So when players say "WAR should do the highest dps, it has no utility," some of us look over at the distribution of tank raid dps buffs and realise that probably shouldn't be the case. Or if you look at Clemency and say "WAR needs more self healing," the rest of us look at the distribution of self-healing buffs and recognise that a lack of self heals isn't a WAR problem. It's a DRK problem.

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I would say. Number of skills cannot be valuated over their frequency of use. Clemency can be used more frequently and with more efficiency than any other self healing, but yet it remains with a cost in personal DPS (damage and GCD lost).

-Thrill as a self healing, is quite inaccurate as it is used to obtain a second defiance effect. See it as an increase in EHPS withouth any damage reduction effect.
TBN is more like a clemency lookalike, as it costs MP (which trade into DPS) to obtain damage reduction. But since it's ogcd and blood can be refunded, it ends up less costly. However, the shield has a low windows of efficiency, and the cooldown make it so it's less effective than a clemency use as HP restored remains. (But yet, the ability of anticipating damage is extremely valuated if used properly).
You cannot balance a 60s equilibrium, with a no cooldown clemency. One can be used almost at will, but sparing ressources and a cast time, the other can only be used in real necessity, once a minute.
Even if berserk boost the power of equilibrium, no proper use would make them coincidate as one is the main damage buff of the job, and the other a recovery ability.

On the other hand, Maim is only relevant in a setup where there is no nin or Sam, since their rotation include the slashing debuff with or withouth a warrior. In this case, it will only buff the slashing portion of their damages for the tank. With the new paladin nuke, I bet their physical portion is now lower, this it will only buff a portion of a tank damage, resulting in a really minor DPS gain even if still present in specific compositions exclusing two DPS classes (while one of them is currently mandatory, but this is an other story).

-One other thing of importance, is while TBN is a personnal and targeted mitigation tool, it cannot be used as both at the same time.
For example, if with a paladin you can intervene + rempart or sentinel a sharedtank burst, you effectively reduce damage taken by your co tank by 20 or 30%. You can even use a shiltron on top of that to block the hit yourself, magical or not.
This cannot be done with TBN, you either shield yourself or your ally. This wouldn't be underlined if TBN was an equivalent of cover or shiltron, but TBN is a part of the DRK mitigation toolkit. It means that using TBN on other make you effectively loose the absorb yourself, but since DRK have less survival cooldowns than others, they might not be able to use their group utility in shared burst designs, because they won't survive withouth it.

I wanted to clarify theses point, because simply putting skills in a list and saying "they have 3 cooldowns and the other only have 1" is far to be an effective method of comparaison. Some cooldowns are way more powerfull, some other (like convalescence) don't shine in burst situations, some have drawback when used alone (thrill, basically worth a rempart when paired with conva, but less when not).

I dunno, the HP weaving between our healing skills from bloodbath was pretty perfect for our class, the only problem it created was from Overpower spam for mob groups. Surely SE could have found a way to give us our own version of it that worked well with defiance if they wanted that was only for regular combos or a form of regen.

Edit: I suppose one way of doing it is making storms path put up a converts portion of physical damage dealt to HP buff on ourselves instead of only itself as a skill probably with a bit smaller of a % return. Make it last 30 seconds or so? Change butchers block to 20 gauge and put storms path at 10 gauge again? Lots of options out there, I just feel like SE doesn't want us to have our weave anymore.