New Prelim Tank updates

[SpookyGhost]

Seriously bro, better make sure you got your bases covered next time before taking a low blow.

Ah, sorry, didn't realize people wouldn't understand this. Allow me to explain:

You see, this poster - Starbirth, whose name in game is Nebula Starbirth, who leveled the class Gladiator to then unlock Paladin as their "Main Class" (this is important, remember this) - they insinuated quite a few things.

Firstly, they assume that Warrior should be nerfed, as it's "overpowered". This discussion has come up in quite a long thread, called something along the lines of "Nerf WAR! ", you can find it if you search for a minute or two. It's a common idea that WAR needed to be brought down, instead of the others brought up - however, this doesn't take into account that all tanks baseline damage is being nerfed via switching our AP to scaling purely with STR, to scaling with STR & VIT at a lower rate for both combined than with just STR previously. So the common complaint that "Warrior is doing BRD/MCH levels of damage!", though was already flawed, isn't true at all anymore.

So what does this mean? This means we need to look at each job in relation to the others. WAR is touted as the "DPS tank" (which it is) and the "self heal tank" (which it is). PLD is touted as the defensive tank (which it isn't) and DRK is touted as... well... nothing (which... I mean it's got magic mitigation I guess). So of these 3, which are lacking? I'd put my money on PLD and DRK not really following through with what they're designed to be. DRK already does WAR level DPS, it doesn't need boosting in that regard - it mainly needs to feel a niche that isn't just mitigating some more magic damage (MP management doesn't count as that doesn't contribute to the group, it's just a factor in DRK's DPS which as I said already is fine). PLD is a bit lower than DRK, which would be fine if it's toolkit actually made up for it... but it doesn't.

Now, with this knowledge, what can we gather? WAR is doing fine, it's doing what it's meant to do, it's a solidly put together job - possibly one of the most well put together in the game (barring SCH). Let's say we brought WAR down - would this fix PLD's/DRK's problems? No - it would just make WAR clumsy and poorly designed like the other 2. Everyone who doesn't have their heads firmly planted in their backside wants parity, wants balance, wants everyone to work together. There are certainly slight tweaks you can make to WAR - I feel Equilibrium should be on a longer CD and that SE is too strong of an offensive boost. DRK and PLD don't necessarily need SE, but they need something to either boost DPS or boost mitigation that then boosts DPS through that.

There's a lot I could go into RE: DRK & PLD's problems, but that's kind of missing the point. The reason I wanted to point out these problems in the first place is to just make it clear that WAR doesn't need outright nerfing to bring parity - with the VIT change, you can literally just boost everyone else up. WAR will lose it's "DPS tank" niche, but even just as a self heal tank it's got a lot going for it and I think it'd be fine filling that role.

So, onto my second point, and that's that Starbirth (the one you quoted, incase I've made that ambiguous) is calling the WAR population "nerds" for not wanting their job to be nerfed. I've already discussed the reasoning for not wanting WAR nerfed above and there are various other points to be made that I probably haven't covered, but I'd also like to point out that "nerds" is used as an insult here. Uncool, right? I mean, some people find "nerds" to be an endearing thing, but within the context of that post they're using it to mean (essentially) "idiots". Now, that's not cool - that's not cool at all. I can't say that every WAR is smart, or stupid, or anything in-between - but classifying all the people who don't want WAR nerfs as "nerds" (WAR or otherwise) is a bit... well... uncool.

Alright, follow me here, now - from this point I was feeling a bit... confused I guess, had the urge to make the post I'm making now to point out some things to them, but then I realized... oh... Paladin. Now, I feel like I made my point with that post alone, but since it's apparently been misinterpreted I'll clarify: this person has no perspective. They are fine with WAR being nerfed for their supposed view on what would be parity because their's is currently only 51. For some ungodly reason no one wants their job buffed - everyone wants WAR brought down to their level. I genuinely do not get this mindset. Like, I start to think that the people with this mindset just want balance and are taking themselves out of the equation... but then surely that leads them to the conclusion that WAR only needs minor tweaks and the 2 other jobs need major ones. Surely, right? Is this only obvious to me? I dunno.

So, in conclusion, I pointed out that his main was PLD because he insulted a pretty big group of people and kinda went down the road of "buff PLD nerf WAR"... as a PLD...

Also both of you are PLDs, which I guess is just an interesting side note. Viridian City is cool though.

Also also, sorry for the long post, but I didn't want any of my points misinterpreted this time around. I probably could still be incoherent in some places as I was about to head to sleep before I saw this, so if something is weirdly worded I apologize. My assumptions might also be wrong all together, though in general I don't think it's cool to insult a group of people just because you don't agree with their opinion.

( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

[Phoenicia]

Eh? To all the posters that keep missing the point where it flies way over their heads. I'm not "bragging" about WAR superiority in every situation just for brag rights.. I don't even WAR. I am just pointing out where the REAL problem lies. People are stupidly approaching this wrong.

You see? The thing is, ANY nerf to WAR's defensive capability will lower its intended role of "tank" and enforces its ALREADY GODDAMN SOLIDIFIED position of OT. You solve nothing when parties are down to "secure a WAR and get any other tank". They don't care who MTs as long as they have a WAR in party.

From the same perspective: Any "buff" to PLD and/or DRK MT potential does NOTHING to the real problem of EVERYONE and their dog wanting a WAR OT in raid and only serves to pigeonhole them into the MT spot and drive people away from PLD+DRK groups.

So, WAR is sitting as king in the OT spot while people will just look for any tank to MT. Yes, including another WAR. This is how badly WAR is pigeonholed into the OT spot. PLD and DRK are just.... "not good enough OT".

Now let's be stupid like most of the hive mind and call for nerfs to the following:

DRK MT DPS and aggro. Move CnS to GCD and have it interrupt combos. Reduce potency of Salted Earth because it's AoE and change Dark Mind and Dark Dance to 90s CD.
PLD defense.. Because I want it so. Make HG a 15 minute CD. Reduce Sentinel to 30% so it's in line with Vengeance and Shadow Wall, it's only fair, right?
Reduce Fell Cleave to 400 potency. Remove the 5% bonus damage from deliverance, access to FC is enough.

Now WAR is no longer the best OT, DRK and PLD are no longer the best MTs. We can use whatever we want! Be happy! I mean everything is balanced and is equal.....ly bad!

Solution to such a dilemma? It's really simple:

1- Make people EQUALLY want a WAR, PLD or DRK MT. Base it entirely on party setup. Just like how a double caster group would rather have a bard over MCH and a DRG +MCH group would want to get more physical (dropping a caster) DPS.

2- Make People EQUALLY want a WAR, PLD or DRK OT. Base it entirely on party setup. Give DRK and PLD OT tools that allows for higher raid performance.

How can the above happen? Simple, don't make PLD and DRK such sucky OTs. That's all there is to it. Fix DRK and PLD OT TP issues. Give DRK and PLD "uses" for their niches when they're OT. A couple of examples that may be good ideas or not: Have Cover work on magic and reduce its CD to 90s. Now PLD can use its Shield from the OT spot. Give DRK a party buff that procs its parry abilities when the other tank blocks/parries.

Part of WAR's "amazing" OT capabilities is its access to its abilities from the OT spot. A lot of WAR's abilities have dual nature (giving both offensive and defensive uses). Also there is NONE of the WAR's abilities that can only function from the MT spot (outside of the 50 potency counter on vengeance) as opposed to PLD/DRK abilities sitting off-CD as long as they're not tanking such as: Shield Swipe, Reprisal, all the defensive CDs and Blood Price.

???

It's 300 potency, it's not 400 - 25% via Defiance, therefore ignores Defiance and deals 400 Potency. It's 300 Potency bypassing Defiance.

Yes, 300 "bypassing Defiance" is 400 when streamlined and compared to the general potency of all WAR's attacks under Defiance.

Here is a short lesson in math:

WAR turns on Defiance: WAR does 25% less overall damage.

WAR hits Butcher Block under Defiance: 280 potency affected by defiance.

WAR hits Inner Beast under Defiance: 300 potency that ignores defiance.

Now Inner Beast compared to Butcher Block is 300 x 1.33 = 300 / 0.75 = 400.

This is exactly like saying DRK deals 400 potency with DA+ Souleater.

If you wanna talk "pure value" DRK deals 400 x 0.8 x 1.15 = 368. And WAR deals 300 x 1.20 = 360. But again, streamlining potencies under tank stances, IB is 400 potency.

( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

That's the thing though. It really brings up how "bad people are at processing data". I started putting the main point in italics, bold, underline and colored and it still seems to go over their heads. lol. Then they have the audacity to call anyone who disagrees with them "nerds" in a way to insult them.

[Fernosaur]

Balancing a game downwards is... is not cool. You want to give your players something endearing, something strong, regardless of what they want to play. Specially since this isn't a purely PvP game (in which case, the nerf already happened with Astrologians' immensely powerful Nocturnal Field), the fact that a job is too good affects game balance in a different way than in a competitive game. Instead of nerfing something, in this case, you have to bring the other options up. They haven't really brought DRK and PLD to that point yet, but at least the fixes to PLD are a step in the right direction. Better raid synergy for both classes would definitely be a boon to actually balance the field on what you should be bringing to your party.

Also, this doesn't really affect casual playstyles, sooo...

[Fyce]

This "problem" can be easily solved by fights mechanics. Forced tank swaps or stuff like T11 are prime examples. Even A1S during progression (when people stuggled to even put the boss at 60% before split).

Sure, the tank overall balance is messed up, but I think the main issue is that SE forgot the reason why we have 2 tanks in raid.
It's not really the tank balance which is at fault, it's that SE made fights where the OT really doesn't have much to do in terms of "tanking" aside from taking an add from time to time and a few soaking mechanics.

[Syzygian]

This "problem" can be easily solved by fights mechanics. Forced tank swaps or stuff like T11 are prime examples. Even A1S during progression (when people stuggled to even put the boss at 60% before split).

Sure, the tank overall balance is messed up, but I think the main issue is that SE forgot the reason why we have 2 tanks in raid.
It's not really the tank balance which is at fault, it's that SE made fights where the OT really doesn't have much to do in terms of "tanking" aside from taking an add from time to time and a few soaking mechanics.

No this should not be a thing. No job's blatant flaws should be band-aided over by content propping them up. Don't you remember how much shit DRK got for that these past two patches?

[Shurrikhan]

This "problem" can be easily solved by fights mechanics. Forced tank swaps or stuff like T11 are prime examples. Even A1S during progression (when people stuggled to even put the boss at 60% before split).

Sure, the tank overall balance is messed up, but I think the main issue is that SE forgot the reason why we have 2 tanks in raid.
It's not really the tank balance which is at fault, it's that SE made fights where the OT really doesn't have much to do in terms of "tanking" aside from taking an add from time to time and a few soaking mechanics.

When the OT forgets that his defensive CDs exist (especially when a non-Warrior) and lets the healers deal with the MT's only remaining, inferior CD for a tankbuster that the OT could have taken with Sentinel, etc., that's just as much the players' fault as the design. If anything, hard-swap mechanics are what reinforce certain flaws in DRK and PLD designs, by not allowing them to trade in and out (respectively) according to their CDs, utility (Reprisal), and mitigation shortcomings (PLD vs. magic).

I'd have to say the tank stat changes have done more to encourage swapping in a way that's beneficial for class balance than hard swaps ever could, by simply removing the eHP difference between MTs and OTs.

[Shurrikhan]

1- Make people EQUALLY want a WAR, PLD or DRK MT. Base it entirely on party setup. Just like how a double caster group would rather have a bard over MCH and a DRG +MCH group would want to get more physical (dropping a caster) DPS.

2- Make People EQUALLY want a WAR, PLD or DRK OT. Base it entirely on party setup. Give DRK and PLD OT tools that allows for higher raid performance.

How can the above happen? Simple, don't make PLD and DRK such sucky OTs. That's all there is to it. Fix DRK and PLD OT TP issues. Give DRK and PLD "uses" for their niches when they're OT. A couple of examples that may be good ideas or not: Have Cover work on magic and reduce its CD to 90s. Now PLD can use its Shield from the OT spot. Give DRK a party buff that procs its parry abilities when the other tank blocks/parries.

This.
.....

[Starbirth]

Ah, sorry, didn't realize people wouldn't understand this. Allow me to explain:

You see, this poster - Starbirth, whose name in game is Nebula Starbirth, who leveled the class Gladiator to then unlock Paladin as their "Main Class" (this is important, remember this) - they insinuated quite a few things.

Sure thing!

Firstly, they assume that Warrior should be nerfed, as it's "overpowered". This discussion has come up in quite a long thread, called something along the lines of "Nerf WAR! ", you can find it if you search for a minute or two. It's a common idea that WAR needed to be brought down, instead of the others brought up - however, this doesn't take into account that all tanks baseline damage is being nerfed via switching our AP to scaling purely with STR, to scaling with STR & VIT at a lower rate for both combined than with just STR previously. So the common complaint that "Warrior is doing BRD/MCH levels of damage!", though was already flawed, isn't true at all anymore.

Wanna know why its a common idea? It's better to nerf one thing than power creep everything else.

So what does this mean? This means we need to look at each job in relation to the others. WAR is touted as the "DPS tank" (which it is) and the "self heal tank" (which it is). PLD is touted as the defensive tank (which it isn't) and DRK is touted as... well... nothing (which... I mean it's got magic mitigation I guess). So of these 3, which are lacking? I'd put my money on PLD and DRK not really following through with what they're designed to be. DRK already does WAR level DPS, it doesn't need boosting in that regard - it mainly needs to feel a niche that isn't just mitigating some more magic damage (MP management doesn't count as that doesn't contribute to the group, it's just a factor in DRK's DPS which as I said already is fine). PLD is a bit lower than DRK, which would be fine if it's toolkit actually made up for it... but it doesn't.

Ok, this has been known for a while now.

Now, with this knowledge, what can we gather? WAR is doing fine, it's doing what it's meant to do, it's a solidly put together job - possibly one of the most well put together in the game (barring SCH). Let's say we brought WAR down - would this fix PLD's/DRK's problems? No - it would just make WAR clumsy and poorly designed like the other 2. Everyone who doesn't have their heads firmly planted in their backside wants parity, wants balance, wants everyone to work together. There are certainly slight tweaks you can make to WAR - I feel Equilibrium should be on a longer CD and that SE is too strong of an offensive boost. DRK and PLD don't necessarily need SE, but they need something to either boost DPS or boost mitigation that then boosts DPS through that.

Seems to me War is doing more than fine. Even after 3.2 its static spot seems secured along with PLD, but now it seems poor DRK is the odd man out.

There's a lot I could go into RE: DRK & PLD's problems, but that's kind of missing the point. The reason I wanted to point out these problems in the first place is to just make it clear that WAR doesn't need outright nerfing to bring parity - with the VIT change, you can literally just boost everyone else up. WAR will lose it's "DPS tank" niche, but even just as a self heal tank it's got a lot going for it and I think it'd be fine filling that role.

There's that power creep again.

So, onto my second point, and that's that Starbirth (the one you quoted, incase I've made that ambiguous) is calling the WAR population "nerds" for not wanting their job to be nerfed. I've already discussed the reasoning for not wanting WAR nerfed above and there are various other points to be made that I probably haven't covered, but I'd also like to point out that "nerds" is used as an insult here. Uncool, right? I mean, some people find "nerds" to be an endearing thing, but within the context of that post they're using it to mean (essentially) "idiots". Now, that's not cool - that's not cool at all. I can't say that every WAR is smart, or stupid, or anything in-between - but classifying all the people who don't want WAR nerfs as "nerds" (WAR or otherwise) is a bit... well... uncool.

I apologize for using the term nerd in a derogatory way. Next time I'll wait for you to get into your safe space.

Alright, follow me here, now - from this point I was feeling a bit... confused I guess, had the urge to make the post I'm making now to point out some things to them, but then I realized... oh... Paladin. Now, I feel like I made my point with that post alone, but since it's apparently been misinterpreted I'll clarify: this person has no perspective. They are fine with WAR being nerfed for their supposed view on what would be parity because their's is currently only 51. For some ungodly reason no one wants their job buffed - everyone wants WAR brought down to their level. I genuinely do not get this mindset. Like, I start to think that the people with this mindset just want balance and are taking themselves out of the equation... but then surely that leads them to the conclusion that WAR only needs minor tweaks and the 2 other jobs need major ones. Surely, right? Is this only obvious to me? I dunno.

So why then is everyone so afraid to have their class brought down if it performs better or on par than the others in all categories? There is always the chance at some point that your class may need to be adjusted down instead of buffing everything else and this comes with the territory when playing online games. If everything else is power creeped to cater to one group of players it can have disastrous effects on the future of the game for everyone. Yes, my War is 51 and its a pretty moot point. I played Warrior at 50 alongside PLD for a long time and post 50 doesn't add anything remotely special to their arsenal. Its one defensive CD, one utility and 3 dps skills. It's also not hard to gauge how good Warrior is at the moment when you can see the parser and everyone brag about how good it is.

I have no perspective because I won't view the world from a Warriors point of view but you won't do the same from another persons? Ok...

So, in conclusion, I pointed out that his main was PLD because he insulted a pretty big group of people and kinda went down the road of "buff PLD nerf WAR"... as a PLD...

Also both of you are PLDs, which I guess is just an interesting side note. Viridian City is cool though.

Also also, sorry for the long post, but I didn't want any of my points misinterpreted this time around. I probably could still be incoherent in some places as I was about to head to sleep before I saw this, so if something is weirdly worded I apologize. My assumptions might also be wrong all together, though in general I don't think it's cool to insult a group of people just because you don't agree with their opinion.

( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

Viridian City is cool... and your a Warrior.

[FallenWings]

I find it strange when people call for Nerfs(or Buffs) to a class without providing an example of how they would logically change it in the context of everything.

But I'm curious; what do you propose and why?

[Reynhart]

Firstly, they assume that Warrior should be nerfed, as it's "overpowered".

The problem is...he's kind of right.

At the moment, WAR has no downside. It's exactly why you always want one, you don't have to "pass" on something to benefit what WAR offers. In fact, were it not for a slower LB, I think more people would just double WAR everything if they can...if they don't already do it...

Of course, you could can change PLD and DRK so that they have no downside too, but it impacts more that just tanks. If you just buff damage, you'll end up with less and less gap between Tanks and DPS (Although we'll see what the stat swap will change on that), and if you overdo it for one job, then you'll have to buff others, where you'll probably overdo something else, and so on and so forth...
Like Starbirth said, it can easily end in Power Creep, wich is a real problem for any MMO.

It still feels very weird that WAR has the WS with the highest one time potency of all the game with Fell Cleave...and it feels even weirder now that PLD has the highest DoT+initial potency with Goring Blade.

And the idea of nerfing WAR come from the fact that it has the highest damage as an OT, the highest utility, while still having on par mitigation and better self-healing than the two other tanks.
Why do people justify PLD's lowest DPS "because it has the highest mitigation" (Which is not entirely true), but people find absolutely normal that WAR has pretty much everything ?

1- Make people EQUALLY want a WAR, PLD or DRK MT. Base it entirely on party setup.
2- Make People EQUALLY want a WAR, PLD or DRK OT. Base it entirely on party setup.

The problem is that the games lacks complexity. In the end, every setup focuses on one thing : DPS.
So, you'd have to give PLD and DRK something to contribute DPS on par with WAR. How would you do that ? Who you just give them the same utility ?

Your idea of building the setup around the tank is a good one. The problem you can have is, as long as you keep 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS (including one "buffer-DPS"), then WAR's personal DPS will ensure a spot for it.
Long time ago, I'd imagine normalizing MT DPS for all three tanks, so that none is above the others, and making the three tanks focusing on their OT side. For example, giving DRK a leech debuff where anyone hitting the target could refill either MP or TP. This way, even if DRK's damage output is personally lower than WAR, it could allow BRDs or MCHs to go full DPS, if they don't have to put their MP/TP song anymore...or even passing on BRD and MCH to take a higher DPS. To keep that more on the "OT" side, you could put it on Blood Weapon, with Darts Arts changing MP refill to TP refill.

As for PLD, I still like the idea of buffing it's healing capacities so that it could focus on keeping the MT alive (Along with Cover, Divine Veil, Stoneskin, etc...) so that you wouldn't need a second dedicated healer. Yes, PLD's DPS could be abysmally low (This time, you could use the word ), but it would allow the second healer to go full DPS, or even a five DPS setup to compensate. For example replacing Sword Oath with Healing Oath where you swap STR and MND...which wouldn't work anymore since damage is based on VIT ...oh well, a simple cure potency boost and damage penalty could do the trick.

Three setup with the same raidwide DPS, built around their available OT