Pacification does it work on bosses?

As Tank, I find myself using it on occasion just to change it up some, but have no clue if its actually preventing anything? Has anyone seen any reasons on this for any bosses?

Is it not even worth the time?

Bonus question, how effective is awareness is for bosses and how often/when do you rotate it in?

It can be used on the Ifrit.

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Originally Posted by Psun

As Tank, I find myself using it on occasion just to change it up some, but have no clue if its actually preventing anything? Has anyone seen any reasons on this for any bosses?

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Pacification works on *some* bosses, and it's really a crapshoot like with most status effects. The safe rule is that, if Pacification would allow you to completely avoid a specific fight mechanic, you can't use it on that boss.

As to what it does, it's hard to notice the effects because it prevents the boss from using certain abilities, but, basically, if you use it on the boss at the proper time, they'll be incapable of using special attacks that aren't spells (Ifrit's cleave is an example of this). Bosses don't spam their special attacks like players do so it's really hard to notice, especially if you use it during a time when the boss wouldn't have used a special attack in the first place.

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Bonus question, how effective is awareness is for bosses and how often/when do you rotate it in?

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NPCs have a roughly 10% default chance to crit for 50% additional damage with their auto-attacks. They can't crit with their special attacks (mainly because a crit spike attack like Mountain Buster would just RNG gib the tank), and auto-attacks can make up a highly variable proportion of the boss's total DPS so it's hard to explicitly quantify how effective at reducing damage it is; auto-attack damage is always a minority of total damage dealt, however. The real value in it is in making incoming damage *predictable* and limiting the worst case: by removing crits from the equation, there is less variability in potential incoming damage and the worst case is limit to normal hits rather than crits.

Of course, as it stands, Awareness is currently bugged such that it prevents any ability used on you to be a critical, which means that your healers can't crit heal you. Since the effects a healer uses on you that can score a critical hit make up nearly 100% of their output whereas the effects that a boss uses that can score a critical hit are only a small proportion of their total output, you pretty much never want to use Awareness since it will almost always do more harm than good (especially if your healer is a SCH; Adloq crits are *amazing*)

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Of course, as it stands, Awareness is currently bugged such that it prevents any ability used on you to be a critical, which means that your healers can't crit heal you. Since the effects a healer uses on you that can score a critical hit make up nearly 100% of their output whereas the effects that a boss uses that can score a critical hit are only a small proportion of their total output, you pretty much never want to use Awareness since it will almost always do more harm than good (especially if your healer is a SCH; Adloq crits are *amazing*)

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Wow thank you, this was really helpful information, especially about awareness. I think I read something about that.. isn't there a plan to fix awareness?

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Originally Posted by Psun

isn't there a plan to fix awareness?

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I haven't seen anything about PLD changes for 2.1, which would likely be the soonest that they will fix Awareness if they *are* fixing it, nor have I seen anything from the devs specifically referencing Awareness.

I'm quite curious if the devs are going to be changing PLD at all in 2.1; some of the WAR changes (e.g. global enmity increase in Defiance) seem really strange unless the devs are also applying similar changes to PLDs (e.g. increasing enmity generation in Shield Oath) as part of a reworking of that portion of the tanking subgame.

The enmity increase on Defiance is likely there to offset the increased enmity generated by healers when a 2.1 warrior is tanking. The overpower enmity modifier being increased as well is weird, though. Paladin will almost definitely get some tweaks and changes in 2.1, as every class will. Even if Awareness was working properly, it's a really bad skill, so I could see them changing that. They could also make adjustments to our cross-class skills and some of our mediocre native abilities. I could see Riot Blade, Shield Swipe, and Cover all getting changed a bit.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

The enmity increase on Defiance is likely there to offset the increased enmity generated by healers when a 2.1 warrior is tanking.

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That only applies to heals on the tank, which isn't really a problem. Healers only really generate enough enmity to pull off of tanks when they're throwing AoE heals, and the tank only represents a small portion of that, so increasing WAR enmity doesn't really make much sense to counteract the increased healing enmity. On top of that, if WAR gets an enmity increase while PLD doesn't, it will give WARs a pretty substantial enmity advantage; as it stands, damage/enmity on tanks is, quite possibly, the most balanced aspect of the game so screwing that up doesn't really make much sense.

If the increased enmity generated by healers on WARs compared to PLDs is anything *close* to being considered an issue (which I don't really think it is; the 15% +healing from Wrath that most people maintain right now doesn't create any kind of problems and it's only getting bumped up by 5%), the simpler solution would just be to have Defiance reduce enmity generated for abilities targeting entities affected by Defiance by 20%. It addresses the issue directly without going at it in a roundabout way that actually creates bigger problems than the one it was attempting to fix.

The increased enmity really is just coming out of nowhere, and the only way I can see it making sense is if they're doing the same thing for PLD. It really doesn't make sense in any other context.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

I could see Riot Blade, Shield Swipe, and Cover all getting changed a bit.

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I think Riot Blade is fine as it is currently but SS and Cover needs some fine tuning, either give SS small enmity modifier or make it off-GCD skill. What Cover needs most atm imo is increased range but having MDMG reduce in it would also be neat to have(it should also scale by your stats and not the one you are covering), also Stuns should be off-GCD(like lancers for example)for all classes that has it not just for PLD's to make interrupting more userfriendly and fun(also silence and stun effect should apply when you cast it and not after animation is finished).

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Originally Posted by Synestra

also Stuns should be off-GCD(like lancers for example)for all classes that has it not just for PLD's to make interrupting more userfriendly and fun

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The PLD stun is on the GCD because it has no CD, which is a *huge* advantage since it allows a properly played PLD to so interrupt mechanics that were designed for 2 people to take care of (like Ifrit's Eruptions). If you want it off the GCD, expect it to get the 20 sec standard CD that Brutal Swing is getting and that Leg Sweep already has.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

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The increased enmity really is just coming out of nowhere ...

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I agree with you since neither class has any problems holding hate, but I really can't think of any other reason why they would. Maybe they're nerfing Maim or expect warriors to use Butcher's Block -> Storm's Eye -> Storm's Path instead off BB->BB->SE.

@Synestra the problem I have with Riot Blade is that it goes unused so often. In a typical fight natural MP regen can take care of your spellcasting needs. Yeah, it gets used occasionally, but paladin's typical rotation could really use some spicing up. There's a lot of ways they could get paladins to use Riot Blade more often, and really anything will work. Shield Swipe is similar in that it's pretty okay in the situations where you can use it and just kind of crappy on everything else.