SE: if it aint broke, dont fix it (War)

[Aana]

Upheaval has been double dipping since day 1. ToB raises Upheaval damage by roughly 1.2. What youd expect for a 20% increase in HP. a 25% increase in defiance however provides MORE damage than deliverance+ToB which means the 20% tank stance is not being applied.

If tank stance damage reduction were being applied:
Deliverance HP: 100 (upheaval damage 100%)
Deliverance+ToB hp: 120 (upheaval damage 120%)
Defiance HP: 125 (Upheaval damage 125%)
Tank Penalty: 125*0.8=100 (upheaval damage 100%)

This is what you would expect reading the tooltip and testing deliverance and deliverance+toB. But its not what happens. Defiance upheavals are HIGHER than Deliverance+ToB upheavals.

For whatever reason SE pulled a Bloodspiller on Upheaval and somehow boosted its damage in tank stance enough to negate the tank stance penalty. But they didn't just give it the inner beast treatment that ignores the penalty. Therefore unchained still buffs it further.

I imagine they did it for consistency sake. It would be pretty darn unintuitive if the tooltip reads

*"Damage increases with hp, haha just kidding it doesn't change when your primary way of raising HP"

It was obviously intended to be stronger in defiance, but ran out of space to try to say "HP scaling, costs gauge, has different base potency text like bloodspiller in defiance but still scales with HP" It would be really long and awkward. So they tried to simplify it. HP goes up, damage goes up. Period. My guess anyway.

Upheaval has been a shining jewel of defiance since stormblood shipped. The tooltip is misleading. It more closely mirrors bloodspiller's interactions with tank stance than anything else.
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As for hypothetical unchained buff, I like the idea because I really miss using that skill. It was a uniquely 'War' thing and, while it still exists, the trivialization of enmity and the binding to a better DPS option renders it unusable beyond early progression in my experience. Either buffing it to compete with inner release in its own right or separating them are both massive buffs. Fun buffs. But big ones. War would have to get scaled back in some way to account for all that. But I do like the theme of the skill for war and was sad to see it fall off. You'd have to rework a lot to make it work now. Just save it for the next expac if you ask me.

[InnerBeastMode]

The only thing I see making this better would be making Fell Cleave 100% stronger during IR I guess.

I hadn't actually considered that. Instead of half gauge cost, all gauge actions do 2x damage. That's almost brilliant in its simplicity. Virtually no change to any balance whatsoever, gets the hulk smash impact FC had in HW back.

Actually on 2nd thought, I guess it would be a slight buff. Instead of 6FCs +maim+Path you would get 3FC, Maim, path and still have 3gcds left for another 30 gauge at best. Then again the upheaval and 2 onslaughts would consume that 30 gauge anyway and its not enough for another FC without giving up upheaval so that's a no go. But you would get a more damage from the extra 3 gcds of combo regardless.

Whoa. Looking at the live letter, it looks like you guys might have hit the nail on the head. I couldn't wait to get back here to tell you XD although I'm certain I was beat to the punch.

[Aana]

Whoa. Looking at the live letter, it looks like you guys might have hit the nail on the head. I couldn't wait to get back here to tell you XD although I'm certain I was beat to the punch.

Meh. All this waiting and still not enough info for anything meaningful. War changes as we understand them so far is...a lot of confusing nothingburger. DPS boost for war/drk and a host of 'adjustments' they dont describe. But war gets the drg treatment because maintaining our ONE 24 sec debuff must be sooooo hard right?

Official Translation:
Warrior/Dark Knight
The DPS for both warrior and dark knight will be increased. For warriors, we will lower the effect of Storm’s Eye a little; however, will be increasing the potency of other actions. We've also made system changes to Inner Release and Berserk.

From Reddit:
WAR: Beast gauge management will be simplified, Storm's Eye effect magnitude will be scaled back in exchange for having other actions buffed (same deal as DRG's previous adjustments with Heavy Thrust), and changes will be made to Inner Release and Berserk. DPS will be buffed slightly.

[RamzaRuglia]

Doesn't look like they really wanted to reveal specific changes for any of the classes. I would have liked to have a better idea of what exactly they were looking at in terms of "adjustments".

[Mycow8me]

My biggest concern is a large rotation change going into new content. Looks like warriors may have to relearn a new good rotation and even possibly new burst rotation at the same time. Personally anything that helps with the doubleweaving on DRK would be enough for me but I can't see how they would make any kind of large rotation change...

[Aana]

My biggest concern is a large rotation change going into new content. Looks like warriors may have to relearn a new good rotation and even possibly new burst rotation at the same time. Personally anything that helps with the doubleweaving on DRK would be enough for me but I can't see how they would make any kind of large rotation change...

Yeah, I dont really see how you can 'adjust' beast gauge, IR, and Zerk all at once without impacting rotations and associated gameplay. That's before we have to account for fine tuning tweaks like allowing Eye to fall off for a GCD or 2 in order to get another patch for gauge in some scenarios because the eye buff is less powerful and could be allowed to fall.

Looks like I'll have some homework crunch time to be ready to raid with my group.

[Tegernako]

4.2 is bringing confirmed changes to DRK...so? Clearly they were working on these changes all the while people were saying they were doing nothing at all for the job.

*can't find link...will continue looking.

I knew i wasn't crazy. I knew i read it somewhere...

[Chrono_Rising]

I knew i wasn't crazy. I knew i read it somewhere...

Let’s hust hope it’s a meaningful buff and not like 20 potency to the SE combo.

[BluexBird]

If the only change they made was make IR lower de cost of Upheaval and Onslaught, but have Fell Cleave cost 50 points with doubled potency:

HS (Infuriate) -> Maim -> Eye
HS -> Maim (IR+Zerk) -> Fell Cleave (Onslaught) -> Path (Upheaval)
HS -> Maim -> Path -> Fell Cleave

We're then left with a few seconds on the clock for Inner Release after which we Onslaught before it wears off, but we'll start building points back sooner and Storm's Eye won't have a chance to wear off. Another advantage is that there's no way to fuck up and miss a last FC and end up with unusable points.

We'll get to start building up points 2 GCDs earlier.

[Tegernako]

Let’s hust hope it’s a meaningful buff and not like 20 potency to the SE combo.

It's be 19 potency buff just to annoy us.