Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[Phoenicia]

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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]

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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.

[shao32]

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im glad you recognize WAR have stuff that needs to be nerfed like holmgang and shake it off, but i complety disagree, is not a problem that WAR being to strong and the others to weak, not at all, is a problem that WAR has been overbuffed every patch since release bcs WAR mains can't be happy without being the most stronger tank.

on 4.0 WAR was perfectly balanced with the other 2 excep by his dps being a bit low, they have tank swap limitations like the other 2 not being a big dealt since they are still lower compare to DRK and PLD limitations, they only utility was the slashing, holmgang and his entirely defensive kit is the same as right now and they dps rotation was more complex, what happen? they given a the strongest aoe shield mid expansion givin him a powerful utility midexpansion from nowhere something that they din't need broken complety the tank balance, they tank stances limitations removed they have to be especial of course, but PLD and DRK asking for have the same complety ignored or argued we will being to powerful when are actually WAR he most powerfull tank in tank stance, unchained back to being usable so we back again to WAR main pulling when the pull betwen all tanks was similar are more equal and in the end the faceroll rework on his berserk window when DRK suffers severe problems of mitigation and other stuff without being adresed.

right now despite od this "good balance" as phoenicia claims we have DRK is still the most unplayed tank in the game for a far margin and the comon view of the job is despite being able to pull similar numbers they compositions don't offer the same as a WAR-PLD composition, all of this bcs if is not PLD is WAR doing everything better that DRK all of this bcs they overbuffed and rework WAR midexpansion when was DRK the one that need that, DRK have a spot before that, we only really need some potency tweaks to be on par to PLD and the balance would be much much better

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it's obviously you have diferent point of view of what balance should be done, im not a person that see buff everything to 1 job standars a good thing at all since i saw that creating powercreep problems all the time, the WAR buffs this expansion where unjustified and the clear favoritism around the job insulting.

and as you can see if i think WAR capabilitys are unfairly superior to the other 2 i can't be happy with the "very good balance" we have after WAR cheesing some fights before 4.2 during 2 entire raid tiers.

you understand what you want again, i don't want to WAR being nerfed to the ground at all, i consider WAR 4.0 a perfect status and much more balanced that now and i was not broken or uncapable to do anything, have limitations but his defensive kit was inctact, his dps rotation was solid, his utility was on par and his stances was again ok compared to the other 2, if wanting a proper balance betwen dps, defense, utility and capabilitys betwen all tanks is called WAR hate bcs is as usual the edge then so be it call what you want i don't care anymore, but keep in mind it's insulting bcs we asking for balance and all of then being equal and thats pretty far of what means being a hater.

[Grimoire-M]

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It's less that WAR mains complain for buffs and more that they want their main niche preserved, that of being the best tank for DPS, which was not the case in 4.0. PLD was ahead of them in that respect on top of having more utility. Their 'complex rotation' was really just the stance swap penalty (which shouldn't have been a thing to begin with, as it took away from both mitigation resources and damage) and the IR window halving beast gauge costs instead of nullifying them. Yet it also had a longer duration, and higher potential thanks to syncing with every other Berserk, which still had a raw damage bonus (This was fine as it actually made managing gauge interesting and balanced out the higher potential from Berserk at the time). The main reason that's the case is because the role action changes took more from DRK and PLD than WAR. The secondary reason? People don't rely on tank stance to mitigate damage anymore. WAR's Tank stance is supposed to be the worst one to begin with and that isn't even an issue for them right now given both of the other tanks can use abilities on the WAR to avoid needing to use Inner Beast.

The unfortunate consequence of wanting to maintain that niche as the best raw DPS tank is they wound up being the best overall tank due to poor raid design and lack of forethought on SE's part regarding buffs. The problem with what SE did is they went too far in 4.1 and gave WAR everything they lacked, without toning back what they already had over the other two tanks. Shake It Off was a dumb rework. The IR/Berserk changes are a toss up but I see the merit in the direct crit change. The 'free Fell Cleave Spam'? Not so much. I dislike the Role Actions more than anything though. WAR got way more out of it despite losing Bloodbath. That's the part that needs adjustment.

DRK's problems stem from their complexity (mostly boils down to fight to fight variance) and their reliance on sustained dps compared to the other two tanks. Dark Mind makes them the best or worst tank when it comes to mitigation too. They don't have a real burst window as much as a collection of oGCDs that barely constitute something similar. If more weight was put into their oGCDs that problem can be shored up, but really I think they need a spike damage window, probably once every two minutes, alongside that in Shadowbringers. Otherwise they're just going to fall behind even more. They're the best tank when it comes to AoE right now too and that didn't really get a chance to shine due to the focus on one-boss fights. Though given people are calling for a flash upgrade too I wouldn't be surprised to see that niche taken away. Hopefully SE lets you use more blood abilities at the very least.

I'd consider Stormblood a complete failure in regards to tank balance and mechanical theming. They all require more work next expansion and with Gunbreaker coming in as well that leaves less time to devote to the other three. I hope that means SE is focusing more on them just in case, but we'll see. I hope SE at least makes tank stance matter for whoever's tanking the boss. That would fix most of WAR's issues given how healer balance is currently.

[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