Pipe Dreams: Gladiators, Paladins and Dark Knights

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Originally Posted by Onisake

A little off topic but this bothered me. Samurai would never use an axe. it was considered a barbaric/uncivilized weapon. Samurai's were known for their sword play, but archery was the main focus. a skilled bowman was worth 3 or 4 skilled swordsman. Samurai typically trained in swordplay, archery, and mounted archery. Archery was a lot like golf in ancient japan. it's what you did when you were discussing politics.

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I never meant to imply that these would be the weapons they'd be using. If we were to make every weapon used by the samurai available, then there'd even be the rarer matchlocks and chain-weapons in the mix. I meant only to focus on one very iconic picture of the class, via the katana and/or Nodachi. That said, I pictured the samurai, while pure, to be a strong-minded and forceful class. I suppose Spear-user (Lancer) could fit this about as well. I merely picked AXE (Marauder) because most Lancer abilities seem purely piercing with later emphasis on linearly collateral damage and debilitation that seemed out of place for a Samurai, since I did not plan to include the yari or yumi aspects potential to the job.

However, if reworked, the quick and precise striking of SPR (LNC) could fit Samurai well. At present though, ability cross-overs [aside from Bloodlust] from AXE seemed more fitting, especially via abilities like Overpower and Fracture.

Let's get this out of the way first...

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Originally Posted by Onisake

for trash WAR is king due to AoE damage. but against the heavy hitters you want a pld.

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I got bored of this tank set up back when it was called World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. I'd rather we have a roster of equally-profficient tanks instead of having to pick and choose every time. You can have interesting mechanics per tank class while still aiming for the same results and performance, believe it or not.

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So i cannot agree with your new take on abilities for this class. they do not make sense with the current direction, and it makes it too similar to MRD. if anything i'd like to see it get more defensive abilities and further plant it as the go-to tank.

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Why would DRK ever be made into a tank? The class has historically been DPS, and is known for lesser armor scaling and greater damage potential.

Design-wise, what I'm aiming for is the drain theme of DRK without going to the silly extremes FFXI's DRK went to. Enmity spikes from abilities was a bad attempt at a check/balance on DRK's higher damage potential. Notice I also suggested two ways for it to sacrifice HP (Dark Slash which is comboable and Last Resort, which is the 15-minute ability) and two ways for it to recover HP between Bloodbath and Vampiric Blade (though yes, you'd have to get creative to proc Vampiric Blade but that is the intent of the design).

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But in the interest of discussion, if we wanted to make GLD more offensive I would give its defensive abilities a twist.

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I wouldn't allow a G.Sword GLA or DRK access to some of the defensive abilities. This is why I suggested splitting Aegis Boon into Defensive Focus (guaranteed block if equipping a shield, guaranteed graze if using a great sword) and having Aegis Boon be a job trait for PLD. I wouldn't want DRK getting Shield Bash, Wardrum or Phalanx. That's why I suggested more focus on spell interruption (between the G.Sword bonus to Flat Blade and the DRK ability Asphyxiate).

Rampart and Sentinel are tricky because they're technically survivability. I'd cap Sentinel and Rampart to maybe 20% potency baseline, and then have shield block rating/value be something of a multiplier to allow it to reach full potential. Given that I suggested DRK getting a graze mechanic to help it mitigate some damage (thus taking one step against things like "don't use melee because they die to AoE" or "this class is a pain to heal because they constantly take damage"), I would rather just have both abilities require a shield to use.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

Can't swap in combat. wouldn't be that OP. also depends on the actual values of increased attack, etc. also GSWD i would tie directly to the job (IE: DRK only) so all of your crap would go on CD as a result of the equipment swap due to job change. (also cannot do during combat)

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I was mostly just referring to the w/shield, w/o shield skills. It's definately possible to equip, or unequip any sort of gear during battle. You just can't change class.


Unequip Shield

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Rampart:
w/o shield: increases attack for allies, increases enmity

Bash:
w/o shield: Delivers a melee attack that has a chance to lower defense.

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Equip Shield

Have a MNK Shoulder Tackle (Stun)

Riot Blade (Stack more Defense Down)

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Let's get this out of the way first...

I got bored of this tank set up back when it was called World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. I'd rather we have a roster of equally-profficient tanks instead of having to pick and choose every time. You can have interesting mechanics per tank class while still aiming for the same results and performance, believe it or not.

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that won't be possible with how classes are currently. it's not that easy to change mechanics. :/ i'm not sure what sort of delusions you're having. it will take a minimum of months to do what you request. it's just not going to happen right now. we have two tanks. WAR and PLD. WAR specializes in trash mobs/AoE PLD specializes in heavy hitting big stuff.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Why would DRK ever be made into a tank? The class has historically been DPS, and is known for lesser armor scaling and greater damage potential.

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i never said it would be. building it from the GLA will require it to be too defensive. because, aside from it's WSs, all of it's abilities are defensive. you cannot reliably build a DD from GLA because half of it's abilities are defensive in nature. The other half are WSs.

that's it. period. no ifs ands or buts. GLA is defensive in nature. anything spawning from it will be the same. the suggestions are made are far more viable than yours because it changes defensive abilities into offensive abilities based on the presence or absence of a shield. However I do not recommend this path. my recommendation is to build DRK from MRD.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Design-wise, what I'm aiming for is the drain theme of DRK without going to the silly extremes FFXI's DRK went to. Enmity spikes from abilities was a bad attempt at a check/balance on DRK's higher damage potential. Notice I also suggested two ways for it to sacrifice HP (Dark Slash which is comboable and Last Resort, which is the 15-minute ability) and two ways for it to recover HP between Bloodbath and Vampiric Blade (though yes, you'd have to get creative to proc Vampiric Blade but that is the intent of the design).

I wouldn't allow a G.Sword GLA or DRK access to some of the defensive abilities. This is why I suggested splitting Aegis Boon into Defensive Focus (guaranteed block if equipping a shield, guaranteed graze if using a great sword) and having Aegis Boon be a job trait for PLD. I wouldn't want DRK getting Shield Bash, Wardrum or Phalanx. That's why I suggested more focus on spell interruption (between the G.Sword bonus to Flat Blade and the DRK ability Asphyxiate).

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so to make a DD class you want to make it half your abilities do absolutely nothing for you. all of it's offense now comes from sub class abilities and it's drain abilities. brilliant plan.

why build it from GLA at all? why not MRD? every defensive ability from MRD allows you to use a 2handed weapon. and MRD has a lot of offensive abilities that will benefit DRK.

please enlighten me as to why GLA makes more sense for DRK than MRD.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Rampart and Sentinel are tricky because they're technically survivability. I'd cap Sentinel and Rampart to maybe 20% potency baseline, and then have shield block rating/value be something of a multiplier to allow it to reach full potential. Given that I suggested DRK getting a graze mechanic to help it mitigate some damage (thus taking one step against things like "don't use melee because they die to AoE" or "this class is a pain to heal because they constantly take damage"), I would rather just have both abilities require a shield to use.

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you missed the main point of my post. GLA has nothing for DDs. nothing. at all. none of its abilities are good for a pure DD class. DRK is a pure DD class. without a major change to it's abilities then you will not be able to reliably build a DD class from GLA.

What actually makes sense:

build DRK from MRD.

What does not make sense:

Make a new mechanic for only one class to compensate for a lack of offensive abilities. (IE: graze)

what you're proposing is essentially a combination of parry and block. why in the world would we not just make it parry?

contrary to your belief, introducing this would make DRK a tank.

why? because then you can parry AND graze. a GLA with foresight now has more defensive abilities than PLD, because you cannot parry with a shield. and because you have access to sentinel and damage=hate.

so no. just no. it's not a good idea. but it is a valiant effort.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

I was mostly just referring to the w/shield, w/o shield skills. It's definately possible to equip, or unequip any sort of gear during battle. You just can't change class.


Unequip Shield


Equip Shield

Have a MNK Shoulder Tackle (Stun)

Riot Blade (Stack more Defense Down)

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i wasn't aware you could change armor/rings/shields while in combat. I was near positive you could not. I don't really see the merit in this. if you're tanking you want your shield up at all times. if you're DDing shield does nothing for you, and you'd have to DD with a 1 handed sword instead of the proposed Gswd. you'd be gimping damage potential for a slight increase in utility. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me unless your'e solo. in which case who cares? PvP maybe but:

Either way this was not my actual recomendation, it was just tossing ideas that would be feasible if DRK built from GLA.

I still think it should build from MRD.

MRD => WAR = tank
MRD => DRK = DD

GLA => PLD = tank
GLA => RDM = Support/utility.

These kinds of paths make sense within the realm of current skill sets.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

that won't be possible with how classes are currently. it's not that easy to change mechanics. :/ i'm not sure what sort of delusions you're having. it will take a minimum of months to do what you request. it's just not going to happen right now. we have two tanks. WAR and PLD. WAR specializes in trash mobs/AoE PLD specializes in heavy hitting big stuff.

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Hopefully the devs don't think like you, otherwise this is going to turn into a bigger mess than FFXI or WoW during TBC. It's not that difficult to do.

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i never said it would be. building it from the GLA will require it to be too defensive. because, aside from it's WSs, all of it's abilities are defensive. you cannot reliably build a DD from GLA because half of it's abilities are defensive in nature. The other half are WSs.

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The only reason GLA was changed to being defensive was because it would be a waste of resources to make the class hybrid or middle of the road and give it no option outside of tanking. This is between the limited changes they could bring us as well as limitations of the game engine and their restrictive design in 1.0.

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so to make a DD class you want to make it half your abilities do absolutely nothing for you. all of it's offense now comes from sub class abilities and it's drain abilities. brilliant plan.

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That's what we call synergy between the job and its classes/subclasses. It's not a far shot from specializations, which I am rather fond of. You can make a class with a slew of abilities and some abilities become better either through bonus scaling or role emphasis from traits once you go into a job. It's why I took the other two improved defense traits from GLA and turned them into Armor Mastery for PLD. Likewise, I grabbed the two potential improved attack traits and turned them into Great Sword Mastery for DRK. A GLA baseline would have one defensive trait, one offensive trait, and gain more depending on the job they choose.

Due to the changes in design, GLA at the most would provide some utility, some survivability for DRK along with its bread and butter weapon skills (as DPS they'd have more chances to use Goring Blade and Riot Blade, and those would do more damage as DRK would be using them with a great sword). Assuming MRD enters the picture as a subclass, it could then provide Bloodbath. LNC would provide Blood for Blood and Invigorate. Mind you, that's with the limited number of abilities we have. We won't know how much else the devs will be adding to the game in terms of abilities and what they will be opening up for cross-classing.

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without a major change to it's abilities then you will not be able to reliably build a DD class from GLA.

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Indeed, and that's kind of the point of the OP.

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Make a new mechanic for only one class to compensate for a lack of offensive abilities. (IE: graze)

what you're proposing is essentially a combination of parry and block. why in the world would we not just make it parry?

contrary to your belief, introducing this would make DRK a tank.

why? because then you can parry AND graze. a GLA with foresight now has more defensive abilities than PLD, because you cannot parry with a shield. and because you have access to sentinel and damage=hate.

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I can concede to this, except that my intention was to keep parry on MRD and out of GLA regardless of whether they're using a sword or great sword. Having both share parry in some capacity would be messy unless you somehow change parries so that DRK at most gets partial parries (and even then, mitigate a lot less damage than a MRD/WAR would) while full parries can only be done by MRD. Or having MRD/WAR parry values and ratings scale with STR and not scale at all for G.Sword GLA or DRK.

At least to me, it's simpler to just remove parry from the table and give DRK a mitigation mechanic that is there only for self-preservation. Unless you feel the drains are enough, which I'm willing to concider.

As for Sentinel/Rampart, there's an easy fix to that: make them require a shield to use. No shield, no access. Or again, if Sentinel were 20% damage reduction, make it 5% damage reduction when using a two-handed sword.

Keep in mind that DRK would not have Flash (moved to PLD), Aegis Boon, Wardrum, the enmity modifier on flat blade, full-strength Rampart and full-strength Sentinel (or simply no access to either ability). It would have inferior armor scaling, less mitigation gains from VIT, Foresight from MRD and Provoke from MRD. A DRK would not want to get hit, nor would they have the toolkit needed to actually be a tank. Graze's might mitigate some damage from physical AoEs, but they're not going to make up for all the other things you're missing.

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GLA => RDM = Support/utility.

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The better alternative.

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i wasn't aware you could change armor/rings/shields while in combat. I was near positive you could not.

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Yeah, you can chage gear, but not in active mode. But you can't change class/job while in combat.

I agree with you that MRD --> Dark Knight makes more sense. (If not for Bloodbath alone)

This could be an interesting design.

GLD --> PLD (Single Target Tank) --> Holy Knight (Trash Mob/Single Target)
MRD --> WAR (Trash Mob) --> Dark Knight (Trash Mob/Single Target) (The Axe makes things difficult)

It would probably take another Job Upgrade + Skills to balance the versatility of these two designs anyways. Seeing as people want two different go-to Tank Jobs.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Hopefully the devs don't think like you, otherwise this is going to turn into a bigger mess than FFXI or WoW during TBC. It's not that difficult to do.

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You're not thinking in the full business sense. opportunity cost is huge. and it's a lot more difficult than you think. are you a programmer? are you a game tester/quality expert? keep in mind it has to go through feasbility => closed alpha => revision => closed beta => testing => release. if you think that's 'not that difficult' you're wrong. it's not something you can spit out in a couple of days. months of work and half a dozen people. minimum.

it's not just about technical capability. it's the whole spectrum of balance. PvP is coming too, which introduces a completely new realm of balances.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The only reason GLA was changed to being defensive was because it would be a waste of resources to make the class hybrid or middle of the road and give it no option outside of tanking. This is between the limited changes they could bring us as well as limitations of the game engine and their restrictive design in 1.0.

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don't buy it. i believe it was always meant to be defensive. it has some hybrid potential, but every class has that so it's a moot point.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

That's what we call synergy between the job and its classes/subclasses. It's not a far shot from specializations, which I am rather fond of. You can make a class with a slew of abilities and some abilities become better either through bonus scaling or role emphasis from traits once you go into a job. It's why I took the other two improved defense traits from GLA and turned them into Armor Mastery for PLD. Likewise, I grabbed the two potential improved attack traits and turned them into Great Sword Mastery for DRK. A GLA baseline would have one defensive trait, one offensive trait, and gain more depending on the job they choose.

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wait. so you think that having half of your skills be absolutely useless to you is synergy?

. . ./thread

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Due to the changes in design, GLA at the most would provide some utility, some survivability for DRK along with its bread and butter weapon skills (as DPS they'd have more chances to use Goring Blade and Riot Blade, and those would do more damage as DRK would be using them with a great sword). Assuming MRD enters the picture as a subclass, it could then provide Bloodbath. LNC would provide Blood for Blood and Invigorate. Mind you, that's with the limited number of abilities we have. We won't know how much else the devs will be adding to the game in terms of abilities and what they will be opening up for cross-classing.

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GLA main with LNC/MRD subclass is what you're tentatively proposing.

I still think MRD main with LNC/PUG sub class is far superior and fits with DRK lore more. PUG gives it a mix of survivibility and offense (blindside, SW, featherfoot) and LNC gives it more offensive (BfB, Invigorate). not to mention MRD gives it a good mix of defensive (foresight, bloodbath, rampage) and offensive (berserk, enduring march)

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Indeed, and that's kind of the point of the OP.

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you're not changing anything. you're barely tweaking. and half the skills are still useless for a DD class. it doesn't make sense. your proposal will make DRK the weakest DD, BRD will do gain more damage from its main class than DRK will.

you either need to change defensive shield abilities to offensive ones that do not require a shield or build from a different class.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I can concede to this, except that my intention was to keep parry on MRD and out of GLA regardless of whether they're using a sword or great sword. Having both share parry in some capacity would be messy unless you somehow change parries so that DRK at most gets partial parries (and even then, mitigate a lot less damage than a MRD/WAR would) while full parries can only be done by MRD. Or having MRD/WAR parry values and ratings scale with STR and not scale at all for G.Sword GLA or DRK.

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why? it's a mechanic that already exists. why do we need to create a new mechanic? use what's already exisiting. why do double work when you have something already that works perfectly fine? why does drk need to partial parry? is there something wrong with full parry? is there a reason this can't be accomplish with giving them lower base parry rate?

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Originally Posted by Duelle

At least to me, it's simpler to just remove parry from the table and give DRK a mitigation mechanic that is there only for self-preservation. Unless you feel the drains are enough, which I'm willing to concider.

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again, why? why can't we use existing mechanics that already have been balanced? this is a validation/quality/feasibility thing. you're not thinking in a business sense here. it just doesn't make sense to introduce more work to the dev team right now, or in the near future.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

As for Sentinel/Rampart, there's an easy fix to that: make them require a shield to use. No shield, no access. Or again, if Sentinel were 20% damage reduction, make it 5% damage reduction when using a two-handed sword.

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again. why do we want to remove base class abilities from the roster? this makes absolutely no sense. you're gimping yourself by removing the total number of actions from the class. essentially DRK would have WSs from GLA. all other abilities would be from it's own quested abilities and it's sub class abilities. you're gimping DRK and making it useless until level 50 where you have access to 5 subclass abilities. bad idea. very very bad idea. i don't understand why you can't grasp this.

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a level 30 drk, with your proposal has:

1 Fast Blade

2 Rampart

4 Phalanx

6 Defensive Focus: Guarantees one shield block if equipping a shield, or one graze if equipping a great sword. Defensive ability, not useful unless you pull hate

10 Savage Blade

14 Spinning Slash: Swing your weapon fiercely, dealing damage to nearby targets.

18 Shield Bash

22 Outmaneuver: Slightly increases block rate when equipping a shield. Slightly increases chance of grazing when equipping a great sword. Defensive ability, not useful unless you pull hate

26 Flat Blade

30 Riot Blade

8 Enhanced Physical Defense does not increase damage potential

12 Enhanced Rampart

16 Enhanced Physical Attack Power ONLY thing that increases damage potential. also available to PLD...lol

20 Swift Defensive Focus: Reduces recast of Defensive Focus by 15 seconds. Defensive, does not increase damage potential

24 Sword & Board: Occasionally attack with your shield.

28 Enhanced Flat Blade: when using a great sword, Flat Blade can interrupt spellcasting. Defensive ability, can increase damage potential only be allowing to attack from side/behind more easily when soloing

and 3 sub class abilities.
if lnc/mrd are available: Invigorate, BfB, and Bloodbath/Feint are your most useful. BfB is the only way you have to increase your damage potential aside from your level 30 job ability.

Now compare this to MNK and DRG at level 30. Yeah...I'd never play DRK. it would be an absolute nightmare to play unless played as a tank. Can you now see why my counter proposal is more viable?

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Keep in mind that DRK would not have Flash (moved to PLD), Aegis Boon, Wardrum, the enmity modifier on flat blade, full-strength Rampart and full-strength Sentinel (or simply no access to either ability). It would have inferior armor scaling, less mitigation gains from VIT, Foresight from MRD and Provoke from MRD. A DRK would not want to get hit, nor would they have the toolkit needed to actually be a tank. Graze's might mitigate some damage from physical AoEs, but they're not going to make up for all the other things you're missing.

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and be the worst DD class AFTER BRD with absolutely less than half the utility.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The better alternative.

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was an example. i was trying to make the point that it woudl make more sense to build a utility/support class from GLA than a DD class.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Yeah, you can chage gear, but not in active mode. But you can't change class/job while in combat.

I agree with you that MRD --> Dark Knight makes more sense. (If not for Bloodbath alone)

This could be an interesting design.

GLD --> PLD (Single Target Tank) --> Holy Knight (Trash Mob/Single Target)
MRD --> WAR (Trash Mob) --> Dark Knight (Trash Mob/Single Target) (The Axe makes things difficult)

It would probably take another Job Upgrade + Skills to balance the versatility of these two designs anyways. Seeing as people want two different go-to Tank Jobs.

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Brilliant!

I could totally get behind the idea of having DRKs and HKTs(lol) in this fashion.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

months of work and half a dozen people. minimum.

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You mean like what they most likely have been doing up until now? I doubt the 2.0 battle mechanics team sat around while the sound, art and animation teams worked their asses off to bring us those trailers. I like to think they've been hard at work to bring about whatever system they feel would best allow the multiple jobs to exist in-game.

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don't buy it. i believe it was always meant to be defensive. it has some hybrid potential, but every class has that so it's a moot point.

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You now sound like the crew that constantly asks why we have such "little" content and not 14 dungeons to support the level climb from 1-50 with varied loot and boss mechanics. The short answer is that it's stuff that's there to hold us over because the real game is coming when 2.0 launches. That they diluted GLA down to the bare bones to fit the tank role easily fits this MO because for a temporary/placeholder system like 1.0's, it's easier to balance and design a one-trick pony. It's cheaper, too.

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wait. so you think that having half of your skills be absolutely useless to you is synergy?

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So it's written in stone that every class has to use every ability it ever learns all the time in all situations? News to me.

It's standard design for branching classes. You didn't see lv75 Shillien Knights using the dinky dagger strike they learned at lv18 because their skills are all sword and shield stuff. You didn't see lv80 Arms Warriors complaining about not being able to use Shield Wall or Shield Bash because his gameplay was entirely built around two-handers and abilities that involve two-handers. I'm applying that same principle in my suggestion.

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why do we want to remove base class abilities from the roster?

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Because this is how branching class design generally works. Once you start narrowing down on what your role is, certain abilities are better-used than others. I still don't get why DRK missing out on shield-based, tank-oriented abilities is the end of the world. Mind you, I never dismissed the possibility of more abilities per class being added once 2.0 hits.

All in all, it's true that we don't know what approach Yoshida and his team are going to take to make classes branch into jobs (or if they'll give up on the armoury system and just use jobs instead), just like we don't know whether it'll really be GLA that spawns DRK. Maybe someone should ask him the next time they can catch him in an interview and see if he has anything to share on the matter.

Hmm , pretty sure Yoshi P already stated that his goal for Jobs was to incourage "role" party play, as in, Job X has a main role in the party that is completly diffrent from job Y. Wich he has pretty much succeeded in doing. What your proposing , Duelle, is a complete remake of almost a years work in progress. And for what? Soo you can have a hodge podge group of jobs with no real deffinition and/or purpose? News flash, we had that with FFXIV release and it FAILED. Yoshi is bringing back what has served the Final Fantasy campain soo well. If you want to be able to tank on your Lancer as well as you tank on your PLD, then maybe you should find a game that dose that rather then trying to convince others this game is broken because it dosent suite your particular taste, is no better then trolling. If you want a game that has no defineing properities for jobs/classes , Im sure one exists, but considering the history of Final Fantasy games, it will likely not be this one.