Incremental Changes I'd Like to See Surrounding Tank Gameplay
Wave 1- A new checkbox has been added for variant runs of each piece of content. The left-side box remains the original form, while by default the right-side box is for Minimum Item Level runs and can be set to whatever "Variant" one prefers, again via the settings menu accessible from the Duty Finder pane.
- One may now simultaneously queue for both the original form and your chosen variant (e.g., minimum ilvl) of each piece of content simultaneously.
- Minimum Item Level runs now provide increased reward "proportionate to attributes lost due to scaling", with this % bonus shown in browsing over the given piece of content. Since every 10 ilvls provides about a 5.6% bonus in primary stat and 2% increase in secondary stats, 30 ilvl lost would mean about a 24% increase in drops. For drops already guaranteed, this gives a chance each per guaranteed drop to drop yet another piece -- 2 pieces each at a "124% drop chance" --> 48% chance of a third drop. These amounts are based on the max ilvl gear possessed for the chosen job, rather than gear actually equipped.
In total, these changes allow for additional optional added difficulty without changing the baseline.
- Tank Mastery no longer incurs a hidden 20% decrease to Attack Power, but all tank potencies have been reduced by 20%, rounded to the nearest 10 for direct hits or 5 for periodic damage.
Ideally, similar would be done for all passive modifiers not reflected in job potencies, such as Job Action Damage I/II, Maim and Mend I/II/III, and Enochian, with faint rounding higher if necessary to make up for the lost effect on auto-attacks.
While thankfully, the revision to "Astral Mastery I/II/III" traits now reveals the %modifier of Astral Fire, this information has also been added to mouseover tooltips and optionally to the BLM job gauge (with a fire graphic and +40/60/80%, ice graphic and -10/20/30% for Astral Fire I/II/III, etc).
- Healing Magic Potency no longer scales more weakly with stats (other than its missing Direct Hit) than does Attack Power, nor will heals any longer use a range of just +/- 3% instead of damage's +/- 5%. Instead, damage and healing potencies' output-per-stat are generated and calculated identically, but all healing skills' listed potencies themselves have been nerfed by the difference, rounded to the nearest 50 potency, to maintain the same power as before.
Yes, that's been a thing, and larger than missing Direct Hits accounts for (causing up to a 28% difference between damage-per-potency or healing-per-potency even without any Direct Hit or specifically damage-affecting buffs). Let's make that not a thing.
- One no longer needs addons to receive the basic information about their stats useful without consulting a third-party spreadsheet. Instead, your output per point of potency (toggleable to per 100 potency, matching auto-attacks), your Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, %output increase from Determination, Direct Hit Chance, Physical Mitigation %, Magic Mitigation %, Recast Time Reduction, GCD Interval, GCD Interval under effects to be maintained (e.g., Fuka, or passives like Greased Lightning), and Mana Per Tick are all shown by default.
Simplify useless obstacles. Unobfuscate the rest.
- Enmity is now scaled with placement of attack. Attacks from the rear produce 30% less Enmity, and attacks from the Flank produce 15% less Enmity. Tank Stance modifiers now produce 50% less Enmity, but their combo openers now include the "Increased Enmity" modifier, and that modifier itself now benefits from Tank's respective Enmity stances.
- Tanks' respective Enmity stances are now turned on by default upon swapping to a Tank or joining any group content.
Mild QoL change. Tanks don't really have to worry about swapping it on and off if just one takes the front asap and the other hangs read and doesn't try to nuke over the first.
- You have the option of causing your own and/or others' nameplate health bar(s) not to be blocked from sight by enemies.
This can be damn useful for those who like to keep their eyes on the fight, not just their bars.
- Player characters may now remain revealed through enemies between them and the camera. Different sliders for self, party, and other allies. Further amplifying slider for certain important visual effects, such as the stars from a stun (if/when said afflicted player would then be skillshot shortly after receiving the stun).
This plays on the above tech for general QoL improvements that could be vital later on.
- Enemies, visually important enemies (those giving a telegraph), and one's target can now be seen through obscuring visual effects between them and your camera via yet another slider each. Optional highlights also available always or only when obscured for one's target.
See above.
Wave 2- Tank Mastery removed and Fending mitigation reduced to 150% that of Striking/Aiming/Scouting (in turn 150% of Casting/Healing). Only the strongest tankbusters in the game are nerfed accordingly (i.e., those that would otherwise guarantee a one-shot without external eHP additions, and those very near to them to maintain a sense of difference between the strongest and near-strongest). Yes, the damage debuff un-hidden in Wave 1 still remains.
This mostly just makes tanking a little less dull from a survival standpoint, especially when not so badly overgearing content. That in turn may have knock-on effects for healers.
- Given that healers might finally see a GCD or two at risk of seeing competition between damage and healing while tanks provide far more passive value and never risk that compromise, healers' maximum damage has been increased to faintly above that of tanks, with WHM and SGE personal offensive potencies increased by ~20% and AST and SCH potencies by ~33%.
This, in turn, means that tanks might actually be able to really notice a difference in clear times even of level-cap dungeons based on how well they mitigate since healers' damage is no longer so beneath their own and is more dependent on said tank's performance.
- Diminishing returns now proportion themselves to a maximum duration of effect received, rather than generally halving their duration per hit, and now rounds in either direction rather than only ever rounding down. The maximum duration for Stun, for instance, is 10 seconds, regardless of how it is managed. An initial 5-second stun would leave only 5 seconds remaining, cutting a 2-second stun in half (to 1 second, as before), while a 2-second stun would reduce the remaining time possible to 8 seconds and therefore a follow-up 5-second stun to 4-seconds (not 2). A further stun against the remaining 4 seconds would be down to 40% duration, etc., with even an interrupt no longer possible once the stun falls below an effective 0.5 seconds.
This essentially just keeps stronger stuns from being quite so sabotaged by shorter stuns and means that overlapping stuns are no longer so punishing. Above all, that helps tanks (and perhaps WHM).
- Intervene now Silences for 3 seconds (max 6) and is now also able to interrupt (still no DR) both magical and non-magical actions. Anything with a cast-bar can be interrupted. It will also now hit twice, once immediately upon activation and again at a more animation-appropriate time later.
This offers more functionality to a skill otherwise used only maybe twice per expansion.
Additionally, the Intervene animation has been exchanged to the old Fracture animation (a gauntlet to the face and one's sword driven into the chest through the clavicle, or smashing the enemy over the head with the flat of one's weapon with great force -- much more interrupting than spinning while threatening their toes).
- Low Blow, Interject, Leg Graze, Head Graze, and Foot Graze recast times reduced to 20 seconds. Leg Sweep recast time reduced to 30 seconds.
- Low Blow will now also Pacify for 3 seconds (max 6) if it fails to stun. Pacify prevents (and interrupts) physical special attacks. If even Pacify fails, Low Blow still interrupts non-magical actions (including certain ones on bosses).
Yes, that's just more use for Low Blow.
- Diminishing Returns (Or "X Resistance") to certain effects are now shown via a new icon each, reminiscent of the debuff icon for their respective effect, with stack counters from 1 to 4 to show that they are 20/40/60/80% resistant). Once fully immune (5 stacks), they change appearance slightly again and then count down from 5 to 1 before disappearing.
This merely future-proofs a return to actual use of CC, should we desire it.
- Most mobs that are neither bosses nor "elites" are no longer resistant to CC.
Yes, CC is back, if desired.
- Arm Graze returned to Rangers. It Pacifies for 3s (DR max: 6s). 20s recast.
- Peloton now grants 3 seconds of Sprint, followed by Jog, but its recast time has been increased to 60 seconds. Cooldown refreshed upon exiting combat.
- Feint now also nullifies single-target physical damage equal to 200 potency of the applier's damage.
- Addle now also nullifies single-target magical damage equal to 200 potency of the applier's damage.
- Shirk replaced with Tag Team. It now averages your and the target ally's Enmity and then gives a small bump more to the one previously with less Enmity. It can therefore be potentially used as a mass-Provoke.
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The short of this is that we increase incoming damage, see what comes of it, while testing the waters on some older forms of available gameplay engagement.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Wave 3
- A dozen or so fairly generic skills are added to the game to be re-named across various "trash" mobs. About half these provide little to no generic telegraph but can be noted through more subtle means (e.g., claws starting to glow, lightning starting to arc between horns, etc.) and are quite counterable, through stuns, interrupts, binds, side-stepping, or just strong brief mitigation while still offering a bit more outgoing damage and a fair bit more challenge.
In the open world, nearly all of these attacks are avoidable. In general, this almost doubles the amount of damage a passive tank would take from trash and the amount of damage a skilled tank would take by a quarter or so, while actually potentially reducing the amount of damage a solo player would take in the open world, as the avoided abilities would then waste the mob's auto-attack uptime spent.
- Rampart removed and replaced with more frequent means of active mitigation. Certain skills now carry "Suppression", nullifying some portion of damage up to a given cap based on the damage of the skill that generated it.
Suppression is consumed only half as fast when nullifying damage against the player who applied said Suppression. Suppression is shown as a small bar beneath the enemy's health bar (on Target, Enmity List, and nameplate), with its length based on one's max health: a full bar would mean that there is enough Suppression to nullify damage equal to all of one's max health.
Suppressing skills include Rage of Halone (returned), Butcher's Block (returned), Shield Bash (revised), Power Slash (returned), Burst Strike, Fated Circle, Bow Shock (revised), Fel Cleave, Decimate, Inner Chaos, Chaotic Tempest, and more.
- Combos reconfigured for more efficient use of space.
- <WIP>
