It's about time Shield oath and Grit become Abilities instead of Spells. (off-GCD)

[whiskeybravo]

no please, this will lead us to a problem of powercreep and we are already overflowing that line, WAR kit despite how good feels (or not, depending of you preferences) WAR have a serious problem of lack of weakness making it excell on every field, my opinion is clemency is fine as it is and WAR have to get more limits in for of increse the recast or meaby gauge cost but thats other theme and my personal opinion.

I think this is being made a bigger deal because of how it sounds on paper. In my experience, I've probably failed at least as many times as I've succeeded in saving myself with Defiance/Equilibrium. Grade A example last night: I'm sitting at 15-20k HP just taking autos from Kefka. With regen ticks here I float. AA down to 3k HP. ToB/Conv down for another 15 sec. Will I get a heal? I guess I'll have to go to Defiance and Eq. Alright here's Defi... Oh I'm dead

That's obviously on me for delaying (and my healers for making me wonder), but my point is that it's no guarantee Warrior's Super Awesome Tanking Kit™ is always gonna save your hide. Certainly if you can plan for it's usage at a given point it's easier to prepare for and very smooth to execute, but just on the fly like that more decisions have to made and it doesn't always work out. And that kind of situation has happened more times than I care to even keep track of, but maybe it's just me lol. It is nice when it works, no doubt about that

As it relates to PLD/DRK, if in the same situation it seems like all you'd really need to do is glance at your MP and decide if you have enough to execute a Clem/TBN on yourself. In a pinch you'd probably just start mashing the button and it either would or wouldn't activate. You don't need to equip a tank stance or try to figure how to weave swapping to tank stance during your GCD so you don't lose one. It's just a simple one push heal/shield button. Maybe that's simplifying it a bit, but really it's no more than Def/Eq is being simplified.

Warrior doesn't have access to inner beast, and it doesn't need it because content isn't designed to need frequent access to an on demand cooldown, and thats because warrior doesn't have frequent access to on demand mitigation.

I'm not sure how you got to this conclusion. Does that mean you're going to stop using Sheltron/TBN? If content required more frequent on-demand mitigation, War is more than capable of providing it. But since it's locked behind tank stance it would likely just move to back to the OT role to optimize it's damage instead. And, since you're using Sheltron/TBN despite content not requiring it, do you not think War would use IB more if were unlocked from Defiance?

I hate to say this, but they probably should have unlocked IB from Defiance instead of giving War Rampart.

[Chrono_Rising]

...

I'm not sure how you got to this conclusion. Does that mean you're going to stop using Sheltron/TBN? If content required more frequent on-demand mitigation, War is more than capable of providing it. But since it's locked behind tank stance it would likely just move to back to the OT role to optimize it's damage instead. And, since you're using Sheltron/TBN despite content not requiring it, do you not think War would use IB more if were unlocked from Defiance?

I hate to say this, but they probably should have unlocked IB from Defiance instead of giving War Rampart.

I reached this conclusion by mapping out the cooldowns of both myself and my co-tank since a5s. Limiting ourselves to just stormblood savage content, inner beast use isn't required of a warrior. The reason why? Warrior's short cooldowns are more than enough to handle mechanics without needing to use inner beast. It does take timing, but when you do have tank busters which are close together you can often fit them in to a single cooldown, in god kefka there is a series of 3 tank busters which can be fit into a single vengeance use, that doesn't happen on paladin or dark knight.

You asked if that means I would stop using TBN and Sheltron. The answer is no, because sometimes the only mitigation I have on those jobs is sheltron or tbn, and thats because because you do not have short cooldowns with large durations like warrior. Have I ever needed mitigation on a 15 second basis frequently throughout a fight? Also no, thats how I come to the conclusion that:
(1) warrior's cooldown kit is designed around not having IB to the point that IB is unnecessary
(2) The game does not require tanks to need access to mitigation every 15 to 24 seconds.

Together this is how I reach my final conclusions:

(3) Warrior's higher offensive capabilities are not justified by its defensive kit
(4) Warrior's defensive kit does not justify the flexibility it receives when it comes to its tank stance

[Saeno]

Together this is how I reach my final conclusions:
(1) warrior's cooldown kit is designed around not having IB to the point that IB is unnecessary
(2) The game does not require tanks to need access to mitigation every 15 to 24 seconds.
(3) Warrior's higher offensive capabilities are not justified by its defensive kit
(4) Warrior's defensive kit does not justify the flexibility it receives when it comes to its tank stance

I kind of have to agree that it makes no sense for WAR to do as much damage as it does while having so much mitigation. You're also completely right in that WAR's dont even need Inner beast but the fact that they have it is silly.
You look at the caster DPS, BLM has no utility but the highest damage.
You look at Healers, WHM has the least utility but the strongest raw heals and aoe damage.
You look at the melee, SAM has the least utility but highest personal DPS
And then you look at tanks. WAR has the best of everything except party wide shields but still has one, PLD has better utility but less damage and more restrictions than WAR on stances, and DRK has the least damage (tied with PLD), least utility, least usable defensives, most restrictions and worst aggro.

As it stands, DRK by all rights should do the highest damage and PLD/WAR should be tied for DPS. We'll see what happens in 4.3 and 4.4.

[whiskeybravo]

snip

I just don't believe content was designed around War being 100% Deliverance main tank, which is kinda what your comment suggests (At least from my interpretation of it). The fact that content can be done like this is a testament to the optimization that players go through more than anything. Look back at the 270 str accessory debacle. It's quite clear that they intended tanks to only wear fending accessories by locking them out of anything else, but players found away around and changes had to be made to fix the situation.

So I have a hard time believing the devs sat around saying "Since we are giving Rampart to Warrior they will no longer need to use Inner Beast for on-demand mitigation. Let's design the new content around Warrior's not having on-demand mitigation." No, I think they designed the fights like they always do with Tankbusters/Raidwides/mechanic things all taking place at the usual intervals, and it just so happened to work out for Warrior the way it has. It doesn't make sense to give all 3 tanks on-demand mitigation abilities but then scrap the need to design content around that because one of the abilities is locked behind a tank stance.

[Saeno]

I just don't believe content was designed around War being 100% Deliverance main tank, which is kinda what your comment suggests (At least from my interpretation of it). The fact that content can be done like this is a testament to the optimization that players go through more than anything. Look back at the 270 str accessory debacle. It's quite clear that they intended tanks to only wear fending accessories by locking them out of anything else, but players found away around and changes had to be made to fix the situation.

No one really liked it though even after optimzing. You went about tanking like if you were a wet noodle and abused your invuls (just like today).

No, I think they designed the fights like they always do with Tankbusters/Raidwides/mechanic things all taking place at the usual intervals, and it just so happened to work out for Warrior the way it has. It doesn't make sense to give all 3 tanks on-demand mitigation abilities but then scrap the need to design content around that because one of the abilities is locked behind a tank stance.

Things work out for WAR because they have a huge amount of cooldowns and its near impossible for a job with that many defensive CD's to ever be bad at tanking. As for the on-demand tanking abilities, I don't think this was ever in SE's raid design since no fight in this game has ever needed you to have a CD up every 15-20 seconds or you die. Typically you take a tank buster every minute at the shortest. Also, the on-demand skills that PLD and DRK have are things that can be given to the others, so they double as utility and not just personal buffs so you cant really design a fight that requires you to only be able to use these skills on yourself and ignore the utility aspect of them.

[whiskeybravo]

Things work out for WAR because they have a huge amount of cooldowns and its near impossible for a job with that many defensive CD's to ever be bad at tanking.

Meanwhile I drop Shirk for Awareness in 5 & 6 because RI is practically useless in those fights... I imagine DRKs feel similar when DM is practically useless. (I've actually considered going DRK in 5/6 but haven't yet, mainly because of SiO utility)

I still get the feeling this is like a vendetta against Warriors. Wars get this, wars get that, etc etc.. PLD is as good as they've ever been both defensively and offensively. Being able to block magic is a significant advantage. No more TP problems thanks to Holy Spirit windows. Being able to cover people to make mechanics easier on the group. Intervention on people taking high damage to lessen burden on healers. There's a lot of things that only a PLD can do. And PLD and WAR together have unrivaled mitigation and support utility. So I know this isn't the "fix DRK" thread, but they are the ones that could benefit the most from a stance re-work. If PLD is changed to off-global as well it doesn't really change anything about how they are played, they don't need to instantly swap to shield to access Sheltron or Clemency or any of their abilities. It would just make them more defensive and further reinforce PLD/WAR comps (barring significant improvements to DRKs overall kit)

[Saeno]

I still get the feeling this is like a vendetta against Warriors. Wars get this, wars get that, etc etc..

WAR is very fluid and personally thats why I love the job so much. That fluidity feels more like an advantage over the other tanks and personally I don't see the issue with the other tanks becoming more fluid. Nobody likes clunk. I also think WAR's getting nonstop buffs with every release of patch notes helps fuel the fires of the "why does WAR get everything AGAIN?" mentality.

PLD is as good as they've ever been both defensively and offensively. Being able to block magic is a significant advantage. No more TP problems thanks to Holy Spirit windows.

In fairness, WAR hasnt had Tp problems since 3.0 thanks to fell cleave and Equilibrium. PLD losing its TP problems is something new to PLD with 4.0

Being able to cover people to make mechanics easier on the group. Intervention on people taking high damage to lessen burden on healers. There's a lot of things that only a PLD can do. And PLD and WAR together have unrivaled mitigation and support utility.

100% agree here. O7S without a PLD is like night and day for healing. The synergy between PLD and WAR is insane since WAR covers PLD's weakness of being awful at pulling and never wanting to leave sword oath, and WAR is just a behemoth on its own so anything WAR brings only aids the party.

So I know this isn't the "fix DRK" thread, but they are the ones that could benefit the most from a stance re-work. If PLD is changed to off-global as well it doesn't really change anything about how they are played, they don't need to instantly swap to shield to access Sheltron or Clemency or any of their abilities. It would just make them more defensive and further reinforce PLD/WAR comps (barring significant improvements to DRKs overall kit)

I really dislike the idea of fixing tank stance for just DRK but not PLD. If they were to make Grit an ability but not the Oath's, that would raise a lot of questions because while WAR and DRK have oGCD stances, PLD has TWO stances on the GCD making it feel incredibly clunky and it would just make the community ask for at least one of the oaths to be oGCD (prefferably Sword oath). And yeah the PLD/WAR comp is really damn powerful but only because PLD and WAR are very strong jobs on their own while DRK... isn't. I think WAR/DRK would still work just fine, its really the PLD/DRK comp that raises questions.

[Chrono_Rising]

I just don't believe content was designed around War being 100% Deliverance main tank, which is kinda what your comment suggests (At least from my interpretation of it). The fact that content can be done like this is a testament to the optimization that players go through more than anything. Look back at the 270 str accessory debacle. It's quite clear that they intended tanks to only wear fending accessories by locking them out of anything else, but players found away around and changes had to be made to fix the situation.

So I have a hard time believing the devs sat around saying "Since we are giving Rampart to Warrior they will no longer need to use Inner Beast for on-demand mitigation. Let's design the new content around Warrior's not having on-demand mitigation." No, I think they designed the fights like they always do with Tankbusters/Raidwides/mechanic things all taking place at the usual intervals, and it just so happened to work out for Warrior the way it has. It doesn't make sense to give all 3 tanks on-demand mitigation abilities but then scrap the need to design content around that because one of the abilities is locked behind a tank stance.

My interpretation of my statement is that you can be 100% deliverance tank, but that might require you to share responsibilities with the other tank in your party. If you want to 100% solo tank then you should probably consider tank stance every once in awhile and thats on all tanks, not just warrior.

In multiple raid tiers people have gotten by with never touching inner beast and never using tank stance, that tells me something about the frequency of these things. I cannot think of a time when you need cooldowns on a sub thirty second basis. Balancing warrior's cooldowns to be lower because it doesn't have access to IB in dps stance, and then not designing raids that actually require frequent cooldowns seems like a strange way to balance things.

Nothing that has been said really convinces me otherwise either. I think you brought up that we are making it seem overly easy to pull off tank stance equilibirum. Consider this, in the situation your described, you took a hit and dropped 15k hp to 3k and then died to the next auto, if you couldn't pull that off with two oGCD's waiting for your GCD wouldn't have saved you either. If you were sitting on your GCD and died to a 15k attack you would have had to have at least 12k hp for tank stance to have saved you, and thats if the animation had time to complete because the DR isn't active till then. Sheltron likewise wouldn't have saved you, nor would inner beast, TBN might have saved you if your max HP was above 60k, but I've also put TBN up and though it went up the auto attack had already been snapshot in so that I took the hit anyway. If you were a paladin in this example you would have had no recourse, if you were in this situation you wouldn't have time for a clemency cast, if you were a dark knight you might have had TBN to save you, or you might have just used it because you had to survive a tank buster. These last second examples only prove that it is hard to adapt at the last second, not that we should be balanced around it.

Taking stances off the GCD is good for the game. It is one less reason to have to have a warrior in your party, it brings the game one step closer to being balanced, because like it or not, warrior being the sole tank with the ability to not lose significant dps picking up adds, pulling bosses, and other such things is going to lock its position in for the raid scene.

Warrior advantages:
(1) pulling
(2) slashing (no ninja no sam comp is being run by some people drk/pld is looking less likely to be run for those groups)
(3) picking up adds
(4) short cooldowns with longer durations
(5) Flexibility to help itself when things go south

It is really very little to ask that tank stance not be tied to the GCD, and after really considering it I think I was wrong, I don't think paladin or dark knight needs an mp cost to balance the 80% damage down they suffer is probably enough since warrior can still get around that.

[whiskeybravo]

Consider this

I wasn't really referring to how swapping to shield or grit was going to save you while defiance wasn't. I mainly just wanted to point out there's not nearly as much thought involved to spam one-button in a pinch vs swapping stances + activating 2 abilities (gonna need that Unchained too). It's much easier if you are going to plan for it, but not so easy on the fly.

Taking stances off the GCD is good for the game. It is one less reason to have to have a warrior in your party, it brings the game one step closer to being balanced, because like it or not, warrior being the sole tank with the ability to not lose significant dps picking up adds, pulling bosses, and other such things is going to lock its position in for the raid scene.

Not gonna disagree on it being good for the game in general, but most of Warriors damage comes from 10k DPS burst windows. Not tomahawk/Eq pull, not random unchained use throughout a fight. All the time in between is virtually shite, losing a GCD to pick up an add or a transition disconnect outside burst window is hardly noticeable. Compared to PLD where losing a GCD is very costly

It is really very little to ask that tank stance not be tied to the GCD, and after really considering it I think I was wrong, I don't think paladin or dark knight needs an mp cost to balance the 80% damage down they suffer is probably enough since warrior can still get around that.

I agree, the MP cost is not reasonable at this point in the game due to how MP is now being used on PLD and specifically DRK. It's needs to be looked at. I'm still up the air on whether shield/sword really need to be off the GCD. The aggro generation on War and Drk would still be superior to Shield Oath Shield Lob, so Pld still likely wouldn't be pulling bosses - and Halone is still the weakest potency combo finisher. My only real concern is instant, free +20% mitigation to augment normal CD usage. There needs to some cost whether it's much lower MP amount, a GCD, or a 10-second recast like Defiance so players wouldn't be inclined to abuse it.

[shao32]

I just don't believe content was designed around War being 100% Deliverance main tank

i dont belive that either, it will looks like the dev team are WAR famboys and keeping strong bcs is they favourite job, but looking at the love WAR gets this past patchs and how the comunity question about tanks keep pointing WAR is "weak"vs PLD make you think, but i dont belive it or i dont want to belive that.

WAR is a failure, they designe never works at the end, a tank how can swap betwen stances easily to take what it needs (at least looks like that for me) end being a "stay on deliverance you dont need anything more", in paper looks like sheltron and TBN is compared to inner beast but the reality show sheltron/TBN is actually compared to WAR low CD's and inner beast its just there bcs share the same button with fell cleave, upgrading foresight to rampath without rebalancing the rest of the kit was a mistake and thats in part why WAR is so strong, defiance innerbeast/fell cleave relation is something idk why is still a thing, heavensward show this dint work and ppl will always use fell cleave.