Gunbreaker gameplay hope and expectations

[TouchandFeel]

All this talk of lifesteal and job identity got me thinking about some stuff.

What if WAR had it's whole "life-steal" aspect removed and it was instead replaced with "life-boost", essentially swapping one thematic way of achieving self-sustain with another and shifting from the more vampiric style of regaining life from damage dealt to something more akin to self-buffing, sort of like the WAR is amping themselves up to keep going.
- Equilibrium loses the differing effects based on stance and becomes just a straight heal, restoring a % of the WAR's HP total.
- Storm's Path loses it's self-heal aspect and instead shaves off a bit of Equilibrium's recast time, similar to the way IB, FC, etc. work with Infuriate.
- IB and Steel Cyclone no longer restore HP based on damage dealt, but a % of the WAR's total HP with Cyclone restoring a % per target hit up to a max %.
- All % total HP restored abilities/effects would be affected by effects that increase the WAR's total HP amount such as Defiance and ToB.
This would change the way WARs self-sustain feels quite a bit, providing more interplay between it and other WAR abilities and traits, and would reinforce the bursty feel of WAR. In addition to that it could also potentially reign in the ridiculousness of the self-healing from IR Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone spam by having them at set amounts that aren't affected by the DH+Crit aspect of IR.

Then with those changes to WAR, DRK could get more of an emphasis on "lifesteal" by keeping the heal on Soul Eater but removing the Grit requirement, maybe putting a heal on Bloodspiller when used with DA and then potentially giving them an ability that acts as both a DoT and a self-cast regen, maybe even bringing Scourge back for this.

Anyways just some rambling random thoughts that came to me.

Oh and unrelated but it would be nice if all the tank jobs had some sort of passive buff system tied to their gauge similar to the way WAR's can boost their parry or crit, like maybe block and sks for PLD.

[DBelmont]

Many of the tanks may change if they actually make tank stances viable somehow.

Keep in mind that DRK currently has "no dps stance" other than "no tank stance".

Maybe DRK gets more lifesteal in Grit and another DPS stance that features HP sacrifice.

WAR may not be the lifesteal tank in that case.

These radical changes may indeed result in MT/OT differentiation like Yoshi implied in a recent interview.

Gunbreaker is what will make balancing go beyond the "triangle" we've had for the last 4 years and I curious to see how things will settle.

[Kalise]

People keep parroting "but my math tells me that the tanks ought to be perfectly balanced!" or "the differences aren't all that significant [to me]" when DRK has less than half the representation of the other two tanks in Savage and Ultimate. The community thinks there is a difference, which is why most people go WAR/PLD.

The community also thinks that Mages are useless and complete memes.

At the same time, all of the top parses on FFLogs feature at least 1 mage if not both SMN and BLM.

Chronological order, as far as historical design decisions in this game go, doesn't matter one whit. 1.x was a Calamity, a tragedy. "If history must be rewritten, then let it be unwritten..."

Clearly you don't value chronological order.

Given how opposed you are to WAR as a lifesteal tank, despite its entire design having been focused around that since its inception. Literally, it was so heavily designed around it that it was the reason why WAR sucked in 2.0 and needed buffs in 2.1. Since all of its defence was pushed into lifestealing which meant nothing because you couldn't lifesteal through a TB unless you survived it in the first place.

Again, you're seeming to take tank fundamentals and try and push them as categories where a single tanks entire identity is based on being objectively superior in one of them for... Reasons?

Just because WAR might be a "Lifesteal" tank, so much of its mitigation is through self healing (Yes, self healing is mitigation. You mitigate damage via healing it up after the fact.) doesn't preclude it from also being burst DPS tank. That's not "Dominating" too many roles or "Splitting its focus". Since Mitigation and DPS are 2 completely different fundamentals for tanking.

Again, for the nth time: There are a subset of categories that make up the basis of all tanks. Mitigation, Enmity Generation, DPS, Utility (Mobility, CC, Mechanic counter actions) and Party Utility.

These are things ALL Tanks should have. They should all be balanced within each category. For example, you should balance WAR's mitigation vs PLD's mitigation vs DRK's mitigation vs GUN's mitigation. You should NOT balance cross category, such as balancing PLD's mitigation vs WAR's DPS. As this just breaks balance and creates scenarios where classes become dominant because the category that they're "Balanced" to be superior in happens to be one that is seen as more relevant to the community (I.e. DPS > Mitigation)

Additionally, each Tank should have their own unique take on each category. Much like how you keep going on about Block on PLD being core to its identity. Or how you keep going on about "Lifesteal" tank. If they decide to make a Tank's mitigation focus around Lifesteal, (Be it WAR or DRK or even GUN because apparently new job = all previous designs for a class go out of the window. Screw it, make GUN also have Block too I mean "If you're introducing new jobs, you have to go back and re-evaluate the balance." right?) then it should be uniquely focused around Lifesteal and there shouldn't be another job that also focuses around Lifesteal.

But it should be kept in mind that each tank should have a unique take on EVERY category. Not just 1. ALL of them. Every tank should have a unique take on how it mitigates in addition to a unique take on how it deals damage and a unique take on how it provides party utility.

The only exceptions are things that are very one dimensional because of the way they work. Such as Enmity Generation. Where in order to actually perform as a Tank, you need to have both snap and sustained generation, which vastly limits the design space for these things. Though, there still exists potential to diversify exactly how Tanks achieve this (For example, WAR does snap enmity via Unchained and Enmity combos. While DRK does it by using DA boosted oGCD skills. PLD would do it via Circle of Scorn if it didn't have a sucky enmity modifier... Or by Shield Swipe if it wasn't predicated on RNG block due to not always having gauge when pulling to get a Sheltron)

Just because you don't give any value to the raid utility, or the capability to get back to the fight and don't loose uptime with translate to a DPS gain, or just save a lot of team effort with you job capabilitys like holmgang or you overall defense with leads to more raid DPS and overall smothers and safest runs doesn't mean they don't have any value.

Raid utility is valued. When it's relevant.

It's why PLD is so highly valued. Not because of Divine Fail AoE shield... But because they bring Cover, Intervention and Passage of Arms which allows them to help the MT cheese through TB's without use of Holmgang when its on CD. With PoA being actually very strong party damage reduction compared to the pretty pathetic amounts of shielding that Divine Fail and SiO provide.

PLD brings relevant raid utility because it's strong enough to actually be played around. You can play around Cover and Intervention stacking by not Tank swapping as often. You can play around PoA by utilizing it to mitigate considerable damage from AoE skills and thus reduce healing required by a notable amount.

Mobility is valuable to keep uptime on targets. However, there are aspects about mobility that mitigate the impact of differences between them. A big point about this is that PLD is about as used as WAR in high level content. However, PLD has no mobility at all, which means its at a disadvantage compared to DRK for uptime. Yet it seems that this apparently major detriment of having literally no mobility (Compared to mobility that is sometimes unavailable because its being spammed for DPS (To say nothing about the DPS difference that could be provided by holding onto Plunge in order to use it for mobility to get more uptime compared to the DPS of just spamming it on CD)) doesn't seem to sway people at all.

[Shurrikhan]

1.x was a Calamity, a tragedy. "If history must be rewritten, then let it be unwritten..."

Sticking this at the end of a reply to something whose only relation to 1.x was to correct your faulty assumption that 1.x was somehow relevant to this discussion casts shade only by fallacy.

You want lifesteal? Double down on it. That's all I ask. The reason why I mention DRK's history at all is because I think it's a better thematic fit.

Alright, that at least makes sense. I happen to wholly disagree, but that makes sense.

Replace the world "Lifesteal" with anything else that involves hitting and happening to heal in the process. Does Dark Knight, the shadow-twisting, half-elusive-half-hardened-to-unbreakability swordsman really seem significantly more the hit-and-be-hit-but-I'll-come-out-on-top sort than a Warrior?

And why does Lifesteal have to be the make-or-break concept for any tank? It's not even a good concept unless it can fit in a particularly synergetic manner with the surrounding systems of the tank in question. And in that, the prospects involved within balancing Defiance and Deliverance seem to me to offer far more to cohesively capitalize upon lifesteal than additional effects to a one single-target and one AoE skill each (which, again, Warrior had already had).

[Lyth]

There is actually a relatively short list of things which are actually mandatory for tanks. You should be able to meet the mitigation requirements of any fight. You should be able to provide equivalent dps, accounting for differences between burst damage and sustained damage, as well as raid buffs (the last of which I'm against tanks having). You should have a toolkit which allows you to obtain snap enmity.

Outside of this, it comes down to the total picture. How does it trade off? For example, WAR has much cheaper enmity generation than any other tank. That might be fine, if another tank can make up dps in another area. Perhaps they use a mobility advantage to squeeze in an extra GCD to make up for it.

If you look back to ARR, we didn't need all that much to actually tank. The problem with terms like "Utility" is that it becomes a wastebasket term for any ability that we want copied over from another job. Plunge is utility. WAR needs a Plunge clone. Divine Veil is utility. WAR needs a Veil clone. Cover is utility. WAR needs a Cover clone. There's no point in hoarding all this stuff.

If you give tanks all their own unique chances to shine, the balance will fall out of it. Your approach only works if you are truly, and completely committed to homogenising all the jobs. To the point where none of them have any identity left. But even that's better than the partial homogenisation that we presently see that only benefits WAR.

...

Yes.

So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...

One of the very first in-game lore descriptions of DRK is that of a knight who fights beyond pain, beyond mortal wounds, in order to administer justice. WAR is just Defiance. DRK is Grit.

[Phoenicia]

After trying hard to explain things neatly and nicely, and seeing how this thread is becoming a 20 minute song on repeat, I came to the conclusion that the anti-WAR movement in this thread will continue the following:

- Selectively ignoring mathed out potential with empirical evidence from actual gameplay, FFLogs and analysis done by some of the best players in comparison against other jobs in all roles and the content currently present in game... because reasons.

- Disregard any reference to historical data from 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x, because 1.x was a "calamity" and "tragedy".

- With their Anti-WAR bias so prevalent that, even when providing evidence that other jobs ARE actually doing (a lot) of things better than WAR, still demand said things removed from WAR, again, because reasons.

- When we prove Holmgang has its advantages and disadvantages to be balanced against other moves, people argue "burst DPS". When we prove burst DPS isn't that big of a deal on its own because average DPS is low, people argue Shake it Off. Show that that's not that big of a deal? Np, Onslaught. And when we are done with Onslaught we're arguing Life Steal. People just pick this random 1 thing and decide to make it the biggest nasty deal ever until we're back to Holmgang and it's a full circle.

- Will come up with identities or parameters that don't exist, or never existed, in order to paint the picture that WAR is stepping on their toes.

- Holy crap if we concede one point where WAR has any advantage (even if said advantage is countered), it will be forever henceforth the anchor we'll keep getting yanked back to every-time, twelve-forbid, we move on to another topic.

- People will resort to sarcasm and other silly retorts when they finally lose an argument only to yank us back to the anchor or move on to the next invented "issue" in their next post.

As such, I will leave this thread in hopes it drifts down to the bottom of the forums' obscurities. I advice any reasonable person here to do the same as arguing with this type of "arguers" is a waste of time and brain power.

Pity, I was interested in seeing what people were speculating for Gunbreaker's identity and game-play along with what I had in mind. This could have been a fun thread to come back to in 5.x and see who got what right. Instead it's all about some insecure babies that think the WAR's bigger than theirs. (Hint: It isn't.)

Cheers~

[Kaedan]

I hope the story for GNB job quest is interesting.

WAR's questline was pretty terrible. Curious Gorge reminded me of Hildebrand and it was just a bunch of whining.
PLD was slightly more interesting, but still rather bland.
DRK was probably the most interesting, if not for the terribleness in the middle of it (50-60 I think).

GNB has the potential for a very interesting story. Hope they don't muck it up.

[Shurrikhan]

So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...

One of the very first in-game lore descriptions of DRK is that of a knight who fights beyond pain, beyond mortal wounds, in order to administer justice. WAR is just Defiance. DRK is Grit.

That sounds to me like dying slowly, not in any way reveling in the fight or recovering over the course.

And you've not answered either question:
1. Does Lifesteal have to be all-or-nothing for involvement in a tank?
2. Do the mechanics of Dark Knight seem better suited to self-healing than that of Warrior? (Moreover, do the prospects thereof seem better suited than that of Warrior? And if so, why?)

[Izsha]

Pld doesnt have to 'give up' its duality of offensive damage (phy and holy) to 'keep' its defensive style revolving around shield actions. In fact they feed off each other and is part of the reason pld feels nice to play. So why does war need to give up its damage style (burst) to keep its defensive style (massive HP and get hit, come back harder) style?

Lyth, you keep talking about trade offs. Sacrificing some part of gameplay to keep another when it comes (only) to war. But that doesnt make any sense. As ive said before, as kalise just reiterated (phone posting. Quotes are annoying to insert) gameplay has multiple facets and each job doesnt need to be a narrowly defined 1 trick pony. Pld isnt just a shield. War isnt just burst damage. Drk isnt just dark arts.

Tanks should be able to accomplish all the same functions. But how they achieve those functions should be different. Each function. That's why pld feels so nice to play. They have a unique way to deal damage, mitigate damage, and assist the party in a ways that ALL scream Paladin. It doesnt need to give up holy magic offense to keep its shield based defense. That would kill the feel of pld. War can stay bursty berserker offense and have muscle through the pain adrenaline surge hp like the barbarian concept it hails from. Both aspects make war feel like a charging barbarian that takes the hit but doesnt fall down in a berserker rage. Remove one of those and the feel of war evaporates just like deleting holy magic would stunt the feel of pld.

You combine multiple synergistic all traits to make a job feel cohesive and complete. Offense, defense, support. You dont pick 1 minuscule aspect and claim 'that's the job, drop everything else'. Otherwise pld would just be 'shield guy' war would be 'berserk guy' drk is just 'dark art guy'.

A warrior that gets hit and still forces his own hp up through sheer force of will to continue, that unleashes inhuman berserker strength, that charges into the fray yelling so fiercely it intimidates foes and pushes allies to follow him. THAT sounds like a badass warrior I want to play. And that doesnt prevent drk from having an equally well developed playstyle that evokes the FEELING of a dark knight anymore than it stops pld from being a protective holy knight fantasy right now. You want to water that down into "hp guy" or "lifesteal man" you go right ahead and take your 'shield dude' 'fire mage' and other 1 dimensional 1 trick job identities with you.

[Kalise]

If you give tanks all their own unique chances to shine, the balance will fall out of it. Your approach only works if you are truly, and completely committed to homogenising all the jobs. To the point where none of them have any identity left. But even that's better than the partial homogenisation that we presently see that only benefits WAR.

Not really.

You're just only thinking about "Homogenisation" because you're not bothering to see the differences for how they are.

"Unique chances to shine" means "Make them OP at one niche thing". Which is a far cry from just giving them Unique Kits.

For example, in a very basic example: What if WAR had a skill that buffed their max (And current) health by 20% for 10s. PLD had a skill that made them block every incoming attack for 10s. DRK had a shield for 20% of their max life for 10s.

Each one now has a unique method of mitigating a large hit by 20%. Are they homogenized? Not entirely. Since while these skills are basically just Rampart, there are differences to come from them. For example, WAR's max health boosts their Upheaval damage. PLD's blocking allows the use of Shield Swipe. DRK generates Blood when TBN breaks.

This is only looking at what CURRENT skills are available. Which could easily change. Each class could get more synergy with their designated mitigation system to further promote uniqueness. Even if, at the core, the skills are functionally identical (I.e. Giving approximately 20% more EHP)

So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...

One of the very first in-game lore descriptions of DRK is that of a knight who fights beyond pain, beyond mortal wounds, in order to administer justice. WAR is just Defiance. DRK is Grit.

Ironically, that quote actually makes more sense in terms of shielding than it does for lifestealing. Given that "He showed no sign of pain" and the "Blood" ended up not being blood and ended up being the Abyss that "Began to rise and envelop him"

I hope the story for GNB job quest is interesting.

WAR's questline was pretty terrible. Curious Gorge reminded me of Hildebrand and it was just a bunch of whining.
PLD was slightly more interesting, but still rather bland.
DRK was probably the most interesting, if not for the terribleness in the middle of it (50-60 I think).

GNB has the potential for a very interesting story. Hope they don't muck it up.

Yeah, WAR's story has sucked so much... With 60-70 being total cringe... I'm hoping ShB does something actually interesting, ideally not involving Curious Gorge needing a slap or discovering emotions.

PLD was 'aight. 50-60 was kind of lame (Especially with the fact that you learned new skills because Constaint was... Enthusiastic about maybe possibly being a PLD just because he started to wear some dead guys armour? To say nothing about how that is pretty bad form... What next? Will he go over to Hauchefaunt's memorial and take his sword?). 60-70 was kind of okay, if not particularly Paladin-y

DRK was cool. I actually didn't mind 50-60. Protecting the girl from the temple knights while going on a journey of self discovery with Sid. 60-70 I don't like though... Heck from even the very first quest the story not only had me hating Myste (Yo, give me back my Soul Crystal so I can go save countless more people than you will ever know in your lifetime... Go find your own source of Aether to do your stupid magic) but also hating his view on what he was doing. Literally he was trying to create incarnations of dead people to give "Closure" but even in the first quest, he never tells the woman what he's doing and instead makes her think that her cousin is still alive and tells her to go meet up with him in the Highlands (Where of course, he dematerializes because his magick is crap). Giving her "Closure" by not only giving her the false impression that her cousin is still alive, but also making it seem like he ditched her when she inevitably ends up waiting for ages in the Highlands for him to turn up...

Hopefully Gunbreaker has good stories. Though, I guess it'll depend a lot on how they work the FFVIII gunblades into the game, if it's something lame like a rehash of MCH then meh...