A couple of GNB changes

Please lower fated circle from lv72 to lv70, it's always been painful to be so close yet so far to having a super AoE whenever you draw a lv70 dungeon, raid or alliance raid in the roulette (or choose to play one synced in general). Sure you get to use Fated Circle more often nowadays due to the Endwalker expansion adding more higher level duties to the pool, but there could easily have been no Endwalker. I understand other adjustments would need to be made overall. Perhaps as an alternative to this, Bow Shock could be changed into being the 3rd part of a combo after Demon Slice and Demon Slaughter, and have Bow Shock's potency increase to 220 or 230 when used in this combo fashion (the recast time and non-combo-base-potency could remain).

Also, Bloodfest's 120 second recast timer is agonizing. It's a long time to wait on a class that has a short and repetitive rotation. 90 seconds would be better.

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Originally Posted by Zofian

Also, Bloodfest's 120 second recast timer is agonizing. It's a long time to wait on a class that has a short and repetitive rotation. 90 seconds would be better.

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It was 90 seconds some patches ago (when we raided P1-4) and that felt a whole lot better to play, but we need the 2 minute meta.

Ah. Hadn't played GNB in ages, felt that it was playing a bit off. Cheers.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

It was 90 seconds some patches ago (when we raided P1-4) and that felt a whole lot better to play, but we need the 2 minute meta.

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Man, f*** this 2min meta, in fact screw every single forced cooldown alignment since Shadowbringers. Feels so boring to play.

The 2 min meta has little to do with Bloodfest.

Bloodfest was changed from 90 to 120 because it was generating resources and needs a target.
Compared to abilities like Salted Earth, it's much easier to drift it and get it outside your no mercy windows.

If bloodfest worked differently, I'd agree with 90s, but not as long as it generates resources.
You may argue about "muh complexity" but I don't think it was "complex", simply overly punishing.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

The 2 min meta has little to do with Bloodfest.

Bloodfest was changed from 90 to 120 because it was generating resources and needs a target.
Compared to abilities like Salted Earth, it's much easier to drift it and get it outside your no mercy windows.

If bloodfest worked differently, I'd agree with 90s, but not as long as it generates resources.
You may argue about "muh complexity" but I don't think it was "complex", simply overly punishing.

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I don't see how changing Bloodfest from 90 to 120 changed any of those drawbacks, you can still drift it and you can still potentially not have a target to use it on (not like that actually ever happened in Asphodelos). It's potentially even more punishing now because drifting Bloodfest now means you will always lose dps during raid buffs instead of only at the 6 minute and 12 minute mark.

It was clearly just done to make it sync up with every other 2 minute buff and bring it in line with the 2 minute burst meta.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

The 2 min meta has little to do with Bloodfest.

Bloodfest was changed from 90 to 120 because it was generating resources and needs a target.
Compared to abilities like Salted Earth, it's much easier to drift it and get it outside your no mercy windows.

If bloodfest worked differently, I'd agree with 90s, but not as long as it generates resources.
You may argue about "muh complexity" but I don't think it was "complex", simply overly punishing.

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I'm pretty sure the ENTIRE reason Bloodfest was changed to 120 was because of the 2 min meta. I think they even said so when announcing the change.

GNB had a kind of weird rotation before then where you had the opener, filler, 60 sec miniburst, 90 sec microburst, 2 min what the heck burst, 3 min micro+mini burst, 4 min why not burst, and at 6 minutes, everything possible to align aligned. Also, the reopener was wildly different depending on which of those bursts you were closest to/had just passed. And it also required you to alter how you entered your burst windows/which ones you did and didn't extensively pool resources for.

90 seconds meant it only fit in 1 out of every 3 No Mercy windows anyway.

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But yeah, I'm 99% certain they outright said the Bloodfest change was to make it work with the 2 min meta and that was the point of the change.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I'm pretty sure the ENTIRE reason Bloodfest was changed to 120 was because of the 2 min meta. I think they even said so when announcing the change.

GNB had a kind of weird rotation before then where you had the opener, filler, 60 sec miniburst, 90 sec microburst, 2 min what the heck burst, 3 min micro+mini burst, 4 min why not burst, and at 6 minutes, everything possible to align aligned. Also, the reopener was wildly different depending on which of those bursts you were closest to/had just passed. And it also required you to alter how you entered your burst windows/which ones you did and didn't extensively pool resources for.

90 seconds meant it only fit in 1 out of every 3 No Mercy windows anyway.

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Just as you said it, I think the goal was more about reducing the number of no mercy windows rather than fitting the 2 min burst meta.
GNB was already a job with many tools fitting the 2 mins burst meta, Gnashing, Double Down, Blasting... If we followed this logic then Salted Earth should have been on a 2 minute cooldown, we would have Gnashing and Blasting on 1 minute, but this isn't the case.

I can't deny that there is obviously aDPS variance between each No Mercy window and that GNB benefits more from raidbuffs now than 90s Bloodfest.
But I still maintain the change was for gameplay and that fitting the 2 minute window was a happy convenience.

Just make No Mercy/Fight or Flight last 25 seconds for the love of god.

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Originally Posted by Santisimo

Just make No Mercy/Fight or Flight last 25 seconds for the love of god.

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20 seconds is fine for both, otherwise you're just going to keep moving the goalpost everytime, you're going to always miss something, and people will be like "if only I had 2 more seconds", it'll never stop. Not every job is able to fit everything into their burst window, and that's actually fine, as long as you get your double down, Gnashing combo, sonic break bow shock and then whatever Busrt Strikes you can then you're fine for most pulls, missing the last burst strike under NM isn't gonna cist you a dps check, if it is I'd be more concerned with your party.

It's even less of a worry on Paladin, just need to comfortably fit Goring, Confiteor, Blades of Faith / Truth / Valor and 1 DM buffed HS, then last 2 GCDs are free.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

20 seconds is fine for both, otherwise you're just going to keep moving the goalpost everytime, you're going to always miss something, and people will be like "if only I had 2 more seconds", it'll never stop. Not every job is able to fit everything into their burst window, and that's actually fine, as long as you get your double down, Gnashing combo, sonic break bow shock and then whatever Busrt Strikes you can then you're fine for most pulls, missing the last burst strike under NM isn't gonna cist you a dps check, if it is I'd be more concerned with your party.

It's even less of a worry on Paladin, just need to comfortably fit Goring, Confiteor, Blades of Faith / Truth / Valor and 1 DM buffed HS, then last 2 GCDs are free.

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"Not every job" stopped being a valid argument when patch 5.0 dropped and standardization/homogenization became the core design principle for this game, especially among the Tanks. And while I'm mentioning Shadowbringers, Gunbreaker was able to fit, and does still fit everything fine at Lvl 80 before they decided to give us another cartridge and a double spender. While it's certainly not problematic from a performance perspective and isn't likely to be what cost us the dps check, there's a certain smoothness in the flow of the rotation and burst w/ Lvl 80 Gunbreaker where everything lined up and fit in where it was supposed to perfectly.

It's an issue of feeling clunky to play, not a performance issue. Monk has historically been one of the best performing jobs despite in each expansion being one of the clunkiest alongside SMN prior to its rework, and that was merit having both jobs changed entirely despite their performance. To argue that I should settle for clunk due to what was an ill-conceived addition to the Job isn't a strong argument to stand on. If the goal post moves in the future, that's because moving it is the reasonable thing to do.

Goalposts have to move as the design principles and philosophy of the game changes, not to mention the game itself. Moving the goalpost is not a conceptual error.

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Originally Posted by Santisimo

Rant

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I mean when I can tell the differences between each tank, sure they all share some degree of similarity, but they all play plenty differently. Usually it's the people that want something to complain about looking for any morsel they can get their hands on. But then by your logic every tank should be dealing the exact about of damage give or take crit DH variance,but that's not happening at present, huh? funny that.

Honestly I don't mind playing GNB at lvl 90 as it currently is, it's not nearly as bad and clunky as some people make it out to be. Hell 2.50 GCD build this tier isn't that bad either, to the point you're only getting 8 GCDs anyways under NM.

There is no reason for FoF or NM to last longer than 20 seconds since raid buffs duration cap out at 20 seconds. So I dunno it's not really gaining much at all, the difference will be made up by crit DH variance tbh.

I genuinely can't see a justified or valid argument that the NM cooldown need increasing, because there is always gonna be someone unhappy about something, but when GNB is already doing great damage and has a really strong defensive kit, I really do not think the job needs any kind of adjustment right now.

More so I can't see how increasing NM is even going to fix that one scenario once in a while where you get that overcap or delay your burst a GCD since you're still waiting for NM to come off CD lol.

I'd be up for making Bloodfest 60 sec cooldown ... yeah might have to nerf something else but it would make the job more fun to play.

Oh god no, I do not need even more forced weaves during NM.

Some random ideas I think might be cool in 7.0:

-Aoe Continuation for fated circle. I don’t think anyone would be surprised by this. It would be good leveling filler and would make using bloodfest during trash pulls more fun. It’s a no brainer and is cohesive with the job design

-Make bow shock a GCD and share a cooldown with sonic break. I don’t particularly care for having to track this cooldown during single target, so this could free up a little busy-ness from the job that could be replaced with something else and generally future proof a little. You could even give it an animation upgrade during 7.0 leveling

-New special mitigation. A complaint people have is that using mit during continuation is cumbersome. This cooldown would be something you press and then you get a buff that lasts like 15-25 ish seconds. Upon using gnashing fang this buff turns into a 15-20% mitigation that lasts during your continuation combo. It would last around 7-8 seconds or end after eye gouge. It also ends if you break the GF combo with another GCD. This would reward fight knowledge and let you prepare a mit ahead of time when you know you’ll need one during GF. If needed it could share a cooldown with another mit skill, maybe even HOC so you could pop both rampart/this new button before a burst with TB during it rather than having to weave HOC during the GF combo. Probably like a two minute cooldown.

New 1-cart spender. This one is more theory-craft-ey. Basically a new GCD costing 1 cartridge. However this can only be executed during No Mercy, which now grants the buff “(New Skill) Ready”. This is meant as a finisher to your NM window to replace your last burst strike. The potency of this move is increased in stacks based on using any of the following moves during NM: double down, gnashing fang, savage claw, wicked talon, burst strike, and fated circle. You can get a maximum of 6 stacks for max potency when you use the move, kinda similar to plentiful harvest on RPR. The max six stacks will only be possible during even burst with bloodfest up where you get all six with DD, gnashing combo, and two burst strikes before you spend your final cart on this move. During odd minutes you will only get 4 stacks max from DD and gnashing combo, and you would replace your remaining extra burst strike with this move. This could make those 120s bloodfest bursts more exiciting. And it would have AOE fall off for trash too.

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Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

Some random ideas I think might be cool in 7.0:

-Aoe Continuation for fated circle. I don’t think anyone would be surprised by this. It would be good leveling filler and would make using bloodfest during trash pulls more fun. It’s a no brainer and is cohesive with the job design

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If I were designing the class, I'd have made Fated the Continuation off of either Demon Slice or Demon Slaughter. I'd also change Bloodfest to be called 'Draw and Junction', current Double Down to 'Bloodfest' (as a reference to the LB of the same name from FF8), and make Hypervelocity a Continuation off of this new 'Bloodfest' instead of Burst Strike, so that Burst Strike goes back to having no Continuation after it, allowing for more mobility during NM windows again (potencies adjusted as needed)

It may sound kind of petty but for some reason I kind of don't like how bow shock and sonic break are both used together.
Up the potency, make them share a cast time, and make them both either skill or ability(preferred) and I'd be a pretty happy gunbreaker.

honestly believe it's the tank in the overall best place right now

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Originally Posted by Nihility

It may sound kind of petty but for some reason I kind of don't like how bow shock and sonic break are both used together.
Up the potency, make them share a cast time, and make them both either skill or ability(preferred) and I'd be a pretty happy gunbreaker.

honestly believe it's the tank in the overall best place right now

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I don't disagree with the idea, you would indeed need to make both of them a GCD or a oGCD.
I would favor the GCD option and make both dots 15 seconds (adjusting potency accordingly).
Gunbreaker doesn't have a lot of cooldown shared between ST/AoE, so I don't think it's a problem.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bow Shock or Sonic Break just disappears or get reworked in 7.0, those are dots to press and forgot.
The only upside about Sonic Break is that the dot makes it 900 potency (300 + 60*10) diluted over time, which helps with damage variance I believe.

I also believe GNB is in a very good spot but just suffers against repeated downtime. Maybe something like cartridges meditation to build gauge during downtime?

I don't know how likely it would be if they did this in 7.0 but I wish they'd revert the number of max cartridges GNB can hold back down to 2 and make DD cost only 1, along with whatever potency adjustments that needs. Needing three cartridges going into your one-minute gives you very little leeway on missing GCDs, which to be fair it's pretty hard to lose uptime in EW but it still happens on occasion.

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Originally Posted by baklava151

I don't know how likely it would be if they did this in 7.0 but I wish they'd revert the number of max cartridges GNB can hold back down to 2 and make DD cost only 1, along with whatever potency adjustments that needs. Needing three cartridges going into your one-minute gives you very little leeway on missing GCDs, which to be fair it's pretty hard to lose uptime in EW but it still happens on occasion.

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I honestly don't care about missing GCDs, when it happens it is either my fault in which case I just need to "git gud" or it is mechanics-related downtime in which case I simply adjust my rotation.

What the EW changes did however is take a perfectly fine gameplay loop and introduce clunk into it. Double down didn't add some needed gameplay variety, it's just another "press this big damage button during burst", it's basically just replacing a Burst Strike from Shadowbringers with a "bigger" Burst Strike. And then there's Hypervelocity, an addition that did nothing but make your No Mercy windows awkward, boss repositioning a pain and weaving defensives an annoyance.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I honestly don't care about missing GCDs, when it happens it is either my fault in which case I just need to "git gud" or it is mechanics-related downtime in which case I simply adjust my rotation.

What the EW changes did however is take a perfectly fine gameplay loop and introduce clunk into it. Double down didn't add some needed gameplay variety, it's just another "press this big damage button during burst", it's basically just replacing a Burst Strike from Shadowbringers with a "bigger" Burst Strike. And then there's Hypervelocity, an addition that did nothing but make your No Mercy windows awkward, boss repositioning a pain and weaving defensives an annoyance.

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For me DD as a concept is fine, especially since I think GNB in ShB was pretty solid and didn't need any crazy changes to it going into EW, just making it cost 2 cartridges seemed pointless. Definitely don't disagree with Hypervelocity being unnecessary though.

A far better and more likely suggestion someone posted on Reddit is to give GNB a GCD that has a 5-second recast and generates a cartridge, which would be a great downtime tool.