New ability proposal: Borrowed Time

Hi,
Today I was thinking a bit about ways to un-suck WAR (I know developers are working on it already for 2.1) and came up with an idea for a new ability that could be given either directly to WAR, or to one of healer classes (it would fit with SCH or TimeMage playstyle, I guess)

Ability name: Borrowed Time
Ability duration: 5s
Ability recast: 90s (give or take, up to 300s depending how weak or powerful it would get implemented)
Ability description: When ability is in effect, the character takes no damage. When ability ends, the character will receive all damage inflicted whilst the ability was in effect.


Basically the idea behind this ability is to give tank's healers time to heal up the tank from low HP when the enemy is using a big-hit move and/or put on Stoneskin/Adloquinum shields on.

Two scenarios:
1) Tank is in low HP and Titan is about to use table flip. Borrowed Time is used and healers cure up the tank so he can survive the delayed damage from Table Flip when the ability ends.
2) Titan uses table flip and crits damage taking tank into critically low HP. Borrowed Time is used. Tank is able to survive the following stomps.

I know a simpler resolution would be to just give WAR a clone of Hallowed Ground, but I'd find ability like Borrowed Time more exciting and dramatic both from tank and healer perspective. Also, it fits with how developers envision WAR tanking - 'let healers heal your damage'. To bring it closer to Hallowed Ground you could implement a trait that nullifies (or returns back to enemy) the damage when the ability ends, if tank scored critical hit, parried or evaded attack or something like that when the ability was in effect - although 5 seconds would be a short window to achieve a critical hit or parry/evade at least one attack. Using longer ability duration would cause tank to accumulate too much damage and when ability ends, the tank would get 1-shotted for sure.
Or, to spice things up, you could let players to decide how long they want the ability to be active, (up to 10, 15 or even 30s?) by treating it like a stance. Coming up with ways to deal with 30s worth of Borrowed Time damage would be... interesting :) (albeit, overpowered if you could Cover->Hallowed Ground all of it)

If anyone remembers D.Gray-man ship arc, you'll be very familiar with the concept of this ability. After coming up with the idea, I've realised where it has stemmed from; even though it's been years since I've seen any of D.Gray-man. One of most dramatic scenes I've experienced. I want experiences like that in FFXIV now!

Edit:
For those that don't like to gamble (and to make this ability much more boring):

Ability name: Borrowed Time II
Ability duration: 5-10s
Ability recast: 180s (give or take, up to 300s depending how weak or powerful it would get implemented)
Ability description: When ability is in effect, your HP does not change. When ability ends, you will receive net value of all healing and all damage applied whilst the ability was in effect.


You could make it so that when the ability is in effect, your HP does not fall and any damage you suffer becomes your 'debt'. Healers casting cures on you take out from that 'debt'. And any 'debt' that was not cured before ability ends, is applied to you as damage when ability ends.

This way you would not get one-shotted by all the accumulated damage 'debt' if healers manage to clear (and shield with Stoneskin/Adloquinum) it in time. A Borrowed Time, indeed.

Secret Scenario 3!
Cadecus is at 4 Stacks, warrior is at 2000 HP, Healer is getting unlucky with crits, and no able to bring it up easily.
Warrior uses Borrowed time, Cadecus hits warrior 3 times for upwards of 9999 Damage. Warrior is healed to full, and then subsequently dies to an over hit, which hallowed Ground would have completely mitigated.

that sound tricky.., depend on timing it might help survive or one shot tank after it ware off. Imagin if u low HP and have to use it right b4 flip, then titan follow up with stump when it ware off you will take all the damage in one go. (if the damage u absord is exceed ur Max Hp, it the tank will get 1 shotted ><)

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Originally Posted by Remn

that sound tricky.., depend on timing it might help survive or one shot tank after it ware off. Imagin if u low HP and have to use it right b4 flip, then titan follow up with stump when it ware off you will take all the damage in one go. (if the damage u absord is exceed ur Max Hp, it the tank will get 1 shotted ><)

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Shielding a tank that is about to take borrowed damage:

WAR HP: 7000-8000
Stoneskin: 18% (1260-1440)
Adloquinum shield: 700-800 (or crit 2100-2400)
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total: 8960-10240 (with critted Adlo: 10360-11840)

add on top of that Mega-potion of Vitality for something like +725HP.

And then Covalescence, Thrill of Battle, Foresight, Mantra for even greater shield potency.


My proposal is not for weak of heart. You'd (and your healers) have to give a lot of thought into making the best use out of it and emerging alive. I know quite few 'oh sheep!' moments when I'd like yo use it (titan's flip->stomps would be one of them, for example)

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

Secret Scenario 3!
Cadecus is at 4 Stacks, warrior is at 2000 HP, Healer is getting unlucky with crits, and no able to bring it up easily.
Warrior uses Borrowed time, Cadecus hits warrior 3 times for upwards of 9999 Damage. Warrior is healed to full, and then subsequently dies to an over hit, which hallowed Ground would have completely mitigated.

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If SE gave WAR Hallowed Ground, even better, but... I doubt it, because 'we're just playing it wrong'. I'd take Hallowed Ground any time, don't get me wrong, but I don't see it coming WAR way.

How about if the damage returned back at the tank after the damaged absorbed was added on top of the enemies attacks in small pieces rather than all in one go. Like you use borrowed time -> you take 9000 damage -> borrowed time reverses -> Each successive hit taken has an additional 900 damage applied to each hit over 10 hits or 450 over 20 hits. Something along those lines.

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Originally Posted by Alaltus

How about if the damage returned back at the tank after the damaged absorbed was added on top of the enemies attacks in small pieces rather than all in one go. Like you use borrowed time -> you take 9000 damage -> borrowed time reverses -> Each successive hit taken has an additional 900 damage applied to each hit over 10 hits or 450 over 20 hits. Something along those lines.

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Nice idea, but probably it would be applied to you as damage over time (let's say damage gets split into 10 ticks over 30 seconds etc). Absorb a big hit and then split it into few ticks of damage that is more manageable for healers to deal with.

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Originally Posted by Zirael_Foxfire

Nice idea, but probably it would be applied to you as damage over time (let's say damage gets split into 10 ticks over 30 seconds etc). Absorb a big hit and then split it into few ticks of damage that is more manageable for healers to deal with.

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That would actually make it useful. Rather than turning smooth incoming damage into an even *bigger* spike that's even *more* likely to kill the tank than the previous one, having it convert into a DoT at the end of the effect (have it last 20 seconds) would actually make the CD useful: the damage all still has to be healed, you're just smoothing it out so that it's easier to heal. If it all arrived at once, it would be a functionally worthless CD because it would kill you more often than it actually keeps you alive.

All at once would make this ability kinda meh. (you would almost always die right after it falls off)

To make it a little more viable and on the level of HG. Make it more like (70% of damage received during Borrowed Time is dealt over 20s after Borrowed Time expires) and then make the CD something like 240s so to balance vs HG's 480s(?) CD.

Only real way to make warriors better and stick with their concept on how warriors should tank is just increase the amount of HP gained per VIT. We are taking huge amounts of damage a 20% increase with our buff just doesnt cut it. We should be running around with 10K+ HP in full DL if we have no mitigation on dmg we take. And also give us another stun/interrupt spell.

We all know the only way they'll be on par is if they get more dmg reduction cds and a proper interrupt. I would like to see War mechanics become as effective as an ICC era DK but my faith in effective implementation has dwindled and, as it turns out, main tanking may not be the dev's vision of the warrior.

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Originally Posted by dosu24

Only real way to make warriors better and stick with their concept on how warriors should tank is just increase the amount of HP gained per VIT. We are taking huge amounts of damage a 20% increase with our buff just doesnt cut it. We should be running around with 10K+ HP in full DL if we have no mitigation on dmg we take. And also give us another stun/interrupt spell.

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In reality, how Devs envision WAR tanking is inferior to PLD tanking from healer's perspective - Paladin simply requires less MP to get healed, and it adds up quickly over time. WAR has 20% more HP, PLD takes 20% less damage = WAR needs 20% more MP to stay alive and generates 20% more cure-hate compared to PLD. Well, I'm really curious how Devs are going to sort this out.

OP, I like the concept as this fits well with the berserking warrior deal. Limitations are needed though such as a max absorb and a way to make the subsequent damage healable.

I had been mulling something like this over he other day,

Ability
180s recast
For the next 5 seconds the warrior takes no damage up to
150% of the warrior's Max health. After the ability ends the warrior takes
33% of the damage done over 12 seconds.

You get a limited absorb that scales with gear and rather than have the long CD of hallowed has a shorter duration and delays a portion of the damage.

These were just off the top of my head values and could obviously be changed. It could have the warrior take the full damage over a much longer period as well.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

Secret Scenario 3!
Cadecus is at 4 Stacks, warrior is at 2000 HP, Healer is getting unlucky with crits, and no able to bring it up easily.
Warrior uses Borrowed time, Cadecus hits warrior 3 times for upwards of 9999 Damage. Warrior is healed to full, and then subsequently dies to an over hit, which hallowed Ground would have completely mitigated.

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Hilarious scenerio lol

That is an interesting idea.

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Originally Posted by Zirael_Foxfire

In reality, how Devs envision WAR tanking is inferior to PLD tanking from healer's perspective - Paladin simply requires less MP to get healed, and it adds up quickly over time. WAR has 20% more HP, PLD takes 20% less damage = WAR needs 20% more MP to stay alive and generates 20% more cure-hate compared to PLD. Well, I'm really curious how Devs are going to sort this out.

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War has 25% more HP, and gets 15% more healing received as well from our Tank Stance. It's not dramatically, or noticeably different. The real difference between us is Pally Cooldowns and that's it.

I like the idea of Borrowed time II (I immediately though of it when I read your description of Borrowed time I).
that would allow us or the healer to buffer heals during that time and avoid wasting IB in overhealing.
We'd need more that 5s though so within that time we could in an extreme situation:
- Bloodbath
- IB + infuriate + IB
- Second Wind
- ToB

That should heal us for a good 5000 HP + whatever incoming healing.

I'd be also happy to see abilities oriented toward supporting healer such as:
for 10s, all over healing (self or from healer) is converted as shield and 50% of mp used is restored to the healer.

BTW, Borrowed Time cannot be a healer ability otherwise you'd make PLD even stronger...

The skill suggested in the original post is terrible. Push this button to die in 10 seconds. No thank you.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

War has 25% more HP, and gets 15% more healing received as well from our Tank Stance. It's not dramatically, or noticeably different. The real difference between us is Pally Cooldowns and that's it.

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This guy gets it. The difference before cooldowns is miniscule, and almost completely ignorable. It is merely a rounding error in a healer's overhealing numbers.

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Originally Posted by Paikis

This guy gets it. The difference before cooldowns is miniscule, and almost completely ignorable. It is merely a rounding error in a healer's overhealing numbers.

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Actually, he does get it. He's effectively saying that Shield Oath and Defiance at roughly the same (not completely true, we'd need 25% healing bonus to be even in terms on MP usage) and that the CD toolkit is what makes PLD much better than WAR.

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

Actually, he does get it. He's effectively saying that Shield Oath and Defiance at roughly the same (not completely true, we'd need 25% healing bonus to be even in terms on MP usage) and that the CD toolkit is what makes PLD much better than WAR.

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Uh... that's what I said?

So give us an ability that once again requires a large amount of excessive coordination from the group/is gimmicky as hell/has no practical application, instead of something that just works? ok.

<Insert badass sounding ability name> (warrior ability names sound cooler than pld)
180s cooldown
Return 1000% of damage done as health, gives an ablative shield of 25% max HP when done.

1. Keeps with the self healing, wrathful warrior theme
2. Generates extra hate
3. Would have a cool name like Massacre, or Revel in Slaughter or something.

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Originally Posted by ExarKun007

<Insert badass sounding ability name> (warrior ability names sound cooler than pld)
180s cooldown
Return 1000% of damage done as health, gives an ablative shield of 25% max HP when done.

1. Keeps with the self healing, wrathful warrior theme
2. Generates extra hate
3. Would have a cool name like Massacre, or Revel in Slaughter or something.

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PLD would still be ahead, especially with this on a 180s CD.

A single hit for 1000%(x10) healing? and a 25% health bubble(would have the same effect as ToB just 5% more).

So on a good day you would heal yourself for around 5000 and give yourself a 2000 shield. That's 2 swings from a dread naught and then you're back to spiking like crazy.

This seems more like an emergency button but WARs find themselves in trouble much more often that once every 3 mins, that's like half the boss fight. It's also an excessively large heal to get full use out of.

A cool warrior themed version of Hallowed Ground that I thought up last night.

Fury of the Primals (or whatever you want to name it)
Increases maximum HP by 200% and incoming healing by 150% (so triple hp and 2.5x incoming healing modifier)
Lasts 10s and 480s CD.

Its similar to, but slightly inferior to HG, so it lasts longer.