Proposed changes to "fix" tanking

[hola]

the only TWO changes will make war competitive with pld are
1
15% passive healing bonus to defiance
2
change inner beast's healing effect into shield with same potency.

and you mentioned one, which is not enough.

the rest of the changes wont have dramatic effect on tanking for war. and silence effect to inner beast? we dont need that AT ALL.

[hola]

change Bulwark into the third weaponskill for Riot Blade combo.

currently Riot Blade combo is lacking, the only time you use it is when you oom which rarely happens and only happens when you run out of tp.

[Kenji1134]

change Bulwark into the third weaponskill for Riot Blade combo.

currently Riot Blade combo is lacking, the only time you use it is when you oom which rarely happens and only happens when you run out of tp.

The Riot Blade combo leads into a different set of issues related to paladin tanking. Simply put, its an aggro imbalance.

Given that PLD and WAR weapons have equal damage, and both class's primary ST combos have equal hate mods, the raw aggro generation of both classes, in ST, should be equal.
Now when we apply tanking stances, PLD takes a 20% damage hit, WAR takes a 25% hit, IIRC. Now WAR also has Main, which is a fully maintainable 20% damage boost, which more than compensates for the additional 5% reduction over PLD.
This, plus WAR's combo chain potency being 150-200-280 vs PLD's 150-200-260, effectively makes a WAR generate more ST aggro than a PLD.

Now aoe aggro is far and away in WAR's favor, if you dont have people trying to sleep mobs left and right.
Overpower, the primary aoe spam ability for WAR costs 120 TP. This is worth 2 ticks of TP regen. Since WAR also has access to Flash, though with a small MP pool, they could alternate Overpower and Flash, regaining 60 TP after Overpower, another 60 after Flash, and repeat, as long as they have MP. Granted, this is an edge case where you'd NEED to generate aoe hate nonstop for a long time.

For PLD, we only have Flash. Our MP pool is about twice as big as WAR's... I think, dont have the exact numbers in front of me, but our MP regen is nowhere near enough to maintain Flash. At best, a PLD can Flash, Fast, Riot, and have regained (between Riot and MP regen), almost enough MP to do another Flash.
That means once we're out of MP, we can do 1 aoe hate ability every 3 gcd's, with no hate mod abilities inbetween. Compared to a WAR, who even with 0 MP, can do 1 aoe hate ability (Overpower) every 2 gcd's.

So, less damage, less ST aggro, less aoe aggro... Basically, if a WAR lets us tank, even in ST situations... we offer better cooldowns, nothing else.

[Jahaudant]

I actually really like this idea.

I would supplement it by giving Riot Blade another additional combo effect that helps with mitigation.

Riot Blade
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Fast Blade
Combo Potency: 230
Combo Bonus: Restores MP,
Shield block the next magical or physical attack
Duration 1 second.

Then change Bulwark (the new 3rd combo in this chain) to

Bulwark
Smash the enemy with your shield with a potency of 100
Combo Action: Riot Blade
Combo Potency: 200
Combo Effect with Riot Blade: Increase block rate by 40%
Duration 5 seconds.

This would give PLD more of an active role in that they need to constantly evaluate whether more enmity is required (via Halone combo) or more mitigation is required (via Bulwark combo).

The idea is that you can time Riot Blade to help mitigate particularly damaging attacks that you know are coming, and that the buff from Bulwark is reduced in potency from it's original and the duration is low enough that you cant maintain 100% uptime on it even if you spam that combo. Starting a Halone combo will see your Bulwark wear off shortly after Savage Blade, leaving you without the buff for at least 10 seconds.

[hola]

I actually really like this idea.

I would supplement it by giving Riot Blade another additional combo effect that helps with mitigation.

"Shield Block the next magical or physical attack"
Duration 2 seconds

Then change Bulwark (the new 3rd combo in this chain) to
Smash the enemy with your shield
Potency 100
Combo Potency with Riot Blade 200
Combo Effect with Riot Blade:
Increase block rate by 40%
Duration 6 seconds.

6sec is too short, it should be around 10sec

[TommySmiles]

Some really good ideas. I like the idea of having an ability combo off of Riot Blade. Bulwark might not be my first choice (or the most balanced), but I like the idea nonetheless.

[Hachiko]

OP, if you use the edit function, you can make posts longer than 1000 characters rather than having to chain post.

WAR
1. WAR stun is not delayed by casting animation. Damage equal to PLD stun, TP cost removed, on a 10 second cooldown (yes, this makes the WAR and PLD stuns identical, as they should be because both classes are tanks).
2. WAR Overpower aoe damage delayed by animation removed.
3. Allow WAR to cross-class Rampart.
4. Storm's Eye debuff duration increased from 15 seconds to 24 (matching Maim’s buff duration, allowing the enhanced maim trait to actually do something).
5. 15% increase haling on infuriated buff moved to the Defiance skill passively.
6. Threat multiplier on Steel Cyclone increased to at least 3x (similar to Overpower).
7. Inner Beast additional effect of 1 second silence (similar to Spirits Within additional effect).
8. Berserk Pacification changed to “Fatigued”, 5 second duration debuff on the WAR,reducing damage of the WAR by 20% (being locked out of skills makes this almost useless without careful planning and preparation)
9. Mercy Stroke cooldown reduced to 60 seconds (30 with trait), potency dramatically increased to 350 (or maybe 400), and the heal proc if a killing blow reduced from 20% to 10% of maximum HP.

I agree with 1 to an extent, but I don't think it's that great of an idea to have 2 classes share the exact same skill. I think it would be much more effective to give the stun to MRD, make it instant, and reduce the CD and Stun Duration, and then make it a cross class skill. PAL aren't that pressured on cross class skills, and it would give more flavor to both classes, and allow Shield Bash to be modified into something more interesting. For example, a reactive skill like Haymaker, usable after you've blocked, could have some secondary effect.


100% agree on storm's eye. Currently having to alternate between Storm's Eye and Butchers Block every other combo is a little iffy, threatwise.

I disagree with Berserk Pacification. It's still a very potent ability. You only give up ~2 attacks which will average to 400 potentcy worth of attacks, but you gain a huge increase for 20 seconds. It puts you way ahead in general.

Mercy Stroke should be made into more of an execute. I would say leave the cooldown at 60 Seconds, but instead of a 200 potency attack only usable below 20% that heals if it kills, make it a 150 potency attack usable all the time. If the target is below 20% health make it a 450 potency attack, and if the target dies give the player the heal. This would make it worth taking for other classes now, as it currently isn't as a meager ~2 DPS increase over the course of a fight.

6sec is too short, it should be around 10sec

That would be so OP. Shield block is huge, and increasing block rate by 40% would be absurd. You would be talking going from 8% uptime on bulwark as a cooldown, to 66% uptime on bulwark as a weapon skill. At 40% additional block rate it would be an order of magnitude more effective than it is as a cooldown.

So, less damage, less ST aggro, less aoe aggro... Basically, if a WAR lets us tank, even in ST situations... we offer better cooldowns, nothing else.

A lot of this is off base.

PAL can easily keep up on single target enmity because they don't have to alternate between low enmity and high enmity combo. They get their necessary effect (10% reduced STR) from their enmity combo, and riot blade is only use for AOE tanking, basically. As a warrior you have to alternate: Butcher's Block -> Storm's Path -> Butcher's Block -> etc. This is significantly less enmity than just Rage of Halone -> Rage of Halone -> Rage of Halone. A WAR could theoretically do the same thing, but they wouldn't want to because our damage is tied to our self healing. Giving up 30% of the heals from Bloodbath and Inner Beast would leave the WAR very very vulnerable, and tax healers much more.

Point number 2 is that a WAR can't realistically just sit there and spam Overpower and Flash. You have to work in a Wrath building combo at least once every 30 seconds, which means 5 of those 30 seconds are dedicated to keeping up Infuriated, as letting it drop in any serious group tanking situation is really bad. Now, I don't know if this is true but it's my understanding that Riot Blade restores quite a bit of MP. If it restores enough to cast a Flash, that will put the classes pretty close on AOE enmity. The biggest problem will be in the future for paladins, because Flash enmity doesn't scale with attack power.

With that said, if your DPS are well geared, simply Overpower and Flash rotations are not enough to hold enmity against single target damage, it is enough to hold it versus aoe though.

Finally, PAL are almost always designated as main tank because aside from offering better cooldowns, they have the same effective health and are much easier to heal, in addition to having a significant degree of passive mitigation from using a shield. PAL are simply better tanks right now. AOE threat might have a slight edge for WAR, but damage mitigation is hugely in favor of PAL. Enmity isn't an issue for either job right now. The biggest thing is durability, which PAL have a huge advantage in.

[bwalker36]

If all this is accurate I have just come across terrible war tanks lol. I always steal single target threat from them.

[Ecthorn]

6sec is too short, it should be around 10sec

I agree with this, in a game with a lower GCD 6s is viable (default 1.5s). In FF14 though, we use a 2.5s GCD so it should at least be 10s

[RileyLarson]

I'd rather Circle of Scorn just give a massive chunk of enmity rather than a DoT - I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but it seems like it would be a nightmare to use when CC is involved.