Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[Lyth]

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Stop trying to spin it as WAR hate. We just want to see a change.

I'm extremely glad that you agree that some of these things should be universal. If so, you should agree that we need systemic nerfs to WAR for the greater good of this game, because mitigation, snap enmity generation, and dps are all areas in which WAR has historically dominated.

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I think there's some value in being concise.

WAR is not a magical tank. I'm not sure how you magically drain life from your enemies and generate party-wide barriers. I know there's a historical precedent with 1.x's Bloodbath, but you know what? 1.x wasn't all that good. Maybe let's not make gameplay decisions on the patch series that nearly destroyed this game.

TBN isn't self-sustain because it doesn't allow you to keep your HP up in the absence of a healer. Even a level 1 opponent can theoretically whittle you down with TBN use alone.

Onslaught is not a significant dps loss. I've posted the math for this in the forums multiple times. It's even less so post 4.2. And you know what? DRK used to be the most mobile tank in Heavensward. That's just how WAR encroaches on other jobs' identity.

Burst jobs don't need buff stacking in order to function. They simply benefit more from it than other jobs. You could nerf WAR's burst, as you said, but again, it's still a balance problem that needs to be addressed.

You can certainly have multiple ways of achieving the same goal. But some approaches are flat out better than others. Homogenization is the easiest way to do this. But the single worst thing that you can do is to make core skills extremely similar, but with a clear edge given to one job. That's what we have right now with actions like Holmgang.

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One quick note here, since this has already come up on the dps forums: the calculations that you've posted are theoretical. No fight in the game has 100% uptime. It's in non-perfect uptime fights that you see the differences between burst and non-burst jobs (i.e. actual content).

Also, looking at the very top results always yield massively skewed results. It's just a question of who has bothered to design the most catered run.

[Kalise]

-snip-

WAR is not a magical tank... Says who? What defines the "Inner Beast" that is the source of your power? Could it be something that manipulates Aether? (You know, like the basis of monsters being able to use abilities by manipulating Aether, hence the logic behind Blue Magic)

By your definition, WAR can't be a tank at all because how would they generate defensive CD's at all? How would they survive a dragon spewing fire in their face? All they have is an axe right? They're not magical in any way?

How is SAM able to use Bloodbath and Second Wind? Aren't they not magical too?

If your argument against WAR having self healing is simply that they're "Not magical" that's an asinine point of view given how literally everything except magitek devices utilize Aether (AKA "Magic") in some way.

Again with TBN: Self-SUSTAIN =/= Self-HEALING

TBN sustains the user by preventing health damage. Your "Theoretical" example of a level 1 whittling someone down only holds water if shields aren't high enough/with enough uptime to out perform incoming damage. Exactly like healing. If incoming damage > healing output then you will eventually die.

The only non-infinite sustain is mitigation, because that predicates that you always take damage from every hit and thus will get whittled down unless you have 100% mitigation.

But still, Shields, Healing and Mitigation are all types of sustain. They all function to keep your health high. Or are you going to argue that SCH isn't a healer because they rely mostly on Shields which isn't sustain?

If you want to talk about health return, the correct term is Self-Healing. A sub-category of self-sustain.

Burst jobs would need buff stacking in order to function, if they were nerfed so that they were weaker in overall DPS like you suggested they should be. Since, if they're weaker in total DPS then that means that in order to get UP to par with the highest total DPS jobs that they need to gain some type of advantage to exploit with their burst, i.e. buff stacking.

Again, Homogenisation is literally the reason we're in this mess with skills being outright superior/inferior to others. Homogenisation is why Shadow Wall is terrible, because it was added to homogenise tanks into all having a ~30% DR skill.

Living Dead sucks compared to Holmgang because it was trying to mimic Holm without just being a direct copy (Both prevent you going below 1 HP. Both require you then to be healed after you take the damage. Just LD, being made after Holm, has the healing absorb effect on it to differentiate it)

Hallowed Ground is different, because it prevents damage AND it has no drawbacks associated with it (No self root, doesn't need a target, doesn't require healing afterwards) it understandably gained a higher CD. But if it was homogenised so that both Hallowed Ground and Holmgang where on the same CD, then Hallowed would be the outright superior skill.

[Phoenicia]

Snip

I don't think you read what I posted tbh.

Holmgang DOES give an edge. But doesn't make WAR OP. WAR loses Inner Beast because of stance lock. PLD and DRK access Sheltron and TBN regardless of stance. For example, PLD can mitigate EVERYTHING in O12S with only sheltron so you just add in CDs on top for safety/ease.

Defiance does NOT buff those "OP" oGCDs. It buffs shields and regens, but only by 20%. Grit and Shield Oath buff them effectively by 25% (including oGCDs) as long as those stances stay up. Hence WAR self-healing is "needed" to make up for this gap.

Onslaught is really a worse Plunge with a shorter CD. It has the same potency, same animation lock (after Plunge buffs). Only problem is it costs gauge. Because you don't want to spend Gauge on it all the time, it stays "available" and hence gives this placebo sense of having more mobility. What I am saying is, DRK has the same mobility if it didn't need to press Plunge.

Snip.

Not arguing with you here. I agree with what you say overall. Just wanted to clear some terminology.

Self healing IS mitigation. Damage reduction IS mitigation. Shielding IS mitigation.

Shielding pre-preemptively against damage is sustain just like healing after damage. So I agree with you here. Damage reduction is what you meant by

The only non-infinite sustain is mitigation, because that predicates that you always take damage from every hit and thus will get whittled down unless you have 100% mitigation.

as all self-healing and shielding is part of "mitigating damage". They just work different from direct % damage reduction.

Cheers

[shao32]

snip

Holmgang gives WAR a huge edge, not only for himself but in raid strats, I remember you thanks to holmgang WAR takes alone 2 of the 3 TB on exdeath and save a lot of effort on godka with is a incredible value point to WAR.

You are missing inner beast, on defiance in order to don't overcap his gaue WAR will be using inner beast with include mitigation, so basically WAR have a grit/shield effect almost constantly on top of big selfheals from innerbeast too, for don't speak the inner release window increasing a lot more his self-heals, and all of this with minimum dps lose, so no WAR don't need the massive amount of selfheals to cover anything on defiance.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

Eh, something is definitely not getting across, so I will leave it at that.

On a side note:

Funny how whenever tank balance is brought up and people mention one bad design on WAR not being wanted on the new class or their current favorite they go ape-poop crazy about how "OP" WAR is when it isn't even OP.

And if you want to say something like "WAR was OP in all of HW", I will say PLD has been the OP tank in all of FFXI and overshadowed WAR and DRK for 15 years (10 more years than FFXIV's existence). PLD doesn't deserve to exist in FFXIV because it was OP in XI!!!!!!!!!111oneoneeleven.

See how much sense that made? Thought so.

This is why all the "WAR is OP" cry-outs come out as "WAR hate". I say this and I don't even play WAR (I'm PLD/DRK in my group and hate when I'm forced to WAR because no slashing in party and someone has to bring it).

What matters is WAR is NOT OP now. If anything, SB is all about PALADIN. PLD ruled on the throne of tanks in Stormblood. Its only issue is the snap aggro which is irrelevant since it just makes the other tanks pull for it.

PLD has access to all its tools regardless of stance. Provides excellent personal and raid mitigation.

In 4.0 it did the most DPS and wasn't really hurt by the stance switch cutting half your gauge penalty, and by 4.2 it beat DRK until 4.4 and now does more theoretical DPS than WAR.

PLD even has the UNIQUE ability to share CDs. Ever thought of having PLD use Sentinel and Intervention its partner to Mitigate Ultimate Embrace against God Kefka? Or Akh Morn in Shinryu Ex? (Yes the latter is irrelevant now that all 3 tanks can solo all akh morns now with out current gear).

People cried about cover being useless in HW, now it's too useful and people willfully ignore it and just call WAR OP because Holmgang. Tell you what, in my static, I cover the WAR on first tank buster, provoke and HG the second because no other use of HG. I cover EVERY HP down debuff. In O12S on shared Target Analysis, I cover the WAR everytime he's targeted and Holmgang is down, it frees up 1 cool down from each one of us. Surprise surprise, Cover sounds almost as OP as Holmgang now.

In Design PLD is far superior to WAR with very little clunk. I've seen arguments about Requiescat MP requirement being clunk, but it's an annoyance if anything, you do want a full MP bar when you use it so you can still use 5 holy spirits. My only issue with PLD is Oath Gauge in Shield Oath not generating fast enough and stances being on GCD. But Shield Oath itself needs to go any way.

[shao32]

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I think you get lost in some point, first of all we are claiming WAR is strong, all what they have is equally or better that the other 2 and have no weakness whatsoever, it's not OP in terms of numbers nobody say that, but how strong and mandatory WAR is and we don't want to see another 2 years of WAR ruling the tank role when another tanks are complete ignored like how ignored was PLD in HW and DRK in SB.

Ffxi have nothing to do here, WAR has been the most powerfull tank of the game 6 years in a row, we can't complain about that? We have to look down and accept WAR having preference over the rest at the same time if we complaing we called WAR haters? Nobody here want WAR burn down, we want to SE take some of the stuff WAR rules to leave place to the other tanks and all of then have something to shine, balance is not all about numbers but how they tools interact with the raid too.

[Kalise]

WAR has been the most powerfull tank of the game 6 years in a row, we can't complain about that? We have to look down and accept WAR having preference over the rest at the same time if we complaing we called WAR haters? Nobody here want WAR burn down, we want to SE take some of the stuff WAR rules to leave place to the other tanks and all of then have something to shine, balance is not all about numbers but how they tools interact with the raid too.

Sure, you can complain about WAR being the preferred tank for so long.

But you have to realize that not every aspect of that preference is down to WAR being too strong at certain tasks and some of the blame lies in other tanks being too weak at certain tasks.

Like in terms of snap threat, PLD is the only tank that realistically has an issue here. Both WAR and DRK can snap threat just fine (DRK having an advantage because of having oGCD Enmity skills to utilize while WAR has none)

In terms of mobility, PLD is the only tank that lacks a mobility tool. Both WAR and DRK have skills. Only DRK's is powerful enough and doesn't use any relevant resources so it ends up being part of its DPS rotation making it less usable for mobility.

In terms of DPS, Tanks are pretty even. Though, both DRK and PLD have the capacity to outperform WAR.

In terms of CD's, WAR has a higher number of CD's yes, but both DRK and PLD have actual mitigation on tank stances which is effectively like having a 0 CD Rampart (Though, at the cost of requiring a GCD to activate and for PLD another GCD to spend going back into DPS stance).

WAR has Holmgang which is currently superior to Living Dead/Hallowed Ground, yes. Maybe this is actually an area that WAR should be nerfed in, so as to have a longer CD from 3 minutes to 4-5 minutes (Bearing in mind, it should have some advantage over LD/HG because WAR cannot just hop into Tank stance for free Rampart in addition to popping another strong CD and/or a health buffer in the form of TBN to easily mitigate another TB while Holm is on CD. A weakness of WAR is that they rely so heavily on Holm to deal with Tankbusters as they don't get free DR from tank stance, they don't have easy health buffer from TBN, they can't Shirk the OT and Rampart/Sentinel + Intervention them, they don't have 40% DR CD etc)

So, yes, WAR has been dominant for a while. In some cases, pretty significantly so.

Yes, you can complain about that and ask for other tanks to share the limelight (Though, part of it will always be player perception, unless WAR gets gutted and is unable to Tank, there will be a lot of people who will still favour WAR)

But do note, that WAR's "Dominance" isn't entirely due to their kit being too strong, or having too many areas that it's good at. But also in part because other Tanks have kits that are unreasonably weak (There's no reason why PLD shouldn't be able to push out snap enmity for example), or have flaws in their kits design (DRK's mobility skill being part of its DPS rotation for example).

Yes, some parts of WAR are strong, namely Holmgang's CD. Some parts seem excessive, such as Shake It Off as an AoE shield (Though, this is literally their only OT utility and even then, it's largely unnecessary... Meanwhile both PLD and DRK have things that can allow the MT to more easily soak TB's without Holmgang... In addition to always being able to Provoke and use their OWN tools to soak them...). But WAR isn't so ridiculously broken or universally strong as many people try and claim when they ask for bunches of nerfs to basically everything about it.

Like, so many people come and say "Pick ONE thing for WAR to shine at" as if PLD/DRK don't both have multiple areas where they're strong, even with their arbitrary limitations in certain aspects (I.e. PLD's snap threat and DRK's mobility being part of its DPS rotation).

For example, PLD has unparalleled team utility, to the point where it can itself nullify TB's on the MT on a lower CD than Holm, no other tank comes CLOSE to matching Cover/Intervention/Passage of Arms/Divine Veil (Though, it's a little bit weak). In addition to having reasonable DPS (Tied to 2 different burst phases for better sustained DPS). In addition to also having great self mitigation with Hallowed Ground and Sentinel, alongside essentially "Free" Rampart from Shield Oath. Oh, and if you want to complain about self healing... PLD can Requiescat > Clemency spam (Which costs less than IR > Inner Beast spam because Req is a shorter CD as well as then still having FoF as a damage burst)

DRK has crazy self sustain thanks to TBN being usable in DPS stance (The "Meta" stance to be in most of the time) for constant shields. They also have good DPS that can be adapted for both burst and sustained output. They have arguably the best snap threat in the game. They also have crazy good AoE damage (Not currently relevant in raids due to encounter designs).

This is things they "Shine" at, not accounting for extra things they perform well.

So again, I'm not saying that WAR's don't have anything that could do with nerfs. Just it's not like they need everything bar 1 aspect of them to be completely dismantled like many anti-WAR players seem to believe.

The final note being that, WAR's aren't so universally strong that there's no room for Gunbreaker. There's plenty of room for Gunbreaker just like there's plenty of room for PLD/DRK. People just need to pull their heads out of their rears and actually look past "Holmgang is OP!" or "Look at all their healing on [Skill that is completely irrelevant because it's tied to Tank Stance which no-one in the current meta wants to use]" and actually look at what non-WAR's bring.

[Phoenicia]

I think you get lost in some point, first of all we are claiming WAR is strong, all what they have is equally or better that the other 2 and have no weakness whatsoever, it's not OP in terms of numbers nobody say that, but how strong and mandatory WAR is and we don't want to see another 2 years of WAR ruling the tank role when another tanks are complete ignored like how ignored was PLD in HW and DRK in SB.

Ffxi have nothing to do here, WAR has been the most powerfull tank of the game 6 years in a row, we can't complain about that? We have to look down and accept WAR having preference over the rest at the same time if we complaing we called WAR haters? Nobody here want WAR burn down, we want to SE take some of the stuff WAR rules to leave place to the other tanks and all of then have something to shine, balance is not all about numbers but how they tools interact with the raid too.

No, I am not lost. And yes, it does. I mean in the very same paragraph you said "WAR has been the most powerfull tank of the game 6 years in a row". So you want to punish it by nerfing its guts to the ground, instead of be happy that they are balanced which proves my point. It sounds exactly the same as "PLD has been the ONLY good tank in FFXI for 15 years in a row" so I want them to not even exist in FFXIV as punishment for it being good for so long instead of my <insert favorite job here>. It is the same because it is completely and utterly illogical.

In Stormblood and since patch 4.2, tanks have been in a VERY good balanced state. It could have been better (Give the PLD snap threat would be a good one). And going to the tank forums and plague it with "WAR is OP plz nurf" posts is not helping ANYTHING. I mean this is a GUNBREAKER threat for crying out loud. We should be discussing Gunbreaker game-play and what might make it fun.

In respect of that, I mentioned something NOT fun in WAR design and hope it doesn't "plague" GNB, and somehow all hell broke loose with how OP WAR is?

So yes, anti-WAR posts here come off as WAR hate.

EDIT:

We're all forgetting the most important question. What kind of mount will they get? I hope its a big gun.

No, they will ride a literal tank. Or maybe some HMMWV. lol

[Shurrikhan]

Snip

Thank you greatly for this, even if there remains obvious issue of sample size (as you've mentioned) in any conclusion of theoretical maximal in-context performance (rather than perception of ease there-toward). Mind if I link it where similarly relevant?

WAR is not a magical tank. I'm not sure how you magically drain life from your enemies and generate party-wide barriers. I know there's a historical precedent with 1.x's Bloodbath, but you know what? 1.x wasn't all that good. Maybe let's not make gameplay decisions on the patch series that nearly destroyed this game.

Life-steal-raid-barriers were neither mentioned nor requested, nor was any of that in 1.x, nor does that refer remotely to what Bloodbath did in 1.x.

1.x Warrior had no party-wide barriers. Technically, 1.x Bloodbath functioned like Life Surge does now, as a single-hit damage-to-heal (while 1.x Life Surge functioned like BoL's Judgment effect from WoW, allowing Lancer to act as a continuous light raid healer, fitting its strike leader hybrid role). Rampage was Warrior's source of healing, and it healed for having dealt a critical hit, thus really only doing much on AoEs (Whirlwind) and multi-hit skills (Godsbane) pre-consolidation.

But you don't have to go that far back. The most prevalent examples of the self-sustaining Warrior come from 2.0 and 3.x where WAR could no-heal overgeared content on the strength of most noteably Inner Beast and then Bloodbath-Decimate spam and Equilibrium, respectively. Heck, I no-healed Amdapor Keep frequently before I'd even finished my farmable Fending set and tanked the first four turns of Coil without being a burden before the buffs/reworks came through. Healing myself for almost twice my health bar per minute was not terribly ineffective, nor was the AoE damage Warrior could put out in T4. Warrior's HP was just very, very bouncy, which could be discouraging to healers... especially given that WAR didn't quite have the added eHP Paladins had even when at full Wrath.

Self-sustain has been thematic for Warrior, if not a core identity.

I'm extremely glad that you agree that some of these things should be universal. If so, you should agree that we need systemic nerfs to WAR for the greater good of this game, because mitigation, snap enmity generation, and dps are all areas in which WAR has historically dominated.

That's a... bit of a twist there. I'll agree though that the ease and accessibility of those tools' use favors Warrior at present. And it's obviously received virtually every benefit of homogenization thus far even when not as negatively affected itself (at least, in terms of comparative parity). But consider a hypothetical:

Let's assume we can somehow smooth out the effective variance lent by burst windows syncing to a given fight and compositions optimal for said fight. If, given this, all else is technically balanced insofar as compositions and play permitable in optimal circumstance, does one then break the balance against the job previously with greatest ease-for-performance (greatest ease for identical top practical performance, or greatest performance with comparative ease or better) in the majority of fights just to nudge community inertia the opposite way until there are enough users and data to give the fair slate longer standing? Or, should we maintain the actual balance and hope the community catches on?

[Phoenicia]

Thank you greatly for this, even if there remains obvious issue of sample size (as you've mentioned) in any conclusion of theoretical maximal in-context performance (rather than perception of ease there-toward). Mind if I link it where similarly relevant?

Well, FFLogs is one of the best sources of samples. It is up to the community to provide the samples themselves. Another problem is it does not segregate play styles. Tanks that will stay in their tank stance the whole encounter will still drag the lower ends of parses.

Regardless, my attempt wasn't to provide exact data. It was to provide evidence that, regardless whither those tanks surpassed WAR or not, all three tanks are too close for it to actually matter. And that community will remain plagued by Favoritism blindly following the words of a small echelon of good players' opinions.

As for referring to my post where relevant, sure, go ahead. The point of it being there is to provide useful info. Sadly it might only remain relevant for a couple more months lol. At least I hope it opens up a few people's minds going into Shadowbringers and just play what they enjoy and focus on getting better at it instead of twisting their panties about jobs they don't play because they seem more favored. I mean if people want to complain about something, they just have to look at all casters being completely excluded as a role, not a job.