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Originally Posted by
MartaDemireux
To be frank, a lot of your suggestions feel as though it would be making the Berserker almost identical to PLD/WAR.
If you honestly think that, I have to wonder if you've actually played or even looked at WAR and PLD particularly closely.
My suggestions are there for *balance* purposes. You have to make sure that tanks scale within close proximity to one another.
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Part of having an evasion based tank is to not have the same HP as a WAR or Defense as a PLD.
And I never said that they *should* have the same static mitigation as a PLD. They *should* however have the pretty much the same effective mean mitigation *and* same eHP else they're not going to be balanced with the other tanks: if eHP is too low (which is what happens when you rely almost exclusively on evasion and RNG mechanisms), they'll fall over dead to burst damage; if mean mitigation is too low, they'll burn through healer resources too quickly. Even if you want a tank with high mean mitigation and low eHP (which is what you're going for), you *still* have to have the eHP be high enough so that you're not risking RNG death on a regular basis, which means that you *need* to be within 5-10% of the other tanks' eHP.
This isn't a question of stylistic or creative choice either. It's a fundamental fact about balancing tanks. It happens in *every single game*. There are fundamental minimums that you have to maintain or else the tank will not be effective.
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WAR has high HP but little ability to reduce damage. PLD has lower HP but huge ability to reduce damage.
Actually, if you understood the tanking mechanics/math that I've been referring to, you'd realize that WAR and PLD are almost exactly identical as far as mean mitigation and eHP are concerned. The 20% DR that PLD gets is the equivalent of 25% +healing and 25% + hp. WAR is going to be getting 20% +healing and 25% +hp (with some very reliable DR that can be leveraged *really* well). For all intents and purposes, there is no difference *whatsoever* between +hp/+healing and DR. The fact that WAR has a larger hp pool is simply a derivative of not using straight up damage reduction.
Honestly, read this post of mine where I explain all of this in detail.
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My implementing 34% damage mitigation isn't huge when you look at how it's achieved.
34% is huge no matter *how* you look at it *and that's not even factoring in the increased evasion*. The amount of eHP and mean mitigation you're providing is *insane* because you're providing so much DR. The argument that stack maintenance is a factor is ludicrous as well given that it only *matters* for the first 15 seconds of a fight (and, even then, Perfect Form lets you get those 3 stacks in 3 GCDs if you want). I realize you might not be fond of math and this is *exactly* what I'm talking about, but that's what you have to deal with.
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My reasoning is if you stacked Featherfoot with its ability to guarantee the first hit to be evaded you'd be hurting the value of a 95% evasion rate (with 3 stacks of greased lightning).
Actually, you'd be increasing the value of it. Featherfoot with just GL would be a 31.25% reduction in damage dealt (1 - (1 - (.05 + .15 + .25)) / (1 - (.05 + .15))). Featherfoot with Inner Calm would be a *100* decrease in damage dealt. The more evasion you get, the more valuable it becomes on a comparative basis. It works the same for *any* additive mitigation mechanism.
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Yes, I know increasing an ability to a value instead of by a value has diminishing returns as we get stronger gear and higher levels. However, with the current system of working in tiers it could easily be made so this is the only way to achieve 50%. I don't realistically see hitting 50% through gear and leveling for a very long time at which point the skill could be revised.
Then what's the point of setting it to a value rather than just having it provide a static benefit so that you *don't* have to change it at a later date? Setting it to a given value rather than having it increased *by* a given amount is just kind of arbitrary and pointless, since you're basically asking for it to have to be reevaluated at a later date.
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If Faith just reduced damage taken where would be the uniqueness to the ability?
The only reason you'd want to separate +hp from +healing is if you want to increase eHP and mean mitigation separately. By increasing them by the same amount, you're not accomplishing *anything* that makes using that given mechanic have purpose. If you're going to have them separated, actually use the only reason you'd want to split them up: have it increase healing or hp by more than the other.
Also, the biggest problem with Faith is its confused identity. 60 sec duration on a 180 sec CD with a *really* weak effect amounts to an ability that has no real purpose. CDs are meant to mitigate burst damage. A CD like Faith, with a long CD, very long duration, and almost laughably low magnitude of effect is pretty much worthless because it doesn't have a purpose. If you want it to be used regularly, put it on a 30 sec or so CD and give it a 4-6 second duration with a strong effect for that time frame. If you want it to be an actual CD, shorten the duration and crank the hell out of the benefits.
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The design of TMP is to have some aspects of PLD (mitigation) and some aspects of WAR (healing, HP) while still being its own identity through the use of parrying and preventing status ailments.
The issue is that you're not really having it be all that mechanically differentiated from PLD: you're providing a stronger version of Shield Oath and simply replacing shield based effects with parry based effects. WAR and PLD are *already* close enough that you can't create a compromise tank without getting *too* close to either. It doesn't help that you're not really differentiating the way that the class mitigates damage from the playstyle model of the PLD: WAR is different because it manages Wrath stacks; your Templar is still just CDs and passive stances. It's just a PLD with a different weapon and some slight tweaks to CDs. You're not even giving them appreciable combo options since Impulse Drive is still going to have the positional requirement.
Tanks are not defined by whether they use +healing and +hp or straight up DR. They're defined by the play mechanisms they use to accomplish their goals. WAR is not about self-healing, high hp, and increased healing received; WAR is about Wrath stack maintenance/generation. PLD is not about simple damage reduction; PLD is about constant, passive benefits with a powerful CD suite. Your TMP is about constant, passive benefits with a powerful CD suite (Keen Flurry with your changes is guaranteed 25%+ mitigation for 20 secs every 90; Blood for Blood is 25% DR with 25% uptime; Bonecrusher is a slightly weakened version of Hallowed Ground that I, honestly, think is more complicated than it really needs to be). You're not making TMP a unique tank; you're just making it a different kind of PLD.
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The increased rate of parrying still doesn't surpass the PLD's rate of combined block and parry chance.
Yes, it does. Assuming a baseline 20% parry chance, 20% parry value, 20% block chance, and 25% block value, a PLD would manage 8.2% mitigation (((1 - .2) * .2) * .2 + .2 * .25) whereas a TMP with your buff would get 10% ((.2 + .2) * (.2 + .05)). The reasons for this are twofold: block chance and parry chance are not additive and you're increasing the value of all of the TMP's successful parries to the same value of the PLD's block. You're giving TMP 22% higher mitigation from parry than a PLD gets out of block and parry together.
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This will make TMP the king of parrying but still not as good at total mitigation as a PLD or as good at self-healing/HP buffing as a WAR but a happy medium with its own role to fill in avoiding status ailments so the healers can focus more on curing them instead of cleansing them which does add up in some fights.
Your passive buff *already* gives TMP the same eHP as WAR and I've *shown* that you'd be giving better mean mitigation than a PLD thanks to that benefit you're providing to the tank stance. Since PLD and WAR are getting effectively identical mean mitigation in 2.1, you're most *definitely* making TMP stronger than WAR or PLD as far as passive/constant mitigation is concerned.
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Then why is it they show no variance in HP levels dropped when you hit them?
You're using the term incorrectly. A drain is any effect that converts damage dealt into healing received. Bloodbath converts all of your attacks into 25% drains. Inner Beast is a 300% drain and Storm's Path is a 50% drain. "Drain" should not mean "deals additional damage that turns into healing on a 1:1 basis". If it *did*, it would be a term with an overly complicated definition for what it does that is both impractical and inflexible for what it could be used for since you're effectively requiring than any effect use it be both a damage increase *and* a self healing mechanic with an unmodifiable rate of conversion. Of course, we're discussing a term that doesn't actually exist in game (notice that *every single* "drain" effect that exists is actually just "converts X% of damage into hp") so semantic argument is completely and utterly pointless, especially when there's already an existing mechanic that does *exactly* what you think drain does.
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The Gigas Overpower animation is actually just about identical to mine only he's using a 1 handed axe.
"Just about identical" is not the same as "identical". Where animations are concerned, "just about" is the exact same as "new animation", especially when you're dealing with a new skeleton with drastically different ratios, different grips, and different stance. Honestly, I wouldn't say that they're "just about identical", either. They're *similar* but it's a far cry from "just about identical" given the grip, stance, etc.