A plea to reconsider Inner Beast changes

[Shinkyo]

I tend to agree that the change to IB is not in line with the initial design of a self healing tank which is what appealed to me in the first place.
My suggestion, keep IB the way it was in 2.0 but give Steel cyclone the 20% damage reduction. We still need some mechanics to do scaled mitigation.
That way we have 2 mitigation mechanism and Steel Cyclone would actually be useful.


I feel wrath are now useless and there's little benefit holding them aside from specific fight mechanics such as Titan's scripted rotation. In most case, I'll always want to use my wrath since they now become just a resource and not a benefit in itself.
Since there are no downside to using wrath anymore, you're just wasting resource if you don't use one of the ability.
What you're saying about infuriate is very true and it's now becoming a pretty bad skill to get at lvl 50 since the benefit is meh...

Overall, I'm happy with most changes in 2.1 but IB is currently just fine the way it is. Just give the 20% DR to Steel Cyclone instead (or give back the 1.0 version) and it'll fix a lot of the issues raised here.

[Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam]

I get you guys saying DR% scales better. I made that clear in the OP but regardless. With how high HP scales with VIT and how little damage does comparatively with STR it could very well become an issue in a year or two down the line. The problem is they took the laziest approach in an attempt to prevent a problem that doesn't actually exist yet. There's a number of ways they could have altered IB without straying from the original concept of the class. We pay them to keep this game updated and pump out content, they shouldn't ever cut corners and take the easy way out. I'm sure I'll get lynched for it, but WoW has a perfect example of a direction they could have taken IB with Death Strike.

Focuses dark power into a strike that deals 185% weapon damage plus 499 to an enemy and heals you for 20% of the damage you have sustained from non-player sources during the preceding 5 sec (minimum of at least 7% of your maximum health). This attack cannot be parried.

Scales with your own damage, enemy damage and perfectly fits the flavour of the class. There's a number of other options they could have gone with too, even something as simple as buffing the 300% to 400% in a years time when it actually becomes an issue would have been a better option (the rest of the changes in 2.1 do enough to bridge the gap between WAR and PLD as is).

[Hulk_Smash]

From all the MMO's I play/ have played, developers tend to make improvements for a limited number of reasons;
1. Balance between classes
2. Improvements to the lesser used abilities, with the intent that they become relevant
3. And to piss the community off, so the game has a feeling of freshness for those that have spent every waking
Moment since launch with the intent of completing end game content.
WAR will not be a PAL clone with 2.1. WAR is still an acticve mitigation tank vs passive mitigation for PAL.
One difference now, is that the SP combo is one of the abilities that was not used prior to 2.1, but will be part of the
WAR rotation. Also, the fact that IB was the only WAR ability worth using is no longer an issue. You have several
that bring something to the party vs. nothing at all. The damage reduction will not be constant, like it is for a PAL in shield oath.

[Hulk_Smash]

WAR will have a new *identity* to develop now, but will actually be based on a foundation, rather than 1 skill.
The reality, is that you can't make everyone happy. But, at least not everyone is pissed off.

[Vactus]

Not sure why you guys are hung up on me overgearing things. Didn't realize gearing up suddenly deemed me inappropriate to discuss my class. I tanked turns 1-4 in less than full DL. My first run was NQ relic, Hoplite head/body, rest DL. That was plenty to MT Cadaceus, ADS and OT turn 4. Of course that's baseline gear and things go much smoother once you get more, but that's kind of the point in a linear progression MMO. You have 7 months to get full i90, which will again be plenty for the first batch of the next tier of content in 2.2.

You were carried by your healers. Plain and simple.

However. To the rest of your points: The big issue is that we still needed great healers because we honestly can't self heal enough to counter how much dmg a PLD can just flat soak. Yes WARs are currently MT in T5, but that's a group working past the problem with gear not class mechanics as they can with PLD.

To one of your points on page2: I agree that if they were to make changes, DK from WoW would have been a similar class in a different MMO to take examples from. Similar tanking styles as WAR and similar ideas.

[Vactus]

WAR will have a new *identity* to develop now, but will actually be based on a foundation, rather than 1 skill.
The reality, is that you can't make everyone happy. But, at least not everyone is pissed off.

A lot of PLDs are pissed :/

[Kitru]

The two tank classes are no longer unique or offer any interesting differences.

There is so much wrong in everything that you've been saying that it's nearly causing me physical pain (it *is* causing me physical pain if you count all of the headdesking and facepalming).

First off, Inner Beast is *reactive*. It's healing. You can't use it proactively because that would mean using it at full hp right before you get walloped by a big attack like Mountain Buster. If you *are* using it proactively rather than right after a big hit, you're doing it wrong. The way that you're describing it as "proactive" isn't proactive: it's reactive to the first hit.

Secondly, in 8 man or high damage content, if you're using Inner Beast outside of Infuriate, you're decreasing your healing efficiency substantially. Just because Yoshi said in his first letter that we were playing WAR wrong does not mean that we were playing WAR wrong. The very fact that his *second* live letter apologized and admitted that they got it wrong kind of proves that.

Third, as to the "having to decide right when to pop it", you're *already* using Inner Beast in that exact scenario. The only difference is that, right now, you pop it *after* Rock/Mountain Buster and, after 2.1, you will blow it *before* Rock/Mountain Buster so that you take less damage. The only "loss of identity" that you're going to experience is not seeing 2-3k self heals right after Inner Beast. You no longer get to see massive bursty self heals on yourself. The contributions you provide are now going to be less visible.

Furthermore, WAR *does* need to reduce required healing by as much as PLD does. WAR is a *tank* class, which means that a *vast* majority of incoming damage is going to be directed at them. Doing 10% more DPS (which isn't even true, actually) isn't going to make up for the fact that they're taking 10% more damage because tanks are the equivalent of half of a DPS, at best. Your "WAR deals more damage and requires more healing" concept is increasing total healing required by anywhere between 5-10% but only increasing damage by 1-2%. Tanks do not contribute enough damage to have DPS increases act as justifiable reasons to mitigate less damage. On top of this, WAR does *not* deal appreciably more damage than a PLD does. The only examples that anyone has been able to show supporting this claim either have the PLD playing like a complete idiot (not using CoS or SW) or have the WAR in full STR gear and the PLD in full VIT gear which is *obviously* going to favor the WAR. A WAR and a PLD in the same gear will do within 5% of each others damage. Any advantage that a WAR might have in damage is, at best, made up for the PLD in utility. Mitigation will *always* be the main focus of tanks and, if there is an imbalance between them, it will *always* be bad.

In 2.1, WAR is going to be *all* about leveraging Inner Beast properly, which is exactly what is happening right now except that Inner Beast sucks because it doesn't scale with incoming damage like it should. The identity remains but the mechanic change so that they actually *work*. PLD doesn't really have *anything* that it has to leverage properly, with the possible exception of its CD suite, but WAR has a CD suite as well that, honestly, requires more thought in how to use it because of the lower CDs/durations/magnitude of effects.

Anyone complaining that WAR is going to be just like PLD has no idea what they're talking about. The only real difference in playstyle being implemented is the removal of healing from Wrath stacks, which is less about Inner Beast and more about Steel Cyclone and Unchained. If anything, WAR now has *more* viable options because you won't be monumentally penalized for using Steel Cyclone.

[Devils]

If you're getting that big a heal from IB then Titan isn't something you normally worry about at all. You overgear it by a lot. A WAR at the Titan stage heals about 1k on avg. Only mildly useful when MB/auto attack hits for over 4k.

Now would I have changed IB? Not like they did, but wrath stacks should be more useful than saving for IB.

That is the biggest issue, it just isn't worth it to currently lose you wrath stacks on anything other than IB but then you better have infuriate up to get the stacks back. Cause if you are in a bad enough situation to cause you to use IB you REALLY NEED the healing bonus of Defiance.........

[Dhex]

-

Have my babies please! D:

(Seriously though read Kitru's post)

[Paikis]

I'd like to chime in and say I agree with everything the OP has posted.

I would prefer if they had left Inner beast as it is, and added the 20% DR to Steel Cyclone.