If You Were A Class/Job Designer...

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Originally Posted by Violette

But if SE was war's highest dps combo, that would mean OT war... [has] EVEN better [numbers] because it no longer has to trade dps for raid utility.

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^ fixed that for ya.

And PLD would be even "better" if all basic skills got merged into a single skill... But going into a duty and spamming 1 button over and over isn't fun.

It's better numbers, but a poorer design and playstyle

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Originally Posted by winsock

^ fixed that for ya.

And PLD would be even "better" if all basic skills got merged into a single skill... But going into a duty and spamming 1 button over and over isn't fun.

It's better numbers, but a poorer design and playstyle

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Mate what I said the first time was not wrong. Did not need fixing.

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Originally Posted by Violette

Mate what I said the first time was not wrong. Did not need fixing.

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Lies. Better numbers + removal of playstyle depth aren't universally "better", especially in a thread focusing on design.

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Originally Posted by winsock

Lies. Better numbers + removal of playstyle depth aren't universally "better", especially in a thread focusing on design.

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How did your "correction" in any way mark a difference in that idea? You chose to read it one way when it could go either way, and then call him out as if he had specified the opposite...

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Originally Posted by Yuni_Queen

Why would you loose aggro to WAR on Delieverence, until you are one of those paladins "sorry, forgot shield oath"? And until OT makes a "good job" of OTing in defiance, which is stupid, especially that WAR's enmity stance does not eat up 15% of your max MP and is oGCD.

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Because I'm not some scared tank who tanks Midas Normal in Shield Oath/Grit 100% of the time? There's literally no reason to use Shield Oath for Blaster or Swindler, even as MT. There's no reason to use Shield Oath during the tiny-gob phases on Ratfinx. There's no reason to be in Shield Oath in Quickthinx unless you're solo-tanking. Even then, only for Uplander Doom (the ones you don't HG the stacks away for). And there's no reason to ever turn Shield Oath on in A8, except to grab snap aggro during phase 2 and the start of final phase.

This, of course, is ignoring the fact that (in general) I pull in Shield Oath and follow:
FB>SB>RoH>FB>RB>SwO>FoF>GB
for every single one of the listed fights, save Ratfinx. I'll also pull in SwO on Quickthinx, ideally, but I need my NIN friend with Shadewalker to do so safely.

Tanking in Sword Oath with a WAR who doesn't manage their enmity in Deliverance makes it /very easy/ to lose hate.


Or am I just supposed to turtle and be a ShO tank because ShO is the tank stance? I tend to like to push my 1k dps on the A6 bosses, even while being MT. I use RoH while in SwO to maintain hate. A Warrior in Deliverance with Berserk up spamming BB will tear that boss right off of me, and there's nothing I can do about it. All I'm saying is that, if this happens, I just let the WAR tank. Manage your aggro or be the MT - that's all there is to it. It's 40 potency to just use a Storm's Path instead of Butcher's Block and not pull hate if you're close. It's a 90 potency drop for me to RoH instead of RA. I'm likely beating the WAR /anyway/ if this is DF, so I can't be arsed to let them be shit.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

How did your "correction" in any way mark a difference in that idea? You chose to read it one way when it could go either way, and then call him out as if he had specified the opposite...

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My take on it, with this being a thread about design, was that: "the war design would be better if SE was the damage combo". My counterpoint was that the numbers would be better, but not the design.
If I misinterpreted the message (which I have absolutely made that type of mistake before) I apologize to you Violette. My mistake

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Originally Posted by JackFross

Because I'm not some scared tank who tanks Midas Normal in Shield Oath/Grit 100% of the time?

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Me too and yet i never lost aggro, becuase warrior was trying to make biggest dps possible for him. Maybe you should reconsider using different combo rotation?

Changing from BB to SE combo to do not steal aggro is one thing. Loosing aggro, despite the fact, you claim you ain't scared tank is another.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

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People who don't really understand the job speak out more than those who do.

There's tons of changes people want, I'm not trying to suggest specifics. The fundamental issue is the way they handled tank balance. DRK is a poorly designed job built around a great idea. It does the trick and has serious advantages, but the design and balance of the classes shouldn't suffer because people who aren't capable of imagining better balancing say things are "fine."

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Originally Posted by JackFross

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WARs are gonna open 3x Fell Cleave if they can. Maybe you shouldn't be trying to force yourself as MT.

You probably won't be MT for Blaster in Savage anyways.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

People who don't really understand the job speak out more than those who do.

There's tons of changes people want, I'm not trying to suggest specifics. The fundamental issue is the way they handled tank balance. DRK is a poorly designed job built around a great idea. It does the trick and has serious advantages, but the design and balance of the classes shouldn't suffer because people who aren't capable of imagining better balancing say things are "fine."

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I know their main draw was basically to make a magic oriented tank class but I feel the execution is rather poor. To me it doesn't "feel like a Dark Knight". Looks the part but I always feel like something is missing.

I see this spiky armor and the magic spikes that come out from Grit and LD and always wonder why we don't have a passive spike damage on damage taken thing going on.

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Originally Posted by Yuni_Queen

Me too and yet i never lost aggro, becuase warrior was trying to make biggest dps possible for him. Maybe you should reconsider using different combo rotation?

Changing from BB to SE combo to do not steal aggro is one thing. Loosing aggro, despite the fact, you claim you ain't scared tank is another.

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When I open with RoH in Shield Oath, turn Sword Oath on after Riot Blade and follow it up with 3 RoH and 2 GB under FoF in Sword Oath and the WAR or WHM still manages to pull off me by the end of it, while the DRG bursting 2400 is a solid amount behind without a NIN, it's not my rotation that's the problem.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

WARs are gonna open 3x Fell Cleave if they can. Maybe you shouldn't be trying to force yourself as MT.

You probably won't be MT for Blaster in Savage anyways.

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When the other tank turns off tank stance the second we get into the room, while I'm already in Sword Oath, it's pretty heavily implied that they're expecting me to pull and tank. If they can't throttle their hate generation in Berserk to not rip hate off me, they're either a bad WAR or a bad tank. When I spend my 3 non-dot combos in my initial FoF using RoH combos and still don't have solid hate against the OT or a healer, it's not me who's doing things wrong.

I would like to post my current thoughts about Paladin and what could potentially fix them. Please note that these are just ideas and would be subject to potency/duration changes if by some magical force they were ever implemented (ie this is mostly just for fun and a wishlist). The way I see it, Paladin is much better but still suffers from a few things. The biggest issue would be AOE enmity/damage (it's actually hilarious how little damage you do in large groups, to the point that you barely want to pull big, whereas the other two tanks can nuke big groups). The other biggest issue in my eyes is the fact that we have a cooldown that is almost entirely pushed aside (Tempered Will) since it's almost always useless.

To address these issues, I would personally make the following changes:

1) Tempered Will: Reduce cooldown to 90 seconds, also restores 100 TP. This is to address the TP issue (that has admittedly been made better than before), but also to make the cooldown useful by reducing the recast. This would allow you to decide between using it when it comes up for TP or saving it for fights that could benefit from the mechanic (or in some cases, both).

2) Rage of Halone: Extend duration of debuff to 24 seconds from 20. This would make Halone more useful overall, while still maintaining the balance of it not being the highest DPS combo. Would also allow Paladin/Dark groups to maintain both Delirium and Halone 100% of the time. I realize Warrior also has a 20 second debuff, but theirs is quite a bit more useful overall, while also providing a small heal. Overall, this would serve to lessen the gap between PLD/DRK groups and PLD/WAR or DRK/WAR.

3) Goring Blade: Same effect, but hits in a small radius. Potency would remain 50 for the main target, but 25 for every other mob hit. Only the DOT carries to the other mobs, whereas the initial target takes the 240 combo hit as well. This would help massively with AOE enmity generation and damage, while still keeping it below the other tanks (as the other two need to manage MP and stacks respectively). Also remains locked behind a combo, helping to maintain balance.

4) Flash: Same effect, but adds a 60 potency to every target hit. Warrior and Dark Knight can both spam Overpower/Unleash for big damage in groups (ignoring Decimate and Abyssal Drain as they aren't the direct comparisons), whereas Paladin has to spend GCDs on a 0 damage AOE attack. The potency is only 60 in order to balance the ability, as Paladin does also get the blind effect from using this.

Overall, these would be my changes. I would be curious what others think about this, I have just been jotting down things that I feel Paladin lacks in or feels weak at as I have been running through end game content. I don't personally feel like these buffs would be too much, but would be rather balanced. Again, I do think the changes made to Paladin previously are a step in the right direction but not quite enough. TP issues have been lessened, DPS increased, and Divine Veil/Clemency made more useful, but as said above I believe AOE damage is severely lacking (even though Paladin should do less than the other two). As a cherry on top, adding an animation in for Sword Oath (like a glowing blade or some kind of animation for when the second hit occurs) would be great. Just a visual thing, but would be nice :)

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Originally Posted by JackFross

When I open with RoH in Shield Oath, turn Sword Oath on after Riot Blade and follow it up with 3 RoH and 2 GB under FoF in Sword Oath and the WAR or WHM still manages to pull off me by the end of it, while the DRG bursting 2400 is a solid amount behind without a NIN, it's not my rotation that's the problem.

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Your DPS party memebers + OT are doing mayhem with all they got and your opening contain ONE RoH under shield oath?

Party wipes, becuase players make mistakes, not becuase paladin didn't use Goring Blade in sword oath. Your savage 50 potency auto-attack enhancement is not worth loosing aggro.
Also, saying "Not my fault, not my problem" would result in instant kick from the party. There is no party or static, that want player selfish enough to do not be concerned about PARTY problems.

You, as MT, are loosing aggro. That's PARTY problem and YOUR fault.

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Originally Posted by Yuni_Queen

Your DPS party memebers + OT are doing mayhem with all they got and your opening contain ONE RoH under shield oath?

Party wipes, becuase players make mistakes, not becuase paladin didn't use Goring Blade in sword oath. Your savage 50 potency auto-attack enhancement is not worth loosing aggro.
Also, saying "Not my fault, not my problem" would result in instant kick from the party. There is no party or static, that want player selfish enough to do not be concerned about PARTY problems.

You, as MT, are loosing aggro. That's PARTY problem and YOUR fault.

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I believe the point of that example was that the "DRG bursting 2400" wasn't remotely a problem, yet the 1300 bursting Warrior using Butcher's Blocks was. At the cost of maybe some 30 dps by Storm's Path or a second Eye instead, the Warrior could allow the PLD an extra 150 by not competing in threat. Alternatively, if he wants to Butcher with a Sword Oath PLD MT, then it makes no difference apart from future CDs who's tanking at that time, as long as he moves into MT position, instead of aiming cleaves into the raid just to get his extra 20 potency. I'm not sure why you'd blame the PLD in this example for the party problems. The only competing threat in that example is the OT. And why should a tank have to pad his enmity just to deal with... another tank?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm not sure why you'd blame the PLD in this example for the party problems.

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I do not blame PLD for party problems, but i blame PLD for sitting in shield oath for 7,5 seconds and then complaining about loosing aggro. Kay, OT warrior should notice, he is about to steal aggro, and do not use BB;
But PLD after noticing, that 1300 bursting warrior is about to steal aggro, should eat his tears up and turn shield oath on, becuase chances that warrior will say "Oh, i shouldnt use bb, fuck my berzerk" are pretty low. And exchaning 20 potency powered up with 20% maim and 50% berzerk is probably same dmg as the difference between Shield Oathed Goring Blade vs Sword Oathed GB.

Until you want to spam RoH in sword oath to hold aggro, which is dps loss greater than this 15% penalty.

Rather than build up hate for 3 more comboses and then do turn on his sword oath, he complains about warriors using BB... That's what i blame him for.

There's no feasible reason to use BB under Berserk outside of a pre-pull 50s 3x FC opener (due to the Fracture being at the end), as if you're doing Fracture -> [HS] -> FC -> FC your Eye will fall off for a GCD resulting in less potency overall. If he refuses to listen though, just do an extra RoH as it's better to lose DPS and not wipe than it is to gain DPS and wipe. Obviously, ideally, you gain DPS and don't wipe but y'know... DF...

Heres a thought for "Flash" (& those that can Cross-class it)

Flash
Arrgo Potancy: 600
Added Effect: "Rebound"
Effect Duration: 5-8 seconds (leave this to better ppl to decide time}
Effect Discription: Cause's buffed enemy to deal all or 50& of its (non cast bar in PvE case) damage delt to any target to itself
Chance of imunity: none (yes in PvP for fairness)

Thought about it as a way to give PLD's more damage mitigation & give it a use as OT to lower dmg to the MT (that & maybe lower the recharge time on Tempered Will to make it more usefull)

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Originally Posted by The_NPC

Heres a thought for "Flash" (& those that can Cross-class it)

Flash
Arrgo Potancy: 600
Added Effect: "Rebound"
Effect Duration: 5-8 seconds (leave this to better ppl to decide time}
Effect Discription: Cause's buffed enemy to deal all or 50& of its (non cast bar in PvE case) damage delt to any target to itself
Chance of imunity: none (yes in PvP for fairness)

Thought about it as a way to give PLD's more damage mitigation & give it a use as OT to lower dmg to the MT (that & maybe lower the recharge time on Tempered Will to make it more useful)

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PLDs are already damn near the king of tanks in PVP. This would utterly cripple low-potency attackers like Monk or Bard just off the mitigation it causes for their targets alone, not to mention that 5-8 seconds of 50 potency reflects could easily total to 200-250+ potency total for high-speed auto-attacking classes. Or just imagine this going off before a Goblin Rush. That could easily be 250 potency in a second. As an AoE. That blinds. DA-DP is the only other AoE that mitigates damage (albeit with basically zero effect in 'real' content, due to Blind immunities), on a 30s CD and costing ~2.5k mana, and it would hardly rival even a small part of this revised Flash's worth.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

... and you could completely rework all 3 tanks, what would you make the main focus of each one?

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Let's consider this:

WoW developers spent four years trying to balance Druid, Paladin and Warrior tanks throughout vanilla and BC, only to give up during WoTLK and make Druids, Paladin, Warrior and Death Knight tanks absolutely equal in terms of mitigation, DPS / threat generation and utility. The tanks used different skills to get there, but it was the same result. For once it didn't matter who the MT's class was, the only thing that mattered was their gear.

WoW's designers were by no means dumb people. They were / are some of the best designers in the industry, and they tried designing the classes every way from Sunday for years and years trying to make different strengths and weaknesses for tanks work. But when they gave up, and just made them all equally good as each other, the players benefited for it because people didnt need to reroll a Warrior if they wanted to raid.

Now the new generation of WoW designers have tried to make different tanks have different strengths, and the result has been -- you guessed it -- raids abandoning certain tanks because others are way superior for clearing content.


So what would I do? FFXIV already has this problem. It's self-evident. So I'd accept that if you design tanks to be have different strengths and weaknesses, all you are doing is intentionally creating a situation where one tank class will be viewed the most inferior while another is viewed the most superior.

Sure, tanks can have different flavor text and different ways of playing, but the end-result needs to be the same across the board. Equal mitigation vs physical, magic and utility. Equal DPS. Equal utility.

Unlike damage dealers and healers, tanks are the most essential role for a progression raid. It doesn't matter how much healing or damage is dealt, if the tank goes down, the raid wipes. Therefore raiding parties will always gravitate toward the tank class which offers the most advantage for the encounter and steer clear of the inferior tanks. This has always, always been how things are in MMOs when misguided designers try to make tanks have different strengths and weaknesses.

Just because something sounds cool on paper, doesn't mean it translates well into a live multi-player game. Generally speaking, people follow a herd mentality that gravitates to mix-maxing. Purposely building inferiority into a tank class simply creates tank classes that raids will refuse to take into a raid.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

Let's consider this:

WoW developers spent four years trying to balance Druid, Paladin and Warrior tanks throughout vanilla and BC, only to give up and make Druids, Paladin, Warrior and Death Knight tanks absolutely equal in terms of mitigation, DPS / threat generation and utility. The tanks used different skills to get there, but it was the same result. For once it didn't matter who the MT's class was, the only thing that mattered was their gear.

Now the new generation of WoW designers have tried to make different tanks have different strengths, and the result has been -- you guessed it -- raids abandoning certain tanks because others are way superior for clearing content.

So what would I do? I'd accept that if you design tanks to be have different strengths and weaknesses, all you are doing is intentionally creating a situation where one tank class will be viewed the most inferior while another is viewed the most superior.

Sure, tanks can have different flavor text and different ways of playing, but the end-result needs to be the same across the board. Equal mitigation vs physical, magic and utility. Equal DPS. Equal utility.

Unlike damage dealers and healers, tanks are the most essential role for a progression raid. It doesn't matter how much healing or damage is dealt, if the tank goes down, the raid wipes. Therefore raiding parties will always gravitate toward the tank class which offers the most advantage for the encounter and steer clear of the inferior tanks. This has always,always been how things are in MMOs when misguided designers try to make tanks have different strengths and weaknesses.

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To be honest, WoW tanks even now do not have exactly equal mitigation, utility, or dps, except over an average. At different points in a given fight, one class's CD will still time out better than another, much like IB vs. Rampart/Shadowskin. And it's worked just fine. That's what makes composition interesting. There's no need for them to be bland copies of each other (as per Dark-Rampart, etc.).

Now, I'll agree that niches are not a place to look for class identity. No tank should be the master anti-magic tank, etc., unless every fight somehow includes a balancing element of physical anti-tank damage, etc. As you said, noticeable weaknesses, wherever possible, are dropped; not worked around--dropped. But there's nothing wrong with different dynamics that can highlight one's capabilities within certain niches, as long as they do average out in opportunity-reward across all content (and more tightly so where the fight's requirements tighten). Diversity in how they get there is what makes them interesting. There's nothing wrong with a personal/raid saver like Anti-magic Shell/Zone, nor gaining your mitigation through passive growth via Acclimatization, nor chugging through it with damage>absorption shields, etc. That's three very different specs and mitigation methods each equally able to handle a magic boss, albeit with slightly different positions (main-tank, swap-tank, and snap-tank), each performing in combo just as well as any other pair of tanks. (I use these DK examples because it's the only class on which I've done every role (tank/dps) in every spec in a raid environment - in this case ICC.) Warrior-Paladin (even, or especially at 60) already did a decent job with keeping identity, though I still feel PLD falls behind in specific components of parity. However, the unimaginative carbon-copy DRK abilities make me fear for later tanks.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

Let's consider this:

WoW developers spent four years trying to balance Druid, Paladin and Warrior tanks throughout vanilla and BC, only to give up during WoTLK and make Druids, Paladin, Warrior and Death Knight tanks absolutely equal in terms of mitigation, DPS / threat generation and utility.

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And yet here we are, playing ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by winsock

And yet here we are, playing ffxiv.

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WoW making stupid decisions in story and world development (not to mention the whole promising things and never delivering on them) have nothing to do with gameplay and class design. In fact, gameplay and class design is one of WoW's few remaining strengths.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

To be honest, WoW tanks even now do not have exactly equal mitigation, utility, or dps, except over an average. At different points in a given fight, one class's CD will still time out better than another, much like IB vs. Rampart/Shadowskin. And it's worked just fine. That's what makes composition interesting. There's no need for them to be bland copies of each other (as per Dark-Rampart, etc.).

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Most of the extra stuff between WoW's tanks is not really a big deal in the long run. At least during my time raiding you didn't see people dumping bear druids or prot warriors for prot paladins or DKs. Hell, one of the top guilds in the world at the time ran with bear druids, despite you almost never seeing them because the bulk of players went prot pally/DK.

DPS was never an issue when it came to tanks (the tank not getting crit to death or crushed matters more). Utility was not a big deal because utility was spread out between classes, so it was a matter of whether you had X buff at all over whether you have the one class that can provide it. This game for the most part treats classes like they're shaman (who had a guaranteed raid slot because of Bloodlust/Heroism), and that's what's creating part of the problem. Hence why I'd personally want certain buffs/debuffs removed and focus more on mitigation styles and gameplay.

Get rid of tank stances, they're dumb. Except for warrior's stances because those actually DO something. No, an indefinite buff that has no effect on the order of the buttons you push is not 'doing something'. And grit takes away things to do so it's actually doing less than nothing. For that matter i'd get rid of Protect too. Fucking useless skill contributes nothing to gameplay.


Then buff enmity in other ways. Make sword oath and shield oath actual spells that last 30 seconds and do something along the lines of sword oath reducing your GCD or shield oath reflecting damage and increasing enmity for the duration, because you can just recast it if you have the mp at the cost of a gcd. Or even have sword oath increase enmity and shield oath reduce damage so you have to pick and choose. They'd be cost prohibitive though, like 1.6k mp or something. Then buff clemency, too. Really make a paladin's MP mean something. They wouldn't get to cast often but when they did you'd notice. Also shield swipe or even bash would put a 5s disable effect on the enemy. Yes you'd be able to spam it. But it costs 170 tp a go to do that.

Ideally the balance would be warrior does the most burst damage (berserk) with paladin at a close second with sword oath and dark knight coming in last with blood sword and fuckall else. But Dark Knight would have the highest sustain, followed by warrior, followed by paladin. Paladin's advantage would be the ability to unbusy the healers with strong defense and support skills so they can get a larger share of the dps. Kind of like how AST pawns most of its dps contribution off onto everyone else through card buffs.

You want Dark Knight to be weaker then Paladin?

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

You want Dark Knight to be weaker then Paladin?

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Only in terms of burst. They don't get anything for burst damage as it is, it's not even a change really. They'd be like monk, high sustain low burst. Where paladin would be more like machinist. Much lower damage with support skills and enough burst to get you reliably through burn phases.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

PLDs are... a but load of words saying I'm a moron.

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okay noted never post on tank forums with an idea again due to massive "Salty-ness" at lest u understand why I came up with such a convoluded idea at shear random right? out of some desire to give PLD more dmg metigation while getting rid of Blind from Flash as it eather is imuine on players/mobs after 2 uses (or imuine anyway). & plz don't bother with a reply to this reply as I shall not reply to u'r reply to this reply

Make DRK a DPS class and replace it with SAM as a tank ._. Is what I'd do

After taking in what others have said and adding ideas of my own... part I

• Rather than manually turning off Grit and using Blood Weapon, if you use Blood Weapon with Grit on, Grit is turned off for you (I believe that forsaking Grit, and having to remember to reactivate it aftewards, is an intended and important tactical consequence of using Blood Weapon, but one button press rather than two would be nice).
  
• Delirium can be augmented with Dark Arts; with augmentation, it inflicts a magic vulnerability up debuff that lasts for 15 seconds in addition to the int down debuff; the magic vulnerability up debuff cannot be overwritten by Dragon Kick (but the int down debuff still can). If another DRK uses Dark Arts Delirium, the magic vulnerability up debuff neither stacks nor replenishes the timer.
  
• Dark Arts Dark Dance procs Reprisal in addition to the evasion buff

After taking in what others have said and adding ideas of my own... part II

• Dark Arts Souleater- in addition to the incrase in potency, it costs 50 additional MP (Dark Arts MP cost + 50) rather than TP, and can recover HP even when not in Grit. Also, the healing trait, IMO, needs to be adjusted to give a bit more than 100% HP recovery.
  
• When you run out of MP on Darkside, it starts consuming your HP, and all MP-based abilities start using your HP instead until you recover your MP
  
• Dark Arts Dark Passenger grants Silence instead of Blind.
  
• Scourge can be augmented with Dark Arts; with Dark Arts, in addition to the 30s DoT, a 15s physical vulnerability up debuff is cast. However, when used with Dark Arts, the DoT potency decrases, and Scourge itself goes on cooldown for 30 seconds.