GNB feedback.

Not the entire design. Mix&match what worked vs what doesn't work. For example GW2 can teach us a few things, among them how a unified buff/debuff system is actually kinda cool, but has to be handled with care lest it needs to a sort-of mudflation economic. Meanwhile just saying you for 50+ skills does nothing if none of them are truly noteworthy, a problem FFXIV is also beginning to scrape as between 20-30 skills per class, it's difficult to find identity naturally, too many buttons to spread that identity over.
Meanwhile it also shows that an oops-all-AoEs setup actually works really well, in particular for support skills (you never target someone to support). It also shows how active dodge works in MMORPGs (and WoW's Illidan class shows how the boundaries of where it stops working). All MMOs but in particular WoW's early times and DAoC's entire lifetime show the troubles with pets in fights, but also how to create the illusion of a pet class despite mechanically not being one.

And so on. Yes, classes are as balanced as they ever were. Of course they are, there are essentially only 6 classes (Tank, Regen Healer, Shield Healer, Melee, Mobile Ranged, Semi-mobile Ranged). Extreme amounts of homogenization naturally lead to exchangeability, but also to a total lack of meaning behind what class you play. They all perform awfully similar, they all play awfully similar, what's the point in playing a PLD instead of a GNB for example? All fights are designed for the 97% shared DNA these two classes have, anyways. The rest has no meaning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zairava

What irony? Are you really going to compare an entire job overhaul to a CD being shortened and a single ability being given a charge? Give me a break.

---

Your continual mischaracterization of the changes only furthers the point. You are entitled to like whatever job design you wish, but don't pretend you care about jobs getting lobotomized. You are no different than the people who got DRK and every other job gutted.

Case in point:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zairava

I don't know if I'd say it's bottom barrel but in terms of individuality oh my god yes it is.

Other mmos might feel worse to play generally speaking but at least they're classes actually have distinct features from one another in forms that aren't "this deals damage" or "this deals damage but *every minute or two*"

Like yeah I enjoy the hell out of current patch GNB but that doesn't change how absolutely shallow differences in mechanics, if any, are between jobs. The water doesn't go above my ankles.

---

"I enjoy the hell out of this job getting homogenized but man it sucks that all the jobs are homogenized."

You are the target audience, dude.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

that being said I too was confused by how these awesome changes ruined the job for some people being its dopamine more often. Some people don't enjoy the things we like and have more fun working around the job jank to discover flavor thru overcoming painpoints rather than playing renzokuken simulator.

---

If all someone cares about is looking at flashy spell effects then I can see how they would love the changes. Personally I need more than that from a job to find it enjoyable.

Agreed on the other comments, but...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

I don't know why not Warrior, but I will assume you mean a tank that heals itself based on the damage they do and not a fixed potency value. The problem, you cannot balance it as it will either be too strong, which further pushes healers away (which is already an issue), or it is too weak to mean anything.

---

This is funny as heck to me. Heals can crit, the same as damage. Heals scale with certain buffs, the same as damage. Heals scale with gear, the same as damage. (Unless this has been changed since EW and I've forgotten that change, they even inherit auto-crits.)

The only differences between healing for a flat rate per hit and healing based on damage actually dealt are (A) whether its scales with the likes of Temperance and Mantra or Battle Litany and Battle Voice and (B) whether you want to them to depend on rotational/maintained damage buffs.

Quote:

---

As a reference from my PLD, Fast Blade does ~5% of my max HP in damage and Sepulchre does ~10%. How much healing would you want out of this?

---

Fast Blade does 220 potency. Divine Magic (Mastery II) does 400. Sepulchre does 540 and would, it healing based on damage dealt, heal for more than Holy Spirit. Clemency is 1000, the same as Confiteor and Blade of Valor.

That's not a matter of whether it came from an attack. It's simply a matter of potency.

Quote:

---

Dodge tank would be pointless. You cannot dodge any major mechanic

---

"Dodge tanks" do not necessarily have to use a gamewide basic RNG-dodge as a significant portion of their actual sustain. It's just a visual theme for whatever sustain they may have, where any RNG can be as modest as parry has been, or even lesser. It more often just implies simply that beyond some extent of mitigation, no debuffs are taken, similarly to what's possible on a "barrier tank", and may imply some extra benefit to mostly-reliable mitigation against numerous small attacks compared to other tanks, in exchange for needing to be (a bit) better topped off or shielded than other tanks before big hits to reliably meet their checks in turn (or else needing some manner of purgatory mechanic to provide that reliability now and then without being OP).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

This is funny as heck to me. Heals can crit, the same as damage. Heals scale with certain buffs, the same as damage. Heals scale with gear, the same as damage. (Unless this has been changed since EW and I've forgotten that change, they even inherit auto-crits.)

The only differences between healing for a flat rate per hit and healing based on damage actually dealt are (A) whether its scales with the likes of Temperance and Mantra or Battle Litany and Battle Voice and (B) whether you want to them to depend on rotational/maintained damage buffs.

---

The point here wasn't about the result, but about the execution. One, the healing is based on the damage you do, the other is a fixed value based on the attack. This could be enough to make someone point to a job and say, they aren't a drain tank, just because it wasn't based on damage done.


However, just to clear up things about auto crits, it depends. If the attack naturally does auto-crit, it will be a crit heal, however, if the attack is forced into an auto-crit state, it does not mean the heal will be an auto crit. This can easily be tested by using Inner Release on Warrior along with Bloodwhetting. The heal from the Fell Cleaves are not guaranteed to crit, however, heals from Primal Rend, Primal Ruination and Inner Chaos do.

Also, none of the tanks have the ability to increase their healing. Fight or Flight, Surging Tempest etc. all increase damage but not healing.

Temperance only affects the White Mage and only affects the spells, NOT abilities, ie. Cure 2 gets buffed, but not Tetragrammaton. Contrast this with Asylum that does provide the extra healing benefit to everything (the difference is 'Healing Magic Potency' is only spells and 'Healing Actions' is everything).

Mantra does increase the heals from things like Second Wind, however, I cannot test if it also affects things like Storm's Path or Bloodwhetting.

I do not know if Battle Litany or similar things the affect crit rate of healing spells/actions, or if they increase the healing potency of auto heal actions (Bloodwhetting certain attacks or Scholar's Recitation I think are the only auto crit heals).

Bloodbath is the odd one out in all of this as it heals a direct proportion of damage, what that proportion is seems to vary wildly though. Running a quick test, thinking it would be a fixed value, I got weird results. Auto attacks seem to be about 18.9% of the damage but GCD seemed to ranged from about 12.87% from Dragon Kick to 6.38% on a crit Leaping Opo. Importantly though, it is not affected by Mantra, though who knows how things like Battle Litany will affect things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Fast Blade does 220 potency. Divine Magic (Mastery II) does 400. Sepulchre does 540 and would, it healing based on damage dealt, heal for more than Holy Spirit. Clemency is 1000, the same as Confiteor and Blade of Valor.

That's not a matter of whether it came from an attack. It's simply a matter of potency.

---

Yes. The whole point of this was to determine what % of damage dealt should be healed on each attack for a 'drain' tank. As I said, I put in these values as a reference point to try and help place what they would consider to be an acceptable value.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

"Dodge tanks" do not necessarily have to use a gamewide basic RNG-dodge as a significant portion of their actual sustain. It's just a visual theme for whatever sustain they may have, where any RNG can be as modest as parry has been, or even lesser. It more often just implies simply that beyond some extent of mitigation, no debuffs are taken, similarly to what's possible on a "barrier tank", and may imply some extra benefit to mostly-reliable mitigation against numerous small attacks compared to other tanks, in exchange for needing to be (a bit) better topped off or shielded than other tanks before big hits to reliably meet their checks in turn (or else needing some manner of purgatory mechanic to provide that reliability now and then without being OP).

---

Any important debuffs are going to be applied regardless of shield or dodge potential. This game really doesn't have many cases of numerous, small, attacks outside of dungeon trash, which is the only place it is reliable. A healers current ability to shield is not going to be enough to allow the tank to survive in any serious content, they need some way to reduce damage, at which point, even if it is a case of 'dodging' 40% of the damage, that is effectively the same as mitigating 40% of the damage. You could say the theme behind it is different, but also, how would people actually see it. It's just another 40% tank mitigation. Even going so far as to have their big cooldown being dodge almost all attacks, that is functionally the same as Paladin's Hallowed Ground (cue the cries of homogeneity).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

And that's kinda the point: FFXIV needs to look to other MMOs why certain things didn't work, for nobody else. And while sure, hey, maybe 10th time the charm. Chances are, it's not. :P

---

Yes, and they might have done already, we do not know. They might have looked at the shields on Blood Death Knight from over 13 years ago, seen that WoW has changed the job for reasons and decided well, it didn't work for them, so we won't bother, or, they might have looked at it, tested it, and decided, it did not work. Ultimately, we do not know what has and has not been tested and that is the thing to keep in mind.

Imagine old gnb in this savage tier xD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CidHeiral

snipped

---

I am absolutely not the target audience. You do realize I can have fun with how it currently is, and see and criticize how it's flawed, right?

I would prefer if they were NOT homogenized and lobotomized, but I'm not going to sit here and be miserable the entire damn time lmao

I don't give a rats ass if they don't design certain jobs to be fun for me or anyone else. I just won't play that job, and others should follow the same. Don't pull that stunt, it doesn't apply to me in the slightest and is quite frankly infuriating. I'd take back StB and prior design in a heartbeat bar TP which can stay dead in a fire

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Imagine old gnb in this savage tier xD

---

You mean before this change? Yes? That'd work fine? After all DRK works, and GNB essentially switched from a DRK-type tank (120s burst, can fumble your resources and misplan them) to a WAR-type tank (60s burst, essentially can at worst waste resource income to overcapping). DRKs do fine, and hence pre-change GNB would, too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

You mean before this change? Yes? That'd work fine? After all DRK works, and GNB essentially switched from a DRK-type tank (120s burst, can fumble your resources and misplan them) to a WAR-type tank (60s burst, essentially can at worst waste resource income to overcapping). DRKs do fine, and hence pre-change GNB would, too.

---

I would say it was less about being 120s compared to 60s and more to do with Gnashing Fang timings, which, I do not know how things would line up there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

I would say it was less about being 120s compared to 60s and more to do with Gnashing Fang timings, which, I do not know how things would line up there.

---

Would they not just be the same? You still want to use it every 30s either way unless you microoptimize a single oGCD for the next window which honestly isn't worth it. The main thing is now you can make up for lost GF uses with the second charge.

As for DRK, it might as well be a WAR type burst, I consider it to be. The only 2m CD's are LS and henceforth Disesteem. The line is excruciatingly slim. I'm shocked they even left Salted at 90s.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zairava

Would they not just be the same? You still want to use it every 30s either way unless you microoptimize a single oGCD for the next window which honestly isn't worth it. The main thing is now you can make up for lost GF uses with the second charge.

---

Not necessarily, if you cannot hit the boss for whatever reason, which I think is more abundant in this tier than previous, then you can potentially risk Gnashing Fang drifting further back in the rotation, with no way to bring it forward. This could misalign it with burst periods where it might clash with another GCD (Double Down) pushing one of them further back, or even getting in the way of Lionheart which would push Gnashing Fang back even further.

Would this be an issue in the current tier? I do not know, I never played Gunbreaker to that level, but hopefully a more experienced Gunbreaker could clarify.

Ah, but that's not a GNB-unique situation and other tanks did not get second charges on their 30s-ish CDs to compensate. I still don't quite know what the point of that change to GNB was, tbh. It's just one more component of feeling like a melee-range class removed, since as you say, now even not being in melee range (which should be 100% the death knell for everything you can do, being a melee range job) is less punishing than you'd expect it to be since your GF-CD can keep cycling happily on the second charge.

If GF at least stacked shields like the PvP version, I could kinda see the point I'll admit...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

Ah, but that's not a GNB-unique situation and other tanks did not get second charges on their 30s-ish CDs to compensate.

---

The difference is Gnashing Fang is 3 GCDs long whilst the other 30s cooldowns are oCGDs. If you push an oGCD back, it really doesn't affect anything else.

On the other side, Gnashing Fang getting pushed back DOES affect other things. For example, if it lines up with your Double Down coming off of cooldown, one of them has to be pushed back. With the consideration Lionheart tended to be the last 3 or 4 GCDs on the burst combo, if Gnashing Fang was pushed back enough to the point they started overlapping, you then have a conflict. You could bring Lionheart forward into the burst combo, but you then have to push Gnashing Fang back even further. In this hypothetical scenario, you have lost a good 15 seconds, which could cost a usage, even at the end of a fight, a single GCD Gnashing Fang is still stronger than Burst Strike.

For me, it caused too many conflicts to happen. Don't get me wrong, having things that fight each other can be good, but if it comes at the cost of making the job frustrating to play, that is when it becomes an issue for me. To be clear, I have never been vocal about my issues with Gunbreaker and I was more than happy to leave it to the players that do play Gunbreaker regularly and just not play it often. However, I am now interested in hearing what Gunbreaker mains are saying and whether they like the changes or not, especially in the context of the new savage raid, which also comes with a, how do you think the old Gunbreaker would have worked'.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

You mean before this change? Yes? That'd work fine? After all DRK works, and GNB essentially switched from a DRK-type tank (120s burst, can fumble your resources and misplan them) to a WAR-type tank (60s burst, essentially can at worst waste resource income to overcapping). DRKs do fine, and hence pre-change GNB would, too.

---

Omega disagree. Your rota would be drifting harder than you drift in any need for speed game xD
I was referring to the gnashing fang and cartridge changes, not the 60 second style gameplay. I don't know if you do savage but just look at m10s.
No gnb before the changes would not work! And i can almost certainly say that it was either m10s or the doomtrain ex that made them decide to change gnb in this way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

Ah, but that's not a GNB-unique situation and other tanks did not get second charges on their 30s-ish CDs to compensate. I still don't quite know what the point of that change to GNB was, tbh. It's just one more component of feeling like a melee-range class removed, since as you say, now even not being in melee range (which should be 100% the death knell for everything you can do, being a melee range job) is less punishing than you'd expect it to be since your GF-CD can keep cycling happily on the second charge.

If GF at least stacked shields like the PvP version, I could kinda see the point I'll admit...

---

Other tanks don't have 30sec GCDs, only gnb has them and the problem was that it is based on a ressource, it requires cartridges.
If you take carve and spit from drk for example, it doesnt have stacks, because it is an OGCd and isnt tied to a ressource you generate.
Having carve and spit or danger zone with stacks would be good though. Less drift and more flexibility, so it's easier to keep it aligned.
If you look at the gnb changes, they all happened to counter drift and make it easier to keep stuff aligned.
Imagine a job that has its burst drifting out of buff windows. In this meta thats a death sentence. It's all about rotational alignment in tbis game right now.
At least if you do high end content. Gnb before the changes would just be drifting hell with how many gcds you lose in the current fights.
However i do agree that bloodfest could have stayed at 120sec. Having it on 60sec makes the job feel more busy and active though

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

The difference is Gnashing Fang is 3 GCDs long whilst the other 30s cooldowns are oCGDs. If you push an oGCD back, it really doesn't affect anything else.

On the other side, Gnashing Fang getting pushed back DOES affect other things. For example, if it lines up with your Double Down coming off of cooldown, one of them has to be pushed back. With the consideration Lionheart tended to be the last 3 or 4 GCDs on the burst combo, if Gnashing Fang was pushed back enough to the point they started overlapping, you then have a conflict. You could bring Lionheart forward into the burst combo, but you then have to push Gnashing Fang back even further. In this hypothetical scenario, you have lost a good 15 seconds, which could cost a usage, even at the end of a fight, a single GCD Gnashing Fang is still stronger than Burst Strike.

For me, it caused too many conflicts to happen. Don't get me wrong, having things that fight each other can be good, but if it comes at the cost of making the job frustrating to play, that is when it becomes an issue for me. To be clear, I have never been vocal about my issues with Gunbreaker and I was more than happy to leave it to the players that do play Gunbreaker regularly and just not play it often. However, I am now interested in hearing what Gunbreaker mains are saying and whether they like the changes or not, especially in the context of the new savage raid, which also comes with a, how do you think the old Gunbreaker would have worked'.

---

That describes it really well. Fully agree with this. Gnb before the changes had just so many things fighting each other within its rotation that it couldn't be seen as anything but design flaws.
So far i had a lot of gnbs in pf for the savage, the general opinion was that they like the changes. The drk in my static even switched to gnb, because he just prefers gnb now. Also it feels like in almost every random duty you enter there is a gnb. So either a lot of players are still testing or they just enjoy gnb more now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kishin12345

I was referring to the gnashing fang and cartridge changes, not the 60 second style gameplay. I don't know if you do savage but just look at m10s.

---

(I just cleared that yesterday, as GNB. Yes, it would have been perfectly fine without the change, I'm not saying that without personal experience)

And sure the changes are... alright? Like I said before, they feel utterly pointless but that kinda also makes them obviously not something negative. Just... pointless. Removes yet more potential identity and edge cases from jobs to make everything a sea of grey lukewarm slop. Granted, the loss is miniscule because there was so little to lose, before. Of course.

As a simple example, why is having to personally work against drift a bad thing? How is that not a good thing as it means the class not only has some level of player expression, but also something of an identity as different classes can be different levels of vulnerable to developing drift, and hence do better or worse in certain fights? That's how identity is gained after all with RPG classes: You're better at X, worse at Y, and someone else is worse at X and better at Y. Because removing those steadily means at some point, there is no longer even a reason to have separate abilities. There's no reason not just to have a single "damage skill" that like the single healer nuke gets spammed 25 times in a row instead of 7 buttons you use in a fixed, never-changing, ever-repeating, static 25-GCD rotation. We're not quite there yet, but since you can now no longer even run into a situation where you mentally need to re-sort your skills mid-fight, we're also awfully close. And at that point, just give players a break and reduce the RSI-inducing nature of combat and make the combat sequence run on its own and automatically whenever you're in melee reach, we just press oGCDs and mitigation skills and such?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

(I just cleared that yesterday, as GNB. Yes, it would have been perfectly fine without the change, I'm not saying that without personal experience)

And sure the changes are... alright? Like I said before, they feel utterly pointless but that kinda also makes them obviously not something negative. Just... pointless. Removes yet more potential identity and edge cases from jobs to make everything a sea of grey lukewarm slop. Granted, the loss is miniscule because there was so little to lose, before. Of course.

As a simple example, why is having to personally work against drift a bad thing? How is that not a good thing as it means the class not only has some level of player expression, but also something of an identity as different classes can be different levels of vulnerable to developing drift, and hence do better or worse in certain fights? That's how identity is gained after all with RPG classes: You're better at X, worse at Y, and someone else is worse at X and better at Y. Because removing those steadily means at some point, there is no longer even a reason to have separate abilities. There's no reason not just to have a single "damage skill" that like the single healer nuke gets spammed 25 times in a row instead of 7 buttons you use in a fixed, never-changing, ever-repeating, static 25-GCD rotation. We're not quite there yet, but since you can now no longer even run into a situation where you mentally need to re-sort your skills mid-fight, we're also awfully close. And at that point, just give players a break and reduce the RSI-inducing nature of combat and make the combat sequence run on its own and automatically whenever you're in melee reach, we just press oGCDs and mitigation skills and such?

---

The answer to that is incredibly simple.
There are situations where you cannot work against drift, just because the boss isn't targetable or you lost so and so many gcds already.
It is a design flaw when you get punished for something that is not your fault.
There is a reason every group has a viper and paladin (uncoiled fury, divine might, ranged combo)
People are already calling for that design to be put on all melees and tanks.
Believe it or not, but people do not enjoy losing gcds at all.
Also did you feel like you had an easy time on gnb? Have you been the guy with high carry potential or have you been the guy that got carried?
Was all that was missing for perfection just crit luck or did you go in with more of a yolo mindset? Did you optimize or greed or did you just take the downtime?
Did you have gaps between gcds? Did you triple weave by accident or even quadruple or quintuple weave? How long did you disvonnect from the boss?
Because what i'm talking about is high end optimization runs, and gnbs want to be able to do that, too.
Sure clear is clear but it also depends how you cleared.

I mean GNB was the tank-class I always swapped to when the other tank was a PLD, so it's not like I didn't do all raidbosses and EXs this expansion on GNB before they changed it. You know what was kinda cool about it? That depending on the fight, it could not be played purely from memory.

It's like when a caster never has to abort casts for movement: There's no reason to have casts in the first place then, they no longer have any gameplay value and do not contribute to being, well, a caster.

Other games like GW2 also have different variations of this problem, like when ranged attacks are never tested as everyone is always piled into melee range 100% of the time. No point to even have range then if it's never worth anything as nobody else is ever penalized for not having range. That latter part is osmething FFXIV also does: Yes we have ranged that actually attack from range in many fights, but in particular in EW, melee DPS got guaranteed basically perfect uptime. At which point "I need melee range to attack" no longer has any meaning and you might as well be given range. You even mention this yourself, with apparently (luckily not seen that myself yet) people calling for ranged segments on melee classes as a general thing so that again instead of class differentiation we erode the point of these abilities even existing in the first place.

And don't get me wrong, GNB is fine to play now. It's just... entirely soup now? It's one defining element (the slow shift in ability-alignment you basically could not prevent in most fights) is gone, and hence there's little to set it apart from just swapping to another tank. It's all pointless different vfx skins on the same underlying tank class now.

Functional, sure. Just sad.

(edit)
But anyways, kinda went offtopic from what the thread was supposed to be about. xD

Back on point, I feel the changes are aggressively... "okay".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

I mean GNB was the tank-class I always swapped to when the other tank was a PLD, so it's not like I didn't do all raidbosses and EXs this expansion on GNB before they changed it. You know what was kinda cool about it? That depending on the fight, it could not be played purely from memory.

It's like when a caster never has to abort casts for movement: There's no reason to have casts in the first place then, they no longer have any gameplay value and do not contribute to being, well, a caster.

Other games like GW2 also have different variations of this problem, like when ranged attacks are never tested as everyone is always piled into melee range 100% of the time. No point to even have range then if it's never worth anything as nobody else is ever penalized for not having range. That latter part is osmething FFXIV also does: Yes we have ranged that actually attack from range in many fights, but in particular in EW, melee DPS got guaranteed basically perfect uptime. At which point "I need melee range to attack" no longer has any meaning and you might as well be given range. You even mention this yourself, with apparently (luckily not seen that myself yet) people calling for ranged segments on melee classes as a general thing so that again instead of class differentiation we erode the point of these abilities even existing in the first place.

And don't get me wrong, GNB is fine to play now. It's just... entirely soup now? It's one defining element (the slow shift in ability-alignment you basically could not prevent in most fights) is gone, and hence there's little to set it apart from just swapping to another tank. It's all pointless different vfx skins on the same underlying tank class now.

Functional, sure. Just sad.

(edit)
But anyways, kinda went offtopic from what the thread was supposed to be about. xD

Back on point, I feel the changes are aggressively... "okay".

---

I totally get what you mean.
It's just that the game gets balanced from top to bottom. Jobs gets balanced around ultimate and savage so that every job can generally do its rotation without too much interference.
At least what i imagine is the encounter design team making fights and then handing them to the job design team and they just filter out which jobs might struggle more than others. Then they change accordingly.
I remember when only a few jobs had gap closers and then everyone wanted one because of functionality reasons. Now every job has some form of gap closer.
If they actually put pld and viper ranged style on more jobs it would be more homogenization, i get that. It's just that this game is going for hyper balance rather than niche skills or high differentiation in identity.
Functionality comes first. The past years of changes prove that.
It's not for me to decide if that's good or bad, i just want the jobs i play to not have disadvantages over other jobs.

I do not like the gunbreaker changes, at least specifically DT gunbreaker. However, hear me out:

On paper, I love the changes (except for the overabundance of carts spam), I like that gun mode is now 60s and the 2 gnashing charges is fantastic, but as a controller player, this added combo was not a good move.

On controller, I want my main gcd hits to be on the shapes (my right hand, as clearly the left is for movement), and bloodfest was on my upper left dpad as itd a single hit (similar to my other tanks, particularly warrior, same place as infuriate). Now, they added lion combo to it, and i have to move with my hand and hit the buttons, needing to use my other thumb just to do it? That's ridiculous. They make changes, but completely ignore mobility. This was an issue when it first dropped in ShB as well.

It was mostly perfect in EW, other than its issues, but as far as mobility goes, it was good. All the changes that happened are what id say are welcome if it didn't not have lions on BF. I still feel Double Down simply needed to only be an ability cd, or one that's unlocked using No Mercy (similar to primal rend) and no need carts at all. Sure, hyper spam wasn't the most exciting, but the mobility though.

Changes in older Ultimates? Fantastic with this change. Its again nicer because its just 2 gnashing (no lions) and... you guessed it, on my right hand (shapes). There is simply too much bloat to have a second combo like this.

Now, I know no one wants to read this but...I would've preferred lion just had been a gnashing upgrade into 100 (similar to atonement) or they just added it into gnashing fang combo in general, making it into a single button. Its not ideal, but it would fix the mobility issue. I think just making gnashing into lions wouldve been better or just after it, continuation becomes lions.

Im just brainstorming, because I just want mobility on a controller.... and want it to be smooth, not burst strike spam going into burst.

Pld has the same issue for me with new magic combo. Why not upgrade from holy spirit as that was, you guessed it, my right hand

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by millktea

On controller, I want my main gcd hits to be on the shapes (my right hand, as clearly the left is for movement), and bloodfest was on my upper left dpad as itd a single hit (similar to my other tanks, particularly warrior, same place as infuriate). Now, they added lion combo to it, and i have to move with my hand and hit the buttons, needing to use my other thumb just to do it? That's ridiculous. They make changes, but completely ignore mobility. This was an issue when it first dropped in ShB as well.

---

Couldn't you just, rearrange your crossbars so that this isn't an issue? All of my Gunbreaker GCDs are on the face buttons so I know there is plenty of space for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Couldn't you just, rearrange your crossbars so that this isn't an issue? All of my Gunbreaker GCDs are on the face buttons so I know there is plenty of space for it.

---

a little curious to see how yours is set up. I've been kinda struggling with it since 7.0 mainly because my old setup didn't account for Fated Circle getting a Continuation or Bloodfest to turn into a 3 GCD combo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

a little curious to see how yours is set up. I've been kinda struggling with it since 7.0 mainly because my old setup didn't account for Fated Circle getting a Continuation or Bloodfest to turn into a 3 GCD combo.

---

Current setup, To not about how I play, I pretty much hold the R2 trigger all the time, so it is a case of swapping fingers to get to L2 or just pressing L2 whilst still holding R2 to access the second bars. AoE attacks are set 'off in the corner' as they are mainly used for dungeons. I do have a separate set of hotbars set to the side just to track cooldowns, for Gunbreaker, it is mainly for Gnashing Fang.

As a reference, here is my Paladin setup. Again, similar concept. Shield Bash and Cover aren't on the bars partly because there isn't space (though I could make room) and partly because I never used them enough to warrant them.

Hiding buttons on the R2>L2 crossbar is a common thing I have been doing for a long time and it is mainly used for things that you can track by other means, Bard's Pitch Perfect, Viper's Uncoiled Fury, Red Mage's melee combo, Monk's Coeurl stance attacks etc. I do not swap crossbars, it is all purely done through the expanded crossbar system with the only things on the double tap being Sprint and Limit Break.

i like the new GNB it finally feels like the dps it was supposed to be lionheart go brrrrrrrrrrr

I’m unhappy with the changes. I was originally planning on playing GNB in this Savage tier but then decided to play a different job because of the changes.

Before the changes I enjoyed having to occasionally adjust my burst window based on how many cartridges I’d have, as I’d try my best to arrange Gnashing Fang, Double Down, and Bloodfest in a way that I’d not waste cartridges. It was nice that we had the option to press Sonic Break whenever we wanted in the burst window to help deal with this. But the situations where we’d ever think about this have been removed from the game because Bloodfest is now basically just Inner Release (but actually even simpler, since there’s no Infuriate stacks to think about).

I did also enjoy having to adjust my burst window if mechanics had downtime that forced me to drift Gnashing Fang. It could be done later if needed, for example we were able to use Sonic Break and Lionheart earlier in our burst window and have Gnashing be later. But now there’s no reason to think about that either.

Of course, in this current Savage tier there’s a greater amount of melee downtime compared to Cruiserweight or Light Heavyweight, but I had to judge the GNB changes before being able to see the new Savage raids. And even after seeing the raids I’m still unhappy that these changes were chosen for the job because there’s so much less enjoyment to be found while playing it.

I also can’t imagine now I’d tolerate playing the current GNB in Ultimates below level 100, as there’s no Lionheart so I’d want to save both Gnashing Fang charges for No Mercy. So I’d just be pressing 1 2 3 and Burst Strike while waiting for the next No Mercy.

I’m not sure about the best ways to adjust GNB to account for fights with more downtime than normal, and I feel like the devs had good intentions when considering the new raid design, but these changes were too heavy-handed in simplifying the job. I think the devs should rethink how they decided to approach the problem of GNB and downtime, and try their best to design it in a way that doesn’t make the burst windows extremely simple, and ideally have the filler rotation not become more boring too.

Currently I no longer have reasons to be interested in the job other than that I like FF8. I’ll either play DRK or other roles instead now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Current setup, To not about how I play, I pretty much hold the R2 trigger all the time, so it is a case of swapping fingers to get to L2 or just pressing L2 whilst still holding R2 to access the second bars. AoE attacks are set 'off in the corner' as they are mainly used for dungeons. I do have a separate set of hotbars set to the side just to track cooldowns, for Gunbreaker, it is mainly for Gnashing Fang.

As a reference, here is my Paladin setup. Again, similar concept. Shield Bash and Cover aren't on the bars partly because there isn't space (though I could make room) and partly because I never used them enough to warrant them.

Hiding buttons on the R2>L2 crossbar is a common thing I have been doing for a long time and it is mainly used for things that you can track by other means, Bard's Pitch Perfect, Viper's Uncoiled Fury, Red Mage's melee combo, Monk's Coeurl stance attacks etc. I do not swap crossbars, it is all purely done through the expanded crossbar system with the only things on the double tap being Sprint and Limit Break.

---

Thanks, I have seen people use that the R2>L2 crossbar but wasn't sure what the general approach for it was.
Not sure if I could really do that style anytime soon but it's still nice to know how it's done.

Yeah just giving the second charge should be enough to make GNB work easily with the new raid tier. The 60s burst change was unnecessary IMO, as was, in particular, the change to 6 cartridges max.