Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Sarcatica]

Stuff got murky with WAR between Defiance/Deliverance's lack of a cost/penalty (unlike the Oaths and Grit), clearly unintended shit like triple Fel Cleaves and lack of mechanical punishment for tanking outside of Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit. The issues became even clearer when I saw the complaints that Shield Oath and Grit were flawed for costing MP and breaking combos when it's really that the devs forgot to add a cost to WAR's stances and simply rolled with it instead of admitting they screwed up. That raids used tank DPS as a crutch to not spend as much time gearing their DPS to meet checks didn't help at all.

It's only fair that raids account for the total DPS everyone can bring, it shows how capable you are as a tank at understanding how to time your CDs properly and effectively do damage while tanking, with or without tank stance alike. This shows the level of competency if you are into raiding. What's funny is that a lot of veteran tank raiders had been doing DPS ever since the 2.x period. Now this concept is everywhere because those tanks can get away with it, but what does it leave to the new tanks trying to raid? They can't replicate this due to the skillgap. This is just how it is. People need to understand that this concept only works at the top. IF you don't like the idea, you can just do whatever you want anyway.

These won't even affect most of you in a bit because you aren't raiding in the first place. Optimization only occurs mostly in harder contents, if you like the idea then good for you, if not, that's fine too but do note that raiders generally don't play around their weak links. That's all I have to say. 2cents.

[Zieg_Einherjar]

I play all 3 tanks and to be honest the WAR does not really require more effort than the other two. In my oppinion the WAR even needs less effort than the DRK...PLD ok everything requires more effort than playing the trashcan.

To clarify my original statement, in my opinion it requires slightly more effort to mitigate better than the other two.

I based this around timing Inner Beast for tank busters almost exclusively. "Slightly" more effort seemed appropriate, but again this was just my opinion. I too, play all three tanks at 60, I just chose Zieg for my avatar as warrior was the class I main.

[Ilan]

To clarify my original statement, in my opinion it requires slightly more effort to mitigate better than the other two.

I based this around timing Inner Beast for tank busters almost exclusively. "Slightly" more effort seemed appropriate, but again this was just my opinion. I too, play all three tanks at 60, I just chose Zieg for my avatar as warrior was the class I main.

IF you are in tank stance the WAR has it pretty easy since he can save his stacks for inner beast if he knows what comes. But i think it depends on the player what he finds harder or more effort, so lets just stop with this discussion over that.

[Shurrikhan]

The gameplay you're claiming comes from stance swaps was already there, specially in the case of PLDs. Even without the swapping nonsense, a PLD can easily weave in Royal Authority and Goring Blade as long as you have an aggro lead. At the most you drop Rage of Halone's debuff for 1 or 2 seconds between applications if you rotate all three. DRK also has similar damage combos and priorities built into them (though a little more generous due to Power Slash's large enmity bonuses).

How would stance-dancing as an option be redundant with, rather than enhanced by, combo choices? From the very moment I got Goring Blade onward in leveling, especially before the enmity buffs and if my DPS were actually really good for once, I was typically swapping once per FoF, scoring an enhanced GB, RA/RoH, RA, GB with both damage buffs up for the multiplicative bonus, because it was worth the occasional extra RoH per tri-combo in Shield Oath in order to allow that much greater damage contribution later. Preparation and pay-off, small-scale and large-scale. If that seems a redundancy to you—no, I don't what to say—and if it doesn't, I don't get the what point is here.

Stuff got murky with WAR between Defiance/Deliverance's lack of a cost/penalty (unlike the Oaths and Grit), clearly unintended shit like triple Fel Cleaves and lack of mechanical punishment for tanking outside of Defiance/Shield Oath/Grit. The issues became even clearer when I saw the complaints that Shield Oath and Grit were flawed for costing MP and breaking combos when it's really that the devs forgot to add a cost to WAR's stances and simply rolled with it instead of admitting they screwed up. That raids used tank DPS as a crutch to not spend as much time gearing their DPS to meet checks didn't help at all.

I don't believe the triple Fell Cleave was in itself unintended at all, nor do I think they "forgot" to add a cost to WAR stances. WAR had a variable stance cost in 2.x. Changing from DPS non-stance to a stack-retaining DPS stance two levels later would seem to be purposeful removal of that cost on a theme that SE felt should WARs should push over the added levels. What I think they may have underestimated is the communities' tendency to gawk and stare, and to sacrifice potentially greater returns for unique strength, just because the latter's more spectacular (namely: OT WARs blowing all their defensive abilities for 3FC, again and again, even if no single MT has the toolkit to handle all incoming damage on its own unless the whole team can actually manage to push phases, which at starting ilvl will take more than just the OT's added damage).

Then again, they did make the original, typically-a-DPS-loss variant of Wanderer's Minuet. So if the same team's behind each, who the hell knows?

As for the last bit, I've just never personally seen this. I've only ever seen the MT prioritized up to what the expected necessary eHP is for the next floors, or the shield-healer as an alternative when necessary for raid survival, the nuke-healer for output, or the top dps. OT's always seemed to be back of the line.

Attempting to placate the side I currently oppose, I'd offer the compromise of turning one of the tanks into a hard mode tank. We can have it require stance swapping to perform its primary function, effectively require a lot more button presses and ability management to deal its damage and mitigate. Kind of like a "hard to learn, really hard to master" type of tank.

Here's the caveat -- at maximum performance, it's no different from its contemporaries. Similar mitigation, utility and damage potential. It's not guaranteed a raid spot, and still has to compete with "simple is best" demagogues like me. Assuming this is truly about the gameplay ("tank gameplay is so boring") instead of questionable pursuits [?], we'd all get what we want, right? Those like me get to play like tanks, and those of the other side can press all their buttons and swap all the stances, with both sides generating similar results so that no one gets kicked to the curb.

[?] Because doing the math and knowing exactly how much health you need, and how little healer potency it will cost compared to your bonus potency, is a questionable pursuit?

Forgive me if I'm reading too much into this based on your suggested WAR changes before with near-obligatory swaps just to use certain weaponskills, but wouldn't that just be a high APM tank, rather than a hard mode or high skill-ceiling tank?
And why remove a huge portion of interesting gameplay from every other tank, pigeon-holing all any "skillful play" tank into a single job?

If you don't care about maximizing performance to achieve better results, then what would be wrong with finishing raid content with a like minded group a couple weeks later than others?
And if you do care, then shouldn't you be looking to add skill ceiling and entertaining concepts and complexity to your preferred style of play instead of simply trying to devalue anything that would compete with it? Why only the reductive?

Your "placation" here is basically a "I don't like how things are done now, so let's exile those who do to a fringe camp as to have less sway."
______________________________

@Lyth
Kind of makes me wish a XIV version of the real-time complete tracking warcraftlogs was an official thing... But in the meantime, at least it's easy enough to learn the breakpoints and spot-configure rotations according to mechanics. So long as one actually spends the moment to consider the math.

Makes me wonder if SE will eventually try to go to actual depth on any of these core mechanics in their in-game tutorials, or if we might eventually get improvements on mentor, or even some form of spectator, systems.

[Lyth]

I based this around timing Inner Beast for tank busters almost exclusively. "Slightly" more effort seemed appropriate, but again this was just my opinion.

I used to think this as well, back when I first started playing WAR. If you're activating it in reaction to the cast bar for the tank buster, it definitely is harder to time, because it's a GCD ability, unlike every other mitigation ability (it's also subject to pacification, but that's another story). What I didn't realise, at the time, was the importance of a cooldown's recast. If you pop Rampart/Shadowskin/RI about 18-19 seconds in advance of a tankbuster, then you shave that time off of the recast.

This becomes pretty useful when tanking fights with a damage type that your job doesn't specialise in (i.e. PLD on magical fights, DRK on physical fights). As long as the interval between tankbusters is greater than 35 seconds, you gain an additional use of Rampart/Shadowskin. Making efficient use of your long recast cooldowns in a rotation is actually significantly more technically challenging to do. You should never really be waiting for the cast bar.

IB is a bit of a crutch, and it was actually a bit too versatile. I suspect that part of the reason that FC was introduced was in part to discourage its use, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it received a more direct adjustment down the line.

Edit:

Makes me wonder if SE will eventually try to go to actual depth on any of these core mechanics in their in-game tutorials, or if we might eventually get improvements on mentor, or even some form of spectator, systems.

I've seen suggestions for a Intermediate version of the Beginner's Hall. That's something that could be useful, if designed with player feedback. The problem with tutorials are that they are an open loop design, and real players will always have an easier time troubleshooting exactly what you need to work on from watching you play. It's fairly straightforward to "spectate", if there's a player you want to study. Guides on fight-specific optimizations are rare, but you can figure out quite a bit by watching someone play.

They could also modify the GUI to help players track things like buffs/debuffs/DoTs. That may also emphasise their importance to newer players.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I don't believe the triple Fell Cleave was in itself unintended at all, nor do I think they "forgot" to add a cost to WAR stances.

...snip...

Then again, they did make the original, typically-a-DPS-loss variant of Wanderer's Minuet. So if the same team's behind each, who the hell knows?

I actually think that Triple Berserk Fell Cleave was unintentional. Without Client/Server latency from long distances (a situation the expansion was likely tested in with the QA team being in/near the server building) and on paper, 3FC every 90 seconds is impossible without a GCD of 2.22 or less. This latency problem is likely what also caused problems for WM and other abilities at release.

[SpookyGhost]

3x FC is possible regardless of SkS, you just have to drop the Fracture from your Berserk window.

[Shurrikhan]

I actually think that Triple Berserk Fell Cleave was unintentional. Without Client/Server latency from long distances (a situation the expansion was likely tested in with the QA team being in/near the server building) and on paper, 3FC every 90 seconds is impossible without a GCD of 2.22 or less. This latency problem is likely what also caused problems for WM and other abilities at release.

All you need is a 9-hit Berserk speed while minimizing non-stack GCDs (dropping Fracture and obviously not starting on Heavy Swing).

I've seen suggestions for a Intermediate version of the Beginner's Hall. That's something that could be useful, if designed with player feedback. The problem with tutorials are that they are an open loop design, and real players will always have an easier time troubleshooting exactly what you need to work on from watching you play. It's fairly straightforward to "spectate", if there's a player you want to study. Guides on fight-specific optimizations are rare, but you can figure out quite a bit by watching someone play.

They could also modify the GUI to help players track things like buffs/debuffs/DoTs. That may also emphasise their importance to newer players.

Some GUI adjustments could definitely go a fair ways in helping to bring out what's important. As would the potential for official addons or greater HUD customization in general.
But since we can't even get our own DoTs to show up consistently on most 25-man raids at the moment...

[Ultimatecalibur]

3x FC is possible regardless of SkS, you just have to drop the Fracture from your Berserk window.

True... you can 3FC if you trigger Berserk mid-combo after a Heavy Swing, but that is something fairly easy to miss as it requires a not quite intuitive action (Holding a Fell Cleave for 1 or 2 GCDs). But my point pretty much still stands as outside of that corner case 9GCD 3FC is only possible due to Client Server latency before getting a 2.22 gcd. This is similar to the ability for Paladins to squeeze a 13th GCD into FoF before getting a 2.3 gcd.

All you need is a 9-hit Berserk speed while minimizing non-stack GCDs (dropping Fracture and obviously not starting on Heavy Swing).

Which should be impossible prior to a 2.22 GCD (9 GCDs in 20 seconds). Client/Server latency is actually what lets us do 9 GCD Berserks and 13 GCD Fight or Flights before getting the "proper" amount of Skill Speed due to latency giving the buffs roughly an additional second to their durations.

[Lyth]

True... you can 3FC if you trigger Berserk mid-combo after a Heavy Swing, but that is something fairly easy to miss as it requires a not quite intuitive action (Holding a Fell Cleave for 1 or 2 GCDs). But my point pretty much still stands as outside of that corner case 9GCD 3FC is only possible due to Client Server latency before getting a 2.22 gcd. This is similar to the ability for Paladins to squeeze a 13th GCD into FoF before getting a 2.3 gcd.

You could actually do it in 7 GCDs, once every second Berserk. You have potentially two free stacks if you have access to both RI and Vengeance, so you only need to make up three stacks over four GCDs. If you're aiming for 8 GCDs, then you'd only need three stacks over five GCDs, which is guaranteed to happen irrespective of which step of the combo you use Berserk on. That's a lot of corners.

Not that it particularly matters if it was "unintentional" or not. We're just guessing either way, and it's easy enough to titrate a job's dps up or down after the fact.