Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[DaulBan]

After that they should combine Unleash and Abyssal Drain kekekekeke. It also occurs to me that DA Power Slash could use some tuning up so they could stick something on that sucker. Power Slash in general just feels like garbage to use since you have to skip a Syphon Strike. Maybe drop Spinning Edge and just buff up the enmity on PS to compensate or make HS->PS a 2 hit combo or something.

PS is supposed to be something you don't want to use as a DRK. The loss of the Syphon Strike is supposed to sting, it's not an unfortunately accident that your main MP draw outside of BW is on your DPS combos. They don't need to buff PS combos, you just need to use fewer of them one way or another if MP is such an issue that a PS is a crisis moment.

[Fernosaur]

Maybe I should go through a check list of War's problems too, just to be on the safe side ...

Someone making a list of WAR problems would trigger me, my friend. It would be as if I complained about my fairy heals not being 400 potency! Or demanding an AoE nuke a la Holy or Gravity~

One can dream, though...

I appreciate that, but you should go back and read what I actually wrote, rather than what someone else perceived me to write. You might find there's a difference.

I did notice that well after I posted. Joke's on me for not reading the original post.

Also, @Sarcatica: I do agree that DRK is infinitely better than PLD for A12S, but in the rest of the fights in Creator... not so much. I also don't think DRK is harder to keep alive, I'm just saying PLD's turtling skills can make healers DPS more in physically-oriented fights without having to keep them alive.

Even if the top end raid groups are simply focusing on farming A12S at this moment, you can't just dismiss the other fights as irrelevant for the entire extension of the meta and the game itself. Though DRK being the one-and-only MT for A12S will give it much more permanence in the long run.

Then again, what will there be left to do in the long run and until we get new raid-level content, which might not happen until the next expansion? It might not even matter enough at that point, but that's getting way ahead of ourselves.

I agree with you that a good raid MT should have both of them at disposal to more easily adapt to different group strategies, though, similar to WHM and AST.

[Sarcatica]

Even if the top end raid groups are simply focusing on farming A12S at this moment, you can't just dismiss the other fights as irrelevant for the entire extension of the meta and the game itself. Though DRK being the one-and-only MT for A12S will give it much more permanence in the long run.

I agree with you that a good raid MT should have both of them at disposal to more easily adapt to different group strategies, though, similar to WHM and AST.

Raiders simply adjust to the best jobs they can use based on nerfs and buffs. Just like how AST is widely used now. When PLD is better than DRK overall, raiders will abuse that job. The same old story.

[Ilan]

I think tank jobs should lose tank and dps stances, and rely on actually needing to keep enmity rather than being a dps (like PLD, NIN, and WAR in FFXI).

And if that happens most Tanks will not play Tanks anymore because the classes will become boring as hell. Not to mention that Fates and Beast Tribes will be even more annoying then.

[Duelle]

And if that happens most Tanks will not play Tanks anymore because the classes will become boring as hell. Not to mention that Fates and Beast Tribes will be even more annoying then.

As I've said before, that depends on how everything else is tuned. If you take away stances, you have to adjust every other ability because you're likely to bake in enmity from your tank stance to certain skills and the damage from your DPS stance in other skills. You'd also have to introduce some way of increasing mitigation (assuming the increase is not passive), which in practical terms means Halone/Delirium/Storm's Path would definitely have to be equalized (tank gameplay would have to point to "use this combo to increase your mitigation" instead of each having a different debuff attached).

Really? So an augmentable drain ST attack, a drain AoE, a drain ST attack with an attached mitigation duration, and a physical-damage drain duration buff are EVERY POSSIBLE variant by which a drain might be used in a job?...
Haven't you seen at least that many player-made suggestions for new and unique drain ideas just across the posts you've frequented over the last couple years?

I can give you two that I suggested in a thread a while ago: A skill that restores HP whenever you take damage, and a skill that converts damage taken from the next hit into HP. Problem is, and I suspect I'm right on this one, those weren't given to DRK because of the overlap between WAR and DRK when it comes to drains. And the devs were too busy hitting CTRL+C => CTRL+V while tabbing between DRK and PLD. In fact, if WAR ends up getting a version of Umbral Shield (the first of my examples) in 4.0, I'm going to laugh and somehow not be surprised.

I have no idea know what intent you think that "poorly implemented system" pointed at though. Was it poorly implemented because it took longer to regenerate full effectiveness, despite already having a cooldown, and because it forced a restart on every use?

A tank that increases their EHP via increased health pool and increased healing received shouldn't have half of that system (the increased healing received part) sine wave with resource consumption. Sure, some might find it thrilling to have their chances of survival go down the toilet with some bad luck or missed timing between themselves and the healer, but tanking and healing hinge on reliability. This is also why some but not all RNG-dependent mechanics work for either.

Or is it just a "poorly implemented system" whose intent you applaud on the assumption that it kept Warriors from leaving tank stance as often? (It didn't. It did the opposite.)

I can admit I looked at the design on paper back then. I didn't bother to finish leveling MRD => WAR until after 2.2. And all your comment here tells me is that the problems were already brewing if that was indeed the case.

I get that, but... If the PLD is hiding behind his shield, the DRK behind his sword, and the WAR behind his 'manliness' for all the same sort of mitigation and eHP, what if any difference in playstyle does that really create?

The way you worded this is giving me flashbacks of the blood tank vs blink tank thing from FFXI. A tank is there to take damage, and even if all tanks take damage, you can still make them different from each other with how the damage is handled.

PLD is currently designed around shield blocks with cooldowns that reduce damage taken.

WAR, IMO, could focus on actions reducing damage taken (the beast within sort of numbing the WAR to pain) and Wrath should play a bigger role than it currently does; right now it's a build-consume resource where 5 stacks is the only thing that matters. Assuming I were to put others through something I wouldn't inflict myself with (because I hate what I'm about to suggest), I'd consider pushing WAR towards active mitigation with things like temporary damage reductions or mini-stoneskins (because the beast doesn't feel pain). Inner Beast already somewhat leans in that direction, and I feel WAR needs more things like it.

DRK is where things get murky. Right now they're an edgy PLD with an extra button to push (Dark Arts). This is where the drain theme would help them stand out in exchange for their parry focus, with skills that instead of mitigating damage restore some HP when damage is taken. You could throw in a skill that negates damage taken from the next attack to restore a capped amount of HP. Passive mitigation to offer synergy with healers would probably also help. Then it's be a matter of turning Dark Dance's effect into either a full parry buff or a full evasion buff (or neither and have it do something completely different).

[Shurrikhan]

As I've said before, that depends on how everything else is tuned. If you take away stances, you have to adjust every other ability because you're likely to bake in enmity from your tank stance to certain skills and the damage from your DPS stance in other skills. You'd also have to introduce some way of increasing mitigation (assuming the increase is not passive), which in practical terms means Halone/Delirium/Storm's Path would definitely have to be equalized (tank gameplay would have to point to "use this combo to increase your mitigation" instead of each having a different debuff attached).

But it will absolutely mean that your decisions are more heavily made for you. You can no longer open with a weakened Goring Blade, because all your enmity is in the Rage of Halone combo. Unless Savage Blade is heavily up-tuned, the same will be true of Royal Authority. And all the while enmity has zero impact on anything you do when you're not MTing, nor (to be clear) soloing. If you don't have that mitigation coming into combat (it's no longer given by stance, and hasn't all been given passively either), then you're going to take a lot more damage until your first mitigating skill, which could be a while for mitigating weaponskills, which thus far are all at combo-ends. Further, should mitigation be moved in part to mitigating weaponskills, buffing them in turn, then OT support (and those of other DPS jobs if they are to have any sense of balance with tank debuff categories) becomes more impactful unless you go the WoW route and make your debuffs affect only damage against you. That dependence would further force more obvious homogeneity on our tanks.

That's a long string of compromises necessary just to remove one mechanic that honestly does not seem broken. Unimaginative, sure, but at least it allows freer and to a degree more creative gameplay because it's there.

[Ilan]

As I've said before, that depends on how everything else is tuned. If you take away stances, you have to adjust every other ability because you're likely to bake in enmity from your tank stance to certain skills and the damage from your DPS stance in other skills. You'd also have to introduce some way of increasing mitigation (assuming the increase is not passive), which in practical terms means Halone/Delirium/Storm's Path would definitely have to be equalized (tank gameplay would have to point to "use this combo to increase your mitigation" instead of each having a different debuff attached).

It would still cut the option completly down and would make tanking even more boring as it is already. Tanks are fine as they are and don't need to be changed just because people don't read what their skills can do and what they can't do. To be honest i don't like your idea because it could totaly ruin tank classes and make it in the end harder for players who start because they can't decide which combo they'll take.

[Shurrikhan]

As I've said before, that depends on how everything else is tuned. If you take away stances, you have to adjust every other ability because you're likely to bake in enmity from your tank stance to certain skills and the damage from your DPS stance in other skills. You'd also have to introduce some way of increasing mitigation (assuming the increase is not passive), which in practical terms means Halone/Delirium/Storm's Path would definitely have to be equalized (tank gameplay would have to point to "use this combo to increase your mitigation" instead of each having a different debuff attached).
I can give you two that I suggested in a thread a while ago: A skill that restores HP whenever you take damage, and a skill that converts damage taken from the next hit into HP. Problem is, and I suspect I'm right on this one, those weren't given to DRK because of the overlap between WAR and DRK when it comes to drains. And the devs were too busy hitting CTRL+C => CTRL+V while tabbing between DRK and PLD. In fact, if WAR ends up getting a version of Umbral Shield (the first of my examples) in 4.0, I'm going to laugh and somehow not be surprised.

I don't honestly see how either of those differ from general mitigation or self-healing except unlike mitigation it doesn't increase your eHP, as you'd have to survive the initial blow for some of its damage to be reverted/refunded. At least there'd be healing threat generated? Though that could always end up applied eventually to all mitigation tanks do...

A tank that increases their EHP via increased health pool and increased healing received shouldn't have half of that system (the increased healing received part) sine wave with resource consumption. Sure, some might find it thrilling to have their chances of survival go down the toilet with some bad luck or missed timing between themselves and the healer, but tanking and healing hinge on reliability. This is why some but not all RNG-dependent mechanics work for either.
I can admit I looked at the design on paper back then. I didn't bother to finish leveling MRD => WAR until after 2.2. And all your comment here tells me is that the problems were already brewing if that was indeed the case.

I definitely see what you mean there. I could have gone either way on the change myself, but only if 2.0 base was buffed, e.g. had a larger % healing taken increase at maximum and Inner Beast itself were stronger to compensate (such as by the critical chance and healing received bonuses being tripled on Wrath skills themselves), or it rebuilt to 5 stacks more quickly.

The way you worded this is giving me flashbacks of the blood tank vs blink tank thing from FFXI. A tank is there to take damage, and even if all tanks take damage, you can still make them different from each other with how the damage is handled.

Except (and you can blame WoW for my thoughts on the first) I'd imagine those two concepts are much more distinct than our three tanks. Heck, it sounds like one's a meat-shield and the others a kiter, which would have very real scaling differences, differences in how the tank MUST be played, and more. Putting similar mitigation systems on each under different guises that do not bring out different gameplay—the Paladin's shield, which is *presently* RNG but CD enhanceable, the DRK's sword, which is also *presently* RNG and CD enhanceable but with some reverse-synergy to affect it perhaps, and the WAR's passive chest-hair / inner beast armor (which I can only hope is different enough to at least be more largely output-based)—don't sound nearly so distinct.

Does the rate of damage taken force a difference in healer play? How do I level out that damage differently? Do my offensive efforts ever have significant defensive returns? As any of these tanks, what would determine my gameplay, rather than just my aesthetic?

PLD is currently designed around shield blocks with cooldowns that reduce damage taken.

Which, then, is about as barebones as you can get. A iconic tank, who would need to uniquely be the only tank to feel any heft of identity from. Just... given what you've written there.

WAR, IMO, could focus on actions reducing damage taken (the beast within sort of numbing the WAR to pain) and Wrath should play a bigger role than it currently does; right now it's a build-consume resource where 5 stacks is the only thing that matters. Assuming I were to put others through something I wouldn't inflict myself with (because I hate what I'm about to suggest), I'd consider pushing WAR towards active mitigation with things like temporary damage reductions or mini-stoneskins (because the beast doesn't feel pain). Inner Beast already somewhat leans in that direction, and I feel WAR needs more things like it.

I'd largely be fine with that. It's just an output based version of Inner Beast. Of course, complete output scaling tends to be overpowered where overgeared and underpowered where undergeared, so it couldn't be a pure scalar unless its power source was somehow input-based as well (similar to how Ignore Pain ignores a set, output-based amount of damage, but its resource, rage, is at least as input-based as output-. That would make Warrior less healer dependent in fights that wouldn't necessarily overwhelm him, which *to me* is in keeping with a certain part of the Warrior idea.

DRK is where things get murky. Right now they're an edgy PLD with an extra button to push (Dark Arts). This is where the drain theme would help them stand out in exchange for their parry focus, with skills that instead of mitigating damage restore some HP when damage is taken. You could throw in a skill that negates damage taken from the next attack to restore a capped amount of HP. Passive mitigation to offer synergy with healers would probably also help. Then it's be a matter of turning Dark Dance's effect into either a full parry buff or a full evasion buff (or neither and have it do something completely different).

I feel like I get what you mean, but again, I just don't think Drains are going to be the way out, especially not standard ones. Nor refunders/reactive drains.

[ADVSS]

DRK is where things get murky. Right now they're an edgy PLD with an extra button to push (Dark Arts). This is where the drain theme would help them stand out in exchange for their parry focus, with skills that instead of mitigating damage restore] some HP when damage is taken. You could throw in a skill that negates damage taken from the next attack to restore a capped amount of HP. Passive mitigation to offer synergy with healers would probably also help. Then it's be a matter of turning Dark Dance's effect into either a full parry buff or a full evasion buff (or neither and have it do something completely different).

I agree. I feel like they took bad design ideas to heart when drain tank 2.0 warrior had to be revised. DRK imo would feel better and be more thematically if it had more lifetaps, not to mention it lacks any burst restore close to what warrior or pld have On paper, and overtime, it looks fantastic but it would only be fantastic if bosses did nothing but auto attack with static damage. I wont even get into living dead, another ability that looks wonderful on paper, but in practice....

[Brian_]

You really have the shortest trigger I've ever seen ... which is fairly amusing.

Regardless, you're off base here, and you're flippantly putting words into my mouth. I never said anything about parsing dps numbers on the fflogs. I also didn't mention any specific examples about savage raid tiers, nor did I say anything about them being not viable in Midas. I also didn't say a damn word about Drks. The only thing I did say was that SE is constantly playing catch up with the job ... which they are. That's not exactly a contestable opinion. PLD had Dps problems. SE patched it after the fact. Pld had Tp problems. SE patched it after the fact. Pld had enmity Problems. SE patched it after the fact ... etc (repeating as far back as 2.1). I'm sure that even you can see a trend in the patch notes, given just how many patch jobs have been done to date.

Being "put out to pasture" also wasn't referring to any particular raid tier. I simply meant that SE has a habit of ignoring problems until after they've happened instead of taking measures to avoid those problems in the first place. That's not exclusive to Pld, either. I didn't mention Drk because I was responding to someone who was specifically talking about Pld, but that doesn't mean that Drk is somehow exempt from the issue. They've had their own problems and have had to do their fair share of catch up as well. I just didn't think that I'd need to go through a checklist of those problems just to avoid sparking someone's oversensitive sensibilities. I figured the context of the response would speak for itself ... but I guess some people only see what they want to see.

The back pedaling is hilarious.

I think a lot of Pld's have come to the realization at this point that their job is just not keeping pace, and SE doesn't at all seem invested in trying to do anything to fix that. It's almost like they're always playing catch up. Each new patch leaces Pld behind, then they get minor patches later to make them temporarily viable until the next major patch puts them out to pasture again. It's been back and forth like that for the entire expansion, and it's exhausting to put up with. It's easier to just swap to War or Drk and not have to worry about it at all, rather than sticking it our for the sake of the underdog.

You did say something about the other tanks. You did say something about the content. What else would keeping pace mean? Keeping pace is relative to the content, competition, and context. You don't keep pace against nothing. If PLD was the only tank and defaulted to being the best tank, there would be nothing for it to keep pace with.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/keep+pace

You said each patch leaves them behind. Behind what? Themselves? The last tier of content? You said yourself that you think PLD is the underdog. Underdog is a relative term and you're trying to claim it's not. You even said that it'd be easier just to switch to DRK and WAR. You mean switch to DRK so you could be objectively worse in 5-6 of the last 8 fights we've gotten? Or switch to WAR so you can play off-tank instead? Or to push a pretty meaningless fflogs parse on content you're already comfortably farming?

The reality is PLD has been pretty much fine since the major buffs they got in ~3.2. It's like 3.0 left all the drama queen PLDs traumatized or something and they can't move on when all the good PLDs just picked themselves up and cleared Sephirot / Nidhogg / Sophia / A5S-A12S with little issue. And, you call WARs the king of tanks in this game but both PLD and DRK are better MTs. I guess that king has no clothes.

You also weren't responding to someone specifically talking about PLD. Brannigan was talking about the relationship between PLD and DRK in regards to current content.