Paladin Parity Suggestion Package

[Duelle]

1. The change to Shield Swipe would make it the only job in the game with more than a 1-second silence, let alone a sub-30s cooldown.

I was actually thinking of increasing the cooldown, but I wasn't sure by how much. 30s seems about right.

Moreover, without that block, it can be a slight physical mitigation loss compared to its original form.

I wouldn't expect it to be used only after the block. The key to the ability is the pacification/silence. The 6 seconds pacification/silence would only come into play against enemy paladins in PvP (though it could also be used on healers and casters fighting near whoever is trying to hit you to generate those shield blocks). That's also sort of why I added the 150 potency when used after a block for most boss fights (where the boss is immune to Silence and Pacification). I'll admit part of this comes from my dislike of having an unreliable melee "interrupt" and a spell interrupt that doubles as a potent damaging ability.

2. Does the Shelltron change come with a 100% block chance, or is simply to allow us to block (though we still cannot parry) attacks from the back and flank? This seems mostly useless if it's just "allows" and not "causes".

100% block chance would be too much, IMO. I never tested whether you're likely to receive more damage/crits when hit from the flanks or rear, and that might be a possible benefit tothis version of Sheltron if that were the case. I guess a better way to word it is that you can now shield block from flank and rear instead of only the front.

3. 20s default Awareness would Warriors to use it for the full uptime of Raw Intuition. Just saying.

This was actually intentional.

4. Heh... Foe Familiarity reminds me a bit of the old 1.x stuff... How much would it increase weaponskill potency by, though?

I'm not sure. I was thinking 20-30%, since the caveat is that it might pop up during any part of a combo (so you wouldn't be able to save it for Halone or Royal Authority).

5. Why remove enmity modifiers from Sword Oath? (We spend a good half of our time tanking in it even in A4S, it seems like.)

You know how I feel about tanks that tank outside of their tank stances. >.>

6. Bulwark would now be as strong as Inner Beast vs. physical. (Technically 50% stronger, but ~50% less frequent.) Is this intended?

Sounds about right. I was actually thinking of adding a TP cost to balance it out but I feel that would make some people froth at the mouth.

7. Clemency, while strong, feels like it needs to be to see any usability. Why reduce it by 25% without some alternate buff? An auto-attack is just as likely to break a 1.5s Clemency as a 3.0s Clemency where it counts, and where the boss presents a cast bar as to make interruption a non-issue, we already have enough time, despite the full cast, to have the heal trigger instantly after taking damage. Given that Sheltron (now Bulwark) still gives almost two Riot Blades' worth of mana, this will only further lock Clemency into MT-affordability, while still leaving it useful almost only as (very slow, and now rather weak) support.

Well, the arguments I've seen ask for ease of use while main tanking, which is why I made that change. We could throw in that if used after blocking Clemency cannot be interrupted or something if interrupts are a concern.

On a semi-related note, a possibility could be nerfing Spirit Within's damage in Sword Oath but have it restore some MP if we want to help OT PLDs.

8. Forgot to mention Cover. This would be decently neat, though I feel it'd only be used in the same circumstances as Divine Veil, unless you needed to use that while you still had cleaving mobs on you.

I was thinking more along the lines of big hits during phase transitions (primal fights come to mind). Mobs with cleaves would also be a good place to use it. If you're low on defensive cooldowns you can also pop it for at least the 10% damage reduction (which you'd gain even if no one is standing behind you).

The alternative would be changing Cover into a clone of Intervene. As much as I'd LOVE the mobility PLD would gain from that, I do want to avoid going that far.

Between the two, failed dps check punishments in the form of AoE damage taken would be trivial, as the PLD himself is now a tank LB.

This depends on how the AoE damage is being implemented. It's not going to save people from Inferno or Earthen Fury, or high damage gained during enrages (or, say, the entire boos room exploding).

[Shurrikhan]

The alternative would be changing Cover into a clone of Intervene. As much as I'd LOVE the mobility PLD would gain from that, I do want to avoid going that far.

Haha... I'd. love. An Intervene. In fact, I could easily imagine the Knights of the Round tag-teaming in style using exactly that.

That being said though, what feels most like Cover to me really comes down to underlying mechanics changes, namely progressively mitigatable AoEs (much like T10 Charge or Thordan spear, but smoother), where every bit of mitigation encountered along the AoE path reduces the damage done to those further along by the mitigated amount. At that point, all PLD would have to do is have an ability that basically expands its hitbox, and certain mitigation tools that PM-AoEs can't ignore (whereas they might ignore others), e.g. in the form of Bulwark, Shelltron, and Hallowed Ground. Of course, we'd still need enemies that either have chaotic or non-standard enough AI that the goal of tank becomes to Intervene between the party and damage, rather than merely to aim them away and doze until the next TB in order to flip the CD switches in prearranged series, or ones that simply, for whatever reason, can't always be turned away. Shelltron by itself--current animation--seems like it would be perfect for this.

On to the rest:
1. I feel like a 30s CD on this would be a huge loss. Though with anything less, to be honest, I just don't think the silence could work, unless specifically as, say, a PvP trait (or a PLD ability replacing Shield Swipe). Either way though, the 6-second on-block silence is a 'healer auto-dies; I'm the new assassin job' level of OP.

As for Spirits Within's silence component, it's probably just because it's already long enough, and has no other status effect attached, and we're already used to holding onto it after taking severe damage in order to regain its potency, that I don't actually have a problem with waiting for it, especially what silence rotations we have in this game are on just under 20s cycles, iirc. I'd rather hold a 30s for 5 seconds more, than a 15s for 5 more. Doesn't necessarily make sense, but if only because I'm used to it between PLD, Bard, and Ninja, that's what feels right to me.

2. I just can't see how that would be worth the ability slot, to be honest. That's kind of... shit compared to even Tempered Will (the 42 ability I'd assume it's replacing, or did that just get moved to 46?). There's no situation in the game where you can't block 80+% of the mobs attacking you, even in a 12+ mob pull. Unless, of course, they're magic.

3. I'm sure we'll/they'll love you. (Though I personally kind of liked having to be careful and occasionally drop RI early if I was about to be forced into non-frontal attacks.)

4. That seems pretty strong, possibly precluding any other MT alternate burst options, such as by pairing a (temporarily) CD-less Shield Swipe with Bulwark etc. I'd say the advantage to it was that it'd still works against magic attacks, while blocks, while iconic, would not, but you've limited the procs to on physical attack taken (which further removes any synergy with dodging as well; though the same would be said for block-related options).

5. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I want frequent stance-dancers, getting the most they can out of both their halves. (And in some cases stance choices based not just on mitigation; I had thought about taking Shield Oath into prepped burst via stacked Shield Swipe charges and charged Shield Bashes--the kind of shield-knight who could beat to pulp his opponent practically without even using a main-hand weapon... I guess the short of it is a I like diverse, fluid, and multifacetted class aesthetics, and so far more of that more often shines through, as far as I've seen, in occasional, or even primarily but not always DPS stance tanking than in tank-stance squatting.)

6. I think the sheer strength of that CD, given that this is worth an average of 5% mitigation, and is practical as all hell, and the original was only worth about 2.5% mitigation and was unreliable... everyone tank but PLD is already going to be frothing at the mouth, in rabid anger.

7. I'm just saying there are probably better ways to do that in that case, and that I don't see the need to reduce its value so significantly. What I think might be worthwhile is balancing out the MT and OT availability to its massive mana cost, to which point I'd certainly enjoy that particular Spirits Within buff. Given that our OT dps is still short (though only just) of DRK's, though, I'm cautious about any OT dps nerfs, especially when having to cast Clemency could effectively waste anywhere from 3 to 5 seconds of time (due to combo loss).

8. That kind of defeats the purpose of Cover, though, doesn't it. It just becomes another defensive cooldown. That's already considerably better than Foresight, at the same cooldown and no additional effects or magical mitigation.

That said, I do think 20% could easily save a party from something like Thordan or T12 dps checks, or T6 final phase AoE damage (which, stacked with healer pressure from dps-check related poison is basically yet another dps check) etc., at which point I have to wonder what the point of Divine Veil is. Unless a party member has only half your health (actually, that's not that far off with the coming Vit changes), it's going to be far better, and at a lesser CD, and with an additional 10% mitigation for yourself.

[Duelle]

1. I feel like a 30s CD on this would be a huge loss. Though with anything less, to be honest, I just don't think the silence could work, unless specifically as, say, a PvP trait (or a PLD ability replacing Shield Swipe). Either way though, the 6-second on-block silence is a 'healer auto-dies; I'm the new assassin job' level of OP.

I guess I could compromise that part of the idea by making the effect extension apply only to the pacification or simply keep it as a 2s pacification/silence and add the on-block bonus via a trait to buff the potency. It'd feel a little odd since you'd get it at lv30 as an interrupt but then get the ability to deal slightly better damage with it at lv44. That would at least make a 30s cooldown reasonable.

As for Spirits Within's silence component, it's probably just because it's already long enough, and has no other status effect attached, and we're already used to holding onto it after taking severe damage in order to regain its potency, that I don't actually have a problem with waiting for it, especially what silence rotations we have in this game are on just under 20s cycles, iirc. I'd rather hold a 30s for 5 seconds more, than a 15s for 5 more. Doesn't necessarily make sense, but if only because I'm used to it between PLD, Bard, and Ninja, that's what feels right to me.

I'm the type that likes having my interrupts in the form of one button. The other issue to me is that putting it on a damaging ability like Spirits means that you're denying yourself potential damage by having to hold it for mobs that have to be silenced (since SE decided to not give DPS jobs the responsibility of doing interrupt rotations after first coil, and even that was falling on the PLDs and BRDs), which is not good because to a tank damage dealt = aggro generation. It's just something that feels unnatural to me.

I just can't see how that would be worth the ability slot, to be honest. That's kind of... shit compared to even Tempered Will (the 42 ability I'd assume it's replacing, or did that just get moved to 46?). There's no situation in the game where you can't block 80+% of the mobs attacking you, even in a 12+ mob pull. Unless, of course, they're magic.

Tempered Will would get moved down. Forgot to mention that.

I guess this ability would make more sense if you were normally more likely to get crit or dazed when hit from the sides/rear like you do in WoW. I'll have to think about what to replace this with.

Random Idea:

42 Gilded Shield - Reflect the next single-target spell back to the caster. If the spell cannot be reflected, damage taken from the spell is reduced by 10%. Duration: 6s. Cooldown: 90s.

Most spells from boss mobs would obviously not be affected by this, but it'd be useful when you fight mobs like the succubi with their single-target Void Thunder/Fire/Blizzard and such. Reflected spell damage would be calculated using your own magic attack potency and INT, so it wouldn't be really strong but still useful. I do think it'd have to be strictly limited to single-target spells (so in PvP BLMs with traited Sleep/Deep Sleep would not be affected by their own spells).

4. That seems pretty strong, possibly precluding any other MT alternate burst options, such as by pairing a (temporarily) CD-less Shield Swipe with Bulwark etc. I'd say the advantage to it was that it'd still works against magic attacks, while blocks, while iconic, would not, but you've limited the procs to on physical attack taken (which further removes any synergy with dodging as well; though the same would be said for block-related options).

I guess I could change the proc to react to all damage taken rather than just physical damage.

6. I think the sheer strength of that CD, given that this is worth an average of 5% mitigation, and is practical as all hell, and the original was only worth about 2.5% mitigation and was unreliable... everyone tank but PLD is already going to be frothing at the mouth, in rabid anger.

I'm not really seeing the issue. With animation/activation delays being what they are, you'd have roughly 3s (4s tops) of the ability being active once you push the button. You're not going to see a notable benefit unless you're mass pulling mobs and they're all in front of you or you have a mob going Hundred Fists on you or something. Not mentioning that it is still limited only to physical damage.

7. I'm just saying there are probably better ways to do that in that case, and that I don't see the need to reduce its value so significantly. What I think might be worthwhile is balancing out the MT and OT availability to its massive mana cost, to which point I'd certainly enjoy that particular Spirits Within buff. Given that our OT dps is still short (though only just) of DRK's, though, I'm cautious about any OT dps nerfs, especially when having to cast Clemency could effectively waste anywhere from 3 to 5 seconds of time (due to combo loss).

Ok, I see your point. I guess having Spirits with 300 potency + MP recovery when in Sword Oath wouldn't be as broken as I thought.

8. That kind of defeats the purpose of Cover, though, doesn't it. It just becomes another defensive cooldown. That's already considerably better than Foresight, at the same cooldown and no additional effects or magical mitigation.

That said, I do think 20% could easily save a party from something like Thordan or T12 dps checks, or T6 final phase AoE damage (which, stacked with healer pressure from dps-check related poison is basically yet another dps check) etc., at which point I have to wonder what the point of Divine Veil is. Unless a party member has only half your health (actually, that's not that far off with the coming Vit changes), it's going to be far better, and at a lesser CD, and with an additional 10% mitigation for yourself.

Considering I've seen complaints about how you can't frequently use Divine Veil, I'd think it's still worth it to use. Sure, you can waste both cooldowns by stacking them but that wouldn't really be intelligent if there was raid-wide damage you could help mitigate.

I guess the self damage reduction of 10% could be removed. If 20% is too much, I'd want it to be no less than 15% damage reduction for the party.

Non-sequitur:

5. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I want frequent stance-dancers, getting the most they can out of both their halves.

There's ways to design classes around stance/mode swaps without ignoring design principles for how stances are supposed to work (the stance system used for PGL would be a good starting point with a couple of tweaks). The fact this is tied to mitigation and damage potential instead of ability choices is part of why I have a problem with what's been going on since HW's launch, since to me a tank holding a mob outside of tank stance is simply abnormal. Granted, this game doesn't punish you for doing that, but I see that as a weakness in the design instead of the unintended feature some treat it as. Specially since tank stances are there to tank in and provide the defense needed to hold the mob; that's really what they're there for.

As I've said in the reddit thread on the changes to tanks, if the devs are going to throw away why defensive stances exist in the first place, they might as well turn Shield Oath and Grit into defensive cooldowns and rework the numbers across the board for all three tanks, with WAR just having access to different abilities depending on whether they're in Defiance or Deliverance and going from there.

[Shurrikhan]

Non-sequitur:

There's ways to design classes around stance/mode swaps without ignoring design principles for how stances are supposed to work (the stance system used for PGL would be a good starting point with a couple of tweaks). The fact this is tied to mitigation and damage potential instead of ability choices is part of why I have a problem with what's been going on since HW's launch, since to me a tank holding a mob outside of tank stance is simply abnormal. Granted, this game doesn't punish you for doing that, but I see that as a weakness in the design instead of the unintended feature some treat it as. Specially since tank stances are there to tank in and provide the defense needed to hold the mob; that's really what they're there for.

As I've said in the reddit thread on the changes to tanks, if the devs are going to throw away why defensive stances exist in the first place, they might as well turn Shield Oath and Grit into defensive cooldowns and rework the numbers across the board for all three tanks, with WAR just having access to different abilities depending on whether they're in Defiance or Deliverance and going from there.

Starting from the ending:

I agree that there are ways to design stances like that, but at the same time, I don't think there's anything set in stone about what a tank stance should be. The only time tanks have every been dependent on an threat-increasing stance is when their actual skills themselves have no threat modifiers. You could chalk this up to WoW being my first MMO; I had no trouble, threat-wise, tanking as a Fury warrior, in Berserker stance, by nature of both doing enough damage, hitting the correct targets, and building some threat off the self-healing that was making up most of the difference between me and a "meaty shield tank". Arms and Battle stance was just another way to keep threat (Revenge, OP, more frequent and powerful Heroic Strikes), rather than Protection spec ever feeling like the only tank -- at least until things started one-shotting the other two. If a tank ability was absolutely needed to fulfill the tanking function, I'd prefer it simply be the default, and the dps stance the aside (or, as in the case of Warrior, the mid-point the default). That and I just don't believe in hard roles. I think they're generally excuses. If you can kite mobs and take no damage without losing any more raid damage than a tank might provide to the rest by ease of placement if higher than bringing an extra dps, you should do so. A tank is utility. Sometimes it's necessary utility. But there's only one thing that's ever "real" though, and that's dps. Anything that contributes to clear time is dps, whether it come in the form of a tank, a healer, or a dps. To instead mistake the means as the ends limits the creative freedom any team has in a particular fight.

...Please forgive my rant...

Aside from that initial impression though (I like having a tank stance, but not all the time; you seem to figure that if they're not worth having the vast majority of the time, why have them at all(?)), and my disregard for the trinity, I think our preferences largely align?

I'm the type that likes having my interrupts in the form of one button. The other issue to me is that putting it on a damaging ability like Spirits means that you're denying yourself potential damage by having to hold it for mobs that have to be silenced (since SE decided to not give DPS jobs the responsibility of doing interrupt rotations after first coil, and even that was falling on the PLDs and BRDs), which is not good because to a tank damage dealt = aggro generation. It's just something that feels unnatural to me.

And I'm the type who likes them separate. I like being picky and knowing which to use when. This is especially the case when diminishing returns are a factor. I hate dps who will blow their silences early and/or stun all three trash dogs in VA, without killing any single one, such that all three AoEs go off, and wipe the raid. Though most mobs are either purely magic or purely physical, I'd hate to think that I might be losing out on later pacifies, without any use for it now, just because I need the silence. Again, that's just my individual preference.

About the damage loss though, unless you'd adjusted their potency per second, each is equally vulnerable to pps loss by holding onto the CD, except that Swipe has no second reason to do so (HP scaling). 150 per 15 or (up to) 300 per 30.

Tempered Will would get moved down. Forgot to mention that.

Ahh, okay.

Just a thought though, if you really like the omni-directional blocking idea, why not attach it to Awareness via trait, and leave the MT dps margin up to either a clause within Shield Oath, or to Shield Swipe changes?

42 Gilded Shield - Reflect the next single-target spell back to the caster. If the spell cannot be reflected, damage taken from the spell is reduced by 10%. Duration: 6s. Cooldown: 90s.

Seems a bit small compared to Bulwark's mitigation, and wasted vs. the opposite mob type now. That said, I do love my (Spell) Reflects... Though, if scaling with personal stats, I guess that's more like Death Knight's spell-reflect. I forget it's name.

Ok, I see your point. I guess having Spirits with 300 potency + MP recovery when in Shield Oath wouldn't be as broken as I thought.

Do you mean Sword Oath? Shield Oath would normally be while tanking only, so with access to Shelltron MP regen.

I'm not really seeing the issue. With animation/activation delays being what they are, you'd have roughly 3s (4s tops) of the ability being active once you push the button. You're not going to see a notable benefit unless you're mass pulling mobs and they're all in front of you of you have a mob going Hundred Fists on your or something. Not mentioning that it is still limited only to physical damage.

Oh, sorry, I was being an idiot. I thought you meant 5s after the first block. E.g. 10s 'Block Next' buff, with a hidden inactive 'Block All' 5s buff activated by 'Block Next' buff's disappearance. (How I've been doing the 1 to 2s suggestion.) But as for its limitations, aren't most PLDs in the habit of turning slightly about to deflect flank attackers as is? I'll even move slightly just to get the left and right flank mobs on different AA timings so I can block them both/all... Given how wide our 'front' is, I don't see how it'd be that difficult to fit the vast majority of attacks into those guaranteed blocks. And just imagine popping this with your prior Shelltron suggestion... I'd be using that as my new Sentinel into Holy spam entry CD every mass pull, or else while still running in (AAs hitting from the front just before I pass, or just jump-spinning if I have to when sprinting past, since I don't use TP anyways in PLD AoE... /sigh).

(Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually any buff that takes a while to activate without an intentional delay time [Hallowed Ground, Benediction; opposite being Greased Lightning, and... damn, I used to have more examples of this] (which unfortunately the CD trigger and buff timer start before, not after), the buff should technically last exactly as long after the buff has 'faded' as it should be delayed in effect upon the buff becoming visible?)

Considering I've seen complaints about how you can't frequently use Divine Veil, I'd think it's still worth it to use. Sure, you can waste both cooldowns by stacking them but that wouldn't really be intelligent if there was raid-wide damage you could help mitigate.

Well, I'm definitely running out of complaints as to the design, which is a good thing. My only lingering issue is that it just doesn't seem... interesting enough. It's good, but just doesn't make me imagine any "ha!" moments, which I've had plenty of with current Cover. Current Cover still has this issue, but I think that's due to the inability to mitigate all transferred damage, drop the link, use it frequently enough, etc., or especially that your defense isn't factored in, rather than it simply being dull by design. This seems like something I run from the edge towards the center to pop after the boss jumps up and raid AoE damage is about to come out and then head straight back to the edge, very matter-of-course like. It feels really procedural, whereas current Cover at least has either gimmicky, situational, or almost funny ways to use it. (Saving idiots in Levi, taking someone's knockback for them, saving more idiots from mob melee AoEs, preventing vuln stacks, T13 Ahk Morn... and so forth.)

tldr; I live for "ha!" moments. Good mechanistry and less obvious nuances of adaptation are great too, but "ha" moments top it all off.

[Mirch]

nuuu why nerf WAR X)
Why not boost the other 2 and leave WAR as it is now O_o

[Violette]

nuuu why nerf WAR X)
Why not boost the other 2 and leave WAR as it is now O_o

That's what they're doing.

[Shurrikhan]

nuuu why nerf WAR X)
Why not boost the other 2 and leave WAR as it is now O_o

War got buffs, if you look at the patch note example changes. Or rather, Defiance no longer has the short-sightedness not to work on abilities. Its self-heals have only been reduced to the point that they deal the same healing when in Defiance... which is the only time Equilibrium heals (so neutral there), and typically when you'd be using Second Wind (which therein heals for 20% more).

(I played around with an idea for making Inner Beast more versatile (again, a buff), but couldn't get the numbers perfect, so I axed that bit. Basically just wanted to make it useful for soloing again; I hate when the damage it mitigates is even less than its pathetic heal in dungeons, etc.)

I don't think anyone on this thread's pro-WARnerfs. Some are even hesitant towards buffs on their non-PLD mains (mostly where my suggested changes, original or even now, made no sense or got rid of things that at first seemed annoying, but every veteran player of the job has since gotten used to).

[Duelle]

I agree that there are ways to design stances like that, but at the same time, I don't think there's anything set in stone about what a tank stance should be.

It's got more to do with what the toggles do for you and how they interact with everything else the class can do.

Stances like Shield Oath, Defensive Stance, Blood Presence, Grit and so on are built so that you stay in those stances long term either because of role restrictions or balance purposes. In some cases they are that which keeps you from getting two-shot by boss level mobs. You can spot them by the number of inconveniences or penalties attached to stances, which is a developer's way of saying "you're supposed to stay in that stance unless it's an emergency". This is why I roll my eyes when people complain about MP costs and GCDs spent and losing combos when changing stances on DRK and PLD. I mean it's pretty obvious why Shield Oath and Grit have their penalties and people refuse to see the design and simply complain because the devs didn't equally penalize WAR in a metric beyond just time; things would be very different if switching from Defiance to Deliverance and vice versa caused the WAR to lose stacks of Wrath/Abandon (the way switching stances in WoW caused a warrior to lose most/all accumulated Rage).

The only time tanks have every been dependent on an threat-increasing stance is when their actual skills themselves have no threat modifiers. You could chalk this up to WoW being my first MMO; I had no trouble, threat-wise, tanking as a Fury warrior, in Berserker stance, by nature of both doing enough damage, hitting the correct targets, and building some threat off the self-healing that was making up most of the difference between me and a "meaty shield tank". Arms and Battle stance was just another way to keep threat (Revenge, OP, more frequent and powerful Heroic Strikes), rather than Protection spec ever feeling like the only tank -- at least until things started one-shotting the other two. If a tank ability was absolutely needed to fulfill the tanking function, I'd prefer it simply be the default, and the dps stance the aside (or, as in the case of Warrior, the mid-point the default).

You're most likely talking about vanilla, where warriors were intentionally supposed to be used to tank regardless of spec. I used to run sword & board arms and could tank in Battle Stance to snare runners with Hamstring (because most rogues and hunters never bothered to do so then complained to me after the group got overwhelmed by the extra packs of mobs pulled in dungeons).

Aside from that initial impression though (I like having a tank stance, but not all the time; you seem to figure that if they're not worth having the vast majority of the time, why have them at all(?)), and my disregard for the trinity, I think our preferences largely align?

I guess, though my thing is that if you're going to want a class to change stances mid-combat as part of regular gameplay, you need to design the class to do that from the ground up. This means your utility, defenses, rotation and so on are all taking your changing stances in mind and at times are meant to force you to switch stances to keep your buffs/stacks/whatever up.

Seems a bit small compared to Bulwark's mitigation, and wasted vs. the opposite mob type now. That said, I do love my (Spell) Reflects... Though, if scaling with personal stats, I guess that's more like Death Knight's spell-reflect. I forget it's name.

I guess it'd be sort of like Dark Simulacrum, though I was actually thinking of good ol' Spell Reflect. The stat thing is only to prevent some issues. Like an enemy BLM in PvP trying to blow you up only to be blown up themselves by a Raging Strikes-buffed Fire IV or something.

It's good, but just doesn't make me imagine any "ha!" moments, which I've had plenty of with current Cover.

Fair enough. I just like the idea of standing in front of my party, popping Cover and smirk as I say "See? I can make the impossible possible". before the giant laser I'm trying to block kills me, anyway

------------------

Going back to my point on stances, here's a MRD/WAR thing I've been working on over the past couple of days. Not perfect but it hopefully conveys how I look at gameplay that involves stance changes.

Class Abilities

01 Heavy Swing - Delivers an attack with a potency of 150.
02 Combat Rush - Recover 20% of your base max HP over 12s. Cooldown: 120s.
04 Skull Sunder - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo action: Heavy Swing. Combo Potency: 180.
06 Fracture - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Additional effect: Damage over time with a potency of 20 for 18s. Defender: Reduces damage you receive from target's attacks by 10%.
08 Brutal Swing - Delivers an attack with a potency of 80. Additional Effect: Stun for 3 sec.
10 Overpower - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100 to all enemies in a cone in front of you.
12 Tomahawk - Delivers a ranged attack with a potency of 110.
15 Defender - Enhances certain abilities. Increases enmity. Cannot be used with other stances. Effect ends upon reuse. Cooldown: 15s.
18 Maim - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo action: Heavy Swing. Combo potency: 170. Can only be used with no stance or while under the effect of Destroyer. Combo bonus: Increases damage dealt by 20% for 12s (24s when under the effect of Destroyer).
22 Berserk - Can only be used while under the effect of Defender or Destroyer. Cooldown: 90s.
----------------Defender: Ignore damage up to an amount equal to 10% of your max HP. Effect duration: 10s.
----------------Destroyer: Increase attack power by 50% for 15s. Unable to use weaponskills for 5s after effect fades.
26 Mercy Stroke - Delivers an attack with a potency of 200. Can only be executed when target's HP is below 20%. If delivered as the killing blow, up to 20% of your maximum HP will be restored. Cooldown: 90s.
30 Butcher's Block - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo action: Skull Sunder. Combo potency: 260.
34 Vengeance - Reduces damage taken by 20% for 10s. Upon reuse or expiration of the effect, delivers an attack with a potency of 250 (potency increases based on the amount of damage taken while the effect was active; caps at 400 potency). Can only be used while under the effect of Defender. Cooldown: 90s.
38 Storm's Eye - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo Action: Skull Sunder. Combo Potency: 250. Can only be used while under the effect of Defender. Combo Bonus: Increases enmity generated by your attacks for 20s.
42 Steel Cyclone - Delivers an attack with a potency of 200 to all nearby enemies. Can only be used while Infuriated and under the effect of Defender or Destroyer. Cooldown: 45s.
46 Holmgang - Draws target to the caster, lowering their movement speed by 20% for 6s. Additional effect: Prevents the use of escape abilities (Aetherial Manipulation, Elusive Jump, Repelling Shot, Kassatsu, Sprint). Cooldown: 180s.
50 Storm's Path - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo Action: Maim, Combo Potency: 230. Can only be used with no stance or while under the effect of Destroyer. Combo Bonus: Decreases target's slashing resistance by 10% and HP recovery via curing magic by 50% for 20s.

Traits

08 Enhanced Vitality
14 Raw Intuition - Strength now increases parry rate.
16 Enhanced Vitality II
20 Enhanced Combat Rush - Increase the recovered HP to 30% of base max HP.
24 Enhanced Vitality III
28 Enhanced Brutal Swing - Extends Brutal Swing duration to 5s.
32 Enhanced Fracture - Extends the duration of Fracture to 30s.
36 Enhanced Mercy Stroke - Shortens the recast of Mercy Stroke to 40s.
40 Enhanced Berserk - Increases the amount of damage ignored to 15% when in Defender, and increases the duration of the attack power increase when in Destroyer to 20s.
44 Raw Intuition II - Strength now also increases parry threshold.
48 Focused Vengeance - Increases the damage reduction to 30% and raises the potency cap to 450.

Job abilities

*Warrior Job Stone effect: Certain abilities used while under Defender and Destroyer will grant stacks of Wrath.*

30 Destroyer - Enhances certain abilities. Cannot be used with other stances. Effect ends upon reuse. Cooldown: 15s.
35 Inner Beast - Delivers an attack with a potency of 300. Reduces incoming damage by 20% for 6s. Can only be used while Infuriated and under the effect of Defender. All Wrath is lost when used.
40 Intimidation - Reduces target's damage dealt by 25% for 8s. Cooldown: 180s.
45 Infuriate - Instantly grants five units of Wrath, changing status to Infuriated.
50 Abandon - Increases your HP by 100% and restores the amount increased for 6s. Cooldown: 240s.
52 Decimate - Delivers an attack with a potency of 300. Reduces target's resistance to your attacks by 20% for 6s and switches you into Destroyer. Can only be used while Infuriated and under the effect of Defender. All Wrath is lost when used.
54 Fel Cleave - Delivers an attack with a potency of 400. Can only be used while Infuriated and under the effect of Destroyer. All Wrath is lost when used.
56 Warcry - Increase maximum HP of party members within 15y by 15% and restores the amount increased for 10s. Cooldown: 120s.
58 Equilibrium - Restores own HP when in Defender. Cure Potency: 1200. Restores 200 TP when in Destroyer. Cooldown: 60s.
60 Obliteration - Delivers an attack with a potency of 600. Prevents TP regeneration for 12s. Cooldown: 90s.

Notes

- This is my attempt at a WAR designed around actual stance switches.
- Wrath is the unified WAR resource and you can only gain stacks of Wrath while the WAR job crystal is equipped.
- Weaponskills are your only sources of Wrath. This means Heavy Swing, Skull Sunder, Butcher's Block, Maim, Storm's Eye, Storm's Path, Steel Cyclone, Vengeance, and (possibly) Obliteration.
- Defender is what you'd get as your reward for the lv15 MRD quest, and is the ability that allows you to start out as a tank.
- Defender adds the additional effect "Increased Enmity" to the following skills: Skull Sunder, Overpower, Tomahawk, Steel Cyclone, Butcher's Block, Inner Beast.
- Destroyer is the first job ability you'd unlock when you get WAR.
- Destroyer adds 30 potency to the combo potencies for the following abilities: Skull Sunder, Butcher's Block, Maim, Storm's Path.
- Destroyer adds 30 potency to the potencies of the following abilities: Overpower, Tomahawk, Steel Cyclone.
- Decimate is an ability with a built-in swap more to simulate a sudden switch from defensive combat to offensive combat and pressing the advantage. I was thinking of creating the reverse of this but couldn't come up with something I liked enough to suggest.
- The "base HP" in Combat Rush's description means the your HP value before VIT from gear and stat points. This number might need to be buffed.
- Berserk's pacification effect only comes into play if you use it while under Destroyer. Defender turns it into a mini stoneskin for 15% of your HP.
- The enmity buff gained from using Storm's Eye is there to facilitate tanking after a swap into Destroyer. This may prove unnecessary depending on how the numbers play out.
- Vengeance is still iffy as far as how I'd like it to work. Currently the potency increases come from any and all damage taken while the Vengeance effect is up. One idea I had was to have parries grant additional potency so that if you get a string of lucky parries you'd hit that potency cap faster and thus use Vengeance faster.
- For clarity, when you click on Vengeace, you get two buffs. One that lasts 10 seconds that reduces your damage taken. The other one also lasts 10 seconds and shows the potency of the attack that will be unleashed when the buff expires or you click on Vengeance a second time.
- Holmgang in this case is partly for practical use and to create synergy with Vengeance by ensuring the target is in range when the 10s buff expires. And yes, a target that moves out of melee range by the time the buff from Vengeance expires the attack will "activate" but not hit anything.
- Intimidation and Warcry are raid mitigation abilities. I'm still thinking of getting rid of Warcry but I'm not sure what to replace it with.
- Abandon was the closest thing to an invincibility that I could think of. I originally wanted to make it a 75% boost in HP, but doubling it might work too.
- Obliteration feels like it could use more, but the idea of dealing a really strong attack but being at a disadvantage afterwards sort of makes sense to me. I originally was going to make the ability stun/incapacitate the WAR upon use (because after a massive swing you're going to try to recover for a bit). I was also thinking of giving it a cast time of 2.5s again to simulate gathering strength for a massive swing.
- Raw Intuition is there for the sake of scaling. The bonuses from STR wouldn't be huge but enough to create a notable difference between parries for WAR compared to the other tanks. I can't think of any issues with this, specially now that tanks are going to be focusing on stacking VIT.
- Still haven't decided on whether or not Defender should grant extra HP and healing like Defiance does. Perhaps something like increasing defense gained from armor?
- An idea I had that didn't make it in was a cooldown that caused your Wrath generators to grant 5 Wrath when used for X seconds. So you click this ability, then click on Heavy Swing and go from 0 Wrath to Infuriated (yes, this means "cooldown => Heavy Swing => Fel Cleave => Heavy Swing => Fel Cleave => Heavy Swing => Fel Cleave" could be a thing).
- Something else I wanted to do was expand on Fracture. The idea was that Fracture would stack up to 3. Once you hit 3 stacks of Fracture on a mob, the mob is "Broken", causing the DoT from Fracture to deal a greater amount of damage but with the caveat of not being refreshable. So you hit a mob with Fracture 3 times, they become Broken and take DoT damage for 30 seconds, but using Fracture on the mob does nothing until the Broken debuff expires.
- One more thing I thought of that didn't make it in was allowing the WAR to consume Wrath stacks to bypass the 15 second cooldown shared by Defender/Destroyer (one stack per switch).
- I took out some of the self healing, and I'm not sure on whether I should put it back in or not.

[Shurrikhan]

^

Small Notes

• Holmgang without the bind (which already prevents all escapes) doesn't really make sense for the name.
• Not sure why weaponskill-based mitigation (SP) has been reduced so greatly just to make room for Intimidation.
• Not sure why STR should aid parry rate instead of parry strength. Or AP doing so.
• Abandon would normally have the opposite meaning, I would think, unless it's a putting-off-death-itself-for-after-I-kill-this-guy kind of CD.
• Vengeance seems like it could be the opposite of your Decimate, especially if it had a self-heal by way of that damage to act as recovery instead of mitigation. Take that damage, then swat it back with Defender. The longer you can hold back before dying, extending the time until swap, the more damage you can toss back. Alternatively though, if Defender collected AP based off damage mitigated, then that too would be like Decimate in that you'd want to get the maximum amount of mitigation per second in before you swap into offensive to blow that amount. So I guess that could go either way, too...
• That said, your current Decimate sounds more like a Colossus Smash than anything else?
• These potencies kind of seem all over the place.
• There don't seem to be many things to get a kick out of maximizing here.
• That said, I kind of like that the gap between the two stances has been shrunk slightly, just not in the way it's been done, especially given how late Destroyer is given, when no-Defiance used to be an acceptable "dps stance".

So if I'm correctly getting the main ideas of this, you want the stance dancing to be a bit more obligatory or rotational, rather than nuanced, for optimal gameplay (double-length Maim in Destroyer, etc.), certain weaponskills to be used only for one's lacking in the stances themselves (which are now just weaponskill- and ability-adjusters), and for swaps to be less frequent (unless using the possible bypass)?

To be honest, stance dancing is nearly constant for me in dungeons. I try to get my healer to time his first or second Regen to my Defiance, and after than I'm swapping almost every 10s, catching every Regen with my healing received up, and if I'm a bit late on getting back to Defiance, they'll open with a prepped healing cast instead of that Regen before going back to Cleric Stance themselves. It's surprising how quickly you can train those things without even a word being said. I often run on a tiny margin of threat if outgeared by my dps, but our raid damage is usually sexy good because there are clear timings of safety and synergy. I can use those timings to direct my healer to give me that little extra health (otherwise usually stopping at 75% in Defiance) without even thinking about it, before tank busters, IB to nearly top off my HP, take the TB and immediately swap to Deliverance before the animation's even done, so that I'm not wasting HP in the swap itself. At other times I'll just pop a sound effect that the healer has by now determined to mean "I got this", and take the TB towards the end of Berserk, in Deliverance, and then swap to Defiance for my 13k self-heal after my last Fell Cleave (that damage being worth more than the IB mitigation and recovery). It's hard to imagine stance-dancing being better done than that (except my maybe scaling the CD with skill speed or reducing it to 8s, even), and I think it mostly owes itself to the fact that Defiance isn't pure mitigation, and therefore bends a bit more than Shield Oath or Grit.

I just can't imagine this form of stance-dancing even being as big a thing right now, let alone as choiceful, coordinate-able, or nuanced, in even half-difficult content. It'd just be something you do to have real access to your abilities.

Edit: I'll try to post a loose version of a DRK design to illustrate my preferences if I can. And sorry if I come off as critical all the time. I understand and respect the huge amount of time these write-ups take, and at this point merely to satisfy our curiosities about potential class design.

[Duelle]

Holmgang without the bind (which already prevents all escapes) doesn't really make sense for the name.

I'll be honest and say I never liked the "bind-self" aspect of Holmgang. The name never made sense, so I can agree to change that.

Not sure why weaponskill-based mitigation (SP) has been reduced so greatly just to make room for Intimidation.

The mitigation was moved to Fracture. This design expects you to keep fracture up on the target (and apply it while in Defender).

Not sure why STR should aid parry rate instead of parry strength. Or AP doing so.

This is because I'd rather not mess with parry scaling. Currently Parry proc chance is affected by the stat of the same name and parry strength is a flat 20%. Given current itemization it's better to have WAR gain parry bonuses via a stat they're not going to be showered in (Strength, specially because the new stat design is pushing tanks to stacking VIT). I guess making the gains minimal if we were to base it off parry would work, but I'm sure someone would say the gains are negligible at that point.

Abandon would normally have the opposite meaning, I would think, unless it's a putting-off-death-itself-for-after-I-kill-this-guy kind of CD.

You're right here. I couldn't think of a better name, really.

I was thinking of an aspect of the berserker that FFXIV currently ignores: the guy that will get hit but not react to it because he's too focused on the fight. I also forgot to mention that this ability increases your HP by 100%, so if you're a WAR with 25K max HP, your HP would be 50K when you click the ability.

Vengeance seems like it could be the opposite of your Decimate, especially if it had a self-heal by way of that damage to act as recovery instead of mitigation.

I think we might have a misunderstanding here. The way Vengenace would work is:

1) You click on Vengeance. You gain two buffs. One is called Vengeance, that reduces damage taken by 30%. The other is called Ire that represents the potency of the strike that will be released as part of this ability. Both have a 10s duration.
2) While both are up you can click on the Vengeance button again to end the effect early, releasing the damage and losing the mitigation.
3) You get hit by the mob. Vengeance mitigates the damage taken while Ire adds it to the total potency of the attack that will automatically release when Vengeance/Ire expire or if you hit the Vengeance button again.
4) Assuming the parry idea I had for this went through, parries would grant additional potency per hit as opposed to normal hits taken, which in theory would allow you to hit the Ire damage cap faster, thus letting you release the attack sooner.
5) If you just sit on the buffs, the attack will still automatically release once Vengeance and Ire expire. In the event no one is in melee range, the attack will still release and hit no one.

That said, your current Decimate sounds more like a Colossus Smash than anything else?

It was either a damage bonus or a Wrath refund of sorts. Like hitting Decimate switches you into Destroyer and grants two units of Wrath.

These potencies kind of seem all over the place.

Not sure what you mean. I nerfed most ability potencies by 20, since going into Destroyer increases the potency of those same attacks by 30.

So if I'm correctly getting the main ideas of this, you want the stance dancing to be a bit more obligatory or rotational, rather than nuanced, for optimal gameplay (double-length Maim in Destroyer, etc.), certain weaponskills to be used only for one's lacking in the stances themselves (which are now just weaponskill- and ability-adjusters), and for swaps to be less frequent (unless using the possible bypass)?

In a nutshell, sort of. Granted, a WAR playing according to my write up would still be able to tank and hold aggro. The tools and enmity bonuses are there for a WAR that may feel like full-timing Defender.

That being said, they're not going to deal anywhere near the damage of a WAR changing between Defender and Destroyer over the course of a fight. A stance-dancing WAR would have to make sure Fracture is always up (and always applied while in Defender), always make sure Maim, Storm's Eye (increased enmity) and Storm's Path (slashing debuff) are up, know how and when to use their cooldowns to maximize damage output and so on.

As for stance-dancing, I would expect it to be quite frequent actually. Mostly because of Fracture, Storm's Eye and Maim. The suggested bypass and more abilities along the line of Decimate would make it that much easier to switch stances when needed. I actually wanted to turn Inner Beast into the defensive counterpart of Decimate (as in, hitting Inner Beast would switch you from Destroyer to Defender) just to add fluidity to stance switches without having the extra buttons to push, but at a cost.