Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gamemako
You're 1000 base HP behind plus 25% of total. At level 50, that's at least a 50% advantage, plus equipment discrepancy.
Equipment discrepancy doesn't actually exist, since the left side gear for MNK gets *the exact same amount of VIT as the tank gear*; the gear discrepancy only exists on the right side (there's a *slight* discrepancy on weapon, but it's tiny). Furthermore, going entirely off of MNK base stats means nothing because, as SCH already proves, the devs can easily have the jobs tweak the base attributes immensely: naked and without attributes, my SCH gets 20 less INT, 71 more MND, and 30 more PIE. It's a safe prediction that a PGL tank would get a similar difference in base stats compared to MNK what with the *completely different role*. The only hp tweak that would be needed *at all* would be an hp increase equal to what the WAR gets and that's only for eHP purposes.
Quote:
So all it would require is a complete design 180, removing all positional and combo requirements (can't have stance requirement on enmity generation), completely redoing Greased Lightning (can't have warm-up on enmity generation), vastly boosting HP, giving an boosted AoE enmity generation (50 potency means you'll be permanently reliant on cross-class Flash), adding ranged enmity somewhere (not enough ability slots), adding a tanking stance (not enough ability slots), etc.
Care to explain why the combo requirements have to be removed because, you know, it's not like WAR and PLD don't already use them? The form cycle that PGL gets would work perfectly fine for a tank. Redoing Greased Lightning makes no sense either since WAR already proves that the devs have no problem with minor damage build up (recognize that I said that Greased Lightning in tank stance *wouldn't get the +dam buff*, which equates to the -dam debuff). As I've pointed out before, it wouldn't need any more of an hp boost than WAR. I'm also curious why you think that Arm of the Destroyer wouldn't get additional enmity added to it; it's not as if it's magically not allowed to have that but everything else is. Furthermore, how is the addition of a tanking stance a problem? That's like saying that Defiance doesn't exist because there isn't space.
The only problem you brought up that doesn't exist purely within your own mind is the issue of not having a ranged attack, which I don't think is a *massive* issue, since it's only really used as a pulling mechanism. Having one tank lack a ranged attack doesn't really penalize it appreciably.
Quote:
The only reason you think that asymmetric equipment is "LNC" is because of endgame DRG equipment.
No, the reason I think that the asymmetric equipment is "LNC" is because the "LNC" gear is itself rare and, even according to your own numbers, tank distributed LNC gear is in the minority. For a *vast* majority of the game, a LNC is going to be wearing the same gear as a MNK. When it starts getting its own specific gear rather than just random leveling pieces, it's all asymmetrically distributed. On top of that, if you check, you'll notice that even the tank distributed LNC is still itemized for DPS. To get a LNC tank class, you have to overhaul/add an impressive amount of gear, unless you really want the class to have less than a quarter of the tank gear options that the other tanks get.
Quote:
Featherfoot vs. Keen Flurry, Second Wind vs. Life Surge. Not really compelling. So what does PGL have? A gimped version of Convalescence for itself (20% over 15s compared to 30% over 20s) that comes at level 42 and is pretty much useless before 48? That's your killer cooldown?
Featherfoot is 25% evasion for 15 seconds. Keen Flurry is 80% parry for 20 seconds. Both are on a 90 sec CD. Assuming a baseline 5% dodge rate, Featherfoot is a 21% decrease in damage taken while active and 3.5% decrease in damage taken over time (it goes up to 34.5% and 5.75%, respectively, if you apply the 22.5% increased evasion with the PGL tank like I suggested). With a 20% base parry chance and 20% parry value, Keen Flurry is a 16.67% decrease in damage taken while active and a 3.7% decrease in damage taken over time (and it can't really get appreciably better since you're already capping off the chance of getting a parry).
Second Wind is based off of attack power so it's unaffected by debuffs and Life Surge is based off of damage dealt. Tank stances apply a 20% reduction in damage dealt so we can make the reasonable assumption that a tank will get only 80% of the comparative value between Second Wind and Life Surge that currently applies to DPS. At level 40, with equal attack power, my DRG was critting for 320 with combo'd Full Thrust and my MNK was healing for 440 with Second Wind (not crit). With tank stance factored in, assuming that the ratio remains the same, Life Surge would provide 240 healing once per minute when used with your strongest attack ; Second Wind would provide 440 every 2 minutes, off GCD, whenever you need it. When you factor in that Second Wind can crit, they provide the same amount of healing over time but Second Wind actually allows you to heal when you need it rather than being contingent.
As for Mantra, PLD doesn't get Sentinel til 38 and Enhanced Sentinel til 48, and it's exactly as strong for MNK as Convalescence is for WAR with the same CD and only a slightly shorter duration (15 v. 20). Unless you're willing to say that the strongest CD that WAR gets is utterly horrible, you can't really badmouth Mantra.
Furthermore, look at their DPS CDs: Blood for Blood couldn't be used by a tank effectively; Internal Release is already used by one (and would actually end up being a tank CD if there were some mitigation bonus for scoring a crit, as I suggested in my first post).
So, yes, if you actually look at their CD suites, the PGL CD suite is definitely better for tanks. The self heal is more useful, the DPS buff can actually be used, the mitigation buff works better with tank gear (since Parry Rating increases frequency not value; that 80% is going to be pretty redundant at higher gear ratings), and there's one more tool in their toolbox.
Quote:
AoE isn't a frequent need, but that doesn't suddenly make it a non-issue.
Before you hit 30/35, yeah, it's a non-issue: there just isn't that much AoE damage before then. The only time you need an AoE heal before Cutter's Cry is when multiple people stand in bad shit or people explicitly screw up a simple mechanic, like the fire adds in Halatali or the lanterns in Haukke Manor. Before Succor at 35, SCH just has Whispering Dawn has a 60 second CD. If AoE healing wasn't a non-issue pre-30/35, SCH would be impossible to play most of the time. You can manage to heal anything that you might have to level sync for with a single heal *easily*.
[quote]As for the "big heal", that's level 30 for both existing jobs, and cleanse is level 40 for SCH (Leeches).
That was kind of my point. When SCH syncs sub-30, they can still heal fully effectively because you don't really *need* an AoE heal or cleanse until your late 30s, and, even then, you can most non-50 content no issue without the cleanse (and I've met more than a few healers that don't use the cleanse on anything except for the Titan gaol debuff). The AoE heal and cleanse are *nice* to have sub-30 or even sub-35, but they're nowhere *near* necessary.
My issue is that you're bringing up sub-30 level syncing as if it were some kind of major issue that needs to be balanced around when, honestly, you don't really need to. As long as you know that they'll have Cure or Physick, which was agreed upon as an acceptable baseline assumption, they can heal the low level dungeons just fine. Hell, a THM or BLM with Physick can heal the low level dungeons just fine thanks to all of the Mind on caster gear before gear "specializes" in the late 30s/40s.
Quote:
Changing that requires a fundamental class design change.
No, it doesn't unless you're simply coming up with massive modifications that wouldn't be needed in the least. Adding the Wrath stack generation to all of the WAR combos didn't necessitate flat out redoing every single ability. It's modifying a single tag. I'm still not even sure where you're digging up the removal of all combo requirements; you just kind of came up with that entirely on your own out of nothing.
Removing the positionals wouldn't completely change the feeling of the class either: you're still using the attacks in the same order; the only difference is that you're not bouncing from flank to back and back to flank, which you do the same on DRG (unless your issue is simply a problem with DRG only doing it for 2 attacks rather than 4, at which point your setting kind of an arbitrary difference in positional importance based upon how many abilities apply the given benefits) so, unless you think that removing positionals for DRG would completely change the feeling of it as well (especially since you don't even get to access the second LNC combo if you don't get a back attack with the starter; front or side attacking with Impulse Drive doesn't trigger the combo), the feeling is being preserved just as well. The only thing changing is the massive movement aspect, which is present for all mDPS (and likely will *continue* to be the mDPS schtick) and completely absent from tanks.
Greased Lightning would be *exactly* the same with the exception that the Greased Lightning benefits are now 7.5% evasion and 5% attack speed instead of 7.5% damage and 5% attack speed; I'm not entirely sure how you can get "entirely separate mechanic" out of that.
Arm of the Destroyer wouldn't need a massive fix either. It only gets the silence when you use it on Opo-opo form, which means that you have to use it after you use a coeurl form attack, and it puts you into raptor form by using it so you couldn't silence spam with it either. All *it* would require is an additional enmity tag. The silence on it is entirely controllable so there's no tweak needed.
Quote:
What do you have left? Twin Snakes, Demolish, and Touch of Death as random and irrelevant damage abilities, and then everything else is completely and fundamentally changed.
Have you even *played* MNK? Unless you're hiding a completely different character somewhere else, you've gotten as high as 13, which explains why you really have no idea what you're talking about. Boot Shine and True Strike would be pretty much entirely untouched by removing the positional bonuses. Twin Snakes would actually be affected more than either of those, though it's affected less than Heavy Swing, which fulfills the exact same purpose, so arguing about *that* getting screwed by removing positional bonuses while saying that LNC isn't is just blatantly ignorant. It doesn't even change the actual *feel* of Snap Punch either, since it's an attack with no secondary effect regardless of what you do.
Hell, if you refuse to get rid of positional requirements, *DRG* is going to be the one that changes how it plays and feels completely because, unlike DRG, MNK can actually use all of its attacks while in front of something; DRG is restricted to a single completely vanilla combo. If you actually played the combat classes rather than spending all of your time crafting you might actually understand that.
Quote:
The class has an even weaker CD suite than MRD, meaning key survival mechanics have to be stuffed into job abilities.
Really? Do you have *any* idea what you're talking about? MAR has Foresight, which is a complete and utter joke; Bloodbath, which is just as much of a joke; and Thrill of Battle, which is laughably weak given its 3 minute CD and 10 second duration. PGL actually has a *stronger* CD suite than MAR by a *huge* amount. Hell, that's the entire reason why MAR has to borrow 2-3 of those PGL CDs: the MAR CD suite *sucks*.
Quote:
PGL not only needs some absurd stance which increases HP, defense, and enmity by huge amounts
So PGL needs an "absurd" stance that does the exact same thing that Defiance does? Seriously. What are you smoking?
Quote:
, it also needs a ranged pull ability just to have the most basic of functionality. This can't be cross-classed, either.
Explain to me how a ranged pull ability is "the most basic functionality". You don't *need* a ranged pull ability. Hell, 90% of the time, I don't use Tomahawk or Shield Lob because they're not needed. They're nothing even remotely *close* to "basic functionality"; at best, they're secondary functionality that you'd notice not having a few times in the entire game, especially since PGL already gets Howling Fist for those times when you *absolutely* have to have a ranged attack.
I also find it amusing that you say that it can't be gotten through additionals because, you know, you say so (additionals are assigned arbitrarily; the devs could make Rage of Halone an additional for a PGL and *only* PGL if they wanted; it's just adding that class to the ability's affinities). Tomahawk or Piercing Talon could be put on the additionals list with no problem; the name would be kind of weird, but no stranger than a BLM using Quelling Strikes or a LNC using Straight Shot.
Quote:
So now you have to grab something like Touch of Death and turn it into a completely unrelated and new ability as well.
Wait, what? Is your entire argument here "refuge in audacity" or do you just have no clue what you're talking about? Touch of Death wouldn't need to be touched at all. The mere suggestion of this is so ludicrous that it boggles the mind that you would even suggest it.
Quote:
There's nothing left of PGL at this point except for a few animations.
Except, you know, everything that wouldn't be touched if the person doing the changes weren't a complete and utter *idiot*. The attack string/rotation and playstyle would be preserved with the exception of not having positions. Greased Lightning would be tweaked *slightly*. Everything else would remain *exactly as is*. You're acting as if removing the positional requirement on an attack and adding a high enmity modifier completely and utterly changes everything about the ability. Using that logic, WAR is *completely and utterly* different from MAR because, when you turn WAR, some of your attacks start generating Wrath stacks. Are you even *reading* what you're saying here or just trying to come up with any feasible change that might be required and then blowing it monumentally out of proportion and decrying it as the end of world on purpose?
Quote:
LNC gear is, as I showed previously, fine already. Only thing you'd need to do is add AF and endgame stuff, plus a belt or three.
Except that it's not. Hell, the very fact that LNC gear is so schizophrenic about its defense/mdef allotment (it can be low symmetrical, asymmetrical, or high symmetrical) means that the itemization for it would be even *wonkier* than I already suggested.
Quote:
Your claim about PGL CDs is still rubbish.
Unless you actually *look* at their CDs rather than just counting them, ignoring the most powerful, and calling it a day.
Quote:
LNC positional requirements apply only to two DPS-boosting abilities (Heavy Thrust and Impulse Drive) and could be handled a number of ways -- a one-off ability or a stance or whatever. PGL requirements apply to every attack in the main combo plus Twin Snakes and have no way to be addressed except to be completely thrown out and a new, unrelated potency number assigned to each attack.
Have you actually looked at what the positional bonuses actually are or did you do another "I counted but didn't actually look at them"? It's an increased crit chance on the first attack and second attack and increased potency on the other 2. All secondary effects are entirely preserved. With DRG, you miss out on your entire second combo and get none of the much more important secondary effects. While PGL has *more* positional requirements/bonuses but DRG is impacted by those positional requirement/bonuses just as as much. If you actually look at what the positionals do rather than just counting them, it's pretty evident that they're both positionally dependent.
Quote:
LNC has a normal combo in Full Thrust. PGL does not. PGL will need to boost the potency of attacks to keep up with enmity needs as well as boost potency of DoTs to address damage issues.
Unless you, you know, just remove the positional requirements and fold the effects into the baseline performance of the ability. I find it amusing that you seem to think that the entirety of a tank's rotation is perfectly fine with a single combo with no secondary effects, though. It's like you honestly believe that PLD isn't painfully boring to play.
Not really. You get more than that by running AK/WP 2-3 times. If you've got a character in full DL, a second 50, or a reasonably high crafting class, you can't really claim that 10k gil is anything resembling an impressive amount of gil unless you're just bad at money management; it takes less than an hour to get that. Hell, you can make more than 10k with a gathering class in your 20s in less than an hour if you're remotely market savvy.
I'm nowhere *near* top 1% or even top 10%, but 10k isn't really all that much. It's like betting lunch at a diner.