Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[shao32]

when you have a job that is omnipotent we have a problem, when you have a job that do everything that the others equally or much better then we have a problem, one thing is fullfill the basic requeriments of you role and other thing is just overexcel over the rest, this is a game where many jobs have to coexist and being more or less equally desirable for party compositions, the apealing of taking one job over others its bcs in part they bring something unique to the party like how DRG offers battle litany and how SAM offer his personal dps powerhouse, thats are niches and makes jobs more unique.

the game its not around WAR and everything should not be like WAR bcs you will have just clones with small diferent weapons, everyone have to do his job as a tank but not everyone need a group shield but in compensation will need to have something equally impactfull to you party, not everyone need the best invincible skill but need something that will make it speciall in compensate,not everyone need to have the best movility but have other tools to compete, or have the most smooth tank stances but have other stuff, thats what we are claiming, and WAR hold all those niches for himself in a selfish way.

self healing, movility, best invu, best overall and versatile mitigation, best type of damage burst, best raid shield, best snap agro, lest say PLD, GUN and DRK have to have all of this like WAR, then WAR niche of doing the best dps have to die for it, the niche of burst damage have to die too, they overall versatility have to be replicated to the toher 3, ect and ect, this will lead to a masive powercreep problem, how many fights has been cheated by WAR for his insane capabilitys? skyping mechanics, creating unintented ways to surpass others, all the logistical effort save by holmgang?

it's not blind WAR hate, it's comon sense from outside of the box point of view and experience from other MMOs that create more problems by just buffing everything just bcs they din't tuned down a single job that invade everything making eveyone demand for more diferences betwen the jobs or claiming the return of the old niches.

[Phoenicia]

Snip

Sorry for double posting..

Onslaught is actually DPS neutral. Not "massive" at all. If it retains up-time, then it is 100% DPS gain.

The math behind it involves Fell Cleave costing a GCD, while Onslaught doesn't. Both abilities have roughly the same potency/gauge conversion (FC slightly edges at 52/10 vs 50/10). Onslaught however has a CD, FC reduce the CD of Infuriate for more gauge.

This reminded me of something I wrote but lost and missed in my rewrite:

WAR's tools are trying to do too much for 1 press, then it ends up losing all those niche uses because we only care about the main purpose.

Inner Release wants to prevent stuns and forced movement, but in the end we only care about the free direct critical hit fell cleaves. Very rarely (never) would we delay it to stop a knockback or a stun.

Holmgang (oh my god lol), it pulls in the enemy, roots the WAR and enemy, prevents forced movement (result of root) and prevent death. We only use it for the death prevention and actually hate its clunk of requiring a target.

Vengeane counters attacks, added a wrath/abandon stack (which is gone thankfully), and reduces damage. 95 times out of 100 we use it for the mitigation with DPS gain as a bonus. The other 5% we take mitigation as a bonus.

Inner Beast trying to deal damage, heal and mitigate is probably the reason why it's locked behind a stance still. But IB is a minor thing.

Why am I bringing this? Well, in my earlier post I spoke of perception... It also brings up the matter of balance.

Inner Beast is "too good" (arguably the best non-invuln defensive option) for it to be removed from gauge or unlocked from Defiance.

People look at Vengeance and say "It increases DPS" even though we almost never use it for DPS.

It was mentioned more than once earlier, where WAR having knockback immunities, but 2 of those options are NEVER used for said immunities. And you end up left with Onslaught, which is touchy on its own. If forced in a timing close to IR your IR burst window is minus 200 potency. It can also throw off your gauge and if you fell cleaved out-of-habit and dropped below 20 gauge just before needing it (which you should never do but yeah), you end up being unable to use at all.

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.

Yes, I DID say it is under 100% uptime where no fight is as such. It, however, is a very good indicative that WAR is not ahead in terms of DPS. Also the top results had mention of padding (Aka catering for) the mentioned tanks. I did not bother looking for non-padded results as I also already said in my post, but check the 25th highest tank overall in Omega as of today (Violent Destruction), he has VERY high numbers that are better than most (if not all) non-padded WARs on the same list.

[Phoenicia]

Snip

WAR wasn't "omnipotent". It just has not been the worst in any scenario since 2.1. In HW where PLD mitigated more physical damage, DRK mitigated more magical damage, WAR just didn't care. Its physical mitigation was better than DRK's (on-par with PLD tbf) and its magical mitigation was definitely better than PLD (who was severly lacking).

DRK competed with WAR at DPS during Creator, but WAR was never the PLD in DPS.

WAR's self healing (or sustain as some would call it) exists for a VERY good reason... The "gap" in their tank stance not buffing oGCD heals and only buffing spells by 20% instead of 25% as it should. WAR is not really ahead, it is barely keeping up.

Mobility is common grounds. PLD can stop knockbacks, WAR has Onslaught and DRK has Plunge. WAR only feels more mobile because they do not want to use Onslaught on CD, making it more available at will.

All I am saying is: Tanks are probably the most balanced role currently and no matter what imbalance they currently have, it is very minor.

[shao32]

snip.

its a form to speak that WAR excel on everything, i remember you WAR was and its still called in less degree the one man army.

his mitigation is still extremly versatile, they can just skip half of the TB independent of his gear and skill thanks to holmgang with is insane and his mitigation just get buffed with rampart this expansion bcs reasons on top of that, its just even more superior since benediction have the same recast and others oGCD are extremly powerfull, ast even heals more with less HP.

his selfhealing was broken on heavensward, bloodpath with berserk windows just make WAR unkillable during those windows, his tank stance don't buff oGCD but buff the regens and the shields he get by a lot, his short recast on equilibrium give him a incredible powerfull selfeals for every TB and since they loose the stacks mechanics and get the gauge the inner beast spam make WAR selfhealing extremly powerfull more that any PLD or DRK can archive ever, his self sustain on moments of need is extremly broken.

movility for all is a thing but WAR have both anti-knockback and a gapcloser with have more range that plunge bcs why not, if the anti-knock don't sinc he can use always onslaught all the time vs PLD and DRK that have to eat half of the knockbacks since the recast don't allow then and have to spam plunge for dps making WAR again dominant in another field.

[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.

[TouchandFeel]

Hello tank forums, my old friend
I've come to glance over you again
With my vision softly creeping
Over things posted while I was sleeping
And the arguments that hurt my brain
Still remain
Within the realm of parlance

[Colony]

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