Keep overpower cone shaped!

Another issue I noticed recently is that even if I try to reposition trash like I did with old Overpower, it doesn't really work anymore because the circle can't even hit those at the back. Yes it took me this long to notice because I avoid dungeons like the plague.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Another issue I noticed recently is that even if I try to reposition trash like I did with old Overpower, it doesn't really work anymore because the circle can't even hit those at the back. Yes it took me this long to notice because I avoid dungeons like the plague.

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Overpower lost almost 1/3 of its range...

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Another issue I noticed recently is that even if I try to reposition trash like I did with old Overpower, it doesn't really work anymore because the circle can't even hit those at the back. Yes it took me this long to notice because I avoid dungeons like the plague.

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This is exactly why I say the other tanks should have gotten a cone instead of taking away from WAR. The cone/circle combo was a tanking tool, makes no sense for them to have not had it in the first place. No reason for it to have been a part of "WAR identity", and absolutely no reason for it to have been taken away.

6.21 Potency buffs, but no fix to Overpower... It still hurts every time I run a dungeon :( *Goes to cry in a corner*

Dont worry hopefully this gets fixed next patch then I can use my WAR in dungeons again!

Wouldn't it be nice if they gave this back to us in time for Savage dungeons? I cannot underestimate how much I'm dreading going into them without my proper toolkit... especially going by how the last two Lv.90 dungeons were designed. Really took away the cone and then intentionally gave us encounters where it was like, specifically amazing for? Just why why why?

I just like to point out, prior to overpower change, that WAR had access to circle aoes via Decimate, Chaotic Cyclone, Orogeny, and Primal Rend. I didn't include Mythril Tempest because if they changed that into a cone to match overpower, WAR would still have access to four circle aoes. Currently, WAR now has six circle aoes while DRK has access to four types of circle aoes. Target (Abyssal Drain), circle (aoe combo), line aoe (shadows), ground aoe (salted).

Imo they need to change overpower back to cone and also change mythril tempest to a cone to match it or change it to a half circle aoe like how RPR has if ppl are complaining about missing enemies on the side (which imo was never really an issue). The point is WAR already has access to other circle aoes on demand and reducing it's variety just shows how this homogenization coddling is not benefitting the players who play the job.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

I just like to point out, prior to overpower change, that WAR had access to circle aoes via Decimate, Chaotic Cyclone, Orogeny, and Primal Rend. I didn't include Mythril Tempest because if they changed that into a cone to match overpower, WAR would still have access to four circle aoes. Currently, WAR now has six circle aoes while DRK has access to four types of circle aoes. Target (Abyssal Drain), circle (aoe combo), line aoe (shadows), ground aoe (salted).

Imo they need to change overpower back to cone and also change mythril tempest to a cone to match it or change it to a half circle aoe like how RPR has if ppl are complaining about missing enemies on the side (which imo was never really an issue). The point is WAR already has access to other circle aoes on demand and reducing it's variety just shows how this homogenization coddling is not benefitting the players who play the job.

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Hard agree with this. While I will miss spinning the axe, I feel the cone for Mythril will be better just for positioning and consistency too. And also can still keep the circles, which Warrior will still have. Or at the very least, have a way to switch them to tailor to others needs, not fully remove the cone for others who enjoy it.

If Overpower cone was an issue, I do not know why others (who do not play this job) cannot either just level it to get it over with (which I've done for many jobs) or just not play Warrior at all. It's been over 6 months since this changed and I still cannot grasp how to position with only circles and in my experience with running Mentor, I feel I'm just a bad tank. tbh, I'm only getting enjoyment from other things and not stuff like dungeons anymore.

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Originally Posted by fafrir

Hard agree with this. While I will miss spinning the axe, I feel the cone for Mythril will be better just for positioning and consistency too.

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I think there was an NPC that had a decent midpoint between the two in its animation. Swiped, turned/spun, and then swiped again much more mightily. Could work as a cone while still having some of that powerful/stormy visual theme.

Could be a false memory, though; can't for the life of me remember which quest it was from.

Square enix straight up discriminating against cones, unless you're a reaper that is...

#allconesmatter

I didn't like the change when it first came out. The cone naturally helped "funnel" the enemies into a tight little spot so all the AOEs volleyed at the trash would hit every last one. Now I sort of have to do this dance on the wall-to-wall pulls where I run to the wall, spam AOE until the mobs have gathered close, then run back through them and then they wind up being pretty tight - then stand in the center and spam.

I've learned to live with it. It is what it is.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

I didn't like the change when it first came out. The cone naturally helped "funnel" the enemies into a tight little spot so all the AOEs volleyed at the trash would hit every last one. Now I sort of have to do this dance on the wall-to-wall pulls where I run to the wall, spam AOE until the mobs have gathered close, then run back through them and then they wind up being pretty tight - then stand in the center and spam.

I've learned to live with it. It is what it is.

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It definitely threw me off whenever it first came out, it was a bit unconventional but I liked how the cone had more reach in exchange for not being 360, meaning you could hit every mob if you simply positioned smartly and kept track of how the mobs are going to move.

I think it's easier for new players now, but ultimately I kind of miss the little dance of moving into the group and out for the AoE combo

I always hated the cones so I’m happier with the change. Wouldn’t say no to a bit more variety like DRK has though.

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Originally Posted by marelooke

Overpower lost almost 1/3 of its range...

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It went from 8m to 5m. It was shortened by 37.5% / was 60% longer than it is now.

Circular AoEs are... decent-ish(?) for DPS, since they have no need to maneuver mobs -- though inferior even then, especially if one needs to dodge out of AoEs while maintaining uptime on all enemies.

For tanks, though, they're pretty shit altogether; that lost range means that the moment mobs end up on the far side of others with large collision circles, or cast anything, etc., you're unlikely to hit all while repositioning.

...Not to mention having to wait until they're in range to hit you for you to hit them, or that maximizing its effective target count means reducing the effective target count of casters' (and certain physical ranged skills') target-centered circular AoEs....

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Originally Posted by sergel02

I always hated the cones so I’m happier with the change. Wouldn’t say no to a bit more variety like DRK has though.

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...You do realise you contradicted yourself right? You want more AoE variety, but that is exactly what Overpower was, a different shape AoE, unique for the tanks infact, like the line AoE is unique to DRK.

More healing, more streamlining, more cookie-cutter dungeon bosses. Still no cone.

*sigh*

I mean, needing bots due to a lack of tanks during roulettes becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as they're really trying to sap every little bit of enjoyment out of running dungeons, especially older ones.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It went from 8m to 5m. It was shortened by 37.5% / was 60% longer than it is now.

Circular AoEs are... decent-ish(?) for DPS, since they have no need to maneuver mobs -- though inferior even then, especially if one needs to dodge out of AoEs while maintaining uptime on all enemies.

For tanks, though, they're pretty shit altogether; that lost range means that the moment mobs end up on the far side of others with large collision circles, or cast anything, etc., you're unlikely to hit all while repositioning.

...Not to mention having to wait until they're in range to hit you for you to hit them, or that maximizing its effective target count means reducing the effective target count of casters' (and certain physical ranged skills') target-centered circular AoEs....

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You also forget WAR has 4 other circle aoes i.e. Primal Rend, Steel/Chaotic Cyclone, Decimate and Orogeny. Including the aoe combo that's a total of 6 whereas DRK has one of each type, line, ranged aoe, ground and circle. It wouldn't kill them to add some variety to the aoe combo.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

You also forget WAR has 4 other circle aoes i.e. Primal Rend, Steel/Chaotic Cyclone, Decimate and Orogeny. Including the aoe combo that's a total of 6 whereas DRK has one of each type, line, ranged aoe, ground and circle. It wouldn't kill them to add some variety to the aoe combo.

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I'm pretty sure they referenced (lack of) variety as the purpose for the change -- that they think it'd be more intuitive for Warrior players for there to be only one AoE shape.

If so, that does seem to say something about their perception of the average Warrior.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm pretty sure they referenced (lack of) variety as the purpose for the change -- that they think it'd be more intuitive for Warrior players for there to be only one AoE shape.

If so, that does seem to say something about their perception of the average Warrior.

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To me it seems SE is still under the mistaken assumption that "tanxiety" (and its cousin "healxiety", for that matter) is something caused by the (perceived) complexity of the jobs. One would think they'd have figured out by now (MMOs and the "holy trinity" have been around for a while now...) that this is a purely psychological barrier to the role, not to the individual jobs, due to the perceived "additional responsibility" of the role and no amount of changes, barring outright removing the role, will "fix" tanxiety.

The vast majority of the people that are "tanxious" will still be tanxious if tanking consisted of a single button that said "Unga bunga!", while on the other end of the spectrum there would also be less tanks since they're sucking every little bit of enjoyment out of tanking dungeons with both the direction of dungeon design (those last few dungeons didn't exactly have exciting trash pulls...), and job design (I mean, every tank is the same as far as AoE goes...).

Then again, we're just guessing, since they never bothered actually explaining why they butchered WAR AoE, which makes things even more frustrating.

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Originally Posted by marelooke

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I disagree with the notion that people would always be anxious regardless of the complexity of tanks from my own experiences with friends. Tanxiety takes many forms; most of Square's changes are to tackle the one that can be directly changed.

As you said, there is the barrier to even get into the role for most people, but there's a second barrier right afterward - the visibility of when you screw up compared to other roles which equally drives away people that break through the first barrier. Its easy to know when you, as a tank lost aggro and the healer/dps got their faces munched on. It's easy to discern when a tank is undermitigating, etc. Thus, a tank player messing up is easier for the party to call out, and as such, easier for the tank to feel pressure and leave the role after trying to get into it because of anxiety. Contrast a dps player where outside of watching their animations/spell casts like a hawk or using forbidden tools, the only time another can call you out is if you get hit by something/die.

Most of Square's changes are designed to tackle this. When Stormblood had all the stance dancing nuances, it was much more common to find tanks messing up aggro, as plenty didn't understand the nuances between balancing aggro generation with tank stance & doing dps with dps stance. So they made it so losing aggro was infinitely harder in SHB and beyond.

When tanks were undermitigating when using dps stance, it was much easier for them to die or get called out on. So Square made it so the 20% damage mit became baked in to the jobs through a trait so the difference between proper mitigation and less than proper was smaller.

And the thing is? It works. I had no less than five different friends who wouldn't touch tanking with a hundred foot pole pre-SHB, most of them giving reasons akin to 'I want it to be relaxing/don't want to mess up and get called out'. Once tank mastery & the aggro change came into play, many of them were happy to play tanks and got a lot of confidence because the barrier of messing up was dramatically lowered, leaving them immensely more comfortable to try the role. And based on their continued trend of standardizing and making tanks easier to use with kit/ability changes, I have zero doubts their literal exabytes of statistics paint the same story of increasing tank adoption rates the easier they become to use.

It's most likely a similar logic followed on why they changed Overpower - When literally every other tank AOE attack on their basic combo chains was a circle, keeping Overpower a cone was an odd choice, from a design perspective. "But DRK has line aoes!" you might say, but the thing is, as bad play as it is, those aoes are optional to the basic core tank gameplay that is entry level. It's pretty clear Square wants to keep the core functions of each tank job standardized across the board to incentivize swapping/creating a much more welcoming atmosphere / ease of us. One standardized AOE combo, one standardized 1-2-3 combo, rampart, one standardized 30%, one standardized short CD, one "can't die" button, etc. When you jump from one job in the role to the other, every core base feature plays the exact same in function, the only thing you learn is optional higher gameplay kit nuances.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

It's most likely a similar logic followed on why they changed Overpower - When literally every other tank AOE attack on their basic combo chains was a circle, keeping Overpower a cone was an odd choice, from a design perspective. "But DRK has line aoes!" you might say, but the thing is, as bad play as it is, those aoes are optional to the basic core tank gameplay that is entry level. It's pretty clear Square wants to keep the core functions of each tank job standardized across the board to incentivize swapping/creating a much more welcoming atmosphere / ease of us. One standardized AOE combo, one standardized 1-2-3 combo, rampart, one standardized 30%, one standardized short CD, one "can't die" button, etc. When you jump from one job in the role to the other, every core base feature plays the exact same in function, the only thing you learn is optional higher gameplay kit nuances.

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It does make sense from a design standard that tanking was simplified to make the role easier to use and inviting to others. However, I would argue circle AoEs for tanking does more harm than good even if the Overpower change was for the sake of consistency. Conal AoEs, while can be tricky to aim initially as well as targeting being sliiiiightly finnicky, does have the advantage of a longer range in front of you while can help with positioning mobs away from the party. With a circle, you are losing 3y in front of you with wasted 5y from the back when you position it and the only way to take full advantage with that is to center yourself in the mobs (although it does work fine with fewer mobs but not so much with bigger pulls). If every role had circle AoEs, it's alright to do despite the enemies will be in different directions attacking the party with the bad, but they don't and that can cause grief. This is one of the reasons why I played WAR over the other tanks because I prefer using cones and now I'm forced to use only circles.

Not to mention DNC, for example, is the only physically ranged DPS without a spammable cone AoE so this change just doesn't make any more sense to me imo.

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Originally Posted by marelooke

To me it seems SE is still under the mistaken assumption that "tanxiety" (and its cousin "healxiety", for that matter) is something caused by the (perceived) complexity of the jobs. One would think they'd have figured out by now (MMOs and the "holy trinity" have been around for a while now...) that this is a purely psychological barrier to the role, not to the individual jobs, due to the perceived "additional responsibility" of the role and no amount of changes, barring outright removing the role, will "fix" tanxiety.

The vast majority of the people that are "tanxious" will still be tanxious if tanking consisted of a single button that said "Unga bunga!", while on the other end of the spectrum there would also be less tanks since they're sucking every little bit of enjoyment out of tanking dungeons with both the direction of dungeon design (those last few dungeons didn't exactly have exciting trash pulls...), and job design (I mean, every tank is the same as far as AoE goes...).

Then again, we're just guessing, since they never bothered actually explaining why they butchered WAR AoE, which makes things even more frustrating.

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While, I'd agree that those particular changes didn't much affect "tanxiety" (using a conal was just a matter of aiming at the center mob, fcs, since the base of the cone is still plenty wide and need only clip any pixel of the enemies' oversized rings), I don't believe that "tanxiety" is something wholly static / uninfluenceable.

Heck, just take being a tank in WoW's +10s when the affixes lead to very precise pulls in order to perform careful skips through the shadow realm or by spawning the avatar of Pride. Having that extra matter to keep track of --changing pulling from a pretty basic "skip most things that can be skipped and grab some of the easiest packs extra to make up for it" to rather finnicky and memorization-dependent patterns-- was a huge blow to tank confidence.

Now, that was kind of a perfect storm. Shit actually hurts there, so the tank takes precedent on deciding how much to pull as not to be instagibbed. There's a timer, so there's little time to discuss things anyways. But the crucial piece is that there became a new responsibility that fell only on the tank. There, tanks legitimately had greatly disproportionate responsibility, and so adding a new, unintuitive and difficult practice straw atop that did break many a camel's back tank's spirit.

Now, how do you move tanks away from feeling like they have a significant unique responsibility when they don't? I suspect that's by increasing the outwardly visible responsibility of whichever role would otherwise seem to have the least.

In practice, when running with a Sylphie, that may seem to be the healer, but more often I'd suspect that's the DPS. Given the DPS some cross-role utility (such as by more often interrupting special attacks to mitigate for the tank or save themselves uptime, more ways to rapidly group up enemies or peel summon adds [which would need inclusion] or intercept tracking skillshots for the healer, etc.) for which they'd be responsible to the same degree that tanks and healers are responsible for optimizing their damage.

Once all roles have something beyond just dealing damage, then it's harder to pretend to oneself that, just by being the first typically into the fray, one has taken on unique and arduous responsibilities worth balking at (instead of merely optimizing as one can).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Now, how do you move tanks away from feeling like they have a significant unique responsibility when they don't? I suspect that's by increasing the outwardly visible responsibility of whichever role would otherwise seem to have the least.

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You can't, so you don't even try, is the solution imo. Not trying to say this in a callous way, but look at FFXIV history. They have removed 'position the boss correctly' from encounters, removed the stance dance for more DPS thing, baked in the old tankstance 20% damage mitigation as a permanent trait, jacked the aggro generation on tank stance up from 5x to 25x or whatever it is, given tanks way higher HP than other roles, and none of it matters because people will still believe that, since the tank is the one at the front doing the pulling, they're the 'leader', and therefore laden with responsibility somehow. Tank is probably the least punishing of the roles in this game, you can eat AOEs others cannot, you have way more defensives if you see you're in bad, you have way more selfsustain tools to get your HP back up.

People go 'but what if I mistime a defensive i'm scare'. My brother/sister in Hyadelyn, the fact you're thinking about using a defensive, even mistimed, makes you better than like 85% of the playerbase

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

They have removed 'position the boss correctly' from encounters, removed the stance dance for more DPS thing, baked in the old tankstance 20% damage mitigation as a permanent trait, jacked the aggro generation on tank stance up from 5x to 25x or whatever it is, given tanks way higher HP than other roles, and none of it matters because people will still believe that, since the tank is the one at the front doing the pulling, they're the 'leader', and therefore laden with responsibility somehow.

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Okay, but look at what else they removed from, say, DPS:

• crowd-control,
• aggro-increasing and decreasing- tools for snap threat to potentially save a tank or peel for a healer,
• the ability to kite (and nearly all value for doing so),
• the power of their self-mitigation relative to tanks' passive eHP bonuses or healer HPS,
• etc.

And healers, too, have been similarly gutted.

It wasn't that they reduced proportionate responsibility on tanks. They stripped it from everyone, but while healers still have significant redundancies among other roles (especially tanks), tanks do not. As such, you essentially end up with roles comprising of:

• Deal Damage,
• Deal Damage + First-Hit + Pace-setting (Rarely) + Positioning (Rarely) + Some CDs You Don't Just "Hit on CD," and
• Deal Damage + Compensate for Idiots (Variable) + Some CDs You Might Hold Onto (Rarely).

Now, there's a huge difference in degree, of course, between the ceilings in that "Deal Damage" task, but it can easily still look like there's more going on as a tank than a DPS in no small part because they removed those additional categories of tasks from everyone, and thereby made the proportionate differences larger.

As a person who generally plays casually:

I never had any issue with Overpower.

My issue with WAR's AOE damage combo was more that Mythril Tempest was NOT a cone. While some loved dodging and weaving in and out of the enemy pack to go back and forth between circle and cone, I found that more annoying. I'd rather they have changed Tempest and Decimate into cones. That way, WAR would keep its more unique gameplay.

Not to mention generating threat is such a joke now, you could hit an enemy with the initial Overpower and even if it DID move outside of the cone of subsequent attacks (pushed outside by large mobs in the center), you wouldn't lose threat for half an hour anyway. And tank self-healing generates agro, too, so it's not like WAR would lose the mobs most of the time anyway.

And speaking personally, I prefer cones because (range aside) enemies usually kind of fan out in front of me rather than completely encircle me. Part of this is the way I move (from playing tanks years ago in other MMOs where you wanted to keep them in your front cone becasue if you did not, you couldn't parry/block attacks from behind you), but it's also the enemy AI. Just making them all cones would have been the best solution, imo.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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I actually like there being both cones and circles, though I agree regarding Mythril Tempest.

Change Mythril Tempest into a cone (there's even an NPC animation that could be blended appropriately for that purpose), and then let Steel Cyclone and Decimate uniquely have a slightly larger radius (enough that no typical pack could have small mobs at edge kept out of range by larger mobs nearer the Warrior).

Warrior is supposed to be the battlefield behemoth job, after all, so they alone would deserve any uniquely large radial AoE.