If You Were A Class/Job Designer...

[winsock]

Okay I admit it, I'm confused. How do the changes I outlined in any way affect WAR's stack management?

It more or less eliminates it. The only major consideration for holding stacks is IB. If you get the mitigation for free on change there's no reason to 'manage', you'd just spend it as you get it (small exception for triples).

can be annoying to stance-dance at times on the other two tanks, since they avoid their enmity combo. If you have zerked, BBing WAR while you're in SwO or Gritless, it can be a pain.

While I don't think we will agree on this being good/bad, I think we can both agree that the occasional saved dps isn't worth all the dmg this would do to the WAR playstyle:
* base rotation becomes stale, mostly 123 esp for OT
* no more maim considerations when spending stacks or using fracture
* raid utility would require next to no preplamning / anticipation
Many of the interesting mechanics WAR has just die or become very stale and uninteresting.

I'll give you the Clemency thing. Maybe a 600 potency heal with a 50 potency HoT over 30s? Although honestly the MP cost and the fact that its a lower potency than Equilibrium (with the changes), combined with the fact that none of PLD's CDs buff it like Berserk can, I feel makes it pretty balanced.

Ideally just spreading the potency over say 5 ticks/15 seconds or something similar. Maybe with a slightly increased potency if it takes HoT form.
Clemency can't be properly balanced with a sole focus on the tanking role as it impacts healers as well.

Since healing in this game is more timing based than HPS based, a HoT would likely be the least intrusive instant heal option, while still providing PLDs a skill they can conveniently use.

[JackFross]

File under: "Why Butcher's Block SHOULD BE Warrior's highest damage combo"

Every tank has 3 combos. DRK /technically/ has 4. I'll rank them in order from BEST to WORST in terms of damage output.

PLD:
Goring Blade -> Damage over Time
Royal Authority -> Flat damage
Rage of Halone -> Enmity + Mitigation

DRK:
DA+Souleater -> High damage + Mana (self-heal in Grit)
Delirium -> Mitigation + Mana
Power Slash -> Enmity
(Souleater -> Self-heal in Grit + Mana)

WAR:
Butcher's Block -> Enmity
Storm's Eye -> Maim + Slashing Debuff
Storm's Path -> Maim + Mitigation

Looking at these, we can already see that each tank has vastly different priorities when it comes to which combos they use when. It's very important to note that Butcher's Block affords WAR absolutely no bonus to use it outside of its damage output. Looking at the fact that this combo allows WAR to be most effective at holding Enmity as the MT while maintaining DPS is looking at the small picture.

If we're talking big picture - the actually important things that go into the rotations of these Jobs - you'll see straight away why it would be bad to mess with these rotational potencies.

If you changed WAR's damage priority from BB>SE>SP to SE>BB>SP, you do two very very bad things.

1. You DRASTICALLY decrease the skill gap for playing Warrior effectively. Maximum DPS becomes 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3, which no other Tank Job does anymore.
2. OT WAR becomes incredibly simple to maximize, where it is not right now. You point out the fact that WAR using BB is only a minor gain compared to the major loss DRK and PLD take to use their Enmity combos. This is absolutely true and is a hallmark of a B A D W A R R I O R. This should not be brought up in a discussion of modifying tank skills, because it's not a consideration when looking at a pair of tanks playing optimally wrt dps on a certain mob.

The rotations (in general) for the tanks tend to shake out as:

GB>RA>RA
DASE>DE>DASE>DE
SE>BB

And you want to take the /simplest/ one of these and make it /even simpler/ by removing the /only thing about it/ that makes it actually a thing to manage and consider.

This is bad. And silly. And not a good thing to push for.

The fact that Butcher's Block is the strongest combo is not a problem. The problem is Warriors who don't realize that dropping 20 or 40 potency here and there to allow the other tank to maintain the lead while tanking out of tank stance is a substantial gain for the raid.

If I'm playing the MT, and my WAR OT pulls hate off of me, I just let him keep it. Not my fault, not my problem. I pull in tank stance, drop an enmity combo or two to open, and then swap out and go dps in fights without serious tank checks. It's up to both tanks to manage it properly.

Maybe my opinion is shit, because I feel the exact same way about healers who pull hate off of me while I'm tanking in or out of tank stance, so take it with a grain of salt.



//PS. If you were to swap it to have SP be the highest to maintain the two-combo approach, WAR becomes the only tank in the game who doesn't have to choose whether to use mitigation or not.

//PPS. Most important thing to note re: Slashing debuff is that it's 20 seconds. Scourge is a 30s debuff, and if you shorten it to 20s, the overall rotation becomes messed up, since it'll fall off mid-combo. Goring Blade is 24s. If you changed the slashing to not 20s, you'd really mess with WAR's rotation, since 20s is /perfect/ for the way their skills all synergize with one another.

[Instrumentality]

The only reason you have to look at for why BB or any threat combo should never be the highest potency is that trading enmity for damage is always a skill decision while never having to trade one for the other is in fact quite the opposite.

You can make as many long winded, technical post as you like, but there is around exactly zero reasons for only one tank to always have zero threat maintenance in comparison to other tanks.

[Shurrikhan]

The only reason you have to look at for why BB or any threat combo should never be the highest potency is that trading enmity for damage is always a skill decision while never having to trade one for the other is in fact quite the opposite.

You can make as many long winded, technical post as you like, but there is around exactly zero reasons for only one tank to always have zero threat maintenance in comparison to other tanks.

Except BB is only the highest potency combo when slashing is already up; that already limits it to every other combo. Outside of a recent SE, the WAR must still choose between enmity, damage, or mitigation (or in sequence, between dmg-enmity, dmg-mitigation, or dmg-enmity-mitigation). How is a DRK doing its maximum damage with its mitigation combos (self-heal or magic down) any less powerful? BB may put out enmity at a lesser penalty, but DRK also has considerably less need to even use its enmity combo. Why the fixation on the pairing of damage and enmity combos specifically, especially given that any skill in the enmity change can be remodded, as can any tank stance?

[Yuni_Queen]

If I'm playing the MT, and my WAR OT pulls hate off of me, I just let him keep it.

Why would you loose aggro to WAR on Delieverence, until you are one of those paladins "sorry, forgot shield oath"? And until OT makes a "good job" of OTing in defiance, which is stupid, especially that WAR's enmity stance does not eat up 15% of your max MP and is oGCD.

All MT starts their rotation from enmity generation (until i am scrub, and i should drop tanking, cause its herezy, to do not use main first)- making BB lower dmg than SE would change WAR-type rotation into DRK-type rotation and it will never happen.

And again, why ppl whine about WAR? there is really little to whine about something that is considered as a "must-have" for end-game content like savage midas or Seph Ex.
And i am not saying, that its not possible to clear it without war. But why making it the hard way?

[Instrumentality]

Except BB is only the highest potency combo when slashing is already up; that already limits it to every other combo. Outside of a recent SE, the WAR must still choose between enmity, damage, or mitigation (or in sequence, between dmg-enmity, dmg-mitigation, or dmg-enmity-mitigation). How is a DRK doing its maximum damage with its mitigation combos (self-heal or magic down) any less powerful? BB may put out enmity at a lesser penalty, but DRK also has considerably less need to even use its enmity combo. Why the fixation on the pairing of damage and enmity combos specifically, especially given that any skill in the enmity change can be remodded, as can any tank stance?

I can't imagine why mitigation entered a conversation about threat maintenance, but, to answer your question, Warrior never has to do it. Paladin and Dark Knight do. It is explicitly unbalanced/unfair for the situation to exist where one tank literally does not ever have to do something that the other two tanks do while also decreasing the performance of the other two tanks.


You lose something when you do your best combo sets as a Paladin/Dark Knight, and that's bad, dumb, and easily correctable.

To be fair they could also go the other way and just buff RoH/Power Slash to be more potency than their other combos.

[Shurrikhan]

I can't imagine why mitigation entered a conversation about threat maintenance, but, to answer your question, Warrior never has to do it. Paladin and Dark Knight do. It is explicitly unbalanced/unfair for the situation to exist where one tank literally does not ever have to do something that the other two tanks do while also decreasing the performance of the other two tanks.


You lose something when you do your best combo sets as a Paladin/Dark Knight, and that's bad, dumb, and easily correctable.

To be fair they could also go the other way and just buff RoH/Power Slash to be more potency than their other combos.

I'm saying you're looking at just one part of what makes a tank useful, and treating it out of the context or balance of the rest. You know, the context noted by the quote you were responding to, to which I in turn replied...

You could say the same thing about DRK's being able to keep up its mitigation at almost 0 dps cost (just have to blow DA-SEs like WAR needs to maintain Main and SE). You could say the same for how a PLD can still hold threat via Savage Blade while spamming a 350 potency attack. You could say the same for how a DRK pretty well needs Power Slash (outside of a no-NIN opener) to leave Grit sooner, otherwise able to maintain threat simply off its higher-potency mitigation and absorb combos. There's a certain amount of parity to be desired, but there is no hard rule to say that the highest damage combo cannot be enmity-modded, nor that preventing that will in any way achieve general balance; it's more complicated than that.

Take buffing RoH, for instance. As much as I would like that, that'd be up to the whole mitigation of Storm's Path, at 20 greater potency, with only 20 less potency or 15% less base enmity than Butcher's Block. Are tanks really so enmity-starved that enmity generation so outweighs mitigation? Are tanks really so much more meat-shields than a more general modifier for raid damage taken vs. outgoing (wherein holding the enemy's attention is just the start)?

Power Slash on the other hand could make use of a buff, perhaps--not because it's 10 potency less than the mitigation combo (whereas a WAR loses 40 potency for his), but because of the almost half a DA's worth of mana not generated therein, likely costing closer to 60+ potency. Were both mana costs and Syphon Strike's mana generation reduced, this would be less of a difference. Were Power Slash's or Hard Slash's damage increased this would be less the case.

[Violette]

Forgive me if I miss the point, but warrior having to lose it's highest enmity/dps combo in order to apply it's amazing debuffs is op? Warrior broken?

[winsock]

Forgive me if I miss the point, but warrior having to lose it's highest enmity/dps combo in order to apply it's amazing debuffs is op? Warrior broken?

Yeah, I think the original context of this discussion starts back a page or two. The thought/ discussion topic at the moment is:
Q: why not make WAR's highest dps combo SE instead of BB?

A: it would break several positive components of the WAR playstyle.

[Violette]

Yeah, I think the original context of this discussion starts back a page or two. The thought/ discussion topic at the moment is:
Q: why not make WAR's highest dps combo SE instead of BB?

A: it would break several positive components of the WAR playstyle.

But if SE was war's highest dps combo, that would mean OT war becomes EVEN better because it no longer has to trade dps for raid utility.