GNB QoL Change:

Hmm...I wonder if an ability already existed that allowed you to get 2 weave windows for defensives during your No Mercy Continuation... what was it called again?

The biggest thing I wanna see is Double Down be a off global , it’s so jarring compared to any other rotation it’s ever had. Other than that make its dps buff 30sec even if it means reducing some potency for balance sake.

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Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

The biggest thing I wanna see is Double Down be a off global , it’s so jarring compared to any other rotation it’s ever had. Other than that make its dps buff 30sec even if it means reducing some potency for balance sake.

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And clog the oGCD windows even more?
People are complaining about not having as much oGCD windows as the other tanks, I understand them and I agree with Hypervelocity that should be stored for a later usage.
In experience, I don't have problems with GNB's oGCDs but many do and are expressing themselves about it in this same thread.

In 90% of all cases it works completely fine, but then you run into that one tank buster that happens during your 3 minute Bloodfest + No Mercy window and it just feels awful.

But it's not just the lack of weave space that is an issue.

Burst Strike + Hypervelocity being 20 more potency than Gnashing Fang + Jugular Rip means that every Bloodfest + No Mercy window after the opener is incredibly awkward and counterintuitive because you want to pop NM after Gnashing to get 4 Burst Strikes into the buff... that just doesn't make any sense considering how the job normally flows.
Having 3 Cartridges and Double Down costing you 2 makes mistakes more punishing than ever before and dying becomes significantly more punishing.

All these EW changes have really achieved is making the job more clunky to play.


It really shouldn't be a thing that a job feels better to play when it gets synced 10 levels lower.

To be honest, after having to work around tank busters happening mid burst during most of ShB, Continuation doesn't bother me as much. It's the only real difficulty of the job(minus the three gauge needed for burst), and I am personally fine with that. Have I had to triple weave cause I suck and forgot the fights timings? Yes, but that's ultimately my fault. Plus considering no buffs deteriorate anymore(looking at you RDM) and the length of most buffs are around 20sec, pushing something like Rough Divide back a GCD in case you have to weave something else isn't super detrimental. I can understand the gripes with it though, it just doesn't bother me as much.

My biggest gripe is still the necessity of three cartridges to burst, and mildly the timing of No Mercy not allowing room for a Continuation oGCD. This is especially seen in the two EX fights, and it just feels awful at times. This clunky-ness almost solely comes down to how the other tanks burst abilities are mostly cooldown base, where ours are cooldown + gauge based. As I explained before, the only thing that comes close is DRK's Living Shadow, however: it's only every 2min, you only need half your full gauge, and Blood Weapon every 1min makes it very easy to get even if at 0. The fact that you almost need full uptime without Bloodfest to even get enough gauge to burst properly coupled with any moment where the boss is untargetable forces you to save a gauge from the previous burst a minute ago to ensure you have enough for the next one. That isn't fun, that's just frustrating.

I am still of the mind that an immediate solution would be to make Double Down cost one gauge, and to extend No Mercy to approx. 22sec to make room for a Continuation oGCDs. It would be nice if there was a small rework for some of the changes mentioned earlier, like a new gauge for the use of Double Down or other ideas like that, I just think this would serve as a decent immediate fix.

For me, turn hyper velocity into a gcd follow up of burst strike. Take it off continuation. Increase all continuation skills to 10range. Make double down either free or gives you two cartridges. Remove the third shell. Keep blood fest at two shells.

Or make bloodfest become double down after using it. I too have very few complaints about gunbreaker but moving bosses is more annoying than it needs to be and no mercy is a bit wonky atm.

the only qol change that i really want from gnb right now is still the same

for the love of... please change the hit sound effect SE, i wield sword, not baseball bat. people complain broil 4 for 1 day and you change it immediately, pretty sure people has been complaining gnb sound effect for almost 2 year now and nothing happened

Give em a ranged combo like PLD , I mean they have a gun!

"Parry this you filthy casual" then.

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Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

Give em a ranged combo like PLD , I mean they have a gun!

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That gun can't actually shoot, it was never meant to shoot.

I dropped GNB after first tier of SHB due to boredom, picked it up again in EW despite expecting it to get worse, but ended up actually enjoying the changes. Here's my take:

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"We have to save 3 cardridges for No Mercy now!"

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Good - finally GNB's resource is something to actually pay attention to and manage. Yeah, it may be iffy with weird downtime timings, but it can be planned around. I was afraid that being able to store 3 charges would push all our Burst Strikes into No Mercy, making downtime boring, but Bloodfest also granting 3 and staying at 90 sec cd prevents it. Another good thing about BF cd is that it keeps burst windows a little different from each other, which is also welcome. Putting it on 60 sec like everything else would make GNB play the same every minute, which would be horrible. We have enough jobs like that.

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"Hypervelocity makes it near impossible to double-weave mitigation!"

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So? You don't need double cooldowns to mitigate TBs in normal modes and in EX/Savage you should know the timeline well enough to pop the long cd early, in order to get it back faster anyhow. You only need one weave window right before TB for Heart of Corundum, due to the 4 second duration.
Letting GNB use Continuations more freely would completely ruin their point and what little identity the job has. It's supposed to be the pull of the trigger right as you strike, not another rando ogcd like every other job's got. It's like asking to decouple ninjutsu from mudras. You already have 2 non-continuation gcds to double weave in during your burst, not counting basic combo.

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"Continuation makes it hard to move the boss!"

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Yea, that one I totally agree with. It's not impossible of course, but it is an issue and has been since SHB, because movement in this game is jank in general. Moving bosses is part of the fun in tanking, so it's a shame when the game encourages shirking this duty to the other tank.
This could easily be solved by just increasing the range on all Continuation abilities, as has been asked for the past 2 years.

The animation for Hypervelocity looks bad to me. It's the same problem i have with Bloodspiller; the lead into the attack looks great, but the follow through looks bad. Pulling the gunblade in like that just doesn't look natural, it feels forced, and not in an "i can't contain this explosion" way, more "I hope this doesn't hurt me, lemme risk dislocating my shoulders" way.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Good - finally GNB's resource is something to actually pay attention to and manage. Yeah, it may be iffy with weird downtime timings, but it can be planned around. I was afraid that being able to store 3 charges would push all our Burst Strikes into No Mercy, making downtime boring, but Bloodfest also granting 3 and staying at 90 sec cd prevents it. Another good thing about BF cd is that it keeps burst windows a little different from each other, which is also welcome. Putting it on 60 sec like everything else would make GNB play the same every minute, which would be horrible. We have enough jobs like that..

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Personally, I don't like the max three gauge because it makes our general rotation more boring, and you still have to deal with the annoyance of farming three gauge for burst. As it stands now, after you are out of your No Mercy window, you spend the next 40sec building gauge plus one Gnashing Fang Combo. We may get more in the No Mercy window, but the rotation is way more stagnant outside of it. I'll even go as far to say that it might be better for the job to be reverted back to two gauge max, because then at least you would be using more of your gauge rather than stockpiling for 40sec every minute. Then there is still the issue of needing three gauge max for every burst that any boss downtime throws out of whack. You can argue it's just a skill issue, but I personally don't see the skill in needing to hold a cartridge from a minute ago just so boss jump timings don't ruin your whole rotation, it's just an annoyance.

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Originally Posted by Ixon

As it stands now, after you are out of your No Mercy window, you spend the next 40sec building gauge plus one Gnashing Fang Combo. We may get more in the No Mercy window, but the rotation is way more stagnant outside of it.

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I fully agree it would be awful if that was the case, however... it's not. We still get a varying number of extra Burst Strikes between our No Mercy windows, as we still generate enough cardridges to overcap otherwise, since Bloodfest gives us more than it used to. The difference is that now you have to be a tad more mindful about blowing those up in case of downtimes.

In a way every mechanic is "an annoyance" to someone. Working around the jobs' annoyances is their gameplay and getting rid of them to "smooth things out" has led to many jobs losing their identity and engagement in my opinion. I wouldn't say that current GNB is in any way a big-brain job with these changes, but it's about the most we can hope for with a modern ffxiv tank.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

I fully agree it would be awful if that was the case, however... it's not. We still get a varying number of extra Burst Strikes between our No Mercy windows, as we still generate enough cardridges to overcap otherwise, since Bloodfest gives us more than it used to. The difference is that now you have to be a tad more mindful about blowing those up in case of downtimes.

In a way every mechanic is "an annoyance" to someone. Working around the jobs' annoyances is their gameplay and getting rid of them to "smooth things out" has led to many jobs losing their identity and engagement in my opinion. I wouldn't say that current GNB is in any way a big-brain job with these changes, but it's about the most we can hope for with a modern ffxiv tank.

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This had me curious so I did some investigating. I started by comparing the Normal mode fights of EW with some of the normal mode fights from ShB that I felt were equivalent in the amount of uptime while also keeping all the kill times around the 8min mark in an effort to make the comparisons as fair as possible. With this, I saw that EW GNB produced approximately 2/3rds the amount of total Burst Strikes that it did in ShB. This should be no surprise with the addition of Double Down reserving two cartridges every minute. However, even with Bloodfest giving us an additional cartridge every 90sec, GNB on average produced approximately 2-4 less Burst Strikes outside of No Mercy per given 8min encounter. Now while I agree this isn't much, the data I have seen at least confirms my suspicion that we spend more time building gauge outside of No Mercy than spending it in EW compared to ShB, even if by a small amount.

With that out of the way, there is still the underlying issues this current iteration of GNB brings that are outside of just a mere "skill issue":
- GNB is probably the most punished tank if a death occurs right before a burst due to the other tanks bursts being mostly cooldown based and not as gauge based for their abilities like I had mentioned earlier. You do not need gauge to Inner Release, Fight or Flight, Req(MP sure, but you can still get it out and still Confiteor), Delirium(Living Shadow does, but unless you died after hitting Blood Weapon, it will give you the needed gauge in three GCD's).
- GNB is the only tank to need to save a gauge from 40sec ago in a previous burst, to be able to hit their Double Down and Gnashing Fang on cooldown if a fight has considerable downtime(argument as a skill issue, just seems like a unique annoyance).
- GNB is more punished for using their gauge(like using Gnashing Fang on the last bit of mobs before a boss) even if it was optimal at the time, if it means they will not have full, or close to full, gauge come time to hit Double Down + Gnashing Fang.
- Double Down plus the ability to hold a third cartridge replaced our smooth, loopable rotation(like most other jobs have) with one that feels unnatural to optimally use(like having to No Mercy AFTER Gnashing Fang in your No Mercy + Bloodfest window because it's less potency than Burst Strike + Hypervelocity).
- Seeming optimal rotations feel suboptimal as the current No Mercy duration does not leave enough room for Hypervelocity if you end on a Burst Strike.

Why do these all matter? It's because these issues did not exist in ShB. In a nutshell, SE took a job that was fine in ShB and riddled it with more problems than solutions in EW. Even with all this, I still enjoy playing GNB, but I would enjoy it so much more if SE could simple add the new stuff without also adding a bunch of clunky baggage. Look at WAR or PLD(excluding their damage complaints) and you can see how they can make changes that almost only improve on the quality of the job.

That's a pretty darn long paragraph to prove that strawman you've made for yourself wrong. I never claimed EW GNB produces "more Burst Strikes outside of the No Mercy windows", only that 1) EW GNB produces more cartridges overall, which is why 2) we still get 1 or more(depending on the minute) Burst Strikes outside of the No Mercy windows, keeping the downtime from feeling stale.
Your whole "investigation" was completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Yes I have looked at WAR and PLD (and DRK as well), this is why I play GNB instead of them - because they are no fun to play for me. This "clunky baggage" as you call it, is something that makes the job more engaging for many people, than the "smooth and comfy" alternatives which have had any meaningful mechanics streamlined out of them. Having to build up your resource before bursting isn't even a new thing - this is exactly how WAR used to work in all its iterations until 4.2, along with being punished for dying and changing that was welcome by some and hated by others.
Even from SHB to EW, there's certain people unhappy about WAR no longer needing resource for their ogcds and PLDs disappointed about the loss of Attonment shifting in favor of a more streamlined rotation, so they're not exactly "direct improvements" either. It's all a matter of perspective, or dare I say, taste.

As far as "unique annoyance" goes - having to plan your positioning and movement tools around very long cast times is a "unique annoyance" of BLM, while for the job's playerbase that's exactly what they take their satisfaction and enjoyment from.

You think WAR and PLD are so much better designed? Maybe you should play them and let people who want something different keep the GNB. You have options - we don't.

I'm liking Endwalker GNB more than Shadowbringers now that I've gotten used to it. My main complaints are that that moving bosses still feels pretty bad because of continuation. And that dying at all seems like a pretty severe upset to your rotation that you can never really recover from.

As for making double down cost one cartidge - I don't like that idea. Costing two cartridges seems pretty central to the identity of the ability, I'd prefer SE balance around that instead of taking away what makes it unique.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

You have options - we don't.

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I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, everyone can play any job. I'm glad you enjoy the "clunky garbage", that's great, more power to you. What's interesting is that for a player who does not care to optimize, most of these suggested changes will do absolutely nothing to the gameplay of that individual. These are issues and changes suggested by those who identify issues with current GNB when trying to preform the job at it's highest potential. I didn't say to turn GNB into PLD or WAR, I was comparing how their changes into EW did nothing but improve on the general quality of their gameplay even at the highest level, while on some level GNB's did not. You can agree or disagree, whatever floats your boat, but most of the issues I stated are legitimate facts. Try to end a 9GCD No Mercy on a Burst Strike and tell me if you can squeeze in Hypervelocity. You can't 99% of the time. Tell me what is a solid rotation loop, cause there isn't one. This isn't just me, Google it, look it up on YouTube or Reddit or even here in the forums. This is a common enough complaint that it warrants attention by SE. "Just because you're unique doesn't mean you're useful."

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I'm liking Endwalker GNB more than Shadowbringers now that I've gotten used to it. My main complaints are that that moving bosses still feels pretty bad because of continuation. And that dying at all seems like a pretty severe upset to your rotation that you can never really recover from.

As for making double down cost one cartidge - I don't like that idea. Costing two cartridges seems pretty central to the identity of the ability, I'd prefer SE balance around that instead of taking away what makes it unique.

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You might not like it but the increase in max cartridges becomes an illusion. Like there is supposed to be a point in becoming more powerful otherwise why even increase our max cartridges.

Double Down should stay at 2 cartrigdes, its an important part of the ability lore/fantasy, an easy "fix" could be to increase the cd to 120 and increase potencys of other skills so you need less cartridges per minute

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Originally Posted by NaidCaldera

Double Down should stay at 2 cartrigdes, its an important part of the ability lore/fantasy, an easy "fix" could be to increase the cd to 120 and increase potencys of other skills so you need less cartridges per minute

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What.........?

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Originally Posted by NaidCaldera

Double Down should stay at 2 cartrigdes, its an important part of the ability lore/fantasy, an easy "fix" could be to increase the cd to 120 and increase potencys of other skills so you need less cartridges per minute

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"Double Down" in FFXIV is taken from Seifers Limit Break in Final fantasy 8 called... Bloodfest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb86P49jb1Q

It's obvious that SE took inspiration from both Squal and Seifer's move sets in FF8, but then took liberty when naming them and updating their animation. I do not think there is anything lore related about cartridges at all, so SE is at liberty to do whatever they want.

ofcourse they can do whatever they want

maybe i worded it the wrong way, for me it makes sense that Double Down uses 2 cartridges because you strike 2 times with it and i dont think they will change that

and i like for abilties to makes sense and be immersive (from a non balance standpoint)

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Originally Posted by NaidCaldera

ofcourse they can do whatever they want

maybe i worded it the wrong way, for me it makes sense that Double Down uses 2 cartridges because you strike 2 times with it and i dont think they will change that

and i like for abilties to makes sense and be immersive (from a non balance standpoint)

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While I understand that sentiment, we also use just one cartridge to perform: Gnashing Fang > Jugular Rip > Savage Claw > Abdomen Tear > Wicked Talon > Eye Gouge. So if we can use one cartridge for a six-fold attack, using just one for Double Down doesn't seem too farfetched to me. Plus, DRK got pretty much the same exact thing with the two charges of Shadowbringers, but for some reason theirs is completely free.

yes that always bugged me, from a thematic standpoint every explosion skill should use 1 cartridge, but sadly there is no easy way to make that work with a 2/3 cartridges system

also i think we should not compare this to drk, drk has way worse gameplay, they should not balance more abilities crossclass, we dont need more warrior clones

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Originally Posted by NaidCaldera

yes that always bugged me, from a thematic standpoint every explosion skill should use 1 cartridge, but sadly there is no easy way to make that work with a 2/3 cartridges system

also i think we should not compare this to drk, drk has way worse gameplay, they should not balance more abilities crossclass, we dont need more warrior clones

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Comparing jobs is how you balance the jobs. You can compare without homogenizing.

I do think there are issues with cartridge generation, especially between no mercy phases. I would just prefer if SE tried to tweak things around it. Lore and flavor considerations aside, I like that we have a more costly resource to play with, I think the job would lose something if it just turned into a way to dump a cartridge anytime it's on CD.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I do think there are issues with cartridge generation, especially between no mercy phases. I would just prefer if SE tried to tweak things around it. Lore and flavor considerations aside, I like that we have a more costly resource to play with, I think the job would lose something if it just turned into a way to dump a cartridge anytime it's on CD.

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The way I see it, cartridges in general have three main purposes: to press a button on cooldown(Double Down/Gnashing Fang), to expend as many cartridges as possible in your No Mercy window, and to use so you don't overcap gauge. For the sake of damage, that's about it. By this logic, I do not see this mentality changing if they were to hypothetically change Double Down to one cartridge instead of two, and instead only see net positives in the flow of the job when it comes to majority of current content. This to me seems like the easiest way to improve on the job at this time. There have been other suggestions that I think would be a far greater improvement, like someone suggesting they make Double Down it's own gauge system that fills whenever you use cartridges(think like DRG's lvl 90 ability, or like MCH's Queen), but for the immediate I still feel this is the path of least resistance.

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Originally Posted by Ixon

While I understand that sentiment, we also use just one cartridge to perform: Gnashing Fang > Jugular Rip > Savage Claw > Abdomen Tear > Wicked Talon > Eye Gouge. So if we can use one cartridge for a six-fold attack, using just one for Double Down doesn't seem too farfetched to me. Plus, DRK got pretty much the same exact thing with the two charges of Shadowbringers, but for some reason theirs is completely free.

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Except, you're only using the cartridge for the one skill, Gnashing Fang. All skills thereafter are quite literally a combo / Continuation of that skill. If the skill is to be called Double Down, why wouldn't it cost double?

The main question is whether being mindful of one's gauge is fun, which is likely to see mixed answers. Take Stormblood-period SAM's gauge-margining for example. More seemed to like it than not --though likewise a majority seemed willing to sacrifice part of that for Hagakure being less restricted.

Thereafter, it simply falls into the same matter of GCDs. For instance, if Double-Down had a combo GCD, then it'd simply replace two Burst Strikes.

I mean, Double Down could also refer to how your character leaps up and slashes downwards, twice. Tri-Disaster is still named Tri-Disaster even though the three DoTs are gone.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If the skill is to be called Double Down, why wouldn't it cost double?

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You're actually serious, aren't you?

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Originally Posted by Shinimas

You're actually serious, aren't you?

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I was literally responding to a quote indicating it was a misnomer so long as Gnashing Fang and its continuation didn't cost a total of 6 cartridges. The name (since the name originally attached to Double Down's animation has already been turned into our 90s resource-refresher) and skill were chosen in order to produce that effect.

The devs would not have switched things around and called it what they did unless they wanted a multi-cartridge spender.

From there, again,

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The main question is whether being [that bit more] mindful of one's gauge is fun, which is likely to see mixed answers. Take Stormblood-period SAM's gauge-margining for example. More seemed to like it than not --though likewise a majority seemed willing to sacrifice part of that for Hagakure being less restricted.

Thereafter, it simply falls into the same matter of GCDs. For instance, if Double-Down had a combo GCD, then it'd simply replace two Burst Strikes.

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Maybe have Double Down cost a minimum of one cartridge but scale the damage up or down based on the amount of cartridges consumed perhaps?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I was literally responding to a quote indicating it was a misnomer so long as Gnashing Fang and its continuation didn't cost a total of 6 cartridges. The name (since the name originally attached to Double Down's animation has already been turned into our 90s resource-refresher) and skill were chosen in order to produce that effect.

The devs would not have switched things around and called it what they did unless they wanted a multi-cartridge spender.

From there, again,

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Sounds a lot like they didn't test it and a lot less like something they wanted.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

Sounds a lot like they didn't test it and a lot less like something they wanted.

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I'm almost certain they didn't actually test any of the new additions in any environment more demanding than dungeon runs.

I'm not sure how anyone's having trouble with Double Down, though, be that in dungeons or in raid content. You know how many spenders to use between each minute's burst (cycling between full burst, full lull, and Bloodfest lull) and the Double Down only makes it a GCD easier to deplete all possible cartridges under a full burst.

By replacing two Burst Strike casts with one Double Down, you've accelerated burst by a GCD, making up for one of two added cartridges under and full burst. And yet we're acting like it's suddenly slowed and 'clunked-up' said burst?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

By replacing two Burst Strike casts with one Double Down, you've accelerated burst by a GCD, making up for one of two added cartridges under and full burst. And yet we're acting like it's suddenly slowed and 'clunked-up' said burst?

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Also Double Down is a 80 potency gain over the 2 Burst Strikes + 2 Hypervelocity.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm not sure how anyone's having trouble with Double Down, though, be that in dungeons or in raid content. You know how many spenders to use between each minute's burst (cycling between full burst, full lull, and Bloodfest lull) and the Double Down only makes it a GCD easier to deplete all possible cartridges under a full burst.

By replacing two Burst Strike casts with one Double Down, you've accelerated burst by a GCD, making up for one of two added cartridges under and full burst. And yet we're acting like it's suddenly slowed and 'clunked-up' said burst?

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I think you are getting the wires crossed. Double Down, by itself, in an absolute vacuum, is fine. It's when you take into account that you are required to have three cartridges before your burst every minute due to the cost of Double Down that slows down the flow of the job that did not exist in ShB.

An example that I gave before that I will give again. In a dungeon, on the mob pack(s) before the boss, you are required to have at least 2-3 cartridges before the last mob dies, or you will either A. Be behind the buff windows of your group, or B. Burst without Double Down or Gnashing. Both suck. This means that while you are AoEing a mob pack, instead of doing what's damage optimal, which is using your gauge to help burn down the mobs faster either through Gnashing Fang or Fated Circle, you have to focus on building gauge to not miss out on the first burst in on the boss.

This is an EW exclusive issue, as in ShB you only required one cartridge to burst for Gnashing Fang at a minimum, which you could easily build in 3GCD's and be well within the burst window. This is not a dungeon exclusive thing either, you have to do this downshift in the add phases of both EX trials instead of being able to spend it like you would have been able to do in ShB. This is made even more apparent on fights with significant downtime, forcing you to hold gauge from a minute ago, in order to not disrupt your next burst.

You can argue that it's not that bad, the end result is that this change wasn't a quality of life upgrade, but a downgrade. You can argue it's a "skill issue", but I and others see it as an annoyance. Even doing something as simple as changing Double Down to a 1 cartridge cost would be a massive improvement that would not affect those who enjoy this current iteration.

As far as the No Mercy burst, the issue is NOT with Double Down, it's with Hypervelocity and the No Mercy duration. In ShB, you could end a No Mercy on a Burst Strike, no problem. Now though, if your last GCD is a Burst Strike, the following Hypervelocity falls out of the No Mercy window because there is not enough time for a follow on oGCD. Something easily fixed with a short 2sec increase.

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Originally Posted by Ixon

I think you are getting the wires crossed.

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Fair enough. It seemed before that some (not you, but others) were blaming Double Down for clunk outside of just dungeon play. That seemed unreasonable, if not backwards. I'm glad that wasn't typically the case.

Personally, I've not found EW GNB restrictive nor clunky in doing my daily Expert roulettes on my tank alt (as GNB is my favorite outside of DRK, and this char already has DRK at 90), since I just remember which lulls will have Bloodfest and which won't ("full lulls") and just aim to cap immediately when going into the latter, even if it means putting in one fewer cartridge (into a very short-lived pack) under No Mercy. But, I can see why it might annoy some.

That said, changing Double Down to cost 1 cartridge without also changing Bloodfest seems like it'd be equally problematic, as you'd otherwise be very pressed to get all your cartridge damage into that window (since doing so would then take one GCD longer). Personally, if Double Down were reduced to a single cartridge in cost, I'd sooner leave Bloodfest as it was before, at 2 cartridges to be gained, and slightly buff Burst Strike itself and the Gnashing Fang combo in compensation, rather than extend the No Mercy window by a further 2 seconds.

At present, even at next to no SkS, I have no issues snapshotting NM onto the final Hypervelocity under the recommended opener, though that may be due to low ping (I live near the server).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

At present, even at next to no SkS, I have no issues snapshotting NM onto the final Hypervelocity under the recommended opener, though that may be due to low ping (I live near the server).

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No idea how you manage to do that, even at 18ms ping I can't, but you're also not really supposed to get it in the first place. You basically have 3 different No Mercy windows, not including the opener, within the first 3 minutes of a fight.
NM at 1 minute has Hypervelocity fall outside of your buff.
NM at 2 minutes has it inside the buff because you have enough time left to end No Mercy on a Brutal Shell.
NM at 3 minutes not only has Hypervelocity fall outside of your buff but also has the whole "Gnashing Fang + Jugular Rip outside of NM" nonsense.


I'd honestly suggest something similar. Just bring us back to 2 cartridges max, make Bloodfest give us 2 again and make Double Down cost only 1. Then add the missing potency to both Gnashing Fang and Burst Strike.
It would essentially make our burst function like it did in ShB again, the only difference being Hypervelocity and that one Burst Strike gets replaced by Double Down.


It still wouldn't fix the issues I have with Hypervelocity, but it would make our buildup phase and our NM windows less rigid again.