Balance analysis of 2.1 WAR proposed changes

[Kitru]

//EDIT: WAR part is easy. Reliable, with eHP buff on everything you do. 41.11% average mitigation from that damage portion. The Death Sentence portion is 166.67 DPS, and your average mitigation is 41.11% compared to 34-35% from the other portion (500 DPS). That should come out to a total overall mitigation of around 36.15%.

This ignores the fact that the WAR is using IB on every burst damage rather than using it continually on CD. This is the major factor that allows a well played WAR to exceed the average expected performance. The value in a WAR isn't going to be in the average performance but in the fact that they will be able to, when properly played, have the equivalent of Rampart up for *every single* burst attack. The 6 second duration matters less than the 20 second CD, which means that you shouldn't treat IB as a traditional CD but rather a highly leveragable part of mean mitigation. Basically, you have to compared the ability to have 6 seconds of 20% DR on demand every 20 seconds with static 25% increased hp and 20% +healing to a flat 20% decrease in damage taken. A WAR only has to use Inner Beast once every 30 seconds in order to achieve the same mean mitigation over time.

This doesn't tell the whole story though.

While IB is active, assuming that PLD has a 5% non-buff mitigation advantage due to using a shield, PLD would take 95% of static mitigated damage and WAR would take 100% but would require only 87.7% of the healing that the PLD does to recover from it, which, for our purposes, is mean mitigation; for eHP, the WAR has 25% *more* than the PLD while IB is active. The WAR, using IB properly, takes *way* less total percent of max damage from the burst and requires a helluva lot less healing to recover. For time periods without IB active, WAR will have ~95% of the eHP that the PLD has and will require 109.65% of the healing that the PLD requires (because of that shield mitigation).

In the Twintania example (it's closer to a 6k mitigated burst on a PLD, btw, which is why surviving it pretty much *requires* an adloq/stoneskin, and the DPS is closer to 500 for the auto-attack portion since a single healer can maintain the tank outside of the burst recovery), where we have an intense burst damage event every 30 seconds that amounts to roughly 50% of total damage taken is within the 6 second IB window (6k baseline mitigated burst on a PLD with ~1000 mitigated damage per GCD for ~400 DPS on auto-attack portion; (6000 + 400 * 6) / (6000 + 400 * 30) = ~.47), which is the average expected use rate that the devs/time averaged performance of IB expects, you would end up with the WAR requiring 98.675% (.5 * .877 + .5 * 1.0965) of the total healing that a PLD requires. This is, of course, ignoring the new SP debuff which, if it's anywhere near 5%, will eliminate the PLD shield advantage completely and WAR will end up requiring 93.75% of the healing that a PLD does.

Put it all together and you get a WAR having a *monumental* advantage on both eHP and healing required on the burst damage phase and a negligible advantage/disadvantage that vacillates slightly based upon auto-attack damage for the remainder of the time, which isn't really a major issue given that it's not a time in which the tank healer or the tank is pressured.

What you need to take away from this is that WAR is going to be the absolute *king* of fights with regularly occurring burst damage mechanics like Caduceus, Titan, and Twintania *when played properly*. If you just use IB on CD, the WAR simply matches PLD. If you use IB right when it's needed most, you do a *hell* of a lot better. If you use IB at the exact *wrong* time, you're going to do a helluva lot worse.

The only times where this *isn't* going to be the case on a constant basis is when there is a CD active and, in those cases, we really care only about the burst damage aspect (since that's what you're using the CD to survive), and, at that point, it's largely about how often you can cover a burst phase with it:

For PLD, Rampart gives you one every 4, Sentinel is one every 6, Convalescence is one every 4, Foresight is one every 4 (with laughable contributions, but whatever), and Bulwark is one every 6.
For WAR, Foresight is one every 3, Convalescence is one every 4, Thrill of Battle is one every 6, Featherfoot is one every 4, and Vengeance is one every 4.

As such, WAR is going to be able to cover *more* of those burst iterations (number of phases totals to 1.25 whereas PLD gets 1.083) but the PLD will have much better contributions over time thanks to stronger effects and generally longer durations. I don't feel like doing the math on the mean contribution of each of those CDs while active and averaged over time, since it will pretty much have the same c

This further cements what seems to be the WAR's new intended role: burst damage mitigation. PLD will do *very* well as sustained high damage scenarios while WAR will excel at regular burst fights but only when played correctly. WAR is going to become the explicit skill tank; the tank that, when used properly, gives you *amazing* mitigation (which gives me a warm fuzzy feeling).

[Gamemako]

This ignores the fact that the WAR is using IB on every burst damage rather than using it continually on CD.

That was accounted. Bear in mind that PLD also gets greater mileage out of its cooldowns: Rampart hits 1/3 of bursts where it covers 2/9 of total time, Sentinel gets 1/6 bursts where it covers 1/18 of total time, etc. You are also comparing an autoattack-mitigation picture which includes all flat self-healing already. Without that flat healing, WAR would actually be a bit behind PLD -- WAR simply has weaker scaled mitigation over time. In the additional burst scenarios, that healing has already been counted. You can only count the scaled effects on those additional burst attacks, and because all of it is scaled, the exact amount of damage is not relevant; the burst reduction ratio will be true for all 30s-interval attacks within a 15-minute window. Even with that sort of burst schedule, the two just aren't seeing much difference in total mitigation. Another way of looking at the problem is that while WAR sees greater benefit than normal from the attacks, it still effectively moves you upwards in total damage rate -- the additional utility just help close the additional gap that would have otherwise emerged.

That said, I will generally agree with your assessment. I believe that WAR will be preferred for Twintania and Titan not because of total mitigation but because of eHP. PLD isn't technically harder on healers' MP pool, but WAR would give the party more breathing room in long encounters with reliable burst mechanics. PLD can make up some of the difference with Stoneskin, but it's simply not going to compare to WAR's superior eHP extension.

Gamemako, Have you compared the old inner beast to the new?

Not yet. Shouldn't be too complicated though, so I'll do it now. Old Inner Beast can push 1600 healed per shot at the top end (ilvl90 gear and strength build). To be equal between the buffed and the current versions, you would need to reduce out 1067 damage. That means the enemy would need to deliver 5333 damage over 6 seconds, which many opponents will do pretty reliably. My low-heal condition for this and my previous thread were 1133 healed from Inner Beast, or DL+Garuda setup. That would be an equivalent of 3778 over 6 seconds, which is less than many opponents deliver in a single hit, and if you were to remove the occasionally-dodgy inclusion of Storm's Eye, it's only 3400 for equivalence, or 567 incoming DPS. So is it a buff? Well, yes, but a small one. So yeah, the change isn't too much of a buff on the mitigation side, but it does reverse the gear scaling problem.

As I said in my previous balance thread, though, Inner Beast was never really the problem so much as Wrath and eHP. My guess is that the dev team decided that instead of giving a large passive HP to take advantage of Inner Beast, they would rather make the ability an eHP extension.

//EDIT: Maybe it would be better to think of it this way. Previously, you could drop 5500 in healing per minute from IB, roughly. Now, you'd get back 1833 from healing, plus 18 DPS-seconds at 500 DPS for 2250, plus 20% of two Death Sentences -- 1000-1200 each. That would put you at 6100-6500 or so neglecting the impact of other abilities, which comparably reduce the value of your defenses. Vengeance, for example, would take out 30% one way or the other, so you'd get 30% less from that one IB drop. Considering that we're talking 300-360 from Death Sentence and another 180 or so from autoattacks, you're looking at the difference right there. Thing is, you now get eHP out of it, and that's really the key to the whole bit. The big problems with Inner Beast before were that you were dead before you could use it, and gimped once you did.

[Judge_Xero]

As I said in my previous balance thread, though, Inner Beast was never really the problem so much as Wrath and eHP. My guess is that the dev team decided that instead of giving a large passive HP to take advantage of Inner Beast, they would rather make the ability an eHP extension.

Definitely a good thing, since now it can scale to damage without having to gear to do damage. Although it was nice when over-geared for dungeons to self heal, but Vengeance by itself will pretty much take care of that anyways.