Invulns: Problems and Solutions

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Originally Posted by Lucy_Pyre

It's actually entirely relevant; thus the "invulns are fine" bit. Because, well, invulns are completely fine. They're actually one of the things that most differentiates tanks in this game from a lot of other MMOs, because in all the MMOs I've played over the years I've almost never seen a "I can't die" button on tanks in others.

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Easiest example for an "I can't die button" would probably WoW's Divine Shield but yes. I certainly don't want it to be on a gauge so that the devs decide when I get to use my cooldowns, it only takes decision making away from the tank and says "you use your abilities the way we want you to, when we want you to"...no thanks to that.

Some of the most frequently used defensive abilities that tanks use are on gauges (i.e. Sheltron, TBN). The devs don't decide when you use those abilities, but they are gated by your rate of resource generation. Similarly, you aren't always forced to use LB at the instant that you generate enough gauge. You can hold it until you need it.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Edit: Turns out there is a really short way to go about it.

Replace them with Super-States, in which the Super States are temporary phases of high durability with an offensive pay off. More interactive and it satisfies "DaMaGe Is KiNg"..

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This is essentially the point that I was making. When I wrote the post originally, I was a bit worried about incorporating an offensive element to it, but now that I think about it, that was one of the points that made earlier variants of WAR fun. Do you use your 'personal LB' at the instant that you get it for a big damage boost, do you use it at that dps check that you're stuck at, or do you hold it for a bit longer to negate a tankbuster or other mechanic while putting out high damage?

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

The Invulns get problematic when they get used instead of the other defensive cooldowns so that other mechanics can be ignored. Invulns get used to negate the need for a tank swap, tether swap or stack on the tank mechanic. Those are the mechanics that need to come more than every 2 minutes not just simple tank busters.

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There's no problem with having plenty of defensive abilities. But you should be forced to rotate through them, such that resource management becomes an issue. Right now, it just feels like you spend most of your time rotating through invulns.

Mechanics cheese is always going to be an issue, unless the mechanic ignores the invuln. Even if it shows up every minute, you're still going to cheese that one instance where it's most beneficial for your team's uptime. Switching it to a gauge makes it a bit less predictable than "I'm going to use it at this timestamp to cheese a mechanic, and it'll be back up to remove a tankbuster at a later timestamp."

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Originally Posted by Lyth

his is essentially the point that I was making. When I wrote the post originally, I was a bit worried about incorporating an offensive element to it, but now that I think about it, that was one of the points that made earlier variants of WAR fun. Do you use your 'personal LB' at the instant that you get it for a big damage boost, do you use it at that dps check that you're stuck at, or do you hold it for a bit longer to negate a tankbuster or other mechanic while putting out high damage?

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I would imagine them being abilities with multiple charges that refresh under the following conditions.

1) Out of Combat - A low cooldown. 2-3 minutes while not engaged in battle.
2) Standard Wipe refresh.
3) Reintroduce Execution Style abilities, and reward kill-shots.

By removing them from standard cooldown design, we remove the need to use them ASAP to get the timer running. It is in this manner that we can allow them to be both potent defensive options that also bring some high offense capability. You put them in the fight as you need them - Reactionary use, bridging the gap between other cooldowns, or more liberal use if the fight allows for it.

While I'm not against the idea of duty-specific use of special abilities, the duty actions fill that niche already, I agree that players should decide when its used, but a non-standard cooldown set up should give the same result while not restricting use. The return of Execution style abilities, markedly improved from their prior iterations I would add, should go some distance in giving multi-enemy encounters some more to focus on instead of blind aoe cleaving.

There aren't really any restrictions to when you use a team LB, either. You just need to have enough gauge. It just so happens that it's usually up when the fight needs to have it up.

There's actually not that much difference between a gauge or a timer. PLD still has Sheltron up at fairly predictable intervals. With longer gauges, however, you introduce more possibility for variation, depending on fight-specific factors (uptime, damage mitigated, etc.) So it becomes less a matter of creating a timestamp list of boss actions and planning out swaps and cooldowns on a spreadsheet, and more about adapting on the fly while rationing out your regular cooldowns in-between invuln uses with good team communication.

Killshots are an interesting idea for dps players. Granted, not every fight has much in the way of adds.

For tanks, could you not just reward players for mitigating damage on themselves or a co-tank with their short recast cooldowns with more gauge? That way, the goal would be to try to build up gauge faster by intelligent use of single target mitigation tools.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

For tanks, could you not just reward players for mitigating damage on themselves or a co-tank with their short recast cooldowns with more gauge? That way, the goal would be to try to build up gauge faster by intelligent use of single target mitigation tools.

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As a concept, I don't see a problem with it, but more specifics would be nice.

Sure.

Let's stick to tanks for the time being. You have a baseline rate of personal LB generation, assuming that you do nothing at all. This can be fight specific, as you've suggested earlier. Functionally, this is similar to what we have at the moment, except that you can't just use your invuln early in the fight and let the recast start ticking again. You have to build up to it first.

However, you also have ways of building personal LB gauge, that can (and should) be role specific. In the case of tanks, let's say that every time that you use a single target defensive cooldown to mitigate damage, you build gauge based on how much you mitigate. Raw Intuition yourself, gain a bit of personal LB gauge. Use intervention an ally when they're taking damage, gain a bit of personal LB gauge. Naturally, if you use these abilities and don't mitigate anything, you don't gain any benefit. Similar to team LB generation, you can create a list of player-driven conditions that are rewarded by generating gauge.

Now when you max your gauge, like the LB button, you can use the ability at any time you feel like it to give yourself invuln status (either your HP cannot go below 1, or you cannot take damage) coupled with an offensive boost/other benefits for let's say 10 seconds. These can be thematically appropriate to the job. Your gauge then resets to zero and starts building again.

I think that this is a reasonable alternative to nuking invulns from orbit, which I have previously been partial to.

Honestly, I can't find a real problem. It'll shake up early approaches a little bit, then from there you'll have an expected use case, like normal, but the ability to create more areas of use with good planning and teamwork.

My one concern might be that it encourages excess damage intake, but SE generally puts enough discouragement through Damage Downs there, but otherwise, I don't see anything inherently faulty about this approach compared to what we have. Old Ifrit interruptions basically work on this premise, and seeing a full LB gauge come from your own action never felt bad.

I'd wager you can extend this to other tank-typical responsibilities such as short term crowd control, interruption, and debuffing. Turning the invuln/super-state into the tangible reward works for me, though I obviously don't speak for anyone but myself.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

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You could set flags on what abilities trigger LB gain. Autos, cleaves, tankbusters: yes. Puddles: no. It doesn't even need to be explicitly stated. Players are good at figuring this sort of thing out when it benefits them.

You'd also potentially need to make decisions about LB gain. Perhaps your co-tank is active and is close to LB. Maybe you ease off on mitigation to let them build up more LB.

Either way, invulns as they stand are a problem. There needs to be a second look at how these abilities work and their availability going forward.

I think invulns are a great way to incentivize bringing one tank over another. If you bring a WAR, you just don't have to think anymore about tank busters in E8S. I like that.

I think they're fine right now.