Warrior Enmity Buff

[Kitru]

As to why Warriors are getting an enmity buff. The most reasonable guess is that SE wants Warriors to use the new Storm's Path and Storm's Eye.

That fails Occam's razor. If the intent were solely to encourage the use of Storm's Path and Storm's Eye, it would be easier and cause fewer secondary problems to simply apply an enmity modifier to *those* attacks/combos. The problem with increasing global enmity generation as a WAR is that you're increasing Butcher's Block by the exact same ratio. BB>BB>SE is *already* effectively tied with PLD on enmity generation. A global increase large enough to make BB>SE>SP competitive with the current BB>BB>SE would in turn make BB>BB>SE so awesomely powerful at enmity generation that a WAR could rip enmity off of anything just by looking at it askance. Coupled with the increase to Overpower's enmity generation, an enmity increase of that size could allow Overpower spam to keep enmity off of targets that are being single target nuked.

Keep in mind that the devs haven't said that they are *not* changing PLDs whatsoever nor have we been shown any potential changes that they might have in store for PLD. Given that they're increasing WAR enmity by so much (Overpower, Steel Cyclone, Defiance), I think it's likely that they will *also* be providing PLDs with an increase to enmity generation through Flash, CoS, and Shield Oath.

Personally, I think it's likely due to the devs reevaluating the enmity model that currently exists wherein tanks manage virtually identical enmity inside or outside of their tanking stances. Increasing the enmity generation while in the tank stances provides an explicit and noticeable enmity advantage while in tank stance. Increasing AoE enmity is likely just recognition that, compared to the AoE capabilities of BRD and BLM, tank enmity is only *barely* capable of doing its job so increases on that front are meant to bring the ratios that exist between classes for ST enmity generation to AoE enmity generation. It's also possible that the devs are attempting to address a difference in the gear based scaling of damage/healing compared to the scaling of tank enmity generation (since tanks sacrifice 33-50% of their secondary stat itemization on parry, which does absolutely nothing for enmity generation whereas 100% of DPS/healing secondary stats apply to increased damage/healing which leads to increased enmity generation); by increasing global enmity generation by the difference in relative scales, they can prevent it from becoming a problem down the line.

I don't really expect the increase to Defiance's enmity generation to be a huge amount. Increasing it from the likely 33% that it currently provides to 50% would mean that, rather than being effectively tied, Defiance would allow you to generate 12.5% more enmity, which keeps the enmity metagame close to where it currently is (so that it's not like other MMOs that just have "lolaggro") while providing an explicit benefit to being in the given stance, plus it also addresses the minor difference in scaling due to difference secondary stat allocation.

[Gilthas]

That fails Occam's razor. If the intent were solely to encourage the use of Storm's Path and Storm's Eye, it would be easier and cause fewer secondary problems to simply apply an enmity modifier to *those* attacks/combos.

While that is certainly true, we don't know what plans SE has for the future of Marauder. For all we know SP and SE weren't given an enmity modifier because they already have plans for the second Marauder job being more DPS oriented.

But of course you can also argue that a Gladiator's second job is stuck with only one 3-part combo that has an enmity modifier (though if the second Gladiator job is a DPS, the first ability that DPS receives could combo with Runic blade).

Though again, you can argue that these second jobs could just come with something that negates the enmity modifier of Marauder/Gladiator abilities.

Basically: we don't know their plans.

SE can just take off the emnity modifier for those attacks though.

True, and I did mention that possibility, but they didn't take the enmity modifiers off of Savage Blade and Skull Sunder when cross-classed. They solved that problem by making them pretty useless as a cross-class skil though, lol.

[Kitru]

True, and I did mention that possibility, but they didn't take the enmity modifiers off of Savage Blade and Skull Sunder when cross-classed. They solved that problem by making them pretty useless as a cross-class skil though, lol.

Yoshi himself said that, if they were going to have a DPS job come off of a tank class, they would just remove all of the high enmity modifiers so it's not so much a possibility as an inevitability.

Savage Blade and Skull Sunder kept their high enmity modifiers when they were cross classed likely because that was supposed to be the point. As actual attacks, they're about as bad as you can get since you can't get access to the combo starters cross-class. The only purpose they can serve is as a high enmity attack for pseudo-tanking. Considering that they're only 300 enmity potency attacks, they're still pretty useless for that purpose, but the high enmity modifier is *still* their purpose.

[Giantbane]

Yoshi himself said that, if they were going to have a DPS job come off of a tank class, they would just remove all of the high enmity modifiers so it's not so much a possibility as an inevitability.

Savage Blade and Skull Sunder kept their high enmity modifiers when they were cross classed likely because that was supposed to be the point. As actual attacks, they're about as bad as you can get since you can't get access to the combo starters cross-class. The only purpose they can serve is as a high enmity attack for pseudo-tanking. Considering that they're only 300 enmity potency attacks, they're still pretty useless for that purpose, but the high enmity modifier is *still* their purpose.

Just as a tangent, are Savage Blade/Skull Sunder really completely useless for pseudo tanks? If a MNK or DRG wanted to step in and perform a tanking role as best they could, I *think* their best option is to slot Skull Sunder and use that. DRG would mostly want to spam it, MNK would want to build GL and use this in between. Their other abilities should by and large fall short of that in terms of enmity generated, especially since, as the tank, they'll have limited opportunities to strike from the side/behind.

Savage Blade is identical in potency and effect (similar to how Physick and Cure do the same thing with different names), but is even more limited as it is only usable by base classes. The only Job that uses a GLD sub is WAR which has no use for the ability.

[Giantbane]

That fails Occam's razor. If the intent were solely to encourage the use of Storm's Path and Storm's Eye, it would be easier and cause fewer secondary problems to simply apply an enmity modifier to *those* attacks/combos. The problem with increasing global enmity generation as a WAR is that you're increasing Butcher's Block by the exact same ratio. BB>BB>SE is *already* effectively tied with PLD on enmity generation. A global increase large enough to make BB>SE>SP competitive with the current BB>BB>SE would in turn make BB>BB>SE so awesomely powerful at enmity generation that a WAR could rip enmity off of anything just by looking at it askance. Coupled with the increase to Overpower's enmity generation, an enmity increase of that size could allow Overpower spam to keep enmity off of targets that are being single target nuked.

I think it is quite possible that the intended rotation for 2.1 WAR is SP->BB->BB (provided SP gets a 24s buff time) to put them close to or on par with PLD in terms of base single target mitigation. The enmity increase of Defiance may be to keep the threat the same for a WAR focused on mitigation.

To that end, the 2.1 SE->BB->BB combo may be intentionally higher threat, as they have to give up some of their base mitigation (SP) in order to use that rotation. Part of WAR design has seemed to be focused on allowing some level of flexibility beyond what the PLD has (whereas the PLD is much more straightforward in its ability set). Being able to trade off mitigation for increased threat seems in line with that. The intent may be to have the option to mix their rotations to maximize one area over others, IE:

SP->BB->BB = maximize mitigation, lose some threat and damage
SE->BB->BB = maximize threat, gain damage, lose mitigation
SE->BB = maximize damage, lose mitigation and less threat compared to the SE->BB->BB rotation
SP->SE->BB = maximize mitigation with higher DPS while losing some threat
SP->BB = maximize mitigation *IF* SP is only a 15s duration to match SE

This is my best guess for 2.1. But either way, I guess we'll find out in two weeks

[Tiggy]

That fails Occam's razor.

I know this is random, but I had to say it. This does not fail occam's razor. Occam's razor simply states that among competing hypotheses the one with the fewest assumptions is most likely the answer. In Gilthas' post he said it's so we use our other combos which as you mention clearly lack enmity modifiers. In fact his hypothesis has nearly no assumptions and is based off simple observations. You provide a hypothesis that suggests they could simply add enmity to all moves. However this would assume they don't want us to have combos that have no enmity boosting at all. A DPS combo to pull less hate in offtank situations for example. Based on this simple comparison I'd say due to occam's razor your hypothesis is the least fit as it carries more assumptions and less plain facts.

You're simply using the phrase incorrectly. Even other ways of wording it such as "the simplest answer is most often the truth" wouldn't matter here because we aren't observing natural phenomenon. Occam's razor is a heuristic used to help guide scientists in forming correct hypothesis. It is entirely unsuitable for a discussion about video game balance. This isn't the natural world and we aren't trying to figure out a natural phenomenon. We are changing balance in an incredible complex video game, and the answers to our balance problems need not fit any definition occam's razor in order to be effective or elegant.